Canes Re-Sign Ruutu

The Carolina Hurricanes have removed Tuomo Ruutu's name from the list of trade possibilities, leading up to Monday's trade deadline. The Hurricanes gave the gritty forward a new 4-year deal, reportedly worth $19 million, which works out to be $4.75 million per season against the salary cap.

Ruutu, 29, has now been signed into the same age (one year either way) and salary cap bracket ($4.5 to $5 million) as Tim Connolly, Martin Erat, Martin Havlat, Brooks Laich, Ville Leino, Tomas Plekanec and R.J. Umberger, to which he is out-scoring five of the seven players, so the deal doesn't look too lopsided.

In 57 games this season, Ruutu has 17 goals and 13 assists, which currently has him ranked 178th overall in pool scoring, where Erat and Plekanec are in the top 100 of overall scoring, getting much better bang for the buck.  The Hurricanes are not getting bad returns from Ruutu this season, despite him being injured right now, dealing with an upper-body injury, which will likely keep him on the shelf for at least another week.

With Ruutu now on board for the 2013 season, the Hurricanes now have a projected cap number of $41.4 million for 16 players (10 forwards, five defensemen and a goalie), which is a fairly flexible number.  The Canes will need seven players to fill a 23-man line-up and they still haven't hit the 2012 cap floor number yet, so if they find someone that they can throw money at in the off-season, they will be able to do so.