Hurricane Season

The Hurricanes have their roster down to 25 players, as of Tuesday morning. They do have injuries on the books, including Justin Williams (out 6 months with an achilles injury) and Scott Walker (out 6 weeks after hand surgery). Also on the roster, Zach Boychuk, their first round pick this past summer, who has just been cleared for practice after having wrist surgery. The 'Canes are a bit beat up, but they still have a good core of players in a pretty weak (defensively) division.

The team will also be carrying another rookie in Brandon Sutter, who has played well enough to make it onto the squad. His role will likely be on the fourth line to start, as he does have a very good two-way game. You may not want to jump on his fantasy bandwagon too quickly though.

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Eric Staal	Joe Corvo	Cam Ward
Ray Whitney	Joni Pitkanen	Michael Leighton
Rod Brind'Amour	Frank Kaberle
Matt Cullen	Tim Gleason
Sergei Samsonov	Dennis Seidenberg
Scott Walker	Niclas Wallin
Tuomo Ruutu	Anton Babchuk
Justin Williams	Josef Melicar
Chad LaRose
Patrick Eaves
Ryan Bayda
Wade Brookbank
Zach Boychuk
Dan LaCouture
Brandon Sutter

With the long-term injuries to both Williams and Walker, the Hurricanes will be saving some serious dough, which will give them an edge for future rental players. The active 23 players on the list will give the Hurricanes a salary cap hit of $45.2 million, but then you'll have to do some clever math for Walker, who will have a discounted $2.5 million hit as well.

Some reasonable gambles in Carolina would likely surround Sergei Samsonov and Patrick Eaves, who are both somewhat injury prone, but do have talent. Late forward picks there could surprise a lot of people.