Deflection!!

So yesterday, Peter Karmanos was in town telling the town of Raleigh how great professional sports is and how much it means to the area. Well, out of the blue he decided to start talking about the Canes' former coach Peter Laviolette. Here's what he had to say (my responses will be in red):



"I didn't like our coach," Karmanos said. "His public persona and his private persona were two different things."



"We had the perfect storm in the year we won the Stanley Cup," Karmanos said. "We played this all-over-the-ice kind of style of hockey. It took about three-quarters of the season for people to catch on. Yes, Laviolette had nothing to do with winning the cup. PK sure looks pissed in this picture.


"If everybody remembers, the last part of the season, even the Stanley Cup year, we had a pretty tough go of it. We had a goalie who stood on his head. Martin Gerber had a career season with us and kept us in games, but pretty soon as the other coaches got used to the new rules and they figured out ways of defensing us, we didn't change much." Our longest losing streak was 2 games during that period. And Gerber had 1 game in which he was good in the Cup run. So why wouldn't you guys have kept him if you thought so highly of him?



"Peter would make, I think, too quick an evaluations of players," he said. "From time to time we had players Peter would, when they first came into our organization, would say, 'Oh, this guy is a fourth-line center.'" You guys brought in Anson Carter. Enough said.



As an example, Karmanos pointed to forward Eric Belanger, who was a part of the September 2006 trade with the Los Angeles Kings that brought Belanger and defenseman Tim Gleason to the Canes.



He's now a key part of the Minnesota team," Karmanos said. "And that happened with quite a few players and you just can't afford to lose those kind of assets." Belanger didn't want to be playing here. His on-ice effort showed that. He gave no effort. What other talent did he throw away? John Graham? Vasicek (Vagasil)?

Dude, take some responsibility for your own team instead of blaming one person.


Luke Decock of the News and Observer does a great job of explaining the classlessness in a classy way.


Cory and Bubba of Canes Country both raise valid questions for the Canes' owner.


And you can always count on East of Here over at Carolina on Ice is always good for a laugh with his clever points.