from Luke DeCock of the News & Observer,

The Faulk situation is curious, since the Hurricanes will be paying him $6 million with a salary-cap hit of $4.83 million to play third-pairing minutes on the right side behind Dougie Hamilton and Brett Pesce. Faulk will almost certainly lose the co-captaincy in Rod Brind’Amour’s restructuring of his leadership group, and probably the letter off his jersey entirely.

But the Hurricanes feel no financial imperative to move his contract, they have plenty of cap space and they’ll have as talented a third pairing as anyone in the NHL with Faulk there.

This may not be the worst thing in the world for Faulk, either: He’ll be a dangerous threat against the opposition’s third and fourth lines, with more room to attack on offense and margin for error on defense, and he’ll still anchor the second power-play unit. He could end up being this team’s Matt Cullen, only on the blue line: the matchup nightmare who slices through the opposition’s soft underbelly.

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