from Scott Burnside of ESPN,

The Carolina Hurricanes dropped a 2-1 decision to the New Jersey Devils on Monday night. Sadly, no news there for Canes fans. The loss was Carolina's seventh in their past nine games as they closed out a five-game home-stand with a 1-4 record and seven total goals in that stretch.

The Canes have now fallen to last place in the Eastern Conference and are tied with Edmonton for last overall in the league. When we were in Raleigh last month to get a sense of where the team was headed there was much discussion about how GM Ron Francis was going to deal with guys like Cam Ward and Eric Staal, veterans who might command good return on the trade market if the season went down the tubes. That descent is well underway and talk about tearing apart this hard-luck team will only intensify in the coming weeks.

read on for Custance on Brodeur and the Blues and Strang and LeBrun on Paul MacLean and the Senators...