RALEIGH -- When Peter Karmanos Jr. talks about selling a piece of the Carolina Hurricanes, the natural reaction is to worry about the team leaving town. This is understandable, considering Karmanos moved the Hartford Whalers here three years after buying the franchise.
Between the team's lease at the RBC Center, the growing Triangle market and the way the NHL would fight to keep one of its Sun Belt success stories in place - among other reasons - Karmanos categorically ruled out another relocation Wednesday.
Above all else, that's reassuring to hear. It isn't the first time Karmanos has said it, but this also is the first time he is seriously soliciting buyers.
Still, even if the team is here for good, it's fair to ask how good the team will be. The pressure to make the money-losing franchise as attractive a purchase as possible may consign it to payroll purgatory at the bottom of the NHL's salary range.
The sales prospectus prepared by Allen & Co., the investment bank Karmanos hired, touts a reduction in expenses by as much as $15 million as a step toward profitability. In a meeting with News & Observer editors and reporters Wednesday, Karmanos confirmed that kind of savings could come only from cutting player salaries.
"We run a very efficient franchise," Karmanos said. "Your real choice is the $56 million on the top [of the cap range] or $41 million on the bottom for salaries. That's where you can do most of your work."
The Hurricanes had a cap figure of about $54.5 million this season, which ranked them 20th in the NHL. The cap minimum for next season is expected to be $40.8 million, and the Hurricanes already have about $41.7 million committed to 17 players.
The rhetoric, from NHL commissioner Gary Bettman on down, is that the league's labor agreement, wrangled from the players at the cost of the lost 2004-05 season, makes every franchise competitive no matter what is spent. Only four teams spent less than $50 million last season, and two - the Nashville Predators and the Phoenix Coyotes - made the playoffs. Expect to hear that a lot the next few months.
But since the lockout, the league's bargain-shoppers haven't had much success.
The 30 teams that have spent the least over the past five seasons - the six teams that made up the bottom 20 percent of the payroll rankings each season - have made the playoffs nine times. Considering that 16 of the league's 30 teams make the playoffs, those are stiff odds.
Those penny-pinchers have won only three playoff series while averaging 86 points per season, well below the 93 usually required to make the playoffs.
The odds get even stiffer when the Predators are removed from the equation. The cash-strapped Nashville franchise has ranked in the bottom six in payroll every season since the lock out but made the playoffs in four out of five seasons. Of course, the Predators haven't won any of those playoff series.
Carolina's payroll has ranked anywhere from 24th to 15th since the lockout. (The Hurricanes were 24th, just out of the bottom 20 percent, in 2006-07 when they missed the playoffs and the chance to defend their Stanley Cup title.) The Hurricanes have averaged more than 93 points over that span, posted a 6-1 series record in the playoffs and won the Cup, but they made the playoffs only twice.
It won't get any easier for general manager Jim Rutherford near the cap floor, where the Hurricanes are telling potential investors they plan to reside.
Rutherford is the first to say that if you're in the playoffs, anything can happen. It's practically the front-office mission statement, and for good reason: In five trips to the playoffs since moving here in 1997, the Canes made it to at least the conference finals three times.
Those playoff runs gave the team the strength in this market it has today. It would be a shame if making the Hurricanes more attractive on paper made them less attractive on the ice.
