Paul Maurice post-practice audio

Don't look now, but the dreaded flu, which seemed to affect nearly every member of the roster around this time last year through two separate outbreaks, has claimed a few more victims.

Paul Branecky

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After Dennis Seidenberg was forced to miss Friday’s win at Atlanta with an illness, Joni Pitkanen was absent from practice this morning, while Wade Brookbank tried to go but had to leave the ice early.

“Knock on wood it doesn’t happen again, but everyone’s gone through that at one point,” said coach Paul Maurice. “We’ll quarantine everybody and everyone has to go home and lock themselves in and wash their hands.”

The good news is that the Canes don’t play until Wednesday and, although highly unpleasant, the bug seems to go away quickly. Seidenberg was able to play over 22 minutes on Saturday, just one day after admittedly feeling miserable. He practiced normally today and feels fine, but needs to regain roughly eight pounds that he lost during the worst of it.

By early accounts, Pitkanen and Brookbank don’t have it as bad as Seidenberg did, so hopefully this won’t reach the borderline ridiculous proportions that it did last season.

In addition to the two sick players, Tim Gleason and Ray Whitney had a “maintenance” day today and didn’t practice, while Niclas Wallin skated in the gold non-contact jersey. We’ll see how he feels tomorrow, but he didn’t appear to be game-ready today.

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