Ed note: We told you we'd have a special guest every now and then on Tracking the Storm, and today is the first such occasion.  As longtime visitors of the site know well, our attempts at player blogs over the years haven't worked out that well - no offense to Cam Ward and Mike Commodore, whose blogs all typically began with the phrase "Sorry I haven't written in a while..." 

Rather than put the burden on one player to check in often amid the busy season, we've decided it would be better to rotate through the roster for brief updates throughout the year.

This year's first player-blogger is 2007 first-round draft pick Brandon Sutter, who's in his second training camp with the Canes.

After doing so much last summer, it was awesome to go home and relax for a few weeks.  I started my training in the springtime, and it was nice not having to go anywhere or do too much.  It was relaxing and gave me more time to work on the weights.

Sutter

Over the summer I just kind of worked hard and had to get bigger and stronger.  I did what I had to do to try and stay here.  I did a lot of weights, squats and stuff like that to try and build up my lower body as much as I can.  I’ve been trying to keep my conditioning up as well.  Just talking with the trainers and stuff, I think everybody kind of has their own program back at home, but you just try to do what the Hurricanes give you to try and adjust to workouts and get better at them.

It was nice coming in here last year and kind of getting my feet wet.  Coming back this year I feel much more comfortable, and my expectation is to make the team.  It’s been awesome so far, the first couple of practices I’ve been with Bayda and LaRose, who are really good guys and that helps.  So far it’s gone really well and they’re helping me a lot.

It was nice to get back into a game scenario at the Red/White game.  I think a lot of guys were a little nervous at the start, but once the game got on I kind of felt better, and it’s just a matter of kind of getting your game back.

Exhibition starts up this week, and hopefully I can stick around and make them believe I can play here.