After a couple weeks off during the holidays, Sunday Canes Chronicle returns with a nice collection of clickable links to external Canes’ articles to hep you get through the blizzard…snow storm…errrr….light dusting of snow that fell on the Triangle/Raleigh area overnight on Friday and into Saturday. In all seriousness, be careful on Sunday and even into Monday. Underneath the undersized amount of snow is all of the water that fell before the snow and is now in ice form.
Public service announcements aside, here is this week’s collection Hurricanes hockey news and articles from around the internet.
Matt Duchene (or Gabriel Landeskog)
On December 31, Joe Pack at Sportsnet.ca offered a few quotes from Elliotte Friedman from Sportsnet’s weekly TV “Headlines” segment.
On January 4, Lyle Richardson from The Hockey News included Duchene in his regular rumor roundup and went so far as to name the Hurricanes as 1 of the teams who had both the cap space and the blue line assets necessary to do a deal for Duchene.
On January 5, Rory Boylen at Sportsnet.ca wrote more generally about the Avalanche’s struggles and briefly mentioned the possibility of moving Duchene for blue line help in this article.
After the rumblings from December but starting early on January 2 before the avalanche (pun intended :-)) of articles speculating on deals, I offered a series of 3 articles leading up to Duchene – Part 1 assessed the Canes’ lineup; Part 2 considered trade options & Part 3 detailed what I would offer for Duchene.
If a trade for Matt Duchene did come to fruition, this article from December at The Denver Post by Terry Frei talking with Duchene about playing his natural center position versus wing could come into play fitting him into the Hurricanes’ lineup.
Hurricanes play versus elite competition (despite losses) show Peters’ transformation making progress
In the past 2 weeks, the Hurricanes have gone toe to toe with elite power houses on multiple occasions including Chicago twice, Pittsburgh once and also Tampa Bay (though the Lightning are still trying to put it all together in 2016-17). A quick glance at the results suggest that the Canes still have a long way to go to be competitive against the league’s best, but if you watched the games and also dig into the statistics, a different story emerges. The Canes can skate with and trade punches with these skating teams.
Matthew Barlowe from Cardiac Cane broke down the 2-1 loss to the Blackhawks on Friday showing how well the Canes played statistically below the top line score.
My recap from the 3-2 loss to the reigning Stanley Cup Champion Penguins offered a less stat-sy review of another game that saw the Canes match a skilled, scoring, elite team but just not quite get the deserved results.
Cam Ward and the Hurricanes’ goalie situation
On Monday, Jamie Kellner at Canes Country recently discussed Ward’s play to date and the current goalie situation.
I chimed in with my take on the goalie options in a “random notes” versions of my Daily Cup of Joe on Friday.
Meanwhile, the ongoing snow day reader poll at CandC leans toward thinking that Peters’ will be forced to ride Ward as much as possible down the stretch.
Hurricanes prospects abound at world juniors tourney
Nicolas Roy, Julien Gauthier and Jake Bean played for Team Canada, and Janne Kuokkanen for Team Finland, making the Carolina Hurricanes prospect pool well represented in the tourney. Canada’s run through the tourney was a who’s who of Hurricanes’ prospect efforts led by Julien Gauthier.
Bill Beacon from The Canadian Press recapped Gauthier’s 2-goal effort in Canada’s quarterfinal win against the Czech Republic at CTV News.
Jared Book from SBNation’s Habs Eyes on the Prize recapped Canada’s semifinal win over Sweden that included another Julien Gauthier 2-goal night.
Kevin LeBlanc at Canes Country recapped the final that saw the good guys (USA) win but Canes’ guys (Roy had a huge goal) also earn a silver medal after a great tourney.
Dominic Tiano from OHL Writers was kind enough to write a guest article at Canes and Coffee profiling the 4 Canes prospects at the WJC and recapping their play throughout the tourney.
A bonus article
Charles Taylor at Cardiac Cane offers an interesting perspective that suggests that Derek Ryan’s success actually signifies a bigger culture change inside the Hurricanes’ organization.
Go Canes!
