The articles for the past few days have been heavy on player by player content. Monday’s Daily Cup of Joe had preseason assessments and ‘readiness ratings’ for the goalies and defensemen. Tuesday’s Daily Cup of Joe followed up with similar for the forwards. And Tuesday night, Canes and Coffee kicked off a season preview series with part 1 which identified four players as foundational pillars who will hopefully be able to match their 2016-17 seasons and also 6 more who could be keys to improving upon 2016-17.
Today’s Daily Cup of Joe will follow on the player by player theme by offering a few snippets on individual players.
Noah Hanifin needs to stick with the more assertive and aggressive brand of hockey he brought in preseason. The regular season will certainly feature more pace and pressure and therefore a few more mistakes here and there, but I have said since the beginning that Noah Hanifin’s ceiling lies in a game that is aggressive and attacking. The biggest test for Hanifin early in 2017-18 might not be playing well but actually how he reacts when he has a short stretch when he doesn’t.
Elias Lindholm must avoid falling in love with his hockey skill. Though he may have had an intermittent pretty play here and there in his first three plus years with the Hurricanes, those years were largely without Lindholm being a difference-maker for anything more than a game at a time. The critical ingredient in Lindholm’s sudden step forward in 2016-17 was dialing up his level of engagement and physical play by a factor of five. With the lighter intensity of preseason over, Lindholm needs to find his hard hat and get back to the puck engaging core of 2016-17.
Justin Williams will prove to be a tremendous signing if he can play well and produce offensively but more significantly if he can help a younger line mate or two reach a higher level of play too. That plus leadership are the difference between being a good top 6 forward that adds to the team’s scoring and level of play versus more of a multiplier effect if he can help boost other players too. My preference is to pair Williams with Teuvo Teravainen out of the gate in hopes that Williams can help Teravainen bridge the gap between his current level of play as an intermittent skilled depth scorer and his potential ceiling as a more consistent top 6 offensive weapon.
Cam Ward has a significant transition in front of him. I think people sometimes underestimate how challenging it is to be a backup goalie in the NHL. Though they sometimes go a full week without playing, they need to somehow stay sharp and be ready to perform a high level oftentimes in one off starts. This is uncharted territory for Ward and a significant adjustment.
Scott Darling is going to present an adjustment for the defense in terms of moving pucks off the walls and transitioning quickly up the ice. For all of Darling’s strengths, one thing that jumped out about his game relative to Ward was his puckhandling behind the net. He showed a much greater preference to just allow defensemen to retrieve pucks themselves if they were going to be the first player in. Especially with defensemen who can skate, retrievals and quick passes from the goalie can result in quick transitions to offense and speed exiting the defensive zone that quickly backs up any forecheck. My early read is that Darling will be a step down in this regard.
Three days until Hurricanes hockey returns!
Go Canes!
On goal tenders. High glove side for Ward is notoriously a challenge, high glove side for Darling is against the glass. Ward must move to cover the same area Darling covers without moving. Ward’s stick handling is a strength relative to all goal tenders in the league, not just Darling. Ward is prone to “rust”; we’ve seen it many times, soft goals after even short lay offs. Darling is not prone to rust. His success in Chicago shows that ability. Like you, I am more hopeful than confident that Ward finds success as a backup goaltender.
Victor Rask. Can a healthy off season help him avoid another points slump?
surgalt, the preseason was not encouraging in regard to which Cam Ward we get for 25 games this year.
As a Cam Ward apologist…no, no it was not.
Darling, a step down? I mean in theory, yes a goalie who can play the puck is good, but at his age Cam was giving fans a heart attack anytime he left the crease. Correct me if I’m wrong but I feel like I remember more than one goal last year where Cam ventured too far out to play the puck and got caught out of position. Darling can stay in net all he wants, as far as I’m concerned.
I also agree and disagree with Lindholm. I absolutely agree that physicality needs to be a key element of his game, but in his first years, he never had Sebastian Aho as a linemate. It seemed like during his hot streak he was almost intuitively finding his teammates where they needed to be and racking up the assists. Physicality definitely had something to do with that but I think his breakout season depends on him falling and staying in love with his hockey skill. Keeping his confidence will be the key.
By a step down, I meant specifically on one facet of the game, stick handling. And by a step down, I meant just a small increment, not a huge difference. Frankly, I’m not sure we’ve seen enough of Darling to characterize any of his abilities other than his ability to single handedly cause a full eclipse. I also find it important to tread gingerly on any conversation critical of Cam, that is, unless you feel the need to be labeled a hater for critiquing in any fashion his last 10 years in goal here.
I believe I heard Darling mention in one of his interviews since the final preseason game exactly that – communica
Ooops! 😀
I believe I heard Darling speak to puck-handling and interacting with the D in one of his interviews since the last preseason game.
I don’t know if his reliance on the D to retrieve pucks behind the net was his style in Chicago or whether it is really a matter of getting comfortable with his D-men and their puck-handling
His charge out to the blueline on Friday shows he is not afraid to leave the net to redirect the puck.
But you are clearly right, his ability to play the puck effectively behind the net can jumpstart the transition out of the D-zone (which is already close to light -speed! 😀 ).
If you go back to the 1st year that Ward played in the league…
that year we won that shiny metal thing, he WAS THE BACKUP GOALIE.
I really don’t think it is a big deal what you are called, you can play… or you can’t! Back then he could, the last few years…NOT SO MUCH…
MAYBE HE’LL BE BETTER, in the backup role…
I respectfully disagree. Ward in my opinion is the type of goalie that performs his best when he can establish a rhythm and that means playing at least a time-share amount. Plus, Ward was a ROOKIE when he was a backup, and people seem to forget his numbers during the regular season that season when we won the shiny thing were absolutely abysmal.
In 05-06 in 28 games played Ward had a GAA of 3.68 and a save percentage of .884 . Seriously those are like some absolutely TERRIBLE numbers and he can attribute his winning record that season to a stacked offense. So I’m not overly confident Ward will be able to handle the backup role, but from recent history and from past history.
Cam Ward’s best season save percentage wise was 2010-2011 where he posted HIS best (but overall still not a top 5 goalie) .923 . He played in 74 games that year!! 74/82 !! So I would say Ward’s overall body of work more supports the idea that he is a PASSABLE – mediocre starting goaltender, and we really have no basis to presume he will be fine as a backup.
Guys… I just can’t remember the last time I was this excited for hockey to start. Team is going to be so fun to watch. I love our defense 1-6 (even like the edge guys like Dahlbeck and Carrick can bring in a pinch, and McKeown will be a solid Pesce-like presence eventually as well). We have a real goalie – I’ve always been a big believer in Darling, and was so excited when we brought him in. And the offense… so exciting to see the future starting to show up. Skinner, Staal, and Williams will be the veteran anchors we depend on, but the kids like Aho, Lindholm, Rask (needs to have a bounce back, 50-ish points year), TT, and of course Necas and Kuokkanen (even if we don’t really see them full time til 2018-19), they’re going to be true difference makers that put up big offensive numbers for us. Then of course guys like Saarela, Gauthier, Roy… outside of probably Toronto and Edmonton I would not trade our situation for any other. What a time.
BW. Totally agree. Over the next 5-7 years the Canes will be league perennials along with Toronto, Edmonton, and Winnipeg if they find some D.
While I am biased, Carolina’s upside actually might be higher since the D will be a given until 2025 so if any of the young forwards break out it is pure improvement.