Today’s Daily Cup of Joe has a quick list of player by player questions heading into the 2019-20 season.
Erik Haula
Can he get back up to speed after a serious leg injury? His season-ending injury was not the normal variety. One of his greatest strengths is his speed. So getting back up to speed will be critical to his effectiveness.
Petr Mrazek
Can he find the higher gear out of the gate and maintain it through a full season? The version of Petr Mrazek that most fans like to remember is the one from January on when Mrazek found a higher gear and seemed to build from there. But he actually started slow and in prior years has also been up and down. The Hurricanes’ path to a playoff return will be much easier if Mrazek can be consistent from wire to wire.
James Reimer
Can he rebound with a change of scenery? Reimer had a tough 2018-19 season, but his history prior to that is as a solid goalie even on sub-par teams. If he can rebound, the Hurricanes get a boost having two capable goalies like the second half of the 2018-19 season.
Dougie Hamilton
A bit like Mrazek, can Dougie Hamilton put together a full season of solid play? Hamilton seemed to start okay but then struggle adjusting to his new team. Like Mrazek, Hamilton found a higher gear at about the midpoint of the season. From that point forward, he was tremendous offensively and solid defensively. With Calvin de Haan gone, the Hurricanes need Hamilton (and the other top 4 defensemen) to be solid.
Andrei Svechnikov
In 2019-20, can Svechnikov become the scoring star he was projected to be when drafted? Svechnikov made step-wise progress in his rookie season but was not yet a true scoring star. His 2018-19 season maybe suggests that it will take a few years for him to reach his potential, but if instead 2018-19 built the foundation for a big step up in 2019-20, the Hurricanes become that much better.
Warren Foegele
Can Foegele be the difference-maker he was in the playoffs? Warren Foegele’s season was an interesting one. He burst onto the scene with a huge preseason and then quick regular start that lasted only a couple games. He found a higher gear in the last 10 games or so and then was at his best propelling his team to a rebound in the Capitals series. The burning question is if the playoffs were just a hot streak or if instead that was the beginning of him finding a higher gear.
What say you Canes fans?
1) What do you think about the questions above?
2) Who has more questions to be answered in the 2019-20 season?
Go Canes!
I think you identified almost all of the key questions except for the biggest one…more on that in a bit.
The Haula question is indeed critical. For me, the real issue is do we get the Minnesota Haula or the Vegas Haula. Personally, I think it is somewhere in between and a 40-45 point Haula would be just fine as a 3C.
I’m less worried about the goalie situation because we’ve got 4 options, 2 of them pretty good, 1 of them likely good, and 1 of them a wildcard. I’d say we’re in just as good of a position as most teams and perhaps a little better. I feel pretty confident that we’ll get 2nd half Mrazek and that Reimer, in front of our blueline, will be solid enough….assuming he’s not moved for salary purposes.
The Hamilton question, in my mind, is more of a Top 4 question. Can that entire group be even better than they were last season? I’d really like to see Pesce and Faulk solidify themselves as a pair to an even greater degree such that we see more offense from one of them. Pesce began to show some offensive flair in the 2nd half. I’d like to see that continue. I think the Hamilton/Slavin pair will be just fine.
45-55 point Svech would be just fine by me. A Svechnikov that stays out of the box a little more, but maintains his physicality. A Svech who is paired with linemates who can appreciate his passing ability. And a Svech who has at least one premier playmaker on his line. Incremental improvement from this youngster is all I’m asking for. That way, selfishly, maybe we can get him signed to a longer term, more affordable deal at the end of the season.
Now, for the biggest question….which isn’t will Willie come back, but what does the Top 6 look like if he doesn’t. Specifically, who steps into the other RW slot. Necas certainly isn’t ready, nor do I think Roddy would throw him to the wolves in that manner. You could move Svech over to one of the Top 6 RWs or you could have Dzingel slot in. Otherwise, you’re making another move to fill that void which could open up another elsewhere in your line up. Hopefully Justin Williams returns and all is well with the universe.
Can’t argue with any of your observations so won’t just repeat all of them in a separate writeup.
Yes, all good points. On the Williams top 6 thing… IMO, we should be planning on someone to fill his top 6 position, even if he is here(hopefully!). Hopefully the plan is to have him maybe start out in the top 6, or maybe even try someone else, then move JW up if they have to. I believe it would be a very good thing if we can have JW be on the 3rd line. It would help JW stay fresh, and it would mean someone else has stepped up…. and we would really be a deep team.
Yeah, that’s sort of the way I see it as well. I think, should he return, Williams slots in next to Aho and Svech. Nino, Staal, and Teravainen looked very good when they were put together. This gives Necas a chance to flourish and we can see what chemistry might exist between a potential 3rd line with 3 of Dzingel, Haula, Necas, and/or Foegele. However that line shakes out, it would be a nightmare match considering speed alone.
Eventually, I could see Williams moving down to the 3rd line and serve the role of the “trailer”. Still, these are good problems to have.
1) All good questions. Goaltending is always huge—not just for the Canes, but for every team. NYI improved dramatically due to tending (though I acknowledge the system was much of the difference). The Canes were near the bottom of the league when Darling was starting on a regular basis.
Regarding Hamilton, the answer lies in if he is in a totally different situation in Carolina. Because he is a 30 point player in November for his entire career and a 20-goal scoring 50 point player in February.
notopie’s point about Haula is on target. He only needs decent production. The bigger issue is having right-shots. There is obviously some advantage to having more balance due to shot angles, passing lanes, etc. I don’t know if there is public data available on this, but hope Tulsky is working on it. As it stands the forward group only has one right-shot in Necas. I can’t imagine that isn’t a bit of a problem. I think there is some advantage in having RWs who are left-shots and am confident that Svechnikov and Teravainen will be fine as the top two RWs. Still it would be nice to have a center or LW who shot righty.
2) How does the power play change? New personnel—the preseason should allow Bean to try his had as QB and Necas to see if he should be on 1st or 2nd unit. The Canes need a better power play that is consistently a threat.
Good analysis as usual ct. Your thoughts about the lack of righthanded shots is something I was not aware of nor had I read anything about this elsewhere.
Matt, I very much like your questions. Haula is a big gamble. If he does fully recover, he can be a star for us. He certainly would enhance our speed.
If….
Our goalkeeping situation is one which is safer than before the draft. I guess the camp as well as exhibition season will give Donny and Tommy the opportunity to showcase our riches. I see a couple of deals being made.
I never thought I would say this, but maybe we have too many goalkeepers? And I doubt that anyone (among our crowd of keepers) will be untouchable, if the price is right.
What of our mythical depth on defense? We do have some excess on the right side. But on the left, where are we? I know. I know. We have our Haydn. But do you guys hear yourselves when you defend him? You really should listen to yourselves.
We picked up a couple of left handed defensemen recently, so I guess we will have to see. Oh! Did I forget Jake Bean? That’s just what we need. Another weak, non-violent offensive minded defenseman to leave our goalkeepers feeling unloved and abandoned. And he is undersized to boot.
I have to believe that Donny and Tommy see the gaping hole on the left side of our not-very-deep defense corps. I have faith that we will have a big, strong, defensive minded defenseman on the left side who is always in a bad mood. He will make our keepers feel loved.
Yes. I know. We have Pesce who can play on his off side. But is that depth? Don’t we want him to continue to develop his constantly improving shot from his natural position? Of course using him on his off side is not depth. Of course we want him to continue to develop his game from his natural position.
So let’s fill the gap.
Now we come to the forwards. Wow! This is where we have an embarrassment of riches. We have everything Roddy could hope for. This is a high class problem. It will be fun watching the competition for jobs on the big team. Watching Donny and Tommy moving bodies around the league until everything works just so.
I still pinch myself to see if I am dreaming or are we really kissing the cap ceiling, yet not encumbered by a toxic contract?
Wow!
I like your comments about the need for a tough lefthanded defenseman. We probably can fix that without weakening ourselves elsewhere if we wait to just before the season starts. In regards to Bean, I am concerned as you are about his size and defensive prowess. I am willing to wait and see if his offensive side more than compensates for any defensive deficiencies (if he has them…I’m no expert on this guys game). If he can help us keep the puck in the other team’s defensive zone maybe this will compensate for oher parts of his game that MAY be deficient. Good writeup.
“not encumbered by a toxic contract”, well the canes have Marleau and, never forget, Semin. So that is 8.5m.
Worried about the PP but RDZ and an improved Svech should help. Also Team toughness-but the Canes will have to answer that as the season goes along.
Team defense should be top 10 or even top 4.
At this point, I’m thinking no Jwilly. So others will have to step up in leadership-mainly Aho and Slavin.
Oh! I almost forgot.
We still need a goalie coach. Where can we find one?
Will Willy decide to give us another season or two?
He doesn’t need to worry about protection for himself, our little Finns, and our Russian with a glass jaw. We have men who will provide that.
So it remains for Willy to decide and then for Donny and Tommy to make room under the cap.
Room under the cap. Don’t you just love how that sounds in association with our beloved Canes?
It’s fun being a Canes fan again.
Yay!
Don’t forget, JW can receive a salary that fits under the cap, with bonuses that would count against next year’s cap (when Marleau’s hit on the cap is gone). This tactic would require no personnel changes. One caveat: Were we to be aggressive buyers at the trade deadline, there needs to be cap space available for the rental cost.
1. Haula was ready to go if Vegas had advanced further in the playoffs – we would have had a better read on him, I am sure. It’s tough coming back from a knee blowout, but once he trusts the knee he should lose any of his speed.
Mrazek has made a career out of inconsistency. I am hoping he has overcome that, but his past is checkered in that regard and we saw it last season.
Reimer has been solid in his career before Florida. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him come up big this season and maybe challenge Mrazek for the starting role if he doesn’t get traded.
Hamilton played with a broken finger for the first several months of the season – when the finger healed, he excelled. So I don’t really buy into “he always starts slow” – at least not yet.
There was a great article about Svech a couple of days ago – using a simple fancy stat (5×5 Unblocked Shots For), the writer indicated that Svech was No. 1 in the league in participating in offense. He started coming on and playing better in the last half of the season – played smarted too and generally avoid the rookie stick penalties he made earlier on. He has a major step up coming, depending on how he is utilized.
Foegele is a puzzle wrapped in an enigma. An AHL offensive power and he showed flashes of it last season – including the slickest Canes goal of the season. But he was also a low-offense grinder for most of the season – an energy guy like Gerbe was.
I think people will be pleasantly surprised with both Necas and Bean. Necas’ success will largely depend, in my opinion, in how he is utilized. But a Dzingel-Haula-Necas line could be one of the fastest lines in the NHL. Necas can fly and he has an amazing gift for passing while skating – and a wicked shot when he can get up in Ovi’s wheelhouse.
If Necas finds success (as I expect he will after watching him a lot in the AHL), having him and Turbo as playmaking right-wings is all the offensive firepower the team needs on that side, with Dzngel, Aho, and Svech delivering on the left.
2. My biggest question is how are they going to approach the PP this season. It is not a question of personnel – it is a matter of approach. You can’t keep doing the same thing every shift when it is not working. Even having an average PP (we used to say that about goaltending) would have easily added a half-dozen points to our total.
Once Bean found his groove in early November – he played with confidence and even swagger on the ice. RR – his defensive game improved leaps and bounds once his offensive game started to click.
Yeah, give me mobile, skilled, and smart defensemen, regardless of size. That’s the new NHL. Sure you’ve got to be tough and got to have grit, but our speed dominated both Washington and the Islanders. It wasn’t Boston’s size that beat us, it was mostly our own mistakes.
Let me put it this way, I’ll take Jake Bean, his offensive prowess, his Slavin-like stick work, and his end-to-end skating ability over the vast majority of the “mean” thugish blueliners. Guys like Gudbranson, Johnson, and Boychuk regularly get out skated these days. Guys like Dahlin, Girard, Krug, and Makar are becoming the rule not the exception.
We agree on D, and on Bean. When I saw him at the end of the season and in the playoffs he skated in both zones like he owned the ice. That type of confidence is priceless.
This is Bean’s camp and year to make a statement.
And of course, Necas. Both are skilled playmakers and may just be the ingredients the team needs to become a top 4 team in the East.
Also agree with tj, Reimer is more than capable of being a 1B and with his former starting role experience is an ideal guy to push a 1A when necessary. Would not surprise me if Reimer plays significant games for the club this season.
We have another, yet unmentioned, “sophomore” on the squad. Head coach, RBA. Will there be carry over from the culture change began last season? Will his motivational skills still work on a more experienced group of players? How much will the potential absence of player and “virtual” assistant coach JW have on the continuation of the new “team culture”? Will this team be able to avoid the winning slump that hit between the 10th game and Christmas last season? Which RBA led team will show up, the post holiday juggernaut or the pre-holiday below NHL average squad? Where will this team be in the Metro standings come US Thanksgiving?
Great comments by everyone. My guess is we all are hoping the Canes build on last season (they went to the ECF right).
However, I think the next two seasons are rebuilding seasons in several senses—and players like Haula, Dzingel, and even Mrazek are placeholders.
Svech still likely needs a year or two to reach the regular 35-goal scorer most of us expect. More importantly, Necas should be a difference-maker at 23. I like to think in terms of comparable players. For Necas I oversimplify it and look at players drafted in the 5-15 range. Voracek went from being a solid 50-point player to a ppg player when he turned 23. Forsberg as good as he was early on also went to a ppg level at 23. Granlund actually had the significant increase at 24. The exciting point of comparing similar players is that it appears for both Necas and Svech the best is still 2-3 years away.
Bean should also improve each of the next 3 years. Pesce and Slavin will still be in their prime. If one of Fleury, Sellgren, or Martin can turn into a solid NHLer, the blue line will continue to be a team strength.
I looked at the last 10 Cup champions. Nine of them have one component the Canes don’t currently have—a homegrown goalie. Only Thomas with the Bruins in ’11 wasn’t drafted by the team that won the Cup. This could all be coincidence. My guess is that having a goalie who is familiar with the team’s system as he develops and has established camaraderie with the other key players is more important than we realize. For that reason, I hope the Canes move Reimer and rely on Ned as the backup. Sure he will struggle some and may even fail. But recent history (Binnington, Murray, Quick, Crawford) indicates that a goalie from within the organization might just be the final ingredient for success.
Wow! I stand corrected about Jake Bean. This is the “new NHL”. Jake’s speed and stick handling skills will always prevail. The need for big bodied, slow-footed thuggish defensemen is gone.
I am so relieved.
Yet. When big slow-footed thuggish Brooks Orpik retired, the Caps traded to obtain younger big slow-footed thuggish Radko Gudas. And yet, Boston is delighted to have convinced old big slow footed thuggish Zdeno Chara to play one more season.
Why do you suppose we see these big slow-footed thuggish defensemen valued so highly by GMs and coaches who obviously don’t know what is so well known by those on this site? Maybe we should tell them.
This is the new NHL, we should tell them.
After they finish laughing heartily, they would respond that they do not live in this mythical world of wishful thinking. They live in the REAL NHL.
Whenever I read or hear effete snobs talking about the new NHL, I am haunted by the image of a game my beloved Canes played against the Caps a couple of years ago. Big slow-footed thuggish forward Lars Eller was standing in our crease. Our sleek fast talented gritless defensemen were away, tending to their knitting, I suppose. That left tiny fast and talented forward Ty Rattie who was doing his job as a back-checking forward. He was gamely trying to box out Eller. The image of tiny Ty trying to move the giant Eller would have been funny under other circumstances. But Eller was successful in trying to screen our keeper. The Caps scored.
Eller probably didn’t notice that Ty was even there.
So much for the new NHL.
Straw man much?
Your Eller/Rattie story, while interesting is obfuscation of the point at its greatest. You’re talking about a savvy, 9 year NHL veteran vs. a waiver wire pick up who can barely stay in the NHL. The play in question had much less to do with size and toughness and significantly more to do with one player being good at hockey and the other being a borderline professional….and Rattie is universally known as a poor skater.
Who do you think GMs would choose between 5’10”, 180 lbs. Ryan Ellis or 6′, 204 lbs. Radko “I’ll take another suspension” Gudas? Ellis is a better skater, a better overall defender, and adds 20+ points to what Gudas brings.
How effective was Jim Rutherford’s strategy of bringing in “big, tough” Erik Gudbranson to go along with gritty Jack Johnson? They got outworked AND outskated by an only moderately faster Islanders team.
And tell me how effective 6’4″, 215 lbs. Marc Staal, and 6’2″, 195 lbs. Brendan Smith were for the Rangers. The Rangers were 23rd in goals against with a -45 goal differential. But sure, the days of the “big, tough, mean, and slow” blueliners are in their golden age.
Look, I’ve already said you need toughness and physicality. But there’s more than one way to skin that cat. Brett Pesce, for example, plays the body more effectively than most defenders, but he’s hardly considered “mean” or “tough”. We’ve got a very effective Top 4 from an all around defensive standpoint. But they are effective because they skate well and have great skills….and I’m sure there’s a “size doesn’t matter” joke in here somewhere. 😉
The most effective deterrent is an effective power play.
Boston managed to turn the hockey games into a game of fistycuffs and cheapshots and swept the Canes because of it. Not because their guys are bigger, tougher or meaner but because they knew they would score on their powerplay and they would virtually be better off with the Canes on a powerplay (because the Canes would be less likely to score with a man advantage).
Big and tough is necessary but not sufficient. Big and tough guys also have to have the necessary skills, not just the courage.
Wow! I guess I struck a nerve. Didn’t I?
You sound like we used to argue around the school play ground.
“Godzilla can beat up Mothra!” And so on.
I know what I saw. I saw a large thuggish enemy player standing in our crease screening our keeper.
I saw our fast skating skilled defensemen staying away.
I saw a fast skating skilled winger having effectively kept up with his mark, gamely trying to make the man move from the place where he could do the most damage.
It had nothing to do with skating skills.
It had everything to do with cowardice on the part of our sleek fast skating skilled defensemen staying away from confrontation with a big thuggish enemy forward in our crease. It had everything to do with an undersized courageous player losing a physical battle in front of our net.
If we don’t have one or two big strong stay-at-home d-men who are willing and able to move big strong thuggish enemy forwards we will be the Candy Canes again.
Teams like that don’t win. It’s just that simple. Why can’t you see that?
So outrageous, baseless statements don’t really strike a nerve with me. I merely try to address them with the facts as I see them. It’s a blog/message board; it’s what we do.
Eller is 6’2″, 200 lbs. Rattie is 6′, 190 lbs. You may be right, in his 5 game Hurricane career, Rattie’s limited toolbox showed that he was neither good at defense (an known flaw in his game) and was poor skater, both is skill and speed. So while I don’t question what you saw, I do question your characterization of the player (and in Rattie’s case, I use that term lightly).
I’m not a great hockey strategist, but I’ve been watching the team for a long time and watching hockey for a little bit longer yet. If “big-bodied” Eller screened the goalie, what do you think throwing a 6′ plus defenseman into the lane would have done. Every guy in our Top 4 is 6 feet and over and all are over 200 lbs. The big difference is that they use skating, stick work, and positioning to do their jobs well.
You are right, however, if Eller was camped out in front of our crease, then somebody missed their assignment, probably the Hurricanes centerman. But, as Surgalt said, that’s not really the key point.
Despite the “hockey traditionalists” who always prefer the “heavy” teams, the game is now much more predicated on speed and skill. That is not to say that strength and physicality aren’t important. They are, they just can’t exist in place of the former. I’d love a guy like Colton Parayko. He’s big, strong, and physical. He’s also immensely skilled, skates very well, and has a marvelous shot. In recent history we’ve had teams that lean toward skill and teams that lean towards “heaviness” win the Stanley Cup. The mouse trap continues to be iterated upon.
The nerve struck on me was the illogical defense of your premise about needing a knuckle dragging defenseman. Your Ty Rattie memory is from 3 years ago, hardly of bearing in a discussion of today’s team. Ty Rattie is so talented he now plays for Lokomotiv in the KHL after netting 11 points last season with Edmonton. Citing him as a Cane says much more about RFs inability to use the waiver wire effectively than about the Canes defensively now. Gudas has yet to play in a Caps uniform, as such not much proof for anything. He was as much a salary dump for the Flyers as an acquisition for the cap strapped Capitals. Zdeno Chara is large, plays to his size but is hardly a thug. He averages just under one hit/game. His reach, not his hits are his big addition to the Bruins. While your point has merit, especially as the playoffs arrive, your examples don’t really make your point well.
Yes. My memory is 3 years old. And if i wanted to cite an instance of a great player, I would have chosen someone other than Ty Rattie. But i wasn’t going for great player. I was going for small player. Yes. Ty Rattie is smaller even than Jake Bean. No. Ty Rattie is not as good a hockey player as Jake Bean. And yes. Jake Bean does skate very well and shows off his prowess with the puck on his stick with great confidence. But I guess we need to look at two factors;
1) Jake plays in the AHL. Some say that the AHL is full of very good players, many of whom are ready for the NHL. Some say that being good in the AHL is not a guarantee that the player will be able to make it in the NHL.
2) Jake played on a team with such players as Charles Brown, Julien Gauthier, and Trevor Carrick. They have his back. NOBODY gets away with loitering in the crease. Jake needs never worry about cheap shots or being called upon to clear the slot or the crease.
As they are at this very moment, Jake is in for a real shock if he is called upon to skate with my beloved Canes. With Roddy as his coach, he will not be permitted to hide under the porch as our Haydn has been.
For all his size, Dougie is akin to Ferdinand the bull. He is no Trevor Carrick. As a matter of fact, none of our heroes on defence is even close to Carrick. Our little Jakie will be expected to go behind the net and into the boards and win the battles for the puck without anyone to have his back.
With no fear of anyone like Carrick waiting to exact revenge for little Jakie, the goons will have their fun at Jakie’s expense. Jakie will lose battles for the puck. He will lose battles to clear the crease and the slot.
It won’t be pretty. He will be tested. And it won’t be fair.
When I wrote the above, I hadn’t read notopie’s latest screed.
My statements are outrageous and baseless? And if i were to say that you were personally attacking me, you would deny it.
Well, I don’t argue with fools. So let’s just agree to disagree.
In 2016 (the year of Ratties 5 game Canes stint) the Canes defense had Klas Dahlback, Ron Hainsey, Noah Hanifin, Ryan Murphy, and Matt Tennyson on the roster that season. Only Justin Faulk, Jacob Slavin (sophomore) and Brett Pesce (also a sophomore) are still on the team from that season. There is no question they earned the nickname “the candy canes”. However the defensive team that will be iced in October will have over 50% turnover from that team. Your comparison just isn’t apples to apples.
I am not sure that I understand what you are trying to say.
What comparison?
My point is or was a simple one. The defensemen that it looks like we are proposing to put on the ice this October is not going to be up to the task. Adding Jakie or our Haydn will only make things worse.
But the great thing about all of this is that come October we will see. If I am wrong, I will admit it. If notopie is wrong, she won’t.
The boxscore on the game played on Jan, 23, 2017 is referenced here. https://www.hockey-reference.com/boxscores/201701230WSH.html Faulk, Hainsey, Hanifin, Pesce, Slavin and Tennyson were the 6 Canes defenders. Of the total squad that day, only 6 are still Hurricanes. The Canes lost 6-1. Aho had the lone goal, Lindhom the lone assist. Cam Ward was 19 of 25 saves (.760).
What is funny to me is that I have no recollection of Tennyson at all. And he played 45 games for us that season.
PWLSS…I don’t read this site to get apologies from anyone when they are quote “wrong.” I read it for their and your ideas and to express some of my ideas. Heck, if I had to apologize for everything that I said on this site that turned out that history shows they were “wrong”, “not so smart”, “stupid”, or otherwise “ill-informed”, I wouldn’t have time to write some more, shall we say, “not so smart” thoughts or ideas. I would suggest you lighten up on the personal stuff and concentrate on presenting your ideas and letting them stand on their merit. Some will probably turn out to be right on, and if you are human(not a member of the deity), maybe a couple won’t turn out like you thought they would. I read everything you write and you do have a lot of valid arguments or ideas just as all other other contributors do. We all won’t agree on everything. Keep writing as your ideas are as important and interesting as those of all the other contributors.
Every team has a game where they give up ugly goals, leaky goals, stupid goals. Every team has games that they lose by huge margins. If pointing to a single instance of bad behavior is sufficient to prove the point, you can easily claim every team lacks size, toughness, speed or whatever it is that you want to prove.
I was not a fan of that particular squad, that’s for sure, Raddy couldn’t even make it with Conor Mavdavid at center.
I think this squad is already vastly different. These are bigger boys, and probably tougher boys, they are not first graders. Toughness is a mindset, not just a physical attribute, so hopefully RBA is instilling a tougher culture on the team.
I think toughness is good and I wouldn’t be against exploring a tougher third pairing guy, we have some grit up front, and we all want the Canes to be a good hockey team that is fun to watch and cheer for, if that’s the outcome and if I’ve argued against decisions that made it so I’ll happily admit I was wrong (and I have on occasion).
The Canes now have a hockey writer on Hockeybuzz. Ben Shelley (the Islanders blogger) has taken over Canes blogger duties. I’ve always like his writing, it’s insightful and balanced.
He’s predicted Svech’s scoring (admittedl not much up from last year, if his trijectory is along the lines of his comparables) and just did a write up about the Beanie baby).
Let’s go Canes!
To be honest, I am not impressed with Shelly’s “analysis” of either Svech or Bean.
Something came out last week about Svech that indicated based on “5×5 Unblocked Shots For”, Svech led the entire league in participating in offense. That suggests a much higher upside (the other writer suggested him as one of the most likely to have a breakout season) – I doubt the other reference forwards were so involved in the action in their rookie years. Generally, I think extrapolating the performance of other forward is a lazy-man’s approach to guesswork. LOL!
As Bean, Shelly takes the full season – which ignores the fact that Bean was slow out of the gate. He hit his groove in November with a breakout game. His annual numbers do not reflect the player he was for most of the season, skewed by how quiet his first 5-6 weeks were.
https://www.prohockeyrumors.com/2019/07/ryan-murphy-signs-in-khl.html
An update on the 2016-17 defenseman who played 27 games f(a minus11) or the Canes that season.
I ran into Mike Maniscalco at the Bulls game this evening. He kept me away from my date (the young redhead for those remembering my attempted hat trick from last season – LOL!) for too long as we talked hockey. I have to concur with the assessment he offered – even if Williams doesn’t sign we will be icing a much better team this season than we did last season.
He offered a number of other interesting insights and perspectives – Mike is eminently approachable and loves to talk Canes hockey. I have known him for years but if you run into him when he is not working he is truly a pleasrue to talk with.