To start the week, here is a collection of Hurricanes tidbits that have not made it into other posts yet:
Sebastian Aho
I am on record in my post on August 5 about the World Cup, I argued that the 3 Hurricanes personnel who would be involved (Bill Peters, Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen) were possibly the last 3 I would want to miss training camp. For Sebastian Aho, I cutting training camp short by a couple of weeks for a rookie is significant. Initially, the trade off was that he would get a great dose of competitive real game action on a North American/NHL size rink. At least so far, the positive offset has not been gained, as Aho has been a healthy scratch for Team Finland.
Viktor Stalberg
He was a ho-hum kind of signing this summer as a player projected to play on the fourth line, but I actually think his signing is a significant one. The Hurricanes fourth line centered by Jay McClement struggled in the 2015-16 season. Theoretically, Stalberg brings speed to help offset McClement’s below average speed and equally importantly awareness and sound defensive play. The fourth line will not be expected to score a ton, but it must be better than last season in terms of holding its own. Stalberg is likely to be a key part of that.
Justin Faulk
Is it his time? The number of things that Justin Faulk has already accomplished as a 24-year old is impressive. He has been a pretty solid top pairing defensive defenseman when playing alongside Andrej Sekera a couple seasons back. He then proceeded to put up big offensive numbers first in terms of overall scoring in 2014-15 and then power play goal scoring in 2015-16. But he has yet to put it all together in such a way that he is a shut down defenseman but also kicking in offense. With so many young players on the blue line, I think Justin Faulk is going to need to be a rock defensively for the team to take the next step upward.
Jeff Skinner
Ditto for Jeff Skinner. He made big strides defensively in 2015-16 and also put up decent scoring totals, but he did it more in a third line role. This season, he and Victor Rask will step into the slot of Kris Versteeg and Eric Staal as the Hurricanes top scoring line. With that comes a regular helping of tough match ups against either elite checking lines or great 2-way lines that can beat you by shutting you down or by scoring themself. Can Jeff Skinner do what he did in 2015-16 and maybe even add a bit more scoring while playing against tougher competition. That is the challenge in front of him.
Go Canes!
Read that Saarela will miss training camp, but no details on injury.
This team needs to stay healthy, almost time for new trainer (replace Friezen), to many injuries throughout the years, they seem not to be prepared correctly for long season.
There was a time (late last year), that I had a ton of hope for this team…
Ever since the draft, the teams outlook, and my evaluation of RFS moves, have plummetted!
1st- picking a Dman 1st in the draft (enough said).
2nd- failing to get one top6 forward in free agency (let alone top3)…
3rd- Major failure to get EVEN an average goalie, by trade or free agency!!!
4th- Now, (it appears) our 1st line is last year’s 3rd line!
My question is very simple… WHERE’S THE BEEF?
There is no one identifiable improvement to the starting roster!
Interesting points, totally agree about the goalie situation, I was pretty disappointed not to see any changes. However I guess I’m left wondering some things.
1. Who you would have taken with that pick? If we couldn’t trade it down, why would you want to reach for a forward? Kunin and Bellows were the only two forwards taken between Bean and Gauthier. Bellows is interesting but I don’t think he’s a more valuable prospect than Bean.
2. Stempniak is a fine top six forward. I don’t think anyone got great value on the other top six guys from this years crop.
4. Our third line was made up of guys in their early 20s so I think we’re counting on them to improve. I prefer that to counting on Kyle Okposo to come in and rip things up.
I also think we made considerable additions through subtraction this offseason, we have room on our top line for skinner and rask now that E.Staal is gone as he and skinner had no chemistry. We also have two young fins coming in and stronger depth with Stalberg, all those things are improvements, in my eyes at least.
One of the most pain staking parts of a rebuild is questioning or doubting IF we are good enough to stack up against the rest this year. It’s even more worrisome when comparing our players to the mainstays of other teams. It’s even easier to be pessimistic when you don’t make an immediate splash to replace your 1st line center over the last decade. While Eric was in ways declining, he did have good possession numbers and that big body (albeit greyhound) is not 100% replaceable. However, the comment above is why a team rebuilds in the first place…to open doors for those young players to take on more so that we DO become stronger and sustainable. It’s the same concept back in the early 2000’s when we gave chances to kids like Cam, Eric and Erik. One could argue they all came up in a better situation being surrounded by vets, but they still did perform. Today…it’s now the turn for Rask, Skinner, Teuvo, Lindholm and even Aho. All being provided the same chance as their predecessors. All capable of netting 20+ goals, maybe even 30 (yes, Skinner I’m looking at you again). In many ways, they’ve earned this shot…just like Slavin, Pesce and Hanifin did on defense last year. Am I suggesting we are a playoff team? No…not yet. Even with Jordan and Faulk filling bigger shoes as potential captains, we’re a couple pieces short (IMO one Dman and one FWD). But Francis is no fool…he will make room and deal for someone if the situation is right. But he needs time to gauge. We’ve improved in both talent and size, and you just never know…our “young” guys are now a year older. This team may surprise in more ways than may be clear right now. And frankly, that’s a fun place to be in.