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Important to note is that this topic was chosen and the article mostly written before Tuesday’s loss to the Vancouver Canucks. It is NOT a knee jerk reaction to Tuesday’s loss. On that note, I did not think that Scott Darling was a story of the game on Tuesday. His three goals against on 21 shots was not great, and the goalie at the other end of the rink was better, but the team in front of him did not score and faded as the game wore on which primarily drove the outcome.
The history
Coming of a playoff miss in 2015-16 during which goaltending was a significant weakness, Hurricanes general manager Ron Francis had an opportunity at least partially rework the crease. Francis was mostly locked in on Eddie Lack who was already under contract for two more years after Francis acquired him via trade the previous season and extended him for two years before he even stepped on the ice in Raleigh. But Cam Ward was coming off his seven-year contract and could either re-signed or replaced. Before the free agent even opened, Francis made the decision to commit to two more years of Cam Ward when he re-inked him for two years at $3.3 million per year. Finally, Francis also chose to push forward with goalie coach David Marcoux who still had one year remaining on his contract.
When you net it out, coming off a sub-par season goaltending-wise in 2015-16, Francis chose to push forward with the same group for 2016-17. Not surprisingly, the results were similar. Lack never really did find it in Hurricanes’ uniform except for a short burst at the end of the season after Coach Bill Peters’ lashed out at him in an interview. Ward had a run of strong play in the middle of the season but faded late maybe because of being overworked during a stretch when Peters rode Ward when Lack was out due to injury, and he did not want to turn to Michael Leighton. Despite a Ward upswing in the middle of the season and a short burst by Lack toward the end of the season, the Hurricanes again missed the playoffs with goaltending front and center in terms of weaknesses.
The summer of 2017
Unwilling to press his luck for a third try, Francis moved aggressively to address the goalie situation this past summer. First, he moved aggressively to unload Lack in a deal that saw the Hurricanes retain half of the salary on the final year of his contract. Next, Francis won a modest bidding war paying a third-round draft pick to obtain Chicago Blackhawks’ backup goalie Scott Darling and his exclusive negotiating rights for six weeks before he could become an unrestricted free agent on July 1. Shortly after acquiring him, Francis made a big commitment to Darling with a four-year contract at slightly more than $4 million per year.
Francis also made the move to part ways with Goalie Coach David Marcoux and replaced him with former Penguins’ goalie coach Mike Bales who became available when Pittsburgh released him with the departure of his long-time student Marc-Andre Fleury.
When the summer concluded, Francis had changed two-thirds of the goalie trio from the previous season and most significantly had made a commitment to a new starting netminder. Also worth noting is that Francis did not tip toe on the move. He outbid Dallas to get Darling’s rights, and in Darling he added one of the two or three top options available at the position this summer. People can and will debate whether he picked the right player in Darling, but people cannot fault Francis for not addressing the weakness a second time around.
The not insignificant transition
I wrote multiple articles before the season started with two themes on Darling. The first was that the transition that he had to undertake should not be underestimated. Despite rating highly in terms of statistics over the past two years, he had never been a true #1. Sure, he had stepped into that role in Chicago when Corey Crawford was injured and had performed admirably, but that just is not the same thing as having the weight of a team on your shoulders, especially when that team is looking for you to lead the way into the playoffs.
In addition to his new role and the pressure that goes with it, Darling also had a number of other transitions to go with it. On the ice, he had a new team and team mates. Not insignificant is the fact that this one at least out of the gate was not as good as the one he played behind in Chicago. Say what you will about the Blackhawks’ top-heavy lineup and recent playoff struggles, but the team has been a regular season winner. In addition, Darling had to adjust to a new coach and goalie coach.
When you couple the volume of changes for Scott Darling with the fact that goalies are some combination of black magic, inconsistent race horse and voodoo (personal opinion, not documented or proven fact), I think that considering Darling to be a sure thing upon launch was putting the cart before the horse.
Through one-third of the 2017-18 season
Thursday’s game in San Jose will be game #27 which marks the one-third mark of the 82-game NHL season. Through 27 games in a Hurricanes uniform, the single word that jumps out at me to describe Scott Darling’s play thus far in inconsistent. He has had his share of solid outings and even stolen a couple wins that the Hurricanes probably did not deserve. But along the way, he has had more than a good starter’s fair share of rough outings many of the variety that decide outcomes negatively.
Right now, Darling ranks ahead of only Craig Anderson and emergency fill in starter Maxime Lagace with his .903 save percentage.
In short, Darling has not lived up to hopes thus far. Further, he so far has not met the minimum target set this summer of being at least NHL average.
So should we write Scott Darling off as a bust?
In a word, no. It is far too soon to do that. As noted above, the transition that he is making is significant and not something to be taken lightly. A lights out start would obviously have been preferred, but the slow start does not automatically guarantee a failure. Darling has had games where he was at least ‘good enough’ if not better. And even good NHL starters will hit some rough patches over the course of a long 82-game season. The key for Darling is to grind out enough decent outings to keep the team at least treading water and then at some point build a rhythm and find a higher gear.
A divergence in usage as compared to the Eddie Lack failure
With a new goalie, patience is critical. Because of how poorly it worked out, Canes fans generally portray the acquisitions of Eddie Lack and Scott Darling as wildly different things. But I am not sure that is truly the case. Lack joined the Hurricanes as the older version of a young and relatively inexperienced NHL goalie. Lack actually had more games of NHL experience than Darling, and both were coming off the kind of season that suggested they could be ready to be an NHL starter. And both arrived in Raleigh with the hope that he would play a key role in boosting the team’s goaltending.
Lack failed to launch out of the gate. There is a reasonable case to be made for the fact that Eddie Lack was just a bust who was not going to work under any circumstances. But when he started slowly, he very quickly had the rug pulled out from under him and was left to try to build some kind of rhythm with very little real game action to do so. Lack was given a few games here and there but always with a very short leash. Except for the stretch at the end of the 2015-16 season which was his second with the Hurricanes, he was never afforded a good stretch of runway and given the chance to work things out and rise up into a starter’s role.
I do think Darling is just a better goalie than Lack, but maybe equally significant is the fact that the team seems committed to him through ups and downs. Though his 2017-18 has been up and down, he remains the starter. Thus far, Ward has seen action only in games that would normally be given to the backup. I actually thought that the run of Ward taking “backup starts” could end on Tuesday, but instead the team forged one game deeper into the 2017-18 still hitched to Darling as its starter.
It is not certain whether Darling maintaining the starter role has been due to circumstance, steadfast commitment or some combination of both. Part of it might simply be that Darling and Ward have mostly moved in lockstep this season. Both started reasonably well but also had a ‘meh’ start in there. Both generally played well as the season wore on. Both also had a stellar effort to steal a win but then followed that up with a tough stretch. Because Ward has mostly been down at the same times Darling was, we might not yet have a read on just how committed Peters is to Darling if Ward temporarily becomes the better goalie.
The path ahead if I was coach/GM
Especially from a general manager viewpoint, I would err strongly on the side of committing to Darling until he gets it going. The team is in for four years at $4 million per year. Equally significantly, the past few years offer a fairly compelling argument for the case that Ward is not the goalie to lead this team back to the playoffs. As such, I think there is strong incentive to commit to Darling and live and die with the results.
From Bill Peters’ perspective things are fuzzier. Peters very much needs to win and coach the team into the playoffs. I am not sure we have seen it yet, but if the team reaches a point when the best chance to win even short-term is to start Ward, Peters has significant incentive to go that direction. That is especially true with the team below the playoff cut line and desperately seeking a way to push up the standings.
If Ward starts playing well while Darling is still down, how Peters manages his goalies will come front and center. On the one hand, a run of non-playoff seasons with Ward suggests that perhaps the best course of action is to stay fully hitched to Darling figuring that it at least offers some chance versus none for ward. On the other hand, Peters could try to buy time by focusing on a game by game basis short-term in which case Ward could be the best choice short-term.
Could the Hurricanes be on the brink of a 1A/1B situation in net?
As noted above, the Hurricanes have yet to hit the “goalie controversy” level maybe simply because Ward has yet to be up while Darling is down. After a loss on Tuesday, I think there is a reasonable chance that Peters again turns to Ward. And though this is a game that could go to the starter, I do not think it officially bumps Darling out of the starter role. But if Ward starts and plays well on Thursday and Peters then comes back to him on Saturday, the team seems to at least have a 1A/1B situation all of a sudden. That adds another bit of uncertainty to Darling. Does this create adversity for Darling? If so, does that spur him to better or worse play? And if the goal is ultimately to get back to Darling as the starter, how might Peters accomplish this?
Ideal would be if the Hurricanes were playing so well that the goalie play did not matter so much. That could enable Darling to work out any kinks without jeopardizing the 2017-18 season. But that unfortunately is not the case. The Hurricanes continue to bump up and down but mostly move sideways such that it is currently an ‘all hands on deck’ approach to trying to win hockey games.
Parting comments
I really like that Peters and the team have been steadfast in the commitment to Darling thus far. Any kind of knee jerk reaction early could have long-lasting effects on a player that the team is committed to for four years.
And I think that the goal must continue to be to help Darling grow into the starter’s role that he was signed to fill.
But at the same time, the team is getting to the point when it really needs wins, so if Ward becomes the better option, it will be hard to keep him out of the lineup.
And I am NOT willing to chuck the 2017-18 season to build for the future.
What say you Caniacs?
1) How would you rate Scott Darling’s play thus far?
2) What, if anything, does it take for you to hand the reins to Cam Ward at least short-term to collect some wins?
3) More generally, how would you manage the goalie situation if you were the coach?
Go Canes!
1. Inconsistant. Darling has hand serveal games where he only let in 2, and then had ones where he couldn’t stop a beachball.
2. I might give Ward a few more starts than originally planned, but if he was the answer, we wouldn’t have gotten someone else.
3. Scott just has to fight for it and find consistantcy. And the team needs to score, so he doesn’t have the pressure to be perfect every night.
1. Disappointing is an understatement. More disappointing is the inability of our GM to select goalies, the inexplicable loyalty to Cam Ward, the misguided contracting done with them, and the bad coaching provided for them. Khudobin is the sole exception of a goalie signed here who didn’t have his career ruined in the process.
2. Sitting Darling at this point is no different than sitting Rask. It won’t matter but at least something is being tried. At this point Darlings presence in the net can’t be a settling influence for the team.
3. If I were BP I would hope for the next 4 months to go quickly and quietly begin a new job search for myself.
Uhhhhhh do you remember Khudobin at the end of his Carolina time? He was freaking terrible. This is the first year he’s been decent since he left. We haven’t had a single successful goalie since Bill Peters tenure, so I actually agree that Bill Peters is on the way out. His system is not good for goalies. They don’t just magically become bad.
1. Darling has under performed slightly compared with reasonable expectations, I still haven’t written him off personally, I think he has more to give and he ha proven multiple times in his life and career that he is a never-giver-upper, and since we have committed to him we have to try and help him do that once again.
2. I don’t care who starts if that results in wins, sadly it doesn’t seem to matter over much who starts right now, the wins aren’t coming. If we find the formula not to fade this season, make any changes necessary to stick with it.
3. I don’t know, I would focus less on pure drinking water in my home, and more on a winning product on the ice.
I am no longer high on Bill Peters, he is not getting the job done for the Canes despite having had a couple of years to impose his system. He doesn’t light fires, he doesn’t try aggressively enough to infuse young blood inot the line-up, he sticks with a system that obviously isn’t yielding good enough results.
I am curious what RF will do for next season, with Ward’s contract up. Will he recommit to Ward at #3 mill per season (maybe resign him for $6 mill per season, that seems to be the most logical guess based on the pat), or does he try to go out and get reliable backup goaltending at a more affordable 1.5 mill price tag, or does he bring up our Checkers netminder, who had a rough start last year but who is 10 up and 2 down on this season and playing like a tru champ.
The Checkers have been a bit inconsistent, and there are some dudds so far 3 goals for the Goat, but there are exciting things happening with that team.
The goalies are only important WHEN WE ACTUALLY GET A GOAL OR TWO, AND IT DOESN’T LOOK GOOD!
Time to change the “lousy management”…
MAYBE THE NEW OWNERS WILL!!??
…in what city?
1. Darling has definitely underperformed expectations – but I also he, largely, has been very good. Forgetting the goofs, his rebound control and puck movement has been much improved. A number of goals have been scored when Darling has been doing his job and others have not.
2. Darling is the starter until Darling is not, in my opinion. And I don’t think Darling has played poor enough to have lost that role. A multiple-game run of bad outings – which he hasn’t had to date – would an indicator.
3. Peters apparently lets Bales do the driving on goalie assignment, from what he has said. And Bales hasn’t wavered to this point on how he views the two.
And in response to your comment, Matt, that Lack and Darling are being treated differently – I think that is the answer. Bales, largely, has the say-so. That may change, of course, but there is a reason they brought in Bales.
1. I would “letter grade” Darling’s performance so far a C+, which is probably higher than his stats warrant. Like the team in front of him, he’s been frustratingly inconsistent. And there’s probably been at least 3-4 games that this inconsistency has cost us points. Which is not what you want with your goalie. At some point the settling in period has got to come to an end and he’s got to take the starting role by the horns and wrestle it to the ground (hey, I’m from Texas). And I mean soon. The honeymoon is definitely over.
2. This is a tough one. But if Cam puts in a really good outing on this road trip (a win, with only allowing 1 or 2 goals), then I would not hesitate to ride him for a few more games. And maybe Darling could use the break to get his head clear. Or, it could really mess him up… goalies are an unusual breed of athlete, and unless you are close to these guys, it’s really hard to predict how certain actions by the coaches will affect them. Especially with a new player like Darling, who none of us Cane’s fans has any history with, to fall back on. But wins are what we need now, and if Cam gives us the best chance to do that, then keep him in, and Darling will just have to deal with it.
3. What I would be looking at, besides the details of how well Cam or Darling plays each game, is also how the team tends to play in front of each of them. I already have the sense that the team plays a bit more confident with Cam between the pipes. He’s a known quantity that they have established a comfort level with, over the course of dozens of games. They know him, and know his tendencies, which has to relate to some sort of level of confidence for the players, especially for the defensemen. But beyond that, a coach’s decision on which goalie to start, when neither has stepped up as a clear-cut starter (and I don’t think Darling has earned it by his play so far this season, only by his contract), is probably one of the more difficult decisions a coach has to make in any professional sport.
1. He’s doing par for the course for a goalie under Bill Peters system. Goalies don’t really get a rhythm under it, and if the defense breaks down they get hung out to dry. Why are we solely blaming Darling for the fact that the Canes defense cannot close out their assignments and have given opponents grade A looks on our goalies, who are not in the aforementioned rhythm.
2. I keep it exactly as it is. Maybe mix in a couple of Ward starts, but let’s also remember he let in 4 goals and got pulled a couple starts ago. I get some people like to ride the hot hand in goal, but consistency is the bigger issue here.
3. The solution is simple and somewhat sad. At this point, it’s pretty clear something has to change. Watching this team, I am still adamant that the talent is there for this team to win. Which lays the blame at the foot of a man who has done so much to develop this talent. Bill Peters.
Sometimes you just need a coach who has been to the big show, and knows how to push the right buttons to win. I salute Bill Peters for all he has done to put us in the spot we’re in, but his seat is seemingly on fire right now, from my perspective.