If you are stopping by looking for prospect camp practice notes, I hope to post another set around lunchtime. I attended half of the first morning session, all of the second morning session and all of the night session but did not find time to make sense of and post my notes at the end of a long day.
In addition, if you missed it yesterday afternoon, Canes and Coffee was fortunate to get deep insight on Dougie Hamilton, Micheal Ferland and Adam Fox from a pair of knowledgeable Calgary sources.
The week makes for an interesting one to highlight the importance of a people-skilled coach and a captain who gets it. On Sunday, the Hurricanes obtained Dougie Hamilton who seemingly was a bit of an outsider at times on the Flames and also Micheal Ferland who played at an incredibly high level (nearly 40-goal pace) for a chunk of the 2017-18 season before quieting in a significant way later. The week also features a bunch of discussion about the prospect of Martin Necas and Andrei Svechnikov making the NHL team as rookies. And finally, Scott Darling was the guest speaker for lunch at prospect camp on Thursday. Just the names the flew by this week highlight the diversity of situations to be addressed people-wise on an NHL team.
Dougie Hamilton, at least per reports, might keep to himself a bit more than others on the team. With a variety of different personalities on the team, can the captain work to keep a player engaged with the team at the right level (which is not necessarily equal to every single other player).
Micheal Ferland shows flashes of high-end ability but has also been plagued by inconsistency. Can Rod Brind’Amour find the right words to say or buttons to push to coax consistency out a player who has recently exhibited a wide range in his level of play.
Per my Twitter post below, can Rod Brind’Amour play a significant role in helping Scott Darling face up to and defeat any mental challenges required for a 2018-19 rebound?
It is understated, but make no mistake that Rod Brind'Amour is trying to pull Scott Darling deeper into the fold and in the process aid the challenging mental part of the rebound he will be trying to make in 2018-19. https://t.co/axo6nB1Puq
— Canes and Coffee (@CanesandCoffee) June 28, 2018
If Sebastian Aho makes a permanent transition to center, can Brind’Amour find the right balance of just letting Aho learn, coaching him to a higher level and making sure his confidence remains intact if he has some growing pains.
If rookies Martin Necas and Andrei Svechnikov crack the NHL lineup, can Brind’Amour help them adjust to the NHL? And can the team’s captain help the duo what it means to be a professional.
As I hinted at above, just this week’s Hurricanes news flow illustrates the volume of personalities on an NHL team. This is where people skills and leadership come into play. My hunch is that Rod Brind’Amour will be much stronger in this regard as compared to Bill Peters and also that Justin Williams will ultimately be named captain and take on a more significant role in the player management. The goal is not to take away individualism but rather to allow players to be individuals but at the same time still be connected to the locker room and team.
What say you Canes fans?
1) Do you agree that Brind’Amour will be a significant upgrade to Peters in terms of people management and motivation?
2) How much difference do you think Brind’Amour can make in terms of boosting the individual players on the Hurricanes?
3) Do you think Justin Williams will ultimately garner an ‘A’, the ‘C’ or just continue to lead in a non-formal role?
Go Canes!
A puppy would be a significant upgrade. Brindamour is a different dimension.
From what I am told, he creates friendly competition with him as well as other players in the weight room. Such technique exposes his humanity while establishing physical goals for his men to achieve. Such friendly competition creates an atmosphere of unity and trust. And egos are safely tweaked because this competition is not on the ice. Then, once the unity and trust are established, competition on the ice can begin.
It will be a delicate task to relieve Staal and Faulk of their Cs and give the C to Willy. Roddy will be able to relate to the difficulty Staal and Faulk will endure during the transition. He had the same experience when the Canes took his C and gave it to Eric Staal. I am sure that he will have learned from the ham-handed way the team did it to him and figure a way to ease the transfer somewhat.
Giving the C to Williams isn’t a slam dunk. Jordan Staal did nothing to deserve having it taken from him. Also, how long does Williams intend to play? Does he plan to sign another contract in Raleigh? If not, the C should stay with Staal and Williams should get an A.
I agree with your view lessthanstable. What has Jordan done not to be captain? I like Williams, but give him an “A” and we have a winning combination IMO.
Powerless…I thought of you when writing this article on the people side of things 🙂
1. Yes. Brind’Amour has a unique personality that drove him to greatness. But his personality also lifted those around him, inspiring them, and driving them to be the best versions of themselves that they could be.
2. There is no way to know for sure, but projecting past behaviors forward, the difference will be dramatic. BP removed individuality and forced a rigid system, where the players looked like interchangeable robots, each doing exactly what the system said they should do all of the time. ‘or else’.
A champion athlete’s system isn’t prescriptive and based on rules, but is rather based on principles. A system of principles encourages individuality and creativity within the set of principles. The individuality and creativity makes the team hard to play against, because player behavior is not predictable. It is much harder to play against a team when you don’t know what they are going to do.
Two examples come to mind. I was surprised by Warren Foegele’s first NHL goal, against Ottawa. He skated out of the corner, off of the boards, with the puck and put a shot on goal. It went in, probably because it surprised everyone on defense. I don’t remember the last time I saw a Hurricane skate out of the corner towards the goal with the puck… it was not part of the system.
A second example was when Sebastion Aho circled the ice with the puck and created a scoring play. It was out of system and confused the defense.
3) Justin Williams has to be given the C. It will rectify a past injustice. He came to the canes to provide veteran leadership, but BP didn’t want veteran leadership. BP wanted players to play his system, exactly how he designed it. RBA has made it clear that JW is the team leader, even having him be the first speaker to prospects at camp. I loved that move.
As a related aside, having Scott Darling speak on the second day of prospect camp is a classic RBA move. He is setting Darling up to be confident and a key part of the team, I would not be surprised to see Scott Darling be a completely different player under RBA’s leadership.
1. RBA is very different that BP, no doubt. And there will be a very different atmosphere in the Canes locker room. I remember early on in BP’s tenure that he said he doesn’t spend much time in the locker room. He viewed that as the players’ domain – and you have to respect that perspective. He wasn’t going to be intrusive or in their face – he was going to let the players be players. There will be a sea change with RBA – the question is whether that more “connected” style of management will prove to be effective (i.e., an “upgrade” in success) even if he is more effective in connecting to and managing the personalities.
2. I am sure he will be very successful in that regard – RBA’s greatest success in coaching was the period of several years when he was the player development coach for the team. And he has, indeed, expressed a desire to move the needle on individual and named players. In this sense, he is a natural with proven ability.
3. I am sure Williams will be the “C” – RBA knows him well, of course, as a former teammate. One role of a captain is to be a conduit from the coach to the players. The Canes have long taken a leadership team approach in the delivery of that message. I expect some of the same will continue, but I think Williams will be much more of a one-to-one with RBA. Staal is a professional – he will not be ignored in the process. This is still effectively Staal’s team and he will remain an important part of the leadership team.
I think the locker room as the “players domain” is not an uncommon thought among coaches. On teams that work the HC doesn’t have that much to do with the players during game days. The leadership in the locker room takes care of it. When Gallant said in an interview that he doesn’t say anything about mistakes, what it really meant was he doesn’t have to say anything. That it taken care of in the locker room.
I think Peter’s issue was he was overly critical of everyone and it wore people out. Brind’Amour won’t be that way and throughout training camp and the few practices they get his teaching will be a benefit. It should be a fun place for players to play. Now, it’s on the players to take advantage of that situation and excel.
I have a personal story to tell about Rod Brind’Amour. During the winter of the gloomy 2004-50 lockout season, I took my son to the Factory Icehouse up in Wake Forest, for a stick and puck session. He was 8 years-old back then, and was a pretty decent hockey player for that age – a natural skater. Anyway, no one else was on the ice, except… Rod Brind’Amour, with his two young sons. And me… I grew up in Texas, so I just watch hockey… so… after about ten minutes of watching my son fly around the ice, Brind’Amour started to pass the puck to him, to engage him. My son ate it up, as Rod began to work with him more and more. So for the next 45 minutes, Rod continued to involve my son on the ice… along with his own boys, showing him how to shoot, how to pass, how to shoot stronger… COACHING HIM. Rod didn’t have to do this, but I could tell it just came natural to him, like he had no other choice but to help this young, enthusiastic hockey player. And he loved doing it. It was a night I’ll never forget. This is why I’m looking forward to this season more than any other. Trust me, we have a very special man as a head coach.
Great story. Thanks for sharing.
Staal has been on the Canes for, what, 5 or 6 seasons. The team didn’t make the playoffs in any of those seasons.
Last year the team morale, competitiveness and intangibles were broken, though not Staal’s fault necessarily it happened on his watch as a captain. So one can easily justify taking the c from Staal and giving it to JW, though I am not necessarily saying it is the right move. JW is here for another year, which isn’t much. Staal is signed through 2020 I think, maybe 2120.
I’m not sure, I hope whatever the team does there will be some unity and a single captain, no co captains.
The backup goalie becomes the next question. It looks to be confirmed that this is a Darling of a team this upcoming season. Question is, do we go proven NHL experience goalie to back him up and challenge him or do we go lesser experience promising prospect goalie and even throw in a cast of characters giving our prospects a chance at a game or two.
There are a lot of things that have to go right in order for this group of players to succeed this season.
We’re primarily betting on the new coaching approach to coax more out of the players, on darling to not have a terrible season, on the special teams coach to create a new PK crew, on promising prospects taking strides towards greatness right out of the starting blocks, on fewer defensive relapses from key players, primarily Faulk.
It’s a long shot that all these things go right, but if half of them go right it might be enough.
It will be a bumpy rie, but hopefully a fun one.
On the rumor front (from the Chicago blogger on HB).
Apparently the Blackhawks are deadset on signing Cam Ward as their backup goalie (behind Crawford), ironic isn’t it that the Canes main goalie because the Blackhawks backup and vice versa.
If this works out at least the Canes will only be seeing Ward twice during the regular season and at most nine times over the season (unlikely indeed).
Another rumor has the Blackhawks talking about trading away Anisimov. I wonder if Anisimov would be a good center for our up-and-coming Russian guy and Zykov, we could have quite a Russian threat line there.
We could ice a Russian line and a Finnish line.
We could use the alcohol variety and call the lines “the White Russian” and “Finlandia”.
We don’t have enough Swede for an “Absolut” line, but if we signed Tavares we could serve up a “Long Island Ice Tea” line that would be harmless looking but hard to defend against.
a couple of things…
1. Great story goaliedad… My son also played hockey and being from NC I also watched… We were fortunate enough to have been on teams with kids of John Forseland, Glenn Wesley, and practiced at the same time as Ron Frances and Peter Lovielette(please forgive the mispelings!). All of these guys were great people, great with the kids, and humble with the parents… I saw RF take to the ice and promptly fall… he still had his skate guards on :)… he just laughed. Anyway… all that was to say what a great experience it was being around hockey people when my son played. Will always cherish it.
2. The Captain… shouldn’t that move have been made by now… with new players coming into the fold, the Captain is supposed to welcome them and help them with the transition…. is this being done? by whom? would be interesting to know. If it is Williams, then it should be Williams… anyway, just curious on why the wait… are they seeing who is still around? is it easier to trade someone than to take away the C? or are they going to keep Staal as captain and trading Faulk solves the awkward conversation… also keeps Faulk’s value higher because he is a captain…
Just some thought 🙂
In a Hamilton interview, Dougie said he had heard from Williams since the trade – so there is that.
To those who say that it wouldn’t be fair to take the C from Staal since he has done nothing to not be captain. But then, it can be said that he didn’t do much to warrant keeping it either. Roddy will help Staal to preserve his dignity (maybe give him an A).
Willy must be the captain. It is too important to treat lightly. In addition to being a leader on and off the ice to the players. He speaks for the coach on the ice. And he speaks to the officials. The officials won’t listen to him and could penalize him if he tries to talk without the C or A.
I was very glad to see Scotty giving an address to the prospects. A goalie is very much like a catcher in baseball. The pitcher as well as the infield, and sometimes the outfielders look to the catcher for directions.
If you are close to the ice during a hockey game, you will hear the goalkeeper shouting out directions and warnings, “Watch out, Willy! He’s behind you!” “Dahly! Out of the way! You’re screening me!”
It’s looking like things are falling into place.
Unusual comment for someone who champions the human side. Why piss off Staal? You don’t know that he failed as a leader. Maybe the other guy wearing a C didn’t support him? I think there is no doubt that Williams at least wears and A, but I believe he can do as much leading with the A as with the C. Staal is an important part of the Hurricanes and there is no reason to make him look bad.
There is a rumor Zykov is signed to the big club for two years. If true that is the first sign of a commitment to youth!
It’s official. Cheap contract, too.
Excellent!
Two years – $600K in the first and $700K in the second.
One-way too. The rookies are coming!
I agree with pretty much everything that ashevillecaniac wrote. One thing about Rod that impresses me immediately when watching the prospects camp is that he is much more engaged with the players than BP ever was. He is exactly the type of leader who can fix the locker room problems on this team while getting every player to buy into the changes. If one of those changes includes rearranging the C’s and A’s, I am totally confident that Rod can pull that off with everyone involved believing that it is best for the team. Personally, I would like to see Williams wear the C, because he is the leader among the players, anyway. Might as well give the credit where it’s due. I am very confident that Brind’Amour is the right guy to make this team cohesive while celebrating all the individual talents. That, right there, should be enough to make this team a winner.
While being a head coach requires a wide skill set, it is certainly a benefit when you are telling players what to do you have already done it and done it very well for a long, long time.
By my unofficial count, it looks like 7 of 22 roster players will not be with the team next year: Nordstrom, Doc, Stempniak, Dahlbeck, Lindholm, Hanifin, and Ward. 3 O, 3 D, 1 G.
The count assumes that the qualifying offer is accepted by TVR.
Perhaps more surprisingly, we have added 4-6: Hamilton, Ferland, Zykov, Martinook, Svechnikov, and Maenalanen. 5 O, 1 D. If the last two make the team, that leaves 1 slot available (of aforementioned 22) for a goalie.
And we still need a D-man on the left side. Not to mention slots for some of Necas, Foegele, Wallmark, McKegg, Fora, Carrick, Bean, McKeown,and others. It is starting to look crowded at PNC arena!
My not-very-humble opinion of Jordan Staal as a captain, and that Willy should be captain, and my faith in Roddy’s ability to make it happen while allowing Staal to maintain his dignity, is just that. My not-very-humble opinion.
I believe that the team needs to have a real leader as captain. I do not believe that Staal is a strong leader. Willy is the man. When Willy retires and a new captain is named, it won’t be Jordan Staal.
With the new team, new management, and new coaching staff, we can’t afford to have a phony leadership structure (e.g. Roddy bypassing Staal, the wearer of the C, to use Willy as the real captain). That phoniness is completely transparent. The players would be confused and Staal would be stripped of his dignity.
My uncle taught me that you can do almost anything to a man and get away with it. But strip a man of his dignity and you gain a bitter enemy while losing the respect of everyone who witnesses it.
Well said Powerless.
Williams is going into a contract year. It’s possible he would be extended if he continues to play at the level he did last year – but as he continues to get older I wouldn’t be upset if this was his final season with the Canes. He is going to be instrumental to the success of this team especially from a leadership standpoint, but considering where he is at in his own playing career does it really make sense to make him the captain of this team?
I think Staal or Aho deserve the C. Give it to someone who will be here and wearing it for multiple seasons. If it is Williams it’s possible they will be looking for a new captain again at the end of the season. Plus – i’m just being realistic here in thinking as well Williams being in a contract year at a semi-affordable cap hit is the type of trade deadline acquisition a lot of teams might pay a good chunk for. Just because he’s going to be important in the short term doesn’t mean his value as an asset shouldn’t be discounted.