Across the United State, Labor Day weekend signals the transition from summer to fall and for those with school age children the restart of the regular routine. But for hockey fans, Labor Day is also the final mile post in the offseason before NHL training camps start up about one week later.
With Monday likely to be the usual quiet holiday at Canes and Coffee, we will hold off on the deeper dives on training camp/preseason topics until Thursday when our 2017-18 coverage kicks off in earnest.
The Monday Coffee Shop offers preseason lite topics, a request for reader feedback on preferred training camp topics and also an open forum for whatever other topics people want to bandy around.
Carolina Hurricanes polls
Please remember to click ‘vote’ for each individual poll response.
Loading ...
Loading ...
Discussion questions
1) Who has suggested discussion questions for Thursday when we start into preseason/training camp discussion in earnest?
2) Which new player are you most looking forward to seeing in preseason to start gauging how much of a difference he will make?
3) Which returning player are you most looking forward to seeing in preseason to start gauging how much he will improve for the 2017-18 season?
4) Open forum…Go!
Go Canes!
1) Matt–Thursday through next Monday could focus on Traverse City. I understand that all the games will be streamed on the Canes’ website. So my guess is that most of us will watch good portions of the prospect tourney.
2) While most will say Darling, I will reiterate that at least one advanced model indicates that both Ward and Lack performed above average last season (see the article and accompanying chart from the May 2017 article at Hockeyviz.com). That would mean that Tennyson, Murphy, and Hainsey were the culprits. So TVR and Fleury will be of most interest to me. Also, how do the D pairings shape up. I know the large majority said “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” but if Carolina did get decent goaltending last season, then the D was broke. It might make sense to put Pesce and Slavin out with other partners. Does BP tinker with the D?
3) Teravainen. I have been re-watching some of the games from this past season. Last night I watched the December home game against Chicago (wanted to see Darling, TVR, and Kruger). In that one game, TT made as many plays as anyone–including Toews and Kane.
4) So much to discuss. I will start by saying that I think TT (as indicated above) and Rask both increase scoring significantly this season. I believe that TT will end up with something like 22/56 and Rask 24/53.
1. I like ct’s idea on Traverse City discussions.
2. I am going to say Darling – even if Ward/Lack were okay by fancy stats (and I don’t need fancy stats to remember how many times Murphy and Tennyson were out of position or played poorly) I think Darling has a much higher ceiling and the potential to be near-elite.
As a sidenote, if ct is right we are going to be much better with TvR and Fleury over Tennyson/Murphy on the third pairing.
To answer your question, ct, Peters doesn’t shift D as much as he does his forward lines. You did see Pesce with Hanifin in some away games at the end of the season, and there was some movement earlier in the year between the top 2 pairings.
3. I want to see if Rask can come back to form and if Lindy can build. A recently published (and rather bad) extrapolation suggested the possibility of Lindy hitting 70 points this season – but I think he can definitely hit 60.
4. Again referencing ct, if your numbers on Rask and Teuvo are right, and my guess is Lindy is solid – and if Aho progresses and Skinner stays – that is a lot of offensive firepower across the top 3 lines. And if defense is really as improved (see 2) and if Darling is near elite…I don’t know if I (yet) want to think about the possibilities. 😀
1. I also like CT’s Traverse City suggestion.
2. Sorry, CT… can’t buy your MODEL on Ward /Lack…
Wardo had a 2.69 GAA, and a 9.05 sv% last year
(lowest since 2013-14)… 5th worse sv% in the league AND Lack was worse, though admittedly he didn’t get too many opportunities to get steadier…
I’ll be shocked if Darling can’t surpass those numbers.!
TVR is my choice, as I really don’t have an idea of his plusses and minuses…?
3. Aho played quite well, last year, and I’m looking forward to seeing if he got stronger…etc. over the summer!
4. To my knowledge, there’s no grading /evaluating system that can compare players simply! …like 1- 100, 101- 200 (I’m talking overall /not just scoring) Is there any reasonably simple system to do this?
As I said, I have been re-watching some games. Before the Chicago game Forslund and Tracy discussed the “current” home point streak. Ward’s numbers were 7-0-1, GAA under 2 (I don’t remember the exact number) and save % of .945. It could have been 8 games of pure luck or it could have been the advantage of having better D pairings in front of Ward due to last change. But as tj has pointed out repeatedly, the entire team had 6 weeks in Jan. and Feb. of bad hockey. That is when Ward’s numbers went south.
The analytics only say that Ward was slightly above average–not way above or consistently good.
I try to make connections between various points that others make and ideas that are catching on. That is actually where my hope that Pesce and Slavin are tried on different lines comes from. Many months ago dmiller mentioned the concept of strong-link and weak-link sports. He and I both surmised that hockey was probably a weak-link game, or at leas in the middle of the two types. The folks who study this (and they are very serious in both their tools and caution at making broad statements) are consistent that hockey is a strong-link game.
What that means is that a team’s best players should be separated. The analysis shows that top players do more to improve the play of lesser players than they do of other top players. So while Matt said, and many others agreed, that Pesce and Slavin have “chemistry” that allows 1+1=3. The hockey nerds would argue that a “1” doesn’t improve another “1” but can bring a “.5” up to a “.6”. So that instead of 1+1 and .5+.5 equalling 3, the best use of the players would be 1+.5=1.6 and 1+.5=1.6 so the total is 3.2. Now all of the research that shows hockey is a strong-link games seems to be around scoring, so it may not be fully applicable to D pairings. But looping back to another earlier post by Matt he discussed the importance of Eric Tulsky to the organization.
tj, this is a long way of saying I hope BP is willing to tinker with his D if the analytics suggest it will work. Because outside of Pesce and Slavin the D was broke last year.
Will also consider comments from others who reemerge after the holiday weekend, but I like the idea of dedicating Thursday’s Coffee Shop to Traverse City.
1. Traverse City. So say we all.
2. Scott Darling. How much improvement does he give us?
3. Lindhlom. Does he pick up where he left off last season?
4. What is the airspeed velocity of a swallow?
1. So say we all.
2. Go Darling.
3. Yes Lindholm does.
4. An African or a European swallow?
1. Traverse City.
2. Darling. Goaltending has killed us and I’m hoping to see Darling get off to a positive start.
3. I’m with dogbutler on this. It’s Lindholm.
I’m with dogbutler and redryder