With the 2017-18 NHL season officially launched on Wednesday night and the Hurricanes scheduled to start the season in just two days, this week is heavy on predictions for the upcoming season.
The Monday Coffee Shop polls and discussion had reader predictions at the team level.
Today’s Coffee Shop polls and discussion feature polls and discussion on individual player predictions for the 2017-18 season.
First, we will do a final stop on the captain situation. As many know, the team is scheduled to announce its captains at a press conference at 12pm on Thursday. The Coffee Shop had polls on the subject of the captaincy on July 10 and then revisited the situation on September 5 right after Bill Peters said that the team would name a captain before the start of the 2017-18 season.
Carolina Hurricanes polls
Please remember to click ‘vote’ after each individual poll response.
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Discussion questions
1) What are your predictions for individual Hurricanes players for the 2017-18 season?
2) (Following the announcement at 12pm) What are your thoughts on the decision for Hurricanes’ captains including finally naming a ‘C’?
3) For anyone who is new to The Coffee Shop, please share a brief introduction if you wish?
Two days until Canes hockey!
Go Canes!
1) I chose other for most valuable, because I think Teravainen will lead the team in scoring–around 62 points. Of course, the most important player will be Williams because he will make the Hurricanes more dangerous with his play behind and around the goal, which will encourage Lindholm to continue that same style, which helped elevate his game toward the end of last season.
The other thing that I think is extremely valuable is the influence of the coaching/management staff. I think signing Bales will prove to be huge. And it appears that Tulsky is having the desired impact on the team. There was a poll here at C&C and I believe the results were close to 90% for keeping Pesce and Slavin on the same pairing. However, the publicly available data clearly indicate that Pesce’s style of play elevates his D partner (he is the only “volume shooter” on the D). So Matt while I love your analysis, it is not Pesce plus Slavin that equals 3, it is complementary styles. Pesce will elevate Hanifin while Slavin should allow Faulk to near the upper level of D play (which the analytical crowd has identified as “All-Around”). The only real advantage of analytics is following the numbers when they indicate action that is an improvement on what appears to be the best option–because the fact is we all ‘see’ things that aren’t really there.
2) All of the names–Williams, Skinner, Staal, Faulk–have merit. A point made several months ago bears repeating. Sometime in 2014-15 there was an article (I believe it was in Sports Illustrated) that argued that Crosby was a negative impact on the coach and team in Pittsburgh. Now two Stanley Cups later he is a “lead-by-example” captain. My point being that winning makes a captain influential, very seldom is it the other way around.
Other random predictions: The team scores 236 goals. Both goalies have save % .913 or above. Charlotte goes wire-to-wire in the AHL.
1) I’m going to predict awards since our season hasn’t started and I’m running out of time to make wild pre season predictions.
If the team makes the playoffs as one of three metro teams rather than a wild card spot, BP wins the Jack Adams.
Jordan Staal wins the Selke. And Slavin finishes top 3 in Norris voting.
I also think this is the year Skinner finally stops being overlooked as an elite offensive player. It blows me away when people talk about the team not currently having a top tier offensive weapon.
2) I’ll come back to this later and complain if it’s anyone but Skinner. I think all the options aside from Slavin would be fine choices though.
3) I’ve been seeing lots of new users commenting lately, I love it! Look forward to hearing more from everyone.
2. Williams will be captain for the next 2 years (both of which will see the Canes in the playoffs) then retire as a Hurricane. His replacement will come from one of the others now suggested for the position. Whomever that is will have risen to be the obvious choice for the honor.
I like CT’s thoughts – always well considered. I don’t necessarily like to make predictions – whether it is future player performance or naming captains! 🙂
I do think the selection of captain will be a big indicator of the type of team BP and RF envision. Even then I fall back on the comments that the Hurricanes have a sizable leadership team regardless of letter.
1) individual predictions are tough in a team sport, although I have enjoyed reading all of them – in the main article and in comments.
2) On the captaincy, there is about a 90% chance that the captaincy was part of the negotiation to bring in Williams. As he nears retirement, having a “team of his own” and becoming an extension of the coaching staff both have great value as a form of non-monetary compensation. Of course management put in all of the caveats… he has to come in and lead, click with BP, no season ending injury prior to the season, etc, etc… and he appears to have done all of those things.
He will also be the MVP as a result. He may not score the most goals, and won’t make any saves in net, and probably won’t kill penalties, etc, but his overall impact to the team will elevate the team to the next level, per comments of other contributors and more.
The small thing I will appreciate most about Williams is what Brind’Amour said when asked if they were trying to bring in Williams. “He plays the same way all of the time”.
I used to throw things at the TV when E. Staal (et al) was interviewed during the second intermission, when taking a 2-3 goal lead into the third, and hear them say “we just have to get the puck in deep”.
“Get the puck in deep” is a sporting way to close out the game when you are 10 years old, but giving 20 minutes of possession to an NHL team in the third period is a terrible way to protect a 2-3 goal lead. The strategy worked terribly for 10 years but we still did it.
There is nothing wrong with playing the same way and scoring a couple more to finish with a 4-5 goal margin. See Edmonton game 1.
Willy plays the same way all the time, and that along with everything else will make him the MVP. And maybe I will stop pulling out my hair and throwing things at the TV.
Lol, Co-captains! Well, it was sure fun to talk about.
Dumb. Our soon to be fourth best defenseman and a forward that doesn’t excel in interviews probably wouldn’t have been my first choice to co-captain (whatever that even means…) the team.
I probably would have been happy with just Staal as C but dang I’m not happy. Only thing I can think of is management thought it would be too embarrassing for Faulk to wear the C when BP is trying to hide him from the other teams top players.
End rant. Sorry for the negativity. Go Canes!
Instead of having Alternate Captains like last year we have Alternating Captains this year.
I have to admit, I didn’t see this one coming – co-captains. And I also have to admit that my first impression was one of disappointment. Sort of like instead of one leader, we have two “half-leaders”. And there was also a feeling of indecisiveness by the decision-makers, so they copped out with a somewhat diluted choice. And hockey is not a sport of indecisiveness. So bottom line, this just doesn’t feel right, and after a dive into social media, it’s not a popular choice among most fans. But let’s move on and focus now on Saturday… in the grand scheme of things, this is but an odd and unexpected blip on the road to the start of the season.
Reading the comments made me think that most folks have the co-captains all wrong. BP and RF are smart enough to foresee that the decision will be unpopular. Yet they make it. That is the opposite of indecision. I have not seen video of the news conference but in the photo both players look thrilled. Much different than Duchene lately. My guess is that the team is good with it. One captain from forwards and one from blue line might be next trend in hockey. Especially when Canes win a couple cups with Faulk and Staal leading the way.
I have also seen comments that Faulk is not great in interviews. Actually my favorite interview this preseason was Faulk talking about Hanifin’s improved shot after last game. Really funny.