For the the second consecutive week, Ron Francis closed out Friday happy hour with a bang. Last week, he made a big trade for Blackhawks goalie Scott Darling. This Friday, he finalized the move by signing Darling to a 4-year $16.6 million contract. If you have not yet learned to check in on Ron Francis after dinner on Friday and missed it, my article on the Scott Darling signing is HERE.
After a Canes Chronicle last week that was heavy on Scott Darling articles, this week’s edition will add a few more articles to celebrate his signing. This week also offers a grab bag of other articles in a fairly slow May Hurricanes’ news week.
Scott Darling
Michael Smith from CarolinaHurricanes.com recapped Scott Darling’s contract signing on Friday and included a few quotes from Scott Darling himself.
To go with some of the other articles on Scott Darling’s personal journey, here is another great article written by Wayne Drehs at ESPN.com detailing Darling’s personal struggles and eventual path the the NHL.
Kevin Woodley from InGoal Magazine shares insight into Darling’s goalie network and the goalie players and coaches with whom he has worked.
Amid a bunch of articles that glow about the fact that the Hurricanes made a goalie upgrade, Jared Clinton at The Hockey News wrote a balanced article that moved past the euphoria and considered a few questions that remain around the Hurricanes goaltending situation.
Warren Foegele
Warren Foegele is the last of five Hurricanes prospects standing in the Ontario Hockey League playoffs. He has been rock solid in the playoffs in a secondary role on an Erie Otters team that is stacked offensively.
Victor Fernandes from GoErie.com profiled Warren Foegele’s playoff run and included some good quotes from Foegele himself.
In this article Victor Fernandes ranked Foegele’s game 7, series game-winner among the greatest in Erie Otters’ history.
If you missed it, Canes and Coffee’s ‘Midterm’ check in on Warren Foegele on March 22 also offered a positive view of Foegele’s 2016-17 season pre-playoffs.
Hurricanes playoff hockey (sort of)
If the NHL playoffs are not keeping your attention the IIHF World Championships started this week. The tournament which is loaded with Carolina Hurricanes players representing their home countries is previewed nicely by Jamie Kellner at Canes Country.
The 2017 NHL Draft
For those who just cannot hold off until June to start looking at the upcoming NHL draft, we have you covered too.
Will Scouch from Scouching takes an early shot at drafting the first round of the 2017 NHL Draft. See who the Hurricanes pick at #12.
Adam Kimelman from NHL.com offers a mock draft for the top 15 selections and has the Hurricanes taking a different forward with the team’s first round selection.
On a local note and possibly relevant to the 2017 NHL Draft, Chip Alexander profiles some of the top hockey prospects local to Raleigh (or who once played in Raleigh), a few of whom could hear their names called at the draft.
Go Canes!
Thanks Matt. Some great links. I especially like Scouching. However, in poking around that blog my extreme enthusiasm about all the positive developments the past three weeks (Darling, the success of almost all the prospects in the CHL, the Checkers’ playoff series, and finally the first two days of the Worlds showcasing several Canes) was dampened by this:
“It appears that if you’re building a franchise, the players on the back-end matter quite a bit less than who you’re playing up front. A merely competent defense core will always be far more preferable compared to a similarly competent forward core.”
That is from a post on Scouching titled “What Makes a Player ‘Good’?”
This very much relates to your posts the past few days about analytics. Hmm, will have to give this some serious thought.