Suddenly ten games into the 2017-18 season, today’s Daily Cup of Joe ranks the top areas for improvement based on what we have seen thus far for the Carolina Hurricanes 2017-18 season.
In relatively short bullet form, here are the top areas for improvement:
1) The second pairing on defense
As much as Hurricanes want to talk about how great the young blue line is, the reality of the situation is that Jaccob Slavin and Brett Pesce have been legitimate top pairing defensemen, but the second pairing continues to be suspect at best. Fleury’s short audition in top 4 in Sunday’s game did not go well at all. He was not on the ice for a goal against, but he had multiple miscues.
2) The ability to create offense on the grinding nights when things do not come easy
One could argue that Sunday was an exception, but in general the 2017-18 Carolina Hurricanes have either clicked offensively or struggled to mount any attack. I wrote a longer version of this last week, but thus far the Hurricanes have preyed on teams who have been happy to open the game up. But when a game is tough for the Hurricanes, it tends to end badly. The team has generally struggled to either dictate style of play when a game starts slowly or to grind the couple ugly goals needed to get going.
3) Scott Darling’s play
To be clear, he is not the problem if there is one with the Hurricanes. But at the same time, he has mostly been ‘meh’ quality. Darling must push upward for the Hurricanes to climb in the standings.
4) The power play
Despite scoring on a Jeff Skinner play from the crease on Sunday, the power play really sputtered on Tuesday. I also think that game could potentially become a low point for the 2017-18 season in terms of power play time. The Hurricanes are suddenly having trouble even entering the offensive zone with control of the puck.
What say you Caniacs?
1) Do you agree with the top four areas that offer room for improvement?
2) What about the order? Would you rank these four items in this order?
Go Canes!
1. Yes. And #5 is “be as good at home as you are on the road”
2. I’d rank them: 1. Grinding out offense 2. Darling needs to be better than .897 3. 2nd pairing woes(at least Fleury/Faulk were on ice for 2 goals for) 4. Powerless play(fix it, or let us decline it ,NFL style)
Well Im not as harsh on Darling as most are. Has he let in a couple he should have stopped? Yes. He is a Vezina winner, no probably not. Until the team stops hanging him out to dry it ls hard for me to say his .897 save percentage is his issue.
I would say
1. Faulk. Positionly irresponsible, and makes bad decisions. Until yesterday he wasn’t a help on offense either. The man is a “captain.” How can he bust any chops about lack of effort or misplays when he is full of them?
2. The second pair. They obviously don’t have the mojo from last year. Slavin is the one LHD who has enough experience to make up for Faulk’s awfulness. We’ve proven that doesn’t work. I don’t think it’s fair to get one of the few available from LV and punish Fleury because Faulk cant play.
3. Scoring
4. PP I believe the first two against STL didn’t have a decent shot on goal and one of them we couldn’t even gain the zone.
5. Physicality. It’s rough to watch this team fold against a physical team. McGinn seems to be the only one willing to dish out pain. Dallas, Anaheim, and St Louis just pushed the team around like middle school bullies.
I have to agree with everything gocanes and dogbutler say.
My view is other teams have defensive breakdowns and stress the goalies also. .897 is not cutting it. TVR and Fleury have been fine, it is the second pairing who is having issues.
I think the captaincy was really messed up, it should have been Williams or if they wanted to share the C, Williams and Staal. Staal plays hard every game and does make a difference, Faulk on the other hand is not doing so well. Gocane’s first comment rings pretty true.
This team is clearly more talented then what we have had in the past. The season is not over at the end of October like normal. There are several games we could have won, we just do not do enough to get over the finish line. I do not know if RF will do anything. Being a 500 team will not get us to the playoffs.
At the end of October and now after 10 games (already?) we are at “hockey .500”. While this is not as good as many of us were expecting, it is still better than previous Octobers. But that is not good enough. We can’t count on big surges as we have had in the past to put ourselves into a better position.
I admit I am less than encouraged that after 10 games the team is still trying to figure things out at such basic levels.
My ordering:
1) Creating offense agianst the grind. We end up having to grind in the o-zone because we can’t push the pucks through the neutral zone under control.
But we showed in the second and much of the third period that we can skate against the grind; but we have to do that consistently. It shouldn’t require the team to step up, but to start that way. Against both STL and ANA we did generate some good scoring chances once we got control of the puck in the o-zone, and that is something.
2) Power play. 80% of the time the power play offers little advantage to the team – and on several occasions us failing at the power play created momentum for the other team. Earlier in the season it was perimeter and external shots – now we have troubles even getting through the neutral zone. It is discouraging –
3) Defense. I think we may be too critica
l of our blueline because we had such hopes for them. But there has been some iffy and inconsistent play – and not just the lower 4. How many times have we heard that “wasn’t Pesce/Slavin’s best game” already this season? For Hanifin and Fleury, improvement in the D-zone is coachable – I do like their play, generally, moving the puck and when they contribute on the rush. So there is that.
4. Goaltending (Darling). Our questionable play in front of the net has frequently hung Darling out to dry. At the same time you want your goalie to make the occasional save when that happens. If he had been successful at least a couple of times, given our one-goal losses we could be looking at 1 2-4 point improvement. That said, Darling kept us in the game last night even making some excellent and difficult saves.
1- No
2- No
…Offense (except Skins) SUCKS…Fix that, and THE TEAM NEEDS TO GROW SOME BALLS…and get NASTY
…the rest is not the worry -to me!
#1,2,3, and 4…. Finishing! We can’t finish… in ALL the games, we have had good chances, good tic tac toe passing plays, good to great scoring chances, but very little finishing. Too many missed nets, too many whiffs, too missed empty nets…. just too many! Finish some of those and your play changes. You make confident entries on the PP. Finishing to me is our biggest fault…. and I have no idea how to fix that… does it get better over time or is that just the way it is going to be?
The Captain call…. wow, that just took the wind out of my sails when that happened. Everything seems going just perfect (yes, I know about the #1 C thing, but I still don’t think it was there for the cost)…. then they come out with the least of the two guys … and TWO guys…. especially the way Skinny has been playing… So then just after thinking that again, the two Captains score…. and I listened to Faulk’s interview. I liked what he said, the play just wasn’t good enough… when asked about his goal, was he thinking about a shot “All I do is Shoot, so yeah” (or something like that). I liked that as well.
I still have hope for this team and this season…(optimist to a Faulk, did that on purpose!) Go Canes.
1) mostly, although as the season progresses I get increasingly frustrating by the captaincy boondoggle.
My dad used to say “never split one persons job between two people. Two half wits don”t make a whole wit, they make a 1/4 wit. Rather than competencies being additive incompeyencies are multiplicative. Each party adds the others incompetencies to their own.”
That’s not to say either is a half wit, but experience and leadership was a known deficiency with this team that was addressed in the off season, and we wasted it.
It is not like Faulk played well or provided keadersip in the press is either.
2) toss in the captaincy boondoggle in the middle and the order looks about right to me. We have scored enough goals that we should have won more games this year.
“Preseason” not press
1. Scoring. I think better offense will prop up the defense and the goaltending. On that note:
2. the powerplay. Teams know that the canes powerplay is bad, so bad that it can actually be a momentum killer. They are therefore more likely to play the kind of physicalþaggresive style that our team is unable to handle (because taking a penalty is not that risky).
3. Defense, especially Faulk. Now Hjalmarson is supposedly on the market (per Eklund on HOckeybuzz, also, per Eklund, the Canes are moving to Quebec for the 40th time), that would be a solid addition (see later).
4. Goaltending. It has been below par, it has to get better, but it has given up less than 3 goals in a lot of games that we lost.