If you have not stopped there, please take a minute to read today’s Daily Cup of Joe which offers a big thank you to everyone who spends part of his/her Hurricanes hockey time at Canes and Coffee and includes a basic plan for the off-season.
As noted in today’s Daily Cup of Joe, the Monday after the conclusion of the NHL regular season has long been the hardest day for me as a Hurricanes hockey fan (in non-playoff years obviously). The 2017 version of this does come with some positives, as the team seems to be trending in the right direction.
The Monday Coffee Shop offers a meaty set of polls grading the 2016-17, season, reminding everyone that the Checkers are still in the playoff hunt and also looking forward to 2017-18. The discussion questions more or less open the floor with open-ended questions for people to vent, note positives or do some combination of each.
Carolina Hurricanes polls
Please remember to click ‘vote’ after each individual poll response.
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Carolina Hurricanes 2016-17 season discussion questions
We are going completely open-ended, so everyone can vent, glean positives or go whatever direction he/she chooses in letting go of the 2016-17 season.
1) What do you see as the most significant positives from the 2016-17 season?
2) What do you see as the biggest negatives from the 2016-17 season?
Go Canes!
Good* Team had some bad stretches but never quit. They are learning how to win close games. Younger players got some valuable big game experience. Overall talent level of team continues to increase.
Bad* Had trouble with coverage in our own zone and turn overs at both blue lines.
ugly* Goal tending if we got slightly above avg goal tending we would have made playoffs. Cam should be our back up and we need to find a #1.
Agreed. The young guys will only get better. The Future does look promising.
For Ugly, yes, with even average goalies we would have made the playoffs. The remainder of the team can pretty much compete with everyone else. We need a goalie upgrade big time. If we were to keep one I would suggest Lack, because he has more upside. Cam has been consistently where he is at for years. He has some sparkling saves but then can let in routine stops. He has been below average for years. I think Lack has a higher potential.
And from some earlier comments, please get us a new goalie coach. He has done absolutely nothing and made our goalies worse.
1. Very strong core of young players. The Canes and Toronto seem to have the most-gifted collection of young players. And while Matthews, Marner, and Nylander are great, I don’t know that I would trade youth with even Toronto. Aho, Lindholm, Slavin, Pesce, and Hannifin are the makings of a great team–and that doesn’t include Skinner who is only 24 nor the next wave that should produce 4-5 NHL regulars and 1-2 top players. (My guess for stars from this group in 3 or 4 years would be Fleury and Kuokkanen, but it could just as easily be Saarela and Roy, or Bean and Gauthier–or . . . you get my point.)
2. Slumps. To get to the top of the NHL the Canes must find a way to stop the 4-5 games with zero or one point. This year’s team proved it can compete with everyone in the league for month-long stretches. But the slumps quickly give back all the ground.
I agree need more consistency.
This should be considered a successful season that established a solid core of young players gaining valuable experience. It sets the stage for next year; we need RF and ownership to reward the fan base and deliver with a couple of big off-season moves that strengthens the team and addresses glaring weaknesses (we all know what these are). Given that the Canes have the lowest payroll and the youngest team in the league the 2016-17 season was a success. Time to open the wallet a bit to establish a very strong 2017-18 season, especially being in the super competitive Metro division.
Slavin for captain. Not Skinner. Know that wasn’t a question but just a side note. I had to learn when I was nine that just because I was the best player on a team I played on didn’t mean I should be captain. And I’d rank him third in the MVP this year behind Slavin and Lindholm. Elias played two way, physical, strong hockey. Skinner scored goals, a lot of them. An extremely good year. But he too often coasts to the bench, coasts on the defensive end, is not engaged. Probably still from the concussion history partially, but sometimes it makes me cringe. The lack of playoffs in Raleigh is getting exhausting. That said, the future looks very bright. A lot of excitement because Skinner is only 24 and an elite NHL goal scorer. Aho is a teenager and just scored 24 goals and one shy of 50 points. Lindholm broke out in an awesome way. Saarela looks legit. The defense has four young, still improving (at various stages) players already holding their own at the NHL level, plus Bean, McKeown, and Fleury, who has been very, very good in Charlotte this year, on the way. Not enough people are talking about Nic Roy. He’s one heck of a two way player and has put up ridiculous numbers in the Q the past two years. Plus, still probably another year out, Gauthier and Kuokkanen look like future scorers in the NHL as well. Let’s hope a couple of those outside the NHL make the leap and surprise us next year and these young players already on the roster can take another step. Because next year we need to get in.
Actually bwstanley stole some of my points. But I spent 3 hours in a car today, so thought a lot about Matt’s questions. Especially the “most excited to see” question. Several players bw mentioned should excite everyone: Roy’s points per game is among the top 6 in his league; Gauthier was tied for most goals on the Canadian junior team; Haydn Fleury has been leading the way in plus/minus all year for the Checkers and has only committed four penalties in 66 games, and as Jordan mentioned in his article Saarela appears to be special.
So I am most excited about the two or three players who convince the coaching staff they should be on the ice for the first game of 2017-18.
But more than that I am excited about the next 4-5 years. Earlier this year Canes and Coffee did a hypothetical lineup for 2018-19. While driving today I realized that the 2020-21 team could easily score 250 goals. I know all the caveats–a large number of the players haven’t even played in the NHL, the proven players might suffer injuries that would alter one or more careers, not all of the current players in the organization will still be employed by Carolina in 3 plus years.
That being said, I think the goals (the number for each player is in parentheses) are reasonable to slightly conservative. And some of the players not mentioned (i.e. Zykov, Wallmark, Smallman, Elynuik) might also make it in that time frame.
So here is my 202-/21 lineup that ends in the top 5 in scoring for the NHL with forward lines and defensive pairings.
Aho (30) Saarela (20) Lindholm (15)
Skinner (30) Roy (15) Gauthier (15)
Kuokkanen (15) Staal (18) Teraveinen (12)
Foegele (7) Rask (13) Nordstrom (10)
Slavin (10) Bean (6)
Pesce (8) Hanifin (8)
Faulk (15) Fleury (3)
I realize all the numbers are highly speculative, but not wildly unreasonable. While Saarela might never hit 20, Roy or Gauthier might. And Kuokkanen’s number might also be optimistic, but both Rask and Teraveinen are slightly low.
The beauty of this projection 3+ years down the road is that only Staal will be over 30. Skinner will still be in his prime. There have been no trades which shows that all the concern that the past two seasons have raised about scoring and the need for a big-time center mostly get answered. Of course there is also the possibility that Lindholm or Aho ends up playing center, which means center could end up being a real strength given the talent and depth.
Then considering the quantity of draft picks for this year, it is likely that another name or two is in the mix by 2020.
Now back to next year. If two rookie forwards make the team and one rookie defenseman and they proceed to be upgrades, then 94 points and a playoff spot seem highly likely.
That brings me back to the first poll question. Given the development of young talent on the roster (Aho and Teraveinen showing real promise, Pesce and Slavin avoiding a sophomore slump and actually proving to be rock solid) and the addition of Stempniak (with more value than his salary would indicate) the answer is that 2016-17 provided real progress for the organization as a whole.
My only concern is that the fan base will be hesitant to commit to the Canes. So my one hope is that something–whether a 10-game winning streak out of the gate, or a rookie scoring like crazy the first two weeks–unexpected happens that gets fans to turn out. Because if they do, the hockey in Raleigh is only going to improve for the foreseeable future.
I think there is a gradual element of fan commitment/return. We saw it for the game against Columbus on March 30. Attendance bumped up some when the game had playoff meaning.
But unfortunately, I think many will not return until the team returns to the playoffs.
I agree with many of the comments. I think 2016-17 was progress even if only another step. But I think Francis and Peters are officially on the clock for 2017-18. I am generally positive on both, but eventually it has to be about results not logically evaluating a plan. I think we are there now.
Most of my points have been made by others. I’ll only mention these specifically:
1/ With league-average goaltending, we make the playoffs. I just don’t know how that’s not the #1 learning. There can’t be any question that solving this problem should be RF’s #1 priority. And I’d advocate overspending if necessary to improve to far above league-average. Can you imagine how much better we’d have been with someone like Frederick Anderson in net? Or Cam Talbot? And he’s not even considered among the elites.
(As an aside, it looks like there are going to be far more options for upgrading this summer than there were last summer, and the price may not be as high. I’m taking the charitable view that RF saw this coming and kicked the can down the road a year because he’s taking the long-term view, and going status-quo in 2016 was worth deferring the decision until a viable, affordable, and longer-term option was available, which I’m betting will be this summer.)
2/ To me, though the team made a great deal of progress, there wasn’t any real rhythm to the season. In 2015-16, after the slow start and after we almost came back to beat Dallas in early December, we were extremely competitive almost every night up until the trade deadline. There were no real losing streaks; it was just a slow, persistent march forward in the standings which built the excitement over time. And it was really exciting to win again.
This season, on the other hand, was different. It started with higher expectations, and after the disappointing West Coast swing to open the season, it became unsettling early. It was a streaky season. Yes, we have that great home streak but it was only at home and we had the 13-game point streak but it was only after the playoffs were essentially out of reach. It seemed like we lost every “must-win” game which suppressed a lot of the hope.
Even though the team was better this year, in a weird way, I enjoyed the season before more. If we solve #1, with our talent and depth – and I think we’ll be deep – we’re going to be a tough out next year. I’m doing all I came to temper my expectations.