Though it is not deep yet, the Hurricanes have officially started the season by digging another hole to climb out of. The teams’ 4-5-3 mark through 12 games is two points out of a playoff spot (adjusting for games played by measuring points above/below .500) and finds the team tied for last in the Metropolitan Division.
I have said a few times that the time to muster desperation is before things are completely desperate, and I think that is where the Hurricanes sit right now.
After returning home from a two-game road trip with a four-game losing streak (does include two OTL points) and with two days off before the next game, all eyes are on General Manager Ron Francis and Head Coach Bill Peters to see what levers they pull to try to find a higher gear.
Considering options available to find a higher gear is the subject of the Monday Coffee Shop polls and discussion.
Carolina Hurricanes polls
Please remember to click ‘vote’ after each individual poll response.
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Carolina Hurricanes discussion questions
1) What current problem concerns you most right now?
2) What changes would you make to try to jump start the 2017-18 Hurricanes season?
Go Canes!
No synergy…no balls…no direction…little TALENT from the top (RF) …BP …ON DOWN!!!
Trade half the team…and start over PLEASE?
1. Power play (not) performing exactly the same for the last 2-3 years. The season is still young, the history of ineptitude with the man advantage is not. At some point there has to be a realization that change is necessary. Different personnel, new systems/coaching whatever. Do it.
2. Dramatic line changes. Skinner to first line maybe even with Aho as center. Rask to third line. Maybe Wallmark up from Charlotte for a couple of games at home to see if he’s ready and can fill a role. I don’t think a mass call-up is the answer and no trades are coming. It’s going to have to be figuring out how to get the most out of the limited overall talent on this team. They’re not as bad as their record, but the personnel is not being placed in the optimum position to succeed IMO.
We need a trade. At the NHL level, I would consider our untouchables to be Aho, Skinner, Staal, Lindy, Slavin, Pesce, Hanifin, Fleury and Darling. Everyone else should be available for hockey trades.
If this doesn’t work by the holidays, we will need a coaching change. BP is a great coach, but this team needs correcting. Whether Smith takes the next step, or we look towards a higher profile move like Dave Tippett, BP is officially on the hot seat.
At this point bringing up unproven NHL kids from Charlotte, no matter how well they are playing, is probably not the answer just yet. Those moves have been short-lived and we need savvy veterans added to this mix before we bring up more kids.
Look at what Ottawa just did. They gave up a surplus of goaltending, a 1st rounder and additional mid round pick (the rest came from Nashville) to get Duchene. They gave up one significant piece, Turris, to Nashville in the 3-way. When you net it out, this is an indirect hockey trade (Duchene for Turris) while adding a few picks. Nashville completed the rest.
It’s proof GMRF has to be creative and take some risks, versus waiting for the ideal one-for-one hockey trade. There is plenty of fish out there. If a trade for a veteran opens up another roster spot, then GMRF should call up a kid from Charlotte to backfill. I just wouldn’t rely on someone from the AHL to turn our season around.
Ottawa gave up a backup goalie, Turris, last years 1st round pick, this year’s 1st round pick(which has elevated value due to the draft class) and a 3rd rounder. That is a ton for a lateral move of Duchene. Stupid even. Nashville easily won the trade.
Both Ottawa and Nashville gave up a lot. Duchene is only signed for another year. Unless he signs long term, Ottawa put themselves in a deep hole past 2019. Duchene has more scoring upside than Turris, but I’m not convinced the price paid is worth it. The trade makes Nashville quite a bit stronger and probably easier to justify since they only gave up futures. I never thought I’d say Sakic could pull this kind of trade off. Kudos to him for ignoring all the screaming and waiting until he got what he wanted.
We do not have one player who I would consider a 1st line guy. Not one.
Matt Duchene (4g,6A) was not the answer. Not for the price they were asking from us.
We need to have a changing of the guard. Give the kids first and second line minutes. Let them try to develop into top line players.
Change PP personnel too.
Skinner,Lindy,Aho
TT,Rask,Zykov*
McGinn,Staal,Williams
Nordstrom,Kruger,Ryan
*call up
It would be difficult right now to point to one single thing as the ‘worst’ problem. There’s just too many of them at the moment. But if I had to choose, it’s probably the lack of any kind of cohesive structure to the power play. Both lines appear to have no clue as to what system to run once they’re in the zone. If they even make the zone. The only true consistent play that I’ve seen is this ridiculous backward pass to an approaching winger, while three of our players stand perfectly still at the blue line waiting. What usually occurs is that the single winger with the puck has to battle through two or three opposing players by himself to enter the zone. And out goes the puck. So I suppose the power play rises to the surface for me, as it really shines the magnifying glass on our offensive ineptitude.
2. What change(s) would I make? I guess the more pertinent way to put that question, is what changes are really out there, realistically, TO make. You could go nuclear and fire Peters. Would that help? Short term maybe. But we would still have the same players. Bring up some AHL talent? Again, we might get a short term bump of enthusiasm, which might result in a win or two… but that won’t last either. I think we need to think of this team as a business that’s not making a profit. What is usually the cause of this? The employees aren’t performing, the leaders of the company aren’t leading, there’s no experienced workers to teach new employees, the economy is bad (not applicable in this comparison), or the company is not staying current with the marketplace. So what would a company do if they’re tanking? The first obvious thing is to weed out the bad, underperforming employees, and hire new ones, usually one’s with better experience. And then the leaders need to work harder. Lead by example. And then you need to analyze your marketplace and figure out what needs to change, and then implement those changes. So using this comparison, the Hurricanes need to cut loose the bad employees who are underperforming. Then replace them with more experienced employees – even if you have to pay more to get them – you’ll benefit in the long run. Then the leaders have to lead by example, work harder, and those who don’t, get rid of them too. Like with my business during the recession, tough decisions had to be made. And if you wait too long… you’ll go out of business before you have a chance to save it.
I am so glad we have the front office we do right now. We have some panicky potential executives in our fanbase lol.
Winning requires building consistency. Clearly we haven’t done that yet. You know what else definitely WON’T do that? Blowing it up and starting over. No we need to tinker and manipulate because the actual talent is there. Sure Sebastian Aho hasn’t found his shot yet, and the defense has been underwhelming, but these people are still kids. Let’s treat them as such.
That said, I think Wallmark and Zykov have two skillsets that seem to be tailor-made for the holes in our lineup right now. Will they be everything we dreamed of? No, but we leave too many juicy rebounds just lying around to not give Zykov, at least, his shot to help clean up the mess in front of the net.
Also the Duchene trade perfectly illustrates why panic trading is a dumb move. Ottawa and Nashville both essentially traded the first three rounds of their 2018 draft AND prospects for Duchene (OTT) and Kyle Turris (NSH). That price is LUDICROUS!!! Given Ron’s draft record, I don’t see how any Caniac could rightly say that we would be better off in anything more than the 2017-18 season based off a trade like that. The team-building is slower, but it will be more effective.
Don’t get me wrong, if things stay where they are, there is certainly a trade coming for the Canes. I just hope its one not as ridiculously one-sided as that. Seriously I thought Sakic was on his way out the door, how did he pull off this thievery????
We can call it panic, but 8 years with no playoffs (soon to be 4 under this regime) with another slow start is continued proof we are a middle of the road team going nowhere. We just lost to the worst team in the league and have looked pathetic in other games, too.
Duchene may not have been the answer for Caniac Nation, but can’t take away the fact he is a 0.73 PPG player. Not even Skinner is that. I’d take a very fast center with savvy skill on a short-term contract to bridge the gap and help catapult a struggling offense. Until Necas is ready next year and Aho solidifies a top-two center role, why not bring in a short-term veteran who can boost scoring?
Good on Ottawa, they rid themselves of Turris, a player they didn’t want to overpay (0.60 PPG) and who plays soft. They also did not give up their farm to do so, and will probably be back in the playoffs. It was Nashville who overpaid IMO.
There are other players out there who can help the Canes. As goaliedad said above, bottom line is the employees are not performing and not enough of our leaders are leading. We need a few fresh faces to lead and teach some of the young employees how to become a winner.
Agree with fogger… blowing it up will just cause the same problems except we would be starting all over again. And Goaliedad, your business approach makes sense, except for the hiring and replacing with more experienced employees… the hockey talent pool is finite set with contract limitations which makes it harder to just “get and replace”. (not suggesting that you were saying it’s that easy, just pointing out it is a different reality).
1. Finishing concerns me. Not sure how to fix it or if it can be fixed, but finishing seems to be our main problem… we get chances but can’t finish.
2. Bring up Zykov and Wallmark.
To ptblespaul’s concern with finishing…It is a concern for me too. It’s not so much that the Hurricanes don’t have enough of it (I don’t think they do).
It’s more that they do not have enough players who have a ‘crash the crease’ mentality. Even for the best of snipers, beating NHL goalies is just hard. They are huge and quick, and the net is really small. Going in uncontested with a plan on a shootout yields only about 1 in 5 success. So trying to score with defensemen, from odd angles, with the puck rolling, etc. is just really hard.
The key even for skilled teams is getting players to go to the top of the crease with and without the puck. A significant percent of goals are the variety where the goalie just did not see it or it went off of a skate in front with an offensive player and also a defenseman there. Last I checked, this non-highlight reel goals count the same as the pretty ones, and the Hurricanes just do not get enough of them.
Surely, there is something for Peters to get ALL players to spend more time around the net, but it’s much easier to get that from a player like Valentin Zykov who does that out of ingrained habit versus a player like Teuvo Teravainen whose natural instinct is to float around looking for open ice for a receive/shoot scoring chance. Players like that must constantly remind themselves and be reminded to do something that does not come as naturally for them. They therefore just are not as consistent at doing it and are not as comfortable good at it once they get there, partly due to size strength but also just due to familiarity.
Agree with a lot of what fogger said. The start is not what I had hoped for but you can’t deny this team has a lot more talent than any of the recent past. Other than the past 2 games, the schedule has been difficult. That said, if we are as good as we thought we were before the season, we should expect to beat good teams.
My 2 biggest concerns are the power play ineptitude and the lack of willingness of players to get to the front of the net. Not sure what to do on power play except change up the personnel or get more net front presense.
Like the idea of calling up Wallmark, Zykov and Foegle to give them a chance. Best case they help with some of our issues, worst case they don’t but maybe light a fire under some of the guys they replaced.
If the lines don’t have a chemistry by now, it means they need to try new ones which BP did finally a little the other night in switching Skinner & Aho which resulted in a “one desperation goal at the end of the game” effort. I think the lines need to be adjusted more than they have been. I still think a good experiment would be Skins & Williams together as they showed good chemistry as TT & Staal have had good chemistry. Rask has basically disappeared so I would move him to left wing & less responsibility to see if it could open up his offensive ability. With that being said I would like to see these lines for a couple games:
Skins-Aho-Williams
TT-Staal-Lindy
Rask-Wallmark-Zykov
Nordstrom-Kruger-Ryan/McGinn/Jooris
When guys start losing their game minutes maybe it will jolt some urgency into the team.
*PP also needs serious adjustment maybe with coaching or maybe it’s the player combos but something needs to change.
Go Canes !!