Speculation: Are we legitimately cursed?

[Novacane]

I feel we’re cursed in that no one EVER plays above their talent level, even for only a single year. There are never any pleasant surprises. However, we DO get our share of players not meeting expectations. Why that is, who knows. Probably they just don’t feel any pressure or think “why do I have to do this”. I’ll chalk it up to being cursed though

 

[Ole Gil]

I'd say the things the franchise can't really control over the past 2 decades have mostly broken to the unlucky side.

 

[DougieSmash]

Yeah, i don't get the all 'we are cursed' when we ice up roster with McGinn, Foegele, Wallmark, Rask, PDG, Staal at second line, Bishop and etc. We need talent. We are not cursed, we deploy Rick Dudley and Don Waddell, man. We have rookie coach because he's hero for this franchise.

Let's add Kaako, Tarasenko, Couturier and Saad (just few names for example). That's much better than this joke we call ''the roster''.

 

[wolfofthesteppes]

Obviously yes.

 

[Ahoy there]

We have a culture of mediocrity. There is no identity, no certainty, no

I'll just stop. We're a mess. Instead of focusing on what really matters: GM, HC, roster... we're caring more about: sweater color on the road; whaler night; outdoor game.

 

[AD Skinner]

What is really sad to me is that I 100% believe that brind'amour and Williams really care about the hurricanes, the city/community around Raleigh, etc. Brind'amour especially I don't think wants his legacy to be "captain of fluke Stanley cup winner Hurricanes", he really wants the team to be relevant and the arena to be rocking again. His lack of strategy has been a real issue but he hasn't been given much in the way of pieces.

 

[HisIceness]

No doubt they both love the organization.

But again, nothing Rod did during his time as an assistant was evidence that he could become at worst a decent head coach. It's a profession thats not for everyone, just ask Wayne Gretzky how his time coaching the Coyotes went (hint, they made the playoffs 3 straight years after he left with just about the same roster). I know there's the "You don't know unless you try" mantra, but this was not a good time to try RBA as coach. Not when there's a 10 year playoff drought trying to be broken and fans are looking for something, anything, to be shown that better times are on the horizon.

Williams is an easier case as he can simply be shipped out as a rental at the deadline for (hopefully) something decent. Rod is going to be hearing boos and "Rod must go" chants pretty soon. And once he is either fired or step down we will all be saying that it was a mistake giving a former franchise legend this position, as most of us are already doing.

I don't think Rod can coach at all, even with a decent roster and frankly I don't want him to still be in a position to try. Cut bait at the end of the year with (hopfully) Hughes to draft and we can pretend Rod as coach never happened.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

And if Rod gets fired and finds another job and more success in another organization (as so many of our past coaches have done), will it still be "he can't coach at all"?

I'm not sure how many times that has to happen before we realize it's probably not the coach's fault.

 

[HisIceness]

I'm confident no one in the NHL is going to be interested in Rod Brind'Amour as a coach though, not even with our piss-poor roster.

I'll give you the other guys as they are getting more out of their much better talent they did here.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

I'm confident no one in the NHL is going to be interested in Rod Brind'Amour as a coach though, not even with our piss-poor roster.

I'll give you the other guys as they are getting more out of their much better talent they did here.

All I'm saying is that all we said last year was that the issue was Peters' system, and it was stifling the offense, and he was clearly not working out. Then he goes to Calgary and finds much more success with a better roster. Hell, even the players that went with him from Carolina to Calgary are finding more success in that same system.

So I'm supposed to believe that Rod's the issue here, when he's working with the same roster (actually, a worse one) that Peters couldn't find success with? Rod may be a bad head coach, but we certainly can't be sure of that if the only fault is that he can't polish this turd.

 

[DougieSmash]

And if Rod gets fired and finds another job and more success in another organization (as so many of our past coaches have done), will it still be "he can't coach at all"?

Just like Kirk Muller found a success, i guess

 

[FlyingSquirrels]

I should have given the nonsense of this past offseason a lot more credence than I did. Not speaking to anyone else about the HC...let alone a PROVEN winner. Giving the GM job to a guy that said previously he didn't want the job. Major redflags, I should've seen this train wreck coming.

Dundon really f***ed this up. A non-hockey person bought a team and became way too involved in running the thing way too soon. And I get it, it's his right to do so. But it was still a colossal mistake that we are paying a huge price for. For Gods sake, hire real hockey people and let them run this goddamn thing.... and hire a f***ing coach based on his resume and not the size of his paycheck.

 

[Moosetache]

you know, the more I read the facts at hand with an open mind, the more I actually think Dundon is trying to get the team relocated.

 

[Unsustainable]

PK sold his soul for a Cup, the price was this

 

[AD Skinner]

I still don't understand how dundon would benefit personally from relocating the team. I'm certainly no businessman but the only way I see that happening is I feel he's able to sell the team for way more than he bought it for, and that just isn't happening. The only place that wants an NHL team that badly would be Quebec and it seems unlikely they would have the capital to pay dundon and the relocation fee. Maybe dundon will hang out until he gets his cut of the Seattle expansion money and then bail, but I don't see how the team relocating plays into that at all.

 

[sheriff bart]

Long term cursed...of course. How else do you explain what has happened? The curse is horrendous management.

When a team hasn't made the playoffs in about a decade and has a new owner and empty offices for GM and HC, the exhaustive world wide search for front office and coaching talent turned up two guys down the hall to the left. Seriously? I love Brindy as much as any fan, but he's been in the room for how long and moving his chair was going to provide culture change?

 

[Lempo]

PK sold his soul for a Cup, the price was this

 

[CanesFanBudMan]

All I'm saying is that all we said last year was that the issue was Peters' system, and it was stifling the offense, and he was clearly not working out. Then he goes to Calgary and finds much more success with a better roster. Hell, even the players that went with him from Carolina to Calgary are finding more success in that same system.

So I'm supposed to believe that Rod's the issue here, when he's working with the same roster (actually, a worse one) that Peters couldn't find success with? Rod may be a bad head coach, but we certainly can't be sure of that if the only fault is that he can't polish this turd.

Rod has never had any coaching success at any level (other than maybe youth rec league - who knows). His only other professional coaching experience was assistant on the Canes as an assistant where it was rumored that he was in charge of the PP. The PP then was bad.

There is no reason to believe Rod has what it takes to be a NHL coach. I don't blame Rod, I blame Waddell/ Dundon for hiring someone with no positive track record (at any level).

I do agree that this team is talent deficient, but there is a particular type of coach that can do ok with a talent deficient roster (see Vegas 2017-2018).

My hope - despite all the evidence to the contrary is that all the boneheaded moves this team has done is due to a pre-meditated tank. Ok put your tin-foil hats on:

- Hire Rod as a plan to tank - if he works out and the team is good you look like a genius
- Hire Waddell purely as a figurehead/ scapegoat GM with plans to fire him at the end of the season. Waddell takes all the blame for the tank moves and a new (fully paid and legitimate) GM is hired and has full support of the fans.
- Trade Skinner because he's gone in a year anyway and with him on the team you are at worst finishing about 10th
- Calgary trade because Adam Fox (he really has to work out for there to be any silver lining to that trade)
- Hopefully the extent of the recent comments about losing money etc. is just a move to put pressure on arena upgrades. Weird flex, but ok

Tin hats off: in reality none of that is true and all of those moves were made based on cheapness/ incompetence.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

The PP was bad before Rod allegedly took over and it'll probably be bad long after he leaves.

That's another roster issue. When you need 10 talented players to have a successful PP and you've only got 4 (maybe 5) forwards and 2 defensemen that have any business being on the PP, then you're forced to improvise.

But hell, even when we had Eric Staal, Ray Whitney, Jussi Jokinen, etc, our PP was still shit most nights. It's part of the curse.

 

[AD Skinner]

Rod has never had any coaching success at any level (other than maybe youth rec league - who knows). His only other professional coaching experience was assistant on the Canes as an assistant where it was rumored that he was in charge of the PP. The PP then was bad.

There is no reason to believe Rod has what it takes to be a NHL coach. I don't blame Rod, I blame Waddell/ Dundon for hiring someone with no positive track record (at any level).

I do agree that this team is talent deficient, but there is a particular type of coach that can do ok with a talent deficient roster (see Vegas 2017-2018).

My hope - despite all the evidence to the contrary is that all the boneheaded moves this team has done is due to a pre-meditated tank. Ok put your tin-foil hats on:

- Hire Rod as a plan to tank - if he works out and the team is good you look like a genius
- Hire Waddell purely as a figurehead/ scapegoat GM with plans to fire him at the end of the season. Waddell takes all the blame for the tank moves and a new (fully paid and legitimate) GM is hired and has full support of the fans.
- Trade Skinner because he's gone in a year anyway and with him on the team you are at worst finishing about 10th
- Calgary trade because Adam Fox (he really has to work out for there to be any silver lining to that trade)
- Hopefully the extent of the recent comments about losing money etc. is just a move to put pressure on arena upgrades. Weird flex, but ok

Tin hats off: in reality none of that is true and all of those moves were made based on cheapness/ incompetence.

I'm with you- I don't think the plan was ever to compete this year. The rationale may have been that just by virtue of being different management has bought a year of goodwill, go ahead and tank now while people are still excited. Some fans will be driven away but they'll come back once the team is winning again.

Not saying I agree with that but that I can see it as being a possible strategy

 

[Joe McGrath]

The PP was bad before Rod allegedly took over and it'll probably be bad long after he leaves.

That's another roster issue. When you need 10 talented players to have a successful PP and you've only got 4 (maybe 5) forwards and 2 defensemen that have any business being on the PP, then you're forced to improvise.

But hell, even when we had Eric Staal, Ray Whitney, Jussi Jokinen, etc, our PP was still **** most nights. It's part of the curse.

The PP sucked dong in Hartford too. It’s what happens when you have a dogshit roster every f***ing year.

 

[Breakdowns]

We are cursed as Canes fans for sure. Lack of talent and real hockey minded management is not a curse, it's just poor judgment, lack of spending any money and being plain ignorant.

 

[AD Skinner]

The more I think about it the more I do think the plan was always to tank this year. dundon is spending a lot of money on renovating the arena- that's a one time cost. If he can't/doesn't want to spend money on that and the roster at the same time, go ahead and get the facilities taken care of so when you are trying throw money at free agent smith they don't reject you out of hand because they know already your amenities suck. Remember when dundon came on board last year and a player (I think it was darling) said something about now I don't have to order my own equipment or something to that effect? If everything was really that shoestring it might not have been possible to fix that foundation and try to compete and the same time.

Maybe this is rose colored BS but it's not impossible

 

[CandyCanes]

They definitely had intentions to compete this year. There’s no way Dundon is patient enough to purposely “tank”. He says it after every loss, losing makes his skin crawl.

Management 100% thought they would have a competitive team this year and they were also 100% delusional in thinking so.

 

[Stickpucker]

*Nordic voice*

We are cursed. Yah.

I'm convinced the only way to break it is to kill Ovechkin after he gets a hat trick against Scott Darling with a blade drenched in the blood of the great Anton.