Grade The Canes Draft Weekend

[Finlandia WOAT]

I never like grading drafts, or 'futures' for that matter.

Go back to these kind of threads, or any "Who will have the best [forward/defense/goaltending] corp in 5 years?", or any thread in the prospect boards.

It's a unending list of washouts and nobodies.

Hanifin will be good. The rest? It's dumb luck.

That said, Faulk and Rask both look good as NHL'ers. Rask gets underrated. Ron Francis deserves the benefit of the doubt for 2nd round, which is better than anything Rutherford could ever claim to have.

Wisniewski is, at best, a slight downgrade from Sekera. Shockingly, the defensive coach last year knew what he was doing. The defense wasn't a problem for the first time in forever. The goaltending and offense were. The offense can realistically improve, if only because everyone had down years, based on the inverse Madden Curse. Lack is good. Vancouver fans are crazy, but their anger at getting Lack for so little tells me how well he played in Vancouver.

Eric Staal is going to stay on as the 2nd line center behind whomever can eventually capture the 1st center spot. Stay tuned for the climatic battle between fellow Swedes Lindholm and Rask. Can J. Staal pull off the upset? It's only a matter of how much of a paycut he's willing to take.

Ward is gone unless he takes a large pay cut. Very large. He's 31, he may pull a Tim Gleason and sign 1 yr. deals from here on out with the 'Canes.

The 'Canes are moving on from E. Staal and Ward whether they want to or not. This is their last year (and it well could have been the previous season in actuality) that they will be the focus of the franchise. After this, it's a passing of the torch to J. Staal, Skinner and Faulk. IMO.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

I'm actually with Kev on this one. What exactly gives the impression that an Eric Staal-Cam Ward (current salaries equalling $15+ million) combo will suddenly yield even a modicum of success? I share the opinion that it's time to move on.

However, I do understand that for at least one of them (Staal) the reward will most likely be greatest at the '16 trade deadline.

Oh, I don't mind moving on from either. But I don't think it's going to be the end of the world if the Canes extend one or both, especially considering they should both take MUCH less than what they're currently making.

If Lack is as good as he's supposed to be, he'll be the starter and Ward the backup. And if that plays out, and we still "suck", I find it hard to believe the reason will be because Ward's on the team. And if he remains the starter, then it simply means that Lack wasn't able to outplay him for that role. And as the number of supposed "future starters" pile up that can't take the starter's role from Ward, a goalie clearly on the decline, one has to question whether they were "future starters" in the first place.

The Canes are in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation with regards to Staal. They'll suck with him on the team, because his inconsistency appears to be a character trait rather than anything that can be fixed, but they'll suck without him, because for all his faults, he will remain one of the more productive members on the team and that production isn't easy to replace. Throw in the wildcard of having his brother on the team and it's a difficult situation to manage correctly.

The wailing and gnashing of teeth over the lack of correct moves (or, at least, what some deem them to be) over the weekend seems premature, to say the least. A similar situation played last year, where some freaked out that the only moves Francis made was to acquire Malone, McClement and Gleason, claiming that RF was exactly like JR and dooming the team to another two decades of irrelevance.

But it's quite obvious that there is no "quick fix" for the Canes. It's not as simple as saying "Well, trade this guy, that guy and the other and we'll be back in the playoffs in no time." Francis is doing what he can to turn the team around with the options he has available to him. But he's made it quite clear that the plan is long-term, which is longer than some can handle.

 

[Sens1Canes2]

^BB I would agree with you re. Staal and taking "less" but around here everyone was saying "less" was about $7 million. That makes me vomit.

 

[DaveG]

I mean, ideally he and Jordan would make the same money, but would Eric accept getting paid less then Semin?

 

[Novacane]

^BB I would agree with you re. Staal and taking "less" but around here everyone was saying "less" was about $7 million. That makes me vomit.

Who are you referring to?

 

[Blueline Bomber]

^BB I would agree with you re. Staal and taking "less" but around here everyone was saying "less" was about $7 million. That makes me vomit.

I've come to accept it as an inevitability. In an NHL where other forwards are getting $11 million, ROR can get $7.5, and Dave Bolland can get $5 mill, Staal at $7 million isn't too much of a stretch.

Certainly, the lower, the better when it comes to his new contract, but $7 million from $9.5 is a pretty decent drop.

 

[Joe McGrath]

Sekera is going to get something like 6-6.5 million. I don't think 7 is a stretch for EStaal. Despite his deficiencies he's still the best forward on the team.

 

[What the Faulk]

$7 million is absolutely the going rate of a guy of Staal's caliber. He still has more 70 point seasons in him. This isn't 2008 anymore. Players are getting paid. Everyone would do cartwheels if they could get a guy like him for $7m in free agency I think.

 

[My Special Purpose]

Look, all I'm saying is that so far, Ron Francis has done the absolute least he could do to turn this thing around. He hasn't done anything stupid, and he hasn't done anything brilliant. We're essentially a year closer to the end of some bad contracts, without having signed any more of them. Granted, that's progress after JR. And maybe that's all he could do. I don't know. But I see others doing more in similar or even worse situations and I think we're a little quick to praise RF when all he's showed so far is that he's not a senile old man.

 

[the halleJOKEL]

who has done more in a similar or worse situation

 

[RodTheBawd]

Look, all I'm saying is that so far, Ron Francis has done the absolute least he could do to turn this thing around. He hasn't done anything stupid, and he hasn't done anything brilliant. We're essentially a year closer to the end of some bad contracts, without having signed any more of them. Granted, that's progress after JR. And maybe that's all he could do. I don't know. But I see others doing more in similar or even worse situations and I think we're a little quick to praise RF when all he's showed so far is that he's not a senile old man.

Bingo.

 

[What the Faulk]

I don't for the life of me understand how you can come to that conclusion that he "did the least he could do". He added a better backup (and possible future starter) and a top four defenseman for what amounts to $4 million next year and $3m the following. Hanifin could round out that top four this year, though he did fall into his lap. What else was he supposed to do. That was rhetorical because you've already made up your mind about this.

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

I don't for the life of me understand how you can come to that conclusion that he "did the least he could do". He added a better backup (and possible future starter) and a top four defenseman for what amounts to $4 million next year and $3m the following. Hanifin could round out that top four this year, though he did fall into his lap. What else was he supposed to do. That was rhetorical because you've already made up your mind about this.

he could've traded staal for the 13th overall pick, then traded ward and the 5th overall pick to calgary for a 4th round pick.

 

[RodTheBawd]

Yeah I don't really get what anyone disappointed was expecting. He's hamstrung by ****ty contracts and senile ownership. This is the most positive offseason I've seen in years, not sure where the naysayers are coming from.

 

[NotOpie]

Just gotta say Kev, we DID get a guy later in the draft that was very highly ranked most of the season in Nicolas Roy. Even in the THN draft preview they had him in their top 20, but said he needs to work on his skating. Heading into the year he was expected to be a top 15 pick. I realize he was in the 40s in most publications but he's an outstanding value pick at 96. Could be this years Rask pick for us.

Wiz isn't a world beater but he's still a good second pairing guy and all that cost us is the 66 and a 7th next year, no problem with that.

We still need to get Faulk some help, but that's what Wednesday-rest of this summer is for.

I just don't see the pessimism right now. We're a much better team now then we were heading in to the draft, and we quite literally gave up what can be best described as nothing to do it.

Won't disagree with you too much re: Staal and Ward. The question is what's the situation going to be with them long-term? I don't have a problem with us keeping Staal long-term... at something reasonable. That's going to be the issue with him.

Dave, I'm more with you on this than with Kev...I don't think it can be understated the benefit of signing Eddie Lack to the entire Cam Ward situation. Quite frankly, no matter what we thought of Dobby, he didn't really push Cam at all last year. By picking Lack up we get as good or better option at goalie to Anton, one who pushed his starter partner hard last year, and, most importantly, by doing so we take leverage away from Cam in his contract negotiations. It will be much easier to "walk" from Cam with Lack than with Dobby. Frankly, he never struck me as a #1.

 

[Sebastian Svechnikov]

Teams in the basement don't hang on to the aging stars. Eric Staal needs to be playing on a contender at this stage. Semin needs to be bought out. Jordan can stay if he wants, but he needs to be on board with the idea that we're going to be a bad team again next season regardless. We still have enough players to prop us up into the portion of the draft where we miss the stars and land solid players, but that's not good enough. We either need to get good or get bad and we're doing neither and this draft weekend was further confirmation of that concept. Yes, the Hanifin pick is huge. But 99% of Hurricanes fans pushed the button on that pick. It was an absolute no brain decision.

I just don't see how I am the only one seeing this. Teams that are crawling out of the basement with their feet on our head every time while we continue to stagnate with the same group. It's beyond frustrating at this point. It's bordering on apathy.

+1, this is the worst thing a franchise can do. If you're going to be bad for an extended period the best thing to do is blow the whole thing up and sell off most/all your valuable veteran pieces for young assets and also enable yourself to be at the top end of the draft where the real high end talent is. The patching of pot holes means the franchise will never truly sink to the bottom but also never be able to acquire the premium pieces in the draft that it takes to eventually be good enough to seriously compete for a Cup.

Of course with that said, I also understand that some of these veteran contracts the Canes possess are simply unmovable, making it more difficult to acquire assets via trade or to be bad enough to get the kind of draft position necessary to get elite talents. It's a very tough spot to be in and the only way to dig out of this is to continue to maximize the draft selections we do have and make shrewd free agent/trade moves. I have faith GMRF is doing a good job with this, so all hope is not lost.