- Jan 15, 2021
- 4,361
- 12,276
Injury Report: Slavin out indefinitely with a Lower Body Injury
- Thread starter Svechhammer
- Start date
HisIceness
This is Hurricanes Hockey
How f***ing nasty is our defense if he’s our 7th defenseman?
And Scott Morrow hasn't played yet!
Not to mention the connected benefit of Chatfield or others playing up and getting additional experience.
LakeLivin
Armchair Quarterback
I'm not sure of the breakdown between coaching, system, or the peer pressure of playing alongside defensemen like Slavin and Pesce, but it sure seems like we've had several D-men that rose to another level after coming to the Canes. Skjei springs to mind, and now Chatfield. Although he didn't come in new, I thought Justin Faulk was another one that rose to another level his last year in Raleigh.
[Starting in 2014 when I first started closely following the Canes I was one of Faulks biggest critics due to what I perceived as defensive deficiencies, a lack of toughness, and an unacceptable overall lack of effort. My take was that he might have come into the organization as a "Golden Child" and fell victim to that personification. But his last year here he looked like a different player to me, and I wouldn't have minded keeping him if a reasonable contract could have been worked out.]
[Starting in 2014 when I first started closely following the Canes I was one of Faulks biggest critics due to what I perceived as defensive deficiencies, a lack of toughness, and an unacceptable overall lack of effort. My take was that he might have come into the organization as a "Golden Child" and fell victim to that personification. But his last year here he looked like a different player to me, and I wouldn't have minded keeping him if a reasonable contract could have been worked out.]
tarheelhockey
Offside Review Specialist
I think it's a system thing. Our forecheck and backcheck game reduces space quickly, forces quick decisions, and most opponents end up putting the puck toward an obvious place. As a defenseman it really helps when the next move is predictable, so it's a benefit to those guys to be able to sit back and watch the play develop in a contained manner. It's rare that you see a team really put the Canes back on their heels on the breakout. Jersey is probably the only team that's done it consistently across the course of a whole game. And when a team can't find space coming through the neutral zone, they resort to dumping it in, which the Canes handle pretty well.
The common element with guys like Faulk, Skjei, Chatfield is that they tended to play an uncontrolled game, running around to take unnecessary risks. Chatfield earlier this season was a great example, the way he would run around in try-hard mode and end up embarrassing himself... we saw a lot of that from 2010s Canes defensemen. But once he learned the system, he settled in to identifying the correct area of responsibility, attacking it in a controlled manner, and relying on his teammates to cover back. Suddenly he's much more effective even though his skills are basically unchanged. Skjei went through something really similar over the past year.
Hope so, too. Although he's earned a little break to recover from whatever it is for sure.
AD Skinner
Registered User
Mmmmm that’s a little troublesome. I guess it was wishful thinking but I was really figuring they were just going to shut him down through the all star break in an abundance of caution and he’d be good to go afterward
