What's your Goaltending for next year?

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Justshootmore

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Mar 13, 2018
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I would keep Ward as a back up. We know what we can expect from him and I think he can be a good back up. Having 2 new goalies next season could go terribly wrong.

I don't have any hope for Darling to be a solid starter anytime soon. So buy out Darling and sign Raanta would be a good move in my eyes.
 

tarheelhockey

Offside Review Specialist
Feb 12, 2010
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At this point I think we’re going to have to make a trade. Real #1s rarely get cut completely loose to UFA, and we are at a point that continuing to play lotto tickets is no longer an acceptable solution.

Find a rebuilding team, trade your least favorite of our defensemen. Rip off the band aid and move forward.
 

Boom Boom Apathy

I am the Professor. Deal with it!
Sep 6, 2006
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Fire Peters. Change the defensive system to one that doesn't lead to so many odd man rushes. Trade Faulk for something. Buyout Darling. Target Dell, Raanta, or Grubauer for a trade/signing.

A few things that stand out to me with how our defense plays. These are just observations and not necessarily all problems or bad things:

1) Always tight gaps and aggressive pinches. While that helps maintain possession and makes it hard for the other team to get any flow, it leaves precious little room for error (thus the odd man rushes). Bruins had more than a few last night but also had a stretch in the 2nd where they went a long time with only 1-2 shots. It works both ways.

2) They hold onto the puck a long time when trying to come up the ice out of their zone. Whether it is a guy skating with it, or passing it D-D until the forwards clear the zone, there is way too many times where the forwards are left standing in the neutral zone which kills any flow and then ends up as a dump and chase. Unless it's a Slavin stretch pass to Aho, the Canes rarely get a breakaway or odd man rush these days, except for situations like the PK last night. Maybe that's on the forwards as well where it seems only a few (Aho for one) are able to circle back to maintain momentum rather than do like others where they get to the blue line and stop.

3) They aggressively join the rush, sometimes before the team even has good possession. Then there's a turn-over and an odd man rush. I'm not suggesting the D shouldn't join the rush and it's easy to second guess when it goes bad, just sometimes the decisions seem off.

If the defense was contributing a ton of offense by playing this way, that would be one thing, but the team, IMO, is under-achieving in this regard based on the talent the have.
 

MinJaBen

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Dec 14, 2015
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A few things that stand out to me with how our defense plays. These are just observations and not necessarily all problems or bad things:

1) Always tight gaps and aggressive pinches. While that helps maintain possession and makes it hard for the other team to get any flow, it leaves precious little room for error (thus the odd man rushes). Bruins had more than a few last night but also had a stretch in the 2nd where they went a long time with only 1-2 shots. It works both ways.

2) They hold onto the puck a long time when trying to come up the ice out of their zone. Whether it is a guy skating with it, or passing it D-D until the forwards clear the zone, there is way too many times where the forwards are left standing in the neutral zone which kills any flow and then ends up as a dump and chase. Unless it's a Slavin stretch pass to Aho, the Canes rarely get a breakaway or odd man rush these days, except for situations like the PK last night. Maybe that's on the forwards as well where it seems only a few (Aho for one) are able to circle back to maintain momentum rather than do like others where they get to the blue line and stop.

3) They aggressively join the rush, sometimes before the team even has good possession. Then there's a turn-over and an odd man rush. I'm not suggesting the D shouldn't join the rush and it's easy to second guess when it goes bad, just sometimes the decisions seem off.

If the defense was contributing a ton of offense by playing this way, that would be one thing, but the team, IMO, is under-achieving in this regard based on the talent the have.

Yeah, I'm not smart enough to be able to pinpoint exactly what is the problem with our system (and I'm not sure anyone on the club is either given that it is not getting fixed) but at some point you have to ask the question: is our system contributing to the poor play? I think it is. And as you said, it is a double edged sword with the way they play both limiting the opponents possession while also leading to some errors that result in odd man rushes. This is where I hope someone asks the question: is possession all it is cracked up to be? Do low opposing possession numbers with much higher probabilities of success (high danger chances) give our team a better chance at winning than if the other team has more possession but lower success with that possession? I don't know what the analytics people would conclude, but looking at our own three year data point, I'd have to say the strategy we've been using not.
 

Svechhammer

THIS is hockey?
Jun 8, 2017
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A few things that stand out to me with how our defense plays. These are just observations and not necessarily all problems or bad things:

1) Always tight gaps and aggressive pinches. While that helps maintain possession and makes it hard for the other team to get any flow, it leaves precious little room for error (thus the odd man rushes). Bruins had more than a few last night but also had a stretch in the 2nd where they went a long time with only 1-2 shots. It works both ways.

2) They hold onto the puck a long time when trying to come up the ice out of their zone. Whether it is a guy skating with it, or passing it D-D until the forwards clear the zone, there is way too many times where the forwards are left standing in the neutral zone which kills any flow and then ends up as a dump and chase. Unless it's a Slavin stretch pass to Aho, the Canes rarely get a breakaway or odd man rush these days, except for situations like the PK last night. Maybe that's on the forwards as well where it seems only a few (Aho for one) are able to circle back to maintain momentum rather than do like others where they get to the blue line and stop.

3) They aggressively join the rush, sometimes before the team even has good possession. Then there's a turn-over and an odd man rush. I'm not suggesting the D shouldn't join the rush and it's easy to second guess when it goes bad, just sometimes the decisions seem off.

If the defense was contributing a ton of offense by playing this way, that would be one thing, but the team, IMO, is under-achieving in this regard based on the talent the have.
I wonder how much of these issues are caused by the complete lack of offense up front and a more than questionable goaltending situation behind them? Feels like they're pressed to do too much sometimes, and it allows some of the little things to show cracks which allows to opposing goals because Ward isn't 2006 or 2009 Ward anymore, and a cruise ship could fit through the gaps in Darling's coverage.
 

Svechhammer

THIS is hockey?
Jun 8, 2017
23,436
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FA goalie list looks like a pile of trash. Anyone worthwhile will have to be traded for, and it wont be cheap. idc though look where goalie bargain bin shopping has gotten us so far.
We're no longer in a position to b & m about the high cost of goaltending. Our situation is complete trash to the point where its a (the?) main factor into us possibly picking Top 10 and us being in the playoffs in one of the tougher divisions in the league.

Whatever the price that needs to be paid for a legitimate quality #1 goalie, if he's available, its worth it to this franchise.
 

Boom Boom Apathy

I am the Professor. Deal with it!
Sep 6, 2006
48,174
97,102
Yeah, I'm not smart enough to be able to pinpoint exactly what is the problem with our system

Oh, I'm not either, nor am I smart enough to say "it's a problem". I'm just making observations of what I see from them. I do think it is a system that leads to much better possession numbers but has less room for error when things aren't executed with precision and I'm not sure it is conducive to generating offense / good scoring chances, but how much of that is the system vs. lack of talent? No idea.
 

MinJaBen

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Oh, I'm not either, nor am I smart enough to say "it's a problem".
That's bull. You can't look at the product on the ice and see there is a problem? I know you can. Neither of us are physicians either, but we both can probably diagnose a compound fracture as a medical problem even if neither of us are competent to fix it.
 
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