Annual "Where will the Canes finish?" Poll

[Joe McGrath]

The same thing I say every year. Prove me wrong mother****ers.

First post in the thread not by BBA. I’d like to think they taped this post to the locker room door.

 

[NotOpie]

For the record, the optimist in me said, comfortably in the playoffs. I don't think that we're done yet and feel there's another move coming in the next month or so. I also think that Mrazek surprises.

One out of two ain't bad....

To be fair, at that date, none of us knew about Nino or McElhinney being Hurricanes. Still, even with hindsight, my mentality was that they had to prove it to me before I'd once again predict them making it. My vote was clearly wrong, but my comment accompanying it wasn't too far off.

Good call about the defense being able to move the puck, even if they do get caught in their own zone a bit too much. I also seem to remember some discussion and I'm not sure you were part of it @Boom Boom Apathy, around Svech and Necas and how many points they would get. A few of us said we'd expect/be happy if Svech had 35-40 points and Necas had 30-35 points....again one out of two ain't bad.

 

[Lucky Lindy]

I was wrong. Not sad about it.

 

[The Stranger]

1) Lowest cap hit in the league.
2) Losing Ward and bringing in Mrazek is a downgrade in net.
3) Swapping Ferland for Lindy downgrades the forward group and took away the 2nd best C on the team IMO.
4) Log-jam at RHD has not been addressed...expected F group upgrade from Faulk trade has not happened.
5) Inexperienced HC.
6) Rask shut-down long-term...I'm no Rask fan, but for a team that was terrible down the middle last season, they have now lost Lindy, Rask, and Ryan...and they didn't bring in single viable C.

I'm excited to see Necas and Svech...and Dougie is certainly a very nice player...Ferland will bring some thump...so they have some good things on the roster coming in. However, a bottom 5 forecast seems pretty obvious.

Edit: Also, yes...it's expected that Aho moves to C...obviously a great young player...he will be good...but I think the move will yield lower offensive production as he'll now have added defensive responsibility.

My forecast for the team was off by about 25 points.

1) Aho exceeded my expectations playing #1C.
2) RBA got more out of this roster than could be expected...he deserves a lot of credit (as does Dundon for hiring him).
3) Even though it wasn't optimal, they made it work with the big 3 RHD on the roster...all 3 played good minutes and contributed well.
4) Waddell deserves credit for making the McElhinney pickup and the big trade for Nino...pre-Nino this team was not going to make the playoffs.

It's been fun watching them this year...happy to be wrong.

 

[NotOpie]

Interesting and only somewhat related but of the 10 lowest cap teams in the league, 3 made the playoffs....including the team that spent the least . Probably don't want to point that out to Tom Dundon.

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

Interesting and only somewhat related but of the 10 lowest cap teams in the league, 3 made the playoffs....including the team that spent the least . Probably don't want to point that out to Tom Dundon.

Nah that sounds about right. 51.5% of teams in the league make the playoffs. 3 of the bottom 10 is 30%, which means it’s significantly harder to make it from the bottom 10. I think that number says exactly what you’d expect it to.

 

[GoldiFox]

Nah that sounds about right. 51.5% of teams in the league make the playoffs. 3 of the bottom 10 is 30%, which means it’s significantly harder to make it from the bottom 10. I think that number says exactly what you’d expect it to.

Also worth noting that the "bottom-10" in Cap spending were all ~$5 million to $16 million under the Cap while every team above that was less than $4 million under the Cap. There is not a normal distribution of spending. 70% of the teams in the league essentially spend to the Cap while 30% of the teams spend considerably under the Cap.

Cap teams (2/3 of league) = 62% chance of making Playoffs
"Budget" teams (1/3 of league) = 30% chance of making Playoffs

 

[WreckingCrew]

Nah that sounds about right. 51.5% of teams in the league make the playoffs. 3 of the bottom 10 is 30%, which means it’s significantly harder to make it from the bottom 10. I think that number says exactly what you’d expect it to.

Yea, and 7 of the top 10 made playoffs (70%), which means 6 of the "middle 11" did (54.5%). So teams that have gone "all-in" and are perennial contenders make it, those that don't are usually on the "past their prime" deals (see DET)...and a few teams that are emerging from rebuilds with lots of young players and ELCs make it, those that don't are usually in "full rebuild mode" (NYR/NJD/OTT)...and the rest are 50/50. I mean, logically that all makes sense.