GDT: Canes at Vegas

[zman77]

 

[zman77]

 

[The Faulker 27]

I picked a good weekend to miss games. I hope the Panthers bring a little sunshine to this day.

 

[dogbazinho]

On a positive note, that was cool what they did with the fans in Vegas. Sucks they didn't get a better show from the team but cool nonetheless.

 

[GoldiFox]

What would happen if the Canes popgun offense put their customary 40-50 shots against the Canes hapless goaltenders?

Could the Canes PK stop the Canes PP?

 

[The Faulker 27]

What would happen if the Canes popgun offense put their customary 40-50 shots against the Canes hapless goaltenders?

Could the Canes PK stop the Canes PP?

3-4 squeek by, no doubt about it. PK could definitely stop the PP.

PP stands for Perimeter Passing now.

 

[DougieSmash]

Brindy over Vellucci was mistake

 

[GoldiFox]

Brind’Amour is one of the only differentiators the Canes have. He needs to be supplemented though with some technical aptitude. Not sure what Daniels or Chynoweth are contributing but it isn’t currently apparent in the forwards, defense, PK, or PP.

My biggest gripe is still the PP. It has been terrible and the Canes needed to make some changes. I can only imagine the meeting on Friday night: “We really need some offense on the 1st PP unit... so of course let’s start with Williams, Staal, and Slavin”. Too predictable.

 

[Stickpucker]

Fells asleep at 0 2. God had mercy on my soul apparently.

 

[TheBigKahuna]

I turned it off immediately after the 3rd goal. There was no fight in that team last night.

Biggest question now is can the Canes get lucky in the draft lottery twice in a row?

 

[Negan4Coach]

What a disgusting effort. They really got their shit pushed in. How about laying a big hit or two? No, I guess its much more satisfying to let the other team blast you into the boards as well as on the scoreboard and just take it. I thought this team was supposed to be tougher this year.

 

[DougieSmash]

Brindy system is all about effort and nothing else. He may end up as a one of the worst coaches in the league.

 

[bleedgreen]

Flogging or inspirational speeches only work for awhile, it’s really hard to give 125% 82 times in a row.

We’ve at no point looked structured in our own end, and we hated the throw everything but the kitchen sink at the net offense when Mo did it but up till now for some reason love it under Brindy. I’ve never been a fan but you always support winning hockey.

All systems work when you have the right talent. We are pretty much exactly what most of us thought we were in the off season. Our good start allows us a brief period of meh, put it behind us and get back to work.

 

[VaCaps Fan]

Cold Virginia morning!

 

[Blueline Bomber]

Brindy system is all about effort and nothing else. He may end up as a one of the worst coaches in the league.

I wonder how long it's going to take before fans realize it's not the coach, it's the talent (or lack thereof) on the ice.

Peters goes to Calgary, takes Lindholm with him. Lindholm can suddenly score when put with other offensively minded players, and Calgary is top of the West. Skinner goes to Buffalo, unsurprisingly finds success beside Eichel.

This team traded two of the three offensively creative forwards from last year, and acquired a grinder and two defensemen in the process. Is it really a big surprise that a team that couldn't score last year still can't do so this year?

It's an abject failure of an offseason on Waddell's part. He failed to address either weakness from last year, which is why they're still around this year. It's a real shocker...

 

[The Faulker 27]

 

[Stickpucker]

 

[The Faulker 27]

At least we're not dead yet. We have that going for us.

 

[Finlandia WOAT]

They'll look bad against teams that work just as hard as they do, since all of them have better forwards amd better goalies.

They'll get the drop on structure and talent teams, which is part of what happened early in the year. Vegas snd Arizona are better and work just as hard.

The pp is 5 guys passing it around until one of them loses it. The 2nd unit is looking better because Hamilton os an all around threat, and the slavin rush can force the box to move. Its like rod hated being told how to play by some failed ahler, so he tries to avoid it. 1st unit doesn't even defer to a faulk bomb.

I don't know whats wrong with the pk, if its coaching or bad luck or what. Canes win in arizona if their special teams didnt suck.

Also for Arizona- unlike other games with vezina backups, i thought raanta really did make multiple great saves.

 

[bleedgreen]

Well we have a coach with zero head coaching experience. It’s gonna be sloppy and disorganized at times even if he’s good. It can work. He knows how to push the right buttons. It was always about can he apply x’s and o’s or at least defer to someone who can, and can he organize the chaos that it must be to run a show at this level. He never seemed like a guy who would want to do that, he wants to coach individual guys and make a difference with them. He’s the anti peters. Ideal would seem to be that you have one of each of those guys.

I was against Brindy being coach because of this, and because of the clown show our “search” for any position was this off season. Having said that he’s really impressed me at times, and I think he absolutely has a positive affect on the team. I think we’re gonna have to ride it out as he learns on the job

There’s no argument though, talent makes coaches look good or bad more than the coaching does. Fully agreed on the Lindy/Skinner comment above. BB’s post is spot on. What we needed most was a top 6 center and a goalie. What we did was pin our failures on Skinner’s “attitude”, say our top two young rfa’s didn’t want to win and wanted too much money and used those situations to fine tune an already solid defense and turn us into a grinder team when the rest of the league is going fast and skilled - while not fixing center or goalie. Our former players look great when playing with other skill guys in better situations. Our coach looks better with a more talented team. I’m happy for them all.

We needed more grit, we needed Ferland. A defenseman (plus Dehaan) at least at Slavin’s level was a big help. We needed to promote a guy like Foegele but yes it was easy to see in August where the current plan failed.

 

[My Special Purpose]

And of course it's not on darling when the team in front of him doesn't score, but how many games does he need to be below average before the team moves on? His body language is terrible- there's no way skaters on this team feel comfortable with him back there when every time he lets that first one in he completely falls apart. Mrazek and mcbackup aren't considerably better but the idea that they would rotate the 3 until a starter emerged doesn't look likely to happen to me. None of them are starter material.

I get that Darling has a well-deserved reputation after last season, but I literally saw *none* of this last night. I thought he looked solid and confident most of the night. He handled the puck behind the net and controlled rebounds well. The only goal I'd pin on him was the second. A goalie shouldn't get beat low when a shooter is not in position to lift the puck, but otherwise, I thought he was completely in control. If we were able to take this game completely out of the context of last season, I doubt if any reasonable person would have any issues with Darling's game last night.

Having said that, your conclusion is correct. None of our goalies are starter material. But to use last night's game to savage Darling is just plain wrong.

EDIT to expand on that a little, NHL average sv% was .912 last year and around .915 for the past few years. This season we've had 3 games where a hurricanes goalie hit that mark. Even if you lower the mark to .900 that gets you three extras. So in over half of the games so far this year the goaltending has been below average at best, no matter which goalie is out there. Not sure exactly what point I'm trying to make here other than the goaltending is trash, just like we all knew it would be

Going into last night's game, our even strength save percentage was 9th in the league. Yes, from the top. After giving up three ES goals last night, maybe that's changed a bit, but our overall save percentage is tanking because we can't kill a penalty.

But again, it's weird to get on the goaltending as an issue after a game in which we shot oh-for-34 offensively against a team that had given up more goals that we had coming into the game.

 

[AD Skinner]

I don't think my numbers took ES vs special teams into account, that's eye opening. What I meant by body language is after the first goal darling consistently slumps, puts his face on the ice, slams his stick, or some other show of frustration. And of course I'm not saying don't get frustrated, I'm saying this is an example of not having the mental toughness that gets your teammates to believe in you. And absolutely he isn't the one to blame for a loss when the skaters don't score a single point, but he still wasn't close to league average sv% either. If the brass was hoping he'd come back and play like a starting goalie, I think they're going to continue to be disappointed

 

[bleedgreen]

We’re a little spoiled after having Cam brush off goals for so long. He rarely showed any emotion.

 

[MinJaBen]

We’re a little spoiled after having Cam brush off goals for so long. He rarely showed any emotion.

Something something built up tolerance something something.

 

[The Faulker 27]

Something something built up tolerance something something.