GDT: NAS-CAR: Get your Bacitracin ready, because we'll have road rash after this one.

[Anton Dubinchuk]

This is probably why you're not a coach. It's a long season and you've got to get everything you can out of these guys.

Points matter. 2 is better than 1, but 1 is better than 0, and it's a Western Conference opponent. Take your point, move on.

What you don’t understand, Navin, is that money does equal happiness and these guys have no emotions or personalities. You can simply abuse them like robots and they will always react in the most virtuous and good way possible.

 

[bleedgreen]

There’s no reason to blame any one skater. It’s not someone on d getting older or playing hurt, it’s not the fancy European dude playing with the puck too much. Our goaltending isn’t up to sniff overall. I don’t know what feed you guys watched but the espn plus group talked about the goaltending and one of them spoke anecdotally about a conversation they had with Rod where he said “if we can just get Raanta to close to the same level of the other guy, things generally do our way”. That’s as close as you’re going to get Rod to say something like “make a effing save”. I didn’t listen to what he said about Koochie but his whole tone there is generally about protecting the kid. There’s the Rod preference for vets imo, and with Koochie I think he’s been right.

I think last night was a really good game against an opponent that’s young, talented and has no fear. Their best forward is on a tear. Like Hank said we got a point, and let’s move on.

The only issue this team has compared to any team under Rod is goaltending. Period.

 

[AD Skinner]

To answer that tweeters question, it’s because raanta is by all accounts a good guy and darling is/was a jackass.

It is time though. Kochetkov has started working his way out of his funk and it’s not impossible raanta does too, but unless he’s been playing hurt he’s too old now to assume there’s much more tread on the tires

 

[chaz4hockey]

When someone is below the Darling Line, you cannot play them again

To answer the x guys’s question (x stuff not posting properly lately): because he is a good guy and been an excellent spot keeper for us?

I agree with you. The question is can they get a true difference maker at goal because if you are going to waste assets that should be the pathway?

There’s no reason to blame any one skater. It’s not someone on d getting older or playing hurt, it’s not the fancy European dude playing with the puck too much. Our goaltending isn’t up to sniff overall. I don’t know what feed you guys watched but the espn plus group talked about the goaltending and one of them spoke anecdotally about a conversation they had with Rod where he said “if we can just gt Raanta to close to the same level of the other guy, things generally do our way”. That’s as close as you’re going to get Rod to say something like “make a effing save”. I didn’t listen to what he said about Koochie but his whole tone there is generally about protecting the kid. There’s the Rod preference for vets imo, and with Koochie I think he’s been right.

I think last night was a really good game against an opponent that’s young, talented and has no fear. Their best forward is on a tear. Like Hank said we got a point, and let’s move on.

The only issue this team has compared to any team under Rod is goaltending. Period.

Good points.

Our 5x5 play has been good and ST are not bad this year (PK has improved since slow start). IMO, we are in first in Metro with decent goaltending/first in league with top goal tending

 

[bleedgreen]

I’ll add one thing here that goes into our long term conversation about whether or not we should be building Rod the team like he would. Nashville is a team he could be coaching. Especially if they still had Jeannot. Trenin, Sherwood, Sissons, Smith, O’reilly, Lauzon, Schenn. They’re truly a grind capable team while having a lot of young and hungry guys. Parsinen might not hit much but he plays Rod’s style. They’re all buying in. Jankowski. McCarron. They’re a lot like our 2018 team but with a sniper in Forsberg, and some of their grinders can score a bit.

I bet Rod loves Nashville as a team.

 

[Stickpucker]

I feel bad for Raanta.

Awesome, classy guy who has been good for us but it seems like his hips or groin are toast.

He already had a lot of wear on the tires and would wear down under load. It looks like his body needs a long rest but since we're only in December I'm not sure even a season off would be enough. He has played...10ish games this season?

It's a cliche that it's a young man's league...I wish father time wasn't such a .

 

[bleedgreen]

I feel bad for Raanta.

Awesome, classy guy who has been good for us but it seems like his hips or groin are toast.

He already had a lot of wear on the tires and would wear down under load. It looks like his body needs a long rest but since we're only in December I'm not sure even a season off would be enough. He has played...10ish games this season?

It's a cliche that it's a young man's league...I wish father time wasn't such a .

We are ruled by Tulsky’s equations imo, and every off season it’s brought to the forefront. We had a chance to change our goaltending, and every goalie out there gets assigned a value per the equation and then you factor assets if it’s via trade.

We quickly judged the market and decided the same guys were better than paying the price to get anything else. They’re both injury prone and getting older. We rolled the dice and lost this year. This just happens to be a huge year in our window though, it’s about the worst time for that to happen.

You’d think we’d take the equation with a grain of salt to make the most of this years team as we go but I doubt it. We’ll see if someone pops up available as we get closer to the deadline.

 

[Stickpucker]

Noesen and Drury continue their strong play.

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

We are ruled by Tulsky’s equations imo, and every off season it’s brought to the forefront. We had a chance to change our goaltending, and every goalie out there gets assigned a value per the equation and then you factor assets if it’s via trade.

We quickly judged the market and decided the same guys were better than paying the price to get anything else. They’re both injury prone and getting older. We rolled the dice and lost this year. This just happens to be a huge year in our window though, it’s about the worst time for that to happen.

You’d think we’d take the equation with a grain of salt to make the most of this years team as we go but I doubt it. We’ll see if someone pops up available as we get closer to the deadline.

We assign risk based on the projected length of the contract. We have found guys that have a good balance of risk of contract and production probability. We have pursued others but the other team(s) got him before we had a chance, wouldn’t be traded here, or were willing to surpass the risk threshold.

We could be stuck with Campbell or Grubauer. We pursued Grubauer since his trade from Washington. Washington didn’t want him in the metro and then Seattle made him an expansion pick. I would say we got lucky there.

Calgary gave Markstrom an extra year. Based on his last 2 seasons, we look good there too. Ullmark is the only 1 true miss. I don’t know if we pursued him.

the goalie situation has a lot more to do with the poor market the last 5 years than a formula. While we are having a bad year, we aren’t having bad year(s) while saddled with bad contracts too.

 

[Rick Davis]

I say toss this season and regroup in the summer and figure out our UFA and goaltending situations with a clear head. I don’t want to waste assets rolling the dice on some unnamed tender out there….just accept the fact that we screwed the pooch this last off season regarding the goaltender situation and move on.

 

[Svechhammer]

I say toss this season and regroup in the summer and figure out our UFA and goaltending situations with a clear head. I don’t want to waste assets rolling the dice on some unnamed tender out there….just accept the fact that we screwed the pooch this last off season regarding the goaltender situation and move on.

I mean at this point it's either get an upgrade in net, and realistically it needs to be done within the next 2 or 3 weeks, or we are going to continue bleeding points and fall far enough from the playoff race that the kind of goaltending we could pick up won't be enough to climb back into it.

It's tough to be in this spot, but we have the worst goaltending situation in the league, and without any help it is going to be our undoing. If we can't improve, we have to start thinking of next year.

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

I say toss this season and regroup in the summer and figure out our UFA and goaltending situations with a clear head. I don’t want to waste assets rolling the dice on some unnamed tender out there….just accept the fact that we screwed the pooch this last off season regarding the goaltender situation and move on.

Unfortunately the goalie market this offseason isn’t going to have any great improvements to our goalie situation

 

[chaz4hockey]

We are ruled by Tulsky’s equations imo, and every off season it’s brought to the forefront. We had a chance to change our goaltending, and every goalie out there gets assigned a value per the equation and then you factor assets if it’s via trade.

We quickly judged the market and decided the same guys were better than paying the price to get anything else. They’re both injury prone and getting older. We rolled the dice and lost this year. This just happens to be a huge year in our window though, it’s about the worst time for that to happen.

You’d think we’d take the equation with a grain of salt to make the most of this years team as we go but I doubt it. We’ll see if someone pops up available as we get closer to the deadline.

I hope that Tulsky’s statistical model gets an adjustment going forward (now has new data)

You don’t have to have the league’s best goalie to win the cup but it sure helps. Naturally, league worst goaltending provides no chance to win too.

Btw : some teams have been adept at drafting goaltending….Canes clearly have not.

 

[The Faulker 27]

At the end of the day they did gamble, given the injury history in goal and PK's inconsistencies but there's no way they could have predicted blood clots. That's just very unlucky. Unfortunately.

 

[Remparts666]

Noesen and Drury continue their strong play.

For noesen it seems to finally translate into increased TOI . Deserves to play 15+ min a night

 

[Bub]

I mean at this point it's either get an upgrade in net, and realistically it needs to be done within the next 2 or 3 weeks, or we are going to continue bleeding points and fall far enough from the playoff race that the kind of goaltending we could pick up won't be enough to climb back into it.

It's tough to be in this spot, but we have the worst goaltending situation in the league, and without any help it is going to be our undoing. If we can't improve, we have to start thinking of next year.

Yeah, maybe something gets hammered out over the roster freeze (20th-27th). You would think the team would want a more viable #3 option--at the very least--other than an untested Perets.

 

[Chrispy]

Unfortunately the goalie market this offseason isn’t going to have any great improvements to our goalie situation

It certainly isn't going to be significantly better than the in season market.

So you can either take a big swing on Markstrom or Gibson or make a band aid move with Mrazek or Driedger.

Will it be more expensive than in the off-season? Yes. But we haven't been in a position for a while where the move could be the difference in making the playoffs. That's where the team makes money, and that could be the difference for Dundon this year in pulling the trigger on a trade.

 

[MrazeksVengeance]

There’s no reason to blame any one skater. It’s not someone on d getting older or playing hurt, it’s not the fancy European dude playing with the puck too much. Our goaltending isn’t up to sniff overall. I don’t know what feed you guys watched but the espn plus group talked about the goaltending and one of them spoke anecdotally about a conversation they had with Rod where he said “if we can just get Raanta to close to the same level of the other guy, things generally do our way”. That’s as close as you’re going to get Rod to say something like “make a effing save”. I didn’t listen to what he said about Koochie but his whole tone there is generally about protecting the kid. There’s the Rod preference for vets imo, and with Koochie I think he’s been right.

I think last night was a really good game against an opponent that’s young, talented and has no fear. Their best forward is on a tear. Like Hank said we got a point, and let’s move on.

The only issue this team has compared to any team under Rod is goaltending. Period.

SIGN MRÁZEK.

 

[Rick Davis]

SIGN MRÁZEK.

Mragic makes the most sense to me as well since he knows the lay of the land here already. The Hawks and Canes have made mutually beneficial trades before so maybe something can be worked out that works for both teams…

 

[DaveG]

To answer that tweeters question, it’s because raanta is by all accounts a good guy and darling is/was a jackass.

It is time though. Kochetkov has started working his way out of his funk and it’s not impossible raanta does too, but unless he’s been playing hurt he’s too old now to assume there’s much more tread on the tires

additionally, before this season Raanta has 2 seasons worth of backup workload here where he was more than adequate and in some instances flat out good. Darling showed nothing here after showing up to training camp overweight and out of shape, not to mention the other issues including falling off the wagon. Rants has none of that going against him, his biggest problem is that he's just broken down at this point and the team has no 4th goalie that can be trusted to even give us the second game of back-to-back situations right now. We need to trade for said 4th goalie and at the least put Raanta on the IR for a bit while he recovers from whatever lower body mess he has going on. His lateral movement was... I mean shit we might as well have had me in net last night, you all saw it.

 

[chaz4hockey]

additionally, before this season Raanta has 2 seasons worth of backup workload here where he was more than adequate and in some instances flat out good. Darling showed nothing here after showing up to training camp overweight and out of shape, not to mention the other issues including falling off the wagon. Rants has none of that going against him, his biggest problem is that he's just broken down at this point and the team has no 4th goalie that can be trusted to even give us the second game of back-to-back situations right now. We need to trade for said 4th goalie and at the least put Raanta on the IR for a bit while he recovers from whatever lower body mess he has going on. His lateral movement was... I mean shit we might as well have had me in net last night, you all saw it.

Maybe Raanta would accept being in LTIR like what the Leafs, Vegas and Bolts have pulled

 

[Navin R Slavin]

What you don’t understand, Navin, that money does equal happiness and these guys have no emotions or personalities. You can simply abuse them like robots and they will always react in the most virtuous and good way possible.

I mean, they do have to suck it up sometimes, to be clear. I'm not 100% on the kiss-ass train. But it's a balance, and finding that balance is basically the coach's most important job in a world where the Xs and Os are all pretty much the same.

 

[DaveG]

We are ruled by Tulsky’s equations imo, and every off season it’s brought to the forefront. We had a chance to change our goaltending, and every goalie out there gets assigned a value per the equation and then you factor assets if it’s via trade.

We quickly judged the market and decided the same guys were better than paying the price to get anything else. They’re both injury prone and getting older. We rolled the dice and lost this year. This just happens to be a huge year in our window though, it’s about the worst time for that to happen.

You’d think we’d take the equation with a grain of salt to make the most of this years team as we go but I doubt it. We’ll see if someone pops up available as we get closer to the deadline.

Devil's advocate:

this wasn't the offseason to get something done on the goaltending front. Jarry and Andersen were the two big names on the UFA market, we made the right call there. It MAY have been the right call to bring in a guy like Ned as a UFA for the backup role (it's a move I advocated in fact) instead of rolling with Raanta again given his injury history.

The trade front is where there was room to get something done, but given that Helle was re-signed instead the asking price when the Devils were kicking around was likely something completely insane like Nemec or along those lines. Gibson has been reportedly "on the block" the past 3 years and never gets moved, probably a similar situation. The one move that I was in for that we reportedly had some talks about were making a move for Hart. Obviously nothing came of that.

Now? I think the best we can hope for is Mrazek (which I'd be fine with) for the rest of this season, and to re-evaluate trade options since this is a particularly weak class for UFA goalies even compared to last off-season. Talbot, Kahkonen, Mrazek, Samsonov, Nedeljkovic. We may have to hope that someone like Markstrom or Gibson shakes loose, or that Freddy is able to recover.

 

[Big Daddy Cane]

Perhaps Raanta’s not playing right now, if Andersen isn’t hurt. Through the Pens game last month, he was at 2.88 and .885, which is not horrible in this era. He leaves the next game (Edmonton) for precautionary reasons and it’s been really ugly since (4.75 and .805).

 

[Cardiac Jerks]

I say toss this season and regroup in the summer and figure out our UFA and goaltending situations with a clear head. I don’t want to waste assets rolling the dice on some unnamed tender out there….just accept the fact that we screwed the pooch this last off season regarding the goaltender situation and move on.

Rather interesting outlook wanting to write the season off 30 games in.

We have tons of assets with all the prospects we’ve drafted which also lessens the impact of trading away our future picks.

With all the expiring contracts coming up we might not even be as good as we currently are/could be before you know it. No way do we just give up.