Alright I slept on this and got over being personally offended that this is the culmination of 4 months of waiting and nostalgia build-up so here goes:
- Like quite a few of us........I felt we had quite a long time to let hype and good feelings build about this team between the March shutdown and now. This season was just packed with highlights and exceptional seasons from several players. Even some of the losses were kinda incredible (thinking of the almost comeback against Edmonton on NYE). It's easy to forget that this team was not a playoff team pretty consistently all year until February.
- Having said that, I am struggling to wrangle with the fact that we had 5-6 career years out of our players that we are likely not going to get repetitions of and we were still pretty bad this year and got bludgeoned in the playoffs against an (admittedly excellent) opponent. We are very likely not getting a better or same year from Panarin, Zibanejad, or Strome. I think Tony is very capable of the numbers he put up but it remains to be seen. Fox had one of the greatest rookie years from a Ranger I've seen in a long time. Dear god do I hope he can repeat it, cause we may need him to. We even had Shesterkin come in and win 10 games and lose 2 making it look easy. I'm a little disturbed at the several transcendent performances that resulted in us still being a mediocre to bad team especially considering we cannot reasonably expect a repeat of at least 3 of them.
- The Rangers were laughed off the ice in every capacity. Offensively. Defensively. Powerplay. Penalty Kill. I know Carolina's a good team, I have known they're a good, battle tested, ferocious forechecking group that you can basically only beat if they f*** up. I don't think any of this is a reasonable excuse to see 4 goals and a completely neutered top 6. Not one of them was good, in any capacity. Zibanejad and Panarin are obviously the worst cause of what we expected but Buch was a headless chicken all series, Strome is useless without Panarin being a Hart candidate, and Kreider better be f***ing hurt because he did absolute f*** all with his ability to skate and create space. None of these players deserve their own thoughts, they were all worthless.
- Our absolutely awful bottom 6 finally caught up to us, especially with Fast gone which basically necessitated another garbage AHL player taking a regular shift. McKegg should never see regular ice time. Ever. Brainless chicken that skates hard every now and then. PdG long, long overstayed his welcome on this roster and has done absolutely nothing of value since like his 1st game.
- I don't ever want to hear again about how Fast is overrated and kills offense (not that we ever will, probably). He could fight the entire Carolina unit on the ice for the puck and win it. Watching Panarin and especially f***ing Strome try to do that was embarrassing.
- Lemieux's insertion had an immediate impact likely because of the player he is and the fact that he displaced one of the many non-NHLers that are occupying the bottom 6 and I find that sad more than anything. My feelings on Lemieux wildly fluctuate because he is absolutely a useful player and when he's stirring shit up, he rocks.
- Chytil legit made me pull my hair out this "playoffs". He's moving, he's trying, but you could blink in his direction and he would lose the puck. I'm kind of at a loss at how it's so easy to displace him off of it. Obviously he's 20 and honestly I have a hard time remembering that pretty often, but f***ing hell
- Speaking of, I was thrilled to see Lemieux and Chytil take PK shifts. I think their skills allow them to succeed on the PK, particularly Lemieux, and I would really really love for them to take away the PK minutes Strome and Howden inexplicably get.
- Kakko was the best skater on the team and had 0 points. Sums it up nicely. He was an absolute treat to watch though, and I'm hyped as heck for his development.
- Not interested in the screeches of WHIPPING BOY!!! that are gonna come from this but I foam at the mouth when Brett Howden is on the ice. It's even worse than Glass. He gets 15 toi a night in all situations and he's inept at everything. I've seen on multiple occasions he just loses every puck and every battle which makes anything his linemates do useless. He has absolutely no agility or positional awareness. A truly horrendous player and I know he's just one player but players that coaches love for no good reasons get on my nerves way more than anything else.
- I'd love to say more about Gauthier but is it even worth it since he got like 20 TOI total? I'd love to talk about his size and physicality but it doesn't matter cause his intentions aren't whatever horse shit Howden does so whatever.
- Fox was ATROCIOUS in game 1 but rebounded nicely. He wasn't nearly as dynamic as I'd had hoped but it's not like any of our dipshit forwards helped his case. Lindgren was just ok. Not good or bad. Sometimes I forgot he was playing.
- Trouba was our best D all series. Smith had his moments too. He's stupid as hell but he has skill and he hustles. He's obviously not a top pair D but I think he's no doubt an NHL D.
- Don't get me started on Staal. Get rid of him by any means necessary. Yesterday.
- TDA was very clearly injured and it impacted his whole game so I'm not really mad at him.
- It's just so typical that that goofy f***face Skjei doesn't play good hockey for 3 straight years but he's Chris Pronger on the Hurricanes. My dislike for him just absolutely skyrocketed this series and I will be actively wishing he gets hammered every game we play against him.
- Shesterkin has a tangible effect on the team's performance. How or why? I don't know. But he does.
- The team, as a whole, was not prepared in any way. It was evident in everything. Skating, reaction time, intensity, positioning. I am not watching any other series because TBH I don't give a shit but I have a hard time believing there was a team as unprepared to play hockey as we were. I saw a ridiculous amount of "OH SHIT!" moments where the player makes that motion when they start skating that they were caught completely off guard by the entire team. I don't know who or what is responsible but it's extraordinarily noticable.
- This team's puck support is some of the worst in the league. Every player carrying the puck had at least two Canes draped on them. We couldn't dream of positioning and discipline like that. This team is ridiculously passive and they have been since AV's tenure. It's evident everywhere, giving a mile of gap on the PK and EVERY f***ING ZONE ENTRY, the unwillingness of D to pinch (seriously take a watch, the Hurricanes battle at the half boards for the puck in the D zone and the Rangers D are already in the f***ing neutral zone, it's maddening). This is absolutely a system issue and I hope it gets rectified with Ruff gone. I doubt it though.
All in all, this was a rough experience as a fan and as the team. It's a very rude awakening that our surge in Feb was probably a mirage and that there are many significant issues that have to be addressed. A competent bottom 6, a better 2C than Strome, at least 2 good LHD, at the least. Thankfully these aren't roster crippling issues and we have a lot of pieces to work with. I'm happy that Chytil, Kakko, Lindgren, Gauthier, and Fox got this experience but all of the veterans should be embarrassed at their performances besides Trouba. Definitely a little hurt that such a fun season is ending like this. Whatever.
12.5%!!!
