Season Outlook: Carolina Hurricanes

[WTFMAN99]

HockeyIntangibles: Season Outlook: Carolina Hurricanes

Team Status: The Carolina Hurricanes are trying become a more competitive team. On paper they have looked like a good team the last few years but the organization has not been able to make the next step on the ice. This past summer saw some big changes to the team in attempt to shake up the group, hopefully resulting in a play off appearance...

Next up in my attempt to do a blog post a day as we make our way towards the season is the Carolina Hurricanes. I don't want to give up too much about the post as obviously I would love for you guys to read it and provide your feedback. I don't expect a lot of love given my take on the Hurricanes but I feel like honesty is always the best policy.

The Canes have another 1-2 big moves to come in the future it feels like just as a person on the outside looking in.

All this being said, I would love to get a steady stream of Carolina Hurricanes content on the blog. If someone on here is up for taking up the mantle feel free to shoot me a PM on here and we can discuss it more. Canes just seem like they are 1-2 moves off from doing something very special.

Click to read more...

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

I think your article isn’t far off from how my most of us feel. We have a new 1st time coach, will likely have 3 rookies in the lineup, questions at center and Darling/Mrazek in goal.

That said, if the rookies hit the ground running (as Nylander, Marner, Matthews did - not saying to the same level as those guys, just that they made significant contributions as rookies) and if either Aho or Necas can fill a C void, and Rask bounces back some, they could be competitive. Goaltending is still questionable, but the team did rid itself of some of the worst defensive players, vastly improved the defense on paper, and have the luxury of either trading Faulk or giving him a more sheltered role.

A lot of unknowns, but either a bottom 5 finish or squeaking into the playoffs wouldn’t surprise me. I don’t expect them to make the playoffs though, just that it won’t shock me.

 

[DaveG]

TBH a bottom 5 finish WOULD shock me with the only possibility of that being that both Darling and Mrazek shit the bed again. Honestly I can't even buy bottom 5 in the East when you look at the Canes roster and compare it to Detroit, Montreal, Ottawa, Islanders, and Rangers. Even with Buffalo's improvements we still have the better overall roster.
I mean comparing where the Canes are now to where they were the past couple years with the exception of in net there's not a ton of difference. Excellent D, better than average depth up front but a severe lack of top end scoring. Same problems we've had every single year of the Bill Peters era, and both the past 2 years we were nowhere near being a bottom 5 team. The only difference is we went from a steady but mediocre guy in Cam Ward paired with a dumpster fire to a guy that didn't play well following being traded... paired with a dumpster fire.

But overall this is honestly one of the better takes of our team outside the fanbase. You don't have guys in the entirely wrong positions (LWA) and it's well reasoned. I just disagree with your projected outcome in context of what else is out there in the league right now.

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

The way I look at it, the team didn’t even have a bottom 10 finish last year with league worst goaltending.

If you consider last year’s goaltending performance as a reasonable worst case for this year (it could theoretically always be worse, but I think it’s a reasonable assumption that it won’t be considerably so), the worst case for goaltending would have to happen, AND the rest of the roster would have to take a step back in order to finish bottom 5. I don’t see it.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

In the 41 games Darling played, the team won at a 66 point pace. In the 41 games Ward played, the team won at a 100 point pace.

In the end, the team ended up with 83 points which was only 10 points higher than a bottom five finish.

There are so many unknowns this year. Potentially 3-4 rookies in the line-up (Svech, Necas, Zykov and maybe Wallmark/Foegele) and who knows what impact they'll have first year. If Darling and Mrazek are worse than Darling and Ward were last year, the team could easily be worse. We have a new head coach. We've been relatively lucky on the injury front the past few years. etc...

I don't expect this team to be bottom 5, and I'm kind of excited to see what they can do with all the changes and young guys, but it wouldn't shock me at all if they struggled also. This is the first season in a long time where I don't really have a strong feeling on what the team will look like.

 

[A Star is Burns]

I have a hard time imagining things getting that far with Darling, or probably even Mrazek, if they are playing that badly this year. I don't know if they'd look for someone, or bring up Ned, but I think those guys are either better than last year, or something else done. Of course, if they bring in another option, that option may suck as well.

I expect both of them to be okay though. Probably nothing great, but okay.

 

[Discipline Daddy]

I am hoping that our new coach doesn't play such a corsi-friendly style of hockey, and tries to implement high percentage goal-scoring plays. I do think our system in the past several years focused on getting shots on net rather than quality looks, but then again it could be a lack of talent.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

I have a hard time imagining things getting that far with Darling, or probably even Mrazek, if they are playing that badly this year. I don't know if they'd look for someone, or bring up Ned, but I think those guys are either better than last year, or something else done. Of course, if they bring in another option, that option may suck as well.

I expect both of them to be okay though. Probably nothing great, but okay.

That's my expectation as well. I just won't be shocked if they are bad though.

 

[NotOpie]

That's my expectation as well. I just won't be shocked if they are bad though.

I'd be shocked if they're bad. I get the "new coach", "bunch of rookies", "some new guys", and "no proven 1C" stuff, but other than that....I'm optimistic.

 

[geehaad]

Sincere question: given how ruffled our feathers got with Last Word Army dude (ignoring that he created draft-day threads, since we were already ticked at him prior to that), what is the difference with this post/poster? Is "seagulling" excused because WTFMAN99 is a known poster outside this group?

 

[CandyCanes]

Sincere question: given how ruffled our feathers got with Last Word Army dude (ignoring that he created draft-day threads, since we were already ticked at him prior to that), what is the difference with this post/poster? Is "seagulling" excused because WTFMAN99 is a known poster outside this group?

No offense to WTFMAN99, but I kind of wondered that too. Everyone ripped apart LWA when they created separate thread on HFCanes, but this guy is getting a pass?

 

[GoldiFox]

Sincere question: given how ruffled our feathers got with Last Word Army dude (ignoring that he created draft-day threads, since we were already ticked at him prior to that), what is the difference with this post/poster? Is "seagulling" excused because WTFMAN99 is a known poster outside this group?

Whereas LWA was bad enough to rate ridicule, this blog is only bad enough to rate ignoring almost entirely (as the content is actually p bad) and instead addressing the ultimate conclusion of whether or not the Canes could end up as a bottom-5 team.

No other team’s fan is going to come in and drop a quality Canes article to HFCanes. I’m not sure why people do it. It seems maybe more helpful to do a “division matchups” and link their articles for the rest of the division? If they hook someone then it is 5x the clicks.

 

[Lempo]

Sincere question: given how ruffled our feathers got with Last Word Army dude (ignoring that he created draft-day threads, since we were already ticked at him prior to that), what is the difference with this post/poster? Is "seagulling" excused because WTFMAN99 is a known poster outside this group?

I was already looking to second the initial abuser in real "YEAH!" fashion whoever it was going to be, but then BBA dropped the ball and went all #hotboard and now I'm confuse.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

I think guys got "ripped" when they would join HF for the sole purpose of promoting their blogs and then have no other discussions on here, either about their article or elsewhere. LWA was the most blatant as he would carpet bomb us with articles and threads and not have any discussion about it. There was that teacher guy that joined a few months ago to post his article, said he's stick around for more discussion and we haven't heard from him again. WTFMAN99 is a long time poster on HF and instead of just dropping his article here, he actually asking if someone from our board would like to provide Hurricane content. The fact that I've also had interactions with him on HF in the past also plays a role for me.

Maybe it's splitting hairs, but that's how I see it. There have been other posters from our board that have posted links to their articles in the past and they haven't been "ripped" for it, even though the content of some of those articles hasn't always been high quality either.

 

[SaskCanesFan]

Sincere question: given how ruffled our feathers got with Last Word Army dude (ignoring that he created draft-day threads, since we were already ticked at him prior to that), what is the difference with this post/poster? Is "seagulling" excused because WTFMAN99 is a known poster outside this group?

Yeah I was wondering the same thing, thought I'd wait a day and be hopeful that he'd come back to reply to some of the posts and questions about the article. To me, that's much better than just dropping an article and never coming back.

 

[geehaad]

WTFMAN99 is a long time poster on HF and instead of just dropping his article here, he actually asking if someone from our board would like to provide Hurricane content. The fact that I've also had interactions with him on HF in the past also plays a role for me.

That seems legit to me.

It will be interesting to see if he comes back to engage in discussion.

 

[HisIceness]

1. Goaltending. I'm not confident in it but hoping for the best.

2. Goalscoring. I don't think it will be as bad as some think, but we're definitely thin in this department.

3. Coaching. A big question mark to be blunt.

Other than that we're in great shape, I think.