Around the League | No lead is safe in Round 2!

[Bojack Horvatman]

For privacy's sake let's call him Mitch M. No that's too obvious. Let's say M Marner

 

[platotld]

Rod The Bod

All part of the plan for Rod The Bod to move to TO and coach the leafs to 4-0 losses.

 

[Bubbles]

My money is on Rod The Bod being done in Carolina once they get knocked out.

Wonder if the Leafs wait alittle to see if it happens.

Pretty much he's a lock to be Seattle's coach. Francis is his old buddy.

 

[StreetHawk]

Pretty much he's a lock to be Seattle's coach. Francis is his old buddy.

Legit possibility. But, that's a massive move for him & family given he's been in the East since he was moved to Philly back in the 90's. He's from BC so his family may be close by.

 

[MS]

Legit possibility. But, that's a massive move for him & family given he's been in the East since he was moved to Philly back in the 90's. He's from BC so his family may be close by.

He has a lot more connections to the PNW than he does to Toronto, which isn't exactly close to Carolina.

 

[Vector]

Pretty much he's a lock to be Seattle's coach. Francis is his old buddy.

From the interviews I've seen, they don't actually appear to see eye-to-eye on hockey related matters. It still may work out this way but I don't think it's a lock.

 

[Bubbles]

From the interviews I've seen, they don't actually appear to see eye-to-eye on hockey related matters. It still may work out this way but I don't think it's a lock.

It depends if this is all leverage for brindamour, as he has said numerous times he's super close to re-signing. I don't see him going to Toronto because he doesn't want meddling with assistant coaches.

 

[Vector]

It depends if this is all leverage for brindamour, as he has said numerous times he's super close to re-signing. I don't see him going to Toronto because he doesn't want meddling with assistant coaches.

I mostly chalk this up to main criticism of the Hurricanes being stubborn in doing everything their specific way. From what I can tell, he wants to stay and have full control and security for his assistant coaches.

Vacant:
Devils
Sharks
Kraken
Maple Leafs
Jets

Interim:
Kings (Hiller)

 

[Chairman Maouth]

Laraque said the same thing. Boogaard reported failed many drug tests and was allowed to play. Pain killers are probably a bigger problem in the NHL but for AHL players? What would they do to get an NHL opportunity?

Painkillers are not a performance-enhancing drug. If anything, they hinder performance.

 

[mathonwy]

Marner has a professional immaturity issue.

The fact that he compared himself to a god is really massive warning sign to anyone looking to add him to their roster.

Thats the sign of an ego that is outta control and adding him to your locker room is not gonna result in anything good to happen that's for sure.

 

[vancityluongo]

idk, if anything i think carolina being down 3-0 in ridiculously close games determined off of a bounce or two validates their approach, which is a version of the gillis perpetual window theory.

they added the best player available at the deadline for a reasonable price, and are about to get bounced a round earlier than last year. would adding lindholm or monahan or whoever have changed the course here? maybe. but hockey is an inherently random sport and sometimes the bounces just won't go, or you'll run into a ridiculously hot goalie, or the powerplay that clicked all season just suddenly goes cold... or in there case, all of the above. and that really doesn't have to do with their overall process of team building. sometimes this shit just happens.

now, don't get me wrong, i do think when there's an opportunity to go all-in, teams *should* be hyper aggressive because a 29th-32nd overall pick just isn't that big of a price to pay long term for a player that could be the difference in a playoff series. but they did that.

it'd be a mistake imo for them to walk away from rba or to significantly change their core vs trying to run it back and make some tweaks for next season. this isn't the leafs where you've had nearly a decade with no results and there appear to be real issues with the core construction of the roster.

 

[Jerry the great]

Marner has a professional immaturity issue.

The fact that he compared himself to a god is really massive warning sign to anyone looking to add him to their roster.

Thats the sign of an ego that is outta control and adding him to your locker room is not gonna result in anything good to happen that's for sure.

yeah, that was a stupid thing to say though it isn't untrue for the most part. the core four have been treated like/viewed as royalty for almost a decade. when they got Matthews, Stanley Cups were viewed as a when and how many, not a maybe. And in Marner's case, he's been Toronto hockey royalty for ~ half his life; getting drafted by Toronto was probably not good for him. that long in an echo chamber where all you hear is how great you are isn't going to keep your ego in check. Getting traded would probably be good for him. You can't help but wonder what he'd be like as a player if he'd been drafted by Boston and had Chara, Bergeron and Marchand to keep his ego in check.

 

[timw33]

idk, if anything i think carolina being down 3-0 in ridiculously close games determined off of a bounce or two validates their approach, which is a version of the gillis perpetual window theory.

they added the best player available at the deadline for a reasonable price, and are about to get bounced a round earlier than last year. would adding lindholm or monahan or whoever have changed the course here? maybe. but hockey is an inherently random sport and sometimes the bounces just won't go, or you'll run into a ridiculously hot goalie, or the powerplay that clicked all season just suddenly goes cold... or in there case, all of the above. and that really doesn't have to do with their overall process of team building. sometimes this shit just happens.

now, don't get me wrong, i do think when there's an opportunity to go all-in, teams *should* be hyper aggressive because a 29th-32nd overall pick just isn't that big of a price to pay long term for a player that could be the difference in a playoff series. but they did that.

it'd be a mistake imo for them to walk away from rba or to significantly change their core vs trying to run it back and make some tweaks for next season. this isn't the leafs where you've had nearly a decade with no results and there appear to be real issues with the core construction of the roster.

Canes just need to keep cranking away at it until they break through, similar to the Washington Capitals who would win a round or two but couldn't get over the hump...until they did.

 

[vancityluongo]

Canes just need to keep cranking away at it until they break through, similar to the Washington Capitals who would win a round or two but couldn't get over the hump...until they did.

yeah, same thing with the rangers, who are looking like the 2018 capitals right now. everything is shaping up for them at the right time. and they didn't really do anything specific this season, despite being "a piece or two" away for what feels like the better part of the last 15 years dating back to the lundqvist days.

 

[credulous]

Canes just need to keep cranking away at it until they break through, similar to the Washington Capitals who would win a round or two but couldn't get over the hump...until they did.

canes are running a marathon not a sprint. they're setup to be competitive for as long as they keep being patient and smart

 

[MS]

canes are running a marathon not a sprint. they're setup to be competitive for as long as they keep being patient and smart

Their literal entire defense is UFA either this summer or next. They're going to have some big issues there.

 

[timw33]

Their literal entire defense is UFA either this summer or next. They're going to have some big issues there.

Yeah right now they are banking pretty hard on Scott Morrow and Alexander Nikishin being impact players over the next couple of years.

 

[MS]

Canes just need to keep cranking away at it until they break through, similar to the Washington Capitals who would win a round or two but couldn't get over the hump...until they did.

I was of this mindset for a long time but this year has kind of changed my mind as I watch the same movie for like the 5th year in a row.

I think there is a bit of a fundamental problem there with getting that system to win in the playoffs. Their high-possession, high-volume, low-shot quality approach wins games in the regular season when you're playing non-playoff teams and mediocre goaltending but in the playoffs eventually you are always going to run into a good team with a Vezina-level goalie.

And every year the same thing seems to happen. Once they get a good team with a good goalie (Boston, TB, Bobrovsky in Florida on a heater last year, NYR with Shesterkin twice now) those bad goalies simply do not allow goals on low-percentage shots/plays and drop a .940 as Carolina scores 1.5 goals/game and get eliminated.

Washington had some big-time X-factor players and a Vezina-winning goalie and those things came together. Carolina just doesn't have gamebreakers and never seem to have good goaltending.

 

[credulous]

Yeah right now they are banking pretty hard on Scott Morrow and Alexander Nikishin being impact players over the next couple of years.

it won't be that hard for them to replace skjei and pesce imo. slavin and chatfield (his value at 760k not necessarily his play) will be tougher but they have options

 

[StreetHawk]

Washington had some big-time X-factor players and a Vezina-winning goalie and those things came together. Carolina just doesn't have gamebreakers and never seem to have good goaltending.

Wash had elite talent. But both had their Goalie play Elite in their run.
Blues played a different style than Carolina, big and heavy like LA did when they won.

Carolina needs someone to play elite in the playoffs.

 

[MS]

Wash had elite talent. But both had their Goalie play Elite in their run.
Blues played a different style than Carolina, big and heavy like LA did when they won.

Carolina needs someone to play elite in the playoffs.

The common denominators amongst Cup winners tend to be that they have either elite superstar players putting the team on their back or they have absolutely elite goaltending, or both.

Carolina doesn't really have any stars and they have consistently average/mediocre goaltending.

St. Louis are probably the closest thing but they had Binnington go nuclear out of nowhere.

 

[God]

ngl it always felt like carolina was trying to "game" the analytics with the way they played... posting super high CF%/xG%/etc to try and trick other teams into taking their players. but then i realized they were serious about it.

 

[Britton]

It's really interesting to see Carolina having these issues because from a Canucks perspective and a coaching perspective we are the complete opposite of them. Tocchet straight up says we don't want to waste shots or take bad shots, while they literally throw everything they can to the net, but when you look at HDCF we are almost equal. They had 1000 more shots this season but the HDCF was 800 for them and 795 for us. Also most of their shots are from the D, it's not surprise that they are near the bottom in the league in shooting % year after year.

It will be interesting to see next year but right now it feels like Canucks and Tocchet are pushing back against the shots from anywhere style and is more about finding good looks, while Carolina is still riding that shots train hard. If the Canucks continue to find success in these playoffs and we see it succeed again next year I wonder if you will see more teams follow suit.

Regardless I think something has to change in Carolina both in terms of personal and style, cause whatever they are doing is just not getting it done in the playoffs.

 

[thecupismine]

ngl it always felt like carolina was trying to "game" the analytics with the way they played... posting super high CF%/xG%/etc to try and trick other teams into taking their players. but then i realized they were serious about it.

People still haven't picked up on the fact that Corsi was first created in the late 2000s as a crude way to measure who controlled the puck the most.

It had a lot more predictive value at that time when teams didn't know/understand what it was measuring. Now there's literal o-zone tracking, and people still cling to Corsi it & use it as a way to justify a team's strategy (which it appears the Hurricanes have been doing for a while).

There were rumblings earlier in the season that the Canucks were a lot better than the publicly available models suggested & that the play wasn't as much of a mirage as Corsi suggested, and Tocchet's recent comments (holding the puck in the o-zone instead of taking a dumb shot) hint that they've been using this kind of thing internally all year.

The Canes are absolutely elite at moving the puck up and controling the play in the o-zone, but they have to get better at picking their spots on when to go East/West on a play vs. blindly throwing it at the net from everywhere.

Losing this many dmen in the next few years might take away from that though - they've had a d-core comparable to the 2011 Canucks for a while now but the lack of gamebreaking talent up front/goaltending, along with this shoot at all costs mentality, may have cost them their shot.

 

[alternate]

The Cane's man to man defence also hurts them imo. Just don't think it can hold up against top teams that get to game plan for (up to) 7 games on how to beat it.