News and notes XXXX: Mascot is in their place cuz its Anniversary season time

[hblueridgegal]

This crossed my mind yesterday. She had a way of informing and speaking to a big chunk of the Canes' audience especially in times of uncertainty.

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

She wasn’t afraid to call stuff out but she wasn’t around for this level angst

 

[Daeavorn]

What the team can not afford to do is ignore it.

If the fan angst isnt addressed it will continue to build if things are not able to be fixed this offseason.

This is gonna be a true test of the front office.

 

[LakeLivin]

My question: is there a significant proportion of Canes fans who are that upset, or is it really a small fraction who make it look that way because of their habits on social media? And who project their feelings on the fan base in general?

Secondly, I still think the Borg makes a major acquisition this off season, rendering at least one of the criticisms moot. Of course I could be wrong, we'll find out shortly.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

My question: is there a significant proportion of Canes fans who are that upset, or is it really a small fraction who make it look that way because of their habits on social media? And who project their feelings on the fan base in general?

Secondly, I still think the Borg makes a major acquisition this off season, rendering at least one of the criticisms moot. Of course I could be wrong, we'll find out shortly.

Depends on how “hardcore fan” the individual is. I’m assuming most casual fans will just see “Hey, Canes made the playoffs again. Neat, playoff games.”

Those who look more in depth will see the Canes have a chance to win the division, but it’s close, and they’ve not been winning games lately.

And those that have followed the team closely all season will know that the Canes had a pretty good cushion for the division lead not too long ago, and that cushion has completely evaporated due to their play of late.

 

[LakeLivin]

Depends on how “hardcore fan” the individual is. I’m assuming most casual fans will just see “Hey, Canes made the playoffs again. Neat, playoff games.”

Those who look more in depth will see the Canes have a chance to win the division, but it’s close, and they’ve not been winning games lately.

And those that have followed the team closely all season will know that the Canes had a pretty good cushion for the division lead not too long ago, and that cushion has completely evaporated due to their play of late.

Even that third group can be subdivided. Some hardcore fans (and the I'm sure the most angst-y) believe the Borg was negligent in not making a major acquisition at the deadline (regardless of the cost or who was realistically available?). Others believe that sometimes shit happens (Svech, Patches, possible NJ-SJ shenanigans?) and that it makes sense not to throw good money after bad.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

Something worth thinking about, and it's been brought up before, is how Rod's coaching style affects the players.

If I'm not mistaken, our most successful season(s) under RBA have been shortened seasons. And when those seasons ended prematurely, the players would have played around 80-82 games by that point.

So maybe there's just a "wall" that the players either can't or won't break through with RBA's coaching style.

 

[DaveG]

Even that third group can be subdivided. Some hardcore fans (and the I'm sure the most angst-y) believe the Borg was negligent in not making a major acquisition at the deadline (regardless of the cost or who was realistically available?). Others believe that sometimes shit happens (Svech, Patches, possible NJ-SJ shenanigans?) and that it makes sense not to throw good money after bad.

Not to be there spokesperson for the third group because I'm certainly not, but there's something to it. There's no inconsistency to feeling this has been an overall excellent season and that the Svech injury is a complete "shit happens" situation, while also feeling that the org didn't do their due diligence on a Plan B in the case Meier feel through and the fact that the division hasn't been clinched yet is completely a reflection of that.

Different sports but there was an article on ESPN recently that went over how Arsenal handled their process with Mudryk this transfer window and how they were able to handle that falling through, and come out in a better position for it. We seemingly didn't do any of that (and if they did it would be a good idea to have some friendly media leak it) and as a result it's looking like we got completely played by San Jose and New Jersey.

Fact of the matter right now is that our inaction (and the lack of insistence of retention on what we did do in order to facilitate other moves) has use looking at a situation where a first round exit is much more likely than a conference finals run. Something that was a laughable thought 2 months ago.

Here's the article for anyone interested: Trossard vs. Mudryk: Arsenal's 'Plan B' is an MVP while €100m man struggles

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

What the team can not afford to do is ignore it.

If the fan angst isnt addressed it will continue to build if things are not able to be fixed this offseason.

This is gonna be a true test of the front office.

What does ignore the issue mean?

In reality the team didn’t ignore their needs this offseason. We added 50 goals from the year before but…
Patches and Kase got hurt
Stastny just sucked

Maybe don’t get unlucky when addressing the issue.

Goaltending wasn’t the issue coming into the year. We had the Jennings winners and then a really good young goaltender in the wings. Andersen didn’t recover and Kochetkov has been widely inconsistent

 

[Joe McGrath]

What the team can not afford to do is ignore it.

If the fan angst isnt addressed it will continue to build if things are not able to be fixed this offseason.

This is gonna be a true test of the front office.

If the team makes personnel decisions based on fan angst they aren’t winning a Stanley Cup because shock of all shocks most fans don’t know shit.

 

[To Be Determined]

And those that have followed the team closely all season will know that the Canes had a pretty good cushion for the division lead not too long ago, and that cushion has completely evaporated due to their play of late.

4 weeks ago the devils shut out the canes the night after carolina lost svetch (and the game - another shutout) against vegas.

The devils then famously/foolishly tweeted with "corrected" standing showing themselves in first in the metro.

Four weeks ago, canes and devils were tied with the canes holding a game in hand. So how's this for crazy? In the past four weeks, in spite of the poor play, the canes position actually very slightly improved. They are now one point up instead of tied, with a game still in hand.

 

[hblueridgegal]

Similar to success, as the ticket prices rise, so do the expectations. And, from the sounds of it, some of the most loyal are being pushed out on the STM front. Sentiment and dissatisfaction can be affected by a number of factors - quite a balancing act.

The blowback on DW and management appears to be worst of it. Some RBA strategy and style criticisms cropping up as well. I don't see a lot of specific player bashing except for Andersen. The TD trade deadline interview really lit the fire if you ask me and then the post all-star slippage fueled it. A rare PR misstep, jmo. Demonstrates the power of the soundbite. Having other teams actually do what he was quoted only compounded it.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

4 weeks ago the devils shut out the canes the night after carolina lost svetch (and the game - another shutout) against vegas.

The devils then famously/foolishly tweeted with "corrected" standing showing themselves in first in the metro.

Four weeks ago, canes and devils were tied with the canes holding a game in hand. So how's this for crazy? In the past four weeks, in spite of the poor play, the canes position actually very slightly improved. They are now one point up instead of tied, with a game still in hand.

After the All-Star game (Feb 6), we had a 6 point lead over the Devils and a 12 point lead over the Rangers. Almost a month later, at the trade deadline (March 3), our lead dropped to 2 points over the Devils, 11 points over the Rangers. Today, it’s 1 point over the Devils, 3 over the Rangers.

 

[A Star is Burns]

The team has certainly dropped and played worse for a variety of reasons. And yet they will still probably pull out the division (certainly might not, just odds still in their favor). They're still second in the NHL somehow, current level of play and talent notwithstanding. It's actually a bit impressive to lose Svech for a while now, stumble so much, and still be in this position given it seemed many thought all the big deadline winners would pass them long ago even with him.

Playoffs will be an uphill battle for sure but I'm still damn excited for them no matter who we play or how it's gone down the stretch.

 

[The Faulker 27]

Similar to success, as the ticket prices rise, so do the expectations. And, from the sounds of it, some of the most loyal are being pushed out on the STM front. Sentiment and dissatisfaction can be affected by a number of factors - quite a balancing act.

The blowback on DW and management appears to be worst of it. Some RBA strategy and style criticisms cropping up as well. I don't see a lot of specific player bashing except for Andersen. The TD trade deadline interview really lit the fire if you ask me and then the post all-star slippage fueled it. A rare PR misstep, jmo. Demonstrates the power of the soundbite. Having other teams actually do what he was quoted only compounded it.

I don't fault Dundon for what he said necessarily. They were aggressive in going after Meier. I think there is just a disparity in what fans wanted that to mean, and what it actually meant. I think many glossed over him also stating they wouldn't be making a move just to make a move. DW said the same thing, but everyone heard one word.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

I doubt the "fan angst" of an early playoff exit or how they are struggling now is a concern at all for the Canes front office for a few reasons. First, the front office isn't going to make decisions based on fans reactions, nor should they. Second, the team has averaged 19,500 fans / game this season, likely the highest ever and had more national spotlight than ever with the outdoor game. I suspect they are doing great financially. Third, if a subset of the die-hard fans have a lot of angst, I don't blame them, but they are also die-hard fans who likely aren't going anywhere. Many of us stuck around for the 10 years of terrible hockey under Karmanos, so certainly aren't leaving now. Maybe some will, but I suspect it would be a very small %.

Ticket prices are all based on simple supply/demand economics. If the team remains good and fun to watch, the demand will remain. If the price gets too high or the team gets worse, the demand will drop.

They certainly have struggled once Svech went down and it may be a quick exit from the playoffs, but nothing can be done about it now so I'm personally not going to fret over it.

 

[LakeLivin]

I wonder how much of the angst is a reflection of a changing mindset in the population in general? I get the feeling that there's more of an attitude of entitlement and aggrievement than we've ever had in the past. Fits in with the "quiet quitting" and no compunction in not giving notice when leaving a job that we hear about. Even where we're at as far as extreme political polarization: for many, nothing less than "100% my way" seems acceptable.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

I wonder how much of the angst is a reflection of a changing mindset in the population in general? I get the feeling that there's more of an attitude of entitlement and aggrievement than we've ever had in the past. Fits in with the "quiet quitting" and no compunction in not giving notice when leaving a job that we hear about. Even where we're at as far as extreme political polarization: for many, nothing less than "100% my way" seems acceptable.

I think we forget how bad the angst was the final years of Karmanos and the first year of Dundon. in 17-18, We were actually in a playoff spot in Dec/Jan when we choked away a game against the Caps when, IIRC, Hanifin made a couple of defensive gaffs. The offseason moves were met with outright rage, particularly the Skinner trade.

When the team struggled badly and was one of the worst teams through Dec 31st it became almost unbearable.

 

[bleedgreen]

I don’t have much angst about any of this. The last few weeks of the season always gets a little weird as you wait for the real games to begin. This could all go away game one. In general I’m happy we’re good enough to be a playoffs team. I wasn’t blown away by our off season, I felt we were happy making cap geeks and pundits happy with players gotten on the cheap instead of focusing in what we really needed. It seems sometimes we care more about the price paid vs getting the right players. Maybe a healthy Patches was the right guy but he seemed injury prone and Vegas was ok in the end giving him up for free likely because of that. Someone had to go for them, and he’s a risky player. We don’t mind risks if their cheap. That didn’t work out with Patches. Anderson is known to be injury prone and has questions about big games. Check. Raanta could be a solid goalie if the guy could stay healthy. Check. Burns has worked great but we don’t know how much time is left on that clock.

In the end despite the regular season success I don’t think I’ve ever felt this team is better than last years team so my expectations fall in line with that. We didn’t really replace Nino and Tro despite needing to add on to what we were with them. We need healthy goaltending. We tried with the scorer but the unsurprising thing happened with Patches. We didn’t want to pay the price for Meier, we likely won that if we added Nikishin but that apparently was a bridge too far. Maybe we were gonna let that situation play out vs auto extending him (very us) so it made it not worth that price. So be it, but this is way more on management than the coaching. I don’t care if we have a bad few weeks to be honest. All teams have them.

 

[LakeLivin]

What does ignore the issue mean?

In reality the team didn’t ignore their needs this offseason. We added 50 goals from the year before but…
Patches and Kase got hurt
Stastny just sucked

Maybe don’t get unlucky when addressing the issue.

Goaltending wasn’t the issue coming into the year. We had the Jennings winners and then a really good young goaltender in the wings. Andersen didn’t recover and Kochetkov has been widely inconsistent

You're not very good at Monday morning quarterbacking, are you?

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

You're not very good at Monday morning quarterbacking, are you?

or any other day of the week

 

[To Be Determined]

After the All-Star game (Feb 6), we had a 6 point lead over the Devils and a 12 point lead over the Rangers. Almost a month later, at the trade deadline (March 3), our lead dropped to 2 points over the Devils, 11 points over the Rangers. Today, it’s 1 point over the Devils, 3 over the Rangers.

i feel like i should lead off by saying i am not trying to argue that the canes' play for the last 1-2 months has been all that great, or inspiring of confidence ahead of the playoffs. in case anyone reads it that way.

having said that, and with the admission i didn't go back to look at games in hand data, i'll just add a bit more context to the above.

between the all-star game and the trade deadline, the devils did play at a better pace than the canes. but they also played 3 more games during that span since the canes' mandated schedule break fell immediately after the all-star break. so the devils catching up, while helped by the canes playing pretty meh, was also helped by taking advantage of the opportunity the schedule afforded them.

given the storyline among the fanbase, i'm actually pretty amazed that since the devils' 'won' the trade deadline by having their meier offer accepted, followed a week later by svetch going down for the year, they basically have gained nothing. i don't pay attention to the devils' fanbase, but do they have a narrative running now that it is a given they will likely lose in the first round? they've only been able to keep pace with a clearly underperforming canes team.

 

[tarheelhockey]

I think we all put way, way, way, way, way too much stock in what's said on Twitter. It's a bunch of babble that gives people angst for no reason.

 

[Lempo]

I think we all put way, way, way, way, way too much stock in what's said on Twitter. It's a bunch of babble that gives people angst for no reason.

You're wrong. Because of the 140 character limit, people really consider how they word their thoughts there.

 

[LakeLivin]

I think we all put way, way, way, way, way too much stock in what's said on Twitter. It's a bunch of babble that gives people angst for no reason.

Not me. I don't do twitter (or facebook, or the comments on youtube).