News & Notes XLIII: Cam Ward is a Cute lil 10 Year Old

[Blueline Bomber]

Things seem a lot worse when you include Guentzel and Kuznetsov. People seem to forget they were rentals and we were probably going to be a top 5 team last season without adding them at the deadline.

Sure our defense is taking a hit, but I think Borg did a pretty good job with their replacements without spending like crazy in FA.

The only “impact” forward we lost was 86, but was he really that irreplaceable?

I think we will easily be in the mix for metro 2-3 this upcoming season… the only thing that worries me is getting off to a slow start with the new guys… as we know a lot of players have a difficult time adjusting to our system.

Considering we don't currently have a replacement for him...maybe?

The fact of the matter is, last year's team, before acquiring Jake and Kuzy, was missing at least one Top 6 forward. They acquired those two at the deadline to address that.

Now we've lost both of them, plus another Top 6 forward to FA, and have replaced two of our Top 4 defensemen with cheaper, but likely lesser, options.

So yeah, I can see why there's doubt out there, and I can't say they're entirely wrong. At the very least, there's a chance this meme becomes a perfect response sometime during the season:

 

[tarheelhockey]

Now we've lost both of them, plus another Top 6 forward to FA, and have replaced two of our Top 4 defensemen with cheaper, but likely lesser, options.

I think you can delete the bolded. Gostisbehere-Walker is a massive step down from Skjei-Pesce. We’re in a precarious situation where if Burns makes the natural and expected regression, we have one guy left who actually belongs in a position of high responsibility.

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

I think you can delete the bolded. Gostisbehere-Walker is a massive step down from Skjei-Pesce. We’re in a precarious situation where if Burns makes the natural and expected regression, we have one guy left who actually belongs in a position of high responsibility.

We aren’t asking ghost to replace Skjei tho

 

[CandyCanes]

I think you can delete the bolded. Gostisbehere-Walker is a massive step down from Skjei-Pesce. We’re in a precarious situation where if Burns makes the natural and expected regression, we have one guy left who actually belongs in a position of high responsibility.

I don’t think our left side has gotten much worse. Orlov on the 3rd pair was always a luxury. Orlov is a guy that’s been a solid top pairing d-men before and looked fantastic at the end of the season. He’ll likely fill Skjei’s shoes well on the 2nd pair. Ghost brings some unique offensive talent to the 3rd pair and power play.

The right side has a lot more question marks, but I wouldn’t count them out at matching production from last season. Burns is a wildcard with his age, likely has another regression year. I’d like to see Walker play in a Canes uniform for the full season, but I can see him covering most of the production Pesce brought to the team. That leaves Chatfield on the bottom pair again, which he was fantastic in that role.

Our forward group is a different story as it stands today. We’ll absolutely be banking on a rookie to break out and be a top 6 forward from the get go for us, which is unlikely. Or just get absolute monster years from Necas, Jarvis, and Svech. Which I don’t think is out of the question either. But overall this team this year will need to bank on a lot of things to go right for us to contend this year.

 

[Stickpucker]

Seth Jarvis 100 pt season incoming

 

[spockBokk]

In a sense, yes, Gostisbehere and Walker are the replacements for Skjei and Pesce, but to me, the real replacements for those 2 will be Orlov and Chatfield. That pair will get the extra shifts along with Burns and Slavin. Whether or not that is viewed as an improvement is up to your own point of view. I think the puck movement of the blue line will be some of the best the Canes have ever had, but on the flip side, they lost a whole lotta size back there. With 3 guys (Orlov, Gostisbehere and Walker) all under 6’, I think there will be some issues against teams with big forwards who can forecheck. The key for this group will be how quickly they can transition the puck out of danger so they can avoid playing against a cycle game as much as possible.

Hopefully, the transition game that they showed after adding Guentzel wasn’t just all Guentzel. I still don’t see how they don’t add another top 9 scorer or 2. Maybe Sprong, he’s really all that’s left, unless they give PTO flyer to a Alex Nylander, Varna, Kubalik type.

A trade seems very likely still in my view, just don’t know what they give up. Seems like Necas is definitely sticking around, and even if they did trade him for another top 6 forward, they’d still be short at least 1 top 6 guy. So I no longer see the point in dealing Necas.

 

[TheReelChuckFletcher]

The only trade proposal for Necas that I've heard that makes any sense at all is for Wild Bill one-for-one. He'd be a 2C that we've yet to see since the Trocheck years and has three full seasons of term remaining.

 

[tarheelhockey]

We aren’t asking ghost to replace Skjei tho

I don’t think our left side has gotten much worse. Orlov on the 3rd pair was always a luxury. Orlov is a guy that’s been a solid top pairing d-men before and looked fantastic at the end of the season. He’ll likely fill Skjei’s shoes well on the 2nd pair. Ghost brings some unique offensive talent to the 3rd pair and power play.

The right side has a lot more question marks, but I wouldn’t count them out at matching production from last season. Burns is a wildcard with his age, likely has another regression year. I’d like to see Walker play in a Canes uniform for the full season, but I can see him covering most of the production Pesce brought to the team. That leaves Chatfield on the bottom pair again, which he was fantastic in that role.

In a sense, yes, Gostisbehere and Walker are the replacements for Skjei and Pesce, but to me, the real replacements for those 2 will be Orlov and Chatfield.

I get what you guys are saying, but the construction of the comment I was referring to was talking about what we lost vs what we added.

There’s really no question at all that we have taken a large net-negative on the blue line. Orlov may be a capable replacement for Skjei on the 2nd pair (though I really don’t think that’s a given… Skjei was pretty damn good for us these past couple of years) but that means you have to turn around and place Ghost in the role that Orlov vacated. That’s a really big step down. We got a pretty limited taste of Ghost in his last tour with us. Putting up with the “eccentricities” in his game is going to hit different when we have to do it for a full season. It’s not a coincidence that he’s changed teams 4 times in 4 years.

I’m open to the idea that maybe Walker (who seems like a Rod guy) can thrive here and make us not miss Pesce. But Pesce was a guy who kind of made a living by making you forget he was out there, just quietly munching minutes including a lot of defensive zone draws. If Walker’s a little more of an adventure, that has a lot of downstream effects on the goaltending, special teams, etc. We should have an answer to that pretty soon.

On top of those moves, the big thing is whether Burns remains a legit top pair guy going forward. It’s just hard to say. It would be nice if he could give us this one more season before falling off, because things get a lot more complicated if he starts needing fewer shifts and easier matchups. We’re not really constructed to give him that kind of relief right now.

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

I get what you guys are saying, but the construction of the comment I was referring to was talking about what we lost vs what we added.

There’s really no question at all that we have taken a large net-negative on the blue line. Orlov may be a capable replacement for Skjei on the 2nd pair (though I really don’t think that’s a given… Skjei was pretty damn good for us these past couple of years) but that means you have to turn around and place Ghost in the role that Orlov vacated. That’s a really big step down. We got a pretty limited taste of Ghost in his last tour with us. Putting up with the “eccentricities” in his game is going to hit different when we have to do it for a full season. It’s not a coincidence that he’s changed teams 4 times in 4 years.

I’m open to the idea that maybe Walker (who seems like a Rod guy) can thrive here and make us not miss Pesce. But Pesce was a guy who kind of made a living by making you forget he was out there, just quietly munching minutes including a lot of defensive zone draws. If Walker’s a little more of an adventure, that has a lot of downstream effects on the goaltending, special teams, etc. We should have an answer to that pretty soon.

i get it but we aren’t getting the same Orlov either. So we are adding a more comfortable orlov with another 3-4 minutes a night and ghost.

 

[Big Daddy Cane]

The pre-deadline 3rd pairing mix in the other years since taking the step as an elite team:

Fleury/Bean/Gardiner
Cole/Bear/Smith/Chatfield (injury call up)
de Haan/Chatfield

3rd pairing Orlov doesn’t need to be replaced. He was actually a significant cap inefficiency down there. It was one that the team could afford at the time with so many cost efficient contracts. His true value was as a spare Top 4 D that could step up in the event of injury in the playoffs, which happened.

The deadline represents an opportunity to adjust if necessary. There’s also the Nikishin factor to consider going into the playoffs.

 

[CandyCanes]

The pre-deadline 3rd pairing mix in the other years since taking the step as an elite team:

Fleury/Bean/Gardiner
Cole/Bear/Smith/Chatfield (injury call up)
de Haan/Chatfield

3rd pairing Orlov doesn’t need to be replaced. He was actually a significant cap inefficiency down there. It was one that the team could afford at the time with so many cost efficient contracts. His true value was as a spare Top 4 D that could step up in the event of injury in the playoffs, which happened.

The deadline represents an opportunity to adjust if necessary. There’s also the Nikishin factor to consider going into the playoffs.

Agreed. Orlov was a major luxury on the 3rd pair. We will definitely see an ice time increase to Slavin, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, guy is so good.

Ghost / Chatfield is probably the best 3rd pair we’ve ever had behind the Orlov / Chatfield pairing.

I wouldn’t expect much from Nikishin at the end of the season/playoffs. Our system is so hard to learn, on top of transitioning to North American ice, he’ll need an offseason to be an effective defensemen here is my guess.

 

[bleedgreen]

The goaltending will be a big question imo. Freddie was supposed to be a solid vet who’d benefit from having rock solid d in front of him for a change. I don’t think he’ll be getting that this year and Koochie is still a work in progress. We’re likely to do a good job getting the puck out of the zone quickly with the new guys, but once we’re pinned we’re probably going to be in trouble and that will expose mediocre goaltending quickly.

 

[tarheelhockey]

3rd pairing Orlov doesn’t need to be replaced. He was actually a significant cap inefficiency down there. It was one that the team could afford at the time with so many cost efficient contracts. His true value was as a spare Top 4 D that could step up in the event of injury in the playoffs, which happened.

Not that he needed to be replaced, because there are a lot of legitimate ways to construct a roster.

But even the internal logic of your argument here. Last year, if there was an injury (or penalty) in the top 4 then Orlov steps up. Who’s stepping up to take those shifts this year? And who’s taking that person’s spot on the bottom pair? Barring a trade, the answer to those questions is “a major downgrade”. There’s a big gap between Orlov and Ghost, and another big gap between Ghost and Ryan.

That’s exacerbated by the pressures on the other end of the depth chart. Piling shifts onto Slavin is going to have long-term impacts on his performance and (maybe more importantly) his health. This is how players get driven into the ground and stop being “the guy they used to be”, as happened with Eric Staal under similar circumstances. And then we’re expecting Burns to skate beside him for those shifts… again, that seems like the opposite of what he should be doing at this stage of his career. If either of them get injured or struggle, the problem just keeps snowballing.

This would all be fine if they’d used that cap efficiency to add anything elsewhere in the lineup to offset those impacts, even just a mid range forward on a short contract. But standing pat at the other positions puts a lot of pressure on this defensive group to play above their profile.

 

[Lempo]

Not that he needed to be replaced, because there are a lot of legitimate ways to construct a roster.

But even the internal logic of your argument here. Last year, if there was an injury (or penalty) in the top 4 then Orlov steps up. Who’s stepping up to take those shifts this year? And who’s taking that person’s spot on the bottom pair? Barring a trade, the answer to those questions is “a major downgrade”. There’s a big gap between Orlov and Ghost, and another big gap between Ghost and Ryan.

That’s exacerbated by the pressures on the other end of the depth chart. Piling shifts onto Slavin is going to have long-term impacts on his performance and (maybe more importantly) his health. This is how players get driven into the ground and stop being “the guy they used to be”, as happened with Eric Staal under similar circumstances. And then we’re expecting Burns to skate beside him for those shifts… again, that seems like the opposite of what he should be doing at this stage of his career. If either of them get injured or struggle, the problem just keeps snowballing.

This would all be fine if they’d used that cap efficiency to add anything elsewhere in the lineup to offset those impacts, even just a mid range forward on a short contract. But standing pat at the other positions puts a lot of pressure on this defensive group to play above their profile.

So you're saying that Carolina should acquire more D-men?

 

[tarheelhockey]

So you're saying that Carolina should acquire more D-men?

As many as possible, and let God sort ‘em out

 

[Lempo]

As many as possible, and let God sort ‘em out

This far it's been the Devils...

 

[Svechhammer]

Things seem a lot worse when you include Guentzel and Kuznetsov. People seem to forget they were rentals and we were probably going to be a top 5 team last season without adding them at the deadline.

Sure our defense is taking a hit, but I think Borg did a pretty good job with their replacements without spending like crazy in FA.

The only “impact” forward we lost was 86, but was he really that irreplaceable?

I think we will easily be in the mix for metro 2-3 this upcoming season… the only thing that worries me is getting off to a slow start with the new guys… as we know a lot of players have a difficult time adjusting to our system.

I'm not as confident in that. I think our defense is much weaker without Skjei and Pesce, who were incredibly underrated here. Walker and Gost are good, but they are not replacing that pair. Our Top 6 was already fairly weak before the Guentzel and Kuz trades, and now without Turbo or Noesen, the guys who slotted into those roles pre-deadline, it's even more up in the air. We are going to need someone to take a significant development jump this year, and it's always risky to have to lean on that. I do think we are a weaker team this year than we were last year, and there's a bit of denial about just how much of a step back we are looking at.

But my biggest worry is the rest of the division. I don't see us being able to keep up with NYR anymore. I also fully believe NJ with the solutions in net and adding Pesce to button up their defensive defensive play, might be the best team in the division and clear Cup contender. I also think Philly with Michkov coming over is going to be a serious problem, given how much potential they showed for most of last year. I could easily see us in a 4 way battle with Pitt, Washington, and NYI for Metro 4 and essentially a bubble playoff spot just because everyone else got better, some significantly, while we got a bit worse. I think our margin for success this year is pretty thin.

 

[Big Daddy Cane]

Not that he needed to be replaced, because there are a lot of legitimate ways to construct a roster.

But even the internal logic of your argument here. Last year, if there was an injury (or penalty) in the top 4 then Orlov steps up. Who’s stepping up to take those shifts this year? And who’s taking that person’s spot on the bottom pair? Barring a trade, the answer to those questions is “a major downgrade”. There’s a big gap between Orlov and Ghost, and another big gap between Ghost and Ryan.

Teams will have to hope for good health some years. 5 legit veteran Top 4 D is not sustainable cap-wise and probably not practical asset-wise (via deadline trades every year).

It’s been a mixed bag on the injury front for this team. There have been what turned out to be season ending injuries to regulars in 19 (van Riemsdyk), 20 (Pesce and Hamilton if not for the pandemic) and 24 (Pesce). Slavin only missed a few playoff games in 21. Still don’t know what went on with Bear in 22. They were fully healthy in 23.

That’s exacerbated by the pressures on the other end of the depth chart. Piling shifts onto Slavin is going to have long-term impacts on his performance and (maybe more importantly) his health. This is how players get driven into the ground and stop being “the guy they used to be”, as happened with Eric Staal under similar circumstances. And then we’re expecting Burns to skate beside him for those shifts… again, that seems like the opposite of what he should be doing at this stage of his career. If either of them get injured or struggle, the problem just keeps snowballing.

This would all be fine if they’d used that cap efficiency to add anything elsewhere in the lineup to offset those impacts, even just a mid range forward on a short contract. But standing pat at the other positions puts a lot of pressure on this defensive group to play above their profile.

They couldn’t afford to do so. Allow me to borrow @Joe McGrath ’s point: the final 23-24 roster will end up north of $100 mil in 24-25 cap hits, inclusive of Kuznetsov’s now terminated contract.

To reframe the discussion, management could have distributed the 24/25 cap allocation on the blueline differently. Walker and Gostisbehere = $6.8 mil. That’s Pesce and a cheap vet. Personally, I give pro scouting the benefit of the doubt on that choice.

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

The results of next season really doesn’t matter. We get a ton of cap space, we reset the roster by replacing all the age but Staal, and start our next window.

Us sneaking into the playoffs as WC2 even is just fine. When rosters don’t get it done a reset is needed.

 

[hblueridgegal]

I'm not as confident in that. I think our defense is much weaker without Skjei and Pesce, who were incredibly underrated here. Walker and Gost are good, but they are not replacing that pair. Our Top 6 was already fairly weak before the Guentzel and Kuz trades, and now without Turbo or Noesen, the guys who slotted into those roles pre-deadline, it's even more up in the air. We are going to need someone to take a significant development jump this year, and it's always risky to have to lean on that. I do think we are a weaker team this year than we were last year, and there's a bit of denial about just how much of a step back we are looking at.

But my biggest worry is the rest of the division. I don't see us being able to keep up with NYR anymore. I also fully believe NJ with the solutions in net and adding Pesce to button up their defensive defensive play, might be the best team in the division and clear Cup contender. I also think Philly with Michkov coming over is going to be a serious problem, given how much potential they showed for most of last year. I could easily see us in a 4 way battle with Pitt, Washington, and NYI for Metro 4 and essentially a bubble playoff spot just because everyone else got better, some significantly, while we got a bit worse. I think our margin for success this year is pretty thin.

I agree. So many unknowns re: chemistry, fit, lines, etc. coupled with how long it often takes folks to get acclimated even if they eventually perform well. It doesn't feel like there is as much margin for error as in past years to make up for early losses due to folks on a learning curve (ex. Orlov), plus, so much change afoot, in general.

 

[CandyCanes]

The results of next season really doesn’t matter. We get a ton of cap space, we reset the roster by replacing all the age but Staal, and start our next window.

Us sneaking into the playoffs as WC2 even is just fine. When rosters don’t get it done a reset is needed.

I’m going into this season with the same mindset. Next offseason I’ll be going in with high expectations that we bring in a top 6 forward or two. My eyes are on Rantanen & Draisaitl. We’ll have the cap space to bring one of those guys in if they make it to free agency.

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

I’m going into this season with the same mindset. Next offseason I’ll be going in with high expectations that we bring in a top 6 forward or two. My eyes are on Rantanen & Draisaitl. We’ll have the cap space to bring one of those guys in if they make it to free agency.

We’ll be able to afford just one of those two unless kk is shipped/bought out.

Draisaitl and ehlers wouldn’t be a bad haul though

 

[tarheelhockey]

Teams will have to hope for good health some years. 5 legit veteran Top 4 D is not sustainable cap-wise and probably not practical asset-wise (via deadline trades every year).

It’s been a mixed bag on the injury front for this team. There have been what turned out to be season ending injuries to regulars in 19 (van Riemsdyk), 20 (Pesce and Hamilton if not for the pandemic) and 24 (Pesce). Slavin only missed a few playoff games in 21. Still don’t know what went on with Bear in 22. They were fully healthy in 23.



They couldn’t afford to do so. Allow me to borrow @Joe McGrath ’s point: the final 23-24 roster will end up north of $100 mil in 24-25 cap hits, inclusive of Kuznetsov’s now terminated contract.

To reframe the discussion, management could have distributed the 24/25 cap allocation on the blueline differently. Walker and Gostisbehere = $6.8 mil. That’s Pesce and a cheap vet. Personally, I give pro scouting the benefit of the doubt on that choice.

I don’t disagree with any of that. My issue is not so much that I expected them to replace Pesce with another Pesce, Skjei with another Skjei, etc. That wouldn’t be realistic to expect. My concern is more that I don’t regard Gostisbehere as a good use of even our limited resources. IMO acquiring him resembles re-acquiring TDA, who even though he played OK in his second tour here was a known quantity as a weird fit for that version of our roster. Ghost strikes me the same way, a guy who’s a better fit for a team in a full blown rebuild and self-aware about putting flawed players on the ice. Walker is fine and I’m intrigued to see how he fits, but another small/skating type is again a weird fit. So I’m not questioning them taking a step back, which we all saw coming, but more questioning the choices which led to this particular lineup. To me, this feels like a group that still needs at least one more signing or hockey trade, just to be coherent in its construction, and it’s hard to say what the options could even be at this point.

I’m also a bit skeptical of the broadly accepted view that this is all going to be followed by another big push into contention. Without being long-winded about it, we’ve lost several guys who helped make our core stars shine their brightest, and Father Time is going to be working on that core between now and 2026. It’s not a situation where you can add Nikishin and Mr. TBD and expect to have great results.

Pro scouting and smart trading could lead to some home run acquisitions to fix all of this, for sure. But saying that just feels a little like saying we really need Svech to score 40. Could it possibly happen? Absolutely. Will it likely play out that way? I mean… it feels more truthful to stop at “could possibly”.

 

[bleedgreen]

I don’t disagree with any of that. My issue is not so much that I expected them to replace Pesce with another Pesce, Skjei with another Skjei, etc. That wouldn’t be realistic to expect. My concern is more that I don’t regard Gostisbehere as a good use of even our limited resources. IMO acquiring him resembles re-acquiring TDA, who even though he played OK in his second tour here was a known quantity as a weird fit for that version of our roster. Ghost strikes me the same way, a guy who’s a better fit for a team in a full blown rebuild and self-aware about putting flawed players on the ice. Walker is fine and I’m intrigued to see how he fits, but another small/skating type is again a weird fit. So I’m not questioning them taking a step back, which we all saw coming, but more questioning the choices which led to this particular lineup. To me, this feels like a group that still needs at least one more signing or hockey trade, just to be coherent in its construction, and it’s hard to say what the options could even be at this point.

I’m also a bit skeptical of the broadly accepted view that this is all going to be followed by another big push into contention. Without being long-winded about it, we’ve lost several guys who helped make our core stars shine their brightest, and Father Time is going to be working on that core between now and 2026. It’s not a situation where you can add Nikishin and Mr. TBD and expect to have great results.

Pro scouting and smart trading could lead to some home run acquisitions to fix all of this, for sure. But saying that just feels a little like saying we really need Svech to score 40. Could it possibly happen? Absolutely. Will it likely play out that way? I mean… it feels more truthful to stop at “could possibly”.

I’m with you on the not so blindly assuming we have another push coming. I like to have hope but all these role players do smack a bit of “not trying to be better”. This regime inherited a good base and lots of assets to improve it, and they did. There was a time where this team felt like it was building, then it felt like it was going sideways trying to maintain. Now it feels like it’s going down or still maybe sideways. I think we do need to step back to get better, but I don’t have blind faith we’re going to get there. Aho and Slavin never felt like a good enough core for a cup champion, but they did feel like a good consistent playoff team and that’s a good thing still.

We've been short a top six guy or two for years, and it feels like two or three now depending on Necas. Our goaltending has felt middling and not quite good enough when we had a stacked D, now it’s probably just not good enough. Our d replacements won’t be to the level of before. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where we find these guys the way we do business, and while I like our prospects I don’t see big scorers or game changers in there. Aho’s prime is now, so it’s going to take some luck for a couple of prospects to really shine enough for it all to come together.

So I see it both ways. We needed a shift and some change and it’s possible this is the first step to the next contending team. I can also see us doing things the way we do leading to always being one or two guys short and just making do with solid value players.

I can’t get too upset as long as we stay a playoff team, because if you’re in there’s a chance. I think this year is a big test, because we think the system is good enough for us to plug and play replacements guys and get similar results. This version is the biggest strain on that concept for sure. I’m not expecting anything else happening this off season despite Tulsky saying we’re not complete yet. I don’t see the room without trading KK or something like that.

 

[tarheelhockey]

That’s a good way to put it bleed, and in particular this part:

Aho’s prime is now, so it’s going to take some luck for a couple of prospects to really shine enough for it all to come together.

Is where I have some real misgivings about the current plan. It feels to me like we’re looking at a Flames-like future barring some really unlikely luck breaking our way.