News & Notes XLIV: Revenge of the Seth

[Boom Boom Apathy]

Fair enough. I'm not sure how many games he needs to log before you are comfortable with him being him but his career stats are almost 70 regular season games and .910% of his 3 NHL season he has finished right are a 2.4gaa and a.910% pretty consistent.

I have no problem saying he's a .910, 2.4GAA goaltender. That's respectable, but I think he has more in him and I'd like to see that on a consistent basis.

Freddie has been a .918, 2.2GAA goaltender in his 3 years in Carolina.

For me, if Kochetkov can have another 30-40 game stretch where he plays like he did for the last 30 games last season, I'll get more comfortable.

 

[3CanesInTheBox]

I've been on record that I think they'll still split the crease pretty often when healthy. A lot of people have convinced themselves it's Pyotr's crease, and maybe they'll be right, but I'll believe it when I see it. And in the regular season when these guys have tended to get banged up, I don't really mind if they do. The playoffs are what really matter and I hope they go with Koch then, but we have a lot of season to play out between now and then and that could change.

Also keep in mind this is still a back to back until it isn't. Could just be a little respect to the vet for the home portion.

I am still barely able to tolerate the sight of Freddie in a Canes jersey (as beautiful as that man is) after what he did to this team last year. So yeah, I'm probably not being objective about it. lol

I agree--I don't care about splitting regular season time, but I don't want this man starting anymore playoff games for us--unless he's the absolute last option.

 

[3CanesInTheBox]

I just realized my rage at Freddie may represent a minority perspective. I do not think this man should or can be trusted. In my eyes, he has to be 1B at best. I'm not saying that WILL happen, but it enrages me that this team may try to trot him back out here like last postseason didn't happen.

 

[Svechhammer]

Fair enough. I'm not sure how many games he needs to log before you are comfortable with him being him but his career stats are almost 70 regular season games and .910% of his 3 NHL season he has finished right are a 2.4gaa and a.910% pretty consistent.

I honestly don't think Kooch will ever do enough for some people. Too young, too Russian, to unorthodox with his style. He can put up great numbers but they're always going to think we would be better off with a 30+ year old vet.

Kooch proved he belonged last year. Absolutely held down the fort and completely stabilized the trajectory of the 2023-24 season when it looked like it could flatline early on. Was NHL player of the month in December, rookie of the week multiple times, and finished just outside the Calder cutoff. And he barely gets any acknowledgement for it.

 

[Finlandia WOAT]

I just don't understand going with Freddie in the crease.

Andersen was really good in the regular season last year (when he did play)

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

I honestly don't think Kooch will ever do enough for some people. Too young, too Russian, to unorthodox with his style. He can put up great numbers but they're always going to think we would be better off with a 30+ year old vet.

Kooch proved he belonged last year. Absolutely held down the fort and completely stabilized the trajectory of the 2023-24 season when it looked like it could flatline early on. Was NHL player of the month in December, rookie of the week multiple times, and finished just outside the Calder cutoff. And he barely gets any acknowledgement for it.

Give me a break. His SV% and GAA have been inferior to Freddie's. This has nothing to do with being Russian, unorthodox or any other perceived slight you want to dream up. When "he puts up great numbers" for a sustained period, it will put people at ease. That's all most of us are saying. We've seen goalies that can have great stretches and want to see it for a longer period of time.

I remember you absolutely flipped out when the Canes traded Ned because he had .937 SV% in 23 games. Since then he's had a .901, .895, and .902 SV%.

It's not about discounting what Kooch has done, it's about wanting to see a larger sample size. It's not that complicated, nor is there some dreamed up reason why.

I can't speak for others, but I'd love it for Kooch to grab the reigns and become the #1. Freddie isn't signed long term and has health concerns.

 

[A Star is Burns]

I am still barely able to tolerate the sight of Freddie in a Canes jersey (as beautiful as that man is) after what he did to this team last year. So yeah, I'm probably not being objective about it. lol

I agree--I don't care about splitting regular season time, but I don't want this man starting anymore playoff games for us--unless he's the absolute last option.

We're all fans and therefore don't have to be rational all the time. We obviously know that some run on emotions more than others as well, whether in sports or all things. Nothing wrong with any of that. In my mind, Freddie has still been a great Cane even with the warts. And at the end of the day, he wasn't sending himself out there to start and hopefully everyone knows the dude was giving it the best he had in a tough situation having not played a lot and not having his A game. I also find it's important to remember Pyotr didn't really run with his postseason chance last year even though it was a small chance. But even with that, I know some people just can't get past emotional aspects and gut reactions. We've all been there.

 

[HisIceness]

All I'm going to say is now is the time for Kotch to be the guy.

 

[chaz4hockey]

Per RBA on goalies. Freddie is no longer the clear cut #1?

https://x.com/i/web/status/1844763079050944639

 

[AD Skinner]

Brind’Amour is a delight

 

[Svechhammer]

I know we had some discussions about the Canes banners in PNC last year.

Looks like State consolidated as well this year in Lenovo

 

[cptjeff]

I know we had some discussions about the Canes banners in PNC last year.

Looks like State consolidated as well this year in Lenovo

Thank god. I still think getting rid of the divisional championship banners was stupid, those are harder to win than O6 Stanley Cups, but it's a lot more palatable with NC State consolidating their crap. As many banners as State hangs, I half expect them to hang one any time they have a .500 record or better.

 

[tarheelhockey]

I just don’t get the point. Obviously NHL division titles and NCAA tournament qualifications aren’t the big prize. But they’re something. It gives people a sense that those seasons mattered. A big empty space gives us nothing.

 

[cptjeff]

I just don’t get the point. Obviously NHL division titles and NCAA tournament qualifications aren’t the big prize. But they’re something. It gives people a sense that those seasons mattered. A big empty space gives us nothing.

I mean, for an ACC team, simply qualifying for the tournament is the equivalent of the Canes making the playoffs. It's the bare minimum for a successful season, and you really shouldn't be hanging banners for the bare minimum.

 

[tarheelhockey]

I mean, for an ACC team, simply qualifying for the tournament is the equivalent of the Canes making the playoffs. It's the bare minimum for a successful season, and you really shouldn't be hanging banners for the bare minimum.

I disagree. We had a lot of years with both the Canes and NC State where we got the bare minimum. It definitely didn’t involve tournament bids and playoff runs.

Regardless of that, though, it’s more that the banners were hung up whether they “should” have been or not. When you walk into the building, you see the history of these teams on display. Minimizing that doesn’t make sense to me, especially when nothing else is replacing it. That 1989 tournament appearance might not have meant much, but did it really mean less than a view of the ceiling?

 

[cptjeff]

I disagree. We had a lot of years with both the Canes and NC State where we got the bare minimum. It definitely didn’t involve tournament bids and playoff runs.

Regardless of that, though, it’s more that the banners were hung up whether they “should” have been or not. When you walk into the building, you see the history of these teams on display. Minimizing that doesn’t make sense to me, especially when nothing else is replacing it. That 1989 tournament appearance might not have meant much, but did it really mean less than a view of the ceiling?

What I said was that it's the bare minimum for a successful season. When the Canes miss the playoffs of an ACC basketball team misses the tournament, you can't call it a successful season. Making the playoffs/tourney is the minimum bar for "that was a good year", but it isn't enough for "let's hang a banner".

And meaningless banners diminish the meaningful ones. Visually, you don't notice the ones that actually matter in the sea of participation ribbons. And while qualifying for the tournament may be impressive for some mid-major school, NC State pretends to be a significant player in college basketball's best and most storied conference. When you even just pretend to be a peer to UNC and Duke, you don't hang a full banner to celebrate just making the field of 68 or whatever it's at right now. That shit's embarrassing. You do that if you're a school like ECU that only makes the tournament every decade or so.

 

[tarheelhockey]

And meaningless banners diminish the meaningful ones.

I guess that’s really the point of disagreement then. I don’t think anyone walks into the building and sees four banners in 27 years and thinks “oh, that’s a great franchise”. Likewise with NC State. The color-coding used to take care of the question of which banners manner the most. Now we’ve diminished the importance of all the other hard-fought seasons, without elevating anything.