The way too early "Takeaway from Carolina's success?" thread | Page 15 | HFBoards - NHL Message Board and Forum for National Hockey League

The way too early "Takeaway from Carolina's success?" thread

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Their win is just another instance of a team playing a cohesive, structured game; getting all the players on the roster to buy into a system; and winning with team depth.

Like usual, puck possession wins out. Teams that control the puck and play are the ones that usually win.

They'll be hard to beat next year as well.

How much of this can be copyed by other teams do you think?
 
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They just got a career performance from a 37 year old. Hall had that one great regular season a player, and otherwise has just been a guy. So, yet another career best playoff performance by an aging player, likely to not be duplicated. There have been multiple years where Ehlers scored 0 goals in the playoffs. Their D group is also aging, with a couple guys either getting Cup paid or needing replacement by who knows what. Who knows what their goalies will be. Is Bussi the guy? He wasn't even the guy a week ago.

A lot of playoff games over the last 8 years. It takes a toll. And they finally got over the hump. So, will that extra edge hunger still be there? And there's a whole bunch of younger teams coming up.
 
How much of this can be copyed by other teams do you think?

I’m not sure how much you can copy it. As has been pointed out throughout the playoffs, this was a long-term effort by the organization. They found the right coach and incrementally added players that fit his coaching style. Most organizations wouldn’t dedicate 8 years to a coach that “couldn’t win the ECF” or were “regular season merchants.” Most coaches wouldn’t get the same “run through a wall” mentality from their players or the dedication to stick with the system through the hard times. This was the end result of a lot of time and effort from the top down
 
I’m not sure how much you can copy it. As has been pointed out throughout the playoffs, this was a long-term effort by the organization. They found the right coach and incrementally added players that fit his coaching style. Most organizations wouldn’t dedicate 8 years to a coach that “couldn’t win the ECF” or were “regular season merchants.” Most coaches wouldn’t get the same “run through a wall” mentality from their players or the dedication to stick with the system through the hard times. This was the end result of a lot of time and effort from the top down

Seems like buy-in is the key.

The 2016 Pens were a puck possesion team that was only really put in place once the playoffs started.
 
Biggest takeaway? Hmmm.. play in the worst division in hockey? Have the team that owned you be so injured they miss the playoffs? Rely on career performances from guys in their mid-late 30's? Pickup a stud goalie on waivers?

They've drafted well, and held on to Slavin. Rod is a fantastic coach. But I don't see much in the way that team is built that would lead to repeatable success.
 
On paper, it’s a pretty classic winning formula. Excellent depth top to bottom with all players committed to a certain playing style and system.

One observation that is still true of the Hurricanes is that they still lack true “superstar players” which goes against conventional wisdom of a winning formula. I’m guilty of this myself, thought this was the one thing doomed to hold them back.
 
They just got a career performance from a 37 year old. Hall had that one great regular season a player, and otherwise has just been a guy. So, yet another career best playoff performance by an aging player, likely to not be duplicated. There have been multiple years where Ehlers scored 0 goals in the playoffs. Their D group is also aging, with a couple guys either getting Cup paid or needing replacement by who knows what. Who knows what their goalies will be. Is Bussi the guy? He wasn't even the guy a week ago.

A lot of playoff games over the last 8 years. It takes a toll. And they finally got over the hump. So, will that extra edge hunger still be there? And there's a whole bunch of younger teams coming up.
Some misconceptions here:

1) They can run same team back next year, with only Nikishin to re-sign. Andersen will be gone but replaced with a Bussi/Kochetkov combo which is arguably already better. Other than that, only their 7th playoff defenseman and 13th playoff forward are UFA.

2) The Canes still have some decent prospects, F Bradley Nadeau, D Charles Alexis-Legault, F Felix Unger-Sorum, D Joel Nystrom, F Charlie Cerrato, G Semyon Frolov, F Justin Robidas, F Justin Poirier, D Dominik Badinka, F Ivan Ryabkin, D Alexander Siryatsky, D Timur Kol, D Kurban Limatov, F Nikita Artamonov, D Noel Fransen. There's room for internal replacements to come in and bring some cheap depth over next couple years.

3) They have plenty good players on the aging curve as well: K'Andre Miller (2000), Andrei Svechnikov (2000), Alexander Nikishin (2001), Seth Jarvis (2002), Logan Stankoven (2003) and Jackson Blake (2003) are a good young nucleus.... Jarvis, Stankoven and Blake are all signed long-term on great contracts.

They are well poised to stay a top team for the near future. Wouldn't shock me to see them get another in the next couple years.
 
On paper, it’s a pretty classic winning formula. Excellent depth top to bottom with all players committed to a certain playing style and system.

One observation that is still true of the Hurricanes is that they still lack true “superstar players” which goes against conventional wisdom of a winning formula. I’m guilty of this myself, thought this was the one thing doomed to hold them back.
Anderson played like a superstar, until he didn't. Then Bussi came in and was even better.

It is weird to have 2 super star goalies and no super star skaters.

Oh, and have 4x ~0.5ppg skaters go ~1 ppg in the playoffs. Blake, Hall, Ehlers, Stankoven. And your 37 year old 4th line center score 1 goal per game in the finals.

I think Carolina will continue to be a top 5 team in the league. But nothing about this cup run seems like a classic formula or repeatable.
 
Biggest takeaway? Hmmm.. play in the worst division in hockey? Have the team that owned you be so injured they miss the playoffs? Rely on career performances from guys in their mid-late 30's? Pickup a stud goalie on waivers?

They've drafted well, and held on to Slavin. Rod is a fantastic coach. But I don't see much in the way that team is built that would lead to repeatable success.

This is music to my ears, it's going to be a super sweet summer on the forum.
 
Anderson played like a superstar, until he didn't. Then Bussi came in and was even better.

It is weird to have 2 super star goalies and no super star skaters.

Oh, and have 4x ~0.5ppg skaters go ~1 ppg in the playoffs. Blake, Hall, Ehlers, Stankoven. And your 37 year old 4th line center score 1 goal per game in the finals.

I think Carolina will continue to be a top 5 team in the league. But nothing about this cup run seems like a classic formula or repeatable.
why, peel back all the noise and specifics, and it's just a deep team getting contributions up and down their lineup and not always in the expected way. This is just difference between a top heavy and deep team. A top heavy team would be screwed if Aho, Jarvis, Svechnikov played like they did, but Carolina is deep enough that it wasn't big deal. By next year, perhaps those three guys go off and Hall, Stankoven, Blake take more a backseat. That's the secret to the sustained formula, really deep and good contracts.
 
You know how you copy it...you build a team through various ways (draft, FA, trades) but also accumulate assets. You have patience but capitalize when player(s) become available.
 
They just got a career performance from a 37 year old. Hall had that one great regular season a player, and otherwise has just been a guy. So, yet another career best playoff performance by an aging player, likely to not be duplicated. There have been multiple years where Ehlers scored 0 goals in the playoffs. Their D group is also aging, with a couple guys either getting Cup paid or needing replacement by who knows what. Who knows what their goalies will be. Is Bussi the guy? He wasn't even the guy a week ago.

A lot of playoff games over the last 8 years. It takes a toll. And they finally got over the hump. So, will that extra edge hunger still be there? And there's a whole bunch of younger teams coming up.
They can lead the Metro division for a few more years. All teams in Metro suck and will suck for many years.
 
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There was a thread a while back claiming that a tank and rebuild was REQUIRED for a team to be successful. I kept saying that there was teams who never bottomed out and were still successful. But it was like arguing to a hive mind that's obsessed with tanking and drafting.

The takeaway from Carolina's success, on HF I hope, is that the tanking obsession should be mitigated a decent amount, and not every team that refuses to tank is doomed to ridicule and failure.
 
This is not really a hot take after the cup win because I've been saying it for years, but teams should really look at Tampa and Carolina in how they develop their prospects. Give them time in the AHL, give them responsibility and juice every last drop of potential they have in them. That's how you develop a solid team with star players from the later rounds of the draft (or undrafted players): Aho, Slavin, Nikishin, Blake, Palat, Kucherov, Johnson, Gourd, Point, Killorn, Cirelli...

And it obviously helps with player development if you're patient and have a coach that has been with the organization for 15+ years such as Brind'Amour or Cooper.
 
Oh, and have 4x ~0.5ppg skaters go ~1 ppg in the playoffs. Blake, Hall, Ehlers, Stankoven.
Ehlers has 159 points in his last 177 games, that's hardly a 0.5 ppg player.

In fact, all 4 of those guys have been lighting it up going back to the Olympic Break - here are their regular season numbers in that stretch:

Ehlers 12g 28p in 25gp
Hall 6g 21p in 23gp
Blake 6g 20p in 24gp
Stankoven 11g 19p in 24gp

That doesn't look all that different from their playoff totals, but they also got about 1-2 mins more ice time in the playoffs, which compensates for the delta.

And your 37 year old 4th line center score 1 goal per game in the finals.

I think Carolina will continue to be a top 5 team in the league. But nothing about this cup run seems like a classic formula or repeatable.
This is one of the more sustainable performances I've ever seen. They are a system team that thoroughly outplayed their competition all playoffs. They got good goaltending at times but that wasn't the reason for their overall success. And they've got a solid young core on great contracts, who are either in the middle of their prime, or have yet to even begin it.
 
Still want to see them beat Florida in the playoffs. They took advantage of them not being there this year, but if Florida smacks them again next year, this Cup win won't have the same taste.
 
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Still want to see them beat Florida in the playoffs. They took advantage of them not being there this year, but if Florida smacks them again next year, this Cup win won't have the same taste.

Carolina just beat a better version of the team that Florida lost to in the Finals a few years back. Does that mean Florida’s Cup wins don’t have the same taste since they didn’t face Vegas?
 

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