In the ongoing saga that is the creation of the opening night roster, we saw a few new entries today. In terms of injuries, we got a tiny bit more clarity today. Gleason has a concussion, is out indefinitely and will not play in the opener though he has not yet been placed on IR (unless I missed it). Skinner practiced. Semin and Lindholm did not, but both seem to still be in the mix to play opening night. And in case you missed it Ruutu was placed on IR yesterday. It is not clear how long he is expected to be out, but he is definitely out for opening night.
Then there are the curious cases of Ryan Murphy and Radek Dvorak. Dvorak is still around but not signed yet, and Ryan Murphy was sent to Charlotte today. It looks like both of these could be part of the games being played around the NHL to maximize salary cap flexibility with regard to getting cap relief from placing a player (Pitkanen) on LTIR. Someone feel free to correct me if I have it wrong, but the general gist is that you want to get salary cap up to but not above the cap before placing the player on LTIR which then gets you all (or at least almost all) of his salary to be respent because the LTIR player’s salary gets credited. So in the silly math game, it looks like (not certain) that some weird combination of not yet signing Dvorak, sending Murphy to the AHL and possibly also keeping Corrente at the NHL level solves the equation best for LTIR cap relief. Regardless, we are only 4 days away from seeing who actually ends up on the ice, on IR and in the press box for opening night, so I am moving on to season preview type stuff for now.
I generally stay away from trying to predict whether the Canes will make the playoffs or not. You can find a couple dozen of those obligatory articles here, there and everywhere. The general consensus has the Canes #7 or #8 in the Metro Division. The highest I have seen is #5. Shrug…My fondest memory for times like these is the start of the 2005-06 season.
Instead, I will come at it from the angle of asking “What will it take for the Carolina Hurricanes to make the playoffs?” Though each is important, I did put them in order of greatest importance.
1) The combination of Cam Ward and Anton Khudobin must be amongst the elite in the division and Eastern Conference. If you look at the division, one would expect Lundqvist and Bobrovsky to be amongst the league’s best. Sure it could work out okay, but the goalie situations in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York (Isles) are somewhere between questionable, unknown or downright dicey. In the middle, I would expect New Jersey, Carolina and Washington.
If the Canes duo falls to this 2nd tier, I just do not think that will be good enough. I think for the Canes to make the playoffs, Ward will need to be in the category with the elite of the division and the conference and at least on the fringe of the top 5 in the league.
Key players: Ward obviously, but I think the Canes might finally have a backup goalie who can hit a hot streak and steal the job for a little while which makes the team better and Ward more rested for the stretch run.
2) The defense needs to solidify. Team defense was ultimately the downfall of the 2013-14 Carolina Hurricanes. When Ottawa hit injuries in bunches losing its top scorer, its top goalie and a Norris Trophy-contending defenseman, the Sens just plugged in the next in line, stuck to the system and grinded out points regardless of the lineup. When the Canes hit a batch of injuries they struggled for a bit and then completely imploded. The problem was that the Canes were below average in terms of defensive personnel but maybe more importantly in terms of the combination of defensive system, forward defensive abilities and just general soundness.
We will not know until we see some regular season hockey, but my impression is that the personnel on the blue line is improved. I think Andrej Sekera will provide the similarly well-rounded partner that Justin Faulk never had in 2013-14 but still managed a solid season. Ron Hainsey provides another veteran with top 4 experience. And the offense-leaning group of McBain, Corvo and Sanguinetti are replaced by defensive-leaning Komisarek and Bellemore with the possibility of using Ryan Murphy to help fill the gap offensively especially on the power play.
In trying to be objective, I can see where the new combinations could work, but I also have to admit that it is fair to question whether the changes are enough, whether the new crew will find chemistry and whether players thrust into much bigger roles than last year (Bellemore moving up from AHL; Komisarek most being healthy scratched in Toronto; Sekera moving up from a #4/#5 role to being an every night top pairing guy).
Even with potential issues in terms of depth, I think the Canes, if healthy, will be above average in terms of scoring. Last season scoring really was not the issue. The team ranked 13th in scoring and that was minus any scoring depth and with a power play that ranked 27th (% converted) in the NHL last season.
When you net it out the Canes defense does not need to be elite, but it does need to improve especially with regard to the volume of horrible breakdowns that lead directly to scoring chances where the goalie has little to no chance.
Key players: Sekera/Faulk needs to be real good. Someone must prove capable of being a decent top 4 who can complement Hainsey. I continue to think it is Bellemore short-term maybe until 1 of the vets, i.e. Gleason, Komisarek, round into form.
3) The 2nd line. With Ruutu on IR, in current form, the line is Gerbe/JStaal/Dwyer. This line is likely to take the greatest volume of the tough assignments. In the division that means Ovechkin’s line from Washington, Giroux’s line from Philadelphia, either Crosby or Malkin’s line from Pittsburgh, Tavares’ line from the Isles, etc. This line’s season is going to be a gauntlet of playing 20 minutes per night against could be all-star lines.
In terms of what you would normally expect from 2nd-line scoring, Dwyer is overslotted and even the line’s leader Jordan Staal leans defense over offense. The goal for this line is to break even every night. 0-0 draws are a perfectly acceptable option, but playing against elite scorers for 20 minutes per night and hoping for a shutout to accomplish your goal is risky. The offensive chemistry between Gerbe and JStaal is vital to putting up enough 1s and even an occasional 2 to at least hold even without needing to be perfect.
Key players: Jordan Staal has to lead this effort. With the failed attempt to take 2 completely different and in my opinion non-complementary skill sets in Skinner and JStaal and mesh them together jettisoned at least to start the season, Jordan Staal has line mates that match this assignment and can help. But at the end of the day, he needs to be 1 of the best players on the ice many nights to win the difficult battles.
4) The 1st line. I put this last simply because it is the 1 place where I am not looking for improvement upon last season. The combination of Tlusty/EStaal/Semin just needs to pick up where it left off last season. I actually think a small step backward in terms of even strength scoring could even be fine as long as it is offset by a more efficient power play this season.
Key players: Semin and EStaal. The Canes are going to need to be a bit top heavy offensively. EStaal and Semin proved they could provide elite scoring last season and need to do it again. I just do not see enough offense below this line to make up the gap for significant shortfalls here.
5) Contributions from the bottom 6. Muller is going to lean real heavily on his top 6, but he still needs something like 16-20 minutes per night from his bottom 6 forwards. When you multiply it out, it is 50-60 minutes of ice time total split between 6 players. The team does not need over the top efforts in all departments from this group, but it does need at least 4-5 players to contribute quality ice time in some way.
--Skinner is the obvious candidate to provide secondary scoring, balance the offense and make help make up for the fact that the 2nd line is offense-lite.
--2-way players with some NHL experience like Bowman, Dvorak and Nash need to give Muller a 3rd and/or 4th line that he can play with confidence especially on the road without having to try to hide them from matchups that always end badly.
--Ruutu, once healthy, needs to make the length of the rink difficult to navigate for opposing teams, bring his usual physical element and provide secondary scoring.
--Etc.
The key for this group is not volume of minutes. It is the quality of those minutes. If someone like Riley Nash can continue his progress to becoming a 3rd or 4th upfront penalty killer and therefore log 4ish minutes of quality PK work each night and then just pick up another 6-7 minutes that could be enough. If Muller could build a defensively solid 4th-line from a couple of the capable checking line options and get 6-8 minutes of good hockey per night, it could be enough.
Key players: Assuming he stays in the role of leading the offense for a 2B line, Skinner is key to balancing out the scoring a bit. In terms of improving defensively at forward, I think Nash is key early with the possibility that this shifts to young Elias Lindholm if he can get healthy, get his feet under him in the NHL and grow from there.
Twitter=@CarolinaMatt63 where to banter continues to build with the season opener only 4 days away.
Go Canes!
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