Just before posting this I put up a placeholder blog that I will use to provide regular fantasy hockey updates including injuries, line combination changes, hot/cold streaks, etc. If you are a fantasy hockey player with Hurricanes interests, I suggest you bookmark it and check in regularly.
You can find that blog
HERE.
For the next installment of my Carolina Hurricanes preview, I will take a shot at identifying what will be required from each of the roster players for the Canes to significantly outperform the consensus #7 or #8 finish in the Metropolitan Division as projected by the experts.
--Eric Staal. On a team top-heavy in terms of offense, he needs to pick up where he left off in 2012-13. To me it is not so much about whether his point total is 75-80 or closer to 100. It is more about being an offensive leader when it is needed. He needs to score his share or more of the huge goals that the team needs to get going in a sluggish start or late in the 3rd period to pull even or go ahead. I also task him (along with line mate Alexander Semin) with improving upon last year’s miserable power play.
--Alexander Semin. I think his ceiling is even higher than Eric Staal’s offensively and that if he gets into a groove scoring goals to go with his playmaking that he could surpass even EStaal in scoring. But that is not required for the team to win. Semin’s goals are to be the catalyst for the top line and with EStaal to help breathe life into the power play.
--Jiri Tlusty. As long as he stays in his current role on the top line he must continue to score and do the little things to help that line play as much as possible in the offensive zone where it is incredibly dangerous. If at some point the lines get shuffled it becomes important for Tlusty to continue his solid 2-way play but not to give up all of his offense in a different role.
--Jordan Staal. I hate to put pressure on the guy (not that he reads this anyway), but I think for the Canes to be a playoff contender in 2013-14, JStaal will need to be 1 of the names mentioned as a potential team MVP. Think Rod Brind’Amour 2001-02. In that season Brind’Amour was modest in terms of scoring (only 55 points) but a beast in terms of taking all of the hard minutes against the other teams’ best lines and breaking even. That is the target for Jordan Staal in 2013-14.
--Patrick Dwyer. In an ideal world he would be more like a 45-50-point point player to play on the 2nd line. He is not. But he is a proven veteran defensive wing. His role is threefold. Most importantly, he needs to be a key component to a penalty kill that is much better than last year’s 27th. Second, he needs to be a plug and play solid defensive player regardless of line mates. He could shift some with injuries but just needs to keep doing what he does well. Finally, he needs to maximize the value of his scoring with decent collection of momentum-turning shorthanded goals, key goals late, etc.
--Tuomo Ruutu. Ruutu needs to bring the physical element and is important for secondary scoring. If he falls too much into the role of just hitting things, he starts to look like a low 3rd line or a 4th line player. He needs to score at about a 50-point pace (over 82 games) without giving up any of the physicality he brings.
--Nathan Gerbe. I think Gerbe along with Jeff Skinner are the keys to secondary scoring. With a couple players lighter on offense (Dwyer, Nash) and some unproven NHLers in the bottom half of the roster, Gerbe needs to step up and provide secondary scoring in the 40-50 point range. At the same time, he has the difficult challenge to be a sound part of the team’s top checking line playing against NHL elite night in and night out. Gerbe could arguably be the player for whom what I am asking most exceeds what he did in 2012-13. But he looked capable and earned this job in training camp. Now he needs to carry it into real hockey.
--Jeff Skinner. Playing in a 2B or 3rd-line role, he should be the leader in terms of bottom half of the roster scoring by a big margin. Maybe too much so, his offensive tends to come from individual efforts/skill, so he seems to be the right kind of player to flourish regardless of line mates. Skinner needs to notch something in the 55-point range for scoring, needs to generate this offense without gambling for goals in which case he gives up even more than he gets and needs to do it without playing with a bunch of top tier offensive talent. He will get a healthy serving of power play ice time to help, but it is still a challenge.
--Riley Nash. He needs to quickly transition from being a developing young 2-way center with potential to a bona fide NHL center who can hold his own if his line gets stuck on the ice against scoring lines. If he sticks in the 3rd-line center slot, he also gains pressure to score more and support Jeff Skinner’s need to produce offensively. I actually like the original configuration that had him slotted on the 4th line with less need to produce offensively, but with Elias Lindholm delayed over the summer by injury and missing most of training camp, it will not be clear for a couple weeks whether there is another option for C3.
--Drayson Bowman. Probably playing with some combination of inexperienced and/or offensively-focused line mates (if he stays on Skinner’s line), Bowman’s primary job is a bit like Dwyer’s. He needs to help solidify his line defensively. At the same time, the team needs to get something more than nothing in terms of scoring. Bowman is 1 of the players who needs to go from a meager 10ish point pace to at least 20-25 which would be a solid total if he falls to the 4th line.
--Elias Lindholm. I think it is unfair to heap too much in terms of “must dos” on top of an 18-year old whose first step is to simply get healthy and get acclimated to the NHL. He needs a bit of time to just get his feet under him. But ideally he will grow quickly and ultimately assume the C3 role originally assumed to be his before training camp. If he does climb back into this role, the job there is to provide a decent combination of enough skill and skating to play offense with Skinner but also enough defense and 2-way play to play with Skinner and help keep his line out of trouble defensively especially on the road.
--Kevin Westgarth. His primary role is to keep things clean on the ice and provide the backstop for physical play. He is not going to score a ton, but ideal would be for him to net 3-5 goals with most being of the “we really needed that goal” variety. For scoring, it is not about how many but when.
--Radek Dvorak. At this stage of his career, he is not likely to score that much. Even in his prime, he was limited offensively. If he plays on the 4th line, the key for him is to make a big offensive play here and there, keep the 4th line solid defensively and provide veteran depth for the penalty kill if needed. Like Bowman, if ultimately slotted on the 4th line, something like 18-20 points would be fine and also seems within reach of his skill set.
--Brett Sutter. Like Dvorak, he is likely to play on the 4th line as long as he is in Raleigh. He is not going to lead the team in scoring, but he is capable of scoring some and helping balance the offense while still being sound defensively. The primary thing is to get on and off the ice without problems when his 4th line sees scoring lines on the road.
--Justin Faulk. What makes his rapid rise to top 4 NHL defenseman in 2012-13 even more remarkable was the circumstances. Past the halfway point, the team was not very good. The defense and the help from the forwards was suspect. And he never really settled into having a lead partner or even really any kind of stable partner. When you compare him to someone like Roman Josi in Nashville it is striking. Josi similarly rose up last year, but he was playing on a team that was pretty sound defensively and great in goal. And then playing night in and night out with Norris Trophy candidate Shea Weber certainly takes a lot of pressure off. Faulk had none of these luxuries. He strapped on his own skates and did it himself. So fast forward to 2013-14. Unfortunately, the team has no room for him to do anything but continue to be a solid top 4. I think his situation is better in that Muller has smartly (in my opinion) attached Sekera and Faulk from the outset creating what could be the Canes first top pairing defensive unit in at least a few years. Faulk’s goal this year (with Sekera) is to provide sound, predictable and reliable defense for 22-26 minutes per night in all situations.
--Andrej Sekera. As noted above, for now he is attached at the hip to Faulk and tasked with taking a step forward into a challenging role as a 1st pairing defenseman. If Sekera/Faulk looks more like 2 decent young defensemen trying to work things out, I think the team will have trouble pulling together enough defense behind them. If they can step up and be solid for 22-26 minutes per night, it becomes much easier for Muller and his coaching staff to figure out situations, matchups, rotations, etc. to get 35 decent minutes from the other 2 pairings.
--Ron Hainsey. Put simply, he needs to do 3 things. First, he needs to be the lead on the 2nd defense pairing. Second, he needs to find chemistry and work well with 1 of the big, physical defenseman to get the most out of the complementary skill set. Finally, he must contribute on special teams being great on penalty kill and at least adequate on the power play.
--Jay Harrison. I think Harrison needs to be the every night anchor on the 3rd pairing. In this role, I think he is likely to see a mix of partners (Murphy if the team wants offense, any of Bellemore, Gleason or Komisarek while Muller figures out who fits best with Hainsey, changes due to injury, etc.). Harrison’s game has really grown since he arrived as a player who looked like a borderline #6 or #7 defenseman with limited upside. he needs to be able to adapt quickly as the player next to him changes and still be half of a 3rd pairing that can get on and off the ice without incident for 12-16 minutes per game.
--Tim Gleason, Mike Komisarek, Brett Bellemore. One of these players needs to find chemistry and a groove and prove capable of logging 2nd pairing minutes and assignments with Ron Hainsey. This is a challenge in different ways for each of the 3. Gleason is labeled and paid as a top 4 but is coming off a rough 2012-13 campaign. Komisarek was once a top 4 but is coming of multiple rough campaigns. And Bellemore who I think looked best in this role in preseason would be trying to jump straight from the AHL into a #4 defenseman role with only 7 games of NHL experience. Nonetheless, 1 of these 3 needs to find chemistry with Hainsey and play top 4 minutes for the blue line math to work. Especially on the road, this unit will see many an NHL scoring line and must be up to the task. The other 2 must provide defensive depth on the 3rd pairing or in reserve for injuries.
--Ryan Murphy. At least early on, Murphy seems slotted for a bit of a protected/limited role trying to help the power play and boost the offense. Priority 1 for Murphy is to minimize the big ‘oopses’ prone to players still developing and learning to play in the NHL. In a role where success is measured more by how many bad plays you make than how many good, being able to get on and off the ice without incident for 3 out of 4 shifts is as important as creating offense in the 4th. Priority 2 is being a difference-maker on the power play and offensively. This is why he will at least start the season in the NHL and long-term is his ticket to stay.
--Cam Ward. Per my previous blog, I picked Cam Ward and Jordan Staal as the 2 most important players for the Canes to surprise the experts and be in contention for a playoff berth. I think Ward will need to climb into the tier of Lundqvist and Bobrovsky to give the Canes a big advantage in goal over some of the goaltending-questionable teams in the Metro Division for the team to succeed. I think anything less leaves the team on the outside looking in.
Anton Khudobin. While I think Ward must ultimately carry the mail, you could read his goals more generically as “goalie.” Khudobin should be a factor regardless, but the possibility of him hitting a hot stretch and taking the controls for a little while is not a bad thing. With goalies sometimes a little time on the shelf to let the hunger for ice time grow stronger than the self-doubt and negative mojo from a rough stretch can be perfect to climb out of a funk.
What say you Canes fans? I have Cam Ward and Jordan Staal as my 2 most important players. Who are yours?
Tomorrow I will post a set of predictions for the 2013-14 season.
Twitter=@CarolinaMatt63
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