UPDATED 1:40pm...Per team report coming out of morning skate, Cam Ward to make his long-awaited return to net. Here is hoping he got most of the rust off in practice.
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So in the past day or so we have Eklund doing a "Liles to the Canes" post and then in today's Maple Leafs' blog Mike Augello mentions that the Canes Ron Francis attended the Checkers at Marlies game in Toronto on Saturday. You can find Mike's blog
HERE. The Francis stuff is about in the middle of the blog. While it is very possible that Francis was just doing a regular check in with the Canes AHL team, I guess the fact that he traveled to Toronto to do it rather than catching a game or 2 in nearby Charlotte could mean something if you want to stir up excitement.
Here are my quick thoughts on the Liles to Carolina possibility:
1) At this specific point in time the Canes defense is playing real well. With #3 goalie Justin Peters in net (and admittedly playing pretty well), the team has allowed 9 goals over its last 6 games (not counting empty-netters). The loss in StL when the team was sluggish playing back-to-backs against physical teams was the first in those 6 games where the Canes allowed more than 2 goals. The Canes struggles are offense right now. The power play is meek. The top line now 20 games into the season is still not clicking. And minus Jeff Skinner for weeks now, secondary scoring has been light.
2) The Canes have no room for another defenseman. I think there is a good chance that Gleason will be a healthy scratch tonight, and unless Komisarek gets another game filling in for the injury-depleted forward ranks, so will he. Liles would make 9 NHL defensemen. The only 2 on 2-way contracts (Ryan Murphy and Brett Bellemore) are playing well and not going anywhere anytime soon.
3) The only reason Liles might make sense would be to get more of an offensive type who can move the puck, create offense and maybe help the power play but per #2, it is not clear that the Canes have anywhere to put him even if they had him on the roster right now. With the defense playing well, there is a good chance that you could break more (the improved defense) more than you would fix (the struggling offense) by starting to swap around players.
4) If Liles was moveable even for nothing, he would be gone. The Leafs have clearly demonstrated that they have no use for him going forward and have sunk whatever value he might have had by jettisoning him to the minors. I do not see how it is not incredibly clear to everyone at this point that his MAXIMUM value is a trade for nothing (7th round pick) only after the Leafs eat the maximum half of his salary. If the situation was any better than this do we really think he would be playing for the Marlies making nearly $4M this season?
I mentioned this in a past blog or maybe the comments. The team would not say it, but in an ideal world what would make sense for the Canes would be to unload Tim Gleason and his big $4M contract for a 3rd-line center. This is arguably the biggest hole in the Canes roster right now. The team originally slotted Elias Lindholm to fill this spot, but he has been slowed by injury and to some degree just normal adjustment/development. Riley Nash has played solid hockey in that role this season especially on the defensive side of the puck, but I think it is becoming clearer that he just is not going to score enough to stay in the C3 slot. Meanwhile, Manny Malhotra has been phenomenal as the 4th-line center, but I think that is exactly where you want him, not a line higher. If you could put someone offensively capable next to Skinner on that 3rd (I call it 2B but whatever line), I think the forwards really round into form. Then ONLY AFTER Gleason were traded, the Canes might consider backfilling blue line depth for cheap. But 3 things on that: First, Gleason has a no-trade clause, so any move to deal him gets complicated by that. Second, I do not think it is a necessity as long as the defensemen are healthy. Komisarek is still sitting there as a cheap, experienced #7, so taking on even half of Liles nearly $4M salary just to add depth is financially more aggressive than I would expect from Canes GM Jim Rutherford. The Leafs obviously would have no interest in Gleason who just replaces 1 expensive defenseman with another which means that it would have to be 2 trades (Gleason to somewhere else, then Liles to Carolina) which just makes it even more complicated and improbable.
Shorter version: I do not see the Canes taking on a 9th defensemen since the 2 players on 2-way contracts are not going anywhere. Only if the Canes maneuver around Gleason’s no-trade clause does it even become a remote possibility. I am sure that Nonis is trying to sell Liles to something close to 29 NHL teams right now. Just because Rutherford answered the phone and listened politely rather than laughing and hanging up does not mean he is buying.
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On to the business at hand of continuing to collect points in the standings...
Playing its 3rd game in 4 nights with travel to and from St. Louis in the middle, the Canes face another big, physical team in the Boston Bruins on Monday night. I will be anxious to see if the Canes find any jump and the wherewithal to fight through another physical, grinding game after a fairly tired-looking, sluggish effort for the most part in St. Louis on Saturday night. The hope is that the day off Sunday will be enough to recharge for 1 more battle before a couple days off.
The Bruins are a fairly familiar foe, and surprisingly the Canes results have been okay over the past few years. Last year in the midst of a complete meltdown, the Canes won a spirited fight-filled game in Raleigh for 1 of their few wins down the stretch to close the season series at 1-2. And using a recipe of getting the Bruins all worked up and then mostly refusing to engage in all the extra stuff after the whistle, the Canes managed to get the Bruins irate, frustrated and off the hockey game to the tune of a surprising 4-game sweep of the 2011-12 season series with a memorable win in Boston early in the season that saw the Bruins come completely unglued to the tune of 72 penalty minutes in a 4-1 Canes win. At least that season, the Canes seemed to have quite the knack for poking the bear, stirring it up and then stealing wins playing hockey while the bear was running around angry. That makes for a surprising 5 Canes wins in the past 7 meetings which obviously does not line up at all with the general success of the 2 teams over that time period.
But that is the past. For 2013-14, the Bruins come in at a solid 12-6-1, in 2nd place in the Atlantic Division and leading the Eastern Conference in goal differential at plus 17. The team looks a bit different with the departure of Nathan Horton, Tyler Seguin and Andrew Ference, but the brand of hockey is fairly similar. The Bruins are built around a solid defense, good goaltending and a heavy mix of very good 2-way forwards who will not be amongst the league leaders in scoring but who score enough to win hockey games when per usual they give up very little. On the blue line, the Bruins are in the midst of a bit of a youth movement with 2nd year player Dougie Hamilton and rookie Torey Krug taking on bigger roles and doing so pretty effectively. Being paired with solid veterans Zdeno Chara and Dennis Seidenberg respectively obviously helps. And the forward lines and scoring are also in a bit of transition with the departure of offensive fire power in Nathan Horton and Tyler Seguin, but relying on a system that leans on its stifling defense 1st, the team has not missed a beat.
From the Canes side, this week sets up to be another challenging one. The Canes see Boston twice (once home, once away) sandwiched around a game in Detroit and finished with the 2nd half of a back-to-back behind the 2nd Bruins tilt against the Senators on Sunday. After a solid 5-game home stand that saw the Canes go 4-0-1, the team lost Saturday in St. Louis which sets Monday up to be a 1st try to keep a losing streak from growing.
We should get some information on the Canes lineup after the morning skate fairly soon. I will try to check back to fill in some blanks. As of Monday morning, all of Skinner, Semin and Dvorak were up in the air at forward and with Gleason now healthy Muller will likely need to decide who sits to get Murphy back in the lineup after a 1-game rest.
My keys to the game:
1) Canes ability to find energy level, skating and willingness to do the hard work against a team that is built better for it. In Friday and Saturday’s back-to-back, the Canes saw 2 teams who were very good at getting pucks on the boards, turning the game into a series of 1-on-1 puck battles at times and mostly winning them. This left the Canes playing a taxing game of 1st doing the battles against big, physical opponents and then playing a decent portion of the game without the puck when they did not win the battles. The Bruins will bring more of the same to PNC Arena where the Canes face this style of game for the 3rd night in 4 with travel in the middle.
I am anxious to see if the day off Sunday is enough for the Canes to recharge and get the Canes skating or if this game looks like a difficult slog through the mud like Saturday’s game in St. Louis. Some spark and jump could help push pace and get this game on more favorable terms for the Canes. Minus the jump, this game starts to look like a physical battle of 1-on-1 battles and will to which he Bruins are more suited.
2) An offensive spark. Even amidst the recent winning streak, the offense has struggled. Even during the 5-game point streak at home, the Canes mustered only 9 goals with the 4th-line leading the way with 4 (counting D goal scored by Murphy with them on the ice). The power play struggled again Saturday. Eric Staal did score a shorthanded goal Saturday, but his line continues to be more stymied than not, and with Semin’s availability for Monday in question after a heavy Pietrangelo hit on Saturday, the search for offense and scoring continues.
3) 1 old recipe / 1 new recipe. The Canes success of late has been firmly on the back of playing a solid defensive game across all 18 skaters, strong play by the blue line and a commitment to come back to the house to help collect and clear the many rebounds that Peters usually spits out. (It is important to note that his rebound control was actually very good in the Blues game, so just maybe confidence is helping that part of his game.) Monday’s game is especially challenging with regard to the rebound control/clearing because the Bruins will send a bunch of bodies to the net and look to finish these chances. The old recipe is the Canes ability to have the Bruins style of play help amp them up in terms of intensity without allowing it to get them off their game. It is fading farther into the past now, but ironically it was the Bruins a couple years back that seemed to pull themselves off their game a couple times when they dialed up the nasty and became frustrated with the Canes mostly answered within the whistles but mostly passed on all the extra stuff after the whistles. The Canes need to match the Bruins physically in the game but mostly steer clear of the extra stuff and avoid letting it take them off focus.
Shorter version of it all: This game becomes much more winnable if the Canes can regain their skating legs with the day off and prove willing to do the hard physical work for the 3rd game in a row. With that, it takes the recently successful model of being better defensively and to somehow find some offense.
Twitter=@CarolinaMatt63
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