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Addressing the elephant and random thoughts heading into Canes opener |
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So as a die-hard hockey fan, I read other stuff. I get that every single person tasked with predicting the standings has the Canes 8th out of 8 in the Metro. And I also get that the team was already thin at forward before losing Jordan Staal for 3-4 months and now Jeff Skinner for who knows exactly how long with yet another concussion. So for met to type away at how stupid or wrong everyone else is while picking the Canes as a sure thing to finish top 2-3 in the Metro and storm into the playoffs is...well...stupid.
The odds are against it. They just are.
But here's the thing, there is an element of complete crap shoot to the NHL season.
Who in early October had the Avalanche having a playoff spot more or less locked up in early March and battling for the President's Trophy? Right. Exactly.
And even closer to home, I saw exactly no one pick the Canes higher than 25th or 26th out of 30 in the summer of 2005. That turned out okay for us.
So my point is not that I am certain the Canes are playoff bound. But there is absolutely no way that I am mailing in an entire 82-game season before it starts. Never. On Friday, I will start the season with the optimism that every NHL fan should start the season with. Might it be gradually and sometimes painfully taken away from me? Sure. But the game will have to take it from me. I will not hand it over before I have to.
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A few random Canes comments:
--BIG 3 games. I cannot think of any season where a tiny stretch of 3 games to start the year has been so important. I like the Isles this year and am a fan of their 2 trades this week, but they are not the Hawks, Bruins, Kings, etc. And they will need some time for Leddy and Boychuk to get integrated. The Canes get them back-to-back followed by a home game against maybe the only team picked to finish lower than the Canes this year - none other than the Sabres that the Canes beat handily last week (yes I know it was preseason).
Coming off a rough prior season, with a new coach and with some lineup question marks driven by injury, getting their feet firmly under them early could significantly benefit this team especially with a road-heavy October schedule. It at least gets them mentally to the place where they can just show up and play hockey believing it is possible to win every night. That is a starting point coming off a playoff miss.
--Ryan Murphy. I like where he is and think he is ahead of schedule in his development, but to be completely honest, I hate that he will likely get pushed into the top 4 out of lack of other options/depth instead of him playing his way into it. The last time the team did this with a promising offensive young defensemen was Jamie McBain. I know that the years that followed erased it for some, but he was nothing short of promising when he got pushed up too soon.
--In net. It will be interesting to see what Peters does with this. Ward was the better between the 2 in their last starts, so best guess is that he gets the start Friday. Then unless he is just lights out, maybe Khudobin gets the Saturday start to get both into the mix early? Something to watch anyway.
--The power play. It was incredibly good during the preseason, and it did not really seem to matter who was playing on it. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it actually clicked more with the skilled young AHL players than it did with the limited time that the veteran 1st unit saw. This and the bullet above are key. Good goaltending combined with both unit special teams success can keep you in a lot of hockey games and help you steal points. The Canes might need some of that.
--Peters system. 5v5 the biggest thing that stood out for me in Peters system was the puck support and small gaps between levels of players coming up the ice. A turnover in transition at the offensive blue line is very often catastrophic. It is just too hard to recover when the puck suddenly goes the other from this point right about the time the defensemen are pushing hardest forward. In Peters system, I think the margin for error is even smaller because the defensemen are up farther and sooner. The Canes struggled mightily with this in early preseason games in scrimmages having multiple instances of 1 or even 2 players getting quickly behind both Canes defensemen when the puck went the other way. The volume of big 'oopses' of this variety did seem to decrease as the preseason wore on, but I still think it is something to watch. While the smaller gaps do help with puck possession by creating more help and sometimes shorter and more passing options, the risk is that turnovers can quickly have the puck behind all 5 of your players going the other way. In an offense with Nic Lidstrom, Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg who are the definition of the European style puck possession game that is sweeping the league and were seemingly born with a puck glued to their stick, it seems easy enough. But 2 questions I have? Is it viable with any lineup? And if so, is it something you can drop in and work out in a single training camp or are there going to be significant growing pains?
The goal for the weekend is to come out with fire and intensity and ride it to a win in the home opener, scrape out any kind of OTL point the next night and take care of business against the Sabres. That plays the team into the season in a positive way and while the season preview magazines and rankings are finding their way to the recycle bin.
I get exactly where the expert opinions lie. I am not even saying that they are for certain wrong. But don't let them steal optimism. Anything can and truly does (2005-06) happen in the NHL.
Opening night is Friday!
Twitter=@CarolinaMatt63
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