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GDT: Canes @ Pens 1/4 7:00

Great effort, great game, great win! Good to see Skinner get rewarded with a goal - I thought this was his best game in a while. Shutting down Pittsburgh at home (even when they're not playing the same as usual) is quite an accomplishment. In fact, during the 3rd I thought we played like the Pittsburgh team that routinely dominated us in years past. Aho is something special. He gives us a whole new dimension. But overall, it was a total team effort.
 
ThinIce said:
Great effort, great game, great win! Good to see Skinner get rewarded with a goal - I thought this was his best game in a while. Shutting down Pittsburgh at home (even when they're not playing the same as usual) is quite an accomplishment. In fact, during the 3rd I thought we played like the Pittsburgh team that routinely dominated us in years past. Aho is something special. He gives us a whole new dimension. But overall, it was a total team effort.
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The secret is simple, you play that way most of the time you win a lot of games and you make the playoffs! The issue is always consistency and being hungry like that most of the time...that's the million dollar question, can the Canes put that kind of effort and work in for 60 minutes most nights in the second half of the year?

From start to finish last night, a great team effort for 60 minutes, they had the work boots on for three periods!
 
CanadaCanes said:
The secret is simple, you play that way most of the time you win a lot of games and you make the playoffs! The issue is always consistency and being hungry like that most of the time...that's the million dollar question, can the Canes put that kind of effort and work in for 60 minutes most nights in the second half of the year?

From start to finish last night, a great team effort for 60 minutes, they had the work boots on for three periods!
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Have you ever played a high level sport and not try all game? Do you really think people that get to top tier just stop trying?
 
Aho answered the question - what was different? "We played fast enough." When they play fast, they're tough to beat. Pesce too when asked after the first - he said we played OK but we have more. They've played a lot of periods like the first period this season - a lot of games like that, but they turned up the speed in the second and third.

Last time I saw a Cane player make that power move, he was down the right side cutting in and wearing 26.
 
CanadaCanes said:
From start to finish last night, a great team effort for 60 minutes, they had the work boots on for three periods!
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The first 5 or so minutes of the 3rd period looked like our (formerly) typical 2nd period. But we weathered the storm and when Aho busted around Schultz for his first goal, and Malkin gave up on the play, the Pens started looking for the bus to the airport.

Islanders/Pens tonight. An Isles win ties them on points but we'll still be ahead of them because we've played fewer games.
 
Cam Ward is now 13th in the league in GAA and, with a record of 11-2-2, is 3rd in points per start. That's a pretty nice stretch. We've seen this too many times to think that it will last all season. But I'll take it right now.
 
cmon3 said:
Aho answered the question - what was different? "We played fast enough." When they play fast, they're tough to beat. Pesce too when asked after the first - he said we played OK but we have more. They've played a lot of periods like the first period this season - a lot of games like that, but they turned up the speed in the second and third.

Last time I saw a Cane player make that power move, he was down the right side cutting in and wearing 26.
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He's not wrong ... but it's worth noting that it helps a lot when the other team plays slow. That was a crap effort from the Pens, which combined with a good effort from the Canes resulted in a butt kicking. The Pens are a mess right now ... even more so than the other night in our arena.

bagopux said:
Cam Ward is now 13th in the league in GAA and, with a record of 11-2-2, is 3rd in points per start. That's a pretty nice stretch. We've seen this too many times to think that it will last all season. But I'll take it right now.
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Yeah ... it's like an Agatha Christie novel. You know what's going to happen but just relax and enjoy it while it's good.
 
bagopux said:
Cam Ward is now 13th in the league in GAA and, with a record of 11-2-2, is 3rd in points per start. That's a pretty nice stretch. We've seen this too many times to think that it will last all season. But I'll take it right now.
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Yeah - they need to play Darling and not ride Cam into the ground even if Darling is sucking. Or find someone else to give him a break. They have 10 games left this month. I'd not play him in any back to backs, and I'd not play him more than 2 games per week. Cam was great for a good stretch last year until we broke him. We also need to have Darling either round into better form, or we need another option by the trading deadline.
 
@Boston @Tampa @Washington and then home vs. Washington coming up. That should be a real test of where this team is.
 
Pretty impressive win and it is great to watch Aho and the Fins line continue to grow. I am liking the way the Canes are playing and they DO look like a playoff team right now. That said I can't shake the feeling that Cam Ward is currently Lucy holding the football, while Charlie Brown (Rest of Canes team) charging up to the football only to see Lucy yank the ball away at the last minute.

The Canes are likely going to enter the second half of the season in uncharted territory for a majority of the players as they are legitimately in the playoff race (and leading the wildcard)! I really hate to admit that Peters system is coming together and the team is starting to turn that dominant puck possession into actual goals and looking solid. Well done Peters (ouch, that hurt)! Overall I feel good about the team but can't shake the goalie issues of the past coming back at some point. I don't trust Cam Ward and Darling has shown nothing to provide hope.

The Penguins, on the other hand, look like a team that could use a year off. The entire team has just looked disinterested and out of gas this year. It will be interesting to see what JR does. The smart play might just be to scrap this year and not make any dumb short-term trades as fresh legs from a long summer has been proven medicine for the other multiple cup winners the past 15 years (Detroit, Chicago, LA). JR made almost every right move his first couple of years in Pittsburgh and this year has brought him down to earth as he wiffed on pretty much everything this off-season (Reaves was worth a 1st round pick and decent prospect!). Pittsburgh should be worried about him making a dumb trade to try to salvage this season that will sink another cup run for the core in the long term. JR was always a gunslinger on trades and I have a feeling something dumb is about to happen there.
 
Yeah ... don't really care what Pittsburgh. ends up doing, but they need a shakeup pretty badly. A standard low key move for a veteran defenseman would help their back line, but I have no idea what they might do up front.

More importantly, you guys singing the hymn about not over-working Ward are on the right page so far as I'm concerned. Personally I think he'll hit a wall eventually either way but it's a lead pipe cinch that he'll crash and burn if they keep up his current workload for much longer. Darling might suck, but it would suck worse if they both were on the skids ... which shouldn't be hard to remember because that was how we started the season. And look, making the playoffs this season SHOULD be urgent enough to do something long term dumb that makes sense right now ... like getting a third goalie into the mix. I know we all make fun when the Islanders do something like that ... but at least they're trying.
 
The other variable here is that the Canes have been relatively injury free for the season, the only exception being Stempniak. Other teams in the mix have dealt with some significant personnel issues and hung in there. At some point we will probably have to handle the injury bug and that will test where the organization is, because the Canes have to be more than the top 23 guys on the depth chart.

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Pens beat the Isles tonight, 4-0. Isles lost Bailey, Ladd and Pulock during the game so that’s worth keeping an eye on, Bailey especially. But they have their bye next week so they’ll have time to recover from whatever knocks they picked up.

Unrelated, the Isles flagship radio station is the Hofstra University radio station, it’s non-commercial. They don’t have ads per se, but the games are “presented by” company ABC that gets a 5 second blurb.
 
a college radio station is pretty funny. long ago the As in Oakland were on a college station because the owner Finley got mad at the station that had been doing games for a while.
 
As bad as Darling has been, im much more confident with him waiting in the wings as opposed to Lack. He has a point to prove when he gets back in there. Unlike most of you, I had absolutely no problem when Peters embarrased him in Toronto. He signed a long term deal for a bunch of cash and has basically stunk.
 
brassbonanza said:
As bad as Darling has been, im much more confident with him waiting in the wings as opposed to Lack. He has a point to prove when he gets back in there.
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I agree, but that's a pretty low bar. Lack was just flat out bad for pretty much the entirety of his stint with the Canes. Darling has been more of a "decent performance marred by a couple of really weak save attempts" brand of bad. That's generally the kind of bad that's more mental than anything else. Which is the big reason I particularly didn't care for Peters leaving him out to dry in Toronto.
 
Eric Stratton said:
Have you ever played a high level sport and not try all game? Do you really think people that get to top tier just stop trying?
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You missed the point of the post. This team has showed multiple times that consistency when it comes to 60 minute efforts have been hard to string together...not really sure where you were going with that rant.
 
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