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GDT: Canes v. Flames 1/14 3:00

CarolinaPen said:
True, but it also looks to be a mistake. The past two years the Penguins absorbed a ton of injuries and shots to the stars but they dominated style of play and have two straight Cups to show for it. Admittedly, the star players were probably frustrated with the amount of abuse they took during that span and likely said something that triggered JR making the Reaves trade. Teams think a bit more about taking liberties with Penguin players, but the team just isn't as good with Reaves out there. The 4th line has transformed from a speedy line that can score and play regular minutes to a mostly worthless line that hardly plays at all. In the playoffs Reaves likely becomes a healthy scratch as some point.....and he is the best enforcer in the league and can actually play.

Team toughness and the enforcer role are overrated in my book. Score goals and win games to get the last laugh just like the Canes last Cup winning team. I would rather see the existing Canes "man up" versus bringing in a tough guy.
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Overrated you say, yet it always seems to come back to that same issue every single time when star players like Aho and Skinner are concussed and abused. Like Luke said in his most recent article, this team is still soft, too soft to win a playoff round if they ever get back there.
 
jeffbear said:
OK. Our development program has been OK. But only that. Drafting two decent scoring forwards in 10 years ain’t gonna cut it when you’re not going out and adding top end talent through trades and acquisitions. And God only knows how many garbage goaltenders we’ve drafted since we got a decent one. It’s been OK. And that’s not good enough.
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Right, but it sure now seems like we rushed Hanifin out of necessity. Poor kid seems totally overwhelmed at times.
 
It doesn't take goons to enforce things when they get out of hand. After Aho was targeted, Gaudreau should have been our focus. Each time he touched the puck someone (McGinn, Nordstrom, Lindholm, Staal) should have been sending the message back. Except we don't. Team Toughness, Canes it's not thy name. Same things goes when other teams aggressively finish their checks and we continue with poke checks. Gotta believe this is coming from the Head Coach, because Brindy and Smitty wouldn't stand for it.
 
The Canes we're Charmin soft under Maurice for long stretches, also under each coach since. As much as I despise Bill Peters, I'm not pinning sissy hockey on him.
 
I think it's the mentality of the players...

The guys we have that have the size and strength to actually be effective in this for the most part are not contact guys.

We don't have a guy like Orpick, or Tom Wilson, and our stars are also not guys like Crosby or Ovechkin who can frankly do a pretty good job of taking care of themselves.

You can teach a guy to hit, but you can't teach him to want to want to.
 
For those who haven't seen it, today's column by Luke is a must-read to what's being said on this thread: http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/luke-decock/article194685129.html. I think his last paragraph says it all:

So it still remains to be seen whether these players are willing to pay the price it takes to win or just content to muddle through the rest of this season, doing just enough to stay on the playoff bubble, watching their best player get laid out and shrugging their collective shoulders in reply.
 
It's been years, since any Canes player gave two $#it$ about a team mate getting clobbered, harassed, etc. Maybe it's the entire organization. Or maybe they've just assembled a team full of sissies for several years.
 
cmon3 said:
I think it's the mentality of the players...

The guys we have that have the size and strength to actually be effective in this for the most part are not contact guys.

We don't have a guy like Orpick, or Tom Wilson, and our stars are also not guys like Crosby or Ovechkin who can frankly do a pretty good job of taking care of themselves.

You can teach a guy to hit, but you can't teach him to want to want to.
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I would tend to agree, it's the desire to hit and finish checks and make your opponent accountable with physical play, which the Canes simply do not have. Maybe, the bigger bodies on the horizon like Roy, Foegele, Gauthier could provide that future physical play, but that certainly does not help this team today in the here and now.

Some teams would not dare ice a club without that element...see Boston (Chara, DeBrusk) , Philly (Simmonds), Columbus (J.Anderson) etc.
 
JFG said:
Who then?
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Francis and the guy who trained him. Those are the only two GMs we've had since this franchise moved South. Rutherford never had a natural handle on how to balance team toughness with skill and seemed to have this perpetual fantasy that he could find guys like Gary Roberts and Sean Hill out there on the market all the time. NOPE. You pretty much have to grow them yourself or over-pay for them. And even that doesn't solve the issue down the ranks. I was hoping we could keep Ulfie around for awhile if for no other reason that he seems to "get it." One year and pfft. Gone.

I've said it a million times, but we had one, maybe two seasons of properly rugged hockey teams since 1997. The 1998-99 team and for the most part the 99-00 team. We've had other teams that at least held their own physically ... 01-02, the Cup team, 2008-09. You'll notice a trend there ..... THOSE WERE OUR GOOD TEAMS.

And no ... this is not about fighting, or even really about hitting. This is about not getting pushed around and knocked off the puck on the regular.
 
Ironically, shortly after that I hit I noticed that twice a Flame was coming across the middle (one was Gaudreau) and Faulk had the opportunity to really light them up. At the time I mentioned to my son that Faulk should have put Johnny Hockey into orbit and my son just chuckled and said "yea right".
JFG said:
It doesn't take goons to enforce things when they get out of hand. After Aho was targeted, Gaudreau should have been our focus. Each time he touched the puck someone (McGinn, Nordstrom, Lindholm, Staal) should have been sending the message back. Except we don't. Team Toughness, Canes it's not thy name. Same things goes when other teams aggressively finish their checks and we continue with poke checks. Gotta believe this is coming from the Head Coach, because Brindy and Smitty wouldn't stand for it.
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It's a sad statement that the only Canes player to have any memorable hits over the last few seasons was Ryan Murphy.
 
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