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GDT: Canes v. Golden Knights 1/21 6:00

How different is our system than Chicagos? How different are our expectations for goalie style? Not looking for excuses for Darling---but just looking for signs of what went wrong and why.

How can goalies who appear to be serviceable in other systems come here and stink --or minimally look worse than everywhere else they have played (Lack, Khudobin, Darling, etc.)
 
cmaleski2 said:
That is not fair, Cam is rightfully called out here and elsewhere when he sucks.

Neither of our 2 goalies is playing anywhere near well enough. Our defense has sucked as well, but only 1 of our 2 goalies gives you any sense that he could make a big save when called upon. Darling was a guy that was supposed to be the answer, the giant in goal who could steal games by himself. Instead, he has proven to pretty much be a far below average NHL goalie. If we had a solid above average #1 who you could roll out there 65-70 times you might be able to get away with Darling's .892 save%. Sure the defense hasn't been much help, but just about everything about Darling's play is terrible. Every goalie has holes, but Darling's are impossible to miss for shooters. His glove is terrible. He plays small too often. His 5 hole is a nightmare. His angles completely stink. He plays too deep when he should challenge, challenges when he should be staying in the crease. The guy handles the puck like a grenade. And of course the worst thing that can happen to any goalie clearly has happened to Darling....he has completely lost his confidence.

You add that all up and it no mystery why everyone is down on Darling much more than Cam. The defense can't take the full blame for all of Darling's faults out there. He is a complete train wreck at the moment. Right now Darling is just about unplayable at the NHL level. All isn't completely lost yet with him, but its getting close to the point where we are going to lose the guy as NHL option for the season (and maybe forever) if we don't come up with some sort of desperation effort to get him straightened out. Its not complicated to do, you explain it very clearly to him what the play is. You waive him (he will clear of course, if not well, what a break for the Canes), you send him to the Checkers and let him play both the Friday and Saturday games this week while everyone else is on break. Meanwhile you call up Jason Smith or Nedeljkovic just to back up Cam the rest of this week. Assuming that Darling plays well in both of those games, he comes back up after the All-Star break and you play him Saturday Feb 2nd. If Darling doesn't play well, then you leave him in the AHL and roll the dice that Neds or Smith can't be any worse than Darling was.

The Canes can't simply keep rolling Darling out there at the NHL level without at least giving him some sort of opportunity to plays some games at a level he should be able to excel at.
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If we ride Cam, he's going to break - and he hasn't been spectacular to start with. I'd say we need to get someone else in here that gives them a chance to win, but that's a big ask, especially when the rest of the team is not looking that promising. I am usually pretty optimistic, but I really don't think we're going to make the playoffs at this point. Goalie situation, Aho out, our D playing like crud.

We have 5 games in the next 2 weeks, and 4 of them are the should win variety for any team going to the playoffs, but we also need to beat the Pens. We're really looking at needing 5 of 5, or at least 9 points in those 5 games. Darling isn't going to get fixed by 2 games in Charlotte.

After they got down, this team outside of a few guys played with no heart.
 
a player from a top team is potentially going to look better than he is. And that is probably more true for a goalie than any other position. Which means you need to be careful when you take a player from a team that's very good.
 
A couple of goals last night illustrated our defensive problems. On the first goal, Kruger is a good 10 feet behind Bellemare even though Bellemare isn't skating that hard. On their last, Miller takes it away from Rask at the blue line and skates into the circle unmarked. McGinn inexplicably skates away from Miller into no-man's land and Leipsic beats McKeown to the crease for a simple tap in.
 
Count me as one who thinks our playoff chances are pretty much shot. This team is far too inconsistent and shows a much greater proclivity toward losing streaks than winning streaks. Our last few home games, with a friendly crowd trying to cheer the players on, have been huge disappointments. I think CMal's synopsis was spot-on: our goaltending woes are frightening. Send Darling down and see if he can regain his confidence.

I am not looking forward to the stretch of home games we have in February. For a STH, watching this train go off the tracks will seem like a self-inflcited nightmare that we've seen far too many times over the past 10 years.
 
We seem to have a system that masters time of possession and reduces opponents shots against. So we seem to be executing something. Why can't we put as much focus on minimizing team defensive breakdowns? That won't fix Darling, but wondering if we are emphasizing the right things.

To his credit, Peters did basically acknowledge what we have been saying here. With our current talent level, there is no wiggle room for breakdowns or less than full effort and focus
 
ThinIce said:
Count me as one who thinks our playoff chances are pretty much shot.
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Well ... you know my take. We were NEVER a playoff team ... just a team who had managed to stumble temporarily into playoff position.

That said, they aren't terrible either. If one of those two mooks we call goalies could get their mess together and keep it together, then they aren't really all that far off. The offense is still too inconsistent, the special teams are still a bit of a mess and defensive coverage has been an issue all season. Get a handle on any one of those issues and you're magically much better as a point producing team. February is also not really something I'm looking forward to. Right now pretty much the last thing I want to do with my time is watch this team play in person two days in a row ... and we've got TWO sets of those little gems coming up.

All of which is why I've been salty about this team all season. New ownership injected a bit of sunshine in my outlook, but only a bit.
 
Boardwork said:
We seem to have a system that masters time of possession and reduces opponents shots against. So we seem to be executing something. Why can't we put as much focus on minimizing team defensive breakdowns? That won't fix Darling, but wondering if we are emphasizing the right things.
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Again ... we're SUPPOSEDLY playing Detroit's system, right? Because so far as I can tell, we're not. Honestly, when it comes to defensive and neutral zone systems, I can't tell what the heck we're trying to do game to game. I know one thing for sure. Whatever we're doing results in WAY too many quality chances against. And screw any advanced metrics that say otherwise.
 
As I understand it we're basically man-on-man on D and not just zone D'ing them to the walls, with a lot of close gap and stick work needed, looking for the turnover. So when it goes wrong, they're coming down the pipeline.

Similarly, the O is aggressive with D constantly pinching. But if there is no F3 up high covering that pinch, then turnovers are again of the odd-man variety.

Finally, the inexplicable failure to simply put the puck deep on changes, particularly during the long second, leads to...odd man rushes.

Problem being no one seems to have noticed that neither of our goalies (like most goalies) are particularly good at handling oddman rushes. And yet our high risk (and supposedly high reward) system guarantees a few per game just by normal statistical breakdown.

We're definitely not a shutout team. Probably one or two going to be scored on us most any game. Which is why the more important failure in my mind is our seemingly inability to score three or more per game on a workmanlike consistent basis, not the fact that we get scored on every once in a while.
 
cmaleski2 said:
That is not fair, Cam is rightfully called out here and elsewhere when he sucks and he has been pulled by Peters this year after terrible starts.

Neither of our 2 goalies is playing anywhere near well enough. Our defense has sucked as well, but only 1 of our 2 goalies gives you any sense that he could make a big save when called upon. Darling was a guy that was supposed to be the answer, the giant in goal who could steal games by himself. Instead, he has proven to pretty much be a far below average NHL goalie. If we had a solid above average #1 who you could roll out there 65-70 times you might be able to get away with Darling's .892 save%. Sure the defense hasn't been much help, but just about everything about Darling's play is terrible. Every goalie has holes, but Darling's are impossible to miss for shooters. His glove is terrible. He plays small too often. His 5 hole is a nightmare. His angles completely stink. He plays too deep when he should challenge, challenges when he should be staying in the crease. The guy handles the puck like a grenade. And of course the worst thing that can happen to any goalie clearly has happened to Darling....he has completely lost his confidence.

You add that all up and it no mystery why everyone is down on Darling much more than Cam. The defense can't take the full blame for all of Darling's faults out there. He is a complete train wreck at the moment. Right now Darling is just about unplayable at the NHL level. All isn't completely lost yet with him, but its getting close to the point where we are going to lose the guy as NHL option for the season (and maybe forever) if we don't come up with some sort of desperation effort to get him straightened out. Its not complicated to do, you explain it very clearly to him what the play is. You waive him (he will clear of course, if not well, what a break for the Canes), you send him to the Checkers and let him play both the Friday and Saturday games this week while everyone else is on break. Meanwhile you call up Jason Smith or Nedeljkovic just to back up Cam the rest of this week. Assuming that Darling plays well in both of those games, he comes back up after the All-Star break and you play him Saturday Feb 2nd. If Darling doesn't play well, then you leave him in the AHL and roll the dice that Neds or Smith can't be any worse than Darling was.

The Canes can't simply keep rolling Darling out there at the NHL level without at least giving him some sort of opportunity to plays some games at a level he should be able to excel at.
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Well said as always CMal! I cannot believe that some think Darling is being singled out when in reality he cannot even seem to string two good games together! Were not even talking about the guy being lights out, it's just even average goaltending seems to be a lot to ask of the guy! He was named the starter for this team based on the contract, but he has simply not earned a damn thing based on his play this season to date. Yeah, the defense at times sucks in front of him, but everyone knew when he came here he would not be playing goal with Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook playing 30 minutes a night on the backend. The chances of Darling being wanted by any other team in the league on waivers right now is about .5%...send him down, let him play a ton in Charlotte and see if he can get any of his game back to NHL caliber.
 
Elsker said:
As I understand it we're basically man-on-man on D and not just zone D'ing them to the walls, with a lot of close gap and stick work needed, looking for the turnover. So when it goes wrong, they're coming down the pipeline.

Similarly, the O is aggressive with D constantly pinching. But if there is no F3 up high covering that pinch, then turnovers are again of the odd-man variety.

Finally, the inexplicable failure to simply put the puck deep on changes, particularly during the long second, leads to...odd man rushes.

Problem being no one seems to have noticed that neither of our goalies (like most goalies) are particularly good at handling oddman rushes. And yet our high risk (and supposedly high reward) system guarantees a few per game just by normal statistical breakdown.

We're definitely not a shutout team. Probably one or two going to be scored on us most any game. Which is why the more important failure in my mind is our seemingly inability to score three or more per game on a workmanlike consistent basis, not the fact that we get scored on every once in a while.
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+1

When you look at the tape of Goals 1 and 3, it's Hanifin skating himself out of position needlessly.

On the first goal he skates over to the center in the neutral zone (trying to do what I don't know) leaving his partner to defend on the 2 on 1. On the third goal he again skates into the high slot essentially taking himself out of the play leaving the goal scorer all alone in front of the net.

Steve Smith needs to start coaching these guys how to play their positions.

Hanifin needs to come down with an excuse to stay home from the ASG and get his head right.
 
Back to Darling, its pretty important to figure out if Darling can be saved or not. Even if this season is shot (and its not yet, but its not trending great at the moment), we need to figure out if Darling is salvageable or if we should be buying him out in the offseason.

There really is little excuse to not at least try sending him to Charlotte to see if he can find some confidence. What is the worst thing that could happen? He flames out there too? At least you then know for sure that he needs to be bought out in the offseason. As for who backs up Cam Ward and plays some in back to back situations? You can't tell me that Alex Nedeljkovic could possibly be any worse than Scott Darling has been for most of this season.

Give Darling a chance to get his confidence back without suffering all of these NHL losses. Hope that he does find that confidence then bring him back. Darling isn't some proven vet goalie who is just having a rough year, this is a guy who NEVER has made anything more than the NHL minimum salary as a backup goalie. He got the big contract and big expectations for the very first time and didn't deliver. Lets at least make some sort of effort to salvage something out of this situation before any more NHL games are lost and Darling's contract is bought in the offseason. I'm not looking forward to entering the offseason with both the starter and backup jobs up in the air.
 
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I have not given up on the last wild card spot. The Rangers are only 5 games over 500 with most games left on the road. Pittsburgh is 4 games over, and the Canes 3 games over with mostly home games left. February will be make or break.
 
Elsker said:
As I understand it we're basically man-on-man on D and not just zone D'ing them to the walls, with a lot of close gap and stick work needed, looking for the turnover. So when it goes wrong, they're coming down the pipeline.

Similarly, the O is aggressive with D constantly pinching. But if there is no F3 up high covering that pinch, then turnovers are again of the odd-man variety.

Finally, the inexplicable failure to simply put the puck deep on changes, particularly during the long second, leads to...odd man rushes.

Problem being no one seems to have noticed that neither of our goalies (like most goalies) are particularly good at handling oddman rushes. And yet our high risk (and supposedly high reward) system guarantees a few per game just by normal statistical breakdown.

We're definitely not a shutout team. Probably one or two going to be scored on us most any game. Which is why the more important failure in my mind is our seemingly inability to score three or more per game on a workmanlike consistent basis, not the fact that we get scored on every once in a while.
Click to expand...

Problem being, we're not good enough on offense to make that kind of strategy work over the long haul. We've got a decent group of grinders, but we don't grind. We shoot. From everywhere. All the time. Despite the fact that we've only got a couple of big shots on the team and we don't consistently generate net front traffic ... the two things that might make the shoot everything all the time mindset make sense. I mean, I'm seeing even grunt guys like Kruger and McGinn bombing away from the top of the circles with no traffic in front. That's just dumb.

And frustratingly enough, when we do mess around and get in a good, grinding shift on the cycle we routinely generate solid scoring chances. Honestly, in terms of what we're trying to do in the offensive zone, I feel like our strategy is built on the fantasy of "if we shoot enough, some are abound to go in." Not in the modern NHL with most everybody else trapping the neutral zone to slow the rush, keeping traffic outside and limiting quality chances.
 
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