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GDT: Canes vs Bruins 10/30 at 7 pm EST

jeffbear

jeffbear

Mod Squad
Staff member
Effing Boston. The world's most grumpy, stay off our lawn, retrograde hockey club comes to town for their first matchup of the young season with the Hurricanes and it just has to be a couple of days after the stupid Red Sox win the World Series. Chowd Nation will be in the full bloom of their self important jackassery. Great.

So, Boston. They had high hopes for the season, but then again ... this is the Bruins and they think they're winning the Cup every year. Even when they suck. The start has been good but not great. They sit at 6-3-2 so far, which is one OT loss better than the Canes. Their offense hasn't really gotten much traction early on, as they sit in the middle of the league in goals scored. But this team is built on D and that's been better ... they currently sit 3rd in goals against. Pasternak, Bergeron and Marchand have gotten off to strong starts for them, but the current Bs are pretty top heavy so they HAVE to get production out of those top two lines. Much is being made locally of the Bruins' intention to start the backup, Halak, tonight ... but in truth, he and Rask have split time this year and Halak's numbers are MUCH better. So, don't buy that hype.

So, Carolina. Coming off of a pretty miserable loss to the Islanders straight into another defense-first Atlantic Division opponent probably isn't the ideal situation for the young Canes. Plus, Boston lives to erase the first line and make your depth beat them, which is precisely where Carolina has struggled since things have settled into actual trends this season. No word on Darling's return to the net, but personally I think this would be a bad time to test his readiness. There's a road trip coming. Let the guy break into the swing of things without the pressure of possibly letting down the home crowd. Then again, the crowd tonight with be heavy with Black and Gold sweaters .... especially in my section ... which brings me back to the tone of my opening paragraph. Aho is riding a season long point streak and could tie Gretzky for the longest streak to start a season. You know he's going to have a mug full of Marchand all night tonight. Brindy has made a lot fo noise about not tinkering with the lines so I don't expect much in that department. It's really just the decision in net that seems an open question.

We're back on a normal start time, in the normal home uniforms against a very predictable but tough to beat opponent. Go ... endure, I mean enjoy.
 
I'm surprised there are a lot of Boston fans here , I thought that city was heaven on earth and nobody left there. :)

I guess some of them are in the pharma / biotech business which is big there and here.
 
Really need a point here at the very least to be competitive for a wild card spot. Like I calculated last year, the need is for 7 points every 6 games to get into the playoffs. Will the second and third lines score? That is the question so far this year. I am expecting the Staal line to produce here or it is time to reformat lines. IMO. Will Brindy shake it up?
 
Limited skate this morning so we might not know the starting goalie until later. Darling did get a lot of action at practice yesterday and the Canes are off until Friday. I expect he’ll start tonight and then he and Mrazek will split the back to back on Friday and Saturday.

Edit: Darling is in the starter’s crease at the skate. Cory Lavalette tweeted that only Williams, Roy, Zykov and PDG were skating.
 
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On lines ... there's been some chatter amongst the media who cover such things that Brindy would eventually like to slide another of the younger forwards up to take Williams's slot on the "2nd" line, but none of them are ready just yet. Willie is going to have games like that one against NYI where he just doesn't have the legs. The dude is old, after all. Aside from going full defense with McGinn, the long term option is probably Svechnikov but the kid is obviously not ready for the defensive responsibility yet. I don't think they trust Zykov to be consistent enough shift to shift, either. Just chalk it up to another thing that Rask screwed up with that knife. His presence would lend all sorts of flexibility and until he's back ... another month at least from what I hear ... we're in "get by" mode.

On Darling ... I get the sense that they don't want to play him until they're convinced that his hammy can take it. Thus, pushing him hard in practice to see how he feels the next day. So long as we're getting competent goaltending from the other two, and we largely are, I don't see the need to rush it with Darling.
 
And ... per Chip, Darling looks like a go tonight. Again, I’m on record that this seems like a bad idea. But when have you ever known me to be optimistic?
 
jeffbear said:
And ... per Chip, Darling looks like a go tonight. Again, I’m on record that this seems like a bad idea. But when have you ever known me to be optimistic?
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I really do not know how to feel about Darling...unless something big has changed from last season, he just has not shown anything close to being a confident guy that can provide starting goaltending that his team can feel good about. Guys like the Face Licker and Pasternak may feast on Darling on a game like tonight. Another 3 years of Darling as the guy in goal just seems like an eternity for this team unless he really has changed his ways for the better.
 
You've got to start him sometime and no time like the present. Have to see what we have in net and what he looks like. I'd prefer him to be given a good chance while we have Mrazek and McIlhenney available. Goal tending has not shown itself to be our issue as much as special teams and the drying up of the Staal line.
 
BTW on the Canes subreddit the Canes give out a few free tickets to every game. And they are good lower level seats too , not nosebleeds.

that site is mostly young people so it's not a bad idea for Canes to try to build up fanbase in that age group. The subreddit just hit 10,000 subscribers
 
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As a Red Sox fan I'm still excited about the Series win. As a Canes fan I'm dreading the obnoxious behavior of the Bruins fans tonight, fueled even more by that Series win.

I thankfully missed the game on Sunday, I don't want to return to the arena tonight and see what you guys have described here from that game. Some of these other lines have to step up and start to score goals again. The PK better be ready or we need to not take any penalties. The Bs PP is 7th in the league and is basically an extension of their mostly unstoppable top line. Our PP is so bad it doesn't matter how good the other teams PK is at this point (14th for the Bs).
 
Paulie Walnuts said:
BTW on the Canes subreddit the Canes give out a few free tickets to every game. And they are good lower level seats too , not nosebleeds.
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One of my officemates got a pair of freebies to see his first Canes game on Sunday and they were in Sect 109 (he got to sit near the Isles booster club unfortunately). While that is not going to lead to a season ticket sale in his case, he is definitely going to go back for some games. Those are perfect tickets to try to hook new fans....they shouldn't put newbies they are trying to sell future tickets to in the upper levels.
 
SlapShots said:
You've got to start him sometime and no time like the present. Have to see what we have in net and what he looks like. I'd prefer him to be given a good chance while we have Mrazek and McIlhenney available. Goal tending has not shown itself to be our issue as much as special teams and the drying up of the Staal line.
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With goaltending having not really been an issue up to now, and the Canes having been lifeless in their last outing I really don't like shoving Darling out there in the last home game for almost two weeks against a quality opponent. I'm not expecting him to melt down necessarily, but I feel like we're potentially setting the guy up to bomb. I'm not seeing the problem with waiting until they get to Arizona. Not a terribly hostile road environment, not a terribly intimidating opponent ... lower bar. And this guy hasn't shown anything in his time here to indicate that a lower bar wouldn't be a good thing. At least for his first step back.
 
Its a bit strange to me how we have kind of stopped looking at the save % numbers when judging how the goaltending has been. Admittingly there hasn't been a whole lot of 'you just got to have that save!' moments so far this year, and both Mrazek and McElhinney have made some spectacular saves at times, but if you were just looking at their numbers:

McElhinney 2.76 GAA .892 Sv%
Mrazek 2.58 .887 Sv%

Those are not good numbers. Remember Darling's .888 last year was one of the worst goaltending efforts in the last 20 years. Not to say that its a certainty that Darling doesn't come in and put up even worse than .888 this season, but its not like our other netminders have been anything close to league average so far.

Darling's numbers were fantastic in the pre-season. He is supposed to basically be a whole new goalie compared to the out of shape money stealer he was last season. If Darling is really healthy, to be honest, I want him in there as quickly as possible with the hopes that he is putting up .915-.920 and stealing some of these games the Canes are losing 2-1.

Do I really expect Darling to not let us down? Yeah, not really, but at least there is a CHANCE he turns into an above average goalie still. Mrazek and McElhinney? I'm pretty confident they are exactly what they have been so far for us....capable but most certainly below average.

I understand what you are saying JB, but if he is ready to go, I don't see a reason to shelter Darling. I see more reasons to want him in there tonight against a conference opponent. I want Darling playing a home game against a team that probably isn't going to let us score more than 2. You know, that .951 Sv% Scott Darling we saw in the pre-season.

7-1 Bruins :lol
 
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jeffbear said:
With goaltending having not really been an issue up to now, and the Canes having been lifeless in their last outing I really don't like shoving Darling out there in the last home game for almost two weeks against a quality opponent. I'm not expecting him to melt down necessarily, but I feel like we're potentially setting the guy up to bomb. I'm not seeing the problem with waiting until they get to Arizona. Not a terribly hostile road environment, not a terribly intimidating opponent ... lower bar. And this guy hasn't shown anything in his time here to indicate that a lower bar wouldn't be a good thing. At least for his first step back.
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The guy has lost weight, improved his conditioning, and did everything the Canes asked him to do to be #1. I get that this is a challenge, but one hopes he is up to the challenge. I really don't know which is worse, your coaches holding you out because of the situation/timing or putting you in because of the situation/timing? Let's see how the #1 responds to the challenge rather than giving him a less than a vote of confidence. The guy has battled demons bigger than the Bruins.
 
Jeez, but we've gotten Nowak a lot this season. Did he set up house in the Southeast or something?
 
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