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GDT: Canes v. Flames 3/10 5:00

Partially a testament to this franchise not having a lot of dmen who accumulated points and stuck around a while. Burns would have gotten to 259 points in just 5 seasons if he was not at the end of his career. This is Slavin's 9th season.
 
Of course, I mean Faulk coulda been the guy to put it out of reach for a long time had he stuck around, but still.. it's a 45 year old franchise, not the Kraken, and he's the guy now.... good on ya Slavo.
 
Partially a testament to this franchise not having a lot of dmen who accumulated points and stuck around a while. Burns would have gotten to 259 points in just 5 seasons if he was not at the end of his career. This is Slavin's 9th season.
That and Glen Wesley's point production dropped off significantly after '02. When he retired, he shared the franchise record for goals scored by a defenseman with 51 with Mark Howe, who had set the bar in 700 fewer games.
 
Pretty sure they're still the Flams. Pretty tough row to hoe over the past couple of days for them. Nice win Hurricanes. Save a few goals for the upcoming week.

Jim
 
Thoughts ...

1. Freddie still has work to do to get his mentality up to speed with his physical recovery, but that takes games. Not sure I'd risk him against the Rangers or Panthers right now, though.

2. Some teams react well to their front office pulling the plug on a season that's going nowhere. Calgary is apparently not one of those teams. It's not like they still don't have quality players or anything. Maybe the worst showing I've seen from a visiting team since late stage Thrashers.

3. Stick taps for Slavin. His passing is so good that he's going to rack up some points sort of by accident, but yeah ... that record has more to do with the revolving door the franchise has had for offensive minded defenseman than anything else.

4. I'm super intrigued by the Necas/Kuznetsov pairing. It's bonkers, but maybe in a good way. I dunno. Too early to tell, but I'd love to see Guentzel start with those two and see how it goes.
 
I don't see a compelling reason to break up the Svech-Aho pairing and I think Turbo really compliments them with his skillset. The consensus speculation I've seen is that Guentzel just naturally ends up paired with Aho. And maybe it goes that way at some point, but I think that:

Turbo-Aho-Svech
Guentzel-Kuznetsov-Necas
Martinook-Staal-Jarvis
KK-Drury-Noesen

I'm sure we will end up trying a few different things, but those lines make the most sense to me. Maybe they swap Guentzel and Turbo but I really like the idea of Kuznetsov and Necas flying around out there while Guentzel settles into the open scoring spots he is known to find. Kuznetsov's game is mostly setting up goal scorers, with is Guentzel's specialty. Although, if you want to argue that Turbo is actually "a goal scorer who just doesn't like to be one" you are not wrong.

No matter how they mix the lines up, assuming Guentzel is healthy and both he and Kuznetsov can get integrated quickly, this forward group potentially is Canes 2006 playoffs good and our D is probably better than 2006.
 
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Kuzy just has to get used to Necas never taking a straight line into the zone. He was offside a couple of times when he anticipated a straight entry from Necas.
 
Thoughts ...

2. Some teams react well to their front office pulling the plug on a season that's going nowhere. Calgary is apparently not one of those teams. It's not like they still don't have quality players or anything. Maybe the worst showing I've seen from a visiting team since late stage Thrashers.

4. I'm super intrigued by the Necas/Kuznetsov pairing. It's bonkers, but maybe in a good way. I dunno. Too early to tell, but I'd love to see Guentzel start with those two and see how it goes.
I thought from top to bottom that Calgary played one of the worst games I've seen. At least it was a total team non-effort.

A recent Athletic article thinks that Kuznetsov may provide the Canes with the "chaos" they need to help frustrate other teams' defenses. I still worry about he and Necas being on the same line, but - hey, who knows - maybe a double dose of chaos could be a really good thing.

One thing, he needs to get a lot more skating time under his belt - his passing was way off through much of the game last night.
 
I mean, this is how you should treat non-playoff teams, just beat the bejebus out of them and move on to the next one.
 
I mean, this is how you should treat non-playoff teams, just beat the bejebus out of them and move on to the next one.
I mean yes, that's what you'd want ... but they straight up weren't trying for a good chunk of the middle of that game. I thought poor Dan Vladar was gonna murder a couple of his defensemen at one point in the 2nd.
 
I thought from top to bottom that Calgary played one of the worst games I've seen. At least it was a total team non-effort.

A recent Athletic article thinks that Kuznetsov may provide the Canes with the "chaos" they need to help frustrate other teams' defenses. I still worry about he and Necas being on the same line, but - hey, who knows - maybe a double dose of chaos could be a really good thing.

One thing, he needs to get a lot more skating time under his belt - his passing was way off through much of the game last night.
I'm telling ya ... that chaos can be as unsettling for the opposition as it is for the Canes. So, you get to choose to assign your checking unit to either Aho or Kuznetzov, meanwhile your top line gets to chase the other line up and down the ice at home ... or worse, your secondary offensive line gets to try to keep up with them on the road. In a league where most teams' secondary scoring lines are more theoretical than actual. It's absolutely worth investing some time to see if they can get that unit cooking once Guentzel gets back. Especially if Drury is going to be out for a stretch. Why not? Take the season's motto at face value and create some actual chaos.
 
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