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GDT: Canes @ Panthers 10/8 7:00

Edmunson has been better than expected so far, despite all the Blues fans commenting on how bad he was in his own zone when the trade was made. I like the physical edge he brings and Fleury should take note because that’s more the style Fleury needs to play to stick.
 
Thoughts in general on the win in Sunrise:

Weird game. Bolt out of the gate like a lathered up race horse only to commit a steady stream of dumb penalties and allow the other team to creep back into it. That is NOT how the Canes normally go about their business, and as others have mentioned Brindy has a lot of ammunition for his next practice session.

A power play that looks repeatable ... FINALLY. After basically fumbling around in the dark all of last season, Brindy finally stumbled on a combination of personnel and shape that works. It certainly helps that they added guys like Dzingle, Huala and Gardiner to the mix but the basic solution is simply better execution from the top three in the triangle and those guys were all here doing nothing like that well last season. Dougie and Turbo being on freaking fire certainly doesn't hurt. Right now everything they touch turns to gold. Svech too, really.

Aho ... he does this three out of four NHL seasons now, so it's officially a thing. No matter his off season stuff, if he doesn't pot a goal early he gets increasingly angsty out there to the point where he starts to suck others into his anxiety vortex. Then he scores, relaxes and we're off to the races. I juts hope he drags Nino along with him, because that dude is seriously snake bit right now.

Now, go work on keeping those sticks down and drawing less dumb penalties.
 
CanadaCanes said:
Edmunson has been better than expected so far, despite all the Blues fans commenting on how bad he was in his own zone when the trade was made. I like the physical edge he brings and Fleury should take note because that’s more the style Fleury needs to play to stick.
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I think most Blues fans were too focused on his passing deficiencies ... and compared to the rest of the D, that's fair. But he does what he does quite well and in Carolina's group he fits in better. He's all heart and always has been.
 
Yes, I can't remember the last time a Carolina power play was so successful at getting pucks to the net and having traffic in front. Looks so simple when they execute it , but yeah personnel makes a big difference. That Haula is a load.
 
IMHO PP is about "skill" players and we're finally maybe hitting a point where we have a critical mass of those.
 
brassbonanza said:
Yes, I can't remember the last time a Carolina power play was so successful at getting pucks to the net and having traffic in front. Looks so simple when they execute it , but yeah personnel makes a big difference. That Haula is a load.
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I honestly hate to keep harping on the guy, but it's a huge difference having Faulk off of the point. He wasn't particularly good at those swing passes to the wings and while he has a great shot he misses the target area a lot. Both Gardiner and Dougie have less velocity maybe, but much better placement and a little better feel of where the shooting seam is located. And make no mistake ... Dougie's hot now and driving his unit, but Jake and his bunch will have their day eventually. Aho and Necas are also really good on the half wall. Their time will come.
 
Uber impressed with Necas... not the offense, well yes, but its' his defensive game. Plays very responsibly. Tripp made a comment about a play where he stole the puck coming back to defend... it was NOT the first time I have seen Necas do this(this season). Kid has some serious wheels and acceleration. That's saying something on a team that generally is pretty fast
 
Necas is getting there. You can see him growing a little bit each time out. He's still got to get more comfortable with the rough stuff, as I still see him spinning off of hits in ways that sometimes cause turnovers. But overall, yeah ... you can see what the big deal about Necas is for the first time at this level. His vision is special and his wheels are elite.
 
It's funny....most of us (including me) were pretty sure that Gauthier should have stayed and Necas should have gone to Charlotte and were surprised when that didn't happen. But give Brindy all the credit - while we can see the skill that a player like Necas obviously has, Brindy has a sense of whether or not he's ready to make the jump.
 
Yeah ... except I got the strong sense that the management team had as much to do with that decision as the coaching staff. Gauthier would have stayed with a bigger roster, and I suspect Brindy would have played him. It's a group effort, managing the roster.
 
The writer from The Athletic who covers the Panthers said that Quenneville put them through a bag skate yesterday. Somewhere, Mo is smiling and CMac is suddenly nauseous.
 
Necas needed to be at this level to continue his development. Hes
andyt said:
The writer from The Athletic who covers the Panthers said that Quenneville put them through a bag skate yesterday. Somewhere, Mo is smiling and CMac is suddenly nauseous.
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hmmmm. That seems like a bad idea based on them working their butts off the second two periods.
 
Yeah... would have been more appropriate for the Bolts after their lackadaisical display.
 
Q said their play in the last 2 periods was deceptive and it didn’t offset the suckage of the first.
 
andyt said:
Q said their play in the last 2 periods was deceptive and it didn’t offset the suckage of the first.
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Yeah, I get that but you WANT your team to respond to sucking in the first period by playing like they did in the last two periods. You're basically punishing the correct response just because you're pissed off, which is exactly what old, out of touch coaches do.
 
jeffbear said:
Yeah, I get that but you WANT your team to respond to sucking in the first period by playing like they did in the last two periods. You're basically punishing the correct response just because you're pissed off, which is exactly what old, out of touch coaches do.
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Yeah. I train retrievers as a hobby and the punishment needs to be associated with the action you want to correct. A bag skate in the first intermission would have been a well timed correction and the entertainment value off the charts. As it is it seems like this kind of punishment sours attitudes more than it helps. They had exactly the response you want to the atrocious first period and got punished for it. Next time they might just pack it in if they learned that it doesn’t make a difference. They got that message from the end result of the game (lost anyway) and again from the bag skate.

That said the Canes eased up with the 5 goal lead. Had they kept going the cats might not have looked so good the last 2. I think the Canes had a fair amount to do with the first period.
 
cmon3 said:
That said the Canes eased up with the 5 goal lead. Had they kept going the cats might not have looked so good the last 2. I think the Canes had a fair amount to do with the first period.
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I'll agree that they lost mental focus, which is shown in the constant stream of dumb, pointless penalties. And I don't want to hear that it was the refs, because those two gave the Canes the benefit of the doubt more than once. They called what they saw. I think the Canes fully intended to keep pushing, but kept getting in their own way. It's been an issue all season and needs to be cleaned up.
 
Yeah I agree. I remember agreeing with most of those calls. There was one where their guy skated right into our guy, ran into him and tripped over his stick. I thought that was marginal.
 
cmon3 said:
Yeah I agree. I remember agreeing with most of those calls. There was one where their guy skated right into our guy, ran into him and tripped over his stick. I thought that was marginal.
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I remember that one too, because McGinn got the call ... and he was just standing there making no effort to make a hockey play. Move your legs and you probably don't get called in that situation. Stand around like a coat rack and you do. That's the kind of thing you don't do when you're engaged instead of trying to just play out the clock.
 
Haha. My thought exactly. First it was “what the heck McGinn was just standing there.” Then it was “why the heck are you just standing there?”
 
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