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GDT: Canes @ Caps 12/27 7:00

A

andyt

Canes Moderator
Staff member
I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday break. I certainly enjoyed watching the Canes beat the Bruins at my mother-in-law’s house in the Boston suburbs, while she wore a Bruins jersey. Even better, I hooked my iPad up to her TV so we could watch the Canes feed instead of the insufferable Jack Edwards.

The Canes open the post holiday schedule with a 2 game roadie that starts in Washington. You’ll recall (or maybe you’re trying to forget) that less than 2 weeks ago, the Canes opened up a 3 goal lead on them, only to fall behind, tying it up and losing in a shootout. Clark Bishop and Jane Kuokkanen were recalled from Charlotte yesterday. They’re on the ice at PNC right now before heading to DC, so maybe we’ll see a lineup shortly.

The Caps have won 14 of their last 17 games but only lead Columbus by 2 points and trail Tampa by 11 points and Toronto by 5 in the conference. Ovechkin’s 29 goals lead the league. Nicklaus Backstrom has 31 assists, tied for 10th, John Carlson is right behind with 30. Holtby’s Numbers in goal aren’t great, 2.79/.914 but they’re better than last year.

Fox Sports Carolinas for TV.
 
Yeah ... I had successfully forgotten that shootout loss, so thanks for the reminder buddy.

I think everybody in the league knew that Washington would be a little sluggish out of the gate this season. A Stanley Cup hangover (literally in their case) and a nonsensical coaching change pretty much guaranteed that. But they found their shooting boots and their team game about a month ago and now they're basically last year's Caps ... including the erratic play in net from Holtby. His overall numbers aren't bad at all, but he's thrown out a fair number of real stinkers and gotten away with it due to their offense. And this following a season when he had to save his starting spot with some truly impressive playoff heroics. Not calling anybody out ... I'm just saying that goals are there to be scored should the Canes be in the mood.
 
Same lines as Sunday. I love how Clark Bishop is listed as 2C.

Svechnikov-Aho-Teravainen
Ferland-Bishop-Williams
Foegele-Wallmark-Martinook
Kuokkanen-Rask-McGinn

Slavin-Pesce
de Haan-Faulk
van Riemsdyk-Hamilton

Mrazek in goal.
 
FWIW, if Wallmark had any hands at all, he'd be scoring for fun. Foegele and Martinook work together to create all manner of havoc on the forecheck and he ends up with a million clean looks.
 
I wish Wallmark and Foegele had hands-- they'd be scoring like mad. Ferland's productivity is down since he's not with Aho and Teravainen, but at least it looks like we've got a top line going forward with Svechnikov on that top line-- lots of speed on that one.
 
Ferland looks to still be finding his way post-concussion. He's useful even when he's not scoring, so fine.

And Foegele will probably start popping up on the scoresheet again eventually. He's scored at every level in his career and clearly has the game to put some pucks in the net at this level as well. Wallmark ... I don't know what to make of him as a scoring threat. His positional play is good enough, and he scored plenty at the AHL level over two seasons. But his history beyond that never really indicated much by way of goal scoring threat. He's still a work in progress, but you'd like to see him start to score some goals at a regular pace here fairly soon.
 
Marazek is playing incredible to keep this game close. Rod finally juggling the lines but I feel for the guy. Like the land of misfit toys out there.
 
Arguably 5 of our 12 forwards should not even be in the league at the moment: Bishop, Foegele, Walmark, Kuokkenen, and McGinn.

Rask is invisible and needs a new team to pin false hope on him. Williams is a slow third-liner on our second line. Martinook is a fourth liner on our third line.

That leaves four forwards of interest: Aho, Teravainen, Svetchnikov, and Ferland.

Staal should be in the mix, pushing one of the five forwards that don't belong off the roster. But has a limited role (and skill set) that doesn't include scoring.

Defense is playing like garbage, except for Slavin and Pesce, although it seemingly took us a third of the season to understand they belong together.

Faulk hits around one out of a hundred shots. Hamilton, for whatever reason, is garbage on this team.

Goaltending is so weak that we're fawning over Mrazek and McIvenney.

Meanwhile we're at the cap floor for salary...and it shows. Clearly missing several legit NHL'ers and substituting AHL'ers instead.

I've manufactured fandom for some sorry-ass rosters over my 18 seasons of following this team, 14 as a full-season ticket holder. But I don't blame this roster for its lack of performance. I blame the org for pushing them out on the ice and expecting me to somehow or another be excited about it.

Hard to see how this is going to get fixed without a radical course correction by Dundon that has to date assembled an entourage of yes-men and is essentially playing with his new toy without bothering to read the instructions and pitching a temper-tantrum that it isn't performing to expectations.

This season is headed for yet another top-ten pick that will do nothing to fix the problem. We need some trades that bring legit top-6 forwards to fill specific roles. But, honestly, at this point, there's really no rush to do so. And I'm not even convinced we have the right minds in charge to make those critical trades.

But, hey...Aho. And I do like Svetchnikov.

But that's about it. Got to be the worst forwards roster in the league...by far.
 
Dougie Hamilton is starting to look like the biggest bust this team has ever traded for. Viktor Rask is truly the invisible man game in and game out. It’s a collection of misfit toys masquerading as a NHL team. It almost seems like this team is in worst shape today then it ever has been in past seasons.
 
Elsker said:
Arguably 5 of our 12 forwards should not even be in the league at the moment: Bishop, Foegele, Walmark, Kuokkenen, and McGinn.

Rask is invisible and needs a new team to pin false hope on him. Williams is a slow third-liner on our second line. Martinook is a fourth liner on our third line.

That leaves four forwards of interest: Aho, Teravainen, Svetchnikov, and Ferland.

Staal should be in the mix, pushing one of the five forwards that don't belong off the roster. But has a limited role (and skill set) that doesn't include scoring.

Defense is playing like garbage, except for Slavin and Pesce, although it seemingly took us a third of the season to understand they belong together.

Faulk hits around one out of a hundred shots. Hamilton, for whatever reason, is garbage on this team.

Goaltending is so weak that we're fawning over Mrazek and McIvenney.

Meanwhile we're at the cap floor for salary...and it shows. Clearly missing several legit NHL'ers and substituting AHL'ers instead.

I've manufactured fandom for some sorry-ass rosters over my 18 seasons of following this team, 14 as a full-season ticket holder. But I don't blame this roster for its lack of performance. I blame the org for pushing them out on the ice and expecting me to somehow or another be excited about it.

Hard to see how this is going to get fixed without a radical course correction by Dundon that has to date assembled an entourage of yes-men and is essentially playing with his new toy without bothering to read the instructions and pitching a temper-tantrum that it isn't performing to expectations.

This season is headed for yet another top-ten pick that will do nothing to fix the problem. We need some trades that bring legit top-6 forwards to fill specific roles. But, honestly, at this point, there's really no rush to do so. And I'm not even convinced we have the right minds in charge to make those critical trades.

But, hey...Aho. And I do like Svetchnikov.

But that's about it. Got to be the worst forwards roster in the league...by far.
Click to expand...
yep, yep and yep...
 
CanadaCanes said:
Dougie Hamilton is starting to look like the biggest bust this team has ever traded for. Viktor Rask is truly the invisible man game in and game out. It’s a collection of misfit toys masquerading as a NHL team. It almost seems like this team is in worst shape today then it ever has been in past seasons.
Click to expand...

All those worried about Waddell running a franchise into the ground, now don't seem so paranoid. What are Dundon's true intentions here. Bargain basement roster. Inexperienced coach working for a tenth of what most are making. It's hard to not find all of this questionable.
 
I’ve seen the conspiracy theories. But believe the ignorance and ego combo instead.

Could be we are in stealth tank mode, but I don’t subscribe to that theory either. Think we are just plain not very good but trying slowly to get better.
 
I've not seen enough "trying to get better" yet to stop worrying. Waddell needs to be super active right now. We are losing prospects to Europe. Our NHL roster has more holes than Swiss cheese. And he's done nothing. Put up or shut up Dundon. It's time.
 
Wow. The Canes came out slowly, but eventually played their way into a game on the road against one of the better teams in the league and the takeaway is that Dundon is tanking to agitate for a move? Umm. Fine, but don't expect me to participate until the owner's been here for more than five minutes, OK? And if you guys are going to play threadkiller with this stuff on every game thread, expect some pushback from me. If this keeps up, I'll start a catch-all thread for the state of the franchise and we can keep that conversation going there. But I have no interest in letting every game thread turn into that discussion ... rinse, wash, repeat. Capiche?

Now ... the game.

Brind'Amour was upset about the lack of readiness and took a lot of the blame, and I get that but I'm not sure that was the real issue last night. Washington is a veteran team and the Cup Champs ... they know how to figure their way through the schedule weirdness surrounding the Christmas break. Carolina is none of those things and are missing a key veteran forward that might help out in that regard in Jordan Staal. I honestly though the first period and a half of that game was pretty much down to the fundamental differences in the two rosters. The experienced, successful team came out and muddled through a tough situation better than the inexperienced, struggling team. To me, that just goes with the territory.

I was impressed with the fact that Carolina eventually caught up to the pace of the game and fought their way back into the contest. It's not like the 3rd took the same course as the first two periods. Aho's goal didn't pop up out of the clear blue. Rather, it was the product of a prolonged period of solid play. There's plenty to criticize ... primarily the power play which was putrid all night ... but they figured out a way in to the game after a lot of teams would have thrown in the towel. Big picture, there's a lot of stuff to fix and I'm also absolutely sick of waiting for Waddell to fix some of it. But I'm not actually upset with anything other than the disorganization on the power play last night ... and MAYBE the fact that Brindy never shifted Ferland back to Aho's line once it became apparent that Ferland was back on his game. Svech looked like a child last night, and that line needed an adult.
 
I recorded, but didn't watch the game after I saw the Caps had a 2-0 lead. Glad to see we made at least an attempted comeback, but this team just doesn't have the talent to keep up with most good teams on a consistent basis. I keep handing over my hard-earned money to buy season tickets in the hope that things are going to get better, but like Charlie Brown and his football, I walk away hoodwinked every time.
 
ThinIce said:
I recorded, but didn't watch the game after I saw the Caps had a 2-0 lead. Glad to see we made at least an attempted comeback, but this team just doesn't have the talent to keep up with most good teams on a consistent basis. I keep handing over my hard-earned money to buy season tickets in the hope that things are going to get better, but like Charlie Brown and his football, I walk away hoodwinked every time.
Click to expand...

+1
 
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