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GDT: Canes @ Slugs 1/23 7:00

Elsker said:
Harrison had a brutal game. Principal assist for the first two Sabre goals.

Bobbled the Ott pass right over his stick and even missed the recovery swipe on the Hodgson breakaway goal.

And then inexplicably swept the puck out from beneath Khudobin's glove, which had the puck partially trapped, causing it to dribble out for Flynn's goal from the crease.

And then J.Staal and Liles lazily loop around for a good view of the Ennis putback of Stafford's shot off the metal.

Giving up three goals to the Sabres isn't good. But scoring five goals is.

Big money goals, although still individual plays more than line plays. But goals nonetheless.

And good on Sekera for sticking it to them with the game-winner. McBain who?
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Harrison in the lineup over Bellemore and Murphy...sorry Kirk but your dead wrong on that!

Loved the game Sekera had, he is a very underrated defenseman and his point total is pushing 30 already!

This was a game the Canes had to have, so it was nice to see the fight in the dog in the third period.

Ruutu will be lucky to last the Olympic break as a Cane, he is simply mailing it in most nights, JR must be looking for another "Tomas Kaberle special" kinda deal to dump the guy on another dumb GM with money to burn.
 
Elsker said:
Fourth line minutes, all even strength, no special teams.

Same TOI as Riley Nash.
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Exactly what both of them deserve based on their general level of play this season. Frankly, Nash has played a little better than Ruutu, since he's at least show a few flashes of creativity. Ruutu ... ugh. He's not only playing poorly, he's been dragging down whatever line he's been on.
 
OK ... on the game itself.

Pretty good resiliency again from the Canes. They could have easily accepted their fate coming out for the third after giving up Ennis' quick goal. On the road, weird schedule changes, extra time away from home. All the pieces were in place to temp out some mental weakness, but instead they came out determined, popped in 3 goals in the last frame and took home yet another valuable pair of points. People can say what they want about the leadership on this club, but teams with weak leadership groups don't show the resilience that this team has shown on this road trip. Individually, it was nice to see the Faulk/Sekera pairing bounce back from a couple of rough outings. Yeah, there were still some issues in the back end in general, but those guys came to play last night. Also good to see Skinner get of the schneid and bury one. Nifty little backhander too. Probably Tlusty's best game since October ... not only did he have a two point night, he also threw his body around and generally played like a power forward like he did most of last season. Good game Tloos. It was also kind of nice to see the Canes get a W for Khudobin when he wasn't on his A game. He bloody well deserves it after all the bailing out the guy has been doing back there.
 
Harrison hasn't shown me much lately - despite the accolades he's receiving from Chip. I love the guy, but last night he cost us one or two goals and when he takes chances, he often doesn't recover. I agree that Bellemore and Murphy needed to sit for awhile and while I'm glad Komi is playing decently, he and Jay are not a long-term solution.
 
ThinIce said:
Harrison hasn't shown me much lately - despite the accolades he's receiving from Chip. I love the guy, but last night he cost us one or two goals and when he takes chances, he often doesn't recover. I agree that Bellemore and Murphy needed to sit for awhile and while I'm glad Komi is playing decently, he and Jay are not a long-term solution.
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With Murphy in Charlotte, you're probably looking at this if Harrison sits:

Faulk/Sekara
Komisarek/Liles
Bellemore/Hainsey

That would restore the righty/lefty balance too, getting Liles off the right side of his pairing. As long as Komisarek doesn't turn back into a pumpkin and continues the play we've seen recently, those would work.
 
You know, we're still over-slotting our defensemen, same as last season...and the one before that. But the quality of the players we are over-slotting is a bit better as they are a generally more defensively responsible bunch, even though we lack the high-end talent to get everyone back down to the level of competition they ought to be facing.

I would argue that we don't even have a first-pairing D-man right now. Faulk and Sekera are more like a good #3/#4 pair than a #1/#2 pair, despite the yeoman work they are doing and the fact that Faulk may indeed grow into being a top-pairing D-man...especially for us.

Similarly, I might argue that Liles and perhaps Hainsey are at the #3/#4 pairing level, but certainly nothing beyond that. Murphy is not yet there, although he played at that level before Liles arrived.

Even our bottom pairing has players that might be better slotted as #7/#8. Murphy will be there and is top-4 eventually, but may not be there just yet, hence the assignment to Charlotte for more playing time. Bellemore may be bottom-pairing good, but is not top-4. Harrison, I would argue, is a #7 that gets pressed into active duty by us. Ditto Komisarek, although more ice time seems to be settling him down a bit.

Could still use a top-pairing D-man to help Faulk along with his on-the-job training program. Probably have the second pairing covered from the ranks of Sekera, Liles, and Hainsey. Have plenty of depth for the bottom tier with Bellemore, Harrison, Komisarek, and Murphy, with Murphy capable of working his way upward to the second pairing.

But, again, this bunch is coping much, much better than any other collection of over-slotted D-men that JR has ever put together. It will do until some better parts come along and/or Faulk/Murphy develop a bit more.
 
TheBigKahuna said:
Ruutu came out and hit four people on his first shift, then proceeded to slowly sink into the background.
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Ruutu's hits have all too often come after the player has already passed the puck. It's hitting for hitting sake, not to separate the puck from the player. It makes a lot of noise, it looks good, but it's not productive.
 
Agree above about the Canes still over slotting guys on D. To me Harrison and Bellemore are interchangeable. Bellemore is younger with maybe some upside, and Harrison is more experienced and physical. That said they are probably NHL caliber #7 guys that can fill in from time to time on last pairings. Both seem like good locker room guys though....which makes them even more attractive as #7 guys on teams.
 
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