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Are the Canes doubling down on the 2012-13 team?

July 15, 2013, 8:26 AM ET [4 Comments]
Matt Karash
Carolina Hurricanes Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Starting Tuesday, I will put up a few “Canes prospect previews” with Elias Lindholm being first. I have the first and most of the 2nd written, so hopefully I can hold schedule and get 2-4 up during the week.

Disclaimer for below: Yes. I realize that we are still more than a month from training camp and that a lot could happen in terms of free agent signings or trades to change all this. But in the midst of the long summer with minimal new real hockey news, this is as good as anything to kick around while we wait.

Heading into late July, I think the burning question with regard to the Carolina Hurricanes playoffs hopes is this: "Was the 2012-13 Carolina Hurricanes roster good enough or very close to good enough minus injuries?"

Unless we see a blockbuster trade, I think that is more or less the bet that Canes GM Jim Rutherford is set to make if the team enters the season with the current roster or similar. Sure changes were made that should improve the team. Swapping in Andrej Sekera and Mike Komisarek for Joe Corvo and Jamie McBain should make the Canes better defensively, but I would not call these blockbuster additions. Sekera is top 4ish but not a pure top 2, and while I like Komisarek he is a bit of a restart project at this point in his career. Anton Khudobin seems to rate out as 1 of the best options available for a backup goalie but Ellis was actually pretty good until his injury and then inability to regain his form after that. And on offense, the only significant addition is an unproven draftee plus another AHL/NHL player who has yet to stick long-term on an NHL roster much like the options the team already had in that regard (i.e. Dalpe, Boychuk, etc.).

Not a single core player was shipped out to revamp things, and only Sekera might qualify as a core addition.

Rutherford is doubling down on the big bets he made to build the 2012-13 roster when he aggressively went after Alexander Semin and Jordan Staal and then inked Jeff Skinner to a long-term extension last summer.

The case for "last year's team was fine before the injuries" is plausible. The team led the Southeast Division and was playing very well early. And injuries did play a significant role in the ultimate collapse when Cam Ward was lost for what was left of the season and two of the better defenders in Justin Faulk and Joni Pitkanen were both lost for significant time. The team also had to go 3 deep at goalie. And Jeff Skinner actually started very strong before a concussion put him on the shelf. He never really regained his stride.

So I do not think it is ludicrous/impossible to think that last year's team was actually pretty close to good enough. But I am not so much in that camp and am a bit nervous about the Canes roster right now. Going by position:

Goalie: 100% ready to go. Everything I read about Khudobin suggests that Rutherford made a shrewd move here.

Defense: I am on record as wanting more of a top-end defender added even if it meant trading a core forward. I would be surprised if it happened at this point, but I am optimistically willing to give the defense a look to start the season. The pessimist in me fears that too many things have to work perfectly:
--Tim Gleason needs to have a much better season.
--Joni Pitkanen needs to return from his heel injry at close to 100%, avoid another injury and be the good version of Joni.
--Andrej Sekera needs to quickly fit into the system, find chemistry with a partner and be a legitimate top 4.
--Mike Komisarek needs to take a leap forward with his new lease on NHL hockey and be a serviceable every game defenseman.

None of the individual requests are outlandish, but a lot of things must go right with little margin for error.

Forward: This is where I get nervous. The Canes jettisoned Jussi Jokinen last year and seem to be doing the same with Tim Brent and Chad Larose this summer. When Rutherford said it was unlikely that Brent or Larose would return, the bottom half of the roster had officially been gutted to be redone. As things stand now, the team needs to fill a whopping 5 out of 6 bottom 6 forward slots from its youth. (I count only Tlusty, EStaal, Semin, JStaal, Ruutu, Skinner, Dwyer and Westgarth as a #13 as sure things.) Even if Brenden Morrow or Jaromir Jagr parachutes in wearing a Superman costume, you are still looking for 4 regulars from the system depth. Elias Lindholm is projected to fill 1 of these slots. Otherwise the team added only depth/borderline AHL/NHL forward Aaron Palushaj to the mix. The volume of openings would be a little scary regardless, but when most of the options were given shots last year and some also in previous years without seizing a spot, it seems crazy to think that the team can build out a 3rd and 4th line good enough to win at a playoff-qualifying place in 2013-14 not just learn on the job for the future.

For most of the options, the team is looking for a player to take a huge step up from current trajectory:
--Zac Dalpe. He has had short tryouts in 3 consecutive NHL seasons and not yet done anything to suggest that he is a full-time NHLer.
--Zach Boychuk. After a very short tryout with the Canes last year, he failed a longer audition trying to generate offense on Malkin’s line in Pittsburgh and also got a look-see from Nashville who did not see anything that justified not just returning him to the Canes.
--Riley Nash. I like Nash and think he has the best chance to stick long-term, but I am not sure he is more than a 4th-line center. He did not generate much offense in the NHL last year and if you look at his track record, I am not sure he really projects to score enough to be a regular 3rd-line center in the NHL.
--Drayson Bowman. I think he has enough experience and defensive acumen to be a serviceable 4th-line wing if you do not have the luxury of having a big, nasty, mean, penalty-killer extraordinaire to play in this slot. But he took a step backward last year minus Sutter, and has yet to prove he can score enough at the NHL level to be more than a reliable defensive line forward.
--Victor Rask. He will be one to watch in camp but as a 20-year trying to make the jump from juniors, there is a good chance he will need to spend some time in Charlotte before he is ready.
--Chris Terry, Jeremy Welsh, Jared Staal, Brett Sutter, etc. all have as good of a shot as any. The positive is that training cap should be a legitimate tryout for NHL roster spots which should be fun to watch unfold.

In addition to filling out the bottom 2 forward lines, there is also the task of building out the special teams. As befuddling and frustrating as last year’s power play struggles were, there seems to be enough skilled parts there to build a couple working units. The bigger issue is trying to build out the penalty kill units which also struggled last year. At forward, Jordan Staal gets a spot. Patrick Dwyer very likely gets a spot. After that who knows. The majority of the young forwards that the Canes are auditioning for the open spots are not necessarily great fits for PK. As much as I hate the idea of burning 3 minutes of ice time and a bunch of energy doing it for the top forwards, I fear that Muller might be pressed to again lean on players like EStaal, Tlusty, etc. for lack of having a specialist or 2 in the bottom half of the roster.

I think Rutherford is caught between a rock and hard place trying to decide what to do with the remaining money below the salary cap.

If Rutherford moves aggressively at forward and signs Jagr for $3.5M (he earned $4.5M last season) with Lindholm’s cap hit, the Canes would be at the minimum roster of 20 and have just enough at about $700k left to carry a single extra player if/when they need to. If instead, Rutherford tries to hold onto some financial flexibility in case he needs it after seeing how the team performs in Oct/Nov, then the team will be asking for a huge contribution from what is most a 2012-13 AHL bottom 6.

You can see where the latest Twitter rumblings that have Ron Hainsey as the rumored “big name free agent” (or whatever the exact quote was) and Joni Pitkanen as the player that must be moved to make it possible could make a lot of sense numbers-wise and risk-wise. If Hainsey’s next contract is on sale at this point, maybe it only takes 2 years at $3M/year. Trading Pitkanen would then net a salary cap savings of $1.5M. I lean Pitkanen if both options are healthy, but Hainsey is a decent swap in terms of style of play and role (skating, puck-moving offensive/power play capable defenseman), but Hainsey carries much less risk heading into training camp and probably also throughout the season with Pitkanen’s health woes over the past couple years. Though Rutherford seems to not be talking to Jagr right now, or at some other specific right now or maybe right then, I think if he mitigated some risk with the top 4 defensemen and netted a little bit of breathing room cap-wise, then I think he moves quickly and aggressively to spend it adding at least 1 more proven forward. If the whole Hainsey then trade Pitkanen thing is right (who knows) and Pitkanen was not tradeable on the first go-round, I doubt that will change until he gets into camp and proves that he is ready to play and play effectively.

That likely scenario leaves Rutherford trying to balance how much to go all-in right now to improve at forward versus holding some of his chips for possible maneuvering in Nov/Dec if things do not work out of the gate.

Personally, if I were Rutherford (and not willing to shake things up with a bigger trade), then I would go this route:
1) Try to pull Jagr down to $3M. This price leaves a tiny bit of wiggle room below the cap.
2) If he pushes for closer to the $4-4.5M he received last year, then I see if I can keep even more financial flexibility by seeing if I can get Morrow for $2-2.5M.
3) If neither option works then I regret even more that I did not act a little sooner, but I avoid the temptation of spending a bunch of money on another undersized skill player. Instead, I start making lists of players who could help via trade probably for after the season starts.

What say you Canes fans? Do you think the 2012-13 team is much better than the outcome if it can just say healthy? Are the moves made thus far more significant than I give them credit for? Is Jagr or Morrow still on the way? Does JR have a blockbuster trade up his sleeve?

We get real hockey players on real ice at PNC Arena starting Tuesday! Woo-hoo!

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Go Canes!
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