The Canes finished out preseason with a solid win Friday against Buffalo. The effort included a strong follow up effort by Cam Ward, an even better effort by the defense and continued strong play from the Gerbe/JStaal/Dwyer line and other key players. You can find my more detailed game notes
HERE.
With preseason coming to a close, the team must now trim its roster to 23 players. There is some wiggle room here because players who formally go on IR do not count and therefore create another roster spot.
My best guess for cuts and the opening night roster is below. The guesses for injury situations are exactly that. Seemingly all of the injured Canes are day to day. It is speculation as to whether that means they would have played Friday if it was a real game or if they are truly out of the lineup and trying to get healthy enough to give it a go. During the radio broadcast of Thursday's game, Canes announcer Chuck Kaiton suggested (still in a vague non-time table kind of way) that Tuomo Ruutu could be out longer term. Lindholm's injury situation is in the fuzzy category with the others, but my guess is that the team will not parachute the 18-year-old into an NHL regular season game in a rush without more time.
So first, my wild guess is that Ruutu will start the season on IR and that Lindholm will start the season either on IR or in Charlotte. (He could go there on a conditioning stint still on IR or just get sent to Charlotte. He would not need to clear waivers.) Again, mostly guessing, I will assume for now that Tim Gleason, Jeff Skinner and Alexander Semin will be ready for opening night or at least available.
So with that, I think the opening lineup goes like this:
Tlusty/EStaal/Semin. This line is pretty much a lock if Semin is available otherwise someone gets plugged in his spot. Most recently that has been Dvorak.
Gerbe/JStaal/Dwyer. This line has looked real good and is also pretty much a lock.
Skinner/Nash/Dvorak or Dalpe. This will be a bit of a mish mash line that has never played together but gets put together out of necessity because Skinner has to go somewhere with ice time and Nash is 3C by default due to lack of depth at this position and because of Lindholm's setbacks.
Bowman/Sutter/Dvorak or Dalpe. Bowman is pretty safe and sound defensively. Sutter has paid his dues, had a decent training camp and earned a spot at least short-term.
In an ideal world the Canes organization would be so deep with NHL talent that a bunch of great NHL players with good scoring potential would get pushed down to the 3rd and 4th lines. But unfortunately I do not think that is the case. Only Nathan Gerbe of the fringe players has looked to have the potential to be a big difference-maker this season from what we have seen so far. So plan B is to make sure you build 3rd and 4th lines that are at least reasonably sound defensively and unlikely to lose games. Then you trust your top players to win games. I think that approach gives the edge to players like Boman and Dvorak who are veteran NHLers and reliable defensively over players like Terry and Dalpe who probably have more offensive upside but might also come with more downside.
Westgarth #13 healthy scratch.
Sekera/Faulk. They have been paired together pretty much throughout training camp and looked good on Friday.
Hainsey/Bellemore. I think Muller will go with what he has seen and not what he expected to see and give Bellemore this spot. Things will evolve over the long 82-game season, but this is the best 2nd pairing he can make for October 4.
Harrison/Komisarek. Harrison is just steady and reliable. Komisarek looked much better Friday and has at least been practicing regularly while Gleason has been limited to skating for almost a week now.
Gleason #7 healthy scratch.
So that is 22 and also where it gets interesting.
I think Welsh and Corrente get cut and head back to Charlotte.
So what about the 1 open spot and Chris Terry and Ryan Murphy. Murphy had a Jekly and Hyde night on Friday. He had a rough time of it defensively for the most part getting undressed 1-on-1 by Vanek who walked right around him and to the net, missing coverage in front of his net for a good scoring chance against and floating a couple passes into open ice in dangerous places. And while I continue to think that his ability to quarterback an NHL power play is raw, his big shot, skating ability and offensive style do make him the best option amongst mostly non-power play defensemen. So no way is Ryan Murphy playing in the top 4. But the option is still open to put him in a bit of a specialist where you try to hide him a bit defensively. I have posted my thoughts on what to do with this situation a couple times, so I will skip it here. In terms of what I think the team will do, my coin flip, 50/50 guess is that the team sends him to Charlotte for the time being and gives the power play a few games to see if it can get going with Semin and Skinner back in the lineup knowing that they can recall Murphy later if needed. With that, I think the Canes keep Chris Terry for now just to have another forward option available and to avoid risking him on waivers just yet.
I think the wild card is if the Canes get a chance to add another player via waivers or trade. If a decent-looking big RW on a 2-way contract flies across waivers, I think the Canes will bite. As long as it is a 2-way contract, it becomes a no risk trial whereby you give the player a few games in a limited role on the 4th line to kick the tires and if he does not fit you just waive him to the AHL likely to be reclaimed by his original team.
So next up is watching 4 things:
1) Any more concrete injury updates from the team.
2) Team comments on what it plans to do with Lindholm.
3) Who the Canes cut to get to 23 probably either today or tomorrow morning.
4) What options become available via waivers ideally in the form of a big young RW who can skate reasonably well and is ideally on a 2-way contract that can be dumped at no cost if it does not work.
Should be an interesting next few days seeing what the team does to get to 23.
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