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2013-14 Carolina Hurricanes Preview (Pt 4): 7 questions / 6 predictions

October 4, 2013, 8:13 AM ET [4 Comments]
Matt Karash
Carolina Hurricanes Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
I will post more of an individual game preview for tonight’s Red Wings vs. Hurricanes game around lunchtime, so please check back, ideally from your phone while tailgating in front of PNC Arena.

For anyone looking for Friday specifically or beginning of season fantasy hockey updates on the Canes, please check in HERE mid-afternoon. I plan to stop in for at least part of the morning skate and will post a quick update following that.

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With the start of the regular season, I would like to give the Unofficial Chad LaRose award to Sergey Tolchinsky. The award winner was decided by a vote of die-hard Caniacs who track the team day-by-day even in the offseason and given to the player who most exemplifies Chad LaRose's spirit and effort in overcoming the odds to make it to the NHL (or at least put forward an effort worthy of award). The vote was decisive but the other nominees (Zach Boychuk and Matt Corrente) also got a decent number of votes. With hindsight being 20/20, if I do this again next year I will probably wait until right at the end of preseason to do the voting, so the ultimate results of training camp can be considered. If I had to do it again, Brett Bellemore would also have been a nominee having paid his dues for years in the minors and being rewarded by making his first opening night NHL roster.

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If you are just coming back to Canes hockey for the start of the season, WELCOME! You can find the first few parts of my Carolina Hurricanes season preview blogs in the archives. For the last part of my season preview, I offer up a baker’s dozen with 7 questions key to the Canes 2013-14 success and 6 predictions for how I thing parts of it will ultimately end.

KEY QUESTIONS

1) Can the combination of Cam Ward and Anton Khudobin be elite? Two potential Vezina candidates (Lundqvist and Bobrovsky) reside in the Metro Division, but most of the other teams have goalie situations that might or might not work. If Ward and Khudobin can hit their ceilings this season instead of middling, the Canes will put themselves firmly in the “haves” category for goaltending and gain an advantage over many of the teams that they will competing against for a playoff spot.

2) Can Jordan Staal rebound in a role more suited to his style? Amidst the failed experiment to mesh the differing styles of JStaal and Skinner, both players had rough 2012-13 campaigns. To this day, I think the duos entire season was set back by Skinner having a burst of Skinner early and painting over what seemed destined to fail with a bunch of individual scoring. Entering this season, JStaal is paired with 2-way forwards that should give him the ability to get back to being the elite checking line center that he was in Pittsburgh.

3) Can Sekera/Faulk be the team’s first true #1 pairing in multiple years? Justin Faulk’s rapid rise in 2012-13 is utterly phenomenal when you consider the circumstances and compare his rise to that of someone like Roman Josi in Nashville. I do not mean to belittle Josi who is a good young defender, but playing on a team with solid defensive forwards, great goaltending to cover up mistakes and most importantly riding shotgun to perennial Norris Trophy candidate Shea Weber sure paves a smooth path to improvement. Faulk accomplished the same thing minus a regular partner on defense with a team that was weak defensively system-wise and while the team around him imploded. Both young players are being asked to take another big step forward in terms of development in becoming an every night top D pairing, but I like their chances. Sekera is not flashy and is unproven in this role, but he brings a well-rounded game where he can skate and defend without the puck and has decent skills with the puck. Maybe most significantly, both Sekera and Faulk are reasonable textbook readable and predictable which makes for improved tightness as they learn each other’s games.

4) Can Kirk Muller pull together a bottom 6 set of forwards that can provide secondary scoring and be sound defensively? With the injuries and the volume of players trying out for these spots, I feel like the team enters the season with answers to who starts there, but very little progress in terms of how it works, chemistry, etc. That could be okay, as my guess is that Muller will just ride the top 2 lines heavily early while he works out the 3rd and 4th lines.

5) Can 1 of Brett Bellemore, Tim Gleason or Mike Komisarek find chemistry with Ron Hainsey and perform in a top 4 role after not being in that role or doing well at it in 2012-13? Gleason had a rough 2012-13 season. Komisarek is coming off a couple rough years. Bellemore has looked good in training camp but has all of 7 games of NHL experience. But 1 of these players (not necessarily the same player for the full season) needs to prove top 4 capable alongside Hainsey.

6) Can Jeff Skinner rebound and lead the 3rd line offensively while at the same time making progress on the defensive side of the puck? The skill to score and create offense individually is there. If he can clip score at a 55-point pace despite not playing on a true scoring line, the offense starts to look much more balanced than 2012-13 taking pressure off of JStaal’s line to score and even to a lesser degree EStaal’s line to be the answer every single night.

7) Can Ryan Murphy stick at the NHL level, contribute initially in a limited role and grow from there? I continue to think that both because of where he is now in terms of development and what he needs to do to get to where the team wants him to be in about 2 years, he is best served spending most of this season in Charlotte. That might still happen. But with the team light on power play and puck-moving defensemen, there is clearly an opening for his skill set. It will be interesting to see which way this tug of war goes.


PREDICTIONS:

1) Jordan Staal will rebound, have a huge year and be 1 of the primary reasons that the Canes are still playing hockey that matters at least into late April trying to make the playoffs.

2) After a slow start and possibly even some time in Charlotte, Elias Lindholm will make gradual progress and begin to remind the Caniac faithful of another #16, Brandon Sutter, by January.

3) Anton Khudobin will briefly steal the starting goalie job at some point early in the season, but when all is said and done Cam Ward will be the starter for the playoff stretch run and will have a good if not great season overall.

4) Alexander Semin will lead the team in scoring narrowly edging out line mate Eric Staal and will push close to 100 points riding an improved power play.

5) Nathan Gerbe will fill the void left by Chad LaRose as a likeable, hard-working blue collar player and will become a popular jersey sale at The Eye even before the holiday gift giving rush begins.

6) The 2013-14 Carolina Hurricanes will play games that matter at least until late March surprising the experts and being in the thick of the playoff chase down the stretch.


Who is cooking what for tailgating? Who is on the way there already?

Twitter=@CarolinaMatt where things are ramping up to regular season speed.

Go Canes!
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