Right out of the gate, the Canes started into a sprint for a strong position in the draft lottery finishing O for the month at 0-6-2 and quickly falling to #30 in the NHL.

Glad that's over.

Quick hitters on the game:

--Ryan Murphy. He had a real rough game moving the puck out of his own end. The defense seems to be suffering from a rotating version of the yucks on a game-by-game basis, so maybe it was just his turn. But it concerns me that the 1 player whose greatest skill set is rushing the puck up the ice is struggling to figure out how to do it right now. I think a piece of it is that Gleason offered nothing 2-wide which had Murphy funneled to a side and Vancouver closing the passing angles from there. Hopefully it is only that and a rough night.

--Ron Hainsey. He settled in a bit, but he struggled mightily early figuring in the breakdown for the 1st goal and a couple other near miss turnovers.

--Eric Staal. I thought he looked okay. He was not lights out, but he looked mostly ready for the pace which is a good start.

--Jeff Skinner. Different game. Same story as the past 3 years. He was generally dangerous buzzing around in the offensive zone but with no deviation from the past he mixed in a defensive zone gaffe of the bad decision variety that led directly to a goal against.

--Tlusty/EStaal/Semin. I liked their pace early and ability to move the puck from stick to stick a bit early. There is still hope for that line if Semin gets out of the dog house.


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If I were Coach Bill Peters, I would focus on 2 things right now:

1) Trying to make adjustments or improvements to the process for moving the puck up the ice. For me, that is the biggest problem. Even when the Canes muster shots, they are getting virtually nothing in transition. The team is completely disjointed right now seemingly strung out 5 players long with no ability to enter the zone 3 wide or in many cases even 2 wide. Without that, defensemen get to step up, and it's dump and chase with the chaser behind the play. That means you get to start playing defense again. As I noted above, it bothers me that Ryan Murphy seems to be at a loss right now for moving the puck. For whatever things he still needs to improve to be a good NHL defenseman, this shouldn't be so hard. Faulk has had a horrible time moving the puck. Optimism says they are just still learning a new system. Let's hope it comes soon because it is hard to watch right now.

2) I would work on slotting things as close to a real lineup as possible at forward. That will give Ron Francis a measure of where things are short and also put challenges in front of players that they should be able to meet. As soon as Gerbe is ready to go, I think it's time for a bit of a mix-up.

I would make a couple key moves:

First, send Rask down and move Lindholm back to center. Rask has been adequate defensively but brought virtually nothing but an occasional nose for the front of the net and a few shots at the goalie's crest for offense. He would be okay as a 4th-liner, but the goal has to be higher for him. It is time for him to go back to the AHL to work on playing offense at a higher pace. And it is time to push Lindholm to be great. He looks more comfortable physically and in general, but he has been nothing even remotely close to a difference-maker thus far. He was drafted with the projection to be a top 6 heady 2-way center. With Jordan Staal out and nothing else working well anyway, it is time to give him a run in a role close to this.

If you make those 2 moves and try to slot players where they should be, I think you get this:

1-Tlusty/EStaal/Semin-That should be a legitimate top line. Tlusty is playing fairly well. Hopefully EStaal gets back up to speed quickly. Then they just need to drag Semin along.

4-Malone/McClement/Dwyer-First, to be clear, I do not consider this a demotion for McClement. He has been pretty good of late and his makeshift line with skilled youngsters Terry and Boychuk has been consistently not bad which sadly is a positive right now. But his offensive upside and skill set is really that of a good 4th-line center. And next to Malone, you get a rugged line that can be very hard to play against for 10-12 minutes per night.

After that I would leave Boychuk and Terry together. That leaves Skinner and Gerbe. I am torn on how you parse out the Nash and Lindholm. I would be inclined to start Nash with Skinner and Gerbe but would not be against some trial and error here.

So then you get ...
2-Skinner/Nash/Gerbe
3-Terry/Lindholm/Boychuk

The biggest thing is figuring out how to move the puck up the ice with any kind of cohesion. Until the team does that it is going to play a ton of defense and put up random quantities of shots without enough real good scoring chances regardless of the shot count. The other thing is to build a couple lines that have the right personnel (or as close as possible) for their role, challenge them to be good and then learn which players are capable of it.

What say you Canes fans? Are you still watching? Do you think there is a chance that the team at least saved a rare win for a weekend split to make the game worthwhile at home? Do you agree with pushing Lindholm to the middle where maybe he belongs or if nothing else it now seems like an okay time to take some risks figuring that out?

Twitter=@CarolinaMatt63

Go Canes!

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