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Carolina Hurricanes Blogger •
It took me a couple days to get to writing this. I blog about the Canes for 1 reason. I enjoy it as a hobby, and I love the team. So writing a series recap after a 4-game sweep is not the most fun of tasks. It is not at all like I am sulking around grumpy still from how the season ended. I was as disappointed as anyone leaving the RBC Center on Tuesday night, but I woke up Wednesday in a good mood and am having no trouble at all moving past the series sweep to remembering the high trouble moving past the loss and remembering the run of special memories that we Canes fans received during the 2009 playoffs. My 7-year-old still does a pretty good and very passionate imitation of John Forslund's call of Scott Walker's game 7 overtime winner against Boston on a daily basis, and it still makes me smile every time I hear it. But trying to write a reasonably objective assessment of the Pittsburgh series and not try to paint it as all roses is a bit of a challenge, but here it goes...
First, you have to give a ton of credit to the Penguins. They were just better. They repeatedly dragged the Canes into a game that they were better at. Their star players were easily the best players in the series. And Marc-Andre Fleury who was deemed by most everyone to be the lesser of the 2 goalies entering the series was even the best at his position. But this is not a Penguins blog...
In a series where you lose 4 straight and look pretty bad at times, you could write pages about individual plays, players, etc. But for me this series boiled down to 3 things:
1) Energy level. The Penguins were just faster throughout the series. Be it the 9-lives approach to winning consecutive series game 7s, be it the travel schedule of being the road team and playing the tail end of series on the road for 2 of 3 before hopping another plane to start the next series or be it the size and physical play of the Bruins, the Canes were just a step slow all series. Let me be clear in saying that I do not think it was due to lack of trying, heart or whatever. There were 2 points where this was most clear. First was the 3rd period of game 1. The Canes played probably their best period of hockey in the series in period 2 of game 1 and entered the 3rd period with some momentum and only a 1 goal deficit. One would have expected the team to come out with jump and fire. Instead, the Canes were unable to muster anything at all through the 1st 12-13 minutes of the 3rd period and only managed to surge very late. That told me that they physically just did not have it. The other clear sign was game 4. The Canes seemed to come out with the right level of desperation and got a boost from an early Staal goal and their home crowd. But from that point forward the team seemed to get beat to every loose puck and loose every puck battle. It was not about desire at that point; it was clearly about physical limitations.
2) Sound defense. The biggest surprise for me in the Pittsburgh series was the Canes slide defensively in their own zone. To have a bad game or a few bad plays against a skilled and fast Pens team would not have surprised me. But the Canes had trouble early in the series, and it just seemed to get worse as the series wore on. The trademark of Maurice’s adjustments and the Canes rise in March was the emergence of a sound if not spectacular defense that consistently gave Cam Ward a chance to be a difference-maker, and he was. The Penguins made this look like a patchwork change held together by masking tape that was quickly and easily undone in a way that could not be put back together. Repeatedly, the Canes lost track of Pens players around the net and/or were in the right general place on the ice but were clueless about the dangerous developments around them until it was too late. I would guess that 2/3 of the Pens goals came on ‘oopses’ by the Canes defense.
Going a step further, 1 of my regular complaints during the Canes defensive struggles during 06-07 and 07-08 was the team’s inability to slow teams with top-end talent. Coach Laviolette’s “we play our game” approach led to regular outbursts by teams with top end talent. Many a loss came via a huge night for players like Kovalchuk, Ovechkin, Lecavalier/St. Louis, Heatley/Spezza/Alfredsson, Malkin/Crosby, etc. We did not really have a checking line, so we did not match up against these types of players. And more significantly, the team seemed to play with a complete lack of awareness or adjustment based on who was on the ice for the other team. The team seemed to take a step forward in this regard too in March. The Canes beat Washington twice matching Staal’s line against Ovechkin all night, playing a safer, defense-first game against him and relying on scoring depth to carry the team to a win. But the Pens series seemed to feature a complete reversion in this sense too. I think a telling stat for the Pens series is how many obstruction type of penalties the Canes took to impede Malkin or Crosby in dangerous places in the offensive zone. My memory is not perfect, but I think the answer might actually be 0. I realize that you cannot just parade to the box all series with the dangerous Pens power play. But to play a 4-game series where those 2 guys were whooping your butt on a nightly basis and not have more times where a defenseman erred a little too much on the physical side trying to play the body, tie up a stick or just generally make things difficult for them is wrong.
3) Top-end talent. It became clear as the series went on that the Canes were undermanned in terms of top-end players. Staal tried but needed more help. And the Canes blue line seemed like it could desperately have used that 1 guy who you could send out there to shut things down for 26-27 minutes and at key times when things were challenging. When the Pens had a couple guys who could just find another gear and single-handedly swing momentum and the game, the Canes looked more like a bunch of hardworking lunchpailers trying to fight through the mud. This is a 2-sided coin. Depth and work ethic are the starting point for any kind of playoff success in the NHL, so you must have it. But you also need a couple more guys who are capable of being the best player on the ice for stretches of a series like this.
A few quick player notes:
--Eric Staal. He did not have a great series, but I do not think he was as bad as the score sheet and media might have you believe. And after embracing the leadership role in good times in the New Jersey series, he seemed fine with it in bad times too. That was 1 of the positive takeaways in this series.
--Cam Ward. The defense was horrible in front of him, but he was not great either. Before the Pens series I would have called him a burgeoning franchise goalie. After the Pens series, I would call him exactly the same. I think the series did show that Ward's strength is playing games where his defense is sound and he can face reasonable chances, read plays, rely on his sound play including rebound control and positioning and just make plays with his head. He still looks a bit like a fish out of water at times when tasked with an uncontrolled assault that relies more on reaction type saves (i.e. breakaways where the shooter has a bunch of options and you cannot so much read the play as react to what happens). But then what goalie is great when the team in front of him stinks?
--Gleason/Corvo. When things turned bad, they seemed to get exposed as a top pairing playing in over their heads.
--Larose. Just sign him and give him the top 6 spot he earned.
--Cole. He might be the player most-damaged by the playoffs. He is still a physical warrior that makes any team better. But after a slow season in Edmonton and nothing on the score sheet in the playoffs, he looks much more like a 3rd line/checking line version of this and not a top 2 line wing who puts up the points. It will be interesting to see if after Edmonton someone will still pay him top 3 or top 6 type of dollars or if everyone resets in which case he starts to fit in the Canes slotting and budget.
--Pitkanen. He had his share of mistakes like everyone else, but in the middle of the mess I think he also showed he was still a smooth puck-mover even under the increased pressure, speed and duress. With the right guy next to him, I think he really could be part of a 1st pairing.
So the Pens series was obviously not 1 that will go down as a good 1 in Canes history. And bad playoff losses can sometimes have significant and long-lasting negative effects. In 2008 San Jose had another disappointing playoffs. There were questions with Nabokov. There was the issue of the captain, Patrick Marleau, getting caught stepping around a shot instead of blocking it. There were the yearly questions about Joe Thornton. There was the coach throwing Marleau under the bus. That made for an important off-season for the team. Management took the easiest way out and just fired the coach without making any significant changes to the leadership. Yes the team got better by adding Boyle and Blake. But management elected not to make any big changes to leadership. And it seemed to work wonderfully during the regular season. But coming out of a frustrating 1st round playoff loss, the Sharks suddenly find themselves right back where they started last summer. And at this point, I just do not see a path to the top for that team without blowing things up and starting over in the locker room. In 06-07 the Atlanta Thrashers spent a bunch in terms of futures to get Tkachuk and Zhitnik to try to push the team over the top. They did make the playoffs, but in getting swept 4-0 in a series that was not even close, the team seemed to take 3 steps immediately back after the small step forward. Instead of becoming a building block, the playoffs left a bad taste in many mouths such I think Marian Hossa’s departure was assured during the Rangers series and minus Braydon Coburn and other young players traded to get veterans the team was suddenly sparse on young talent.
So my point is that you need to be careful that tough playoff series losses do not snowball past that given series. In this respect, I think the Canes came out of the 4-game Pens series intact. The Pens did expose some holes in the Canes lineup and maybe even show the Canes to be less in terms of talent than the top 4 spot that they fought to. But the frustrating series was devoid of players throwing each other under the bus. Nowhere did Ward lose it and call out his teammates for hanging him out to dry repeatedly. Nowhere did Staal snap back at how bad some of the defensemen had been as the media focused its attention on his lack of scoring in the series. Nowhere did Coach Maurice start questioning the character of leaders wearing letters who were not having the best of series. And nowhere did captain Rod BrindAmour start playing the ‘me’ card and demand more ice time than he was getting. Instead, the team seemed to burrow itself up deep inside the ship, kept battling as best they could and ultimately when the boat sank, they all seemed to come out of it together and ready to get on another boat together next season minus any psychological relationship-challenged baggage.
As I said after game 4, this is a testament to the kind of people the Canes have in the locker room and within the organization. Talent-wise and success-wise pro sports teams go up and down. But character tends to be more of a permanent thing. After watching 2 rounds of the 2009 playoffs, I am convinced that the Canes have the right kind of people, talent permitting, to go deep in the playoffs again. And after watching the 3rd round of the playoffs, my opinion changed absolutely none. And that is saying something.
All this said, I think the Canes were exposed a bit for getting by more on GM Jim Rutherford’s ability to find decent complementary pieces for reasonable prices (Jokinen, Samsonov, Corvo, Seidenberg, etc.) but maybe just not having quite enough top-end talent to defeat a great hockey team that also brings the energy and heart. That sort of leads into what the team needs to do this summer. I will throw out 2 things and then leave the bulk of that for sometime next week.
1) Get off BrindAmour’s back. If you are a new Canes fan maybe I can understand how you can question $3M/season for the next 2 seasons based on how 08-09 went for the captain. But if you are a longer term Canes fan, you simply need to get off his back. Consider it that he is getting paid for how much he has already done for this organization leading it to a Stanley Cup and being a key part of the character and attitude in the dressing room that will pay off for years past when he does retire. In my book BrindAmour retires when he wants to and that is fine by me.
2) The other pillar. I already mentioned this in a previous blog, but I think step 1 for this summer is to lock up Cam Ward past when his contract ends next summer. With Staal that gives you great young players with the right attitude as the 2 pillars of the team going forward. And it also gives owner Peter Karmanos and GM Jim Rutherford a better idea of how much money is tied up and available going forward past next season.
I will take a shot at how I think the off-season will play out sometime next week.
Go Canes!
First, you have to give a ton of credit to the Penguins. They were just better. They repeatedly dragged the Canes into a game that they were better at. Their star players were easily the best players in the series. And Marc-Andre Fleury who was deemed by most everyone to be the lesser of the 2 goalies entering the series was even the best at his position. But this is not a Penguins blog...
In a series where you lose 4 straight and look pretty bad at times, you could write pages about individual plays, players, etc. But for me this series boiled down to 3 things:
1) Energy level. The Penguins were just faster throughout the series. Be it the 9-lives approach to winning consecutive series game 7s, be it the travel schedule of being the road team and playing the tail end of series on the road for 2 of 3 before hopping another plane to start the next series or be it the size and physical play of the Bruins, the Canes were just a step slow all series. Let me be clear in saying that I do not think it was due to lack of trying, heart or whatever. There were 2 points where this was most clear. First was the 3rd period of game 1. The Canes played probably their best period of hockey in the series in period 2 of game 1 and entered the 3rd period with some momentum and only a 1 goal deficit. One would have expected the team to come out with jump and fire. Instead, the Canes were unable to muster anything at all through the 1st 12-13 minutes of the 3rd period and only managed to surge very late. That told me that they physically just did not have it. The other clear sign was game 4. The Canes seemed to come out with the right level of desperation and got a boost from an early Staal goal and their home crowd. But from that point forward the team seemed to get beat to every loose puck and loose every puck battle. It was not about desire at that point; it was clearly about physical limitations.
2) Sound defense. The biggest surprise for me in the Pittsburgh series was the Canes slide defensively in their own zone. To have a bad game or a few bad plays against a skilled and fast Pens team would not have surprised me. But the Canes had trouble early in the series, and it just seemed to get worse as the series wore on. The trademark of Maurice’s adjustments and the Canes rise in March was the emergence of a sound if not spectacular defense that consistently gave Cam Ward a chance to be a difference-maker, and he was. The Penguins made this look like a patchwork change held together by masking tape that was quickly and easily undone in a way that could not be put back together. Repeatedly, the Canes lost track of Pens players around the net and/or were in the right general place on the ice but were clueless about the dangerous developments around them until it was too late. I would guess that 2/3 of the Pens goals came on ‘oopses’ by the Canes defense.
Going a step further, 1 of my regular complaints during the Canes defensive struggles during 06-07 and 07-08 was the team’s inability to slow teams with top-end talent. Coach Laviolette’s “we play our game” approach led to regular outbursts by teams with top end talent. Many a loss came via a huge night for players like Kovalchuk, Ovechkin, Lecavalier/St. Louis, Heatley/Spezza/Alfredsson, Malkin/Crosby, etc. We did not really have a checking line, so we did not match up against these types of players. And more significantly, the team seemed to play with a complete lack of awareness or adjustment based on who was on the ice for the other team. The team seemed to take a step forward in this regard too in March. The Canes beat Washington twice matching Staal’s line against Ovechkin all night, playing a safer, defense-first game against him and relying on scoring depth to carry the team to a win. But the Pens series seemed to feature a complete reversion in this sense too. I think a telling stat for the Pens series is how many obstruction type of penalties the Canes took to impede Malkin or Crosby in dangerous places in the offensive zone. My memory is not perfect, but I think the answer might actually be 0. I realize that you cannot just parade to the box all series with the dangerous Pens power play. But to play a 4-game series where those 2 guys were whooping your butt on a nightly basis and not have more times where a defenseman erred a little too much on the physical side trying to play the body, tie up a stick or just generally make things difficult for them is wrong.
3) Top-end talent. It became clear as the series went on that the Canes were undermanned in terms of top-end players. Staal tried but needed more help. And the Canes blue line seemed like it could desperately have used that 1 guy who you could send out there to shut things down for 26-27 minutes and at key times when things were challenging. When the Pens had a couple guys who could just find another gear and single-handedly swing momentum and the game, the Canes looked more like a bunch of hardworking lunchpailers trying to fight through the mud. This is a 2-sided coin. Depth and work ethic are the starting point for any kind of playoff success in the NHL, so you must have it. But you also need a couple more guys who are capable of being the best player on the ice for stretches of a series like this.
A few quick player notes:
--Eric Staal. He did not have a great series, but I do not think he was as bad as the score sheet and media might have you believe. And after embracing the leadership role in good times in the New Jersey series, he seemed fine with it in bad times too. That was 1 of the positive takeaways in this series.
--Cam Ward. The defense was horrible in front of him, but he was not great either. Before the Pens series I would have called him a burgeoning franchise goalie. After the Pens series, I would call him exactly the same. I think the series did show that Ward's strength is playing games where his defense is sound and he can face reasonable chances, read plays, rely on his sound play including rebound control and positioning and just make plays with his head. He still looks a bit like a fish out of water at times when tasked with an uncontrolled assault that relies more on reaction type saves (i.e. breakaways where the shooter has a bunch of options and you cannot so much read the play as react to what happens). But then what goalie is great when the team in front of him stinks?
--Gleason/Corvo. When things turned bad, they seemed to get exposed as a top pairing playing in over their heads.
--Larose. Just sign him and give him the top 6 spot he earned.
--Cole. He might be the player most-damaged by the playoffs. He is still a physical warrior that makes any team better. But after a slow season in Edmonton and nothing on the score sheet in the playoffs, he looks much more like a 3rd line/checking line version of this and not a top 2 line wing who puts up the points. It will be interesting to see if after Edmonton someone will still pay him top 3 or top 6 type of dollars or if everyone resets in which case he starts to fit in the Canes slotting and budget.
--Pitkanen. He had his share of mistakes like everyone else, but in the middle of the mess I think he also showed he was still a smooth puck-mover even under the increased pressure, speed and duress. With the right guy next to him, I think he really could be part of a 1st pairing.
So the Pens series was obviously not 1 that will go down as a good 1 in Canes history. And bad playoff losses can sometimes have significant and long-lasting negative effects. In 2008 San Jose had another disappointing playoffs. There were questions with Nabokov. There was the issue of the captain, Patrick Marleau, getting caught stepping around a shot instead of blocking it. There were the yearly questions about Joe Thornton. There was the coach throwing Marleau under the bus. That made for an important off-season for the team. Management took the easiest way out and just fired the coach without making any significant changes to the leadership. Yes the team got better by adding Boyle and Blake. But management elected not to make any big changes to leadership. And it seemed to work wonderfully during the regular season. But coming out of a frustrating 1st round playoff loss, the Sharks suddenly find themselves right back where they started last summer. And at this point, I just do not see a path to the top for that team without blowing things up and starting over in the locker room. In 06-07 the Atlanta Thrashers spent a bunch in terms of futures to get Tkachuk and Zhitnik to try to push the team over the top. They did make the playoffs, but in getting swept 4-0 in a series that was not even close, the team seemed to take 3 steps immediately back after the small step forward. Instead of becoming a building block, the playoffs left a bad taste in many mouths such I think Marian Hossa’s departure was assured during the Rangers series and minus Braydon Coburn and other young players traded to get veterans the team was suddenly sparse on young talent.
So my point is that you need to be careful that tough playoff series losses do not snowball past that given series. In this respect, I think the Canes came out of the 4-game Pens series intact. The Pens did expose some holes in the Canes lineup and maybe even show the Canes to be less in terms of talent than the top 4 spot that they fought to. But the frustrating series was devoid of players throwing each other under the bus. Nowhere did Ward lose it and call out his teammates for hanging him out to dry repeatedly. Nowhere did Staal snap back at how bad some of the defensemen had been as the media focused its attention on his lack of scoring in the series. Nowhere did Coach Maurice start questioning the character of leaders wearing letters who were not having the best of series. And nowhere did captain Rod BrindAmour start playing the ‘me’ card and demand more ice time than he was getting. Instead, the team seemed to burrow itself up deep inside the ship, kept battling as best they could and ultimately when the boat sank, they all seemed to come out of it together and ready to get on another boat together next season minus any psychological relationship-challenged baggage.
As I said after game 4, this is a testament to the kind of people the Canes have in the locker room and within the organization. Talent-wise and success-wise pro sports teams go up and down. But character tends to be more of a permanent thing. After watching 2 rounds of the 2009 playoffs, I am convinced that the Canes have the right kind of people, talent permitting, to go deep in the playoffs again. And after watching the 3rd round of the playoffs, my opinion changed absolutely none. And that is saying something.
All this said, I think the Canes were exposed a bit for getting by more on GM Jim Rutherford’s ability to find decent complementary pieces for reasonable prices (Jokinen, Samsonov, Corvo, Seidenberg, etc.) but maybe just not having quite enough top-end talent to defeat a great hockey team that also brings the energy and heart. That sort of leads into what the team needs to do this summer. I will throw out 2 things and then leave the bulk of that for sometime next week.
1) Get off BrindAmour’s back. If you are a new Canes fan maybe I can understand how you can question $3M/season for the next 2 seasons based on how 08-09 went for the captain. But if you are a longer term Canes fan, you simply need to get off his back. Consider it that he is getting paid for how much he has already done for this organization leading it to a Stanley Cup and being a key part of the character and attitude in the dressing room that will pay off for years past when he does retire. In my book BrindAmour retires when he wants to and that is fine by me.
2) The other pillar. I already mentioned this in a previous blog, but I think step 1 for this summer is to lock up Cam Ward past when his contract ends next summer. With Staal that gives you great young players with the right attitude as the 2 pillars of the team going forward. And it also gives owner Peter Karmanos and GM Jim Rutherford a better idea of how much money is tied up and available going forward past next season.
I will take a shot at how I think the off-season will play out sometime next week.
Go Canes!
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