I apologize in advance for the long blog. With games on both Saturday and Sunday, I figured I would do a brain dump while this stuff was still fresh. Feel free to pick your favorite of the 3 topics and read only that or alternatively I embedded the Twitter versions which tells the store in 1 or 2 X 140 characters. :-)
What to do with Justin Peters?
Some would argue that he has played himself up to legitimate NHL backup quality over the past couple weeks. While his level of play has been that good, I am hesitant to completely redo my assessment of him based on a limited stretch of games. If I were Canes GM Jim Rutherford, I would look to get whatever I can for him in a trade sending him to the Western Conference. Here is why. First, I am just skeptical that he is really going to be better than the better of Ward or Khudobin over the rest of the season. Second, he is an expensive #3 option because of his 1-way contract. His 1-way salary of $650,000 is $400k too high for the AHL. The Canes can save about that much in real cash. Finally and most importantly, he will not clear waivers. About 20 minutes after he hits the waiver wire, a travel itinerary to Long Island will magically appear on his phone. Minus Nabokov for another month probably (who was struggling anyway) and with a backup in Poulin who has not found a groove yet, the Isles will be all over the chance to pick up a currently hot NHL goalie for free. And with their position in the standings, there is a very good chance that he would fall to them in terms of waiver priority with possibly only Edmonton standing in the way. If Rutherford cannot get something via trade for Peters, step 2 would be to make calls to the Western Conference GMs (only a few) ahead of the Isles in terms of waiver priority and determine if 1 of them will take Peters if offered on waivers. If the answer is no, then the Canes need to keep him at the NHL level to avoid giving him away for nothing to the Islanders. This is obviously problematic since the team has a similar problem having 1 too many (8) defensemen right now.
Twitter version:
The team is treading water. What is up with the forward lines and what are the possible upgrades?
At forward, I think the Canes roster breaks down like this. Somehow, some way, ideally sometime soon (if Semin can get back on the ice) ____/EStaal/Semin needs to work. There is enough offensive talent and track record, and there are enough decent options for a 3rd player. If something needs to be brought in from outside to fix this, it is time to blow up the top part of the roster. The 4th-line of Bowman/Malhotra/Dvorak built 2/3 from unwanted parts has been incredibly good taking on more like 3rd line minutes. But on a good team, this is a prototypical solid 4th line that makes the team real deep at forward. While Muller tries to sort out the rest of it, it will be an unfortunate necessity that he borrow parts for this line to try to fix other things, but I think the ultimate goal is to build a good enough top 9 that this unit can be kept intact. That leaves the middle 2 lines. I actually like either Gerbe/JStaal Dwyer or possibly Gerbe/JStaal/Ruutu if Ruutu can find a higher gear. I fully acknowledge that this line will be a bit light on scoring compared to your traditional 2nd line, but I am fine with that. It comes back to my 2A (defense/shutdown) and 2B (offensive mismatch/opportunistic) approach to separating JStaal and Skinner based on their non-complementary skill sets. But the key to making this work is twofold. The 1st line needs to lead the way scoring (which it has not obviously) and Jeff Skinner’s 3rd line needs to provide above average secondary scoring for a 3rd line. That part was actually working okay until Skinner went down with injury leaving nothing in terms of depth scoring in his wake. This is where I think the Canes are 1 player short. Riley Nash has been solid defensively and played decent hockey, but I think his ceiling scoring-wise is that of a 4th-line center. There are 2 problems here. First, the Canes do not have another good option right now to replace him. Second, Manny Malhotra has seized the C4 slot and is not giving it away. For the 3rd line to work in this 2A/2B line strategy, a couple things need to happen. First, Skinner needs to be healthy, because he is going to need to be the catalyst for it. Second, the team needs to find a center and a right wing who can carry the load offensively. I still hold out some hope that the Canes can build this line from current roster players. When playing well, Ruutu brings enough offensive ability to go with his physical play that makes space and loose pucks for Skinner, but he still has not reached the level of play needed. And when making theoretical lineups this summer, Lindholm was thought to be advanced enough to be a decent NHL 2-way C3 even as an 18-year old. He too has been slowed by some combination of injuries and just normal adjustment to the NHL game. He was recalled Friday and inserted into this slot. I think the fact that Muller moved Nash down the 4th line and inserted Lindholm in the center slot is implicit acknowledgement that the team needs more from this slot. It is not at all that Nash has played poorly, quite the opposite actually, but his skill set is just not that of a center on a line that needs to generate offense and score.
With Friday’s practice lines, you can see where Muller is going. Gerbe/JStaal/Dwyer is still intact. They have been good if not great, and Jordan Staal’s game looks much better in this role that is comfortable to him. Sure more scoring punch would be nice, but it is by no means broken, so don’t fix it. Then you get Tlusty/EStaal/Ruutu. That is the same 1st line as last year with Ruutu filling in for the injured Semin. Then you get Skinner/Lindholm/Dvorak and Bowman/Malhotra/Nash.
I think where Muller and Rutherford are right now is:
--Trying to figure out if/where Lindholm can be an impact player on the current roster. He is healthy. He just got a stretch of a bunch of minutes to regain form and confidence in Charlotte. This is 1 of maybe 2 last tries to fill the C3 slot internally. The other option is Rask who is playing pretty well in Charlotte. Either 1 of these things works out or otherwise I think Rutherford goes shopping.
--Where I think Muller is headed is 1-Tlusty/EStaal/Semin-If EStaal/Semin really just never get it going all season, everything else is irrelevant. Canes will not make the playoffs with their 2 best players significantly underperforming expectations. 2A-Gerbe/JStaal/Dwyer-The goal is for this line to take all the hard defensive assignments and score some. Per my season previews it is not about goals; it is about goal differential. 2B-Skinner/______/______-This line would be built to prey on lesser defenders when Muller can get the matchups he wants and get Skinner away from the other team’s best defensemen. It seems like Ruutu needs to fill 1 of the openings (probably RW) and that leaves the hole in the middle. I think the pecking order is Lindholm, Rask, outside the current roster. 4-Bowman/Malhotra/Dvorak-That leaves a phenomenal 4th line that has shown chemistry, the ability to play more like 3rd line minutes and also a good helping of clutch offense.
As long as the current losing streak does not reach too far and force Rutherford’s hand sooner, I think ideally he would like to see 4-5 games of Lindholm’s return ideally with Semin back at some point to balance the other lines. At this point, either he has something that works or time for a quick audition of Rask before looking outside the organization.
Twitter version:
And what about on defense? And why would I even consider John-Michael Liles?
That gets me to the other possible upgrade…
I had a healthy debate with a couple people on Twitter a couple nights ago on the possibility/merit of John Michael-Liles. First, to be clear, I would only even think about it if Toronto eats the maximum half of his salary. That makes for a $1.9M cost for this season plus 2 more. Second, the Canes need to move another defenseman to make room and defray part of the added cost. But why would I even consider adding a player even at the reduced cost who is a #7 or # and unable to crack the lineup elsewhere? It is about skill set and change of scenery. Remember that Gerbe was a cast-off from the Sabres of all teams unable to garner a 1-way contract when Rutherford signed him and that Malhotra and Dvorak were both far enough down people’s list that the best they could get were tryout contracts. They seem to have worked out fine despite not being real high on anyone else’s depth chart.
Forwards obviously score most of the goals, so that tends to be where the focus is when teams struggle to score. And the Canes offensive struggles are definitely in part to the Skinner injury and the lack of finishing/scoring by the top offensive players. But per my comments in a recent blog, I am becoming increasingly concerned that the Canes offensive struggles are rooted in their inability to transition from defense to offense and create any offense in transition. When you combine this with a sputtering power play, the result is an offense that generates almost nothing in terms of grade A scoring chances. The result is that you have a team trying to grind out even 2 goals per game playing 5v5 which is real hard to do in today’s NHL. People keep pointing to the forwards, but factually it goes like this. EStaal/Semin are now 22 games deep into the season scoring at a 3rd-line pace. This is not a dry spell, it is a quarter of a season. Both of these players are elite scorers who have produced over the years with a variety of line mates. Are they really that bad right now? Or is it perhaps a matter of just not getting enough real good scoring chances? Semin has been firing away of late, but think about where he is shooting from – a ways out. He is good enough that he will beat the goalie occasionally from anywhere, but he really is not getting many chances where he should score. And how many good chances is EStaal getting off the rush where he is deadly? He did score shorthanded off the rush, but otherwise he is seeing a very modest amount of good scoring chances. And people like to point to Jeff Skinner’s absence as the problem. He does boost the offense, but if taking 1 player out of the offense completely kills it, what does that say about it?
When you grade out the Canes D pairings for ability to move the puck/create offense, I think you get this:
--Sekera/Faulk: Sekera is pretty darn good at this. His offensive ability has been the thing that has surprised me most about his game relative to what I expected. Faulk is adequate moving the puck but prone to some rough stretches. He has had a rough time of it of late with bad turnovers in his own end leading directly to grade A chances and goals against (Ana Perry goal and Det Nyquist goals were direct result of Faulk turnovers and quick transition goals against). We see so many good things that Faulk does, and in the process I think he gets overcredited for his offensive ability which is still developing.
--Hainsey/Bellemore. This is where I think the Canes could potentially upgrade the offense significantly. The more I watch Hainsey the more he reminds me of Bret Hedican. He skates well and is sound defensively, but he does not so much translate his skating ability to transition offense or moving the puck quickly up the ice and out of his own end. And as much as I like Bellemore’s game, he brings very little offensively. (I know. It is ironic that I am writing this 1 day after he scored a goal.) To be clear, the duo has been pretty good most nights defensively, so there is a big risk that in trying to upgrade offense you break the defense. But the deeper we get into struggling to score goals pretty much across the board (Gerbe and Skinner are only 2 players scoring even close to what you would hope), I think playing 20 more minutes per game with a defenseman capable of generating scoring chances off the rush (and also capable of helping the power play) in that 2nd pairing might be the most important missing piece right now.
--Harrison/Murphy. Murphy is still developing his ability to use his skating ability generate and exploit passing lanes to get the puck forward, but he is so incredibly good at just finding/making seams and carrying it the length of the ice himself. And Harrison has shown good awareness supporting Murphy when teams try to hem him in and make him give up the puck and also covering his back when he goes Pitkanen. The combination has worked well to create offense from the back end, and the ability to dial up Murphy’s minutes late when you need a goal with some success (Blackhawks game comes to mind) is exactly what you want from the 3rd pairing.
So getting back to possible upgrades:
1) It is not that Bellemore has been bad. It is more about skill set and balance across the defense. Though there is risk in tinkering with something that is working well in some ways (defense), I think if the Canes offense continues to sputter that adding a #4 defenseman with offensive ability will come onto Rutherford’s radar if it is not already.
2) But the matter is complicated. The Canes already have 8 defenseman, so someone would need to go. Tim Gleason who continues to be more outside than inside the top 6 defensemen and makes $4M would be the obvious choice, but he has a no-trade clause and also is working toward becoming an untradeable contract with marginal play for a bunch of $.
That could see the Rutherford shopping for something on the cheap which is where Liles could come into play. Might the Canes unload Komisarek for about nothing (late round pick) to save a few $ and free a roster spot and then turn around and trade the same nothing (late round pick) to Toronto to get Liles with Toronto eating the max half of his contract? The Canes would add a player who is a bit of a reclamation project but at least with the needed skill set that Gleason or Komisarek cannot bring even if they are playing well. The cost would be only about $800k more this season (prorated $1.9M for Liles less Komisarek’s $800k). The risk to be considered is that Liles is signed for 2 more years, but at $1.9M he is not grossly overpriced even if he just becomes #7 depth (like the slot Komisarek was signed for this year).
In the Twitter debate, many were grumbling about the quality, questionableness of Liles ability to contributed, but here’s the thing. What the Canes need is a solid top 4 defenseman who also comes with strong offensive ability. The good version of this (Letang, Pietrangelo, etc.) without any risks costs $4-7M/year and more significantly are not available via trade even if you were willing to pay both in trade and $. If it gets to the point where it looks like the Canes are not good enough offensively to compete for a playoff spot and IF Rutherford thinks that defense is part of the problem then he has 2 choices. He can sit and watch the season sink knowing what the problem is, or he can make a risky but potentially difference-making move to try to rectify 1 of the few problems the team has.
Twitter version:
Especially if the Canes can get Semin back in the lineup without losing anyone else, I think Rutherford is 2-3 weeks away from assessing whether the current team and its offense are enough to win over the course of the remaining 50ish games. If the answer is not favorable, I think the shopping begins.
What say you Canes fans?
--Would you be okay with seeing Peters get the chance he has earned to keep playing goal in the NHL as long as he goes out West? Do you agree that he will not see waivers because of how well he addresses the Isles biggest current weakness?
--Does trial #2 with Lindholm see him seize the C3 slot that Rutherford had him slotted for in June?
--Is anyone else starting to think that the Canes offensive woes are more a function of the system and lack of offense generated by the blue line versus just an across the board scoring slump by the forward lines?
--Am I crazy to consider tinkering with the defense which has been pretty good to boost the offense?
--Does anyone actually read this far when I write 1 of these long blogs?
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