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2021 Hurricanes Pre-Season Thread

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jeffbear

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This will probably transition into the normal Season Misc thread once we get to the start of the season, but with such a compressed timeframe between the announcement of the divisional alignment and tentative schedule and the start of camps it makes sense to gather pre-season discussion here.

Canes Current Roster

Centers ... Aho, Staal, Trocheck ... and then one of Geekie, Martinook (hopefully not), Shore (also hopefully not)

Wings ... Teravainen, Svechnikov, Necas, Fast, Niederreiter, McGinn, Foegele, Martinook (see above), Dzingle

Defense ... Slavin, Hamilton, Pesce, Skjei, Gardiner, Fleury, Ryan

Goalies ... Mrazek, Reimer

23 man roster would probably include Ryan and Shore at the moment, especially with the AHL situation unclear. 4-6 man taxi squads are allowed and teams need to carry 3 goalies in some shape or form. That probably means that Ned will start on the taxi squad. Other taxi squad candidates (IMO) among the forwards are Suzuki, Steve Lorentz, Clark Bishop and the Cotton brothers. On D you'd probably be looking at McKeown, Bean and Keane. It's unclear right now whether or not Carolina will carry 4 or 6 on the taxi squad. Given revenues, you'd be safe assuming they will carry as few as they figure they can get away with.

Roster Moves
With such a short runway before things get started ... two weeks from today, with Christmas right in the middle ... you're probably looking at opening camp with what you've already got on hand. There are some issues ... goalies not up to the quality of the rest of the group, D is unbalanced left to right, depth is a bit thin up front ... but this roster is really similar to the way they finished last season and it likely good enough to qualify for the playoffs, barring a goaltending collapse or a bad run of injuries.
 
The league and the Canadian Hockey League have to decide on how Junior players will be treated. Technically, Suzuki, Jarvis, etc. are only eligible to play for the Canes because they have Junior eligibilty left. But neither the OHL or WHL have started their seasons, only the Q is playing. Players on the taxi squad will be paid their AHL salaries and won’t count toward the 23 man roster or NHL salary cap. Does that mean they can’t be on the taxi squad?

The release from the Canes on McKeown doesn’t say if the loan is short term, although I assume it is. Sellgren’s loan is for the full season, so we won’t see him. Bokk should probably be back from his loan for camp.

CapFriendly’s calculation shows the Canes have $932k available but it includes both Shore and Ryan on the 22 man roster. I don’t think they’ll carry any more than they need to, I wonder if they may try to bare bones it and go with 21, considering the taxi squad will always be available. Geekie isn’t listed among the forwards and swapping Shore out for him will add $63k to the cap hit. Swapping Ryan for Bean would add another $163k. Both Ryan and Shore carry $150k AHL salaries, Geekie and Bean are at $70k.
 
The release from the Canes on McKeown doesn’t say if the loan is short term, although I assume it is. Sellgren’s loan is for the full season, so we won’t see him. Bokk should probably be back from his loan for camp.
Yeah, I don't see Bokk as a taxi squad candidate, and I think he'll go where ever they can get him meaningful games. And I'm 90% certain I saw somewhere that McKeown's deal is re-call friendly should they decide to put him on the taxi squad. I think they pretty much have to carry a right shot D on the taxi squad, so McKeown and Keane are the options there.
 
The Canes sent out an email to STM today. There won’t be any fans in the arena at least at the beginning of the season. Essentially, all payment plans have ended and any balance will automatically be rolled over to the 2021-22 season. If, at some point, fans are allowed, a portion of the credited amount can be used for those tickets. Prices for next season are frozen.

STM who want to remain as STM but not freeze the entire balance can request a partial rollover. The club will hold 20% of the plan total as the deposit for the 2021-22 season and refund the balance.
 
Canes Country says that, if the AHL plays, players cannot be recalled directly to the NHL. They can be recalled to the taxi squad but must complete a 14 day quarantine first.
 
One sports book has the Canes as 7/2 to win the Central, behind the Bolts at 3/2. Dallas, Nashville, Columbus, Florida, Chicago and Detroit are the rest, in order. Detroit is 25/1, the longest shot in the league, Ottawa is next at 22/1.

Boston is 5/2 to win the East, Toronto 7/4 to win the North and Colorado 9/5 to win the West.
 
Yup. And the oddsmakers illustrate why swapping Dallas into the Central made sense ... at least for me. Even in the loosey goosey West, the Wild only merit a 10/1 shot at the Division, whereas Dallas nicely rounds out the contenders in the Central at 9/2. Without them, a seriously not great Nashville team would be solidly third in the odds in the Central. They basically ended up with an alignment that has either two or three dead enders in each Division, and regardless of the overall quality, the Divisions layer up similarly.
 
Dallas over-achieved a bit last season IMHO, they certainly are a good team, but I would currently rank the Central before it starts on paper as Tampa 1, Canes 2, Dallas 3 and one of Nashville/Columbus/Florida as a coin flip for 4. I believe both Seguin and Bishop are out until the first of April with surgery recoveries that certainly will impact Dallas for the first couple months of the season.
 
Dallas over-achieved a bit last season IMHO, they certainly are a good team, but I would currently rank the Central before it starts on paper as Tampa 1, Canes 2, Dallas 3 and one of Nashville/Columbus/Florida as a coin flip for 4. I believe both Seguin and Bishop are out until the first of April with surgery recoveries that certainly will impact Dallas for the first couple months of the season.
Oh yeah ... I agree that Dallas is probably over-valued in the odds. They're still a world better than whatever nonsense Billy Guerin is trying to do in Minnesota
 
I admit, I have MIA for a while, popping in periodically. I did see that teams will have to carry 3 goalies this year. So, has there been any scuttlebutt about possible trades and/or who the 3rd option is for the Hurricanes? I am assuming we keep Mrazek and Reimer, but Ned??
 
Canes schedule is out. We open at Detroit on 1/15 and end in Nashville on 5/8. There are 10 back to backs (6 teams have 11 or 12, the Rangers have the fewest with 6) and 26 MLB-style “series”, with consecutive games against the same opponent. They have 2-6 game roadies, 2/2-13 that takes them to Chicago, Columbus and Dallas and the other is 4/19-27 in Tampa, Florida and Dallas. They have a 6 game homestand from 1/21-31 and a 8 game homestand from 4/3-17.

 
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Canes schedule is out. We open at Detroit on 1/15 and end in Nashville on 5/8. There are 10 back to backs (6 teams have 11 or 12, the Rangers have the fewest with 6) and MLB-style “series”. They have 2-6 game roadies, 2/2-13 that takes them to Chicago, Columbus and Dallas and the other is 4/19-27 in Tampa, Florida and Dallas. They have a 6 game homestand from 1/21-31 and a 8 game homestand from 4/3-17.


(tongue in cheek) So when is the annual State Fair Road Trip? Guess it's 2/2-2/13
 
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