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2024-25 Canes Miscellaneous Thread

I will watch that later today, but am perplexed how could there be any argument made that the Canes are not still a top Eastern conference team? Burns and Orlov out and Miller and Nikishin in. All of the forwards are the same as we ended last season except we added Ehlers. That forward group minus Ehlers got to the Eastern Conference Finals.

Did someone else in the East get massively better and I missed it? Done enough to remain a top Eastern Conference team? For sure. Done enough to win the Cup would be a better point to argue.
 
The amount of over-rating the actual contributions of Burns and Orlov is mind boggling. Not pointing a finger at The Hockey Guy here so much as at the general hockey media/commentary class. And we have to keep in mind just how shallow 90% of these people go when they make these off season assessments. Honestly, I haven't really thought much about the big picture yet, so let's look at things and see ...

Carolina ... have they gotten better? I mean, kinda/sorta depending on how things play out on D. They didn't get any worse, for sure. Ehlers will fit in fine and probably love the extra ice time he's going to get. Miller is a risk, but I think that will sort itself out once they figure out some pairings. I don't look for much from him early, since he'll be making a big system change and that's going to give room for some naysaying in the Fall. Nikishin remains a wild card, but if he figures out the NHL at some point this season then he could add a lot to the general swagger level. They didn't really address the weakness down the middle up front, though. For my money, that's the "one simple trick" holding the Canes back from taking a big step forward. If they figure out the 2C either from within the roster or without, then they'll take a big step. Still, this was a 99 point team last year and they never really found their stride until March. It's still a 100 point team even if they take some time to settle.


The Metro ...

Who had a good off season so far? NYR did some re-tooling, especially on D, and they'll almost certainly get a new coach bounce. The Devils kind of held serve, but they'll probably get better injury luck next season. Otherwise, where are the big gains coming from? Washington did nothing, pretty much, and nobody seems to trust them to replicate last season. Columbus came out of nowhere to contend for a wildcard, but have they gotten better in the meantime? Not really. The other three teams are trending down, dramatically in Pittsburgh's case.

I think you'd be a fool to figure that Carolina's not still a playoff team out of that mess. In fact, I'd call them the favorite to win the Division.

The Atlantic ...

Same deal. Who actually got better? Montreal had what I consider a really solid summer and solidified their position as a playoff team. Florida is Florida but they managed to keep the band together, which is almost as good as actually improving when you're the Camps. Toronto lost a huge piece of the offense and otherwise tinkered with the bottom six. Tampa is treading water, and weirdly so are Ottawa and Detroit. Everybody else is either fading, floundering or hoping for a dead cat bounce. So, Florida is still the Eastern Big Bad but is anybody shaking in their boots over any of the rest of this bunch? Nah.

So, yeah. Carolina's still a "top team" in the East. They still have flaws, but let's not get carried away. Pretty sure that's the same conclusion The Hockey Guy will come to, because he's a rational human.
 
If you're not familiar with The Hockey Guy then you need to understand that Shannon is a pretty level headed dude that doesn't yell and scream like that stupid Leafs fan that everyone seems to love so much, and he doesn't do the clickbait thing; or at least do it well because he's not that yelling type of guy. This is more of a question in the scientific sense. Let's ask the question and observe the facts. So, I'm going to do a spoiler for this video: he sounds like he is a lurker on this board because he's thinking that the 'Canes are going to be a top tier team again, but still have a hole down the middle.
 
The Canes may be the true lurker…lurking around the league from now to the trade deadline looking for the missing 2C and perhaps a righty shot D to fill out the rest of what they really want to do with that team. Otherwise, barring major bad injuries they should be just fine as they are now.
 
NoMich said:
If you're not familiar with The Hockey Guy then you need to understand that Shannon is a pretty level headed dude that doesn't yell and scream like that stupid Leafs fan that everyone seems to love so much, and he doesn't do the clickbait thing; or at least do it well because he's not that yelling type of guy. This is more of a question in the scientific sense. Let's ask the question and observe the facts. So, I'm going to do a spoiler for this video: he sounds like he is a lurker on this board because he's thinking that the 'Canes are going to be a top tier team again, but still have a hole down the middle.
Click to expand...
I like Shannon because he doesn't pretend to be an expert. He's a long time fan and presents himself that way. I probably also like Shannon because he and I are generally pretty close on our opinions.
 
CanadaCanes said:
The Canes may be the true lurker…lurking around the league from now to the trade deadline looking for the missing 2C and perhaps a righty shot D to fill out the rest of what they really want to do with that team. Otherwise, barring major bad injuries they should be just fine as they are now.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure Carolina is going to be in constant lurking mode if you look at it that way. At least until they finally win something that matters. My sense is that Dundon believes that you can be in perpetual compete mode so long as you manage your core contracts the right way, and he's really stuck to that discipline ... despite taking a LOT of grief for how supposedly cheap he is in the process. If you don't over-pay your core, then it gives you the opportunity to make the odd expensive mistake when you're taking a risk.
 
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Well, I broke down the East yesterday and while Carolina is a step behind Florida you'd be hard pressed to argue anybody else is better structured. Not even trying to stop fans of those teams from doing that, of course. Then look at the West. Edmonton is deeply good but deeply flawed, and I've gone into great detail as to why I consider Colorado and Dallas to be frauds. And Vegas has been kind of an unfocused mess since they won the Cup, grabbing players on the market because they're good not because they fit. They remind me of the Steinbrenner Yankees or Calipari's Kentucky basketball teams now. Yeah, if you are that active in the player markets you're going to get the mix right eventually, but with basically no farm system of your own, it's all very year to year. The Canes are as good as anybody in the league right now, night in and night out. It's time for Canes fans, especially the online variety, to quit picking at nits and start to develop some confidence in the program.
 
The only hole in the program is the inability to draft and develop centers and goalies. There are wings and dmen galore, but in the last 10 years, the only drafted centers that stayed at center were Aho and Drury and the only goalies since Cam Ward are Nedejkovic and Kochetkov. Maybe Frolov and Cerrato will change that, but they’re both a few years away.
 
andyt said:
The only hole in the program is the inability to draft and develop centers and goalies. There are wings and dmen galore, but in the last 10 years, the only drafted centers that stayed at center were Aho and Drury and the only goalies since Cam Ward are Nedejkovic and Kochetkov. Maybe Frolov and Cerrato will change that, but they’re both a few years away.
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Yeah, absolutely. I do take some consolation that the center problem is sort of a league-wide issue. The goalie thing is just endemic for this franchise for whatever reason.
 
jeffbear said:
The Canes are as good as anybody in the league right now, night in and night out. It's time for Canes fans, especially the online variety, to quit picking at nits and start to develop some confidence in the program.
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Yea, I have the Canes over Edmonton too. I am hoping the experience in the conference finals with Florida last year again has them hungry. It's good having really good leadership. Stahl reminds everyone that this is the hardest championship in sports to win. I believe Aho is frustrated and believes his team can do it and is ready to win it all now. This team had Florida on the ropes a couple of times in the CF but could not close out. That game up 3-0 only to lose was a lesson learned. We shall see. But overall I agree, this team is as good as any in the league.
 
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Dom Luspellcheck‘s latest column is about contract efficiency. Which teams spend their money most wisely? Tampa jumps from 13 last year to #1. A lot of it is due to the leap that Brandon Hagel took and the return to previous form from Cernsk and Vasilevskiy, even though they both have a negative value. But their core forwards of Kucherov, Cirelli, Hagel, Guentzel and Point provide almost $20 million of value above their contracts.

The Canes are #2, up from 4. Jarvis and Blake lead the way, Ghost and Kochetkov also earn A grades. The worst contract in his model is Miller, with nearly $15 million in negative value. Other negatives are Carrier, Ehlers, Hall, KK and Walker.

At DFL are the Seattle Kraken, down from 26th last year. Their only positive contracts are McCann, Beniers, Marchment, Dunn and Daccord.

www.nytimes.com

NHL contract efficiency rankings 2025: Which teams spend their money most wisely?

Every NHL team gets the same amount of cap space, but not all teams put it to good use.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
 
Yeah, Dom made the point that if you took the very best value contract in the NHL (J Hughes) and gave the Kraken the room to absorb the Cap hit (they're a million shy), Seattle STILL wouldn't be close to competing. That's ... frankly ridiculous given the advantages modern expansions teams have. I know they kicked Francis upstairs, but they should have kicked him out of the State. And the sad part is that the general roster incompetence in Seattle is rapidly souring a new fan base that was primed and ready to provide major market level support.
 
Obviously, I love that Dom's model gives the Canes the #2 spot, but our two biggest acquisitions - Miller and Ehlers - are rated very poorly.
 
Hard to tell though, especially with Ehlers. If he can stay healthy and put up 70 points a season his value will look a whole lot better.

The NY Rangers were an absolute train wreck defensively last season. What will K'Andre Miller look like in our system paired with either Chatfield or Slavin and playing with forwards who actually play defense?

It might take a few seasons before anyone really knows how those contracts are going to play out value wise with those players playing for the Canes.
 
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