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GDT: Eastern Conference Final, Game 2 Canes v. Panthers 5/22 8:00

Streak be damned, we weren’t ready from puck drop last night and we’re playing a superior team that we can’t afford to get behind. I am disappointed though we weren’t better prepared against these guys.
Chairman Mo is providing a master course to grasshopper Brindy.
 
cmaleski2 said:
According to The Athletic, across the "4 Major North American Pro sports leagues" the current Canes streak of having lost now 14 games in a row in 'Round X' of their league's playoffs is by far a record. They mentioned the Red Sox and some other team that slips my mind having a streak of 10 losses in a row in a given playoff round.

Unfortunately, as much as I'm sure the players and coaches are tired of hearing about this futility streak, that chatter is just going to get worse and worse until they win a game. Given what Florida did to us in these first 2 games, it would take some sort of miraculous voodoo for the Canes to not just get obliterated 2 more times in Sunrise. Forget about turning the tide and winning this series, right now the Canes would be lucky to not get completely blasted in these last 2. At this point just getting 1 win somehow would be an accomplishment.

As sick as we all feel today as fans the morning after, can you imagine how the players and coaches feel?
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The Blackhawks lost at least 16 straight in the quarter final in the late 70s. I think the full streak was 18, but i’m not going to do that much digging to find out.
 
Even winning a game won't change the ECF chatter. It's a good media story, whether we like it or not and they're gonna run with it until we win a conference series, or maybe the Stanley Cup. I'm in a funk today and it will take a bit longer to get over this humiliating performance. Being at the game last night was abject misery.
 
After the first maybe ten minutes in game one the entire series so far after that has felt like a waving the white flag we have no chance kinda mentality from just about everyone, coaches included. No real fight, no real answer on what to do, no adjustments and no killer instinct to even want to compete. It just looks to the blind eye that this team looks defeated in everything they try and do. I’m not taking anything away from the fact that Florida is a well oiled machine and playing great hockey but it’s more about the dejected attitude and overall no clue what to do approach and it’s concerning considering how well they looked in the first ten post season games prior to this.
 
People blaming the rookies (Morrow and Blake) just makes me want to ask what the (polar's word) are you watching and how do you dare lay this at the feet of the kids? This starts with RBA's resistance to make adjustments with veteran players and trickles down from there.
 
FLA plays our game with bigger more talented more physical players. We can be intimidating because of pressure but nobody is intimidated by us physically. They owned us.

We can’t fix it without significantly changing the core forwards and Burns. We added Blake and Stankoven as significant pieces but when they join Aho and Jarvis we just got smaller. The Panthers doubled down on size and physicality with their talent. The gap widened.

Maybe coaching? But this doesn’t feel like an adjustment away from being able to win. Rod said last year wasn’t a sweep and could have gone either way but obviously our players don’t believe that.

It’s an accomplishment to keep getting deep in the playoffs. If we’re going to make Rod’s system pay off we need guys that can impose it on bigger skilled players.
 
Get rid of the one on one defense. Was the downfall last year too. The Panthers come up with four guys in a box down one side of the ice as a group so zone entry is a breeze. Then they move towards the center while our team is trying to pick a guy. They end up with a guy in front of the net. While we are lost, they are easily creating 2 on 1s in the slot. Plus they have great skilled shooting.

Also, WT Polars word are we doing with all these little guys while the true contenders are looking like the old days when the East was skill, and the West was large bodies. Well these little guys can't even touch the puck along the walls, and when they do they're going down. Javis looked like he has a ACL or something. IDK, I'm not an expert on the type of injury but he could not make cut backs.

I could go on, but do like to be brief. I feel terrible for our fans, and team. I can't imagine being at these games. I had to leave my chair halfway through the third. I've been lurking here daily since the beginning in the Penalty box. The disaster was a good excuse for me to go to bed and put it behind quickly seeing I'm in a fight for life doing Chemo and radiation on my neck and throat, and driving an hour to the Mountain Home VA in Johnson City TN.
 
I hate to admit, but I didn't get in the house until the end of the first period. When I saw it was 3-0 on my phone, I decided not to watch, because it was just going to make me mad. I checked in once, just in time to see a lone Hurricanes goal get wiped off the board. I turned everything off and said [Polar's word] it. Heartbroken for those guys. They worked so hard to develop into a solid team, now they're coming apart at the seams after being manhandled...again. As much as I'd like to, I just can't see them digging deep enough to survive.

Jim
 
jeffbear said:
Hard disagree ... but it's great to hear from you and I hope like heck the treatments go well
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I'm okay on the disagree, but hopefully we will do a deep dive when appropriate.

I know we will all be looking for answers to with why our scouts are seemingly set on small skill players. When Bradley Nadaeu shows up one or two of our smaller guys will need to be packaged up for another blockbuster trade which is focused on large bodies with skill and purpose. I am on the fence about Marner seeing what I just pointed out. Maybe keep Jarvis, and Stanky, but... Things feel really broken right now.

We all know our defense has no depth. Burns getting old and you can't even healthy scratch him. Hoping Chatty gets back is a stretch. And like you said, Boom needs to learn hockey English ASAP and I think Morrow will be a good infusion as well.
 
I don’t feel the man to man is an issue. I think it’s our skilled guys at 5’10”, 180 against a similarly skilled guy that’s 6’3”, 210. We can get there in the right spot but they can win the puck battle, box us out and keep control of the puck until someone gets open. We’re limited to avoiding them and moving the puck immediately. They can go where they want and we can’t move them and they can move us whenever they want and that’s pretty much across the roster with fee exceptions. Plus Chatty being out and Burns being ineffective, and Svetch doing Svetch things - it’s hard to see a way for us to overcome that even enough for 1 win.

You can’t back up Aho and Jarvis with Stankoven and Blake and that’s not disrespecting any of our guys. They’re good and gutsy, courageous even but they’re not big enough.
 
KTown11 said:
I'm okay on the disagree, but hopefully we will do a deep dive when appropriate.

I know we will all be looking for answers to with why our scouts are seemingly set on small skill players. When Bradley Nadaeu shows up one or two of our smaller guys will need to be packaged up for another blockbuster trade which is focused on large bodies with skill and purpose. I am on the fence about Marner seeing what I just pointed out. Maybe keep Jarvis, and Stanky, but... Things feel really broken right now.

We all know our defense has no depth. Burns getting old and you can't even healthy scratch him. Hoping Chatty gets back is a stretch. And like you said, Boom needs to learn hockey English ASAP and I think Morrow will be a good infusion as well.
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The breakdowns in the post season are simply not system failings, simply put. I can do a post mortem on every 5v5 goal they've allowed this week if you want but there are multiple individual breakdowns or boneheaded decisions in each case. That's not going to be addressed if they play zone. It's just not good decision making, period. Plus, if you wanted a systemic change then LAST summer was your jumping off point. It's obvious that Rod is set on this system and he's now on a long term contract. One thing we know for sure is that a lot of roster changes will be made over the summer. For one thing, there's a lot of contracts up and for another there's a ton of cap space. Sweating over the particulars now just isn't my thing, largely because everybody gets focused on what just went wrong and that ain't always the whole story. In fact, it's almost never the whole story.

The lack of depth you can somewhat lay on both Brind'Amour and the front office. They gave him options and chose not to use them, which is problem one in my book. Morrow played in 14 games and Stillman and Smith combined for 13. Burns' stupid ironman streak took priority over developing Morrow IMO, and that's on the staff. Smith being terrible is on the front office. Signing a guy like Stillman that the staff was only going to play in case of absolute emergency is likewise on the front office. Not getting a vet that the staff would actually play is also on the front office. But IMO, Morrow would have been a LOT closer to ready had any effort been made to get him ready. For next season, he will be, as will Boom. And God knows they need the fresh legs.
 
I get the feeling Brindy is slightly perturbed that Nishikin can't speak a lick of English. He's known and planned on coming to North America for several years. An couldn't be bothered to at least learn basic hockey lingo in English? More than once Brindy has commented on his absolute lack of any English. That's why he's not playing. Would it have been unjust to expect him to take it upon himself to learn a little?
 
KTown11 said:
... I'm in a fight for life doing Chemo and radiation on my neck and throat, and driving an hour to the Mountain Home VA in Johnson City TN.
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Ktown, it's good to see ya' after so long. I do hate to read about the cancer. I understand... In May 2021 I was diagnosed with stage 4 Esophageal cancer w/ mets to lungs and liver. Dr. A. couldn't promise me until Xmas... But he put me on both chemo and immunotherapy. It was a long struggle - the liver took 2-1/2 years. I've been in remission for a year & a half and after my latest CT in April he said I'm "cancer-free". Fight it, Friend, believe you WILL WIN! That belief (and care at Duke, and my wife, family and friends) has given me what is called a miracle.

My Friend, I wish you a similar outcome! I will send everything I can for support! And it's more than you know! - Allen
 
TheBigKahuna said:
I get the feeling Brindy is slightly perturbed that Nishikin can't speak a lick of English.
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Actually, I understand he does have some English. But he didn't have opportunity to get more than a little used to it in that Russian hockey world.

Even if you have worked on another language it's hard to get very far until one gets immersed in it. You shoulda seen me 60+ years ago in Japan.
 
How much English does he need? Most coaching, off ice, is done using diagrams plus he’s got Svetch and Orlov to translate. How many phrases does he need? Move your butt, cover that man, what kind of beer/vodka would you like?
 
The bigger question remains, why go to such great lengths to get him out of Russia to come play here ASAP this season only to have a coach not trust your best prospect enough to play him in game 1 and 2 of a series against a physical beast of a team like Florida? Morrow did absolutely nothing Tuesday night to deserve to be back in there on Thursday, that we can all agree on. Rod is stubborn as fuck and this reeks of that, he made the decision to go with Morrow Tuesday fine…to come back with him again after how he played in game 1 is dumb, but he doubled down on Morrow in game 2 and essentially was nothing more than a warm body bench filler in game 2 that did nothing to help his team.
 
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