Gustav Forsling says hello.
Hurricanes 2024-25 Post Mortem and Off Season Stuff
- Thread starter jeffbear
- Start date
We always pine for the one that got away. Luostarinen spent most of the last 2 seasons on the wing. He only took 73 face offs the past season and 179 in 2023-24. Nic Roy? Maybe. But KK has outperformed Luostarinen and is a few points behind Roy in the last 2 seasons in essentially the same even strength time on ice.
I don’t think anything that Tulsky does is casual. Certainly not like JR tossing the rights to Brian Dumoulin in the Staal trade. It’s entirely possible that the trade doesn’t get done without Drury. But did anyone think that Drury was capable of taking on the 2C role? No. He’s a guy that, for all of his positives, maxes out in the bottom 6.
Trocheck? Maybe the biggest unforced error of the RBA/Waddell/Tulsky era.
Louie NEVER had any serious stretches with the kind of 2nd line talent on his line that KK has had for the majority of his time with the Canes and Roy has been all over the lines for Vegas so it's tough to compare. I'd argue that both were groomed in Carolina's program to fit the needs of the system here and would have done so nicely if given a chance they were never given ... as proven by the fact that they turned into solid, dependable NHLers elsewhere. And I'm accusing the front of office of making mistakes (specifically not valuing centers nearly as much as they should have done given how the market has gone at that position), not being casual or sloppy. EVERY front office makes mistakes. We all know full well how this franchise's weird scouting deficit for goalies has bitten them in the ass over the course of literal decades.
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Honestly, the Canes take WAY too much heat for that one. He was acquired fron Chicago at virtually no cost as AHL depth and there was zero room on the big club for him in any role beyond 7th or 8th option when he was waived and claimed by Florida. His game took a HUGE leap once he got there, found some opportunity and committed himself to getting in pro athlete shape. That was an accident of timing, not poor management, IMO.
CanadaCanes
Well-known member
Yep, all timing for sure because Forsling never showed anything worthwhile like he has in Florida when he made his initial stops in Chicago and Carolina to indicate he could play like he has. Perhaps if the Canes strong starting six on D at the time had an injury he may have gotten a longer look which may have been the only opportunity he would have had here to show the org he was a keeper but that’s all hindsight.
Now ... different spin on the subject of second line centers.
Increasingly I'm seeing people around the team speculate about Jarvis or Stankoven being moved into that role. I think it's a fun thought experiment but I'm not sure about the likelihood of that happening under Brind'Amour. And before this derailed talking about faceoffs, that is about a 4th level concern for me. I'm not sure Jarvis has ever taken a professional shift at center, and it seems like a massive stretch to think about him converting after 4 NHL seasons. Yeah, Aho made the move at the NHL level but it was much earlier in his career and he had never really played the wing until he got to the Canes. Best as I can tell from the scouting, Jarvis split time between center and wing in his draft year to showcase his versatility and that's the last time he played center. Stankoven is a little different because he was purely a center in junior and played center for Canada in age group tournaments including the World Juniors (Jarvis shifted to wing for the U18s) and played mostly center in his rookie year in the AHL before he was called up to the Stars. He played a little bit up the middle in Dallas that first short season but shifted to wing for 24-25. He's also a little sturdier physically, which would make a difference.
Thoughts? I could see them playing around with Stankoven at center, but I think Jarvis is likely to spend his career as a versatile wing. It's certainly nice to think about solving that problem internally though.
Increasingly I'm seeing people around the team speculate about Jarvis or Stankoven being moved into that role. I think it's a fun thought experiment but I'm not sure about the likelihood of that happening under Brind'Amour. And before this derailed talking about faceoffs, that is about a 4th level concern for me. I'm not sure Jarvis has ever taken a professional shift at center, and it seems like a massive stretch to think about him converting after 4 NHL seasons. Yeah, Aho made the move at the NHL level but it was much earlier in his career and he had never really played the wing until he got to the Canes. Best as I can tell from the scouting, Jarvis split time between center and wing in his draft year to showcase his versatility and that's the last time he played center. Stankoven is a little different because he was purely a center in junior and played center for Canada in age group tournaments including the World Juniors (Jarvis shifted to wing for the U18s) and played mostly center in his rookie year in the AHL before he was called up to the Stars. He played a little bit up the middle in Dallas that first short season but shifted to wing for 24-25. He's also a little sturdier physically, which would make a difference.
Thoughts? I could see them playing around with Stankoven at center, but I think Jarvis is likely to spend his career as a versatile wing. It's certainly nice to think about solving that problem internally though.
Yeah, that was the year Carolina was still thinking Gardiner could recover from his back issues and Fleury was still looking like he would mature, but they had a core of Slavin, Hamilton, Pesce and Edmundson and were playing around with TVR, Fluery and Gardiner in a variety of uses. That's 6 veteran NHLers and whatever Fleury was. Then they acquired Skjei and Sami Vatanen at the deadline ... at which point the season was basically shut down for Covid. Forsling played pretty well for the Checkers, but nothing like well enough to seriously force his way into the conversation for a roster slot with the Canes.
Shame he didn't clear waivers before that next season because he WOULD have gotten a shot, seeing as how Carolina had a bunch of injuries and never really had a settled third pairing. But losing him when they did was 100% a matter of timing.
Details on Stanky’s contract. A signing bonus only next year, the NTC kicks in when he would have been a UFA. Significantly it ends on June 15 in the 8th year.
Stankoven #causechaos 8 year $6M Cap Hit extension:
Yr1 $3.5M Salary & $2.5M Signing Bonus
Yr 2 6M
Yr 3 5.5M
Yr 4 5.5M
Yr 5 5M
Yr 6 6.5M
Yr 7 6.75M
Yr 8 6.75M
10 Team No trade clause in Year 5 until 15 days before Year 8 deadline
Stankoven #causechaos 8 year $6M Cap Hit extension:
Yr1 $3.5M Salary & $2.5M Signing Bonus
Yr 2 6M
Yr 3 5.5M
Yr 4 5.5M
Yr 5 5M
Yr 6 6.5M
Yr 7 6.75M
Yr 8 6.75M
10 Team No trade clause in Year 5 until 15 days before Year 8 deadline
I wouldn't mind it, but I've got my doubts about Rod going there.
CanadaCanes
Well-known member
The chatter around the league says many teams didn’t get to do enough between the draft and July 1st and the summer may have an above average number of trades…time will tell but I still believe Tulsky has another trade up his sleeve before September camp rolls around. Any half decent center being acquired now probably sees a solid young player and another first heading out…the cap space is there, the need is there, the assets are there, just a matter of finding a decent dance partner.
I agree with all of that. I can’t imagine GMET not coming up with anything. This window isn’t going to be open much longer.
I honestly don't think enough teams are convinced that they can't compete next season for there to be too many trades this summer. Pittsburgh is dead in the water and will probably look to make some moves to clear their books, but otherwise most of the bottom 3rd of the league either is on a different path (San Jose and Chicago building around the kids) or have convinced themselves that they have a shot at a wildcard slot when they probably don't (Seattle, Nashville, NYI, Philly, Buffalo, probably Anaheim). I mean, some of that group will probably figure something out but they certainly aren't actively looking to move useful players, at least not yet.
It may well take until Thanksgiving or so for some of these teams to actually get the message that they're stuck and start looking to make moves. I'm just not convinced there's this massive trade market waiting to boil over this summer. Maybe I'm wrong, we'll see. I know one thing ... you don't waste money on players who barely move the needle just because you have Cap. Not if you're on solid footing without doing anything like the Canes are. You make a move when there's one out there that actually makes you better and not before.
It may well take until Thanksgiving or so for some of these teams to actually get the message that they're stuck and start looking to make moves. I'm just not convinced there's this massive trade market waiting to boil over this summer. Maybe I'm wrong, we'll see. I know one thing ... you don't waste money on players who barely move the needle just because you have Cap. Not if you're on solid footing without doing anything like the Canes are. You make a move when there's one out there that actually makes you better and not before.
cmaleski2
Well-known member
I 100% agree with this. That said, we all know we are going to see these types of posts as the Canes continue to hold on to that cap space until it actually makes sense to deploy it:
"See, like I said, many small market teams will be unable to spend to the rapidly expanding cap!!!" - Big market poster
"Canes are SOOOO CHEEEEEEEAAAAPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!" - Big market posters, some Canes fans, Paul Bissonette
"Canes should trade KK, Jarvis, Nikishin and 2 first round picks for Elias Pettersson and Jarkko Ruutu - Canucks fans
And this is a goal for me ... to convince my Canes fan friends that it just doesn't matter what the chattering classes, commentators, article comment writers and desk jockeys at ESPN and TSN say about your team. They don't have any influence, the players and other teams don't care what those people are saying and in general they're not speaking from any kind of position of knowledge, fairness or even common sense.
Fans of big traditional market teams often don't even watch games aside from their own team's games and they often don't respect the opponent enough to actually pay attention to details. Heck, Canes fans do the same thing. I caught more than one person wondering about Miller's play when he's been in the Canes' division for his entire career and has played in two LONG playoff series against Carolina. If you didn't notice a top 4 defender on an opponent in TWO 7 game series, then ... I don't know what to tell you other than maybe pay better attention.
Bottom line ... 90% of the people who talk about this stuff don't know what the heck they're talking about. And, sadly, only about half the people who get paid to talk about this stuff actually know what they're talking about.
IYKYK
So, Elliotte Friedman's last podcast before the summer was a recap of each team's position through the opening of free agency and he dropped a nugget on Carolina that I hadn't heard. Apparently Tulsky was warming up TWO offer sheet salvos and he went after Edmonton's Evan Bouchard before turning his aim at Miller. They went so far as to have talks with Utah about getting Carolina's 3rd rounder back, and Edmonton got pushed into paying a million or so more than they wanted to get Bouchard re-signed quickly. Right shot D with Bouchard's kind of offensive impact not only don't grow on trees, the guy is pretty close to a unicorn, so hey ... why not take a swing? Miller wasn't a terrible fallback option, but is more of a gamble.
Say what you will about Tulsky, but that nerd has balls.
Say what you will about Tulsky, but that nerd has balls.
ThinIce
Well-known member
He also makes himself visible to the fans. I've talked to him on 3 different occasions, and he not only listens, but never seems like he's in a hurry.