backINblack28

I think his playoff numbers are unfair because he was thrust into impossible situations. The Freddie blunder game in NJ as a heaping example. And same with Boston when we had injuries. Regardless, it's the time where we have to do it. You can just go look at the salary cap. https://www.capfriendly.com/teams/hurricanes we have Aho, Pesce, Chatfield, Skjei and Tuevo to extend again (or trade) for 24-25. Drury trade RFAs in 23-24: Puljujarvi, Coghlan RFAs in 24-25: Necas, Jarvis, Suzuki, Rees UFA in 23-24: Staal, Fast, MacEachern, Stastny, Stepan, De Haan, Ghost, Lajoie, Fred, Raanta, Patches, Kase, Gardiner Obviously there are plenty of dudes here we will not re-sign and hopefully we get Staal on a huge hometown/want to stay discount. But we will have a lot of guys to replace regardless, in addition to needing to make at least one big splashy forward add, and likely signing 2 goalies. To say we want a new starter plus bringing one back is directly to take away from the splashy forward add or depth signings. I don't want to do that. It's Pyotr's time. If he sucks in a backup role, we can do something at the trade deadline. But signing him to a 2m per year extension last year meant we were always prepping him at least to be the backup starting now. You don't pay a 3rd string goalie 2m per and get to shore up the rest of the roster. The wishlist has to account for the amount of dudes we have to extend or replace, and it doesn't work with Kotchetkov on the payroll at goalie 3 + adding 2 more goalies/keeping what we have with new deals. If we wan't Hellybuyck or Korpisalo or Saaros, you HAVE to live with stepping up at 1 and stepping back ish at 2. To me, any of those 3 + Kotchetkov > freddie + raanta + kotchetkov because of the injuries/money that all of those 3 would make as they're all in line for likely getting raises on the open market and i don't want it to be us doing it knowing the injury stuff we do.

But Raanta is aging and has injury history and Kotchetkov is younger with potential and we literally already essentially gave him a backup contract deal. If you don't think Pyotr is going to get paid 2m per year to be full time backup you're essentially admitting we can't re-sign Staal or Pesce because we have to direct yet another couple mil at another backup goalie. It's time. Pyotr getting 2 years of experience AND playoff experience at this point is way more than Cam Ward had at this point--he made his debut at this age. Yes. 20 year olds are inconsistent. It's time. We have other areas we'll need to spend on.

Fred is a UFA. Pyotr is 23 now. We signed him to a 4 year deal this past season. That wasn't to chill in the AHL--as is AHL/NHL salary is the same now. He has shown enough while being young to be in a backup role considering Freddie/injuries likely won't be part of the team this next year. Considering the other areas we need to spend money, it makes more sense to have the cheap young backup/possible future star, albeit possibly inconsistent--no more so than the injury inconsistency of Raanta/Fred last few seasons. Pyotr has playoff and previous NHL experience at 23. He was 12-7-5 last season with 4 shutouts, 2.44 GAA. Pending he continues improving that's plenty fine clip for a backup. Fred carried a 2.48 last year before putting up the 1.83 in the playoffs.

If we get a Saros I'm good with Kotchetkov as backup. If we can send that money towards Pesce etc, and have a true #1--I'm good.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/37887926/scoot-henderson

His dad tweeted out that he wants to stay, FWIW

very important point at home against a good club. Ruidiaz whew. We will get Copetti and Jozwiak back after the off week. Hoping we can catch the stride we hit with health after the terrible DC road match. our defense looked very shaky and starting two mids on the back line is not preferred, but 3 new goal scorers and fighting back each time was awesome.

Joz and Copetti both out tonight

Bobrovsky has saved 19.5 goals above expected in this playoffs. He has given up 30 and an NHL goaltender playing the same games would give up 49. He is literally giving up 1.5 goals less than expected per game. The next closest goals saved above average is Shesterkin with 8.8 (Fred with 6.8 is third which is an extremely good stat) after first two rounds: Vegas Golden Knights: 3.73 goals per game Carolina Hurricanes: 3.64 goals per game Dallas Stars: 3.62 goals per game Florida Panthers: 3.33 goals per game so yeah, no. Literally, goals expected factors in the quality of our chances, so it nullifies the argument that we're not generating high quality chances--not sure who could argue that who has watched 3 games but objectively and statistically it's wrong on multiple levels. "By a different measure, evolving-hockey.com had Bobrovsky saving another 2.38 goals above expected in his shutout win on Monday — a night where the Hurricanes outshot the Panthers 32-17 and dominated in all the possession categories, including nearly 78 percent of the expected goals share at 5-on-5, per naturalstattrick.com." The bruins had a 61 goal scorer/113 point scorer. They were quite literally the best team statistically of all time. They had 8 50 point scorers. Bobrovsky did the same to them. If you want to be frustrated, be mad. Saying the Canes aren't doing enough is just the same as saying you either don't watch or can't rightly comprehend hockey. "On Monday, Bobrovsky exceeded Andrei Vasilevskiy's performance in the 2021 playoffs when he won his second Stanley Cup (17.33 GSAx). And for the entire period of Evolving Hockey's data, which goes back to the 2007-08 season, there's only one goalie with a higher number. Last year, Shesterkin hit 23.21 GSAx in 20 games." this, assuming we don't come back, means that he has plenty of time to put together the best statistical playoffs for a goaltender since we have been tracking such stats. he already has the most saves to this point, eclipsing a record that has stood since 1960. Saying this is the canes fault is truly mind boggling. We have had our problems in the past scoring and generating high leverage chances. To attribute that to this team is just outright ignoring what's going on. If you want to quantify something that is a trend you should also be willing to adapt when that trend is openly bucked and we've been doing an amazing job of scoring in the playoffs with two very dangerous scoring forwards (3 for a decent majority of playoffs) unavailable. It's not our fault. That's what I mean.

Barkov will play per Maurice

i mean he didnt do much in McVay's offense. I'm including one drive/1 minute of decentness in the raiders game

Bob's save percentage is 98.1 right now. that's literally just like completely unprecedented even for a younger Quick during the Kings run. Sometimes, your team losing doesn't warrant criticism of them. This is one of those times. Rod's style gets scoring chances and possession from lesser talented forwards. We cannot sit here and have all these receipts about well Svech/Patches gone we'll be lucky to make it out of the first round and now we're blaming Rod and Waddell for running into a historically unprecedented goaltending run. Frustration is fair. But finishing 3rd/4th in the league without two 40 goal scorers is an outright success no matter what, and we gave up ZERO at TDL and outlasted EVERY team that did, so that criticism is objectively completely dead. You can't sit here and say 'what if Timo Meier?" he is literally not playing hockey right now. That's the what if. If we win tonight, we will have done something the franchise hasn't done in 17 years. Again. Outright success/eclipses Waddell and Rod's run as GM/Coach. Frustration is warranted as it sucks for every team except 1, maybe 2 in the end (if you're like a Seattle or us with injuries and a finals trip and loss is an outright win). But there's got to be some objectivity here. And if we lost Rod as a coach my expectations and happiness level with this franchise would go in the toilet. We fired Paul Maurice twice and he is not better than Rod. So that he is beating him we should all be able to objectively write off to bad puck luck in combo with 98.1 asinine historical performance at least somewhat. If you want to throw in the 2 60 point dudes missing that's fine but IMO we've played plenty well to win EVERY single game vs. FLA and have outplayed them both totally in the series and outplayed them in each individual game overall. Idk what more you ask for than that. Because of this---given Barkov doesn't play or misses time--he is a HUGE part of shutting stuff down for them AND scoring--for me, regardless...comeback starts tonight. LFG

Aho was straight incredible last night and likely would have literally had a hat trick against any other goalie. Literally cannot even entertain criticism of him right now. After the puck to the face in the NYI series, I want him to wear a C even if J Staal comes back. It's his time.

this is the kitchen sink game. win it and we're right back in it. crack bob and we're in it

i'm assuming yes on both counts--and i like our matchup a lot if that's the case

119 career playoff games and he effectively ended the NYI series--Mac had a nice game in NY but the experience gonna win out at least to begin with

Freddie in the starter's crease

the graphics have been next level. this is SICK

68% of conference final teams win series after winning game 1. Let's get it. Saw a stat that I knew in the back of my head but made me stop and think--we have been to two conference finals in 2019 and 2009 since 2006--but we have not WON a conference finals game since 2006. Any win against FLA (I am not calling them by their mascot's name. That's our football team, sry.) is territory we haven't reached in 17 years. Enjoy these moments friends. LETS GO CANES

and Horvat right now at 8.5m for 8 yr already looks like garbage/an absolute fireable offense.

their 3rd and 4th lines are gonna be grossly overmatched no matter what happens, that's sort of the separator here that the media lauding FLA for being world beaters and tryharding kind of ignores

if it's me i'm putting Staal on Barkov, KK line on Bennett, and matching up our 1 vs their 3 at home. Not saying you're wrong necessarily, it could go that way. On the road in the regular season finale they matched our Aho line with Barkov so I'm expecting that again on the road.

Rod will obviously move Tuevo around if he is in shape/ready, but i wonder if this initial pairing is more about keeping him away from an immediate Tkachuk slash

we went for Timo and we got out when the price got too steep. The fact that we eliminated the team that DID match that price frees Waddell from any TDL faults. We saw Horvat, Kane, and Meier all underperform in the playoffs, and they're all at home. One thing about those acquisitions is that it inevitably takes time to mesh with new teammates and those acquisitions are going to feel immense pressure to perform. Our window is wide open. Pacioretty has already essentially hinted he would give us a discount for the way we traded for and have treated him. Svech will be back. We can upgrade at goalie and backup goalie or keep one of the guys or use Kotchetkov as full time backup and go for a higher number one..and we can see where we stand and then see if we need to add someone big time at the trade deadline next year. This scenario works whether or not we win the cup this year. Anyone objectively criticizing our GM at this point this season though I simply don't understand. Our roster is injured, but deep and we're still playing hockey. And we literally eliminated two of the dudes people were mad that we didnt end up with..

at this point, every team that sold future assets for a deadline move is eliminated. I don't think it's fair to label this season a failure at this point no matter where it ends, because the story for me ever since we advanced past first round is that we are doing whatever is our end while missing 3 60+ point forwards (hopefully just 2 going forward). that's not something you can plan for. yes, we could have made a move, but if you make those moves and sell those assets and then have similar injuries and get held back anyway--you mortgaged your future for tee times a la boston/new jersey/tampa etc. At this point, the GM not giving up future assets and us making the conference final with major injuries is an outright win no matter what. considering it an abject failure is ignoring immense context and pretty unfair.