Harbingers

Finally. Not big on the 8PM home game starts though.

Looks like no Slavin or Paquette. Slavin is concerning but hopefully we are just being extra cautious.

High road is a good thing but not acknowledging practices could be better is concerning. When you think about it, it was not just teddy who sucked at the two minute drill. In fact it started quite nicely and dropped off as the season went on, that tells me teddy is most likely right in this instance.

Zing. Seriously though there has to be something going on behind the scenes with NBC and the NHL thats holding the whole thing up.

General updates from Rod.

Twitter is all over not having the schedule released despite most tickets going on sale today. They are really fugging the fans over NBC on this one.

No worries, it’s still more information on the subject than we have gotten recently.

Here we are. A Carolina team in the playoffs(Come on Hornets you can do it too!) There is a lot to be told this year with big contracts on the line, Shitty performances the past three games and injury question marks. What we know so far is the East will hold the first playoff game on Saturday so I would not be surprised if it’s a Sunday start for us. Hopefully Rod gets the boys in shape for a playoff push. I feel like this year is going to get stupid physical through most of the rounds. On our front as is tradition I’ll probably start game threads in the main forum but use this or subsequent game threads here for the hockey homers. Go Canes!

Presidents trophy means jack poo to me. Having an extra game at home Vs. Vegas or Colorado, even Toronto or Edmonton if the Canadian government waived the travel restriction would have been huge though. Right now if we make it out of the division and Toronto does too we’ll end up playing them. I would not put it past Colorado to be the team from the other half either. Two wins or even as far as two OT losses would have guaranteed us home ice throughout. Now we are on the outside looking in. Nashville is red hot and as all their defense unlike the rest of the games we played them this season. The not practicing thing kind of bothers me cause now we’ve seen the result. So hopefully Rod will rip down everything the players think and drive them hard this week in practice. That’s really the only boon coming out of those two losses, now the players have something to fight for and I hope they don’t think of it as oh we were just resting people, we’ll be fine. Because frankly they’ve sucked the last three games outside of Fast, Slavin and Pesce. I can’t even put Aho in that category cause his puck management was horrible.

It’s all we needed for a guaranteed third. I still feel like Colorado is gonna win that division on the tie breaker. With 82. We’ll be 3rd or 4th depending on what happens with Toronto going into the playoffs. In reality we just needed to crush Nashville twice. If we did we would have won the league going into the playoffs right now.

If anyone was still wondering what the strength of this team was it’s clearly Slavin and Pesce. If they aren’t out there with 20 minutes a piece we simply don’t have the talent on D. Paa is good for what he is and I feel like he’s improving, Skjei needs Pesce to be good and even then he’s still 50/50. Bean I like the kid but I feel like he could go either way. He’s defense is really struggling since they haven’t been practicing. Gardiner I hate to say but has sucked a bag of *****, maybe that’s due to the fact we aren’t pushing in practice/not doing real practices for a month as Rod said or maybe he’s slipping. Dougie just needs some rest. He’s looked slower than Staal at moments recently. Our offense can’t survive without our stout defenders there to bail them out when other teams get behind them. Which happens a lot. Way too much. As for the discussion regarding last night, I am closer to ABH’s camp. Ya it’s a “meaningless” game, but that’s not a real thing. Those games still had meaning. You’d like to see a better effort from our call ups as it’s quite possible we’ll have to be relying on them for some of the playoffs. Looks like we got out of last night free of injury so why the fug didn’t we play better? Is basically what it comes down to.

Both Colorado and Vegas have to lose and we'd still finish third due to tiebreakers.

NASHVILLE - Before facing off in the first round of the 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Carolina Hurricanes and Nashville Predators square off in the regular-season finale. The Match-Up Carolina Hurricanes (36-11-8, 80 points) at Nashville Predators (30-23-2, 62 points) Monday, May 10, 8 p.m. Watch: Bally Sports South, Bally Sports app Listen: 99.9 FM The Fan, Hurricanes.com/Listen, Hurricanes app Numbers to Know 1: Alex Nedeljkovic stopped 27 of 29 shots in Nashville on Saturday, suffering his first regulation loss in nine starts. Nedelljovic owns a 1.90 goals-against averange and a .932 save percentage, which ranks first among all NHL goaltenders with at least 15 starts. 16: The Canes have killed each of their last 16 penalties, going seven games without allowing a power-play goal. The streak is tied for the seventh-longest in franchise history and is the longest for the Canes since March 2017. https://www.nhl.com/hurricanes/news/gameday-preview-carolina-hurricanes-nashville-predators/c-324538200 https://www.nhl.com/hurricanes/news/projected-lineup-carolina-hurricanes-nashville-predators/c-324544882 "Here is the projected lineup for the Hurricanes. Forwards Foegele-Aho-Teravainen Niederreiter-Trocheck-Necas Martinook-Lorentz-Fast McCormick-Shore-Geekie Defensemen Gardiner-Keane Skjei-Hakanpaa Ryan-Bean Goalies Mrazek Reimer Scratch: Nedeljkovic Injuries: Hamilton (undisclosed), McGinn (upper body), Paquette (lower body), Pesce (undisclosed), Slavin (undisclosed), Staal (undisclosed), Svechnikov (undisclosed) Taxi squad: McKeown" Glad Martinook is getting a practice game. McGinn I'm not too worried about as he'll be a 4th line smash if healthy in the playoffs, though Paquette concerns me for the reason @Anybodyhome listed before. Last of the season. No Svech, Staal or D. Lets go out there chippy.

Rod said otherwise but I believe are correct and its just pure hyperbole at this point.

If I was a betting man my money would be on Colorado(Sorry Canes). Ya Vegas may be flashing right now but Minny and the Blues dominated them in everything but goals the past few games. Colorado is by far the superior team if they can get over the COVID/losing to shitty teams funk(much like the canes with the red wings) they’ve been in. If the Avs win tonight they take control of the league destiny even though they are 4 points behind us and Vegas. Id love to see a Canes Vs. Avs Stanley Cup. Neither team is overly(stupidly and league protected besides that one guy who’s name eludes me at this moment) physical both play all out forecheck, Colorado has a tendency to run up the score but they haven’t faced a true defense all season. It’s a match made in heaven for just the right amount of Physicality and Straight up hockey. All that said I would not be surprised if we end up in a three way tie with Vegas and Colorado and we fall to third on RW. Also not a direct response but Rod on injuries(especially Slavin) is concerning.

Welp my edit appears wrong.

That means we are resting our entire defense. Bean + Paa are probably gonna be One line. Edit: Actually probably Gardiner + Paa in this scenario.

We gotta figure out Saros again too cause we’ll probably see him every night in the playoffs, I doubt they play him Monday now that they are in. Our lines got beat from top to bottom. -3 from Aho’s line is just sad. I know the “rest” is a big concept on fans minds right now but in reality we can only rest 2-3 more players. We are carrying 2 extra defensemen on the taxi squad. If nobody from our injured crew plays Monday we only have 1 extra forward and who gets that spot? If they all played we could put them in on other lines but so at maximum we are maybe looking at giving Hamilton and Pesce the night off. This isn’t the NFL where you have a full second and third string team waiting in the wings. We are already playing most of our 2nd strings already. Monday will be a good gauge of how much they let up after clinching a playoff spot, though if things continue like last night i would be worried about injures. They can to play physical. After Dallas and three non playoff teams we lost a lot of physicality and were simply not ready for a playoff style onslaught we are going to to have to endure. As to everyone’s point about Nashville being a pushover this season, we haven’t faced them this season with a complete D and at points 5/6 call up’s on defense. It’s a brand new team.

Ya... They got run over tonight.

Rod did not sound as optimistic on Slavin....

Interesting the 4th line players were sent out for interviews. I feel like the 1-3 lines are not happy right now.

Long picture dude, the cup means nothing. In a potential travel situation so you really want to potentially have to play 4 games in Colorado or Vegas? You think Dallas travel is too much... If we win out it’s a high probability we see one of them in the finale.

They gotta go against Colorado though. Colorado is still fighting for their division one seed. That’s our only boon even if we win Monday. But in a 3 way tie with 82 points Colorado wins.

Two Caveats. No Slavin, both goals were on his spot in the line and Necas rung the post if that is an a few CM closer in that game was 1-1 easy.