Carolina Hurricanes are facing early season adversity

Carolina Hurricanes are facing early season adversity

There’s no time to catch your breath. Um, couple of high-profile, as I say, uh, as I describe them, potential returnees today. Uh, Shane Gostaspir looks like he will be back in the lineup. Uh, nothing officially official, uh, but based on some of the the roster moves they made and some of the, uh, the the way that he’s been talked about this week. I’d be surprised if Shane Gospear isn’t back in the lineup today. Also, Pure Cochov, uh, what whether he is in net today or not, it appears as if he is on the five yard line going in, uh, as far as returning from an injury that’s kept him out for the entirety of the season. Uh, which could spark some things. Hear me out, Dennis. I’m going to choose to be optimistic here. One of the things that we’ve been most uh kind of antsy about as a fan base, paying attention to the Carolina Hurricanes has been the power play. Maybe Gstaspear coming back, the quarterback of your power play one could spark it. Maybe he was sitting back while injured. Uh it’s a different perspective when you’re watching, right? Especially when you’re not watching like from the the bench or from a booth. Like he was at home watching. Uh maybe he saw some things or recognized like so many of us do like, “All right, we just got to shoot the puck more.” and and he can go in there and be the straw that that stirs that drink. Pier Cochov returning. What’s another thing that maybe we’ve been antsy about to start the season for the Carolina Hurricanes? Andre Fetchnikov. We know that Pota and Andre are buddies, right? Maybe he’ll be the one uh once he’s on the bench or or in goal that can say whatever needs to be said potentially in their home language that can get Andre Fetchnikov back on track because obviously uh he’s not only off track like he’s a couple miles into the woods off the tracks right now. He’s he’s he needs to be called back to the tracks. Maybe that’s Pota Cochov. Maybe. My point is, uh, as a season goes along, you never really know what are the things that are going to, you know, snap guys back into to where they need to be and and with so many players in and out of the lineup over the last four or five games, it’s sometimes hard to to even focus on what you need to focus on, right? Like if you’re on the power play unit and you understand like, all right, power play is not performing up to where it needs to be, right? because they can look at stats just like the rest of us and say, you know, we’re two for whatever. Uh the percentage is whatever and it’s not good enough. Um but right, you throw in, yeah, but Robinson’s out, Kerier’s out, Miller’s out, Slavven’s out, Gospear’s out. It’s like, you know what? I’ll figure out the power play another time. I’ve got to go uh, you know, make sure I have uh these boatload of blueliners that are making their essential NHL debuts behind me. I got to go make sure they’re they’re covered and I’m playing two-way hockey. Uh the power play. Yeah, we’ll figure that out. So, right, you bring somebody like Ghost back, maybe that’s the thing that that unlocks some of it, right? Cuz even though Riley, you know, at the beginning of the year wasn’t expected to be in every every down blue liner. He’s trustworthy. Uh Walker trustworthy. You’re now looking at that that uh obviously you have Chatfield making whatever line he’s on pretty trustworthy. Uh and then and then Nikeshan and and Nestrom there likely on the backside. uh pretty good, right? Maybe not as like, you know, dead set sturdy as you’d like just because they’re young, but they’re better now than they were a week ago. Maybe the power play can take on a little bit more attention now. The biggest thing they need is continuity because like you said, Shane Gospir went out early. I know Rod early in the season made a switch where he put Jackson Blake with that quote unquote first unit and put Fetchnikov with that second unit. So that was a change that took place early. But Goss Bear left that road trip what two games into it. So you didn’t really have a chance to get going it because I know they scored in the very correct they scored twice actually in the first game cuz Keandre Miller scored once. So you had all right now Keandre Miller moves up then he goes out. It’s like okay then you’re even mid game you’re making adjustments and moves as well and they even tried five forwards on Saturday. It’s just there’s there hasn’t been any continuity with that unit either. Actually, you know, now that you mentioned it, because I was going to say I don’t know if you can expect continuity at any point in time because guys are going to be coming back and leaving and called up, but actually the power play one unit now has has most of the guys ready to roll, right? So, so that might be the one thing that can hopefully, you know, barring more injury, uh, settle in a little bit there, uh, which would would be great, right? Because the the crazy part and I I I’m not going to, you know, beat a dead horse, be a broken record, whatever your metaphor, but there’s two things that frustrate the heck out of me about the power play. One, they’re drawing a good amount of penalties. Yeah. So, so it’s like we have a lot of opportunities to be disappointed. It’s if they got like two penalties a game and they weren’t scoring a a power play goal be all right, you know, two rough ones. But when they get five and they don’t score power or they get, you know, three shots on goal across four power play opportunities, that’s when it gets really frustrating. Uh but the second part is and and I know we’ve said this a bunch on the air. We said it yesterday. So much of what they do five on five I think would work as a power play, but for whatever reason when they get the advantage, they stop doing a lot of the things that that I just want them to keep going. I want them to almost hypnotize themselves into thinking they’re five on five or thinking they’re short-handed when they’re playing uh with the advantage, which is a a different beast. Um, couple other kind of questions that are that are going to be brought up here. Uh, if Porto Kekov is back and healthy, what do you do with Brandon Busy? because he’s been good. He’s been very good. He’s been great. Yeah, he’s been he’s been uh well above what you hope for when you claim a guy and have him starting NHL games like two weeks later. Uh and and because of that, you can’t make him any kind of vulnerable to other teams claiming him because I think he would be claimed very quickly by a bunch of teams out there. So even if it’s not a bunch of teams, if it’s a couple teams, it only takes one. Um, which makes just the way they handle goalie from this point forward. Uh, a little bit more intriguing. Uh, I think you’ll need three. You might need four by the time this season. Yeah. I mean, if you’re a Canes fan, you’re like, “Yeah, you might need eight.” Uh, which might be a little overkill, but maybe not. Uh, Brandon Busy has earned his way into some role on the team, and I think now if you have to play a little roster gymnastics to make it so you can protect uh those guys, I think you do it. And then another question, and this one is more hypothetic, not hypothetical, more theoretical. How do you continue to take advantage of and and develop the offensive skill set, which is obviously significant for Alexander Nikian because uh there are two things that are interesting to me uh in this discussion. one. It took three injuries and suddenly Alexander Nikkesh was being treated like like the old veteran, right? He had like seven NHL regular season starts and he was playing with a guy that had one and a guy that had none. And you’re you’re looking towards Alexander Nikeshan going like, you know, I need you to to make sure everybody’s in the right position. I need like the system which in last year’s postseason during the couple of starts he had was like I don’t he’s out there playing in a foreign system. He doesn’t know. It’s all unusual to him. Fast forward to the beginning of this year, it’s like, can you teach these guys the system? Uh, which inherently adds too much to his plate. So, then you probably are asking him to do a little bit less of of maybe the stuff that makes him special. Then you add in some of this power play stuff where they’ve had a bunch of injuries and you’re seeing even guys like Nestrom get like legit opportunities to quarterback a power play. And we haven’t really seen that much for for Alexander Nikishian. uh which I think is part of bringing him along slowly and part of uh you know making sure that that he can digest everything that he is being fed as far as uh what the Canes are asking of him. Um but maybe I’m just being greedy. Maybe I’m just being like uh you know ultimate fan here and want to be entertained. I still want to see the special offensive ability from Alexander Nikesh at least a couple times a game, you know, flashing or like, “Oh, there it is.” Or the the, you know, the hammers from uh the blue line. Like, I I I want to see Alexander Nikian. And I want to make sure that in the interest of turning him into a quote unquote Kane’s defenseman, you don’t ignore what made him quote unquote the best defenseman not in the NHL for two years prior to coming on over here. Uh so I wouldn’t hate if he gets a shift or two on on the power play. I wouldn’t hate if uh you know we we see him be a bit more aggressive when the puck is in the offensive zone rather than just worrying about everything and everywhere he needs to be defensively. I think a lot of that ties in what we talked about with the power play that continuity because him and Chen Goss at the beginning of the year were great. Yep. They absolutely were. And I you can tell there was a level of comfort there and then now like you said he’s having to skate with different guys that he just simply doesn’t know. He didn’t skate with these guys in the preseason. they were in different they were in different groups. Yeah, maybe maybe in one of the preseason games, but there’s not enough to actually build any sort of chemistry there. So, like you said, he’s still figuring it out at the NHL level, the Kane system, and also trying to figure out who’s beside him. It’s not an easy thing to do. I I had, you know, and yesterday on on the call line, we had a couple callers give like ridiculous analogies, and I was like, I appreciate that very much. That’s fair. So, correct me if I’m wrong on this potential analogy. Okay. Um, Alexander Nikeshan when he is with really any of the the other five of the kind of six ideal bliners for the Canes like their their opening day blueliners. Uh, if if dancing like straight, you know, so you think you can dance or dancing with the stars dancing, he’s not the leader of that pair, right? He’s not leading. He’s he’s the follower, I guess. I don’t know what it’s called in dance. Uh, when you put him with like a Nestrom, he’s kind of the guy. He has to lead the dance, right? He has he’s the one step one two step one which is completely different than what he’s probably been trained to do right all offseason it’s probably you know hey we’re going to have you with Chatfield or maybe we’ll have you with Slavven or maybe we’ll have you with uh Gostaspar or maybe we’ll have you with like and all of those are so even Miller like there’s so much more experienced even Walker so it’s like you you’re going to be the guy following now he’s being put into a leading situation that is a completely other part of the the the execution and thus maybe they’re taking off his plate and I understand I just again maybe I’m being greedy. I want to I want to see him score goals. I want to see him put up points because he’s Alexander Indication and it’s what’s been promised. Uh the drive with Tim Donnelly 999 the fan. Before we move,

Tim Donnelly & Dennis Cox discuss how Carolina Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour can get the power play jumpstarted, bring out the best of Alexander Nikishin, and what to do with goaltender Brandon Bussi one Pyotr Kochetkov.

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