Carolina Hurricanes have a tough decision to make at goalie

Carolina Hurricanes have a tough decision to make at goalie

Speaking of pretty entertaining, the Canes have been pretty entertaining. Couple of wins over the weekend. Some updates from today’s uh skate, today’s practice for the Canes. And and most of these come from Walt Ruff, Kane’s team reporter. Um Podicov and Jacob Slavven on the ice with the team. Co practice too. Coin Emmy in a regular sweater, not in a no contact. So, he’s in the mix, like in the mix in the mix. Uh, Slavven was still in the no contact sweater, but I want to say that was the first time in two months that he’s been that he’s been with the team skating. He skated by himself a little bit. Yeah. Since the second game of the season. So, uh, so he had two months ago. Sight for sore eyes. Jacob Slavven, even out at practice. Just just a wonderful bit of news to spark joy on a, uh, a Tuesday morning. Again, they don’t play till Thursday. And just cuz he skates with the team on Tuesday doesn’t mean he’s back and ready to roll, but got to be closer than than he was, right? There’s got to be a sign of of good things coming. Um and then Pico Kochekov, as I mentioned, he he was out on the ice as well. He’s been um you know, on and off the ice this year dealing with with some lower body uh stuff. And then Kokane, as you brought up, no contact jersey, regular sweater today. We also have some audio for you to update. Uh Rod Bindammore talking about Slavo, Jacob Slavven out there with the team. You know, I don’t think Slavo’s too close yet, but I think uh it’s great to see him as I think it’s his first practice with us. So, um you know, it’d be nice to get him in a real jersey and and real thinking he was close, but I think at least uh steps in the right direction. Step in the right direction. I think that’s a good way to to describe it, right? Uh like I said, it’s not a guarantee that he’s back. It’s not a guarantee that he’s back anytime soon, but uh but it’s a good sight. Such a good site that they started experimenting. They threw Jordan stall on the power play unit. Do you think that was partially Raj just knew Slavven was going to be skating? So he was skipping around the halls like let’s try something new. Jordo, you want to be on you want to be on power play one? Let’s go crazy today. Slavven’s on the ice. Maybe uh it turns out as he uh Rod explained after the uh the practice they’re experimenting a little demo um just to kind of try one specific play. Uh could be for the lacrosse fans out there maybe a little faceoff get off. Uh they have not been good in power play faceoff. So perhaps uh Stall would try to win the faceoff and then immediately clear for someone like Blake or Eers. Going into the game Wednesday last week, I went through the first 22 games of the season. Great. I may have missed a faceoff or two, but they were 44% or just over 44% on power play faceoffs this season. The Canes were That is not great. No, not great, Bob. Um, yeah. So, if if they if they can finagle something just to to spark the power play, particular in the faceoffs, maybe that’s the move. Maybe it’s maybe it’s Jordan Stall and maybe he could be, you know, he is occasionally I think people forget he’s a big big dude. If he wants to go be a little netfront presence, create some uh some screens and and just just be physical that that could work, right? It’s they they they’ll never hurt for skill on their power play with the other guys out there skating. So, we we’ll see how that all goes. Um and that brings us to the question of the day. Maybe the question of the next couple of months. It is I don’t even know want to call it a first class problem. What do you do with the goalies? Right. Brandon Busy is making it a bit more confusing because when you had Freddy Anderson, you had Peter Cochov, you only had to worry about, you know, one guy or at a time not playing great or uh if one guy catches fire, how much do you uh rest the other? like there’s there’s you know 1 a1 b is or or 1 and two is much easier than 1 a 1 b 1 c or 1 2 and three right the another name in the mix so Brandon busy is compl or complicating things by playing well that’s the first class problem of it the other side of that coin is kind of I’ll use a a quarterback cliche from the football world that I come from when you have two quarterbacks you have none that’s a that’s an old cliche like you If if you have if you think, “Oh, I got two guys that are exactly the same.” You probably don’t have any, right? That just means nobody’s grabbed the job by the horns and made it theirs. And I I think, you know, for the most part, the goalies have not done that. And I Everybody wants Freddy to, right? Everybody wants or wanted uh Freddy Anderson to come out this year and just be goalie one, especially when Porcheov was hurt and and just nobody’s taking me out of net, but it hasn’t happened. Porto Kochov has played really well, but he’s been hurt. Brandon Busy’s played well, but he’s a journeyman minor leager just making his first appearances in the NHL. How much do you just go, “Well, perfect. That’s going to last forever.” It it it’s a really confusing place to be on a team that that quite frankly has most other things kind of handled when healthy, which just, you know, that it’s going to up the scrutiny on the goalies, right? if if uh they weren’t scoring, if the the the defense was was poor, if your fourth line was unplayable, uh then then, you know, we’d have to divide up all of our attention on trying to fix all of those things. But with the way the roster is now and the way the goalies have complicated things, there’s just going to be a lot of spotlights on that position and a lot of conversation and a lot of discourse and they’re not going to be able to just, you know, we’ll wait it out and let’s see. Like every decision they make is going to be heavily heavily scrutinized. for ex like I I use this from uh I actually use this in when my crossport analogies elsewhere when uh Rod Brendmore spoke with Adam Gold uh on Kane’s Corner podcast before the season and he was kind of giving Adam a hard time and he said like you know you guys dissect my my line decisions way more than than I do sometimes uh you know I I get a question in the postgame about why did you skate these two guys together they don’t he’s like he broke a skate lace and and and he couldn’t go back out there for the next shift. So, I just put someone else out there and now you guys have think pieces about it and it’s literally just his skate lace broke. Uh that’s how goalender is going to be dealt with for the rest of the year, right? If somebody wakes up and they’re sick, if somebody uh you know has a bruise and and and they don’t get their spot in the rotation, we’re going to be like, “Oh, changing the hierarchy of goalies, right?” Brandon Busy played backto-back games. How many conversations have uh true Kane’s fans had about that already? A lot. A whole bunch. And it could have literally just been like still hurt, Freddy wanted thought they needed a reset or whatever, right? Could have been anything. Then Busy played well, got a shut out in the game and and oh now is Busy rising in the ranks. Can you actually this will be a question for you, Dennis. Can you go with the rotation or the goalie situation of we’re gonna play the hot hand until he cools off and then we’re gonna see if anyone else is hot and we’re going to keep playing them until they cool off. Can you do that with with two and a half goalies? I don’t even know for three goalies. That’s three. I mean, Busy’s earned the right to be up here. He Exactly. But how much do you play him becomes a question. I mean, well, first of all, again, all all guys have to be healthy. Correct. Again, that’s that’s the key thing about this because as of right now, coach off isn’t available. So, you you rotate until you run because earlier in the season when coachov was was out, it was Freddy until it was obvious, you know, back toback or something or a long road trip, you had to throw Busy in there. Uh, is is it because we’ve seen the 1111 rotation, like is Busy has has he earned the right to be that involved? Maybe that’s Yeah, I think that’s He’s been their most consistent goalie this season. I mean, until when it comes to availability and and performance and performance. Yeah, he it’s he’s been their most consistent goalie this season. I don’t know. That’s that’s that’s tough. Like how much net is going to be available, especially when you hit January, for example, it’s going to be like Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday. Like that’s going to be your schedule going forward. I mean, do you want goalies to sit there just for maybe a week at times? Because then how do you get into a rhythm as a goalender? It that’s that’s the difficult thing that they’re going to have to try and balance out as well. But we also know the injury history of of coach Ekoff and of Anderson. So, it you can’t risk trying to send Busy back down to Chicago through waiverss. Someone’s going to pick him up. Plain and simple. It’s it’s a delicate balance. It really is. And yeah, I mean, you bring up a good point and we did the we did this with defenseman uh earlier this year where, you know, you have all these talks about pairings and and who’s going to skate off-handed and then injuries happen and it it’s moot for the first two months of the season. Uh so we’ll debate the the goalies, especially with coachov back at practice today. It’s like it’s a it’s a decision that’s looming, not a decision that’s hey, one day we might have to deal with this. Um but it could it could be decided like by default if somebody uh you know deals with something lower body. We never get any details. Uh, but I’m I’m fascinated. I’m going to be paying attention. And every time they go out there for morning skate on game day and you get the so and so is in the starters crease, I’m going to go whoa. Even if it’s exactly what I predicted, I’m going to I’m going to react that way intentionally.

Tim Donnelly & Dennis Cox how the Carolina Hurricanes have three capable goalies, and how head coach Rod Brind’Amour will try to balance playing all three goalies when healthy.

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