Blame It On Me

by Bob Wage on Sep 26, 2007 10:57 AM EDT

The Canes lost to the Caps in over-time last night, 3-2. A couple of things seemed hauntingly familiar to me. The first obvious thing was the dismal power play, which was 0-6. That makes it 4-27 so far this pre-season, a whopping 14.8%! It's certainly not showing the improvement that the team had been hoping for after finishing 25th in the league last year. The next familiar sight isn't so easy to put a finger on. It seems like there is inconsistent effort, or intensity. The boys are starting this pre-season off much like they played last year, with strong effort in certain parts of the game, but having the appearance of less effort in other parts. They fell behind again, only to pick up the intensity in the 3rd period to tie the game much like they did when they played against the Caps in Raleigh last week. I know it's just the pre-season, but it's a shame they can't show the same intensity and effort throughout the whole game, or at least in more of it.

There is another problem that is alarming to me regarding this pre-season so far. The team seems to be taking an inordinate number of penalties! In 4 games they have taken a total of 31 penalties, an average of 8 per game, almost 3 per period. Needless to say, you make it that much more difficult to win hockey games if you are killing penalties for half of every period. While these games don't count and aren't supposed to mean much, trends can develop into habits. Trends like a weak power play and taking stupid penalties are traits that can easily carry forward into the regular season if they are not addressed. The Canes have 2 more games to address them.

For those of you who would like a review of the game, Luke did a very good job of that this morning in Lord Stanley's Blog. He also quoted Glen Wesley and Justin Williams during a couple of interesting statements. Williams said, "We had a lot of chances. Weâ€™re going tit for tat. Up front, I think our forward lines are some of the best in the league. When we play offense as well as we play defense, thatâ€™s when weâ€™re going to hurt teams." Hmmm, it sounds like he might be blaming the defense there, but it's hard to tell.

Then Wesley said, "I think itâ€™s the consistency, waiting for the third period and doing it in spurts. I think we got caught doing that a lot last year. Youâ€™re not going to win hockey games by doing that. We have to get back to a dominating forecheck and establishing the forecheck, grinding teams down. Thatâ€™s one of the things weâ€™ve got to get better at before the season starts.â€ I have to agree with Wesley 100% here. You can't wear teams down if you don't start aggressively forechecking until the 3rd period. You may have the most talented offensive lines in hockey, but if you wait until the 3rd period every game before you score, you're asking for trouble. I wouldn't blame last night's loss on the defense. I'll tell you what though. Instead of blaming each other, (if that was what they were doing), you can blame it on me! I could have been blogging better I guess.

Speaking of better blogging, what happened to John Forslund's "live blogging" last night? Remember he promised live blog updates from every away pre-season game this year? Must be he had technical troubles, like the audio portion of last night's telecast. Yuck! What a horrible experience, trying to watch that game last night with no audio. Then I tried turning on the radio portion, and that was completely out of synch with the video. I had to make a choice, either listen or watch, I couldn't do both. It must have had something to do with the Caps broadcasting, because most other games on NHL TV have been high quality.

Until next time....

Barenaked Ladies

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Comments

Concerning Luke,

I have noticed him contributing on the NHL portion of The Sporting News. Hopefully this gig will not detract him from his main responsibility: The N&O and local readers.

As far as Leighton goes, I would be suprised if he didn’t get picked up, unfortunately. That guy has looked so good that teams looking for a cheaper backup goalie would bite.

by fredwiAtSAS on Sep 26, 2007 2:21 PM EDT reply actions

I agree about Leighton. I think that he’s looked pretty good this training camp. Speaking of waivers, I see that the Rangers put Hutchinson on them today as well.

As for Luke, for the right amount of money I’m sure that he will somehow find the time for multiple gigs! It’s been nice to see so much activity lately on Lord Stanley’s Blog. We’re getting spoiled.

Thanks for the comments, Fred!

by Bubba on Sep 26, 2007 3:44 PM EDT reply actions

I’ll have to disagree with you as I did Luke on his board. If you read what Justin said, he’s clearly saying he wished the OFFENSE would play as well as the defense. I don’t necessarily agree with his optimistic view of how well the defense played. I think Luke (and you?) were trying to stir some controversy and misread the Williams quote. Here is what the quote would have said to mean what you and Luke seemd to think it meant: “When we play defense as well as we play offense” See the difference?

As for the Wesley quote…again I don’t think he was making a point to deride the offense. Forechecking is a 5-man game.

One last point about both quotes…hockey isn’t football where you have seperate and distinct offense and defense teams. Its a 6 man sport out there. Neither quote, even switched around to mean what you want them to mean, necessarily even means something bad. All 5 skaters play both.

by jwalther420 on Sep 26, 2007 4:11 PM EDT reply actions

Hi 420, welcome to CC! First of all, let me assure you that I was not trying to stir up controversy. If I wanted to do that, I would make up some juicy rumors! We don’t do that here. All I was doing in this case was trying to interpret a couple of quotes, and I did say that it was “hard to tell” what Justin was meaning. He starts off by saying that things were tit for tat and they created a lot of chances. That seems to indicate that he thought that the offensive guys were doing their jobs. Then when he says “when we play offense as well as we play defense”, is he still referring to the forwards here and alluding that they have to concentrate too much on playing defense? Is he being sarcastic? You would have to listen to the actual quote, I think, to have the best idea of what he was meaning, and Luke actually listened to it.

As for Wesley’s statement, “forechecking” is normally done in the offensive zone by forwards. I don’t think there was any doubt who he was talking about.

But either way, I agree with you that the game is a team game. You win and lose as a team. It’s normally a combination of things that contribute to a win or loss. While the defense might have played solid in their own end last night for the most part, Chuck Kaiton even admitted that they had trouble breaking the puck out of their own zone. If they can’t hit the forwards with decent passes to break out, obviously that inhibits the offense tremendously.

Normally the Canes don’t play the “blame game” , so I think Luke might have been a little surprised about the quotes. Hopefully, both the offense and defense can improve and play more consistently in future games.

Thanks for your comments. Cheers!

by Bubba on Sep 26, 2007 6:17 PM EDT reply actions

I’d rather have video without sound than listen to the Capitals broadcasters, especially the color guy! I tried to have a little fun and do my own play-by-play…that job’s a lot harder than it seems! This was the first Hurricanes game I’ve watched since last season. I kept saying to myself, “who is that guy that skates funny? Oh yeah, that’s right, we got Cullen back!”

by John on Sep 27, 2007 12:24 AM EDT reply actions