Hit by a Hurricane of Bad luck? Again?...Maybe?

[Adrenaline]

After hearing, watching, listening, to and about the new players that are being signed on to the team, I finally have hope that we will pull away and make the playoffs next season. But my question is....if we had the same players..basically...as the season before this one that just ended...and made it to the playoffs....why did we just suck this season. I don't get it. I think it's a coaching problem. Instead of signing new players in...why not sign a new coach in. Seems he can't stand up to his job. I mean maybe it was luck last season...maybe not. I wanna know what happend and why it happend. A kick-butt team just doesn't disolve like that...that's just...WEIRD! Do you guys think this will happen again? Will we have a relapse? Will the hurricane of bad luck hit us again? To be honest....my hope is kinda' crumbling knowing we aren't getting a new coach. I think the players are fine. It's just that it takes the coach to unlock that power within them. I scared for us next year....what do you caniacs think the outcome will be? :sad:

[Stormbringer]

No...it wasn't coaching. It was simply horrible luck, officiating, and especially injuries that did the Canes in. It's quite hard to effectively coach a team that's half rookies thanks to a ton of veterans/star players out with season ending injuries. Keep in mind that injuries took away our top faceoff man (Brindy) and one of our top scorers (Cole) for the remainder of the season. This alone showed that as great as Ronnie and O are, they can't do it alone. Not to mention how Irbe never seemed to find his A game, nor seemed all that willing to find it at times...and Weekes would be very inconsistent when Irbe was backup (I still wonder how things would have been for Weekes if DesRochers had never joined the injury victims with a broken arm...Weekes was good/great when DesRochers was backup.).

Anyway, it may have been coaching here or there, but the fault of the Canes' horrible season lies upon other factors more so than just that IMO.

BTW, another factor one needs to consider is how the Canes only had a month and a half to rest and keep conditioned before training camp. Not a lot of time, and based on what I heard, it didn't help the Canes any...I recall reading somewhere that most if not all the then returning Canes had a minor injury or two at the beginning of training camp and the pre-season.

[VandyCane]

Last year's problems were multifactorial. I think we came into training camp tired and arrogant. I think many of our players felt that as Eastern Conference Champions were were automatically a better team. I think we missed Gelinas. The retirement of Archie's old pads was something he never adjusted to. Our preseason was awful and we never adjusted. We were caught by surprise and never really adjusted to the "new" enforcement of obstruction. The Malik/Hlavac trade (which at the time seemed like a good idea) did not work out when our defensemen got injured and we had a decline in our defense. The injury spiral began, confidence went down hill and many, many people (management, coaches, players) probably had a part in our demise. That's last season and hopefully we will learn from our mistakes.

This season, well, I'm an eternal optimist. My biggest concern remains our defense. Our current group (I'm assuming without Wesley :sad: ) will not get to job done. I'm hoping the goaltending distractions will be improved. I'm actually confident in our forwards and it should be quite a fun training camp. Coaching...well, like I said above I hope we show some flexibility and try to work with our players' talents and not make them fit a system. I'm hoping for a showing in the playoff, of couse. :D

[crazy4canes]

Here's probably what's going to happen next year. Coach Mo will be given very little leeway. If they start out having a piss poor season again, he'll be gone. Then we'll see if it really was a coaching problem. I don't see any big name free agents being signed in the off-season due to the impending doom that is the CBA talks. So the team is going to have to make due with what they've got (or something like it). But they're not in as bad a shape as you might think. Players are going to be coming back from injury, new blood is going to come in to relieve some of the veterans and the vets will be rested. My opinion is that things are going to be fine. I'd like to see them hoisting the Cup next season but I'm not setting my expectations up that high. I'll be happy if they make it past the first round of the playoffs.

[Stormbringer]

Last year's problems were multifactorial. I think we came into training camp tired and arrogant. I think many of our players felt that as Eastern Conference Champions were were automatically a better team. I think we missed Gelinas. The retirement of Archie's old pads was something he never adjusted to. Our preseason was awful and we never adjusted. We were caught by surprise and never really adjusted to the "new" enforcement of obstruction. The Malik/Hlavac trade (which at the time seemed like a good idea) did not work out when our defensemen got injured and we had a decline in our defense. The injury spiral began, confidence went down hill and many, many people (management, coaches, players) probably had a part in our demise. That's last season and hopefully we will learn from our mistakes.

Good, no, great points Vandy. I can't believe I forgot about Gelinas, Malik, and Langdon...but, I wonder myself if things would have been different if we had held on to them. Gelinas was a great asset to the team not only on the ice, but also off in the locker room as was Langdon. And Malik showed what a mistake the Canes made in getting rid of him in helping Vancouver become one of the NHL's top teams this past season.

[crazy4canes]

Yep, in hindsight, I would say the Malik/Langdon trade hurt us the most short term. However, I still think we got a good player in Hlavac if we keep him. He certainly helped our anemic power play, anyway. :D

[talkingcanes]

my personal opinion is that if things don't start off and stay strong, then there will new faces behind the bench and on the ice. I'm not a Mo must go person now, but if next season doesn't start out well, move over on that bandwagon cause I'll need room to join those of you already on there ;)

[Jeff O Rocks]

I will be very anxious to see what the team can do when pre-season starts and they have their hockey faces back on....we can only hope we get off to a better start than last year...and that "Injury City" gets its occupants from another team... :roll:

[talkingcanes]

I will be very anxious to see what the team can do when pre-season starts and they have their hockey faces back on....we can only hope we get off to a better start than last year...and that "Injury City" gets its occupants from another team... :roll:

from your lips to God's ear...........we had quite a lengthy visit to "Injury City" and hopefully if any team has to go next season it won't be the Canes.

I'm already anxious for the schedule to be released. I need some sort of 12 step program :eek2:

[Willis#1fan]

If you have bad coaching, you can't motivate the players. I think they are tired of MO and he should be exterminated. On the other hand, maybe it was bad karma, lol. They don't play good after a great season b/c they are too cocky and they don't play a good game of tight defense and shutting the other team's offense down. Simple as that.

Rebecca Fedorov <-I wish!

[crazy4canes]

I think they are tired of MO and he should be exterminated.

That's a little harsh, isn't it? http://websmileys.bei.t-online.de/lachen21.gif Maybe he should just be fired instead. :p

[Stormbringer]

If you have bad coaching, you can't motivate the players. I think they are tired of MO and he should be exterminated. On the other hand, maybe it was bad karma, lol. They don't play good after a great season b/c they are too cocky and they don't play a good game of tight defense and shutting the other team's offense down. Simple as that.

And as I said before, it's hard to effectively coach a team whose players keep going out with injuries that put them out of commission for a few weeks-the rest of the season. Not to mention that having your best and/or most reliable players out with injuries can dampen quite a few spirits. Coaching may or may not have been a factor, but injuries were a large factor that affected both the coaching and team's karma.

[HockeyFan]

If you have bad coaching, you can't motivate the players. I think they are tired of MO and he should be exterminated. On the other hand, maybe it was bad karma, lol. They don't play good after a great season b/c they are too cocky and they don't play a good game of tight defense and shutting the other team's offense down. Simple as that.

I agree with that. Players need to be motivated sometimes and when a player gets tired of it...they don't respond. Also, about being to cocky...I think you hit that on the head. They need to get back to the same style of play. Tight D and concentrate on doing the little things that got them to the finals last year instead of looking for the pretty play. I saw that a lot this year...we looked for the pretty play and ended up paying for it this year. We need to get back to simple, tight, CAROLINA HOCKEY!

-Kenny :spin:

[Shell]

And as I said before, it's hard to effectively coach a team whose players keep going out with injuries that put them out of commission for a few weeks-the rest of the season. Not to mention that having your best and/or most reliable players out with injuries can dampen quite a few spirits. Coaching may or may not have been a factor, but injuries were a large factor that affected both the coaching and team's karma.

yeah I think you may have mentioned that ;)
However, our season started off badly before Brindy et al went out due to injuries. It definitely didn't help but I do not think it was the cause. I also can't stand the short off-season excuse, because if that is the case we can only do well every other year. Plenty of teams go far in the playoffs year after year after year. Bad bounces are bad bounces and not much can be said, except I guess we were due after all those good bounces in last years playoffs!

I agree with Vandy's opinion completely. well-spoken as always!

[SouthernHockeyChick]

However, our season started off badly before Brindy et al went out due to injuries. It definitely didn't help but I do not think it was the cause. I also can't stand the short off-season excuse, because if that is the case we can only do well every other year. Plenty of teams go far in the playoffs year after year after year. Bad bounces are bad bounces and not much can be said, except I guess we were due after all those good bounces in last years playoffs!

I agree with Vandy's opinion completely. well-spoken as always!
Ditto to that. I get tired of the injuries excuse. Brindy was the first major player to go out and that wasn't until January. This team was done already by that point.

Can't wait for next season to start to see how things look.

[Alicia]

However, our season started off badly before Brindy et al went out due to injuries. It definitely didn't help but I do not think it was the cause. I also can't stand the short off-season excuse, because if that is the case we can only do well every other year. Plenty of teams go far in the playoffs year after year after year. Bad bounces are bad bounces and not much can be said, except I guess we were due after all those good bounces in last years playoffs!

I agree with Vandy's opinion completely. well-spoken as always!
Ditto to that. I get tired of the injuries excuse. Brindy was the first major player to go out and that wasn't until January. This team was done already by that point.

Can't wait for next season to start to see how things look.

Double ditto. I don't think we had too many injuries pre-season and things were sucking even then.

[talkingcanes]

I don't think injuries are the only or main reason for that fiasco of a season. I do think that ANY chance they had to pull it together was lost when Brindy went out for the season. and once the injuries started........