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Vitals
Joined the League: 1979 as the Hartford Whalers (Previously the New England Whalers (WHA) from 1972-79); Moved to Raleigh in 1997
2011-12 Finish: 82 pts, #12 in the East, #23 Overall
2011-12 Leading Scorer: Eric Staal, 24G/46A/70Pts
Links to Fans' Responses: Canes Country
Number of Fan Responses: 7
The Team
When I stopped by Canes Country, the Carolina Hurricanes were a very different team. It was before their acquisition of Jordan Staal and Alexander Semin, two players that are sure to make an impact this coming year. However, from their responses and lurking around their board over the past few weeks, I've been able to piece together a workable understanding of their team.
The Canes are a lot like the Avs - young, fast, and up-and-coming. Just like us, more than half their team is under 25, including last year's Calder winner, Jeff Skinner. Their deepest position is defense, but they're overrun with a number of small, offensive defensemen (yay PMDs!) while they're still searching for big shutdown blueliners. They're also rather deep at center now with E. Staal, J. Staal, and Skinner, even though their wings are still a bit thin. Semin and Staal should help considerably, but it's still one of their weakest positions. They have as many bottom 6 players as we do, but they'd probably like some of our goalie prospects. A number of theirs left over the past year due to the KHL and redrafting and they'd like a little more of a future behind Cam Ward and the aging vet Brian Boucher.
The Canes prefer an up-tempo style that relies on skating, hitting, and working hard, but they're still slightly mistake-prone due to youth - basically, they play a very similar style to us. These similarities didn't escape their fan's notice either. A number of posters remarked on it, and some even offered more in-depth comparisons between our two teams. This first one is from PackPride17 comparing our players.
O'Reilly/Sutter (traded for J. Staal) - tough, solid, team guys
Duchene/(E.) Staal - talented scorers that appear to lose drive every once in a while
Landeskog/Ruutu - physical wingers that can score, but Landeskog has more upside
Jones/LaRose - good players that are slotted too high on each team
Johnson/Pitkanen - Very talented, mobile defensemen that make questionable plays at times
Hejda/Gleason - stable defensive defensemen that provide some leadership
The second is from surgalt and has a wider focus.
How the Avalanche are like the Hurricanes
1. Both teams are named after natural disasters prone to happen in the state. What marketing genius came up with that.
2. Both teams are identified to states, not cities. Carolina actual refers to 2 states, one of which might have 2 Hurricane fans total. I ski in Colorado quite often, never met anyone from anywhere but Denver that even cared about the NHL.
3. They both have what might be the ugliest jerseys in the league. Our 2nd jersey is cool but the emblem identifies a gale not a hurricane. Our first jersey is compared to a toilet flush yours looks like an A caught in a riptide. More shared marketing genius.
4. Both are from flyover country. The world of NHL hockey would only notice us if the owners fought, bankruptcy loomed and Basilie tried to buy us.
5. Both teams have WHA roots, yours Canadian, ours that hotbed of hockey, Hartford, Conn. We played in shopping center there. Not sure where Nordiques played.
6. Both made the Stanley Cuo finals the year after a league lockout of players. You won, we still want a replay of the 3rd game of the finals which went 3 days into overtime.
7. Your mascot is a dog, ours is a pig. Related species. Yours rescues those caught in avalanches, ours is cooked on the grill in the parking lot before the game. Yours carries brandy to warm rescued victims. We chug beer to wash our cooked pig down.
8. Both teams are from great parts of the country, with healthy economies, many enertainment options and lots of people moving into the metropolitan area. As a favor we would love to reroute many from Buffalo and Pittsburgh to your area instead of here. You would grow to embrace them as brilliant hockey minds and quiet introverted sots.
Even though Kirk Muller, their coach, said the Staals will be staring out on the same line, many of the Canes fans feel that the 1-2 punch of Staal and Staal is probably better than shifting one of the natural centers to a wing in the long run. Most of them think their setup will end up looking something like this:
Tlusty – E Staal – Semin
Skinner – J Staal – Ruutu
Jokinen – Welsh – LaRose
Stewart - Brent - Bowman
Gleason / Corvo
Pitkanen / Faulk
Harrison / McBain / Murphy (prospect) / Sanguinetti (prospect)
Ward
Boucher
Despite the fact that Minnesota is getting all of the "Winning the offseason" props, Carolina made a number of very smart moves and has an owner that's clearly very committed to spending in order to make the team better right now. Even if their recent moves don't work out as planned, one thing is for sure - the Canes are going to be a very interesting club to watch next year.
Fan Perceptions
If there's one thing that all the Canes fans seem to agree on, it's that they have the best tailgating in the league. Stormy, their mascot, is a pig, so one of the primary traditions of the Hurricanes faithful has become a pig roast with beer before games. It's only one of the reasons why people like the Canes - military support, character players, and lots of giving back to the community also rank high on their lists. They also consider it a very well-managed organization and believe that Jim Rutherford is one of the best GMs in the league. They're very content with Muller as their new head coach and believe their scouting and player development has been getting better over the past few years.
They have a number of fan favorites, but Chad LaRose, a physical and hilarious forward, and Skinner are the most noted. Pitkanen and Anthony Stewart (Chris' brother) have a reputation for being annoying underachievers, while defensively-responsible RW Patrick Dwyer seems to be the most underrated by people outside of the team. Parise was the most pined over player, but Stastny and Landeskog both got a lot of love and the Buffalo Sabres received the most hate.
They have a number of good prospects, but most are small, puck moving defensemen. Ryan Murphy was Skinner and Landy's teammate in Kitchener and taken #12 overall in the '11 draft. Big D-man Brian Dumoulin also ranked high on their list, but he was sent to Pittsburgh in the Staal trade earlier this year. Centers Jeremy Welsh and Victor Rask are also interesting young players, but a lot of the fans aren't getting their hopes up too much. They've not had much luck with prospects panning out in the past few years.
As far as the Avs go, they again noted our team's similarities. They like our tempo, but more than half of them don't get overly excited when they see us on the schedule. They do seem to think we're headed in the right direction, but they also think our management is a bit cheap. We lack superstars right now, but overall, they see us as a solid team on the rise.