Grading The 2015-16 Canes – The Forwards

After going to my cubicle in the Section 328 World Headquarters and finding Michelle McMahon using my phone and the nameplate changed to “VISITOR”, I realized maybe it has been a while since I’ve written anything for the site, and it’s time to get off my ass and start writing about the Canes again.

And, hey, what better way to do that then by dishing out some letter grades for the players, since that’s simple and people seem to like it. We’ll do this in three parts – I’ll take the forwards and use the English/creative lit method of grading where I eyeball and use my opinion of what I like and don’t like to assign a letter grade. We all know how much Cane-alytics  loves the D, so he’ll grade them, I’m sure using a purely mathematical formula that involves the quadratic equation, the pythagorean theorem, and a slide rule that was made in “East Germany”. Derek will handle the grading of the goaltenders in a method that’s veiled in secrecy, but I’m assuming it’s somewhere in-between Cane-alytics method and labeling a bunch of bananas with letter grades and seeing which one a random chimp at the zoo goes to first.

So let’s roll, starting with…

Phil Di Giuseppe

Who knew what to expect from PDG going into this season? A second round draft pick in 2012 (and the team’s first pick that season), PDG had a mixed college career, and his first professional year with the Charlotte Checkers didn’t exactly set the world on fire. The flashes of potential were there, but there’s limited patience for a 22-year-old to convert into a prospect, especially a higher draft pick. The club would have been happy with a second season in the AHL building on what he learned in his first pro year, with an opportunity to challenge for ice time in 2016-17.

What the Canes ended up getting was the player they hoped to get in 2016-17 a season early. Called up after the New Jersey-game-that-will-not-be-discussed, PDG was eased into the lineup, where he became the grinding, ass-in-front-of-the-net presence that the Canes had been lacking for several seasons. After putting up 30 points in 76 AHL games last season, PDG put up 18 in 25 AHL games this season, then added 17 more in 41 games for the Canes. PDG is a streaky scorer and will probably be the player most prone to a sophomore slump next season, but his playing style was sorely needed at this level, and was a key factor to the Canes turning it around in December.

GRADE: A-

Looking at the Lines

Through December the Carolina Hurricanes started to score, and then they started to string some wins together, and no, the world didn’t end in a fiery apocalypse of wrongness. The Canes went into Pittsburgh and won, they went into Chicago and beat the defending champions, and then, on New Year’s Eve, they beat the best team in the league (at that time): Washington. Fans started to see that oft spoke of bright future up close, and had nice warm feels about their team that they might not have had in a while. Hell, even Eric looked like he was having fun and giving a damn.

It’s no coincidence that this past December of Canes hockey had this season’s longest period of stability among the forward lines. And if it weren’t for this weekend’s games against the lowly Blue Jackets, January looked like it was off to a typical Canes start with Phil Di Giuseppe‘s injury throwing a wrench into our newly found stability, and low scoring losses quickly followed. The speed of Di Giuseppe’s recovery could be oddly vital to Canes’ dreary playoff hopes, and if he can’t get back to games soon will Bill Peters continue to fill round holes with Chris Terry shaped plugs?

I thought that instead of grading the forwards individually for their midseason performances it would be more interesting to look at their performances together as lines. The stable, “Huh-the-Canes-might-actually-be-decent?” lines. The lines that were working, leading to wins, and that made Bill Peters’ Line-o-matic stop trying to saddle our actually talented playmakers with not-so-talented ones. The lines that made Cane-alytics not want to drown his sorrows with the hardest of hard liquors EVERY FREAKIN- well you get the point.

Cheaters Never Win Podcast- Latino Heat Edition

The dog days of summer are upon us, and the heat is baking the Carolina landscape. So in honor, we have 99.9 The Fan’s very own “Latino Heat” Joe Ovies join us to talk Canes puck, a little local sports radio history, and the state of media coverage here in Raleigh. We bracket that with a little free agent analysis, a beer review, and a big announcement from Chantel McCabe.  We are 3 months away from hitting the ice again, and the offseason is where champions are made. So, power through this podcast, feel the burn, and we promise to try harder next time.

Subscribe on on iTunes, Stitcher, or play it below! Please share this with your friends, other hockey folk, or even your sworn enemies, and we always appreciate any reviews on iTunes and Stitcher.

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For The Want Of A Nail

For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost.

For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the message was lost.

For want of a message the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.

And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

-Somebody, a long time ago

A lot has been made about the Canes activity (or lack thereof) during the 2014 NHL offseason. Thought to be a team that could potentially shake things up with a draft day trade, the Canes quietly drafted a “safe” pick at 7, then made the rest of their picks the following day without so much as a move up or down in the draft order. Then, a few days later, free agency exploded like the frozen orange juice market at the end of “Trading Places”, and while teams spent huge amounts of money on seemingly any player who had a pulse during the 2013-14 season, the Canes signed 4th-liner Brad Malone from the Avs in that “matter of fact” way that your grandmother had when you finally convinced her that she can buy something off of Amazon without a Nigerian prince taking her retirement fund.