Quote:
Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan
Look at the standings and the metrics. Both the Hurricanes and Panthers are separating themselves from the pack that includes Tampa, Toronto, and Pittsburgh. Carolina is a much better defensive team and Florida is a much better offensive team. They're still good, but they're not the big scary team they were in season's past.
They have some elite players at forward, defense, and goal, and some good secondary players, but they aren't that deep anymore. Hagel does help fill out the bottom of their roster, but my god, that's a crazy overpayment for a team that I'm not sure will be able to beat both Carolina or Florida in a 7 game series.
Killorn-Stamkos-Kucherov
Palat-Point-Cirelli
Hagel-Colton-Perry
Maroon-Bellemare-Joseph
Hedman-Rutta
Sergachev-Cernak
McDonagh-Bogosian
Vasilevskiy-Elliott
They're still a good team, no doubt, but they've lost a lot of their support pieces in the last year, so they rely on their big guys to win games. Take Hagel out of that lineup and it looks pretty poor, so yeah, it's in an effort to stay relevant with the top teams in the league. I'm not sure this pushes them to that level.
And don't forget, last year's roster was nowhere near cap compliant, so you have to take that into consideration. Plus, they faced the Canadiens in the final which was a bit of a mismatch.
|
I guess we’ll see come playoff time. In my eyes Tampa is still the clear favorite in the east.
Vasilevskiy over Bobrovsky and Anderson is enough reason for me alone.
Regardless they aren’t trying to stay relevant. Especially not compared to a panthers team that hasn’t won a playoff series in 25 years. Even if they lose round 1 going all in now is still the right move for where their franchise is at.