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Erin Manning Writes Profile picture
Erin Manning Writes
@emanningwrites
I'm a Catholic Canes/Habs fan who writes YA fantasy and sci-fi. This is my hockey account.
Dec 5, 2023 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
🧵Okay, I lied; I'm still talking about it. Here's a stupidly long and totally random Canes takes thread so skip it if you're not interested:

1. Forward lines should be:
Svech-Aho-Jarvis
Turbo-KK-Necas
Bunting-Staal-Fast
Martinook-Drury-Noesen

2. Each of those lines has a... ...designated netfront guy: Jarvis, KK, Bunting, Noesen. IF those guys can't get to the front of the net in the o-zone because they're falling back to cover for a pinching D (or for any other defensive reason) then a second linemate or D has to cover the spot for...
Mar 8, 2023 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
🧵As a fan of both the Canes and the Habs, I have a few random thoughts about last night's game. This could get long. 😂

1. Some were surprised by the Habs; I wasn't, because I watch them. This is not the struggling, shell-shocked team MSL took over last season; this... ...is a team that has benefitted from a year of his coaching and has been learning and growing right along with him. They put up a fight most nights and are not an easy win just because of their standings.

2. The Canes were visibly not themselves for two...
Nov 23, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
I've so much enjoyed yesterday's very civil conversation about areas of concern re: the Canes. I have a feeling the fan base and team are on the same page about many of them.

While there were lots of common themes, one thing I noticed was that there were multiple... ...mentions of things like lack of netfront, bad passing especially in the offensive zone, and the lack of scoring even when the o-zone cycle is established.

I think you can actually bundle most of this under the heading "offensive zone positioning" which makes...
Nov 21, 2022 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
As a writer, I'm thrilled by the reaction to Pierre Gervais' book. It's incredibly hard to get any attention for a new book these days, and Gervais' book is the talk of the town.

I can't read French well enough yet to attempt to buy and read it myself, but... ...the translated excerpts I've seen make it seem like this is a thoughtful book of memories for the most part, not a scandalous tell-all intended to sling mud. The honest criticisms of some players as well as of people like Bergevin and Ducharme seem more motivated...
Nov 21, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Missed this when it was posted yesterday, but here's what I find frustrating.

Canes are a defensive-minded team. You can sum up their strategy as "Play the right way, be defensively responsible, forecheck hard, get the puck to the net, and your hard work will be... ...rewarded by puck luck and good bounces."

Only a handful of players appear to be in "negative" territory defensively on yesterday's game impact card, particularly the first line of Noesen-Aho-Necas and (uncharacteristically) the Skjei/Pesce pairing. The team...
Feb 9, 2022 • 17 tweets • 3 min read
💙🤍❤️ Habs thread. Long.

Last February people began discussing the possible firing of Claude Julien. The main reason given: he had lost the room, as evidenced by a startling collapse after an early hot streak. But it wasn't just that.

Everyone from Bergevin on down... ...knew that last season was a unique opportunity for a team that struggled to rise above mediocrity in the regular season but found an extra gear in the playoffs. The North Division was much easier than the Atlantic. This was the chance of a lifetime. The Habs...
Feb 9, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
There's a type of Habs' fan who thinks talk of removing Ducharme is premature, that after all he had a great playoff run last season and the player losses, Covid, injuries etc. this season aren't his fault.

While I understand that argument, for me it ultimately... ...comes down to a simple question: has Ducharme shown any indication of development as a coach?

He's a rookie NHL head coach, sure, but he was Julien's assistant first (since 2018) and plenty of people have pointed to his career record as a junior hockey coach...
Feb 9, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Actually, @BGALLY17 is not entirely correct here.

Gallagher has played with 13 unique trios in 27 games. That's a new trio once every 2.07 games on a mathematical average, so it's worse than he thought.

Now, if he means number of consecutive games with the same linemates... ...his longest stretch of games with the same set of linemates was the stretch he played with Hoffman and Suzuki in games 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. He has not played more than these five games with any set of linemates, consecutive or nonconsecutive.

Granted that Covid...
Feb 8, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Last year I drove people crazy by saying brand new trios every 3 games was a factor in KK's falling production. And this year in Carolina his productivity began rising once he settled in at 4C and started playing with predictable trios.

Hearing... ... Brendan Gallagher admit it's a challenge for him, a veteran winger, to play under these conditions is even better than seeing people point out that Suzuki would be doing much better if his lines were more consistent (which is certainly true). The fact is...
Feb 8, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Brief thread of comments:
Line 1: Working, keep it.
Line 2: Ducharme still doesn't understand why Byron-KK-Anderson worked in playoffs and thinks Evans is basically KK (or possibly an upgrade). With Dvorak still out Evans has to play 2C again, which is not... ...fair to Evans, but as Dvorak isn't really a 2C either it doesn't matter as much as it could.
Line 3: Makes absolutely zero sense. Seriously: make the Dauphin infatuation make sense to me, someone. I guess 6 points in 15 games gives him a better ppg rate right...
Feb 7, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
💙🤍❤️ Habs thread:

I watched bits and pieces of the All Star games this weekend, and in one game--can't remember which now--there was a sequence with Alex DeBrincat that made me think of Cole Caufield and how he's being misused in Montreal.

Debrincat gained the... ...zone with possession of the puck, but an opponent knocked the puck away. We've seen that a ton with Caufield, right? He carries the puck in but can't keep it.

It's what happened next that reminded me of Caufield in his college days.

DeBrincat didn't try to battle...
Feb 7, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
My suspicion here is that it is Caufield, not Toffoli, who was being blamed for the early failure of this line. Caufield is now caught in the same "failure loop" I referred to recently in re: Elias Pettersson. It looks like this:

1. Young player is injured or suffers... ...a setback (remember, Caufield was injured during training camp).

2. Young player (YP) returns to lineup but struggles to return to form, which depletes his confidence.

3. YP is demoted or has his role greatly reduced, further diminishing his confidence.

4. Every...
Feb 7, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
If "some" means the usual malcontents on Reddit, Twitter, and a certain hockey forum...

Look, Suzuki is still on his ELC right now. Could the Habs have signed him a bit cheaper if they'd waited until the offseason? Maybe. There's no doubt in my mind that the... ...successful offer sheet for KK from Carolina was a factor in making sure Suzuki was locked up early.

But that raises the question: if the Habs had waited in hopes of a cheaper deal, would Suzuki have become an offer sheet target himself? It's entirely possible...
Feb 7, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Working on a little blog post about Andrei Svechnikov who is truly amazing this season, and I stumbled across something interesting involving hits. I know the stat's not always all that accurate, but given that the Canes play Toronto tomorrow night it's still interesting... ...to note that 7 Canes players have hit counts above 50 before the All Star break while only 5 Leafs players do--and both teams have played the same number of games (though naturally not all players have played all games).

For the Canes, this list includes...
Feb 7, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Suppose there's a 21-year-old rookie center in the NHL. He played 8 intro games at 20 without doing much, and at 21 he plays 50 games, 14 minutes ATOI, puts up 22 points, and wins less than 49% of his faceoffs. He's really good at the physical game with 93 hits in those... ...50 games. But he's a bit small, only 5'10, so there's no guarantee he'll be able to sustain that. As for special teams--with limited chances on the PP he has 1 goal and zero assists in 50 games.

Do we decide, right now, that he'll never be anything more than a...
Jun 8, 2021 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
It's time once again for Erin's Playoff Perspectives! My apologies for the delay, but I was too darned happy to sit down and write.

What a beautiful, wonderful, PERFECT way to end this series: a hard-fought game, a glorious play leading to an OT goal, and a SWEEP... ...in a playoff series the Habs were never even expected to make. There is magic in the air, and we all feel it.

In all honesty this was not the best game the Habs played against the Jets. It might even have been the worst in some ways--mistakes were made, there...
Jun 7, 2021 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
It's time once again for Erin's Playoff Perspectives, and boy oh boy are these fun to write lately! I still think of how I was prepared for all of this to come to an end with game 5, when the Habs were down 3-1 to the Leafs. Instead, here we are, a six-game winning... ...streak that began with a goal by Suzuki from Caufield, and tonight we got to see one of those again--an even more exciting one as Caufield used the threat of his shot to trick Hellebuyck into thinking he was going for the sharp-angle shot but passing to Suzuki...
Jun 6, 2021 • 18 tweets • 4 min read
It's game day again! #GoHabsGo!

Was thinking about something earlier today and with things being somewhat quiet on Habs Twitter I figured nobody'd mind a late-night hockey/literary thread (or would skip if they do). I was thinking about that comment by Sheldon Keefe re: how.. ...the series momentum changed after Kotkaniemi and Caufield came in.

Lots of people pointed out that, in fact, the Habs lost the next three games after KK returned to the lineup. But Keefe's full comments included something to the effect that the change wasn't...
Mar 14, 2021 • 17 tweets • 3 min read
Okay, this is going to be hard, but you're still going to get Erin's Optimistic Takes. Because the Department of Silver Linings never sleeps, and finding positivity matters the most when it's not easy to do.

1. Every team in the NHL will play a "worst game" this... ...season. This was ours. It was painful to watch from start to finish. Everything that could go wrong did, from bad plays to misread cues to injuries to significant missed calls (no, boarding is not okay, especially when the player you just slammed up against the...
Mar 12, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Last thoughts on tonight's #Habs game: the only conclusions anybody can draw from this game is that this is not the kind of game from which you can draw conclusions. Unusual season, unusual schedule, and unusual circumstances led to a team that played a game... ...that ran from roughly 8 p.m. to 11:30 p.m Van. time, got on a plane around 2 a.m., flew into a slightly different time zone, got settled into their hotel between 3 and 5 a.m. local time (according to Mete) after that, and had a game to play later that day. Why didn't...
Mar 12, 2021 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Time now for Erin's Optimistic Takes. You didn't think I was going to skip them, did you? 😊

1. Yes, we lost to the Flames, in regulation. Not good. But not the end of the world, either.

2. Corey Perry. Enough said. The man... ...is a treasure to this team.

3. Jake Allen. It's his doing that the score remained within chasing distance until the (slightly bitter) end. He made some unreal saves and made it possible for Perry to ruin Markstrom's shutout.

4. Markstrom did not get a shutout. That...