Almost immediately after the last game of the season, at least one sportswriter was calling for Paul Maurice's head.   Yet at his end of season press conference, Carolina Hurricanes general manager Jim Rutherford said that he felt like his head coach did a good job.

This contrast in opinion seems prevalent among the fanbase as well.

If you were to look at the expectations of the team before the season started, you might agree with Rutherford.  Very few, if any experts around the league were predicting that the Canes would make the playoffs.  The team had just entered into a transition period as the GM revamped them from being one of the oldest groups in the league to one of the youngest.   

The Hurricanes also had one the toughest schedules in the league.  The club traveled more miles than any other team and had the second most back-to-back games.   Still, Maurice had his team within one game of making it to the postseason.   

Did the abilities of the coach push the team to the limit of what they could accomplish? Or did his policies hold them back?  Let's take a closer look.

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Like many of his teammates, Carolina Hurricanes winger Jiri Tlusty had an up and down season last year.  Once again, he struggled with the injury bug which started during training camp when he was slow to recover from offseason knee surgery.  He ended up missing the first part of the year and got off to a slow start when he was able to play.

Still, he flashed signs of promise at times as he was able to create scoring chances for himself and his linemates, when healthy.  He averaged 9:51 of ice time per game and spent most of his time, (21%) on a line with Brandon Sutter and Patrick Dwyer. 

The forward was credited with 36 hits and 19 blocked shots.

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Jerome Samson was another young forward recalled by the Hurricanes later in the season last year.  Like Drayson Bowman, he played in 23 games, but unlike Bowman, the forward was not returned to Charlotte to help out the Checkers during their playoff run. 

While Samson was never drafted, he has established himself as a bona fide AHL scoring threat and had 37 goals and 78 points in 74 games in Albany during the 2009-10 season.  He primarily played a fourth line role for the Canes with Patrick Dwyer, Jiri Tlusty, and/or Troy Bodie and averaged 6:51 of ice time per game. 

He also chipped in with 13 hits and three blocked shots.

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Carolina Hurricanes forward Drayson Bowman was another young player who had a chance to gain some valuable experience last season.  After making the team right out of training camp and playing in the first eight games of the season, he was then reassigned to Charlotte where he spent the majority of the rest of the season. 

But late in the season, Checkers coach Jeff Daniels gave Bowman a vote of confidence and the youngster was recalled by the Canes and played in the final 15 games of the year. 

Bowman was a scoring machine in junior and had two straight 40 plus goal seasons while racking up a total of 165 points in 128 games during his last two seasons with Spokane.  He has yet to find that scoring touch in the NHL though and did not light the lamp in his 23 games last season.  

The rookie averaged 9:48 of ice time per game and spent 46% of that time matched up in a line combo with Brandon Sutter and Chad LaRose.  He also finished with 24 hits and eight blocked shots.

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If the operative word for the Carolina Hurricanes 2010-11 season was "transitional," then it was transitional and then some for the 26-year-old franchise centerpiece, Eric Staal. In his first full season as captain of the team, the year brought one new challenge after another for Staal; much of it lived at the center of the spotlight.

Consider the tremendous personnel turnover on the roster, including two alternate captains who were new to their roles as well. Add in a ridiculously rough travel schedule (with the October from hell) and his unprecedented role as the Uber-All-Star for three days in January, and clearly his off-ice role this season was more vital and even more visible than ever before.

On the ice, as Jim Rutherford's cornerstone centerman with a commensurate salary, Staal was asked to carry the load for the team pretty much everywhere across the whole 200 x 85, except maybe inside the paint of Cam Ward's goal. Staal accepted the role and the pressure with humility and confidence.

So how do we as fans evaluate a player of whom so much is expected? Is the blame for a season finishing in the bottom half of the standings to be considered a failure of leadership? So much of this Exit Analysis series comes down to expectations and results and where the two diverge. How do we measure out what portion of our disappointment in April is "on" Staal, what is "on" Coach Paul Maurice? Or should it be traced farther up the food chain to Rutherford or owner Peter Karmanos, Jr.? 

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The past season will certainly go down as a strange one for the Carolina Hurricanes as far as trades were concerned. While the Hurricanes didn't make any blockbuster deals, they stuck to their usual script and tried to acquire bits and pieces that filled out team needs. One particular storyline seemed a little more entertaining than the rest though.

The Hurricanes signed troubled defenseman Anton Babchuk to a new deal July 1, leaving some to believe that the Canes and Babchuk could start a fresh relationship. However, about three months into the season Jim Rutherford proved otherwise by trading Babchuk, along with winger Tom Kostopolous, to the Calgary Flames for established defenseman Ian White and prospect Brett Sutter. Then just when fans were getting used to White's game - poof - he was gone. Rutherford traded White to the San Jose Sharks for a second-round draft pick. The deal seemed strange until a second, seemingly codependent deal was announced. The Hurricanes had acquired a young defenseman named Derek Joslin in exchange for future considerations.

Joslin, 24, was the Sharks' fifth-round draft pick in 2005 and seemed to be an interesting NHL prospect. He's listed at 6'1" and 210 lbs. but it almost seems like he played bigger than that. The young defenseman was in the lineup only a day after the trade went through and in only his second game he had his first two points with the club. 

So what does Canes Country think of Derek Joslin? More after the jump.

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There is a laundry list of excuses why the Hurricanes fell just short of making the playoffs.  It's safe to say Cam Ward is either way, way, way down on that list or totally missing from it.

The Canes' #1 netminder finished his sixth (!!) season with Carolina and bounced back nicely from an injury-plagued 2009-10 campaign with good stats across the board.  The highlight was being selected to take part in his first All-Star Game, where he was the first draft selection by his teammate and All-Star captain Eric Staal and was honored with the start in his home rink.

Ward's play down the stretch (11-5-2 in March and April) was great, but was it tempered by a so-so 10-10-5 January and February in which he gave up four or more goals seven times?  You make the call.

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The last twelve months have been pretty darn good if your name is Tuomo Ruutu.

After losing a significant portion of the 2009-10 season to a shoulder injury and subsequent surgery, Ruutu hit the 2010-11 season with a purpose. He hosted his teammates and hundreds of traveling Canes fans in his home country for the season openers against the Minnesota Wild in Helsinki, Finland. He completed all 82 games and posted career highs in assists, points, and hits.

When the Hurricanes' season ended abruptly in April, Ruutu returned to represent his country as alternate captain for Team Finland in the IIHF World Championships and was rewarded with a gold medal, his country's first in sixteen years. He's a recently married man, and apparently when his hockey career is over, he has a burgeoning career ahead as a saxophone player. Or a gladiator (more on that later).

So how did the hard-charging Finn fare for the 2010-11 season, and what can he do for an encore next season?

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