Storm Tracking: Hurricane Peters Out

The Hurricanes started off the week flying high with a shootout victory over the league leading Ducks, giving them points in all 5 games of their home stand. But things went quickly downhill from there. Carolina was singing the blues with a road loss in St. Louis and were mauled at home by the Bruins. To make matters even worse, Alexander Semin was on the receiving end of a jolting hit in St. Louis and it was later determined that he suffered a concussion. The timetable for his return is unknown and a team struggling to score goals now finds itself in an even more precarious situation. So with the next 2 games on the road against very good opponents, it's time to circle the wagons and for the captain to step up his play. Here are the stats for the week of 11/13/13 through 11/19/13.

Canes Weekly Stats

Weekly Advanced Stats

Here is a little key to some of my abbreviations. F - For, A - Against, CF% - Corsi For Percentage, FF% - Fenwick For Percentage, SF% - Shots For Percentage, OZst% - Offensive Zone Start Percentage, NZst% - Neutral Zone Start Percentage and DZst% - Defensive Zone Start Percentage. If you would like more advanced statistics, this information was collected from www.extraskater.com.

Who's Hot

• Drayson Bowman - Bowman gets on my hot list for the second week in a row after some very encouraging play. He had a beautiful goal against Anaheim where he undressed Bryan Allen and gave the Canes the lead. His 2 points for the week were 2nd on the team and his 9 shots on goal tied for the team lead. He even was 100% in the faceoff circle, winning his only draw. Coach Muller rewarded his strong play with a promotion to the top line, which resulted in his assist on Tuomo Ruutu's 1st goal of the season. His time on ice per game increased by almost 4 minutes this week. He still has plenty of things to work on, but it looks like he can be a viable fill-in for some injured players. His possession numbers don't look very hot, but really nobody's does this week.
• Eric Staal - What we got from Eric this week is what we probably expect his average to be. The reason I'm putting him here is because we haven't been getting it much this season. Eric led the team in goals and points and was directly responsible for 3 of Carolina's 5 goals scored this week. And as I mentioned yesterday, he was the only Cane over 50% in both Shots For categories. It also appears that Eric is getting his groove back in the faceoff circle, for the third week in a row, Eric has been over 54%. With Semin going down and Jeff Skinner returning from injury, Eric needs to step up his game even more. Carolina needs him to be 2nd half Staal now!
• Brett Bellemore - There wasn't a lot of standout performances this week, so I decided to give this last spot to a steady, young defender. Bellemore has been a solid player for the Canes this season and was the only defenseman this week to be on the ice for more goals for than against. He didn't have any points, but was 1 of only 4 Canes that had a plus rating. He was tied for 2nd on the team with 10 hits and had a team high 8 blocked shots. His possession numbers do need to improve, but he does play primarily a shutdown role and has a low number of offensive zone starts. He had a solid week and I hope to see continued progression as the season moves along.

Who's Not

• Jiri Tlusty - Tlusty is having a very difficult season to say the least. This guy scored 12 goals in a 15 game stretch last season, this season he is on pace fore 12 all year. He was again demoted off the top line and only saw 7 seconds of PP time against Boston. Jiri was held pointless for the week and was 2nd on the team with 4 penalty minutes. He also was tied for a team worst among forwards at -3 and was not on the ice at all when the Canes scored. His possession numbers were poor, but fell in the middle of the pack for the Hurricanes this week. Tlusty is generally the beneficiary of who he is playing with, but now the team needs him to generate some offense for himself and break out of this funk.
• Justin Faulk - This is probably a week Faulk would like to forget. He was a team worse -5 and on the ice for a team high 7 goals against. His poor pass against the Ducks led to their first goal and then they tied the game while he was in the penalty box. He also had a team high 6 penalty minutes and was held without a point for the second straight week. Faulk is still a very young player and is being asked to play a ton of tough minutes, so there are going to be weeks like this. He did have some pretty decent to good possession numbers and he did lead the team in time on ice. Maybe the organization is asking too much of him at this point in his career? I guess we'll see as the season wears on?
• Tim Gleason - Ol' reliable ain't so reliable anymore. Gleason was coming back from injury, but this is what we've been seeing from Timmy the past couple of years. He just doesn't look like a top 4 defenseman anymore and I don't think it's going to get better. His basic stats don't look horrible, but he was the cause that Alexander Steen was left wide open and scored the game winner in St. Louis. And then if you look at his advanced stats, you can't help but shake your head. Gleason is at or near the bottom of every possession stat with numbers as low at 20%. I think if any team is interested in this guy, Jim Rutherford should jump at the offer as long as he doesn't have to retain part of his salary.

Notable Weekly Team Stats

• The Canes yet agained averaged 1.67 goals per game, 4th worst in the NHL. But they weren't as succesful as the previous week stopping goals. They gave up 3.33 goals per game, which had them ranked tied 22nd in the league.
• Their PP improved this week, but that's hard not to do when you were at 0%. Carolina was 1 for 11 on the PP, the 9.1% success rate was 27th out of 30 teams.
• The PK wasn't much better, clocking in at 72.7%. That put them at a tie for 19th for the week.
• The Hurricanes were 2nd in the NHL in faceoff percentage again with a 55.1% win rate. Manny led the way at 63.5%, Eric was next at 55.2%, then Jordan at 52.0% and Nash ended up 50.0% for the week.
• Carolina was middle of the pack in a number of categories this week. They were tied for 15th in hits (75), tied for 13th in blocks (43) and tied for 18th in giveaways (26). The Canes did ranked 8th in the league in takeaways (26), but that meant an even giveaway/takeaway ratio.
• Going into this week, the Canes were already in the lower half of the league in 5 on 5 possession numbers, but it got worse. Carolina's Corsi For going into the week was 48.5%, for the week was 43.0%. Their Fenwick For going into the week was 47.9%, for this week it was 42.6%.
• Team Stat of the Week - Shots per Game - 22.3 - When your only shooting 6.4% for the season, struggling to score goals, you need to throw more shots at the net and hope some sneak in. But not the Carolina Hurricanes, they decided to put less shots on goal. Their 22.3 per game average was the worst in the NHL by over a full shot. Just to give you an idea how poor this was, the Rangers were the lowest scoring team in the league this week with 2 goals. But they were 2nd in the NHL in shots on goal, averaging 38.3 per game. If Carolina is going to cure their offensive woes, getting shots on net is a must.

Former Canes Weekly Stats

Upcoming Opponents

• Detroit Red Wings - The Wings had a tough week going 0-1-2 and being outscored 9 to 7. But their special teams were quite good, their PP was 37.5% and their PK was 87.5%. Carolina will be looking to get some revenge for the OT loss to Detroit the first game of the season.
• Boston Bruins - The Canes play the Bruins for the second time in a week. The Bruins were 3-1-0 for the week, playing their stingy, physical brand of hockey. Their PP was only clicking at 14.3%, their 1 PP goal coming against the Canes. But their PK was a very good at 92.3%. Boston was one of the top teams for the week in number of hits and blocked shots.
• Ottawa Senators - The Sens are pretty much the opposite team they were last season. They are scoring more goals this year, but they are giving up more goals as well. The were 1-2-0 for the week, getting outscored by 4. Their PP was respectable at 21.4%, but their PK was weak, only being successful 60% of the time. Ottawa averaged 33.3 hits per game for the week, which was tops in the league.