Storm Tracking: Still Searching

The western Canada road trip concluded with dismal results.  The Canes drop all 3 games by a combined score of 15 to 4.  I feel as if the team played a little better as the week went along, but none of the teams they played are really that good.  If Carolina is going to struggle like this against 3 teams that finished below them last season, how are they going to handle the upper-echelon teams?  It's time for Eric Staal or Jeff Skinner to put this team on their back and get that first victory.  Then maybe that victory will add a little confidence to the room and that confidence will spread and then maybe we can start seeing a competitive hockey team.  Now on to the weekly stats for the week of 10/22/14 through 10/28/2014.

Canes Weekly Stats

Weekly Advanced Stats

The chart is arranged by the highest 5 on 5 Close Corsi For Percentage.

Here is a little key to some of my abbreviations. AS – All Situations, 5C – 5 on 5 Close, 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.war-on-ice.com.

Weekly Studs

Jay Harrison & Tim Gleason – Honestly there isn’t a whole lot to choose from this week, so as they do in the television series "Chopped," I’ve pick the least non-worst.  Harrison only played in 1 game this week, but did quite well in that game.  He scored a goal, added an assist and is the only Canes player not to finish the week with a minus rating.  Gleason on the other hand finished with 0 points and a -3 rating, but he has played much better than the past couple of years.  His game is solid and he finished 2^nd on the team with 8 hits.  Another surprising thing is that Gleason actually had a 50% 5 on 5 Close Corsi rating, which I don’t think I’ve seen from him in a very long time.

The Young Swedes (Elias Lindholm & Victor Rask) – These young guys had 0 points and combined for a -5 rating, so how did they make the Studs list?  They made it for 2 reasons, they each tied for the team lead with 9 shots on goal and both of their possession numbers were quite good.  For young players that are really above their head right now, they are showing signs of their potential.  If you believe that good possession numbers will eventually result in good point numbers, this could be a great sign for the franchise.  Only time will tell if these guys can keep it up, but here’s to hope.

Canes Country Caniacs – Being a Carolina Hurricane fan is not as easy task.  While we have seen this team reach of heights of Stanley Cup Champion in 2006, we have also seen the team erode to the point it is this season.  We get no respect from the northern franchises and virtually none from even our owner.  Yet through it all, we still show up to games, still show up on the blog and support our team in many different ways.  Of course some of us are negative, but that doesn’t mean our loyalty should be questioned, we are just passionate about this team and we want the best for them.  So for all of you that have stuck around for the past 5 years and the ones that continue to stick around this year, I commend you.

Weekly Duds

Alexander Semin – Semin continues his streak of holding down the top Duds spot.  He contributed no points this week, was a -4 and actually saw his ice time reduced to 16:32 per game.  This is a guy that is the Canes second leading point producer the past 2 seasons, one that has averaged right around 20 minutes a night in that time.  Semin is just not doing much of anything to help this team out right now.  He can get his shot off, is making from frustration penalties and has the worst +/- of any forward.  Someone needs to get through to Alex and figure out how to get him out of this funk.

Ron Hainsey – I can’t say that Ron has been atrocious, but he certainly hasn’t been nearly as good as last season.  Maybe it’s a result of the defensive pairings getting shuffled quite often, maybe it’s a lack of talent with the other players on the ice?  But whatever the case, this is not the guy the Canes gave a 3 year contract extension to.  This organization is going through a change and they need their veterans to step up and lead the way.  Ron did this last year and was one of the steadiest players on the roster, the same just cannot be said this season.  Let’s hope we don’t end up regretting giving Hainsey that extension.

The goaltending (Anton Khudobin & Cam Ward) – I’m not even going to go into this much.  It’s just bad, enough said!

Weekly Team Stats

Former Canes Weekly Stats