Storm Tracking: Happy "Tanks"giving!

The Canes started the road trip last week with a win in Dallas, but the momentum from that win didn't carry over as the Canes have lost 3 straight.  The Hurricanes are in 27th place in the NHL, 1 point ahead of 3 teams tied for last place and 4 points behind 26th place Philadelphia.  The Flyers are actually closer to a playoff spot (3 points) than to the Hurricanes.  Whether anybody wants to admit it or not, the ship has a huge crack in the hull and is sinking.  The question is whether to just pump the water out and continue running or dock the boat and make necessary repairs.  That the decision of Ron Francis, but I think most of us can admit "repairs" are needed to this team.  Now on to the stats for the week of 11/19/14 through 11/26/14.

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

Jeff Skinner - Skinner continued to play a very solid game, scoring a goal and adding 3 assists.  He led the team in points and tied for the team lead with a +2 rating.  He was 2nd in shots, put up some pretty solid possession numbers and even had 3 hits for the week.  He's still getting moved around a lot and is getting very favorable zone starts, but Jeff is generally doing what he is there to do, provide offense.  I wanted to see some more consistency and he did that.  You're not necessarily score every game, but you need to be dangerous and he was.

Andrej Nestrasil - Nessy was picked up off waiver from Detroit and instantly made a splash with his new team, scoring his first NHL goal in his first period with the Canes.  While that was the only point he put up this week, you can see the skill this guy has.  He seemed to mesh well with his linemates and had 6 shots in the 2 games he played.  Nessy also ended up with 2 takeaways and was 2 of 3 on faceoffs.  But the most impressive thing was his possession numbers.  He was the only Hurricanes player to finish 60% or above in all categories that I track.

Tim Gleason - I guess I'm really rewarding Gleason with this spot for his play this season not just this week, but he was pretty decent this week.  He collected an assist, led the team in hits with 13 (7 more than the 2nd place Cane) and blocked shots with 9.  His possession numbers were pretty bad, but he's generally in the game in defensive situations.  Timmy has been a much better acquisition than I thought he'd be, but what is his future with this team?

Weekly Duds

Justin Faulk - I can't say that Faulk was all-around bad this week, but it was certainly a step back from the past couple of weeks.  He was held pointless for the week, this is after having 10 points in the first 10 games in November.  Justin also finished with a team worst -5 rating.  And despite having 10 shots, he didn't get any through to the goaltender in Los Angeles, his only game this season without a shot on goal.  He still played fairly well, but the team needs more from their young stud defenseman.  Let's see if he can fight through the rough patch and get back to playing & contributing like he did the rest of November.

Jiri Tlusty - Tlusty also had a pointless week and really failed to get much going at all.  He only had 2 shots, didn't really deliver any hits or block many shots.  And he didn't even crack the 50% mark in any of the possession categories.  Now Tlusty is more of a complimentary player and generally feeds off the guys he's playing with, but when you're struggling, you need to find other ways to contribute.  This guy has scoring ability and is generally pretty good defensively, so him ending the week -4 is just unacceptable.

Eric Staal & Jay McClement - These guys are here for mainly one reason, faceoffs.  While of course, Eric needs to do more offensively, he was average this week.  But in the faceoff department he was a wreck, going 25 of 63.  This is an area that he has improved at, but this was just bad.  He needs to get with Rod and figure out what he was doing wrong to correct this situation.  McClement on the otherhand, this is one of his primary functions.  He's not a points guy, not a possession guy, he is out there to win faceoffs and be defensively responsible.  Jay must be better than 37.5%.

Weekly Team Stats

Former Canes Weekly Stats