Storm Tracking: Finally Some Decent Weather!

Too little, too late would be an accurate statement to describe the Hurricanes week.  But after going 6-12-0 between February 1st and March 25th, a 2-0-2 week looks quite nice.  It started out with a 3-0 home victory over the Panthers where Anton Khudobin picked up his well deserved first shutout of the season.  It was followed up with a hard fought, yet disappointing overtime loss to the Blue Jackets.  Then Canes fans witnessed the Cam Ward of old, stealing Carolina a point in a shootout loss in Ottawa.  The week was capped off with an impressive win over the Metropolitan Division leaders in Pittsburgh.  It was a week with both negatives and positives.  The Canes continued to generally get off to slow starts and the veteran forwards really weren't huge factors.  But the goaltending was superb and the younger generation led the way.  7 of the 10 Canes to register points this week were 26 years old or younger.  While the playoffs are out of the picture, if they can continue and generate a little momentum and good feelings heading into the offseason?  Here are the stats for the week of 3/26/14 through 4/1/14.

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

• Jeff Skinner - This might have been one of Jeff's best stretches in his career.  He's scored more goals, had game winners, made some dynamic plays before, but this week Jeff displayed a little more complete game in my opinion.  He was looking to pass, rather than just shoot and was fighting for the puck along the boards.  He led the team in goals, points and total goals for.  He also tied for the team lead in shots, tied 2nd in assists and tied for 4th in +/-.  His possession numbers were only above average, but you could tell the difference he made when he was on the ice.  But the number that really stood out to me was his 5 hits.  That represents more than 1/4 of his season totals in this week alone!  Maybe Skinner is taking the next step or maybe this is just one of his little streaks, but he deserves much credit for his play this week.
• Andrei Loktionov - Loktionov has been teetering on my Hot List for the past couple of weeks and finally makes it.  Since coming over in the Tuomo Ruutu trade, Loktionov has seen his minutes and game pick up.  He was getting close early on, but now it seems things are starting to break his way.  He had a team high 3 assists, was 2nd in points, tied for 4th in +/- and tied 4th in shots on goal.  Loktionov was in the top 4 in every possession category, leading 3 of them.  His lowest number was 52.8%, which is even more impressive considering where the team as a whole ranked this week.  This guy is proving to be a quality player that can pass and helps the PP.  He's also seems to be pretty reliable in his own zone while contributing offensively, given he was on the ice for 5 Canes goals and only 1 against.  Got to give some props to Jim Rutherford here, doing what he does best, finding a diamond in the rough.
• Anton Khudobin/Cam Ward - What a week for the goaltending duo for the Canes?  4 games played, 3 against teams in the top 14 in goal scoring and you average a 0.961 save percentage & 1.21 goals against average.  You really can't ask for much more than that and both guys were excellent this week.  As mentioned earlier, Khudobin got his first shutout of the season.  And in Ottawa, Cam looked like the guy from 2010/2011, stealing a point in a game the Canes didn't deserve to be in.  Given the team's scoring issues this season, this is what was needed on a more consistent basis this year.  And there's still the issue with what to do with Ward this summer.  But for a week at least, the Canes had an outstanding show put on by both of their goalies and it was great to see.

Who's Not

• Alexander Semin - When he falls, I guess he falls pretty hard.  Semin has been one of the Canes best players for a while now, but when pointless in 3 straight for the first time since early January.  And to wrap things up, he caught the flu and missed the 4th game.  But it wasn't just a lack of scoring, Semin's whole game was off this week.  He only had 5 shots on goal and was not on the ice for any Carolina goal.  But the biggest thing was his possession numbers.  Alex was in the high 40s this week, with his highest being the All Situation Corsi For at 50.5%.  This is a guy that leads the Canes in almost every possession stat this season, averaging over 60% in All Situations Corsi and over 59% in All Situations Fenwick.  Hopefully this was just an off week or maybe he was fighting the flu a little longer than expected.  Either way, I hope this was an aberration and not what we'll see the rest of the season.
• Jordan Staal - The same thing that happened to Alex also happened to Jordan.  The well went dry and quickly.  Jordan didn't have any points for the week, wasn't on the ice for any Canes goal and saw his possession numbers dip into the 40s.  But at least Jordan did some of the little things to help the team out, like delivering a team high 10 hits.  It is starting to seem to me that Jordan feeds off his linemates, but isn't the type of guy that really drives the bus.  That's not meant to say he isn't a good player, but it appears that his linemates are the ones that are going to determine Jordan's point production for the Canes.  If their going, Jordan produces, if not, he's almost strictly a defensive center.  Another thing to point out is that Jordan has been struggling in the faceoff circle the past couple of weeks.  He's still at 54% for the season, but the last 2 weeks have been in the mid 40% range and that needs to rebound.  Let's just hope that some rain fills that well up again and Jordan finishes the season strong, producing some points.
• Eric Staal - This is a week were the stats the don't the whole story.  Eric lead the team with 6 takeaways, tied for the team lead in shots with 12, tied 3rd in hits with 8, tied 4th with a +2 rating and tied 4th with 2 points.  That really doesn't sound too bad, but watching him has been a different story.  His play has been lackluster and his effort level disappointing.  Maybe his brother can't drive a line, but we all know that Eric sure the hell can and he isn't.  Use to, when this team needed him, he could put them on his back and score a critical goal or at least fend off defenders with the puck, eventually creating a scoring chance for a teammate.  This year's version (particularly lately) of Eric Staal isn't the same guy.  I wish I knew what was going on with him, but I don't.  All I can say is that I believe the old Eric is still there, but someone or something needs to draw it out of this shell.  I'm not 100% sure if he'll be back with Carolina next season, but I hope so and I hope it's not the 13/14 version.  If he is here, this team needs Eric Staal to be the player he can be if they have any hopes at being a playoff team.

Notable Weekly Team Stats

• The Hurricanes certainly weren't scoring in bunches this week, averaging exactly at their season average of 2.50 goals per game.  That ranks 21st on the season and tied for 17th for the week.
• The PP continued it's recent hot streak, going 2 for 8 or 25%.  That ranked tied for 6th in the league and is 9 percentage points higher than their season average.  It appears the coaching staff has finally figured out that the "Kid Unit + Old Man Harrison" might be something that works.
• The PK dropped some this week, clocking in at 85.7%.  That puts them dead middle in the NHL, tied for 15th.  Of course the 1 PP goal they gave up was a 4-on-3 in OT against Columbus, those are always difficult.
• Sort of an unusual week for the Canes.  They finished top 10 in hits with 103 (6th) and blocked shots with 55 (8th).  They were middle of the pack in takeaways with 24 (12th), giveaways with 28 (18th) and turnover margin at -4 (tied 16th).  Typically the Canes are near the top in takeaways and turnover margin and generally closer the bottom in giveaways and hits.
• Carolina again gave up more shots than they took.  They averaged 29.5 shots per game, tied for 16th in the league.  They gave up 31.8 shots against per game, which was 21st in the NHL.  Luckily, the had the highest save percentage for the week.
• Faceoffs stepped off a cliff this week, dropping to 22nd in the NHL at 48.3%.  Manny was the only regular in the positive at 53.8%, Riley was next at 48.0%, and Eric & Jordan both tied at 47.7% to finish it off.
• The Hurricanes go 1-2-0 and finished with 51% Corsi & Fenwick the previous week.  Yet the drop this week and go 2-0-2, really puzzling?  Carolina finished with a 46.8% 5 on 5 Corsi For percentage for the week.  They finished with a 45.9% 5 on 5 Fenwick For percentage.  So they drop 5 to 6 points and end up getting better results.
• Team Stat of the Week - Goals Against - 1.25 GA/G - The Canes tied for giving up a league low 5 goals, but did it in more games than the others.  So their 1.25 goals against per game was the league leader.  And while the defense played a part, most of the credit needs to go to Dobby and Cam.  The team gave up the 2nd most shots on goal with 127.  As mentioned above, the goaltending duo stopped a combined 96.1% of those and ended up with a 1.21 goals against average with overtime factored in.

Former Canes Weekly Stats