Storm Tracking: Typical January

When you want this team to be good, they generally disappoint you.  When you finally accept who they are, they put together a good stretch.  When the new year roles around, for whatever reason, the Hurricanes usually play some of their best hockey.  Over the past 5 seasons (this one included), the Canes have a 31-17-6 record in the month of January, a 0.574 winning percentage.  All the rest of the time over the past 5 seasons, the Canes record is 113-132-41 for a 0.395 win percentage.  It seems like it is too late now, but everybody needs to figure out what their doing in January that is bringing their level of play up and start doing those things throughout the entire season.  Now onto the stats for the week of 1/14/15 through 1/20/2015.

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

Anton Khudobin – After last season, I was pretty certain that Khudobin was going to be the Canes #1 goaltender.  But so far, Ward has generally performed pretty well and Dobby hasn’t been given a lot of starts.  This is the first time that Dobby actually played in every game this week, despite one of them only being for a period.  His numbers were quite impressive with a 0.958 save percentage and a 1.29 goals against average.  He did end up letting in a PP goal in Toronto, breaking the Hurricanes PK streak, but you cannot complain about the results.  Carolina finds themselves in a difficult situation, because Dobby appears that he can easily be the #1, but they have a lot of money dedicated to Ward.  That money could be used to help fill other, more pressing holes in the lineup.  I don’t envy Ron Francis with the decision that will need to be made, but I think I have more faith in Dobby right now than I do Ward.

Brad Malone – Malone really didn’t have a good start to his Hurricane career, but like the team, he’s picked it up in January.  After being healthy scratched against Vancouver, Malone responded with a goal and his highest TOI this season against the Senators.  He followed that up with another goal against the Maple Leafs.  His 2 goals this week double what Semin has produced this season.  Malone isn’t ever going to be a top 9 guy in the NHL, but he has been contributing regularly this month.  Whether it’s a goal, a hit, a fight or just energy play, he is proving his worth to this team.  And depending on what Francis does, he could be asked to do more the rest of this season.

Eric Staal – Overall, I would say Eric took a step back this week as compared to his past couple of weeks.  But he did have one hell of a game in Toronto.  He notched 2 goals and registered a fight against Dion Phaneuf.  Eric didn’t do so well in the fight, but he actually sought Phaneuf out and that says something there.  His 2 goals & 2 points tied for the team lead and he was 2^nd on the team with 10 shots, despite not have 1 against Ottawa.  He also recorded a team high 11 penalty minutes, which isn’t good, but 7 were a result of the fight.  Eric also had some pretty good possession numbers, ranking 2^nd, 2^nd, 3^rd & 5^th among players that played in all 3 games this week.  It’s nice seeing Eric back, but if he’s sticking around, he & the coaching staff need to figure out how to get him jumpstarted in October rather than January.

Weekly Duds

Cam Ward – Cam only played 40 minutes this week, but they were not a good 40 minutes.  Ward only stopped 10 of 13 shots he faced against the Canucks and his play has really dropped off since 2015 started.  It’s really weird, the team started putting up more than a goal a game and Cam’s save percentage dropped accordingly.  Maybe it was all tied to the rumors that he was going to Minnesota, who really knows, but it is very perplexing.  The sad thing is that Ward has played pretty well this season, but with Dobby heating up, who knows what type of action Ward will see over the second half of the season.

Riley Nash – I really feel guilty about putting Nash on the Duds list.  All he has done this year is do whatever is asked of him.  He recently has been saddled with the hot & cold Skinner & Semin and plays in difficult situations.  But the bottom line is his production has fallen off a cliff.  After starting the first 2 months of the season with 15 points, he has only collected 4 more since then.  He didn’t even get a shot on goal against Vancouver or Ottawa and his possession numbers are horrible.  Was he just performing over his head at the start of the year or has he been slumping the past 2 months or what?  I guess the bright side is that his faceoff numbers continue to look pretty good, 61.8% for the week and over 51% for the year.

Jeff Skinner – Skinner is January temperatures in Raleigh.  He’s hot for a few days, then cold for a few days, hot, then cold, then hot again.  The only consistent thing about Jeff is that he’s consistently inconsistent.  Skinner had no points this week and is pointless in 4 straight after getting 3 points in his previous 2 games, which followed a 7 game scoring drought.  If he were doing other things on the ice, it might make up for his consistency issues, but he’s still pretty poor in his own zone and just seems to mail it in at times.  We all know he has the ability, but if it’s drive or not really understanding Peters system, this team needs more from Skinner.  Jeff has another 4 years left on his contract at $5.75M per season.  As a budget franchise, Skinner has to be more than a 3^rd liner that goes on scoring streaks from time to time.

Weekly Team Stats

Former Canes Weekly Stats