Storm Tracking: The Wild, Wild West

As is typical Hurricanes fashion, the team was staring a top 2 draft pick in the face and didn't like what they saw.  Since January, the team is 9-3-3 and doing whatever they can to move away from Buffalo & Edmonton.  It was a good road trip for the boys and they won both games this week to finish the trip 2-1-1.  The Swedes played important roles in the victories and Faulk continues to log tons of time on the blueline.  Ward wasn't super impressive, but did what he had to to collect 2 wins.  But we're inching closer and closer to the trade deadline and what that means for this team is a different look.  How will that effect the way their playing, I'm not really sure.  I guess well find out soon enough.  Now here are the stats for the week of 2/4/15 through 2/10/14.

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

Justin Faulk – Faulk continues to show why he was the Canes All-Star.  He logged over 26 minutes a night this week and added 3 assists.  His 22 assist are 6 better than anybody else on Carolina and his 32 points are tied with Eric Staal for the team lead.  Faulk this week also led the team in blocked shots and was 3^rd in hits.  His possession numbers were average, but when you have to carry so much of the load, it speaks to his ability that he is able to maintain positive possession numbers.  With the rumor that Carolina is not going to resign Andrej Sekera and he is on the trade block, Faulk’s job just got more difficult.  He has progressed this season, now we’ll get to see if he can do it with a new playing partner.

Elias Lindholm – IMO, Lindholm had one of his more impressive games of his career in San Jose.  I thought the line he was on dominated at time that night and you got to see all the skills that were mentioned when he was drafted.  He ended up with 2 points in the game, which tied him for 2^nd on the team this week.  While his Arizona game wasn’t at the same level as San Jose, he did score the lone shootout goal to give the Canes the victory.  We all know how talented Elias is and what he can do, now he needs to work on bringing that to the ice every night.  We have seen him take huge steps this season, but he is still very inconsistent.  One of the biggest questions in my mind is whether Lindholm is going to be a center or right wing.  Maybe Bill Peters is starting to work him in that role?  It’s not a lot, but Lindholm was a perfect 5 for 5 in the faceoff circle this week.

Victor Rask – The rookie that wasn’t expected to see much NHL time this year, keeps on coming to the ice and making big plays for this team.  Rask had 2 goals this week, which led the team.  Both of his goals were also game-winners.  He was 56.3% in the dot and he ranked in the upper half in all possession categories.  Looking at his history, it generally takes Rask a year to figure things out and then he kicks it to a higher gear.  If that is the case in the NHL, we might have found a pretty special guy in the 2^nd round of 2011.  He like Lindholm needs to work on his game-to-game consistency, but I really can’t complain too much about the rookie centerman.  I’m not sure if he eventually becomes a 2^nd line center or 3^rd line center, but either way the Canes have found themselves a player.

Weekly Duds

Tim Gleason – Gleason really did makes strides this summer and started the season looking much improved over his past couple of years.  But this week he was a team worst -3 and for the year he is a team worst -16.  His possession numbers were in the bottom 5 and he really didn’t provide much beyond physicality.  As the season has moved along, Gleason has seemed to wear down and move closer to the player he was last season.  He still can be of use in today’s NHL, but I really believe that he is at best a #6 defenseman now and the Canes are pretty loaded with #6/#7 defensemen.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see him moved at the deadline or stay here and resigned this offseason (knowing how this organization typically works).  But whatever the case, Timmy should not command more than $1 million next season and the Canes should move on from him if he wants more than that.

Jordan Staal– Since Jordan has come back, the Carolina Hurricanes are a different team.  But these 2 games were not his best.  While he did get a secondary assist in California and did register 7 shots on goal, I don’t really feel he was an offensive force.  With his PK time virtually reduced to nothing, Jordan needs to step up his offensive game.  Another thing that was a huge minus this week was his faceoff numbers.  He was good against the Sharks, but was beaten to a pulp by the Coyotes, going 6 for 22.  Overall he wasn’t really bad, but he wasn’t as good as he’s been either.  He here for the foreseeable future, so I want him to play like I know he can play.

Ron Hainsey – This is one of the strangest Duds I’ve made, but there is a point.  Hainsey, not known for point production, had an assist this week.  He also had 5 shots, 4 hits and 4 blocks.  And while he’s typically a poor possession guy, he was excellent this week with his lowest number being 68.2%.  All of this should definitely not have Hainsey on the Duds list, but there was one big difference.  Hainsey say his TOI/G reduced by over 2 minutes.  I’m taking this as an indication that he performs much better in a 3^rd pairing role as compared to what the Canes have been playing him the past season & a half and this concerns me considerably.  The Canes are about to lose Sekera and Hainsey would be the most likely option to replace him.  The Hurricanes are generally playing this guy above his head and now he might be on the top pairing.  None of this is Hainsey’s fault, he just plays where he is told, but I really believe these numbers speak to an organization problem.  And I just hope that Francis sees the problem and does something to address it.

Weekly Team Stats

Former Canes Weekly Stats