Storm Tracking: Switching Gears

Not only did Carolina switch gears for the season, they switched gears in the middle of games.  Against Edmonton, they found themselves down 3-0 28 minutes into the game.  The offense then kicked into gear, scoring the next 6 goals.  Against the Blue Jackets, the Canes got up 3-1 in the 1st period and then applied the brakes, losing in a shootout.  I guess the one thing you can say about this team is that they are consistently inconsistent.  It's up to Peters and Francis to figure out what they have and go pick up what they need this summer.  Only 17 games left in the season, so now on to the stats for the week of 3/4/15 through 3/10/15.

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

Elias Lindholm – It’s not really tough to figure out why Lindholm leads the Studs list this week.  He registered a team high 3 goals and 6 points.  He had one hell of a game against the Oilers, collecting what is hopefully the first of many career hat tricks.  Elias was also 4^th on the team in shots on goal with 9.  All of his possession numbers were above 58%, ranking between 5^th & 7^th in every category.  He did end up with a team worse 6 giveaways and did struggle in the faceoff circle.  No matter how you slice it, Lindholm appears to be an important part of the Hurricanes future.  He needs more weeks like he had this one and if so, maybe he becomes the player many were hoping he would.

Justin Faulk – Right now, Faulk is the most important member of this franchise.  He is asked to play a ton of minutes and in all situations.  Lately he has done a very good job of taking on all of these tasks.  He was 3^rd on the team in points, 2^nd in assists, shots on goal and takeaways.  Justin also ranked 1^st in 5-on-5 Close Fenwick and 2^nd in 5-on-5 Corsi with numbers over 70%.  But the thing that really stands out most to me is that fickle +/- rating.  Faulk led the team with a +3 rating and since he plays ever important minute, this is a really nice sign that he is progressing defensively.  Like Lindholm, but even moreso, Faulk is currently the key individual in this organization.  He needs some help on the blueline, but until then it’s live & die with Justin Faulk.

Eric Staal – While the first 2 Studs were younger core players, the veteran captain pulls in the last spot.  Eric led the team with 4 assists and was 2^nd in points.  He also tied for 2^nd on the team with 10 shots on goal.  The surprising thing to me was his possession numbers.  Eric finished 2^nd in both All Situation categories and 3^rd in 5-on-5 Close categories.  I thought Jordan was causing Eric’s numbers to be good, but they were split up for 2 of the 3 games and Eric’s numbers were still great.  While he might not be the player he was a couple seasons ago, Eric is proven to still be an effective player and still possibly the Canes best offensive player.

Weekly Duds

Cam Ward/Anton Khudobin – What once appeared to be a strong point for the Canes doesn’t appear that way any longer.  For the week, the Canes had the worst goaltending in the league with only a 0.859 save percentage while ranking tied for 4^th in shots against per game.  Dobby has really only had 1 solid-to-good game in the past month & a half.  Ward has allowed less than 3 goals only 4 times in the same time frame.  Dobby is just not looking like more than a marginal backup lately and Cam is looking more like the Ward of the past.  You can certainly blame the defense, but both of these downward trends started before Carolina traded away Sekera & Gleason.

Jay McClement – After a solid week and a new contract, McClement reversed course and plummeted to the bottom.  He had no points after collecting a season high 3 the previous week.  He only had 1 shot on goal after registering a season high 9 the previous week.  All of his possession numbers ranked dead last on the team after coming in at a respectable level the previous week.  McClement also had a forward worst -2 rating for the week.  This isn’t even mentioning that one of Jay biggest contributions has been on the Canes PK and it was abysmal this week.  I’m just hoping that McClement just had a bad week and wasn’t playing for a contract before this.

Rasmus Rissanen – I’m not trying to pick on the guy in his first 3 NHL games, but he was a team worse -3 for the week.  He doesn’t provide any offense, is limited in the puck-moving category and quite frankly seems a little redundant.  He did lead the team with 16 hits, but compare him to Bellemore.  They roughly offer the same thing and neither appear to be more than a #6 or #7 physical defenseman.  The team has seemed pretty high on this guy and there is additional time to see more, but I’m really wondering what his future is in the NHL.  Is he a Bellemore replacement or can he be more than that.  Heading into next season at this point, I would rather resign Gleason as a bottom pairing guy than either Rissanen or Bellemore.

Team Weekly Stats

Former Canes Weekly Stats