Storm Tracking: Hit'em Up!

The season is drawing to a close, only 6 games remain until Hurricane golfing season.  But these guys aren't going out without a fight.  They took it to the Penguins, winning pretty easily 5-2.  They came out victorious against a fellow bottom dweller in the Devils.  The slugged it out with the Bruins, only to lose in the last minute of overtime.  And they held the Capitals to only 1 3rd period shot on goal, despite losing the game 4-2.  It wasn't a great week, but it wasn't a bad one either.  And with the Leafs winning 2 in a row, there might still be an outside chance the Canes improve their draft lottery odds.  But on to the stats for the week of 3/25/15 through 3/31/15.

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

Eric Staal – Eric was coming off a game where he had an assist to break his season-high 6 game scoring slump.  He proceeded to get a goal and 2 assists against the Penguins.  He also had multiple other opportunities to score that game and this week.  Eric led the team in goals, assists, points and shots on goal.  He tied for 5^th in +/-, was 6^th in hits, 3^rd in blocks, tied for 5^th in takeaways and had possession numbers all above 54%.  It was a good week for Eric and one that we all hope to see much more often from him.  This level of production isn’t likely sustainable over the course of a season, but seeing numbers like this shows that Eric can still produce, he just has to find a higher level of consistency and work for it night in and night out.

Chris Terry – I have been plenty hard on Terry this year and I’m still not sure if I buy that he’s a full-time NHL player.  But he has shown flashes throughout the year and this week was one of those flashes.  He was 2^nd on the team in points, assists and +/-.  Terry even ranked in the top 5 in both Corsi categories and had a low possession number of 55.8%.  Terry has been putting in the work and the coaching staff has obviously noticed.  His TOI increased every game this week and his 19:16 against Washington represents a career-high by almost a full 2 minutes.  The guy can shoot the puck and it seems as if the rest of his game is rounding into form.  Could I be wrong and Terry is an actual NHLer? 

Jordan Staal – Now this was more of the Jordan Staal the Canes were expecting, still minus the scoring though.  Jordan led the team in hits, using his big body to punish opponents.  He also tied for 2^nd on the team in both takeaways and +/-.  Jordan did even collect 2 assists for the week, he is just having the damnedest time scoring goals.  His possession numbers were all above 54% and he was 1 of only 3 Canes that did not have a giveaway.  If he can add the somewhat frequent goal, this is the Jordan Staal Carolina wants and needs.  The way he played this week makes this team so much tougher to play against.  You add in some scoring and these tight 1 goal losses start to become wins.

Weekly Duds

Jeff Skinner – Statistically this was a decent to good week for almost every Hurricane, but I think you would have to say it was rather disappointing for Skinner.  He did get an assist and did get 10 shots on goal, but Skinner finished with a -1 rating and had a team low 1 hit.  His possession numbers were all above 51%, but he was in the bottom half in every category.  This team as a whole is inconsistent, but no one symbolizes the inconsistency as much as Skinner.  When he’s on, he quite good, but when he’s not, he’s doesn’t do much of anything.  There was one play this week, I think against Boston, where Lindholm set him up beautifully and Skinner just flubbed it.  Things like that happen, but that represented Jeff’s week.

Brett Bellemore – I really thought that Bellemore was starting to play much more like last year recently.  He’s never going to be a bonofide top 4 defenseman, but he can be solid, physical defenseman.  He only played in 2 games this week and tied for a team-worst -3 rating in limited ice time.  Bellemore was still pretty physical, registering 8 hits in 2 games, but he really didn’t do a whole lot other than that.  At this point, I think Bellemore is getting bypassed by certain other players like Biega and I’m not sure he is going to earn more than a two-way contract for next year.  It’s sad, because he showed a little potential last year, but the contract holdout really didn’t do him any good.

Jay McClement – I’m honestly grasping at straws here.  The players as a whole had a pretty good week.  The reason I’m putting McClement in this last spot is mainly due to Dwyer’s numbers.  McClement plays in tough situations, generally has pretty poor possession numbers and doesn’t provide much offense.  He did score a goal this week, but had the worst possession on the team, was a -1 and ranked low on the team in every stat.  But look at Dwyer’s numbers last week when he played some with Jordan Staal.  Dwyer didn’t produce any points and was a minus player, but had possession numbers all above 51%.  This week, with McClement, he had zero points and was a minus player again.  But his possession numbers dropped into the 40s.  Jay has a new contract and hasn’t really done a lot since getting it, he needs to step up his play.

Weekly Team Stats

Former Canes Weekly Stats