The Carolina Hurricanes duked it out with the Florida Panthers and the reigning champion Tampa Bay Lightning in the Central Division all season. Coming into the playoffs as the top seed in the division, they were dispatched in round 2 by the Lightning. Let’s take a deeper look at their season. If you haven’t already, I recommend checking out this post that provides more details on the plots we’ll look at.
Overall Performance (Regular Season)
The Hurricanes outlasted the two Florida based teams for the Central Division crown this season. Using our points predictor model, which uses only 5v5 data, we can get a sense of how well their results were based on their underlying even strength play.
While the Hurricanes outperformed the model, so did the Lightning and Panthers and the model still sees the Hurricanes as the top team in the division by a slight margin. What’s also interesting is that four of the six teams that overperformed the model by the greatest amount were in the Central Division. This could be something to watch as the divisional alignment changes again next season. Will these teams be able to continue outperforming the model based on the strength of special teams, OT results, etc.?
Let’s take a look at the 5v5 goal rates that feed the model.
The Hurricanes were not a high scoring team at 5v5, however they more than made up for it with their defensive results. Ranked first in the league for 5v5 GA/60, their strong defensive play led them to top spot in the Central. The Canes should look to add some offense to improve this offseason.
Player Performance (Regular Season)
We’ll start delving into individual player performance with a 5v5 usage chart. Defensemens’ stats have been factored for direct comparison with forwards and the result is a visual depth chart. We expect to see the top players at the top right, with the rest of the roster distributed along a diagonal toward the bottom left.
We can see a diagonal distribution, however there are some players who stand out from the diagronal distribution. In order to generate some additional offense, one option appears to be shifting additional ice time to the top players, such as Teuvo Teraveinen and Sebastian Aho. Teravainen, in particular, appears to have been underutilized. We also see a group of players near the top left, such as Martin Necas, Jacob Slavin and Brady Skjei that appear to have been overutilized. With depth players falling well below most of the rest of the lineup, it appears the Canes tried to balance ice-time for their top 3 lines, while playing the 4th line very little. Improving the fourth line may be another option to increase offense by allowing better player utilization.
Now let’s look at individual offensive contributions at 5v5. We’ll plot on-ice GF/60 vs TOI/GP to do this, with the larger impacts shown further to the top right on the plot.
Teravainen really stands out on this plot, far to the right of anyone else on the team. Yet he had modest ice time. This give us some further evidence that he could be utilized more during 5v5 to increase his overall offensive impact. Sebastian Aho and Andrei Svechnikov fall in a similar category, although to a much smaller extent.
Plotting 5v5 on-ice SA/60 vs TOI/GP give us a similar visual for individual defensive impact. The further left and down, the better the overall impact on team GA/60.
While there is a fairly wide spread among the Hurricanes skaters on-ice SA/60, they generally fall well below the league average of 30. It’s clear from this chart that team defense and shot suppression were big contributors to the Canes strong 5v5 GA/60. We do see Teravainen and Schvechnikov at the far right of this chart, suggesting that the reason they weren’t utilized more may have been due to their weaker defensive impact relative to the rest of the Canes’ skaters.
Let’s move on to our on-ice GF/60 models. Comparing the output from these models to the actual numbers can give us an indication of players who may have carried or relied on line mates for offense. Generally, we are interested in variances greater than 0.3 with negative variance suggesting a player carried his line mates.
Starting with forwards, we see Teravainen and Schvechnikov jump out again. With significant positive variances, it appears as though they may have been carried by their line mates offensively. Along with our findings on their defensive impact, they may not been underutilized at all. On the flip side, Jordan Stall, Vincent Trocheck and Jesper Fast appear to have carried their line mates.
Among the Canes’ defensemen, Jake Bean stands out as possibly having a strong positive effect on his line mates. Jacob Slavin and Jani Hakanpaa appear to have been carried offensively by their line mates. With the original usage chart suggesting Slavin was overutilized, this gives us some further evidence.
The Hurricanes received strong goaltending throughout the regular season from their trio of goaltenders. Alex Nedeljkovic ended up taking the starter’s role by playoff time and his numbers this season speak for themself. Strong goaltending, combined with the strong shot suppression we saw earlier, combined to make the Canes the stingiest team in the league at 5v5.
Playoff Performance
The Hurricanes came out on top of a hard fought series with the Predators in round 1 before being ousted by the Lightning in round 2. While the 11 game sample is hardly enough to make any long term predictions from, let’s take a look at a 5v5 usage chart to see what insights we can gain.
While Slavin is off the charts for his production, it can be chalked up to the small sample size. Generally, we see the diagonal distribution that we saw in the regular season. Overall, the Canes’ skaters point production was down from the regular season which isn’t a big surprise in the playoffs. Generally, it appears that the Canes put in a solid playoff performance that ultimately fell short against a strong Lightning team.Â
Looking Ahead
The Hurricanes have under $54M committed to next season’s cap so they have flexibility to make some changes this offseason.
Key RFAs:
The Hurricanes have a handful of RFAs that finished the season on the NHL roster. Alex Nedeljkovic, Jake Bean and Andrei Svechnikov are the ones that stood our in review. The Hurricanes will certainly be handing our some raises to this group, eating up some of their available cap space.
Key UFAs:
The Hurricanes have a large number of UFAs this offseason, although many were in depth roles this season. Dougie Hamilton is the big fish that the Canes will have to decide if they can afford to extend. Both James Reimer and Petr Mrazek are also UFAs so the situation in the Canes crease could look much different next season.
Key Players Under Contract:
We saw Staal and Trocheck stand out as players who carried their line mates offensively. As veterans on the team with a combined cap hit of under $11M, continued strong play from these two will be key to the Canes’ success next season.
Tough Questions:
Can Alex Nedeljkovic carry his strong play into next season? Placed on waivers by the Hurricanes early in the season, Nedeljkovic put up fantastic numbers this season after returning to the roster. Yet the sample size we have of his work at the NHL level is still limited. The Canes will be in great shape in goal if he can reproduce this season’s results, but they may want to ensure they have a proven backup that can step in if Nedeljkovic’s stumbles.
Offseason Priority:
The Hurricanes had a strong season and were knocked out of the playoffs by a strong team. Looking for incremental improvement should be their focus this offseason. With their defensive game already elite, they should focus this effort on adding some offense. Some additional offensive punch could make them a more dangerous team. They have the cap space to add an elite top line forward which would shift some of their other quality players down the depth chart and improve overall depth. They could also look to add to the middle six forward group.
Check out my other season reviews that are already up, such as the Florida Panthers and the Toronto Maple Leafs, and subscribe to catch the rest of my season reviews as they come out.
data: Natural Stat Trick
cap data: CapFriendly
