Without question, one of the top priorities for Carolina this off-season is acquiring a top-six winger, preferably one who can play on the first line with Eric Staal. Jim Rutherford has stated that this is what he plans to do this off-season but a problem he will run into is that the free agent pool this year is very shallow. There will be at least seven teams bidding on one player which means that someone is going to have to overpay to acquire him. his strategy will help a team in the short-term but it could also hurt them a few years down the line when they are still paying big money for a player whose production is declining. This is the same dilemma that most of the teams trying to sign Brad Richards ran into last year. The Rangers knew they could be a contending team as soon as this year, which is why they felt the need to give Richards that big contract. Carolina probably doesn't have the same mindset, so the likelihood of Rutherford handing out a big deal is slim.

However, this doesn't mean that Rutherford isn't going to be aggressive in his search for a top-line winger because he has to take that approach if he wants to land anyone who will make an immediate impact. There might be a chance of the Canes landing a big name free agent, but if don't, who else is out there and how much are they available for? I looked at some of the players that Rutherford could possibly buy low on a couple months ago, but that only covered certain players. After the jump, we'll take a look at all of the potential unrestricted free agents who could possibly play in the top-six for the Hurricanes and determine which ones are the right guys to go after.

The off-season is always a fun time for hockey bloggers. While nothing compares to the excitement of watching your team in the playoffs, bloggers always have a fun time playing armchair GM and speculating what moves their teams should make in the coming months. Carolina has been a hotspot for rumors and scuttlebutt this off-season and it's mostly because Peter Karmanos has given GM Jim Rutherford the green light to spend as much money needed to acquire a top-line player. This has led to a lot of people thinking that Zach Parise will be the main target, which makes sense because he's the best free agent winger available this year. The most intriguing rumor, however, surrounds Pittsburgh Penguins center Jordan Staal and the possibility of Carolina trading for him this off-season.

My personal philosophy is to ignore rumors like this because the likelihood of a big trade actually happening seems slim but this particular one has gotten out of control. You'll see people assuming that Jordan Staal will become a Hurricane by October and that Rutherford needs to make a trade for him or this off-season will be a failure. What I want to know is how likely is it that Rutherford actually trades for Staal and what needs to happen for a deal to get done. In addition to that, how does trading for Staal help the Hurricanes more than acquiring a top-line winger or a defenseman? I will look at all of these factors after the jump.

The Hurricanes sure like to keep the families connected. Not only do they have two Staal's in their organization but three members of the Sutter family tree as well. The one who most fans know about is Brandon Sutter, who plays an important role as the team's third line center, but one who the national media may not know about is his cousin, Brett Sutter. There's a very good reason for that, though. Brett might be vital to the Hurricanes organization as the captian of their AHL affiliate, the Charlotte Checkers but he has yet to make his mark in the NHL and time is running out for him to do so.

Sutter has spent the majority of the last five seasons in the AHL and wasn't much of a scorer there, and that limits what he can do in the NHL. Which is the reason why he is usually regulated to fourth line duty and called up on either an emergency basis or to be a fourth line plug. The most time he played in a game this season was 9 minutes and 35 seconds so that should tell you what kind of role he played when he was called up. The 15 games he played this year was also a career high for him. Now, you can't judge a player on a 15 game sample size but whenever Sutter was in the lineup, he wasn't very effective. He failed to outchance the opposition in every game he played in and this was with fourth line assignments, which is pretty weak competition.

The Hurricanes' fourth line is known for playing the "energy role" and aren't really depended on for scoring or defense. They are mainly expected to play 5-10 minutes a night, hit a few players, work hard and not get destroyed. You can say that Sutter played this role but that doesn't mean that he helped the team. In fact, the Hurricanes were outshot heavily whenever Sutter played and he was on ice for fewer chances than the amount of games he played. There's no doubt that Charlotte will definitely want him to stick around for next year but it doesn't seem like he'll be getting a call-up to Raleigh any time soon.

Scoring chance breakdown coming after the jump.

Last week, I examined draft prospects from the Canadian Hockey League by looking at their point-per-game totals at the junior level to see what players might be overlooked by scouts. I discovered a couple of prospects projected to be drafted outside of the first round that could be very useful pieces to the Hurricanes somewhere down the line. Going by just goals and points alone isn't the best way to evaluate prospects because there are plenty of other ways that a forward can contribute without scoring. Not to mention all the other random factors that occur during a hockey game which can produce misleading results, but I am not able to watch many games from the lower levels and can only judge prospects by what I see. Therefore, I utilize stats, Youtube videos, scouting reports and watch as many games as I can to get the lowdown on prospects. 

Basically, what I am saying is that I am not an expert in this field by any means but I'm going to do my best to breakdown some of the players in this draft and single out ones who I think would make a good fit for the Hurricanes. We have the CHL players covered, now let's move onto the players who were in European Leagues this season. There are a lot of talented forwards coming from across the Atlantic and quite a few of them are going to have their name's called on Day 1 of the draft. Are there any who the Hurricanes might be interested in? Long story short, yes.

A list of these players and some further analysis is coming after the jump.

If I had to name a few players as those who would be "untouchable" on the Hurricanes in regards to a trade, Brandon Sutter would be one of those players. His scoring line isn't the most impressive but he plays one of the most important roles on the team as the third line center. That doesn't sound like much at first glance because every team has a defensive center, but what makes Sutter so important to the Hurricanes is how well he plays this role. Sutter plays some of the toughest minutes in the NHL, regularly being deployed in the defensive zone and matched up against opposing team's top lines.

Sutter along with his linemate Patrick Dwyer take up almost all of the defensive responsibilities among the team's forward corps and this allows players like Eric Staal, Tuomo Ruutu and Jeff Skinner to play easier minutes, thus helping the team's scoring. In addition to that, Sutter is one of the team's better shot-blockers and has a pretty good set of hands that make him a solid two-way threat that other teams need to be aware of. Most people who get to watch the Hurricanes are aware of Sutter's value and what he brings to the table, but players like him are usually among the most under-appreciated in the league because defensive forward isn't a noteworthy position.

They don't score a lot and their performance isn't shown in most underlying stats either because the ice is tilted so heavily against them, especially for a player like Sutter who plays some of the toughest minutes in the NHL. This is where applying context to one's playing situation would come in handy and Sutter is probably at the top of the list of players who would have their numbers improve if they were adjusted for their starting position, which has been done in the past. We aren't going to do that here, but we are going to look at how Sutter has performed throughout the year but remember to keep his playing situation in mind when you look at the raw data.

A look at those numbers is coming after the jump.

The best thing about the NHL playoffs is that almost anything can truly happen in a seven-game series. When the sample size is that small, there are so many things that can occur. Any goalie can get hot and steal a series for a lesser team, a player or a line can tear it up after a disappointing season or the league's best powerplay can dry up and it will decide the outcome of a series for some teams. This is why the "best team" during the regular season doesn't always win the Cup. The higher seeded team is always at an advantage, yes but a lot of other things need to go right for them if they want to win it all. There are just so many different things that can go right or wrong for any team in a series that it makes most predictions look foolish in the end.

The idea that "anything can happen" has never been more true this post-season as the Stanley Cup Final is between the 6th and 8th seeds from their respected conferences and the eight seed might be the favorite going in. That team would be the Los Angeles Kings, who have made short work of their playoff opponents by defeating all three in just 14 short games. The higher seeded team, the New Jersey Devils, finished fourth in the Atlantic Division in the regular season but here they are in the Finals now. The Devils were perceived to be a weaker team than the Rangers and the Flyers but they managed to get past them in 11 games which was partially due to luck and the Devils being a better team than their seeding indicates. Just like how the Kings are a better team than what most 8 seeds are considered to be.

This is why I'm against making predictions for the most part. I like going into a series knowing that anything can happen and that a huge upset might be just around the corner. It seems that mindset has been in line with this year's playoffs more than any other season in recent memory and the final matchup this year is one that could go in either direction. Therefore, any prediction I make can easily end up being completely different from what I think will happen, but I'm going to make one anyway.

Find out what I have to say about this year's final after the jump.

The word "unnecessary" came to mind when the Hurricanes signed Anthony Stewart to a two-year deal last summer. Stewart was coming off a career season with the Atlanta Thrashers the previous season where he had 14 goals and 39 points in 80 games. Going by that alone, one would think that Stewart had top-six potential and and might succeed in a third line role with the Hurricanes. However, Stewart's scoring line last season was incredibly misleading and I was a lot more skeptical about this signing than others were.

Stewart might have had good counting stats with the Thrashers last year, but his underlying numbers painted a much bleaker picture. Whenever he was on the ice, the Thrashers were getting outshot badly at even strength and that was with him starting 54.5% of his shifts in the offensive zone. Stewart was also never a huge point producer in the AHL and his previous career high in the NHL was 7 points in 59 games. AHL success doesn't always translate to the next level but players who don't produce in the minors generally don't go onto be productive scorers at the NHL. This, along with the fact that 10 of Stewart's 14 goals last year came during the first half of the season, made me think that Stewart's 39-point campaign was an aberration and that he wouldn't be anything more than a fourth liner on the Hurricanes.

This is why I felt that signing him was unnecessary. He isn't good enough defensively to play on a checking line or in a shutdown role and he doesn't have the skill set to play on one of the top two lines either. All the Hurricanes could do was give him 6-10 minutes of soft ice-time per night and hope that he didn't hurt the team. That is exactly how the Hurricanes used him for most of the year and Stewart may have scored nine goals, but a closer look at his numbers show that he probably wouldn't be in the NHL on a good team. A look at those numbers is coming after the jump.

The decision on which player the Carolina Hurricanes should take with the eighth pick in the NHL Draft is anything but unanimous but one thing that can be agreed on is that it should be a forward. The Canes do have a decent future up front with Jeff Skinner and Brandon Sutter already contributing at the NHL level, but their prospect pool is very thin. The team's best forward prospects who aren't currently on the roster project to be 2nd/3rd liners in the NHL or have little chance to even make the league, so they definitely need to strengthen the depth of their forward corps and this draft is a great chance for them to do that. While there are a lot of defensemen projected to go in the first round, there are also a lot of very talented forwards who the Canes can take with any of their picks.

Carolina has ten picks this draft and while lower round picks never project to amount to much, you can never have too many good young players in your system, so the Hurricanes need to make their picks count. There are always a few late round picks who make the pros out of nowhere and it's possible that there might be a few lurking in this draft. Countless times you will see a GM value things like talent, size and skill over their performance which leads to some guys falling in the draft. One way to find these players is to look at their point-per-game total at their current level and see who is playing well by this standard. 

Over the next couple of weeks, we are going to use this method for different leagues to evaluate certain players in the draft and see which ones might be available when it's the Hurricanes turn to pick. It isn't perfect because goals and points alone aren't the best way to judge a player, especially ones who are in junior hockey. A player could have a great season that's driven completely by a high shooting percentage or he might be used in more favorable situations compared to others among other complications. Unfortunately, the amount of data available in these leagues is very limited so this is the furthest amount of statistical analysis that can be done for a lot of prospects. I was also going to include their NHL Equivalency value, but that probably doesn't mean much to the Hurricanes. There's a 90% chance that all of the players they take will not make the team next year, so how their performance last season compares to the NHL level doesn't mean much.

After the jump, we are going to take a look at the forward prospects who played in the Canadian Hockey League last season. This is the most popular junior league in the world and a good chunk of the players in the draft usually come from there, so we are going to get a decent sample of players to examine here. Are there any hidden gems coming from the CHL this year? Let's find out.

For a young player, adjusting to the speed and skill of the NHL is very difficult and it usually takes years of development before they are ready to contribute full-time. This process is especially true with defensemen as most of them aren't ready until at least their early-20's. Young defensemen in the NHL are generally used in a more sheltered or offensive rule because they are still learning the game and are obviously going to have trouble facing pro-level forwards. This is the case with just about every young defensemen no matter how big or talented they are because a good majority of them are coming straight from either a junior level or college, which doesn't compare to what they will have to deal when they get to the NHL.

It takes a really special talent to make it in the NHL at a very young age and there have been only 16 defensemen since the lockout who have played more than 30 games in the big show before they turned 20. One of those 16 players is Justin Faulk of the Carolina Hurricanes. Faulk still has a ways to go before he is a top-tier defenseman but his pro career got off to a great start this year. He was playing over 20 minutes a night, was used in just about every situation and looked incredibly poised for someone his age. He was also arguably the team's best puck-mover last season with Joni Pitkanen on the shelf for most of the year.

The major concern with Faulk is his defensive game. He had trouble controlling possession at even strength and the Canes gave up a lot of scoring chances when he was on the ice. The ongoing explanation for this is that Faulk is still very young and most players his age playing his kind of minutes would fare no better. This got me thinking, how does Faulk compare to other defensemen his age? What situations were they playing in and how did they perform? Was Faulk better or worse than them and most importantly, what predictions can we make about Faulk's future based on it?

After the jump, we will look at the 16 defensemen who played at least 30 games in the NHL before their 20th birthday and see how Faulk's performance during his rookie season compares to them.

In the past, I have talked about how I hold certain players to higher standards than others because of the situations they are used in or how much they are being paid. For the Hurricanes, the player that is held to the highest standard is their team captain, Eric Staal and there are plenty of reasons to expect a lot out of him. Staal has been the Canes best player for the last seven years, he is being paid top-level money and he has been at least a 70-point player since the lockout. As fans, we have become accustomed to seeing Staal be a dominant force, which is probably why most people see this year as a disappointment for him. He had 70 points in 82 games, was one of the few forwards with a positive even strength scoring chance differential and led the team in shots on goal.

For most players, this would be a great season, but a lot of fans thought that Staal lost a step this year. Why is this? For one, his scoring rate was down from what it was in previous seasons (dropped from .94 to .85 points per game this year) and he got off to possibly the worst start of his career. Staal had only 12 points through the first 26 games of the season, which is bad for most players but even worse for player of Staal's caliber. It's tough to figure out what was wrong with Staal during that time but a lot of it was related to bad luck. His shooting percentage this season was lower than it has ever been (9.2%) and the Hurricanes, as a team, were shooting at an extremely low rate in the first half of the season. The Hurricanes goaltenders were also stopping only .897 of the even strength shots they faced when Staal was on the ice, which directly affected his horrible plus/minus that was harped upon for most of the season.

The point here is that some of the things that contributed to Staal's "down year" were out of his control because it certainly isn't his fault that the team's goalies couldn't stop a beach ball whenever he was on ice at even strength. That's something that was overlooked during his rough first half of the seaso. Another thing that was somewhat overlooked is how good Staal was after the rough start. He had 58 points in his 56 games since December and still finished with 70 points despite having only 12 in two months. Staal's overall year might have been a disappointment but it's hard to look at how he played over the last four months and say that he underachieved.

Players who produce as much offense as Staal aren't going to shoot at less than 9% forever, so it was only a matter of time before Staal had a scoring outburst, but a look at his underlying numbers show that Staal had some legitimate stretches of bad play this year and guessing which part of the season they came in shouldn't be too difficult.

We will look at those numbers after the jump.A