Jim Rutherford has been a busy man the last couple of days as he has now claimed 24-year old winger Andreas Nodl off waivers from the Philadelphia Flyers. At first, I didn't think much of this move because Nodl appeared to be nothing more than a depth forward and I assumed the 11 goals and 22 points he had last season was a product of playing on a line with Mike Richards. However, when you dig deeper into Nodl's game you'll see how he can fit into the Hurricanes plans.

Nodl did play on Mike Richards line in Philly (before the addition of Kris Versteeg) but it's worth noting that he got a lot of defensive zone starts when playing with him. He also faced the 2nd toughest competition among forwards with the only player above him being Jeff Carter and managed to come out with a respectable corsi percentage despite that. He also finished the season with a corsi tied rate of .540 which is damn good for a defensive forward, so the fact that he can hold his own ground against tough competition makes him a welcome addition to this team.

He's only played in 11 games this year and has gotten off to a rough start but if he can play like he did last season, then he should be a great fit on the Hurricanes' third line with Brandon Sutter and Patrick Dwyer. Those two have been getting a boatload of defensive zone starts and are facing the opponent's top lines nightly and it would be nice to have another forward to play on that line to make things complete. Jiri Tlusty has been only okay in that role and Alexei Ponikarovsky is playing on the second line now. The fact that we're getting Nodl for next to nothing is a plus, too.

The one knock on Nodl's game is that he isn't much of a scorer and has a very limited offensive skillset but that shouldn't be too much of an issue if he's only counted on for defensive purposes. Although, Nodl had some puck luck go in his favor last year with an on-ice save percentage of .942 and a PDO of 1024 so he may have over-performed just a little bit. This is still a solid, low-risk move for the Canes who could definitely use another defensive forward right now. If he kills penalties well, beats out his competition and can add a little offense to the table then this is a steal for the Canes. If not, then we can always put him back on waivers. Low-risk, decent-reward.

For more information on Nodl, check out Broad Street Hockey's 2010-11 report card for him.

Another week has past and the Canes managed to only win one game and pick up three points in the standings. All thee losses were by one goal (I usually don't count empty netters) and you could say that the Canes had a chance to win every game this week but a closer look at their performance proves otherwise. After a week where they actually outplayed most of their opponent's, it was the opposite this past week as they were outshot 99-87 at even strength and outchanced 51-45. The overall numbers look better due to a lot of powerplay chances (thanks Ottawa) but overall, they were outplayed for most of this week and that includes the game they won against Philadelphia. I'm thinking that Paul Maurice was fired at the right in terms of the team's future because why the team doesn't seem to be playing that bad by the eyes, they are still getting dominated at even strength and that can't continue. It's not all Maurice's fault but with his contract expiring and the team struggling, I think it was the right move to do.

The Canes did record 19 chances on the powerplay but nine of those came against Ottawa where they had eight opportunities with the man advantage so the data is skewed a bit. They scored only three times with the man advantage and came up empty handed in eight attempts against Montreal and Winnipeg. The penalty kill, however, was solid this week as they allowed only 6 scoring chances on 14 attempts but they also gave up two goals. I'm curious to see what improvements are made to the special teams with Kirk Muller taking over as coach. It was said that he basically took over the Montreal Canadiens when they were down 3-1 in their first round series against the Washington Capitals two years ago and I think we know how the story ended there. He was noted for improving their PK and powerplay which were both very successful in that series. However, he had nothing to do with turning Jaroslav Halak into a Super Man which was the main reason the Habs won that series.

After the jump we'll single out some performances from over the past week.

It's not even lunch time and we've already seen two NHL coaching changes this morning. The one we care more about is the Carolina Hurricanes deciding to relieve Paul Maurice of his head coaching duties and the word is that he will be replace by long-time Montreal Canadiens assistant coach Kirk Muller. I have made statements defending Maurice and how I don't think the team's 8-13-4 record is completely his fault but with his contract expiring and the Canes rebuilding, I think a coaching change was inevitable.

Maurice has been a good coach for Carolina during his time here and I'm grateful for his contributions but I think it is safe to say that he wasn't the right coach for rebuilding this team. I don't think he "lost the locker room" or anything like that, but his decisions regarding the forward lines and limiting ice time for younger players indicated that he probably shouldn't be the coach for Carolina's rebuild process. What tells me this is him deciding to give younger forwards like Zach Boychuk and Zac Dalpe fourth line minutes (which is about 5-7 mins. a game with him) even after the former was playing better in a bigger role. I understand that Maurice has high expectations from younger players and wants to make sure they are ready before he puts them in a key role (see Jeff Skinner last year) but Boychuk was producing scoring chances at a higher rate than almost anyone else on the team. It's really strange to me that he decided to place him back on the fourth line (and eventually send him back to Charlotte) after that, especially on a team that's struggled to generate offense like Carolina has.

That said, there's a lot of things going wrong that are beyond Maurice's control. He has sheltered Eric Staal this season (51.3 OZone%) and the captain still hasn't been able to get on the scoresheet consistently. Staal normally takes on tougher minutes than he has played this season but his struggles in October may have prompted Maurice to give him eaiser ice-time. He's been slowly improving over the season and appears that he could be on the verge of a breakout soon, but Maurice clearly wasn't getting the best play out of Staal. How much of the blame for that falls on Maurice is up for debate. What's interesting is that he's been giving tougher assignments to Jussi Jokinen & Jeff Skinner, the line that was sheltered last year, who have been producing despite the tougher assignments. Goalies Cam Ward and Brian Boucher both playing at below average levels also falls out of the coach's responsibility.

As for Muller, he has spent four years as the Canadiens assistant coach and was one of the top candidates for one of the vacant NHL head coaching positions this summer but ultimately ended up in the AHL as the Milwaukee Admirals head coach. He only spent 17 games as the coach there but he has received some good comments from other coaches and media members there so I'm excited to see what he can do. Like I mentioned earlier, the team is in rebuild mode right now so it would be nice to have a coach who will work with the prospects and Charlotte call-ups better than Maurice has recently.

In the long run I am excited to see what Muller can bring and glad that the team decided to not delay the inevitable and take another step towards rebuilding. This could also lead to some potential roster shake-ups among other things so I'm very intrigued to see what else happens in the next few weeks. Unfortunately, I don't think Muller will be able to bring that much improvement this season because history has shown that a coaching change makes a team roughly only one win better than they are now. The Canes have a team Fenwick rating of 47% with the score tied and that's even with Staal's re-emergence so Muller's got his work cut out for him this season.

I wish Maurice the best in his future endeavors and hope that he can find another head coaching job somewhere because I think there's still a fit for him in the NHL but it just wasn't in Carolina anymore. The Canes appear to have their head coach for the foreseeable future so now it's up to the players to start performing better and for GM Jim Rutherford to make the right moves when necessary because there's still a lot of work to be done with this roster if the Canes want to become a playoff team again.

Some of the most frustrating losses come when you outplay an opponent for most of the game. That's what happened last night in Ottawa with the Canes controlling most of last night's game against the Senators. Unfortunately, the team dug themselves into a hole early with a defensive breakdown that led to a goal by Jason Spezza and had to play from behind for most of the game. Even with the assistance of 8 powerplays and 9 scoring chances generated with the man advantage, they ended up taking home their third straight loss. This isn't the best game to judge the powerplay on because while they did generate nine chances, the Canes spent nearly 1/4 of the game 5-on-4 and only scored once. Ottawa's goalie Craig Anderson deserves a lot of credit for his 34 save performance but the team was getting basically one chance per two minute powerplay. Ottawa was able to score on their first powerplay and on the tail-end of their third, so that didn't help either.

Scoring chances & more after the jump

Carolina Hurricanes (8-12-4) at Ottawa Senators (10-10-4)
Scotiabank Place 5 p.m.
TV: FS-Carolinas, Sportsnet Ottawa

What was once a blue line that was rich in depth and talent has begun to dwindle down as Jay Harrison has joined the list of injured defensemen right as Joni Pitkanen re-joined the lineup. At the very least we can hope for the powerplay to get a spark as one of their top performers is back but if you take a look at the "November Powerplay Woes" post I just made, you'll see that Harrison was one of the team's more consistent players with the man advantage. We just can't win, can we? I'm just happy to have Pitkanen back in the lineup as this powerplay needs all the help it can get.

Tonight we face an Ottawa Senators team that's coming off a beatdown at the hands of the Pittsburgh Penguins Friday night and have been the opposite of what most people expected from them this year. You would think a team that is full of rookies and backstopped by Craig Anderson would be terrible possession-wise and buoyed by a strong save percentage but it's the other way around for the Sens. Although, the fact that he's playing behind a young, inexperienced defense probably isn't helping. Ottawa's goaltending usually tends to struggle as they've been through 11 goalies since the lockout and they have a cumulative save percentage of .905. They've also made a few mistakes when it comes to overpaying for goalies but that's another issue for another day.

Lines, defense pairings & more after the jump

Back in October, I defended the Hurricanes powerplay because while they were not scoring, they were at least getting chances on net and were in the top 10 in the league when it came to generating shots 5-on-4. When this is the case, the dice eventually start to roll in their favor and the goals come with it. I figured this would be the case with the Canes but for whatever reason, their powerplay has fallen off a cliff in November in terms of creating chances. In the last month, they are generating less than one chance per 2 minutes on the powerplay and have scored only six goals. The strange thing is that they are still a borderline top-10 team in getting shots on net when playing 5-on-4, but scoring chances are more important than shots for creating goals and the Canes just aren't creating enough chances on the powerplay. To make things worse, they are letting the opposing team get far too many shorthanded chances too.

After the jump, we'll look at some of the gruesome details.

This is coming a few days late because of Thanksgiving throwing off my schedule but I wanted to get the chances posted for this game and I have a few things I want to discuss, too.

There are some who say that the two goal lead is the most dangerous in hockey because it's when teams begin to settle back and play conservative instead of building on a lead. That's what happened to the Hurricanes on Wednesday night. They scored less than 40 seconds into the game on an innocent looking shot from Jiri Tlusty from way past the face-off circle and continued to feed off that lucky bounce by capitalizing on the first scoring chance of the game with a goal by Anthony Stewart (which came six minutes into the game). After that, the Canes did next to nothing to generate pressure in the offenisve zone but it seemed like they would make it out alive because Montreal looked very off that night and couldn't forecheck for most of the first period. Then everything went wrong. The powerplay was lifeless and gave up a shorthanded goal, Montreal tied the game on a tipped-in point shot and Carolina could only seem to create chances in the 3rd period when the game was 3-3. Carolina went on to lose in a shootout for the second time this year and only take home one point in the standings in this game despite a strong showing in overtime. You could say that Carolina didn't deserve the two points but Montreal didn't exactly put together a good showing either.

Scoring chances & more after the jump

One of the reasons why I decided to join the scoring chance project is to catch some things that I may have not seen on the ice. For instance, a player might be labeled as the goat because he failed to tie up a forward in front of the net and it led to the game-winning goal for the opposing team. He may also receive some flack for having the game-tying goal on his stick with less than a minute left and then blowing it by completely missing an open net. Yep, that player should have a seat reserved for him in the press box next game solely because of that. Let's forget the fact that he played more even strength minutes than any other defenseman, was on-ice for more of Carolina's chances and played a solid game overall aside from those two horrible mistakes. The blue-liner who I am referring to is obviously Tomas Kaberle and I know that everyone wants his head now. Going by just the highlights, he had a terrible game and looked awful on that Andrew Ladd goal but to call him the goat of this game is just silly.

Let's forget the fact that the Hurricanes had only 11 total chances at even strength, only ONE in the first period, failed to establish any kind of forecheck and had a terrible offensive performance for most of this game. Oh, and the powerplay stunk yet again which revolves around Kaberle but if you're going to blame him for that you have to blame Eric Staal, Derek Joslin, Jamie McBain, Tuomo Ruutu, Jeff Skinner and almost everyone else who had significant powerplay time.

What I'm trying to say here is that picking one player as the scapegoat is generally stupid. Yes, it's fun to blame one player for all the team's problems but in a loss like this, it's usually the entire team that is struggling. That wasn't completely the case tonight as the Canes had their standouts but for the most part, there wasn't much to be happy about.

Scoring chances and more after the jump

Winnipeg Jets (9-9-4) at Carolina Hurricanes (8-11-3)
RBC Center 7 p.m.
TV: FS Carolinas, TSN Jets

The Canes are 2-1-1 in the past week and have looked considerably better after that 4-0 whitewashing they took at the hands of the Montreal Canadiens. I've noticed that the team has been playing a lot better in the defensive zone and my thoughts were confirmed with this article from Chip Alexander which explains how Paul Maurice has implimented a more defensive system. Instead of defensemen jumping into the play, you'll see more of them laying back and guarding the point. You'll also see the team putting more emphasis on a dump & chase style game where there is more emphasis on speed and less on manuvering through the neutral & offensive zone. The Canes are the fourth worst team in the league in shots allowed at even strength so I'm all for tigtening things up right now, especially with the lack of horsepower in the top-six. However, the negative effect of this system is there isn't much offensive pressure and the Canes are a bottom-five team in terms of shots for, as well. My guess is that Maurice recognizes the lack of talent up front and realizes that the team is going to have to do a better job at preventing goals if we can't score. Similar to the system Jacques Martin runs under the Montreal Canadiens.

Speaking of the Canadiens, the game against them on Wednesday showed some of the flaws with this system. The team had the puck in the Montreal zone countless times but failed to generate scoring chances because it looked like no one had idea had to do with the puck. Also, the team employed a defensive shell when they took a 2-0 lead and didn't do much to create offense and it eventually cost them the lead. This is one thing I hate about this kind of system and it's something I hope the team can fix. They take on another team with not a lot of offensive firepower in the Winnipeg Jets tonight.

Montreal Canadiens (9-9-3) at Carolina Hurricanes (8-11-3)
RBC Center, 7 p.m.
TV: FS-Carolinas, RDS

The Canes are looking to get retribution out of the way early as they take on the Montreal Canadiens in a rematch of last week's 4-0 beatdown where Carolina alledgedly hit "rock bottom." Some were saying that would be Paul Maurice's final game behind the Hurricanes bench after GM Jim Rutherford mentioned that changes would be made. All that happened was Justin Faulk being recalled and Zac Dalpe going back to Charlotte but it's worth noting that the Canes have been playing better since that atrocity last Wednesday and have gone 2-1-0 in their last three games. Very small sample but it's a step in the right direction. What's encouraging is that they outplayed their opponent in two straight games and managed to beat the Flyers due to a strong performance from the powerplay, which has been really hard to come by this year. The question is can the Hurricanes continue this pace in tonight's game against the Canadiens? If they want to make up more ground in the Eastern Conference then they need to.

Lines, analysis & game notes after the jump