Shooting percentages and PDO are things that I have been monitoring this year because there's a lot of Canes players who have fallen on some rotten luck this season (Eric Staal comes to mind) while others have been much more fortunate. I know saying a player has been "unlucky" is a lazy way to dismiss their shortcomings, but sometimes that's just what happens. Take a player like Alexander Ovechkin last year. He is normally an elite goal-scorer, a terrific possession driver and can be counted on for at least 40 goals per season. Last year, he netted only 32 but was still posting great possession numbers and appeared to be no worse than he was last season at driving the play. The fact is he was shooting the puck at a much lower percentage than his career average and simply just fell on some bad luck. That has carried over into this year, too.

When determining how lucky a player is, we normally look at their on-ice shooting percentage and PDO. An average shooting percentage is about 8-9 percent and an average PDO (which is just a player's shooting + save percentage) is 1000. A player with a low PDO is said to be very unlucky and it's the other way around for a player who has a PDO of over 1000. However, this isn't a tell-all stat as it only states how lucky a player is and things like corsi, scoring chances, etc. need to be taken into consideration. If a player is getting drowned in corsi, then he will have a low PDO because he isn't doing much. There are also some player who rarely shoot the puck and have a low shooting percentage as a result.

Let's see who has been lucky and unlucky on the Canes so far this year.

There was a time when the the Hurricanes were carrying nine defensemen on the roster but that number has now dwindled down to seven, but you can still make the argument that Carolina has eight NHL-ready defensemen in their system, which is why there has been a lot of buzz about Carolina possibly trading one of their spare defenseman. I am all for keeping Justin Faulk in Charlotte because he is only 19 and think he could use some more time to work on his all-around game, especially with the amount of offense-first guys Carolina has on their blue line right now. That leaves seven on the roster and the two fighting for playing time are Jamie McBain and Derek Joslin. Joslin has only played one game so far this year and while he played pretty well, he finds himself sitting out tonight against New Jersey. Then there's McBain, the player who will likely garner a bigger return. McBain has been very inconsistent this year and it would be nice to get something in return for him, but is trading him now really the correct move?

We'll look at both sides of the coin after the jump

In a week where the Canes were 1-2-0 and outscored 12-7 there are bound to be very few positives. That's pretty much what the case is for this past week. With all three games being at home, I expected much better from Carolina and they got off to a good start with a 4-2 win over Tampa Bay, but the next two games were disasters. It's even more frustrating when you bring up the fact that they were 2/13 on the powerplay over the course of two games with a few of those chances coming when the games were still in reach. The loss of Jussi Jokinen played a huge role in that as he was our best forward for the first month of the year but the second line has been doing fine without him. The first line and the powerplay are completely different stories, though. Staal has been posting better underlying number lately but they aren't turning into points, but I have a feeling that will change soon.

As for now, let's revisit the past week and see what the bright spots were for the Canes.

I have defended the powerplay for weeks now because while they weren't scoring goals, they were at least creating chances and getting shots on net. That's all I really wanted to see after how terrible it was last season in both areas but I have almost nothing positive to say about how the powerplay performed the last two games. Against Washington, they had four opportunities with the extra man, scored on none of them and created only three chances. It's okay, bad games happen right? Well, an even worse game happened Sunday against the Dallas Stars where the Canes had nine opportunities on the powerplay, a few of them coming when the game was reasonably still in reach and they managed to create only five scoring chances. Sure, they scored twice but one of those came when the game was already 5-1 in favor of Dallas and they also gave up a shorthanded goal. Just awful.

The scoring chances for this game do not reflect the game too well because a lot of Carolina's came in garbage time and all Dallas had to do for 60% of the time was sit back and watch the Canes dig their own grave as they could not sustain any pressure for a prolonged period of time. The Stars just had to wait for Carolina to make a mistake and that's exactly what they did which is why this game got so out of hand early. That and the awful powerplay which I talked about earlier.

More after the jump

I would mark this game as one of the most frustrating losses of the year. Judging from the boxscore, the Canes were overmatched and blown out but the truth is that Carolina was in this game for a long time and had multiple opportunities to come back but failed and had yet another third period meltdown. I would put this on the same level as the Flyers and Lightning games in terms of how bad of a collapse this was. Carolina wasn't playing awful at even strength the first forty minutes and could have easily tied the game in the third when the score was 2-1 but they committed a bad penalty, gave up an early goal and then didn't bother to show up for the rest of the period.

We'll revisit the disaster after the jump

Dallas Stars (9-3-0) vs. Carolina Hurricanes (5-5-3)
RBC Center, 1:30 p.m.
TV: NHL Network, FS-Southwest

Since the Panthers have a bye week, here's hoping that most of the Carolinas tune into the Hurricanes Sunday afternoon showdown with the Dallas Stars. This is the final game of Carolina's brief home stand and I said at the beginning of the week that Carolina needed to get a point in all three of these games to help them in the standings (mainly looking towards the future). The game against Tampa Bay was exactly what I wanted to see from this team. They came out strong, converted on the powerplay, the first line had a good game and they killed penalties while the game on Friday against the Caps was exactly the opposite of what I wanted to see from this team. There were numerous defensive breakdowns, the powerplay failed and it was just an ugly game overall. I am hoping for a much better effort in today's game against Dallas and pray that it is nothing like the last time we played the Stars. I have wiped most of that game from my memory and you should have too.

Either way, it's looking like the Canes are going to have a hard time without Jussi Jokinen judging from how the powerplay looked against Washington but let's hope things can turn around here. Maybe introduce some new blood into the powerplay in the form of some fourth liners who should be getting more ice time. Cough.

Lines, analysis & more after the jump

When you take a look at the scoring chance numbers for the Carolina Hurricanes this year, you'll find a couple names near the top of the list that might surprise you. One of those is former first round draft pick and Toronto Maple Leafs cast-off Jiri Tlusty. I, along with many others, wondered if Tlusty would even make the team out of camp this year and even if he did, it was wondered if he would be nothing more than a fourth liner on this team. We're a month into the season now and he already has half of his point total from last year (which is only six points) and is now playing on the first line with Eric Staal and Chad LaRose....what? Oh, I should also mention that he has the highest scoring chance percentage on the team at 63.9%. Again, what?

I know Tlusty always had a lot of talent and skill but I think most would agree that Canes fans (and hockey fans in general) didn't have too high of expectations for him, so what he's doing now is a pretty big surprise. The question is that can he keep this play up and improve on it or is this all just a flash in the pan? After the jump, we will examine some details of the 23-year old's season to see just how impressive he's really been.

Carolina continues to play well at home as they were able to avenge their opening night loss to the Lightning by beating them 4-2 last Tuesday. Once again, we saw the Canes get off to a very strong start but run into a few road blocks along the way that could have cost them the game. The difference this time is that instead of letting all of the negative events snowball like they did on Saturday night, the Canes responded and persevered in route to a victory. This was a great way to start off the month and hopefully a sign of good things to come the rest of the way.

Chances and analysis after the jump

At the end of each month, I am going to reflect on the happenings within the Southeast division to get a better idea of the competition the Canes are going up against. What I'm going to do with this feature is first post the standings after a month, then the team's performance during that month going by goals for, goals against, special team performance and Pythagorean win expectation. A Pythagorean win expectation is a formula that's used a lot in baseball where they take the amount of runs a team scored during a year, square it and divide it by the sum of the squared amount of runs the team scored and gave up to get a winning percentage. This shows how much a team is milking the OT point and how many wins a team "earned." I'm not 100% sold on this method for hockey but I find it interesting so I'm experimenting with it for now. After that, I'll break down each team's performance during the month and determine who I feel has been the team's three best players during the month.

We'll start after the jump.

When Jussi Jokinen collided with Tampa Bay forward Ryan Shannon last night, his leg/ankle landed in a very awkward position and immediately I knew that it would be something bad, which it was. Jokinen is now out 3-4 weeks with what is being called a "lower-body injury." Jokinen was the team's best forward when playing at even strength last month and has been the most consistent when providing offense so this injury is huge. Carolina's second line has arguably been their strongest this season and Jokinen plays a big role on it so that makes things even worse.

However, there are some positives we can draw out of this situation. The first one being that it opens up a spot in the top-six and both Ruutu and Skinner can play center so they can possibly take over Jokinen's role there. When it comes to finding someone to move up to that line, I made a post yesterday about how the Canes have two young, offensively gifted prospects playing on the fourth line this year. This could be Zach Boychuk's biggest chance to shine and show that he can be a top-six forward in the NHL. I don't know if this means he will take over Jokinen's spot or play on Staal's line (which isn't out of the question) but I think he will get his shot. The same goes for Zac Dalpe but he will be playing in Charlotte on a conditioning stint for the next week or so.

Also, Drayson Bowman was called up from Charlotte to take over Jokinen's roster spot and if anyone remembers, I wrote a post about him and how I wanted him to make the team out of camp. I'm a little biased because I prefer a team that's in a rebuild phase like Carolina is right now to give their younger players more time in the NHL if they have the roster space. Bowman already played 23 games during the 2009-10 season and failed to record a point but if you read the article linked earlier in the paragraph, I said that he was creating plenty of chances with tough ice time. He was playing bottom-six minutes but Bowman is pegged as more of a goal-scorer so I think this could be a big opportunity for him, as well. He did well in a checking role last season so it would not surprise me to see him used on the fourth line here but I wouldn't rule out top-six minutes for him either.

Of course, there are players like Anthony Stewart and Alexei Ponikarovsky who may get another shot at the second line, too. Hell, Jiri Tlusty is playing on the first line now so anything can happen. My point is that while this is a huge setback, it also provides a big opportunity for the younger players on the roster. I just hope they can live up to the task because Jokinen was putting up points, creating chances, winning face-offs and playing a lot of tough minutes over the first month. Those are some big shoes to fill.