25 even strengths on goal. That is all the Carolina Hurricanes could muster up tonight against the Flyers in what felt like a grueling loss even though the final score ended up only 5-3. Both teams had been officially eliminated from playoff contention last night, so a win or loss doesn't mean a whole lot tonight right now but the team's compete level and play at even strength is still something I'm keeping an eye on and it was very poor tonight. Carolina hasn't had much luck against the Flyers ever since they moved to Raleigh (they've won 30 out of 117 games against Philly), but I'm not going to hang onto that as an excuse, especially when you look at the year the Flyers are having.

This is a Flyers team that has been very poor this year and has been destroyed by injuries. Half of their defense corps tonight had a combined 56 games of NHL experience, and the Hurricanes could barely put a dent in them during even strength play. Adding to that, they were guilty of multiple defensive breakdowns and allowed the Flyers top-nine to have a field day. We could have seen a repeat of the Buffalo-New York game last night were the Rangers put up eight goals if it wasn't for Justin Peters doing his best to keep the Hurricanes in it during the first period. He can only do so much, though and the Hurricanes certainly aren't going to win many games where they rely on him to bail them out of their troubles. They found this out the hard way a few times over the last month and tonight was no different.

I've been saying for awhile that the Hurricanes are a better team than what their record shows but tonight, they looked more like a team that has won only two games in the span of a month and belongs at the bottom of the Eastern Conference. Just a bad game by the entire team with very few exceptions.

Neither the Hurricanes or the fans got the results they wanted last night. Those who got their hopes up for a win were let down and those who wanted see the team continue to "tank" also came away disappointed because the Hurricanes earned a point in the standings from the overtime loss. Kirk Muller and the team felt differently, though. In his post-game conference, Muller was very happy about the resiliency this team showed last night and how they battled back from a two-goal deficit to force overtime. The Hurricanes have been itching to find something positive to hang onto since the season is now officially lost and I guess last night's comeback is something for them to feel good about even if they didn't win. Managing to do it without Jeff Skinner in the lineup was impressive and if anything, it's a sign that the team hasn't given up despite there being no hope in this season. 

For the past month or so, the Canes have had to dig themselves out of bad situations that they put themselves into and last night was no different. The difference between last night's game and the rest of the season was that they actually managed to come back and force overtime, which was encouraging but the Canes need to do something to prevent themselves from even getting into these situations in the first place. I know the team is playing shorthanded now, but these mistakes were happening even with Skinner & Pitkanen in the lineup. Last night, it was a bad first period and penalties that got the Canes into early trouble and while they managed to battle back, they still had a lot of ugly moments. Not that it matters at this point of the season, but the team is still playing for pride so I'm sure we'll see more strong efforts the rest of the way.

The Southeast Division has really gone through some twists and turns in its final year of existence. At the beginning, it looked like the Tampa Bay Lightning had control of things, then the Carolina Hurricanes soon took over their spot. After these two teams drifted out of the picture, the Winnipeg Jets then swooped in and appeared to take hold of the division after getting hot for two weeks. Now that they have cooled down, the Washington Capitals have stepped up and are now sitting at the top of the division with a four point lead after winning nine out of their last ten games, earning points in all of them.

We all know what happened to the Hurricanes and how their season quickly fell apart, but what's the story for the rest of the division? Some crazy things were bound to happen this year with there being a condensed schedule, but I can't remember the last time the division was this shifting. That's probably because I'm so used to the Caps sitting at the top while the rest of the division fights to even stay alive for the playoffs, sans last season, but it seems like the Southeast this year will be decided by whichever team gets hot at the right time and that team currently appears to be Washington. The Jets are also still in the mix and they have a bit of an "easier" schedule down the stretch, so it's very likely that this race could come down to the last day. Still, the Caps look like they are in the driver's seat right now since they are the "hot" team and have four points on Winnipeg with the same number of games remaining. 

A reason why the Caps have been able to claw their way up the ladder is that they have gotten the best of their divisional counterparts. It's also a reason why the Canes have fallen so hard over the last month.

In my recap of last night's game, I mentioned that the result and the stats of last night's game were probably an afterthought to many fans because the one thing on their mind is the health of Hurricanes star forward Jeff Skinner, who left the game after taking a huge hit from Senators defenseman Jared Cowen. No specifics of the injury have been released but it's very likely that the former Calder Trophy winner has suffered his third concussion in his career and his second one in this season alone. It's been said that Skinner brings a lot of this on himself because he puts himself in vulnerable positions very often. I don't disagree with this theory. Skinner's a very chippy player betweeen the whistles and probably isn't very popular with opposing fans. He is also pretty small and is very aggressive with the puck, so he often gets caught with his head down in an attempt to keep plays alive or when he attempts to draw penalties.

None of this seems like it is good for his long-term health because there are always a lot of players on the opposing team looking to knock the daylights out of Skinner whenever he has the puck and we've seen this happen more than a few times over his career. Many have been calling for the Hurricanes to get tougher or add an enforcer to their squad to help "protect" Skinner from players like this. They did just that this off-season by adding Kevin Westgarth but this really didn't prove to do anything. Westgarth played in both games that Skinner was injured in and the Hurricanes had another "tough guy" active last night in Nicolas Blanchard, but neither of them served as "protection" for Skinner. 

Why is that? Because it's almost impossible to protect players from dangerous it's even more difficult with a player like Skinner who often finds himself in bad situations. Skinner often puts himself into these predicaments, but this wasn't the case in the hit he took from Cowen last night.

As much as I hate to say it, the Hurricanes statistical performance is kind of an afterthought at this point of the season. I think we all know by now that this team is better than their record indicates, but they are still out of the playoff hunt and are basically playing for next year. Whether or not they outchance an opponent or earn the best of the territorial play seems kind of irrelevant when all a win or loss does is affect where they will end up in the draft. The numbers would even out in an 82-game season but not when you are down to seven games with a beaten up roster. Thus, the stats are probably the last thing on everyone's mind right now and that's especially true regarding last night's 3-2 loss to the Senators.

This was basically a typical 2013 Hurricanes game where they had a slight territorial edge and didn't play a poor road game, but they had a few defensive mistakes that ended up in their own net which cost them. That along with a lack of finishing ability is what doomed them tonight, which has been the ongoing story for the last year. I think we are all programmed to expect a loss at this point, so the final score isn't a big deal. What has more fans despondent is that the Canes young star Jeff Skinner was knocked out of the game after taking a hit to the head from Senators defenseman Jared Cowen in the first period. In a lost season, the last thing you want to happen is for your best players to get hurt and that's what happened tonight. It's even worse in the case of Skinner because this could be his third head injury in the span of a three year career. I'm sure most would agree that his health is more important than the result of tonight's game, so here is to hoping that he is okay. 

When an injury on a borderline hit occurs, you would expect the play of the victim's team to drop off. The Hurricanes had other things in mind. The Senators were able to get two unanswered goals on Carolina after Skinner left the game, but I didn't notice much of a sag in Carolina's play after that incident. In fact, they were a little more fired up and seemed to be more interested in physically punishing the Senators and making them pay for injuring one of their best players. Not counting Chad LaRose's retaliation scrap, the Hurricanes instigated four fights tonight (one of which involved the intimidating Marc-Andre Bergeron) and started plenty of other scrums between plays in an attempt to avenge their fallen teammate. This isn't to say that they were more interested in fighting than winning the game, because Carolina made a good comeback attempt but you could tell that Skinner's injury changed some of their intentions tonight, and understandably so.

This was a good display of "team toughness" and comradery, but it hasn't been proven that this kind of stuff can win you games. At the end of the day, Skinner is still injured and the Hurricanes took yet another loss and there isn't anything that can be changed about that now.

There are only seven games left in the Hurricanes season and they are likely going to miss the playoffs for sixth time in the last seven years. Things looked promising at the beginning of the season but all hope went down the toilet a few weeks ago when the Hurricanes went on a disastrous stretch losing fourteen out of sixteen games and now they are in a race for the draft lottery instead of a playoff spot. Shortened season or not, this isn't the result that fans were hoping for. Accountability is a phrase we've heard a lot this year regarding the Hurricanes players, but my question is who is going to be held accountable for this season? We just saw a team with playoff-caliber talent go 2-13-2 in a pretty important stretch of the season. As much as I don't' want to get hung up on the results of this weird season, that is unacceptable and I'm wondering how the organization is going to respond to it. The problem is that I don't know how exactly you respond to it in terms of holding someone accountable. 

There have been a lot of critics of the coaching of Kirk Muller and while some of it is deserved, pinning all the blame on him isn't entirely fair. I really hate pointing to injuries as an excuse because just about every team has to deal with these types of struggles but let's face it, the Hurricanes have been destroyed by injuries this year, especially on defense. Muller has had to use 37 different skaters this year and has been forced to juggle the lines almost every game since it seems like a new player gets injured every game. Some teams like the Senators have been able to get by despite losing key players, but they also had some of the best goaltending in the NHL. The Hurricanes haven't had that luxury all season and it reached a new low after both Cam Ward & Dan Ellis went down. Is it Muller's fault that the team's shooting luck and save percentage bottomed out for a span of three weeks? Again, it's not an excuse for the team's struggles since there have been some games where they have looked awful (most of which coming during the time when Justin Faulk was hurt) but it certainly didn't help and it put the Canes into a hole they couldn't get out of.

Some might point to the job that Charlotte Checkers coach and GM Jeff Daniels did with his team as a way to show that injuries aren't an excuse. He has had to deal with so many roster changes this season that the team looks completely different from the one they iced on opening night. Despite this, the Checkers just clinched a playoff spot and are having a very successful season. There are going to be a lot who point to this to say "if the Checkers can get by with their injury problems then why can't the Hurricanes?" It's a fair question, but the talent gap between the AHL and the NHL is pretty large so I'm not going to write off Muller as a coach because of this. I also don't see what good firing him would do since it would give the Canes their third coach in two years. What good can come from that?

Muller likely won't be the scapegoat for this season because firing him wouldn't solve any problems. The team's General Manager Jim Rutherford, on the other hand, is a much more interesting case. The old saying is that "you can't fire the players, so you fire the coach" but a lot of fans would rather blame the guy who assembled the roster that has failed many times this year. Rutherford has been with the Hurricanes since their move to the Carolinas, which makes judging his complete body of work a tough task but as far as the "what have you done for me lately" argument is concerned, the bad has outweighed the good.

Winning the Stanley Cup in 2005-06 can earn you a lifetime pass with many fans and I am forever grateful for him bringing us that moment since it's something you'll cherish for a lifetime. However, the Canes have made the playoffs only one time in the seven years since then and have been knocked out of the race early in three of the last four years. Being a small-market team, Rutherford has had to deal with some financial restrictions and this is where good drafting comes in handy. His performance in that regard has been lacking to say the very least.

Don't get me wrong, Rutherford has delivered the Hurricanes some gems in Eric Staal, Cam Ward, Brandon Sutter and Jeff Skinner but since the year 2000, only two Carolina draft picks have played at least 100 games for the team. Adding to that, only seven Hurricanes draft picks have played at least 10 games for the team this year and includes fringe-NHLers like Drayson Bowman and Zac Dalpe. I think the Hurricanes drafting has improved in recent years, but they still haven't been able to get much out of their picks after the second round and even then that's kind of a stretch. I've talked a lot about some of the team's promising younger players such as Dalpe, Keegan Lowe, Ryan Murphy and Austin Levi but who knows how good they will be in the NHL? I remember when many were talking about the future of Jamie McBain and now he is the resident scapegoat among Canes fans.

Whether you want to blame Rutherford or the scouting staff, the Canes drafting hasn't been great but one way they have been able to make up for this is by making shrewed trades for younger talent. Players like Tim Gleason, Dennis Seidenberg, Joni Pitkanen, Tuomo Ruutu, Jussi Jokinen, Matt Cullen and Jiri Tlusty all played important roles here over the year and were obtained via trade. This has been a good way for Rutherford to make up for his poor drafting and stockpile the Hurricanes with young talent that was closer to being NHL ready. Waiting on draft picks is always tough, so these trades have helped over the years. 

Free agency and contracts, however, are a place where he has been hit-and-miss in. Rutherford was restricted by the team's spending budget in past years, but it didn't stop him from giving Eric Staal and Cam Ward top dollar. Those are the two franchise players so Rutherford was in a rock and a hard place when it came time to extending them, but having at least $15 mil. in cap space and salary locked up in two players means that you'll be strained to fill out the rest of the roster if your team is on a budget. Because of this, we've seen a lot of good players leave Carolina via free agency, the most painful departures being Ray Whitney, Dennis Seidenberg and Erik Cole. Rutherford attempted to replace them with cheaper players such as Andrew Alberts, Alexei Ponikarovsky and rookie call-ups and those didn't quite work out so well. Having an elite talent like Staal locked up is good, but it's tough to build around him when you draft poorly and strike out in free agency. This year, however, was much different.

Rutherford aimed to be much more active this off-season in an attempt to get this club back to the playoffs and while the final result wasn't what we hoped for, he was able to add much more top-tier talent to this team by acquiring both Jordan Staal and Alexander Semin. Both players have added a lot to this team and have made the Hurricanes a better club overall, but building around them is still going to be a challenge. Rutherford already extended them both and when you factor their contracts in with the deals given to Staal, Gleason, Ward, Skinner and Ruutu, you have a lot of money and cap space committed to only eight players. That doesn't leave a lot of room to build a top-tier defense like many are clamoring for and it's going to be a tough job for years to come unless they can build around younger pieces like Justin Faulk and Ryan Murphy. 

Rutherford has put this team in a tough position to improve unless he can shed some salary in the off-season but even with the Canes' defensive issues I think he built a good team this year. I keep coming back to this, but the Canes have been a good team at even strength this year and this will lead to more successful seasons than not. Even after replacing Bryan Allen with Joe Corvo, the Hurricanes have been winning the shot battle in close game situations.

The team is bad defensively and those issues became even greater when Justin Faulk, Joni Pitkanen, Cam Ward and Dan Ellis went down. How they were able to make up for it was that they produced a ton of offense. The Hurricanes produce more shots during 5v5 play than any other team and are creating more than they are giving up. The team's recent shooting percentage rut would like you to believe otherwise, but these have been the facts this year. I'm not so sure if it's a winning formula because of how much strain it puts on the goaltendiers and defensemen, but I also think that the Canes would have more of a shot in a full season than they do now.

Rutherford had a few missteps this year like failing to have a contingency plan for when Pitkanen inevitably got hurt, placing most of the faith in the defense in 20-year old Justin Faulk and trading a good player in Jussi Jokinen away for pennies on the dollar. The popular argument against him is that he "ignored the team's defensive needs," but I think it was more of an issue of him trying to find the right pieces for Muller's system and placing too much faith in the team's prospects. With that said, there have also been a lot of things that went wrong which were out of his control (injuries, terrible shooting luck and the whole nature of shortened season), so it might be wrong to label him as the scapegoat for this year. The Hurricanes had a good looking team going into the year and should next season, as well with the addition of a high draft pick and some off-season moves.

42 games isn't enough to label Rutherford's moves for this off-season as failures and fire him solely based on that. However, Rutherford hasn't exactly done enough for me to feel confident in him going forward, so if he is the one that is held accountable for this season then it may not be the worst thing in the world for Peter Karmanos and the Hurricanes ownership to start a new chapter. I don't think it's completely fair for JR to be the scapegoat here, but his performance over the last half-decade is something that the Hurricanes organization are going to have to evaluate before they begin making any other moves this summer.

Standing pat after a season like this isn't the message you want to send to fans since they are going to want someone to be held responsible for this season. At the same time, the Hurricanes have to be smart and should not overreact to what happens in a shortened season, either. Finding scapegoats is an easy job for fans, making the next moves after removing said scapegoat is what is the difficult part.

After Thursday night's game where the Hurricanes outplayed the Capitals only to end up taking a 3-1 loss, many got the feeling that this team was due for a few bounces. That's probably fair to say because they had lost 14 of their last 15 heading into this game, but the Hurricanes were also playing to well to continue this losing streak. They had a lot of games where they put forth a good effort and had it derailed by terrible goaltending, mental mistakes or not being able to score no matter how many chances they produced. No one has questioned their efforts from the past week, but the team's execution and mental toughness has been put to the test plenty of times and they didn't respond well.

This all changed last night, as the Canes were able to get their first win at home in over a month. Their performance wasn't much better or worse from what it has been over the last week, but what changed for them was that they had a few more bounces go their way. That isn't to say the Hurricanes won based on luck alone because they outplayed Boston for a good portion of this game, but sometimes you need a few bounces to go your way even when your team plays well and the Canes finally got that. They got a great performance in goal from Justin Peters, a bit of a fluky goal from Jeff Skinner to tie the game in the first period and a couple of well-timed misses on what would have been scoring chances for the Bruins.

After how far the Hurricanes PDO had fallen in recent weeks, the Hockey Gods were eventually going to reward them for their strong play, so it was nice to see that happen last night. We have seen plenty of times this year how big of a role good goaltending and special teams can play in winning and losing. The Canes have normally been on the wrong end of this battle, but last night was a different story and quite frankily, it was nice to see.

One of the many things that I like about Kirk Muller is that he has been willing to give many young players a chance to succeed. Since his arrival, Muller has been the "Anti-Paul Murice" of sort where he has given most of the Hurricanes younger players top-nine minutes during their call-ups instead of just plugging them into checking line roles. He sort of did this out of necessity when he took over last season since the Hurricanes were starved for top-six forwards and one of the younger players was going to have to step in sooner or later. Guys like Drayson Bowman, Jerome Samson, Zach Boychuk and Zac Dalpe all got a shot under Muller and while Bowman was the only one who stuck, all of them were given an opportunity to succeed after Muller took over.

The Hurricane's don't have any A-level forward prospects in their system right now, so asking one of these players to fill a top-line role would be unreasonable. This season was a different story. The Hurricanes had only spot open in their top-six, which was on the second line and every spot in the bottom-six was basically up for grabs. Brandon Sutter's absence obviously left a big hole to fill as the third line center, but with Jordan Staal taking over his role as the tough-minutes center, all the Canes needed to do was build a third line that could drive possession in soft minutes. Considering that they spent most of last season over-slotting third-liners in the top-six, one would think that assembling a competent third line shouldn't have been an issue for the Canes. Between Drayson Bowman, Patrick Dwyer, Chad LaRose, Riley Nash, Chris Terry, Brett Sutter, Tim Brent, Zac Dalpe, Jeremy Welsh, Andreas Nodl, Tim Wallace, Zach Boychuk and many others, the Canes had enough players that should have been able to succeed in a soft-minutes role.

The third line has gone through a ton of changes this year and hasn't been able to provide any secondary scoring, so this strategy didn't work out, but the plan wasn't terrible going in. Look around the league and you'll see other teams employ similar strategies. Both the St. Louis Blues and Ottawa Senators have gotten decent production out of their bottom-six while composing them of mostly younger players or grinders who didn't fit into scoring roles. The Hurricanes strategy wasn't terribly different from their's but the execution wasn't as good. Some of it relates to players under-performing, but some of it also relates to Muller and Rutherford not utilizing all of the forward options that they had at their disposal.

So it's finally come to this. After going 1-13-1 in their last 15 games, the Hurricanes have gone from first place in the Southeast to in the bottom-five in the NHL and have all but removed themselves from playoff contention. It's a situation that nobody wanted to happen after how active Jim Rutherford was this off-season, but a run like this will doom any team and it's even more crippling when you are dealing with a condensed schedule. Weather any players, coaches or management is held accountable for how this disaster of a season turned out remains to be seen, but there isn't much the Hurricanes can do about it for their last eight games. The most they can do is just play out the remainder of a year and see what happens, and a lot of fans are hoping that the losing continues for draft purposes.

As someone who hates losing, the idea of "tanking" annoys me and as a former athlete, it makes me even more mad because I'm not a fan of being rewarded for being terrible. It's also something that isn't on the player's minds right now because I'm sure the last thing they care about right now, especially a team like the Hurricanes who are in need of a confidence boost. Draft picks in general are also a craps hoot since there is always a chance that a "great" prospect will bust and the Hurricanes don't exactly have a great track record when it comes to drafting. When I see fans cheer for their team's to "tank" the rest of the season, I get the idea that they think one good pick is going to solve their problems when that isn't the case at all.

People forget that most draft picks are not going to be NHL-ready and that's especially true for defensemen who take years to develop. Developing young players is a long process and while the Hurricanes need to replenish their farm system, one pick isn't going to solve their problems. With that being said, this draft has a lot of top-end talent available and the Hurricanes could benefit from adding one of those players to their system. They also have a good corps in place and have gotten incredibly unlucky on several occasions this season, which makes losing not the worst thing in the world right now. Would I like to see the team win more often? Obviously, but it really doesn't matter at this point of the season.

The Hurricanes currently sit two points out of the bottom spot in the NHL right now, so they appear to be in good position for a lottery pick if they continue to stay the course. However, something hit me when I was looking over the scores of Thursday & Friday night's games: There are a lot of bad teams in the league this year, most of which are in a similar position to the Hurricanes.

The Avalanche, Panthers and Flames might be the only teams standing in the way of the Hurricanes right now, but if you compare their underlying numbers to the rest of the pack here, the Canes seem a bit out of place. Why? Because they are better than most of these clubs.

The Canes have been a better team at even strength than the rest of these clubs, but injuries, terrible recent shooting luck and god-awful special teams have kept them down. I've talked about the club's recent PDO slide and that has played a huge role in their skid over the last 15 games. Is it enough to keep them in draft lottery position, though? If they continue to not score, get replacement level goaltending and get shelled on the penalty kill then absolutely. That might give fans some confidence because the Canes could add an elite talent this draft to what is a pretty good, but very unlucky, corps. Odds aren't in their favor, though. I mean, the Canes can't realistically shoot at 3.9% at even strength for the rest of the season if they continue to win the shot battle by this much. It's possible with only eight games left, but comparing their numbers to the rest of the pack here shows that they are more likely to rattle off a few wins and possible take themselves out of the bottom-five.

Buffalo, Edmonton, Tampa Bay, Colorado and Nashville are all legitimately awful teams who seem much more prone to tank the rest of the year than the Canes. Calgary and Florida are also in bad shape although they are getting zero puck luck on top of their bad play. The Flyers underlying numbers also look pretty brutal by most measures, so there's going to be some competition for the bottom-five. The one thing Carolina has going for them is that nothing is going their way and they can't seem to catch a break no matter how good or bad they play.

So, if you are a Canes fan and want to see them land a top-five pick, then you better keep hoping that they continue to run cold at even strength and get terrible goaltending because that might be what keeps them in this range. Most of their remaining games are also against teams gunning for the playoffs, so that might give some encouragement for those who are hoping for a tank-job. Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing a couple more wins because I want the team to end the year on a good note but losing isn't the worst thing in the world right now.

The Frozen Four is currently ongoing and unfortunately, no Carolina prospect's respective teams made the finals. They had a couple of players go pretty far into the tournament, though and now that their season is over, we're going to take a look at how they've performed this season. With the exception of Danny Biega, all of Carolina's NCAA prospects are underclassmen who weren't playing big roles on the team, so their production might seem a little underwhelming, but keep in mind that these players are also very young. It's also worth noting that the Canes have signed two of these four players, the most recent being Wisconsin sophomore and 2013 fifth round pick Brendan Woods.

Woods' Wisconsin Badgers had themselves a very good season in winning the WCHA tournament before getting eliminated in the first round of the NCAA tourney by UMass-Lowell. The run that Wisconsin pulled off is pretty impressive after they started off the season on a rough note. The Badgers won 11 out of their last 15 games and Woods played an important role in their resurgence, recording nine points in Wisconsin's last 16 games. He also had two assists in the Badgers win over Minnesota-Duluth in the WCHA semi-finals. Woods' team had a great season, what about the rest of Carolina's NCAA pool?

Di Giuseppe is the player here with the most potential and he had a bit of a disappointing season, along with most of Michigan's team. He spent most of the season on the first line and didn't put up terribly good boxcar numbers for his ice-time, although he finished fifth on his team in points. Di Giuseppe didn't have much trouble when it came to creating offense since he was third on the team in shots on goal and averaged nearly three shots per game, so poor shooting luck could have contributed to his low goal total. He is also only 19 years old and didn't sign his ELC, so next year should be something to look forward to for him. Di Giuseppe has good size and can be an effective winger at the next lf he continues to improve. His team actually made quite a resurgence in the final part of the season after playing so poorly for most of the year, making it all the way to the CCHA finals.

While Di Giuseppe will probably return to school next season, the other two players will be in the pros as both Danny Biega and Brendan Woods have signed their entry-level contracts. Biega did so a couple weeks ago and has already played one game with the Charlotte Checkers. Unfortunately, he was also injured in that game and hasn't played since. Biega also had a bit of an underwhelming senior year at Harvard after being a point-per-game player the year before. As a team, Harvard struggled a lot this season so Biega wasn't the only one who had a down year. He was also able to get a lot of shots on goal for a defenseman, ranking third on his team. Biega had a down season but still has a lot of talent, so I'm looking forward to what he can do with the Hurricanes in the coming years. He should be able to get some decent minutes on Charlotte's blue-line next season.

Woods also signed his entry-level deal and I was a little surprised that he did it so early because he was only a sophomore and is a very recent draft pick. He also spent most of this season as a 2nd and 3rd line center for the Badgers and would have had a chance to get more ice-time next year if he stayed in school. We will likely be seeing him in Charlotte next year, too as that team continues to be younger but I still think he is a ways away from being in the NHL. If he manages to get that far, he probably has a future as a bottom-six player more than anything else. Woods spent a fair bit of time on the Badgers penalty kill last year, has good defensive instincts and is very good at faceoffs, so he could parlay that skillset into a professional career in the right situation. Woods is also the son of Anaheim Ducks assistant head coach Bob Woods and you can never go wrong with drafting a coach's kid. 

Not listed above is goaltender Collin Olson, who was the Hurricanes sixth round pick from this year. Olson played in only nine games this season, so there isn't much that is known about him other than his .901 save percentage in those games. Ohio State was in a battle for the post-season for most of the second-half of the year and they gave most of the starts to senior Brady Hjelle, who had one of the best save percentages in the CCHA so he likely wasn't going to steal the job away from him. He should be getting more starts for the Buckeyes next year and there will be more known about him then. Goaltenders in general take a long time to develop and the Hurricanes took two in their most recent draft, so it will probably be a long process with them.

With Woods and Biega signing, there aren't going to be many Carolina prospects in the college rankings next year but hopefully that changes in this coming draft. it's looking like the Canes will have a high pick, so that will be a chance to add some more young talent into the system.