A couple weeks ago, Chip Alexander broke the news that the Hurricanes will let their potential unrestricted free agents test the market and they aren't going to lose a ton of value by doing this. The only player who will be difficult to replace is back-up goaltender Dan Ellis and even then, they might be able to find someone of equal talent for a low cost with goaltender performance being so difficult to predict. Other unrestricted free agents for Carolina include bottom-sixers like Chad LaRose & Tim Brent who can be replaced without much of an issue and aging defenseman Joe Corvo who probably wasn't going to be re-signed no matter what. However, the Hurricanes do have a couple of young defensemen who are pending unrestricted free agents and could represent some value in future seasons. Those two players being Bobby Sanguinetti and Brett Bellemore.

Neither have a lot of NHL experience and haven't given the Hurricanes a ton of value thus far, but they are still very young and have shown plenty of potential over the past couple of seasons. They also represent an opportunity for the Hurricanes to get help on defense without breaking the bank. Defensemen typically take years to develop and while neither Bellemore or Sanguinetti have broken into the NHL full-time just yet, if they were to do so over the next year they would represent a lot of value for whichever teams sign them. That's a big "if," though because both players are relatively unproven and there is no guarantee that either are good enough to play in a top-four role at the NHL level as soon as next year. 

Both of these players have been in the Hurricanes organization for over three years now and they've been in the AHL for most of that time. Sanguinetti finally made the "jump" to the NHL this year and while he got off to a rocky start, he settled in as a solid third-pairing defenseman during the second half of the year. Bellemore has much less NHL experience with only eight total games played as an emergency call-up this season, but he was impressive during that time and fills a need as a stay-at-home defenseman with good size and a strong physical game. It would have been nice to see him get some more games to see what he can do, but this is where we're at right now and the Hurricanes will have to make a decision on him and Sanguinetti before July.

This is a situation the Hurricanes aren't completely foreign to, though because they were in a similar spot a few years ago when it came time to extend Jay Harrison and Brett Carson. They are obviously much different players than Sanguinetti and Bellemore in terms of playing style but their contract situation is pretty similar. Both were in their mid-20's, had less than a year of NHL experience at the time and were unrestricted free agents. the Hurricanes ended up them both one-year contracts for around the league minimum. Will they do the same with Sanguinetti and Bellemore?

It really depends on what the front office thinks of them. Both have potential, but are still unproven assets and the Hurricanes need immediate help on defense. If they don't see them as anything more than third pairing defensemen, then they will probably let both walk without a blink of an eye. However, if they see them as players who can step into a top-four role as soon as next year, then they will probably re-sign them. A trade involving someone like Jamie McBain or Jay Harrison could also change things up since that will at least open a roster spot but in the end, it will probably depend on how much potential they really see in Bellemore & Sanguientti.

After the jump, we'll look at both player's track records so far, what their potential is and what kind of contract each will be looking at this summer.

For most of the playoffs, Boston goaltender Tuukka Rask has had to bail his team out of a lot of tough situations and steal a few games for the Bruins. This was not one of those games. He did make 28 saves to earn his third shutout of the post-season, but Chicago's offense was basically non-existent last night. The Hawks had possession of the puck for the majority of the game and had an advantage in shot attempts, but not many of them were threatening. The Blackhawks had to play this game without one of their best forwards in Marian Hossa, but even without him they should have been able to produce more than eight scoring chances at even strength. That kind of offensive production is just woeful even against a solid defensive team like the Bruins. Couple that with the Hawks having an atrocious special teams performance and the Bruins got themselves a fairly easy win to take a 2-1 series lead.

This was a very sloppy game, as both teams looked pretty out of sync and were having a lot of difficulty controlling the puck in the bad ice conditions. As a result, this was a fairly low-event game with neither team creating that much offense. Although, the Hawks have much more than the bad ice to blame for their performance last night since this was just an ugly performance all-around.

Jay Harrison's development over the last few seasons has been very impressive. After being mostly an AHL defenseman for the first seven years of his career, the Hurricanes decided to take a chance on him in the summer of 2009. Since then, he has been a regular member of the team's defense corps and seems to improve every year. The last couple of seasons have been especially impressive because not only has Harrison become a regular NHL-er, but also a big-minute defenseman for Carolina. 

Defensemen in general take a long time to develop, but Harrison is more of an extreme case of a late-bloomer than most. He didn't play a full season in the NHL until he was 27 and was mainly used in a sheltered third-pairing role in his first few seasons. That all changed the next year, as we saw the coaching staff give him more minutes, use him on both special teams units and play Harrison in high leverage situations against the other team's best forwards. Injuries and the lack of depth on the Hurricanes blue line is part of the reason why Harrison was placed in a bigger role, but he wasn't exactly out of place in the top-four either. 

Harrison was one of Carolina's best defensemen last season and his contributions were showing up in all three zones. His nine goals led all Carolina defensemen and the team was barely being outshot with him on the ice. Considering he was playing a big minute role and not being sheltered, his performance was very good. It's even more impressive when you consider that he was mainly a third-pairing defenseman and career AHLer in the seasons prior to that. Harrison was also credited with mentoring rookie Justin Faulk last year, and is expected to perform a similar role with the Canes other young defensemen in the upcoming years, as the team decided to give him a four-year contract last off-season. 

The real nice thing about having a player like Harrison around is that while he has his limitations, he is capable of playing a bigger role when asked. We saw that last season and once again this year when the injury bug hit the Hurricanes. The original plan going into the year was to use Harrison as a third-pairing defenseman and penalty kill specialist but once again, injuries forced him into a bigger role and his performance was roughly in-line with what it was last season. This has it's positives and it's drawbacks.

Harrison is a fine player and is capable of playing big-minutes, but his strengths are shot blocking and being solid positionally. When he has to skate to keep up with other team's top forwards or go up against more skilled players, it usually results in him getting burned unless he is working with a strong defense partner. He had that last year in Faulk. This year, whenever his primary defense partner was Joe Corvo, he didn't have as much of a safety valve and it resulted in him being on the ice for more chances & goals against.

That being said, Harrison improved in quite a few areas this year and should be a very important part of this team for the next four seasons. After the jump, we'll review his performance this year.

Last night, the Bruins played what was probably the worst first period of any game of this year's post-season. For those 20 minutes, they were outshot 19-4, outchaned 13-2 and thoroughly dominated by the Blackhawks in all phases. It was on pace to be one of the most lopsided Stanley Cup Final games in recent memory but despite their horrific performance in the first period, the Bruins were only trailing 1-0. They have goaltender Tuukka Rask to thank for this. He kept the Bruins in the game after the team in front of him sleepwalked through the first period and they could have easily had to come back from a bigger deficit if it wasn't for him.

This isn't the first time that Rask has has to bail his team out of a tough situation and I get the feeling that it won't be the last, considering how good of a team Chicago is at even strength. The good news is that Boston matches up with them fairly well and they were able to contain them well for the next two periods. After getting bulldozed for the first 20 minutes, Boston outchanced Chicago 7-3 in the second and third periods and did an excellent job of containing the Hawks most dangerous forwards. Bruins coach Claude Julien stated that his team "started playing" after the first period and that's a fairly accurate assessment when you look at the period-by-period stats.

There are going to be a lot of people saying that the Bruins were "lucky" to win this game and in many ways they were. They had no business being down by only one goal after that first period and Chicago also had a goal waved off, so it easily could have been at least a 2-0 game. However, I think they deserve some credit for tightening up after that and shutting down Chicago's offense. They were also the superior team in overtime, which is ultimately what won them this game and why this is a tied series heading back to Boston. You have to be good and lucky to win a Cup and the Bruins were both last night.

Every team always has one or two players who are great in a certain role but often get overslotted by the coaching staff and can appear worse than they actually are at times. For many seasons, that player has normally been Chad LaRose on the Hurricanes but last year, it may have been Patrick Dwyer. An excellent penalty killer and defensive forward, Dwyer does a lot of things well and would have a spot on most NHL clubs. That spot, of course, being on the third or fourth line, which is where the Hurricanes normally used him until this year where he became a regular in the top-six.

After the Canes decided to send Zac Dalpe to Charlotte, they needed someone to take his place on the second line until Tuomo Ruutu returned. For much of the year, that player was Dwyer and he was not a terrible fit compared to the team's other options. Dwyer can skate well enough to keep up with the Hurricanes top-six and he has plenty of experience playing a tough-minute role, so he would not be terribly out of place on Jordan Staal's wing. He was also noticeably better at driving the play this year than he was in past seasons, which adds to his overall value. All of these qualities would make Dwyer a fine top-six player, but what makes him overslotted in that role is his offensive upside, or lack thereof. 

Despite doing everything else well, Dwyer had a scoring rate of less than 1.5 at even strength, which is pretty low for someone who played top-six minutes. His 16 points in 46 games would be pro-rated to about 28-30 points in an 82 game season and the eight goals he scored this year would tie a career high for him. Dwyer's an effective player and can use his speed to create offense and drive possession, he has just not been able to finish and this is something that has been true for his entire career. This is evidenced by his low goal totals and his 7.1% career shooting percentage.

Not being able to score much isn't the worst thing in the world, though and Dwyer at least makes up for it by contributing well in other areas. The problem was more related to the Hurricanes using him as a second liner when he probably shouldn't have stayed in that role for more than a few games. Dwyer's 16 points would have been excellent for a depth player but as a top-sixer, it's underwhelming and basically the same issue that a lot of fans had with LaRose for years. No one is going to accuse Dwyer of being a bad player and he does a lot of things to help the team, but Dwyer is best suited as a third liner and some problems can arise when he is expected to be more than that.

With that being said, Dwyer was one of the team's better forwards this year and he gave the Canes quite a bargain for his $625k cap hit.

My stance on what the Hurricanes should do with the fifth overall pick is to take whoever is the best player available and in this year's draft, it's looking like that player will be a forward. One of Jonathan Drouin, Aleksander Barkov, Valeri Nichushkin or Elias Lindholm will likely be available when it is Carolina's turn to pick and these are some of the best prospects to come out of their respective countries in years, so it's going to be tough for Carolina to pass on anyone of them. However, as we get closer to the draft, I've seen more and more people predicting that the Hurricanes will take a defenseman, passing on either Nichushkin or Lindholm by doing so.

It's easy to see why Carolina would take a defenseman early, as they were one of the worst defensive teams in the NHL last season and there aren't many free agents available who would improve their blue-line much. They also don't have many prospects in their system who project to be top-four defensemen with the exception of Ryan Murphy who is more of an offensive threat. There is always the chance that someone like Brett Bellemore or Danny Biega can step into a big role within the next couple of years but neither will give Carolina a huge upgrade on defense as of this moment. Therefore, it would make sense to draft a defenseman because he would likely help the team somewhere down the line and possibly provide an upgrade as soon as next year.

The one negative of drafting a defenseman this early is that they take a longer time to develop than forwards and usually aren't contributors at the NHL level until 1-3 years after they are drafted. There's nothing wrong with drafting a defenseman in the top-five when you have a need there, but if you're looking to draft someone who will provide an immediate impact, there's a low chance that a defenseman will give you that in his rookie season. This is why I subscribe to the "best player available" philosophy. There is a good chance that an 18-19 year old forward can contribute in a top-nine role on an NHL team, but a defenseman of the same age is likely a third-pairing guy, so the foward gives you more immediate value.

The Hurricanes might need defense more, but if they can get a forward with elite potential that can make an impact as soon as next year, then they shouldn't pass on it. Plus, once some of the team's older corps begin to age (Semin, Ruutu, E. Staal), someone like Barkov, Nichushkin or Lindholm can slide into their place. So drafting a forward can fit both into the team's short and long-term plans if all goes correctly.

Who says a defenseman can't contribute after the year he was drafted, though? It has been done before and the pedigree of this year's draft class has been noted plenty of times, so it's possible that the Canes might be able to find a defenseman who is good enough to play a top-four role in the NHL next season. Defense isn't cheap these days and if you can find a young player who can play in the top-four on an entry-level contract, then that is amazing value. However, players like this are also very rare and whether or not this draft class has any of them remains to be seen. Just how rare are they? Find out after the jump.

The Stanley Cup Finals got off to a fantastic start last night with the Chicago Blackhawks defeating the Boston Bruins in a thrilling overtime game off a deflection goal by Andrew Shaw. Looking at the shot reports for this game will tell you that the Blackhawks dominated the Bruins for the majority of the contest and Tuukka Rask was the main reason why Boston stayed alive for so long. This is only partially true because while the Blackhawks had the puck a lot and were the better team, the Bruins did not get outplayed by nearly as much as the shot clock indicated and they were very close to taking a 1-0 series lead on many occasions. 

Not many teams are going to win the territorial battle against the Hawks while playing on the road and the Bruins are no different, so while they were "outshot" by 51 at even strength, they did a fairly good job of either getting in the way of most of Chicago's opportunities or keeping them to the outside. This isn't a strategy that is going to win them the series, but I see them having difficulty keeping up with the Hawks at even strength, so the most they can do is try to limit Chicago's chances, make Corey Crawford work as much as possible and win the special teams battle.

The Bruins were able to do this to some degree last night because they were only outchanced by three at even strength, tested Crawford with 27 chances of their own and got a power play goal while blanking the Hawks on all three of their opportunities. Chicago was still the better team overall, but take away those two fortuitous deflections that found their way past Rask and this game could have had a different result. You create your own luck in this sport at times, though and the Hawks definitely had control of the play for long sections of this game and earned this win. Losing a game like this can be deflating, but the Bruins don't have much to panic about yet. Chicago will make a lot of teams look bad on the stat-sheet and this one could have ended up much worse.

For Carolina fans, watching Jussi Jokinen this year was frustrating in many different ways. Finding a spot for him in the lineup was one side effect of the Jordan Staal trade, as Eric's younger brother was occupying the second-line center spot that Jokinen held for almost all of last season. I made a suggestion to play him on the wing becuase he has done it before and has produced in that role. The injury to Tuomo Ruutu also made putting Jokinen at one of the left wing spots in the top-six an attractable option, but the team opted to keep him at center and put him on the third line to start the year. 

On paper, this made sense. Jokinen has never been a "tough-minute" player before in his career, so using him in a sheltered third-line role could play to his strengths. Jokinen was coming off a down year production-wise, but what he normally gives you in a year would be excellent for a third-liner. In a sheltered role, all he really had to do was drive the play and provide secondary scoring, both of which he is capable of. He is also very good at winning faceoffs, which is probably one of the reasons why they wanted to keep him at center. Keeping Jokinen in the top-six would have been most fan's preference, but using him as the third line center was not a bad plan going into the season. Unfortunately, it ended poorly.

Jokinen went the first 11 games without scoring a goal and had only one point during that stretch. To make matter worse, he went the first 20 games of the season without scoring an even strength goal and was on the losing end of the scoring chance battle. With Jokinen's skill-set, one would think that he is more than good enough to thrive in a sheltered, offensive role but for whatever reason, it just was not working in the first half of the season. He looked lost, frustrated and out of place on the third line. 

As the season went on, Jokinen started to play better and he really seemed a lot more comfortable once moving over to the wing after Riley Nash took over the third line center role. The bad news was that Jokinen still wasn't producing much on the scoresheet and a lot of it had to do with poor puck luck. Jokinen has never been the most accurate shooter and there were definitely some moments where he would badly miss the net on an open shot or fumble the puck in the slot, but a lot of the numbers suggested that Jokinen was going through a patch of terrible shooting luck and he would eventually rebound from it.

The Hurricanes couldn't afford to wait for his luck to turn around, though. The team was going to be in a salary cap bind next year and they certainly could not to afford to commit $3 mil. per year to a player who was going to be on the third line when everyone in the top-six is healthy. Trading him made sense with the team's playoff hopes fading fast. How GM Jim Rutherford handled this situation, however, was less than ideal. Rutherford killed any value that Jokinen might have had by placing him on waivers and after he went unclaimed, he was forced to trade him to the Pittsburgh Penguins for a minimal return.

Still due $3 mil. next year, it was probably tough for Rutherford to find a new home for Jokinen in the middle of the year since he had only 11 points in 33 games at the time and this is probably why he was traded away for nothing. Even with Jokinen's poor numbers, holding onto him and then trading him at the end of the year wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world. The best case scenario is that his luck turns around (which it did in Pittsburgh) and he fetches a decent return this off-season and at worst, he could have gotten Carolina a mid/late round draft pick. Waiving Jokinen and then trading him to a future divisional rival just reeks of poor asset management on the part of Rutherford.

So now that we've reviewed how Jokinen's career as a Hurricane came to an end, let's take a closer look at how he performed with the Hurricanes this season.

Tim Brent's two-year stint as a Carolina Hurricane went in a much different path than many expected. Signed as a free agent in the summer of 2011, it was thought that Brent would help the team's penalty kill and provide some much-needed help in the faceoff circle. He ended up doing neither, spending minimal time on the PK and having the worst faceoff percentage on the team among regular draw-takers. Brent did provide plenty of value last year despite this, though. He gave the Hurricanes plenty of secondary scoring with 12 goals and ended up being a key part of their power play for the second half of the season. It was a nice surprise because getting that kind of offensive output for a fourth liner on a very cheap contract is huge if you're a budget team. This along with Brent's strong hockey sense made him a favorite to some fans, but last year was kind of an aberration for him.

While Brent's versatility was nice to have, his play at even strength was very poor, as the Hurricanes were getting sledgehammered whenever he was on the ice. His strong goal-production was the result of him scoring on 16.9% of the shots he took, which was unlikely to carry over to the next season. Brent not scoring on every 11-12 shots he took wasn't going to be the worst thing in the word since he is a fourth liner, but his play at even strength was going to have to improve drastically for him to be a useful player on Carolina. As a fourth line center, he doesn't have that difficult of a role and his main responsibility is to not get lit up defensively. Since Brent has produced good results on the power play and is a pretty smart player in general, one would think that he should be able to be a decent even strength player in a protected role with decent linemates.

This year, Brent went through a revolving door of wingers on the fourth line and wasn't given that important of a role at even strength, but his performance this year was much stronger than it was in previous seasons. Brent went from being one of the worst territorial players on the team last year to one of the best this season and made the Hurricanes slightly less of a liability at even strength. The only problem was that his offensive production completely dried up, as he scored only one point in 30 games and had no goals on the season. I'm sure many were expecting Brent's numbers to regress this year since his scored at an unsustainable rate last season, but a decline like this wasn't expected.

Brent's season was odd in a lot of ways because while his game improved dramatically in a lot of areas, he did not score at all and one would think that he should have better results next year. At the same time, his underlying numbers went from terrible to fantastic in the span of the year and it will be interesting to see how those hold up in a full season. With Brent being an unrestricted free agent, the Hurricanes are going to have to make a decision on him very soon. Is he good enough to center the fourth line next year or are there better options out there to replace him with? Since Brent's performance with the Hurricanes has been a mixed bag overall, it might be tough to comitt more years to him when they have players from within the organization who can play his role without much of a drop off.

Some team will probably want Brent's services next year, though. After the jump, we will look at what he did in his second year as a Hurricane and how he contributed in ways that didn't show up in the boxscore.

"Anything can happen" is usually the cliche you'll hear in the NHL playoffs and while this year's post-season had a few surprises, there weren't many monumental comebacks or huge upsets like last year, where the Stanley Cup Final featured a sixth seed versus an eighth seed. Instead, we have the top-seeded Chicago Blackhawks, who many predicted to win the cup since their incredible undefeated streak to start the year, going up against the Boston Bruins, who most pundits have considered to be in the upper echelon of the Eastern Conference. The Bruins had more of a bumpy road to get to this point than Chicago, but they've really been on a roll in the last two rounds defeating the Rangers and the top-seeded Penguins in a total of nine games. Chicago, on the other hand, took down the reigning champions, the Los Angeles Kings, in five games after surviving a scare from the Detroit Red Wings in the previous round. 

Both teams have gone through various struggles this post-season, but ultimately this is a matchup that a lot of fans and experts aren't too surprised about, and you know what? That's fine. These have been two of the best teams in the NHL and should deliver an entertaining series. One of my favorite things about this matchup is that both clubs are fairly evenly matched on paper. Both were excellent even strength clubs this past season, have great goaltending and are capable of wearing down their opponents physically. The whole "anything can happen" cliche may have not held up for this year's post-season, but I believe that this series could really go either way because Chicago & Boston don't have much of an advantage over each other.

This is going to make predicting the series tough but seeing how I am 13-1 in predicting series winners this post-season (series length is a different story), I figured that I would give this my best shot.