One of the lesser-known trades made by Jim Rutherford over the last year was him sending Jon Matsumoto and Mattias Lidstrom to the Flordia Panthers for AJ Jenks and Evgenii Dadonov. There wasn't much thought put into this trade because none of the players in the deal had much NHL experience but the Hurricanes did end up getting the best player in the trade, or at least that's how things look right now. Dadonov played only 15 games in the NHL last season and is going to be spending next year in the KHL, but he did have some minor success during his rookie season with the Panthers in 2010-11.

He posted 8 goals and 17 points in 36 games with the Cats that year and could have made the NHL to start the next season but Dale Tallon's off-season splurging that year made it tough for him to make the final roster and he ended up starting the year with their AHL affiliate in San Antonio. Unfortunately, Dadonov would struggle there and the Hurricanes decided to take a chance on him by trading two guys with limited NHL potential for him. What did they get out of it? Ultimately, not much in terms of NHL production but the Charlotte Checkers sure enjoyed having Dadonov on the team.

Injuries and call-ups allowed Dadonov to play in a top-six role for the Checkers and he made the most of it with 19 points in 35 games with the Checkers, 16 of those points being assists. Many thought that Dadonov would get a look in Raleigh before the season was over but he ended up spending the remainder of the year in Charlotte. The Canes decided to qualify him to keep his rights when he returns to the NHL, which could be next year or a couple years from now and who knows what his value/potential will be by that time. Dadonov has always been praised for his offensive potential but he has never been much of a scorer outside of the junior level, so he could end up not amounting to more than a bottom-sixer in the NHL.

Dadonov does bring a lot of good things to the table, though. He was able to tilt possession in the Panthers favor during his rookie season and he actually scored at a decent rate for a 21-year-old rookie. The other nice quality Dadonov has is that he is actually pretty useful defensively and is a pretty effectively physical player despite not being very big. Dadonov definitely has the makings of being a useful player in the NHL but it's hard to say what his ceiling is. He showed a lot of potential with the Panthers during his rookie season but he has yet to match that, especially during his time in the AHL. He did seem to play better after the trade to Charlotte, though and that gives me some hope that he could find his way back to the NHL. It will be awhile before we find that out with him heading to the KHL now.

It is really hard to peg Dadonov as one of the higher ranked forwards in Carolina's system right now because he has yet to make much of an impact, but there are a lot of signs of him being a useful player somewhere down the line. He has pretty solid puck-possession skills and would make a great third liner if his scoring rates stay the same. Dadonov has shown flashes of being a great offensive talent and play-maker, but he hasn't been able to do it consistently, so he might end up being on a checking line in the NHL. There is no doubt that he can amount to being more than that, but he hasn't been able to show it yet. Guess we will know more when he returns from Russia.

Both special teams units were a problem for Carolina last season as both their powerplay and penalty kill had success rates that ranked them in the bottom-ten of the NHL. I discussed the other day about how the penalty kill could still be a major problem for this team next year but the powerplay is a different story. The Canes may have had the 10th worst powerplay percentage in the league but it really wasn't as bad as this stat indicates. In fact, the Canes powerplay was actually very good at getting shots on net and were at least recording scoring chances while they were with the man advantage. The reason why they ranked so low was because they were in the middle of the league in powerplay shooting percentage and had more powerplay opportunities than all but nine teams in the league. The penalty kill is still a huge question mark heading into this coming year but the powerplay has a great chance of improving. 

Simple regression alone suggests that the Hurricanes will have a better powerplay than they did last season if they can continue to get a high number of shots on net, but another thing to consider is the additions of Alexander Semin and Jordan Staal. We all know that these two are going to give the team a huge boost but these two also played a lot of minutes on the powerplay with their previous teams. Last season, the Hurricanes powerplay regularly featured players like Tim Brent, Chad LaRose and Jiri Tlusty and I shouldn't even need to tell you that both Semin and J. Staal should provide a significant upgrade there.

The Canes should have a more effective looking powerplay unit on paper next season but regression is also in order for two of their newest forwards in both a good and bad way. After the jump, we are going to look at how much the additions of Semin and Jordan Staal will boost the team's powerplay and what kind of results we could see from the both of them.

One of the benefits of having a team owner who also operates a OHL team is getting the inside scoop on some of the prospects there. It has been something the Carolina Hurricanes have been taking advantage of the last few seasons with the Plymouth Whalers, who are owned by Peter Karmanos. A good number of Carolina prospects over the years have played some of their junior hockey in Plymouth and a few players in their system right now played with the Whalers last season. We discussed one in Beau Schmitz but today we will be focusing on another defenseman in Austin Levi.

Levi was selected in the third round of the 2010 draft and was considered a bit of a risky pick at the time because he was considered a "raw prospect." Out of the draft, he was known as a very athletic player with great size but not much hockey sense. He was one of the players who many thought could be a great all-around defenseman or a total bust depending on how he developed. It has now been two years since Levi was drafted and he has come a long way while spending the last four seasons in Plymouth. Levi has been billed as one of the top shutdown defensemen in the OHL and has provided some decent offensive production, as well with 30 points in 64 games. He also had a terrific post-season offensively with 10 points in 13 games.

The most promising thing about Levi is that he has gotten better every season and that's evident if you look at the stat-sheet and the praise from some of the people who have watched him. He has always had the tools and the size to be a solid defenseman and he has been making use of his athleticism over the years to become the player the scouts hoped he could turn into. Levi still isn't quite there yet because he's only played against junior competition but he only just turned 20 in February and has certainly gotten the defensive side of the game down according to those who have watched him.

Levi's big frame and towering stature make him an effective defensive player but it is his physical play that makes him a force to be reckoned with. He has been known to deliver punishing hits to opposing forwards and make life as difficult for them as possible once they enter the zone. It might be easier for him to do this while he's playing agianst smaller forwards in junior hockey, but Levi is still decently sized at 6'4" and 205 lbs. Another nice asset about Levi is that his game isn't completely one-dimensional as he is also very skilled at carrying the puck and is capable at leading a breakout. This was actually one of his strongest assets when he was drafted but his game in the defensive zone has improved tremendously since then. Something else that might catch the mind of stat-minded folks is that his penalty minutes have decreased over the years while his physical and defensive game has gotten much stronger, which could be a good sign for his future. A lot of big physical defensemen tend to take bad penalties but it appears that Levi has been able to correct this during his time in the OHL.

While Levi's development has been nothing but impressive, he has still yet to face any competition outside of junior hockey, which is something that will change next season, hopefully. His offense hasn't come around as much as some would have hoped, but the Canes have a bigger need for a shutdown defenseman like Levi has developed into these last couple of years. I think a year in the AHL playing against some older, larger forwards will be a good test for him and should give the Canes a better idea of where he is in his development. I have talked about how some of Carolina's surplus of defensive prospects need to do something to make themselves stand out amongst the pack. Levi is one of the blue-liners who I think made himself stand out this season. Still need to see how he does in the pros before he gets ranked any higher, though.

A main goal for the Hurricanes this off-season was to strengthen their top-six by adding at least one top-line player, something they accomplished by trading for Jordan Staal and signing Alexander Semin. Not having enough horses up front was a major problem for Carolina last season, so both of these additions are going to go along way in improving that. However, another problem for the Hurricanes over the last few years has been extremely poor defensive play and it's debatable to say that their defense heading into this season is better than last year's unit. 

This is especially true on the penalty kill as the Hurricanes were in the bottom-ten in terms of penalty kill success percentage and were also just outside the bottom-ten at preventing shots against when playing with a man down. We all know that the Hurricanes struggles to control play at even strength put them in a lot of holes last year, but their porous penalty kill also contributed to that. There were a lot of games last season that got out of hand because the Hurricanes would get into penalty trouble and inevitably have a lot of shots and goals scored against them during those sequences. Granted, you are already playing with a disadvantage if you are on the PK, but there are a lot of teams with strong PK's and the secret to their success is easy to figure out; they were very good at preventing shots against.

Preventing the opposing team from getting shots on net during the penalty kill isn't as hard as one would think. A simple face-off win and successful clear usually drains at least 10 seconds off the clock and it takes longer than that for the opposing team to set up shop once they get the puck in the zone. After that, the team on the kill has to do their best at keeping the puck to the outside and gaining possession whenever they can so they can erase more time off the clock. Blocking shots and preventing opposing forwards from screening the goalie is also very important when it comes to killing penalties, as well and the latter was something the Hurricanes had a big problem with, namely the defensemen.

This may become an even bigger problem next season with Bryan Allen, one of the team's top penalty killers, gone and no replacement brought in. Another key penalty killer in Brandon Sutter was also lost this off-season, so the team's PK units are going to feature some new faces this season. Given how bad the Hurricanes PK has been the last few years, change may not be the worst thing in the world but is there a chance that the Canes PK might be worse than what it was before? After the jump, we will take a closer look at this and discuss what some of Carolina's PK units could look like.

Hurricanes already know a little about the Sutter family with Brandon and Brett being in the organization for years now. Those two have already left their marks in Raleigh and Charlotte respectively, but one member of the Sutter brood who fans may not know much about is their cousin Brody Sutter. Drafted in the 7th round last year, there isn't much expected from Sutter but he was the best player on the Lethbridge Hurricanes of the WHL last year with 30 goals, 60 points in 65 games. Of course, Lethbridge was a pretty bad team last year and Sutter was one of the older players on the squad but it's hard to deny that he had an impressive season.

Sutter didn't really emerge as a huge goal-scoring threat until last season when he netted 30 but his number shave been gradually improving ever since he entered the WHL. Before last season, Sutter was more known for being a solid forechecker and wasn't depended on to do more than that but his offense has really come around these last couple of years. It is also worth mentioning that he had 42 points in 46 games the previous year when he had a shoulder injury so it isn't like this offensive output came from completely out of the blue. I have my doubts about him repeating this kind of a season, though because hot streaks always happen with a lot of players and that may have been the case with Sutter last season. A player going from 18 to 30 goals in one season does seem a bit fishy.

It is also very likely that Sutter could spend this coming season in Charlotte as he got to play four games with the Checkers last season, and the team will have a better idea of what they have in him if he can stick it in the pros. Sutter should be on the Checkers because the team has open center spots available and could potentially have a few more openings depending on who makes the Hurricanes out of camp. There could be a position battle between him and Victor Rask but Sutter has been able to perform well in a bottom-six role in the past so I think he will be fine on the fourth line. He is going to turn 21 when the season starts, so him making the AHL next season is probably a better sign for his development than him spending another year in juniors.

Whether or not Sutter's fantastic season at Lethbridge was an aberration remains to be seen but most scouts have him projected to be a bottom-six forward with limited offensive upside. I'm not sure if they could have ever predicted him scoring 30 goals but there always seem to be a lot of high-scoring junior players who don't end up amounting to much at the next level. Sutter could end up being one of those players but it's possible that he has turned into much more than that and the Canes might have a potentially useful player on their hands. We will probably know more about him and his future once he starts to play more games in Charlotte, though.

An important thing to remember about Sutter is that he is pretty big for a 20 year old and he was just on the cusp of being an over-ager last year, so he could end up being a lot better than his 7th round draft position indicates. He was also pretty young when he had his 42 point season the year before and has seen his offensive output get bigger every season, which is why he ranks within the top 20 on this list. That could change if he has a down year at Charlotte or ends up spending another season at Lethbridge but as of right now, I think Sutter has some decent potential and this next coming season will tell us more about him.

As a hockey stat guru, it warms my heart to hear that front offices around the league are keeping an open mind into hockey analytics, which is  why I was excited to hear that the Hurricanes were using certain "advanced" analytics to back-up their decision to sign Alex Semin to a one-year contract worth $7 mil. This fact was revealed by Canes PR guy Mike Sundheim on Twitter and later confirmed by GM Jim Rutherford in a press conference. It's always good to do you homework before you make a big signing and it's good to see that the Canes did some fact-checking before signing Semin to this deal.

Blogs like mine and many others across the Internet will always do a thorough background check on a player before deciding if he is a good fit for the team they root for by using shot-based metrics such as Corsi and Scoring Chances along with looking at a player's scoring rates. If you listen to the press conference from Rutherford, you will learn that he performed about as thorough of a background check with Semin as you could imagine but the type of analytics they used is a little different from the ones that you may be familiar with on this blog and other places across the Internet.

I looked back at Sundheim's tweets to see if he mentioned anything about the type of stats the front office was using and he mentioned quite a few. First of all, it appears that the Canes were using percentiles to gauge a player's value rather than just simple rankings. A percentile shows the percentage of a sample lower than the point (or in this case the player) of interest. They were also apparently looking at how often a player scored in "high pressure situations" and against "top forwards on the opposing team."  Plus/minus for these situations were also looked at. These stats were used as a way to combat the opinions of Semin not being "clutch" in the post-season or when the game was on the line.

Per Sundheim, "high pressure situations" are when the game is tied in the second and third periods or when the game is close during those frames. Overtime is also included in this, obviously. The top 2-3 forwards on each of the opposing team are selected by whoever comes up with these statistics. It is also not clarified whether or not the team is looking at the amount of goals/points a player scored or the amount that he is on-ice for but either way, Semin ranked very high in all of these categories and that obviously factored into their decision to sign him.

There are some issues that arise with these stats and the biggest of which being that the "high pressure situations" could eliminate a good chunk of the game and cause them to look at some small sample sizes. A lot of hockey statisticians prefer to look at data when the score is close or tied, so that is understandable but I'm not sure that I agree with elminating the entire first period from the sample. We're in sort of a "dead-puck" era with a lot of close games, which makes every goal huge. Throwing out a few goals because they were scored in the first period seems a bit strange, in my opinion.

The fact that they are only looking at data when a certain player was used against "top 2-3" forwards on the opposing team also limits the scope because there are a lot of times when a star forward is matched up against a checking line, the latter of which probably doesn't have one of the "top forwards" on it depending on the scorer's definition. Therein lies another potential issue; How does the scorer decide who the "top 2-3 forwards" are? Seems a little too subjective if the team in question is playing a team with not much star talent. I understand the rationale behind this stat because it is probably another way of looking at "quality of competition" like I do often, but I also think that it could lead to an issue with sample size.

One final thing I would like to know about these stats is if they look at the amount of shots or scoring chances a player produces in these situations. I'm probably beating a dead horse with this by now, but it's tough to use goals and points as a predictive stat because of how much luck is involved with them. Semin, in particular, had a very unlucky season with a poor shooting percentage and could have created more goals in these "high pressure situations" if he shot closer to his career average. Shots obviously don't catch your attention as much as goals do, but they are also very important to look at because shots are what a player has the most control over. Seeing if a player can drive possession at a high rate usually means that they are likely to score more in the future than a player who isn't.

I may have my issues with these stats and how valid they are but in the end, we can both agree on that Semin for one-year at $7 mil. is a terrific signing for Carolina. Semin not only can perform in these "high pressure situations," he can drive possession at even strength, when the score is tied, and when the game is close and that is going to really help Carolina next season. Plus, he also has scored at a high rate at even strength for most of his career. It may not be the way that I, or many others, are used to doing things, but it is nice to see a team take an analytical approach to rate players and use it to factor into their front office decisions.

When the Hurricanes traded their first round pick to Pittsburgh for Jordan Staal, I was a little worried that they left a lot of talent on the board but they were lucky in the second round when forward Phil Di Giuseppe fell to them. Di Giuseppe (or PdG for short) was projected to be a late-first round pick by some scouts but he fell to the Hurricanes in the second round of his year's draft. Being only 18 years old, PdG has a long road ahead of him before he is in the NHL but he's already received a lot of praise from college hockey fans and scouts. He was ranked as one of the top college hockey prospects in this year's draft and will be playing his sophomore season at the University of Michigan this fall, so the Hurricanes will have to wait a couple years before they know what they have in him, but the one thing that most would agree on with PdG is that he has a lot of NHL-potential.

This was the main reason I ranked him relatively high on the list compared to some of the other team's prospects despite him being younger than the rest. Di Giuseppe was a very impressive goal-scorer and playmaker during his time in the OJHL and he's been able to carry it over to the college ranks at the University of Michigan. He tallied only 26 points in 40 games but those are not bad numbers for a freshman who did not start the year on a scoring line. He was pretty effective in a checking role for the Wolverines last season and still has a lot of untapped offensive potential so the future is bright for PdG.

If you look at scouting reports for PdG on the Internet, you'll notice that his supposed ceiling is all over the board. Some say that he will probably end up on a checking line in the future while others say that he could be a top-six "power forward" in a few years. The most promising thing about these reports is that most seem to believe that he has a decent future in the NHL and those are exactly the types of players you want to draft, so I think the Hurricanes landed themselves a nice piece with him. Although, it has been said that the defensive part of his game is still a work in progress so that kind of limits what he can do on a checking line if his offense doesn't come around.

PdG's sophomore season will tell us more about his potential and what he will be in the future since he's likely going to be used in a bigger role in a very tough conference. Even then it still might take some time before we know what we have in him because he hasn't even turned 20 yet and may still need to work out some of the kinks in his game. If he continues to improve and start to show more of his offensive talent then he could be contributing in the NHL sooner rather than later, even if it's just in a bottom-six role. This will all depend on how he performs in his sophomore year, though. He showed off his great play-making skills in his freshman year and was very good on the forecheck, but there are still areas which he needs to work on, especially on defense.

The Hurricanes may not have a future star in PdG but they at least have a player with a good chance at making it in the NHL. That factor alone puts him a little higher on the list than some of the team's other prospects. The size and offensive potential is there but he just needs to work out some of the holes in his game before he takes the next step. Thankfully, he is only 18 so there is plenty of time for him to improve and he could be one of Carolina's better younger players within a few years.

After a month of waiting and negotiating, Jim Rutherford made his first big splash in free agency by signing Alexander Semin to a one-year deal worth $7 mil. I had been pushing the idea of signing the winger for the entire off-season, so you can probably imagine that I am happy with this signing. The Hurricanes were in need of a top-six winger for almost a year and they found a potential solution in Semin. For those who haven't been paying attention to anything I have been posting for the past month, Semin is a dominant possession player and has scored at a higher level than almost every Carolina forward the last few seasons. That should have been enough for multiple teams to sign him in early July but most teams have avoided signing him because they believed he wanted too much money and didn't think he was a good teammate.

Semin doesn't have the best reputation when it comes to being a team leader but if you look at just his on-ice production alone, it's hard to believe that this guy wasn't one of the most sought after free agents this off-season. Steven Burtch of Pension Plan Puppets made an excellent post responding to the criticisms directed towards Semin and determined that most of them were completely overblown. The idea that Semin is one-dimensional is compeltely bogus because he wasn't on-ice for many shots against and even KILLED PENALTIES for a couple seasons. He also touched on Semin's playoff struggles and how most of the focus has been on the last three seasons when the reality of that situation is that the rest of the Capitals forwards let their team down just as much as him. Semin, however, was the main scapegoat among fans and the media.

If you look at Semin's career scoring rates compared with this off-season's prized asset Zach Parise, you'll notice that they have very comparable numbers. Both players produced at least more than two points per 60 minutes at even strength. In fact, Semin scored at a higher rate at even strength than Parise while playing fewer minutes. Semin can also produce on the powerplay and lord knows that is a huge area of need for the Hurricanes right now. He also has experience playing somewhat tough minutes and can be an ideal linemate for one of the Staal brothers since at least one of them is going to take on the tough minutes next season. The Hurricanes lacked a winger who could play those kind of minutes, but they helped rectify the situation by adding Semin to the fold.

Most people are going to look at the contract and say "Holy cow, why would you give that guy $7 mil.?!?!" and I understand that because that's a lot of money to commit to a player but the fact that it's only a one-year contract makes this not a big deal. Look, Carolina had cap space and need to overpay someone to get the top-six winger they needed and if $7 mil. is what is was going to take to get Semin here on a one-year ticket than so be it. If he doesn't end up working out then he can leave when the season (or hopefully the post-season) is over. Plus, if you look at his on-ice production over his career then it's hard to say that he isn't worth at least $5 mil. per season. That's the money you have to spend if you want to acquire a top-six player through free agency in most cases. This team has the cap space right now and can afford to pay Semin $7 mil. for one year, which minimizes the risk.

Carolina went the buy-low route last season to fill their hole in the top-six by signing Alexei Ponikarovsky and Anthony Stewart and I don't even need to tell you how poorly both moves worked out, so it's understandable why they wouldn't want to take another shot on a player like that. Semin is not a sure thing either but he has scored at least 20 goals a season for most of his career, can play on one of the top two lines without much of an issue and drive possession at nearly an elite rate. If the Canes are going to take a gamble, then signing Semin on a one-year ticket is a good route to take. 

The Hurricanes now have six legitimate top-six players and will not have to overslot third liners into top-liner roles or put trust in unproven rookies like they did last season. I think this will make a big difference next year and possibly make them more of a threat in the Southeast than they were previously. The defense corps is obviously a major concern but when you look at the prospective roster for this season compared to last year, you have to like what you see. This is going to be a better and much different Carolina Hurricanes team than in years past.

Judging the quality of a goaltending prospect is very difficult and projecting their future performance is even more challenging. The reason for this is because goaltending performance tends to be very random over the course of time and the difference between the eighth best goalie and twentieth is usually very small in any given league. That and a top goalie in one league doesn't always make a smooth transition to the next level without some growing pains. Carolina goaltending prospect Mike Murphy is a good example of that.

When Murphy first arrived in the OHL, he struggled for playing time and had a save percentage of less than .900 in 21 games played. Once he got his feet wet and played more games, he became one of the better goalies in junior hockey and had a fantastic season in 2008-09 with a .941 save percentage in 54 games played. His post-junior career has also been pretty solid as he has been splitting starting duties with the likes of Justin Peters and Justin Pogge in Charlotte the last few years. Last season, however, was a bit of a step down for him. He was battling some injuries and posted a save percentage of only .908 in 37 games. It wasn't a major decline from the previous year but a step down regardless.

Murphy did get to make his NHL debut last season, though and set an NHL record by becoming the first goalie to be charged with a loss despite not giving up a goal. The Canes were trailing by three when he entered a game against Calgary, scored once to make it a two-goal game and then the Flames would score an empty net goal to make it 7-4. Carolina then scored two last-minute goals to make it 7-6 and Murphy ended up getting charged with the loss because the ENG ended up being the game-winner. It's a strange occurrence that will probably lead to Murphy becoming a hockey trivia question.

As for Murphy's AHL track record, I think that he will rebound in another season there so I'm not too worried about his performance there. The biggest issue for Murphy in the pros seems to be related to playing time more than anything else. Ever since Murphy has been in Albany/Charlotte, he has had to split time with someone in net and has never played the majority of a season because of this. The injury he sustained last year probably got in the way of that, too. The Checkers haven't been able to guarantee Murphy the starting job while he has been there and I think this coming year would have been the same with Peters being re-signed and John Muse possibly being added to the team. This may have influenced Murphy's decision to sign with HC Spartak Moscow of the KHL for next season.

The Hurricanes decided to qualify Murphy despite this, so he will stay in the organization once his contract in the KHL expires. This is a smart move by Carolina because Murphy is still very young (23) and the team is going to need to find a heir apparent to Cam Ward sooner or later. We don't know if Murphy will be that guy just yet but he could be depending on how he develops in the coming years. Judging from his career totals, he tends to get better once he plays more games so I would have liked for him to spend another year in Charlotte but if he can find a starting job in Russia then that is fine, too. As long as he keeps improving and the Hurricanes can hang onto his rights to keep him in the system.

Murphy's playing style reminds me a little bit of Braden Holtby of the Washington Capitals in the sense that he's pretty aggressive in net and has some very quick reflexes. It's both a good and a bad thing because he can make some spectacular recovery saves but he also tends to put himself in bad positions as a result of overplaying some shooters. Goaltenders usually take a longer time to develop than others so the Hurricanes will know what they have in Murphy in another couple years. Projecting his full potential will be tough because he's going to be playing in another league next year, but the thing to remember with goalie prospects is that the most you can hope for is for them to be quality starters.

You can drive yourself crazy searching for the next Jonathan Quick or Tim Thomas, so the best you can do is find someone who you think can be average in net and hope that he can play out of his mind for some period of time. Can the Hurricanes get that with Murphy? I can't tell you but he appears to be on a pretty decent track and I wish him the best of luck in the KHL.

Continuing the trend of re-signing players, the Hurricanes decided to lock up defenseman Jay Harrison by giving him a three-year contract extension worth $4.5 mil. The deal will kick in next season and will pay him $1.5 mil. per season. Harrison played his second "full season" in the NHL last year but he's been working his way around the league for many years now. He was a second round pick by the Toronto Maple Leafs back in 2001 and had trouble finding a place in the NHL for most of the decade. Jim Rutherford and the Hurricanes scouting staff saw something in him sometime in 2009 and decided to give him a shot. A couple years later, he has become a mainstay of the Carolina blue-line and was a top-four defenseman in Raleigh last season.

Harrison has shown a lot of resilience and determination over his career, which is a large reason why he was Carolina's nominee for the Bill Masterson Memorial Trophy this season. The most admirable trait about Harrison is his work ethic and he has shown that over the years both with the Hurricanes and other teams that he has been involved with. He managed to play more minutes than he ever had before last season and certainly made the most of it by having the best year of his career no matter which way you look at it. Harrison set career highs in goals, points, minutes played and took on a lot more responsibility than he ever had before, so he gave the Hurricanes a huge bargain for the $650k that they were paying him last season. It's hard to say that he did not earn this extension and a significant raise.

As for the contract itself, it's roughly in line with Harrison's value right now. The Hurricanes were using him in the top-four last season because of how good he worked with rookie Justin Faulk, so this deal could be a potential steal if he continues to improve. However, if you take a look at Harrison's underlying stats from last season then it becomes clear that he would likely be a third-pairing defenseman or a borderline top-four guy on most teams. He received secondary tough minutes with Carolina last season and was on ice for a high volume of shots against at even strength, so he had issues with holding his own against tougher opponents. If you look at his performance over the year, you'll notice that he had a strong first 20 games or so but then saw his performance drop around the time he got hurt and it took him awhile to get back up to speed.

There are two reasons for the sharp drop in scoring chance percentage, the first of which obviously being the injury. The other factor was that he was playing on the team's sheltered defense pairing with Tomas Kaberle before he got hurt. The injury didn't cause him to miss that many games but when he came back, Kaberle was traded and Harrison was placed on a tougher defense pairing and that definitely affected his play a little bit. Harrison was able to thrive in a more offensive role but once he wasn't in that situation anymore, he struggled a little, but was able to adjust and he and Faulk made a very solid defense pairing. I have to think that his chemistry with Faulk was one of the reasons why he was signed to this deal, which makes a lot of sense.

I mentioned earlier that if Harrison continues to improve then this could be a steal but if his play stays where it is now, the contract is in line with his current value. Since he is almost 30, what we're seeing now is probably what we're going to get with Harrison and we know that he can play well as a third-pairing defenseman and be serviceable as a second-pairing guy. That's definitely worth $1.5 mil. per year for a team that doesn't have cap issues. Compare him to other defensemen with $1.5 mil cap hits and the deal looks about right for him. The three year commitment (technically four years) is a bit dicey but I don't think it's much of a problem since the contract is movable and there is still room to add another player or two once Joe Corvo's contract runs out after next season. 

Rutherford is always someone who rewards hard work and it's hard to find someone in the organization who has worked harder than Jay Harrison these last couple of years. This is a very fair contract for someone who has proven himself to be at least a solid depth defenseman who can also be used in a bigger role if neccessary. It wouldn't surprise me if Harrison is playing big minutes to start next year if the team's current defense corps stays put.