Ever since the season ended, there have been countless rumors across the Internet of the Carolina Hurricanes making a push for a top-tier forward and one of the most popular targets was Jordan Staal of the Pittsburgh Penguins. At first, this all seemed like baseless speculations but the news of Staal rejecting a 10-year contract extension with the Penguins on Wednesday is when things really started to heat up and the trigger was finally pulled last nigh at the NHL Draft. The Hurricanes sent their first round pick, Brandon Sutter and Brian Dumoulin to acquire Staal, which is a big price to give up for any player but Jim Rutherford must have really wanted Staal and believes that he can get a deal worked out with him.

You can go on for hours about what the Hurricanes had to give up to acquire him and how it was an overpayment and it would probably be true. I had been against trading for Staal because the team was going to have to give up at least one roster player and a high quality prospect to get him, and that's what happened with this trade. I've been a big Brandon Sutter supporter and have gone into great detail about how helps the team. He is only in his early 20's and playing some of the toughest minutes in the NHL and is only going to get better. The other piece, Brian Dumoulin, is likely going to be a future top-four defenseman in the NHL. It doesn't help that top-five talents like Filip Forsberg and Mikhail Grigorenko were available for Carolina to take at #8, which would have really bolstered the team's prospect pool. Rutherford's willingness to pass on high-end talents like that in favor of a proven player like Staal tells me that he plans for the Hurricanes to be a competitive team sooner rather than later.

Trying to build a winner on the fly is never a bad thing and the Hurricanes have some good pieces in place but are they ready to be a winning team just now? Most people who take a glance at their current roster heading into free agency would probably say no and I'm inclined to agree with that. Trading for Jordan Staal wont automatically make the Hurricanes a contender but it does make them a better team for next season and it gives them a better core to bulid around up front.

Losing both Sutter and Dumoulin in this trade hurts, but when you look at what Jordan Staal brings to the table, it's hard to say that he won't be a great addition. The reason why Sutter was going the other way in this trade is because Staal essentially plays the same role as him. Both Staal and Sutter played the "heavy lifting" role for their respective clubs last season as they were regularly matched up against opposing team's top lines and were often deployed in the defensive zone. Sutter was given less of a territorial advantage than Staal but neither were playing easy minutes by any stretch. What makes Staal such a special player is that he has been able to drive the play forward and score at a top-six rate while playing in these situations for most of his career. Sutter is a terrific defensive player but it is hard to put his two-way play on the same level as Staal's. With Sutter, the Hurricanes had an ideal third line center who had the potential to play in the top-six. Staal, on the other hand, is a proven top-six player and is good enough defensively to play against tough competition. Staal is also only one year older than Sutter so he still has plenty of upside, and this is why losing Sutter is not as big of a deal as it may seem.

The other thing that I like about acquiring Staal is that both him and Eric give the Hurricanes two centers who do not need sheltered minutes to succeed. This means that Kirk Muller can basically do whatever he wants with the top two lines since both players can be used in a lot of different situations. He can utlize Jordan in a Sutter-type role and free up easier minutes for the first line or he could do the complete opposite and give Jordan a chance to show his offensive talents. Rutherford could also sign a defensive center for the bottom-two lines and it would allow at least one of the Staal lines to start more of their shifts in the offensive zone. The Canes might need to acquire some better players to make this plan work but at least they have a solid forward corps to build around now.

As for the defense, the Canes do have a good stockpile of prospects but losing Dumoulin stings. He was the arguably the best defenseman in college hockey last season and I really thought he could be a top-four defenseman in the next few years. I understand that Rutherford probably values Ryan Murphy and Justin Faulk more than him, but it is still tough to see him go. Perhaps this gives Rutherford more incentive to re-sign Bryan Allen because the Canes are at least one shutdown defenserman short of having what would be considered a solid blue line for next season. It's possible that Sanguinetti or Murphy could make the team out of next season or that Justin Faulk could step into a shutdown role but who knows?

This trade is a enormous risk for the Hurricanes but I kind of like that Rutherford is trying to make this team better next year and am interested to see what else he does to make that happen. My major concern with the trade is that Staal could make the Hurricanes a slightly improved team next year whereas Forsberg/Grigorenko, Sutter & Dumoulin could make them a contender a few years down the line. I'm sure Rutherford has the same concerns and plans to make more moves so that the Hurricanes are better set for next year and the future.

Most of the Hurricanes moves this offseason have centered around acquiring a winger for the top line and trading for a star player. While there is no doubt that this should be a top priority, another area that needs to be addressed is the defense. No team gave up more shots per 60 minutes at even strength than the Hurricanes did this year and they were also one of the worst teams on the penalty kill in terms of shots allowed. If this team wants to contend, they are going to need to improve their defensive play. Adding some more offense will take some pressure off Cam Ward but the team can't continue to make him face 30+ shots on a nightly basis and force him to steal games for them. Improving the defense will likely lead to a more stable success in the future.

The Hurricanes have already taken the steps to rebuilding the defense through the draft as we have seen both Jamie McBain and Jusitn Faulk blossom into full-time NHL-ers in the last couple of years and they also have other players like Brian Dumoulin and Ryan Murphy waiting in the wings. The team also has two key pieces in Joni Pitkanen and Tim Gleason locked up for a few more years so there is a solid foundation there. The problem is that they have a lack of a true #1 defenseman and the ones with the highest potential are too young and still developing in the NHL. Carolina is going through a transition phase with their defense and they are going to take their lumps in the process, which is probably why their defensive numbers look so bad over the last couple of years. As players like Faulk mature and the other prospects enter the mix, the defense should improve but that's a few years down the road.

To make the defense better next season, the Hurricanes are going to need to improve the supporting cast around what they have now. Gleason and Pitkanen can handle the bulk of the tough minutes and I would expect Faulk to step into an even bigger role next year. What the Hurricanes need for next year is someoen who can play top-four minutes, be matched up against tough competition and contribute on the penalty kill. Basically a replacement for Bryan Allen, who is likely going to depart on July 1st. I've talked about the hole that the Canes are going to have to fill when Allen leaves, but how are the Hurricanes going to go about fixing it?

An ideal situation would be for the Hurricanes to sign a top-four defenseman to a one or two year deal, which would allow them to not rush their younger prospects and have someone to hold the fort down until they are ready. They also have the option of trading whoever they sign if one of the prospects manages to win a roster spot over him, too. The problem is wondering if there is a defenseman out there willing to accept only a one or two year deal. Free agency is always a bidding war and you usually see a lot of four year deals handed out, especially with the cap being raised. There are some intriguing players out there who the Hurricanes might look at if Allen decides to walk, though. We will look at those after the jump.

We might be finished with our player scoring chance reviews for the season but there are still plenty of things we can do with the data to further analyze the Hurricanes performance this year. One thing we looked at was each player's WOWY reports to show how dependent one player was on another but the scope for that is somewhat limited for analyzing forwards. You get an idea of which teammates certain forwards were able to develop chemistry with but you don't get the best idea of which lines they worked best on. Therefore, I went through the scoring chance data on the year and broke down the numbers by line combinations to see which units were Hurricanes' best this season.

Finding the right line combinations is always a tough task for a rebuilding team, and it's especially tough for a team that has a lack of top-six talent like Carolina. Coaches will often juggle whenever their team is going through a goal-scoring drought or a losing streak and the Hurricanes coaches seemed to do this once every few games during the early part of the season. The Hurricanes rolled over 200 different line combinations this year but there were at least 20 units who stuck together for parts of the year and after the jump, we will look at which ones were the best and the worst. It will give us an idea of which lines should stay in-tact for next year and which ones need some work.

The month of June is always a crazy time for the NHL. You have the Stanley Cup Finals finishing up, the NHL Draft a few weeks later and then free agency at the end of the month. Before free agency begins, one thing that teams must take care of is extend qualifying offers to players who are set to become restricted free agents on July 1st. Restricted free agents are those who are under 27 years old OR have played less than seven years in the NHL. Most RFAs are younger players who are coming off their entry-level deals or second contracts but sometimes you'll see a couple high profile players who need to be qualified before their clubs can maintain negotiating rights with them. A few notable RFAs from this season are Shea Weber, Evander Kane and Mike Green.

It is a rare instance that you'll see a high-quality RFA not tendered by his club but there are times where teams let a useful player walk in free agency because he wants too much money or the team doesn't feel that he is worth keeping around. A RFA must be offered at least 100% of what he made the previous season and sometimes more depending on his salary. 

The Hurricanes have already signed two of their potential restricted free agents this summer (Jiri Tlusty & Jamie McBain) but they still have ten other players who need qualifying offers including one former first round pick. Most of the Canes potential RFAs play more important roles in Charlotte and none should be that expensive to keep around, but there could be a few who are cut loose this off-season. We will take a look at these players after the jump and discuss what the Canes might do with them.

When the Hurricanes announced their lines for opening night back in October, one of the surprises was having Jiri Tlusty placed on the first line. For the majority of his career in Carolina, Tlustly was never more than a guy who could be used for around 10 minutes a night in a checking role. The Canes decided to keep him around for another year at a cost near the league minimum and they ended up getting a lot for money with him. Tlusty set career highs in goals, points and looked more like the player the Toronto Maple Leafs drafted in the first round a few years ago.

The decision to place Tlusty in the top-six at the beginning of the year doesn't look as confusing now as he was a regular there for most of 2011-12. He was actually one of Eric Staal's most common linemates and the two surprisingly showed some great chemistry together. Tlusty's career season earned him a new contract as he will be with the Hurricanes for the next two years at about $1.6 mil. per season.

There is no doubt that Tlusty deserved this extension and I'm very happy about the season he had but I can't help but feel a tad skeptical about the chances of him having another year like this. Tlusty is still young and has been able to score at relatively high levels in other leagues, so this year could be just him growing as a player. Unfortunately, his underlying numbers don't quite agree with that narrative. Tlusty is improving but his success this season was largely dependent on two things; Eric Staal and good luck. A detailed look at this after the jump.

Some noise was made in the Southeast Division yesterday as the Tampa Bay Lightning traded for Nashville Predators back-up goalie Anders Lindback. The Lightning had the worst goaltending in the league last season and don't feel confident enough with the prospects in their system yet, so they had to make a deal to help fill the void next season. Thus, they decided to send two second round picks and a third rounder to Nashville in exchange for Lindback's rights. They also received Kyle Wilson and a 7th round pick in return.

Ever since Nikolai Khabibulin left, the Lightning have had a long history of bad luck with goaltending. They've gone through names like John Grahame, Mike McKenna, Johan Holmqvist, Marc Denis, Karri Ramo, Mike Smith, Antero Niittymakki, Dan Ellis and Dwayne Roloson and none of them have been able to stick around for more than a couple years. Goaltending arguably has the most impact in hockey out of every position, so an elite netminder can boost a mediocre team (see this year's Coyotes) while an awful goalie can submarine a team that might be on the cusp of playoff contention if they had decent netminding. The Lightning have been seeing more of the latter happen to them since the lockout, which is why they made this trade. 

The Lightning usually take the cheap route with goaltending, so seeing them trade for Lindback makes a lot more sense than making a huge offer for Roberto Luongo or something. With that being said, I can't help but feel that they gave up a little more than they should have to get Lindback. Tampa Bay still has two more picks in the second round along with two first rounders, so if they were going to trade assets to address a position of need, this was the perfect time to do it. I'm just not sure if Lindback was the right guy to go after if you're looking to solve your goaltending woes.

That last comment wasn't necessarily a knock against Lindback because he has played well as Pekka Rinne's back-up in Nashville, but he's played in only 38 total games in the NHL. Those who think that this trade is going to solve the Lightning's goaltenidng woes should wait and see how he performs in Tampa Bay this year. A goalie who plays well in his first handful of games generally gets a longer leash than others, but the results after that short set of games tend to drop off after that. Lindback is prone to the same regression but with how unpredictable goaltending can be, he might be starting caliber as soon as next year but we don't know that right now. He might perform similar to Roloson this year and the Lightning will be right back where they started.

Overall, this isn't a bad risk for the Lightning and a great job by David Poille to give Nashville some earlier picks in this draft after spending most of them at the deadline this year. The Lightning need a goalie for at least next season, have assets to give (i.e. draft picks) and thought it would be better to trade for a younger goalie instead of kicking the tires on anyone who is available in free agency this July. Did they give up a lot? Yes. Is Lindback going to solve all their goaltending problems? Probably not, but he isn't going to cost much and they needed someone other than Mathieu Garon to be the starter next season. Since they don't see Helenius, Tokarski or Janus as options next year, they decided to take a chance on Lindback. If it doesn't work out, then they have other assets they can move to look for another option in goal. I am skeptical of how Lindback will fare as a starter but he can't be any worse than what they got out of Roloson last year. If Lindback puts up league average numbers with the Bolts next year, it's a significant upgrade over what they had before. They just need to hope that he delivers.

As we inch closer to the NHL Draft, I can't help but notice a lot of fans and bloggers run into the same pitfalls about what they should do with their pick. Most fans seem to have their hearts set on one player or decision that the team needs to make around draft time and they won't be satisfied with anything else. The thing with the Hurricanes is that they have a lot of options as to what they can do with the #8 pick and there isn't really one "right or wrong" choice. The chance of them getting a player who can help the team next season is slim, but they still own a top-10 pick and have a pretty good chance of acquiring someone who will be a useful NHL player somewhere down the line. That is the one thing to remember with all of this.

Hindsight is always 20/20 in the draft and busts do happen regularly, so everyone looks to minimize the risk of a bust by taking what they see as the "safest option." This could be a player who projects to be a top-six forward or top-pairing defenseman and is likely going to be available when it comes their team's turn to pick. However, there are times when a team needs to take risks to gain a star player. "Taking a risk" could mean multiple things including trading him, swapping the pick for a proven talent or selecting a player who had a higher "bust potential" due to on or off-ice issues. It wouldn't be surprising to see the Hurricanes to take any one of these routes with their first round pick because they have a lot of needs and most of the players projected to be in the top 10 of this draft class can help the team in some way. In addition to that, trading the pick to move down in the draft could give the Hurricanes a chance to boost their prospect pool, making them better for the long run.

Some may have preferred it if the Hurricanes had a higher pick so they had a better chance at acquiring one of the top forwards in the draft but they are in a pretty good position as it is right now. There are so many different things the Hurricanes can do with this pick and most give them a chance to improve themselves overall. What exactly should they do with the pick, though? Well, I don't have an answer for what they should do because they have too many options for there to be a "right or wrong" decision. What I can do is go through the different options and weigh the pros and cons of each.

After the jump, I will go over the different forward prospects who the Canes might target and also discuss the different trade scenarios which could possibly occur.

As each moment passes, we get closer to July 1st and the day that Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Bryan Allen becomes an unrestricted free agent. This might not seem like much to a casual observer because players leave all the time but to the Hurricanes, Allen leaving is a pretty big loss. In the general sense, defensive d-men like Allen are not that difficult to replace. If a GM is looking for a player who can play a responsible game in his own end, kill penalties and not contribute much offensively, he can probably find one without needing to spend a lot of money. However, what makes Allen more difficult to replace is the type of role he played on the Hurricanes last season and the lack of available defensemen on the market who can step into that role.

Let's take a trip back to late-February when the thought among Carolina fans was that Allen would be traded for kings ransom. The reason why people thought Allen would fetch that kind of return is because he played an important role on the Hurricanes and they weren't going to let him go for a small package. What was being ignored here was the question of how much Allen is worth to other teams, a playoff team to be specific.

Allen is a top four defenseman and a key penalty killer on the Hurricanes but would be used in the same situations on a team like Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Jose, Chicago or Detroit? Seeing where Allen stands compared to the rest of the league will give us a better idea of this and how much Allen is worth on the open market. For all we know, the Hurricanes may not need to drastically overpay Allen to keep him for another year or two because other teams might not see him as valuable as Carolina does.

All indications seem to be that Allen will leave in a few weeks, but just for the sake of it, we are going to compare Allen to some other defensemen in the league to see how much his new contract should pay him. Whether he stays or goes. We will start looking at this after the jump.

Every week during the regular season, I would review the Carolina Hurricanes performance during said week and one of the first things I looked at was how certain players were being used. I did this by utilizing an "OZ QoC Chart" which plotted a player's offensive zone start percentage against his corsi relative to quality of competition number. Players who were used in the toughest situations were found in the upper left part of the graph while players being used in easier situations were in the lower right part of the graph. This was a very helpful tool for my analysis and it was interesting to see how player usage changed throughout the season. 

The creator of OZQOC Charts, Rob Vollman, has been working hard all season to improve these charts and make them more friendly to those new to advanced hockey statistics. One way he did that was renaming them as "Player Usage Charts" and adding a couple other tweaks, as well. The biggest addition are the bubbles which represent a player's corsi relative. A blue bubble indicates a positive corsi relative and a white bubble indicates a negative corsi relative rating. The larger the bubble is, the greater their corsi relative numbers were. This helps us show how effective a player was at pushing the puck forward and creating offense. 

I have used versions of this chart in the past, but the modifications that Vollman has made to them have made them much easier to read and it's much easier to identify certain holes that a team may have. If you are unsure where to start with advanced statistics and are interested in learning about them, Player Usage Charts are a great first step. They are very compatible and aren't too difficult to figure out. The best part of it is that they are available for no cost, all you have to do is download this pdf and spend a good hour or so looking over them. The pdf linked features analysis from Vollman and dozens of other hockey bloggers, including myself, who interpret the charts for their respective teams and a lot more. 

After the jump, we're going to take a look at the Hurricanes' chart, go over what I said in the feature and do some further analysis.

One potential unrestricted free agent was taken off the market yesterday when the Colorado Avalanche re-signed winger David Jones to a four-year contract worth $16 mil. This might not look like a big deal at first glance, but has the potential to be a pretty awful contract for the Avalanche. Jones might have two 20-goal seasons under his belt, but a closer look at his numbers suggests that the chances of him sustaining this kind of production are slim.

Over the last three years, Jones has been incredibly lucky when it came to shooting the puck. He wasn't exactly being used in the toughest of situations but was still underwater territorially in most seasons. He was able to score 20+ goals because about 15% or more of the shots he took ended up in the back of the net. In addition to that, the Avs were shooting at a higher rate as a team when he was on the ice during the 2009 & 2010 seasons. Unless Jones can maintain his career shooting percentage of 16.3%, his production is probably going to take a significant drop. This is one of the reasons why I wanted Carolina to stay away from him this off-season and why I think this contract will look awful by this time next year. 

How does this concern Carolina, though? Because they are in the market for a top-line winger and the Avs just signed a guy who is a 2nd liner at best to a deal worth $4 mil. per season. This gives us an idea of what the market will look like in about a month when free agency hits and it does make you a little concerned about how much money Jim Rutherford will need to shell out to acquire a top line winger. Rutherford made a similar decision by signing Tuomo Ruutu to a four year contract worth $750k more per season, so most knew what the market was going to be like this year. The news of the salary cap increasing to $70.3 mil. also means that teams are going to shell out more money than usual for some players, so you'll probably see more deals like this handed out over the next month or so. 

Just how much money does Rutherford need to spend to acquire that top line winger he is looking for, though? That is something I can't answer right now, but I have to think that it is in the ballpark of Jones and Ruutu contracts, likely more. Spending a lot of money for next season isn't a big deal with the cap being so high, but Rutherford can make things much easier on the team long-term by avoiding signing players to 4+ year contracts and offering more money for less years instead. It doesn't seem like anyone on the market this year is going to provide a long-term solution to Carolina, so short-term contracts appear to be the way to go. He's going to be overpaying no matter what, but shortening the term of the contract minimizes the overall risk of it. 

No matter what Rutherford does, he has to be smarter than the Avs were with this Jones contract when he looks to fill the void on the top line. Granted, the Avs are in a tougher situation because they are ways away from the cap floor, but no GM should be offering four year contracts to a player whose success is mostly driven by luck. That's not what you should do when you're on a budget or when you're  a rebuilding team. This along with the Cody McLeod contract puts the Avs summer of to a very rough start. Let's hope Rutherford doesn't follow suit.