If I had to name a few players as those who would be "untouchable" on the Hurricanes in regards to a trade, Brandon Sutter would be one of those players. His scoring line isn't the most impressive but he plays one of the most important roles on the team as the third line center. That doesn't sound like much at first glance because every team has a defensive center, but what makes Sutter so important to the Hurricanes is how well he plays this role. Sutter plays some of the toughest minutes in the NHL, regularly being deployed in the defensive zone and matched up against opposing team's top lines.

Sutter along with his linemate Patrick Dwyer take up almost all of the defensive responsibilities among the team's forward corps and this allows players like Eric Staal, Tuomo Ruutu and Jeff Skinner to play easier minutes, thus helping the team's scoring. In addition to that, Sutter is one of the team's better shot-blockers and has a pretty good set of hands that make him a solid two-way threat that other teams need to be aware of. Most people who get to watch the Hurricanes are aware of Sutter's value and what he brings to the table, but players like him are usually among the most under-appreciated in the league because defensive forward isn't a noteworthy position.

They don't score a lot and their performance isn't shown in most underlying stats either because the ice is tilted so heavily against them, especially for a player like Sutter who plays some of the toughest minutes in the NHL. This is where applying context to one's playing situation would come in handy and Sutter is probably at the top of the list of players who would have their numbers improve if they were adjusted for their starting position, which has been done in the past. We aren't going to do that here, but we are going to look at how Sutter has performed throughout the year but remember to keep his playing situation in mind when you look at the raw data.

A look at those numbers is coming after the jump.

The best thing about the NHL playoffs is that almost anything can truly happen in a seven-game series. When the sample size is that small, there are so many things that can occur. Any goalie can get hot and steal a series for a lesser team, a player or a line can tear it up after a disappointing season or the league's best powerplay can dry up and it will decide the outcome of a series for some teams. This is why the "best team" during the regular season doesn't always win the Cup. The higher seeded team is always at an advantage, yes but a lot of other things need to go right for them if they want to win it all. There are just so many different things that can go right or wrong for any team in a series that it makes most predictions look foolish in the end.

The idea that "anything can happen" has never been more true this post-season as the Stanley Cup Final is between the 6th and 8th seeds from their respected conferences and the eight seed might be the favorite going in. That team would be the Los Angeles Kings, who have made short work of their playoff opponents by defeating all three in just 14 short games. The higher seeded team, the New Jersey Devils, finished fourth in the Atlantic Division in the regular season but here they are in the Finals now. The Devils were perceived to be a weaker team than the Rangers and the Flyers but they managed to get past them in 11 games which was partially due to luck and the Devils being a better team than their seeding indicates. Just like how the Kings are a better team than what most 8 seeds are considered to be.

This is why I'm against making predictions for the most part. I like going into a series knowing that anything can happen and that a huge upset might be just around the corner. It seems that mindset has been in line with this year's playoffs more than any other season in recent memory and the final matchup this year is one that could go in either direction. Therefore, any prediction I make can easily end up being completely different from what I think will happen, but I'm going to make one anyway.

Find out what I have to say about this year's final after the jump.

The word "unnecessary" came to mind when the Hurricanes signed Anthony Stewart to a two-year deal last summer. Stewart was coming off a career season with the Atlanta Thrashers the previous season where he had 14 goals and 39 points in 80 games. Going by that alone, one would think that Stewart had top-six potential and and might succeed in a third line role with the Hurricanes. However, Stewart's scoring line last season was incredibly misleading and I was a lot more skeptical about this signing than others were.

Stewart might have had good counting stats with the Thrashers last year, but his underlying numbers painted a much bleaker picture. Whenever he was on the ice, the Thrashers were getting outshot badly at even strength and that was with him starting 54.5% of his shifts in the offensive zone. Stewart was also never a huge point producer in the AHL and his previous career high in the NHL was 7 points in 59 games. AHL success doesn't always translate to the next level but players who don't produce in the minors generally don't go onto be productive scorers at the NHL. This, along with the fact that 10 of Stewart's 14 goals last year came during the first half of the season, made me think that Stewart's 39-point campaign was an aberration and that he wouldn't be anything more than a fourth liner on the Hurricanes.

This is why I felt that signing him was unnecessary. He isn't good enough defensively to play on a checking line or in a shutdown role and he doesn't have the skill set to play on one of the top two lines either. All the Hurricanes could do was give him 6-10 minutes of soft ice-time per night and hope that he didn't hurt the team. That is exactly how the Hurricanes used him for most of the year and Stewart may have scored nine goals, but a closer look at his numbers show that he probably wouldn't be in the NHL on a good team. A look at those numbers is coming after the jump.

The decision on which player the Carolina Hurricanes should take with the eighth pick in the NHL Draft is anything but unanimous but one thing that can be agreed on is that it should be a forward. The Canes do have a decent future up front with Jeff Skinner and Brandon Sutter already contributing at the NHL level, but their prospect pool is very thin. The team's best forward prospects who aren't currently on the roster project to be 2nd/3rd liners in the NHL or have little chance to even make the league, so they definitely need to strengthen the depth of their forward corps and this draft is a great chance for them to do that. While there are a lot of defensemen projected to go in the first round, there are also a lot of very talented forwards who the Canes can take with any of their picks.

Carolina has ten picks this draft and while lower round picks never project to amount to much, you can never have too many good young players in your system, so the Hurricanes need to make their picks count. There are always a few late round picks who make the pros out of nowhere and it's possible that there might be a few lurking in this draft. Countless times you will see a GM value things like talent, size and skill over their performance which leads to some guys falling in the draft. One way to find these players is to look at their point-per-game total at their current level and see who is playing well by this standard. 

Over the next couple of weeks, we are going to use this method for different leagues to evaluate certain players in the draft and see which ones might be available when it's the Hurricanes turn to pick. It isn't perfect because goals and points alone aren't the best way to judge a player, especially ones who are in junior hockey. A player could have a great season that's driven completely by a high shooting percentage or he might be used in more favorable situations compared to others among other complications. Unfortunately, the amount of data available in these leagues is very limited so this is the furthest amount of statistical analysis that can be done for a lot of prospects. I was also going to include their NHL Equivalency value, but that probably doesn't mean much to the Hurricanes. There's a 90% chance that all of the players they take will not make the team next year, so how their performance last season compares to the NHL level doesn't mean much.

After the jump, we are going to take a look at the forward prospects who played in the Canadian Hockey League last season. This is the most popular junior league in the world and a good chunk of the players in the draft usually come from there, so we are going to get a decent sample of players to examine here. Are there any hidden gems coming from the CHL this year? Let's find out.

For a young player, adjusting to the speed and skill of the NHL is very difficult and it usually takes years of development before they are ready to contribute full-time. This process is especially true with defensemen as most of them aren't ready until at least their early-20's. Young defensemen in the NHL are generally used in a more sheltered or offensive rule because they are still learning the game and are obviously going to have trouble facing pro-level forwards. This is the case with just about every young defensemen no matter how big or talented they are because a good majority of them are coming straight from either a junior level or college, which doesn't compare to what they will have to deal when they get to the NHL.

It takes a really special talent to make it in the NHL at a very young age and there have been only 16 defensemen since the lockout who have played more than 30 games in the big show before they turned 20. One of those 16 players is Justin Faulk of the Carolina Hurricanes. Faulk still has a ways to go before he is a top-tier defenseman but his pro career got off to a great start this year. He was playing over 20 minutes a night, was used in just about every situation and looked incredibly poised for someone his age. He was also arguably the team's best puck-mover last season with Joni Pitkanen on the shelf for most of the year.

The major concern with Faulk is his defensive game. He had trouble controlling possession at even strength and the Canes gave up a lot of scoring chances when he was on the ice. The ongoing explanation for this is that Faulk is still very young and most players his age playing his kind of minutes would fare no better. This got me thinking, how does Faulk compare to other defensemen his age? What situations were they playing in and how did they perform? Was Faulk better or worse than them and most importantly, what predictions can we make about Faulk's future based on it?

After the jump, we will look at the 16 defensemen who played at least 30 games in the NHL before their 20th birthday and see how Faulk's performance during his rookie season compares to them.

In the past, I have talked about how I hold certain players to higher standards than others because of the situations they are used in or how much they are being paid. For the Hurricanes, the player that is held to the highest standard is their team captain, Eric Staal and there are plenty of reasons to expect a lot out of him. Staal has been the Canes best player for the last seven years, he is being paid top-level money and he has been at least a 70-point player since the lockout. As fans, we have become accustomed to seeing Staal be a dominant force, which is probably why most people see this year as a disappointment for him. He had 70 points in 82 games, was one of the few forwards with a positive even strength scoring chance differential and led the team in shots on goal.

For most players, this would be a great season, but a lot of fans thought that Staal lost a step this year. Why is this? For one, his scoring rate was down from what it was in previous seasons (dropped from .94 to .85 points per game this year) and he got off to possibly the worst start of his career. Staal had only 12 points through the first 26 games of the season, which is bad for most players but even worse for player of Staal's caliber. It's tough to figure out what was wrong with Staal during that time but a lot of it was related to bad luck. His shooting percentage this season was lower than it has ever been (9.2%) and the Hurricanes, as a team, were shooting at an extremely low rate in the first half of the season. The Hurricanes goaltenders were also stopping only .897 of the even strength shots they faced when Staal was on the ice, which directly affected his horrible plus/minus that was harped upon for most of the season.

The point here is that some of the things that contributed to Staal's "down year" were out of his control because it certainly isn't his fault that the team's goalies couldn't stop a beach ball whenever he was on ice at even strength. That's something that was overlooked during his rough first half of the seaso. Another thing that was somewhat overlooked is how good Staal was after the rough start. He had 58 points in his 56 games since December and still finished with 70 points despite having only 12 in two months. Staal's overall year might have been a disappointment but it's hard to look at how he played over the last four months and say that he underachieved.

Players who produce as much offense as Staal aren't going to shoot at less than 9% forever, so it was only a matter of time before Staal had a scoring outburst, but a look at his underlying numbers show that Staal had some legitimate stretches of bad play this year and guessing which part of the season they came in shouldn't be too difficult.

We will look at those numbers after the jump.A

The Hurricanes have another restricted free agent locked up for the next couple years with the team re-signing Jamie McBain to a two-year contract with a cap hit of about $1.8 mil. per season ($1.7 mil. + $1.9 mil. in salary). This is a pretty safe deal for McBain since two years isn't a big commitment and the cap hit is pretty low, as well. McBain has really done a lot in two and a half seasons in Carolina and he has shown the potential to be anything from a decent top-four defenseman to a very solid third pairing guy/powerplay quarterback. He has been more effective in the latter role and his game in his own end still needs some work, but I think keeping him around for the next two years is a good move for the Hurricanes.

While there have been some arguments in favor of trading McBain, re-signing him is probably the better call for now. Yes, the Canes have a lot of defensemen in their system (and too many puck movers), a couple of them are another year or two away from making the team. At the very least, McBain will provide a good stopgap for the Canes until Ryan Murphy is ready to be called up. He is also only 24 years old and is still developing. What we're seeing right now isn't his ceiling and he could very well turn into a stronger two-way player. If he doesn't progress at all in the next two years, then the Canes have a good offensive defenseman who can give them 25-30 points for about $1.8 mil. per year.

Let's pretend that McBain doesn't progress at all in the next two years and stays the same player. Would $1.8 mil. be an overpayment for him? To figure this out, let's take a look at some other defensemen who were given a contract similar to his. Below is a list of defensemen, their contract's cap hit and the age they were when they were signed to those deals.

All of the players here are 2nd or 3rd pairing defensemen and some of them had a defined role which made them a little more valuable than a standard bottom-pairing defenseman. What this means is that if McBain were to stay the same way he is now, his new contract fits his current value just fine. If he phases out offensively or is a complete defensive liability, then it's an overpayment but that isn't the case with him right now. McBain is also younger than the majority of defensemen on the list with the one exception being Matt Niskanen. Niskanen also brings an interesting comparison to the table because he was also a 25-35 point defenseman early in his career but his offensive numbers fell off a cliff around the time that Dallas extended him. He was also a bottom-pairing defenseman like McBain, only sheltered a lot more.

A couple other players who I would compare to McBain are Alex Goligoski and Johnny Boychuk. When they were signed to their contracts listed above, they were known more as puck-movers and were bottom-pairing defensemen on their respective teams. Goligoski was primarily a third pairing defenseman and powerplay quarterback when the Penguins re-signed him to a three year deal and while his two-way game hasn't come around much, he is playing as a top-four defenseman in Dallas and has been more effective as an offensive defenseman. Boychuk has played regularly in Boston's top-four and has even spent some time playing alongside Zdeno Chara. His numbers in the NHL are a pretty big contrast from his impressive point totals in the AHL.

McBain had more experience at the NHL level before he signed his second contract so he's a little different from Boychuk and Goligoski but the main idea here is that the Bruins and Penguins committed 2-3 years and roughly $1.8 mil. to a young defenseman with a decent amount of potential, which is the same thing that the Hurricanes are doing with McBain. Goligoski and Boychuk progressed as their contracts went on and were able to earn big deals with their current clubs. Can McBain do the same thing? Let's hope so.

If there is one positive thing to take away from the Tomas Kaberle fiasco last, it is that Jim Rutherford was able to dump off his contract on then Montreal Canadiens GM Pierre Gauthier without giving up much of anything. All the Hurricanes had to do was take on the expiring contract of 37 year old defenseman Jaroslav Spacek in return and this deal ended up being more than just a salary dump. Spacek quickly found his role in Carolina as a third pairing defenseman and made a great first impression in his Hurricanes debut by recording two assists. He was able to give the Hurricanes stronger defensive depth as he performed very well as a sixth defenseman and proved to be a good mentor for some of the younger defensemen, most notably Jamie McBain.

Spacek was just about everything you would want a third pairing defenseman to be and his experience could make him somewhat valuable to the Hurricanes going forward. Does that mean that the Hurricanes should re-sign him in the next couple of weeks? Not necessarily. While Spacek was solid when healthy, he was also very brittle and missed a considerable amount of time with various injuries. This is something that Spacek has struggled with for the last few years and it's gotten worse as he's gotten older. His limited mobility and durability also make him no more than a third pairing defenseman at this point in his career, which is a role that shouldn't cost a team more than $2 mil. per year. Spacek might re-sign under those terms but it seems more likely that he will be the odd-man out given how many defensemen Carolina has in their system right now. A one-year deal wouldn't be out of the question, though.

As of right now, it is tough to say what the Canes will do with Spacek but if he wants a new contract, his play last season might be able to help him earn one. His point total isn't going to wow anyone, but Spacek was able to control possession as he had the highest scoring chance percentage at even strength among Carolina defensemen.  After the jump, we will take a closer look at the season Spacek and see why he was able to succeed in Carolina.

The excitement of the NHL off-season is just around the corner and there have already been numerous rumors and speculations about who the Hurricanes might go after in the next couple of months. Unfortunately, the majority of it is just scuttlebutt from the media or fans with big dreams and expectations. While there’s nothing wrong with setting your sights high and hoping for great things, the likelihood of Carolina being able to land a big free agent this off-season (see: Zach Parise & Ryan Suter) is very low.

I am not trying to be Mr. Pessimist, but Jim Rutherford is going to need to outbid at least 5-10 different teams to land those players and it’s probably going to have to come at a very high cost. Big ticket free agents like Parise are going to want long-term deals at high cap hits, so Carolina is going to make sure they are competitive within the next couple of seasons to land Parise. Why is this? Because Parise is in the prime of his career right now and there is a good chance that his production will tail off as he gets older. I like the idea of having Parise on the team but keep in mind that the team that ends up signing him could end up paying at least $5 mil. for a 20 goal season out of him. Knowing Rutherford, he isn’t going to take a risk like that unless he think he can build up a Cup contending team in the off-season.

Everyone’s focus in the off-season is always on the big names but before talking about Carolina being able to sign anyone, it’s important to go over the prospective roster for next season and the team’s cap situation so we know what the team needs and what they have to work with. Some needs are much more obvious than others (cough first line winger cough), getting a general overview of the Canes needs is a good starting point because there might be some areas that are being overlooked.

We will look at Carolina’s prospective depth chart and monetary situation (with the help of Capgeek) after the jump.

After having a tremendous rookie season and taking home the Calder Trophy, Jeff Skinner's sophomore year was met with much anticipation. There were some who feared that he would have the dreaded "sophomore slump" and while he did score fewer goals, anyone who watched Skinner play this year could see that he looked like a better overall play. Skinner looked stronger than he did his rookie season and he is showing signs of becoming a complete player rather than just a goal-scorer. My biggest concern with Skinner after his rookie year was wondering whether or not he had the ability to carry a line at such a young age, and in only his second season he proved that he could. It makes Skinner a huge bright spot in a mostly forgettable season and a great sign for things to come.

In addition to that, Skinner was also one of the team's most consistent forwards at creating scoring chances and managed to keep his head well above water on a team that was very poor at controlling both possession and scoring chances. Most of the time, it takes a couple seasons to develop their games and become more well-rounded players but Skinner appears to be ahead of the game in that department. He is already shown the ability to carry lines, drive the play forward and he's even killing penalties now, too. Most of the news surrounding Skinner was negative because he suffered a concussion and his bad attitude has gotten both him and the Hurricanes into trouble. Skinner is just a kid but his play on the ice and with the puck has matured at a quicker rate than anyone could have imagine. However, his antics between the whistles is something that he needs to work on because that overshadowed what was a great season for him.

After the jump, we'll take a look at Skinner's underlying numbers throughout the season and see just how good he was.