At the beginning of the season, I attempted to project the performance of every regular skater on the team by looking at players similar to them going by their career scoring patterns. The way this method is utilized is that the player's performance is supposed to mimic those of their comparables and their projected performance of a given year will fall in between a certain set of point. This is essentially what I did for my projections but I also looked at the player's career performance and took into account what kind of ice time and linemates he would have throughout the year. I also came up with one projection instead of a range of points because I thought it would be a good challenge. 

Some of my projections were accurate while others were completely off and we are going to go through all of them after the jump.

There really isn't much to say about this game other than the Canes got off to a horrible start and score effects did the rest. Congratulations to the Florida Panthers on winning the Southeast and making the playoffs for the first time in over a decade. This isn't the way that I wanted the Hurricanes to end their season but a rebuilding team is going to take their lumps. Carolina had a miserable first half to the season and it looked like they were destined for a lottery pick, but they have improved a lot since January and it looks like there are some pieces here that we can possibly build something with. It's too bad that the season had to end on a losing note, but don't let it erase the great things we have seen over the last couple of months.

Now it's time to look forward to the off-season and what Jim Rutherford will do with the Canes #8 pick.

The Hurricanes finally got involved in the college agent game the other day by signing Union College forward Jeremy Welsh to an entry-level contract hours after they were eliminated from the NCAA Frozen Four by Ferris State. Welsh was very good in the NCAA tournament for Union College as he was one of their best players with eight points in nine games.

Welsh is described by college fans and scouts as a big forward who has a solid shot and great offensive prowess. He was also known as one of the leaders of the leaders of this Union squad and is coming off quite a season with a career high 27 goals and 44 points in 40 regular season games. Some scouting reports also say that Welsh plays a somewhat physical game and uses his big frame to his advantage when battling for pucks and gaining position against defensemen.

Not everyone has access to watch every college hockey game, so the only information I know about Welsh's game is through stats, what scouts say and from my observations of him in the NCAA tournament. The scouts seem to think that he can be a solid contributor to the Hurricanes at some point and he was very impressive by the eye-test and through stats in the NCAA tournament. What does this say about his future, though?

The best that we can do to project a college hockey player's production at the pro level is to go by translations from Behind the Net hockey. It is tougher to score goals in the NHL than any other league in the world and each league has it's own difficulty level that compares how players from each league have performed in the NHL compared to where they came from. For the NCAA, the difficulty level is set at 41%, which means that players who jump from college to the NHL keep 41% of their scoring. That isn't true for everyone, but it is a decent way to predict future performance for college free agents like Welsh.

What we are going to do is look at Welsh's point totals from college and then use the .41 translation to see how many points he is projected to have in a year in the NHL.

Stats from HockeyDB.com

Welsh has scored 100 points in 119 games at Union College, which equates to .84 points per game. Factor in the .41 translation and he he expected to be a .34 point per game player at the NHL which would equate to about 25-30 points in an 82 game NHL season. He might do better than that, he could do worse but that's where the bar is set for now based on his college numbers.

That said, Welsh is still young and could be a better NHL player than the projections expect him to be and he is getting a chance to show what he can do tonight as Kirk Muller is putting him on the second like with Tuomo Ruutu and Jeff Skinner. I am very excited to see how he does tonight and in future years with the Hurricanes organization.

Carolina fans have a lot to be excited about in Jeff Skinner. He is only 19 years old, has played two full seasons in the NHL and has been one of the team's best players in both of them. That is pretty amazing because there are some top prospects at his age who are still playing junior hockey. Overall, his game is still developing but he is already a dynamic offensive threat and it has shown this year as he leads the Hurricanes in scoring chance percentage and is second on the team in goals. His play away from the puck still needs some work and he really needs to clear up his act between the whistles but other than that, he's made a lot of improvements since last season. It might not be showing up on the scoreboard, but Skinner's offensive game has actually made a lot of strides this year which is what we will look at after the jump.

Whenever I write my scoring chance recap or any kind of stats, it is important to remember that the raw numbers need to be taken into context. Not all ice time is created equal as some players are used in tougher situations than others, making it more difficult for them to drive play in the right direciton. I have discussed zone starts numerous times before and how much of an effect they have, but another thing I want to touch on is matchups.

A coach will usually have a set of forwards and a defense pairing who he likes to use against the opposing team's top line, and their job is obviously tougher than a line that gets a lot of offensive zone starts against the bottom-six of other teams. Sometimes this line will be a primarily defensive unit and not expect to score often but there are teams who use one of their top-six lines in a "power vs. power" role because they have a center who can play tough minutes. Patrice Bergeron, David Backes, Tomas Plekanec, Mike Fisher and Olli Jokinen (this season) are some examples of these types of players. Zone starts are very important, but you also have to consider what kind of opponents they are playing against to see if they are beating out top-quality competition or feasting on weaker matchups.

The most commonly used stat to determine what kind of role a player is being used in is called "Quality of Competition" which measures how good of an opponent a certain player is facing on a regular basis. Some people, myself included, prefer to use "corsi relative to quality of competition" for this because it provides context. This is a really helpful stat but it doesn't tell you everything and it's hard to judge how a player is doing against certain competition when looking at raw possession stats. To fix this, I went back through every Carolina game this year and measured every player's scoring chance rating when they were playing against a certain line. We will look at this more after the jump.

History was made last night at the PNC Arena as the Hurricanes on their first shootout of the 2011-12 season. It only took them 81 games and seven attempts but they finally came out on the winning side of the skills competition and it was nice to finally get the monkey off their back there. Sure, the odds of winning a shootout is the equivalent of flipping a coin, but when you've witnessed 16 overtime overtime losses, six of which coming in the shootout, over the course of one season, it makes you want to pull your hair out so it was nice to see a win in that situation. 

Last night's game wasn't exactly the perfect way to close out the PNC Arena since the Hurricanes had a stretch of about 20 minutes where the Canes looked flat and it didn't help that the refs were calling anything and everything. There were approximately 28 penalty minutes between both teams, which meant that this game would likely be decided by special teams and that was almost the case. The Hurricanes only goal came on the powerplay and the Canadiens were given a 5-on-3 late in the third period which very well could have decided the game, too. Both teams were relatively even in shots and scoring chances (19-18 Carolina overall) so it was fitting that this game needed to be decided by extra time and a shootout. It was also nice for Carolina to finally catch a break in the shootout and end the season's home stand on a winning note.

After that debacle against the New Jersey Devils, I said that I wanted to see the Hurricanes put forth a good effort in their last three games of the season and they certainly did that tonight in a 2-1 win over the Ottawa Senators. This was far from the best game that the Hurricanes have played because they had more than a few defensive slip-ups, got into penalty trouble and had to rely a bit on Cam Ward to bail them out of some tough situations.

The Hurricanes also made some good adjustments in the second period and did a much better job of limiting Ottawa's scoring chances after that. They kept a lot of the Senators shots to the outside and were doing their best to lighten the workload on Ward and it was effective for awhile. Ward still had to make a lot of big saves to keep the Hurricanes on top, but the volume of chances he saw in the second and third period wasn't nearly as hectic as the onslaught he faced in the first period, at least while the Canes were playing at even strength. All hell broke loose when the Sens pulled their goalie.

Anyway, this was a nice road win for the Hurricanes. They got a few lucky bounces, most notably on Brandon Sutter's goal, but they weren't terribly outplayed by the Senators at even strength and did a fine job of protecting their lead, something they have struggled mightily with throughout the season. We also got a possible glimpse into next season with some new defense pairings.

The Hurricanes may have finished March with a "winning" record of 7-6-3 but they did not play their best hockey this month at all. Out of the 16 games they played, the Canes outchanced their opponent at even strength a grand total of four times and controlled roughly 45.6% of the scoring chances during five-on-five play. A few awful games are bound to happen with those kind of numbers and the Canes had their fare share of blow-ups in March. They were shutout twice, were blown out by Columbus and surrendered a 4-1 lead against the Red Wings in a game where they were outchanced 23-9 at even strength.

They had a nice four game winning streak which gave fans some false hope of a miracle playoff push but the writing was on the wall that this team was about to go through another rough patch and it happened. The Hurricanes aren't doing enough at either end of the rink to be a competitive team and things seemed to hit a wall this month as they gave up almost 40 more chances at even strength than they created. Hence why I think the team's defensive play is something that needs to be heavily addressed this off-season.

You'll notice that in the individual player reports, that a lot of the team's top offensive contributors are giving up way too much in their own end. We'll look at those numbers after the jump.

Since the Hurricanes are now out of the playoffs, all that's left to worry about is their draft position. Even with only three games remaining, the Canes draft position can change dramatically because of how cluttered things are at the bottom of the standings.

The Jackets and Oilers have their spots in the lottery all sewn up but the difference between 21st and 27th place is only five points. The Hurricanes can finish the year in 21st or 28th place depending on how they do in these next three games and the other teams' performance will have some impact on that, as well. It's a little odd to think that only two points separate Carolina from a lottery pick right now but things could definitely turn out that way depending on what happens.

Here are the possible scenarios:

If the Hurricanes win out:

The Hurricanes will have 84 points if they win their last three games, the highest they can pick is 6th or 7th depending on how the tie-breaker is decided with the Minnesota Wild should they win out, too. Now, the odds of everyone else also winning out is unlikely (especially with some of these teams having games against each other), so the more realistic result is the Canes picking around 8-10th if they win their last three games. That would put them in a position to take an impact player, but their chances of grabbing one of the top forwards in the draft would decrease if they pick outside the top 5.

If the Hurricanes lose out:

The Hurricanes losing their final three games would mean that they would end up picking in the top five if the Habs win out, the Wild acquire three points and the Islanders, Leafs and Ducks acquire at least two points. If the Hurricanes turn in the kind of effort they had on Saturday, this could very well happen but I honestly hope that doesn't happen. Yes, I would like to see the Hurricanes get a high draft pick but I also want to see this team put forth some effort in their last two games. I didn't see any of that on Saturday and I know Muller is probably thinking the same thing. Either way, if Carolina does drop their remaining three games without securing any points, they will have a good chance of picking in the top five but a lot of it may depend on ohwo the Wild, Islanders, Ducks & Leafs perform in their last fwe games, too. The Ducks have one game in hand so they have a better chance at moving up in the standings.

What will likely happen

Carolina has two games remaining against playoff teams (Ottawa & Florida), one of which has already clinched and they have a game against Montreal on Wednesday. The game against Ottawa could go either way since they already clinched and can't get any higher than 7th place right now. Montreal is getting a lottery pick no matter what, so that game could be a toss-up and I wouldn't be surprised if we see Peter Budaj in net. The Panthers, however, still have not clinched the division or a playoff spot and may still need to by Saturday when they play Carolina on the last game of the season. For their sake, I hope they clinch before then but it could very well come down to the last game of the season, which will make game 82 very interesting for both the Panthers and the Hurricanes.

Things could really go either way with the last three games but I see Carolina finishing in the realm of 7-9th place at the end of the season.

Finding a top-line winger for Eric Staal is likely going to be one of the first priorities for GM Jim Rutherford this off-season. One of the problems throughout the season has been the lack of top-six wingers and it's definitely had an effect on the Hurricanes' positioning in the standings right now. Staal has recently found chemistry with Jiri Tlusty and a combination of Tuomo Ruutu and Chad LaRose but with Ruutu playing better on the second line and Tlusty's ceiling being only so high, it's safe to say that the Canes can do a better job at giving Staal better talent to work with.

Although, if you look at Eric Staal's most frequent linemates throughout the years, you'll notice that he's never had one or two consistent wingers he plays with from year to year. Ever since 2007-08, Staal's regular linemates have changed every year, and I wouldn't be surprised to see this trend continue next season. Something that I noticed is that some of his frequent linemates had career seasons when playing on his wing, and we are seeing that this year with Tlusty.

A great center can make his linemates better and Staal is in that category, but just how good can he make a certain player? This is something to keep in mind when looking for a winger through free agency because while Staal can make his linemates better, he can't make everyone a top-six player. After the jump, we will take a look at Staal's linemates since 2007-08 and which ones he had the most success with.