Derek Zona of Copper and Blue recently looked at the Oilers blocked shot leaders in a new way, which shows how many shots a player blocked relative to how many he was on ice for. Why is there a need for this? Because while blocking shots is a skill, it also shows that a player has been on ice long enough for the opposing team to have a shot attempt, which does not speak well of their defensive abilities. A better skill would be the ability to suppress shots and prevent chances because that allows possession to go more in favor of their team. Blocking shots is also a necessary skill but it does not always indicate that a player is good defensively because it shows that they are also spending too much time in their zone and have to resort to desperation plays. So yes, shot blocking is a necessary attribute but there are a lot of players who are blocking a lot of shots because they are getting pinned in their zone too much and need to make plays like that.

Players on the Canes who are lauded for blocking shots include Tim Gleason, Patrick Dwyer and Brandon Sutter...but neither of them are blocking the most shots relative to the amount they give up. Who leads Carolina in that category? Find out after the jump.

Carolina Hurricanes (12-19-6) at Pittsburgh Penguins (20-11-4)
Consol Energy Center, 7 p.m.
TV: FS-Carolinas, ROOT Sports

If you're wondering why there was no scoring chance report for yesterday's game against the Devils and are an NHL Game Center subscriber, try to watch the replay of that game and tell me what happens. That should answer your question. I'll get the data from that game up as soon as I can, which probably won't be tonight because the Hurricanes are back in action against another future division foe, the Pittsburgh Penguins. Both games against Pittsburgh this year have been very good and tonight's should be interesting with the Hurricanes top forward prospect Zac Dalpe being called up.

Where he is going to play is a good question because he was called up as a replacement for the injured Patrick Dwyer, who is a third liner but has played around 16-18 minutes on some nights so it's very possible to insert Dalpe onto the third line with Sutter and Tlusty. It's a huge upgrade compared to how little he was playing earlier in the season on the fourth line. Then again, it's possible that he might be placed on the fourth line while someone like Andreas Nodl is placed on the third line to take over Dwyer's spot because he has experience playing in Philadelphia's top 9. Then you remember what Kirk Muller said a couple weeks ago regarding Drayson Bowman being used on Staal's line.

“I think you’ve got to put them into a spot where they can excel,” Muller said of young players, like Bowman. “If you keep throwing them on the fourth line when they come up, they’re just going to be a guy out of their element.”

Dalpe is similar to Bowman in the sense that he is an offensively gifted player and could benefit a lot from playing on the first line during his call-up. The other wing spot on Staal's line is being occupied by Chad LaRose and he can easily play a third line role without any trouble so the idea of putting Dalpe on the top line isn't too far out of the question. He didn't have much success in his first stint this year (was on ice for five scoring chances in nine games) but he was playing injured and was stuck with Paul Maurice's fourth line minutes, which is a hard position for him to succeed. Could this be his chance to finally stick around on the big club? We'll find out soon.

Lines, scoring chances & more after the jump

The phrase "we were playing good until the third period meltdown" has become a common fixture around these parts with the Hurricanes being unable to close out games in a respectable fashion this year. Not including empty net goals, they have been outscored 45-33 in the third period this year. If that wasn't bad enough, they've also been outchanced by 22 in the third period alone and have a scoring chance percentage of 46.1%. If you're a regular on this blog (or have been following the Canes) then you probably know that the team's been getting plastered at even strength all year. How much worse can they be playing in the third period? Brutal goal differential aside, they are actually playing only a tad worse in the third period than the first two (about a percent lower) and believe it or not, they have been playing slightly better in the final frame than they were earlier in the year.

An idea recently cooked up by Gabe Desjardins at Arctic Ice Hockey were game-by-game shot charts showing a team's shot and goal rate over the course of the season. Teams with low shot rates but high goal rates can expect their good fortune to fizzle out in due time and vice versa, so tables like this provide an easy-to-use chart for seeing how good a team really is. Going off the same idea, I decided to make a similar chart for the Hurricanes, only using their third period data instead to see how terrible they've really been in that frame.

First, a little decoding. The blue line is the Canes scoring chance percentage, the red line is their shot percentage and the green line is their goal percentage. You can see that they have been sub-.500 in scoring chances and shots in the third period for the entire year, which shows that Carolina's third period woes have been a yearly problem. It reached a new low around game 11 or so (I am pretty sure that's the game at Philadelphia where they coughed up 4 in the third) and a collapse like that was just waiting to happen when you look at their other rates here. They were consistently bad at creating scoring chances and shots in the third period, but they got some good luck and were scoring more. Then our old friend regression kicked in and they were stuck in a chasm of third period meltdowns for the next few weeks. That's what happens when you can't control possession, sadly. 

The good news is that the Hurricanes appear to be getting more shots on net in the third period and while their scoring chance rate hasn't picked up that much, it's shown a slight improvement and the team's goal rate has gone up along with it. If the team can continue to out shoot their opponents in the third period then we should begin to see less meltdowns and more comeback wins. The shot rate is getting close to hitting 50% so that's always a good thing. Just have to hope that more of those shots are scoring chances so they will eventually turn into more goals and, soon enough, more wins. 

One positive thing the Canes have (or "had" I should say at this point) was the emergence of Bryan Allen and Tim Gleason as a shutdown defense pairing. When these two were paired together, they took over 60% of their draws in their own zone, were constantly matched up against the opposing team's top lines and had 50% of the team's scoring chances go in the Canes favor. That pairing has since been split up with Allen being regulated to third pairing minutes (for whatever reason) but the Canes are going to have a big decision coming up within the next year as both players contracts are expiring and they might be forced to keep one or the other. Both are having great seasons and could have solid trade value in a few months for a team looking for a shutdown defenseman but the idea of losing these two is very troubling when you consider how big of a role they play.

That's when it hit me. Just how much is the going rate for a shutdown defenseman in this league? Even better, just how hard is it to replace a shutdown defenseman? I'm talking about guys who are more one-dimensional because guys like Drew Doughty, Nicklas Lidstrom, Shea Weber and Zdeno Chara are signed to large contracts due to their great play at both ends, but what about a guy who is more of a defensive stud who contributes little offense? That description fits Allen and Gleason to a T and it made me think that replacing these two may not be as big of a hassle.

Whenever I think of the Gleason/Allen situation, I'm reminded of when Mike Komisarek was set to become a free agent after the 2008-09 season and appeared to have suitors all over the league looking to ink him to a big deal. However, a hockey mind that respect mentioned that he would not pay Komisarek big money because he believed that a stay-at-home defenseman like him could be found in other places for half the cost. An alternative option was Greg Zanon. Komisarek was a stud that year with -1.1 corsi rel. with a 39.8% OZone rate while Zanon had a worse -11.7 corsi rel with 42% of his draws coming in the offensive zone. Komisarek signed with the Leafs to a contract worth $4.5 mil per season while Zanon signed with the Minnesota Wild for about half that. Since then, Zanon has continued to play in a shutdown role for the Wild while Komisarek was hurt for the majority of the first year of his contract and was used in a lesser role in the second year. The Wild signed Zanon to play the same role as Komisarek was supposed to play on the Leafs for half of the cost. What is even more interesting is that the Leafs had guys on cheap contracts like Keith Aulie, Luke Schenn and Carl Gunnarsson play the shutdown role and make Komisarek expandable, making his contract look like an albatross.

Is this just a one time thing or are other teams replacing their highly-touted shutdown defensemen for less money? What does this mean concerning the future of Allen and Gleason? We'll explore things further after the jump.

When Tuomo Ruutu tipped in Jay Harrison's long point-shot to give the Canes a 2-1 win over the Ottawa Senators, there were loud cheers and a collective sigh of relief throughout the RBC Center as Carolina picked up their first overtime win of the season. Not only that but it was also their first goal when playing four-on-four, which is an area where the Canes needed to improve on. Another area the Canes needed to improve on was outchancing their opponent and with the Senators playing their second game of the back-to-back, they had the perfect opportunity to do that tonight.

The final chance count ended up being 17-11 in favor of the Canes and 13-9 at even strength, so they accomplished their goal there. Despite the lopsided numbers, this game was actually a lot closer on the scoreboard thanks to Craig Anderson. While he isn't having a good year, Anderson was a wall tonight and stole a point for his team. He is usually lights out against the Hurricanes and that trend continued tonight as the Canes peppered him with 19 shots in the first period and he was able to turn away all but one, which was a deflection off a defenseman's skate in front. Speaking of which, the oddest thing about this game was that only one of the three goals came on scoring chances. The Canes first goal came from a sharp angle and the Senators goal was a shot from long range that deflected off of Patrick Dwyer's stick. Had Ruutu not tipped in the game winner, all three goals would not have been scoring chances in this game. I can't remember if that's ever happened in a game I have tracked. Either way, it was great to finally get an OT win and send the team home for Christmas on a winning note.

Scoring chances & more after the jump

Whenever the Hurricanes play the Senators, all I can think of is how Ottawa has never learned their lesson with goaltenders. What I mean by that is they have spent big money on goaltenders and took unnecessary risks on them despite evidence showing how volatile the position. Ever since the lockout, they have gone through six different starting goalies and have spent a total of approximately $31,613,000 on them, which is equal to a little over $5 mil per season. The worst part of it is that they haven't gotten much value for any of their goalies after the lockout which makes me wonder why GM Bryan Murray keeps making the same mistakes when it comes to signing goaltenders. It seems that almost every time Ottawa finds a goalie who performs well, they decide to ink him to a 3+ year deal with a cap hit that's a little above $3+ mil. and get little to no value in return for that. They recently did this with Craig Anderson who put up a .939 save percentage after the Sens traded for him in February last year. is even strength save percentage this year is now only .904, way below the league average which shows how Ottawa still has not learned their lesson with goalies.

I know it sounds weird to let someone who performed so well just walk away but the fact is that for the most part, goaltending is very unpredictable and the Senators keep taking large risks on it with things like the Anderson contract. It's ridiculous when you go back in history and see how many similar mistakes they have made, which we'll look at after the jump.

One of the most misleading stats in hockey is powerplay and penalty kill percentages because they are driven by variable stats like save and shooting percentage, which regress over time. For instance, a team might have a powerplay that's generates only 1-2 scoring chances per game total, but they are clicking at a 25% efficiency because most of the shots they take end up being goals. That last sentence should tell you that they are getting lucky and how that plays a big role into how "good" or "bad" their powerplay may be. On the penalty kill, you could have a unit that manages to not allow any shots for a minute and fourty five seconds, then a harmless looking wrist shot from the point sneaks past the goaltender and the penalty kill gets tagged for a goal allowed despite doing just about everything right.

The goal of a penalty kill is to prevent as many shots and chances against as possible, which is why I look at those numbers instead for determining how good a team is in that area. Carolina appears to have the 26th ranked penalty kill with a 78.4% success rate according to this metric, which indicates that the PK hasn't improved that much compared to last year. General observation tells you otherwise, which is why we need to dig deeper into the Canes PK to see how "bad" it really is. In terms of shots allowed per 60 minutes, Carolina has the 12th worst PK in the league surrendering about 53 shots per 60 mins. and while that isn't good, it is a hell of an improvement from last season when they were the second worst penalty killing team in the NHL.

Defensemen are generally considered the main players on the penalty kill but forwards play a big role as well. It's their responsibility to win battles along the boards, block shots, win faceoffs and clear the puck which are all critical when killing penalties. Outside of Brandon Sutter and Patrick Dwyer, just about all of Carolina's forwards struggled at killing penalties last season so I wanted to look at their performance so far this season. There are also some personnel changes that have taken place over past year, so going deeper into the forwards performance on the PK will show how much of an effect they've had. The results may surprise you.

More after el salto

There will be games where the team does most things right and plays well enough to win but comes out on the short end due to a few things going awry. Last night's 4-3 loss against the Coyotes was one of those games for the Hurricanes and it's very disappointing because this was one of their better efforts of the season. They had the powerplay going, held the Coyotes to less than 20 even strength shots and were getting a reasonable amount of production from all four lines. If that's the case, then why did they lose? Well, for one they continued their trend of playing awful four-on-four and surrendered the game-winning goal to Lauri Korpikoski in the third period in that situation. Phoenix goaltender Jason LaBarbera also played a very solid game stopping 34 of 37 shots compared to Cam Ward stopping 15 out of 19, although there wasn't much he could do about any of the goals he gave up. Phoenix converting on their one and only powerplay chance also played a factor while the Canes were 0 for 3 on the night despite getting some great looks with the man advantage.

In other words, the bounces went Phoenix's way in some areas but they certainly made the most of their opportunities while Carolina squandered away theirs. They also did a solid job of limited Caroliina's chances at even strength as the scoring chances aren't as lopsided as the shot total for both teams indicates. Phoenix was able to most of Carolina's shots to the outside and didn't allow them into the dangerous areas for much of the third period when they were protecting a 4-3 lead. Receiving a great performance in net like what Phoenix got from LaBarbera last night also helps. 

Scoring chances & more after the jump

It was announced the other day that Justin Faulk would not be joining Team USA for the World Junior Championship and will be staying on the Hurricanes for the time being. The general consensus seems to be that Faulk is here for the rest of the year, especially with Joni Pitkanen out indefinitely. However, the team still has seven NHL defensemen even with Pitkanen on the IR, which means we have at least one healthy body available every night. Now, it's always nice to have an extra player available with injuries being abundant in the NHL this year, but keeping a player in the press box for consecutive games isn't the best for their development which is why many believe it would have been a wise decision to let Faulk play in the WJC. Faulk, obviously, is not the guy sitting in the press box though. That person is either Jay Harrison or Derek Joslin as neither can be sent to the AHL without clearing waivers first.

Are Harrison and Joslin superior to Faulk? No, but one thing Faulk has that they don't is the ability to be sent to the AHL without needing to clear waviers. Of course, that would imply that Joslin and Harrison are outperforming Faulk, which hasn't been the case. However, one thing I notice when I do my scoring chance reports is that Faulk has been on the negative side of the spectrum more times than not. With the coaches using him against the likes of Claude Giroux, Evgeni Malkin, Mike Cammalleri and Jason Spezza, it is very possible that he might be in over his head. While Faulk's defensive game is coming along much faster than anyone could have imagine, he's known to be more of an offense-first blue-liner and the shutdown role might not be right for him at only 19 years of age. 

I understand that organizations want to get the maximum value out of a player during the entry-level years of his contract and using Faulk in a sheltered, offensive role with Jaroslav Spacek, Jamie McBain or Jay Harrison in a slightly sheltered role might seem like the team is wasting an entry level year, but putting Faulk into a position where he can excel is what the team should do if he's going to be staying in the NHL. Faulk's scoring chance rate is currently at 46.6%, which is roughly the team average. His corsi percentage, however, is well below the team average at 40.6 sort of indicates that Faulk is not ready for the NHL yet, at least not in the role he's been playing this year.

The problem with sheltering Faulk is that there are other defensemen on the team who would benefit from the same kind of treatment, namely McBain. Also, Faulk has gotten the benefit of easier zone starts compared to the rest of the defensemen as his 50.8 OZone% is third highest behind Spacek and Joslin and he is only ranked fourth among defensemen in quality of competition. Which means that Faulk has been protected in the lineup but is still struggling a bit, which could indicate that he's not completely ready for the NHL yet.

Faulk's game looks good by the eyes but he has shown some inconsistencies and I can see why people think that the Canes should have let him play on Team USA in the WJC. He'll be the team's best defenseman, play around 25 minutes a night and have a chance to be a huge part of Team USA's run in the tournament. People will obviously see that as a bigger experience for him than playing sheltered minutes on a bottom-feeding Carolina team. Although, it's not as if Faulk hasn't played a big role on the Hurricanes because he's loggged over 20 minutes a game ever since his recall and is playing a key role on the powerplay. Also, he is a much better option than Joslin who has put up worse possession numbers than Faulk with easier ice time. I think most Canes fans would be more comfortable having Faulk in the lineup over him even if it is only for a few weeks.

With only 17 NHL games under his belt, we may have to wait a little longer to determine whether or not Faulk will stick with this team for the rest of the year. Early on it seemed like he was a keeper but his lapses in the defensive zone have been increasing lately so I think the next month will be key for him. As of now, he is a better option than Joslin so I see him staying in the NHL for the time being (not sure what will happen with Joslin) but how effective he will be and what role he will be used is a great question. It's great that Faulk is playing big minutes so early in his career but the underlying numbers show that he may not be fully ready for that kind of responsibility so early in his career. Ultimately, I would like him to see him used with Spacek or Harrison in a 2nd/3rd pair role, with some protection because I think that's where he'll be the most effective. At least that's how I would like things to see with the current defense corps. When Pitkanen comes back and when/if there are a few trades involving the Canes blue-liners in the next few months, it's a whole different story.

Three points in three games this past week for the Canes. That doesn't sound too bad, but they were outshot, outchanced and outscored for yet another week. All three games were decided by only one goal and the fact that two came in losses does show that the Canes were getting slightly unlucky the past week but they were VERY lucky to even escape Toronto with a point and they were outplayed by the Canucks at even strength in their only victory. The numbers for the week match up with the team's overall performance this year, though. Their shot rate was about 46.6 while their chance rate was roughly the same. It is frustrating that we're not seeing much of an improvement in that area under Kirk Muller but we're seeing some improvement on the powerplay with 12 scoring chances generated on the man advantage compared to only 7 powerplay chances given up. Cam Ward also seems to be regaining his usual form and he could steal us some more wins down the road. He did against Vancouver and Carolina may have not have even earned a point in the standings last week if it wasn't for him.

Injuries are playing a big role into the lack of progress, though. Jeff Skinner and Joni Pitkanen were two of the team's best possession drivers and it's going to be interesting to see what the numbers look like with both of them out of the lineup. I have a feeling they won't be pretty though. Most of us have accepted that this team is too far out of the race to make a push towards the playoffs so it's evaluation time from now on.

More after the jump