The Hurricanes captain has not been having a good season at all and he's fallen under harsh scrutiny from the most of the fanbase, myself included. With only four goals and eight points in 20 games played, everyone is wondering where the spark is from Eric Staal this season and if he's beginning to decline as a player. While I can agree that Staal's start to the year was brutal, he has been picking it up lately even though his point total does not indicate it.

We'll take a closer look at Staal's season after the jump.

"My goal for the game: outshoot the opponent. Even if we don't win, I want to turn the game off knowing that this team tried and put forth a great effort. I sure as hell didn't have that feeling last game."- Me in yesterday's game preview

I really need to be careful what I wish for. The Canes outshot, outchanced and outplayed the Buffalo Sabres for a good portion of last night's game but they ended up losing 1-0 and haven't scored a goal in almost seven periods. It's rough times but I didn't think Carolina played that bad of a game last night and could have won had a few bounces gone their way. I also thought that the team could have done a better job at getting traffic in front of Buffalo goalie Jhonas Enroth. The team was generating chances, but Enroth saw most of them the entire way and that was a big factor.

Scoring chances & more after the jump

Buffalo Sabres (11-7-0) at Carolina Hurricanes (6-10-3)
RBC Center, 7 p.m.
TV: FS-Carolinas, MSG-Buffalo

With the Canes coming off their worst performance of the season and speculations about whether or not head coach Paul Maurice will make it through Christmas, the common belief among Canes fans is that we are at rock bottom now and there is nowhere to go but up. While I agree that the team has been playing awful lately, things CAN get a lot worse than this. The Canes currently sit at 6-10-3 which is bad, but does anyone remember the time where we won only five games in October and November combined? Granted, the team was riddled with injuries then but that stretch felt a lot worse than the one the team is going through right now.

This has been a brutal November for this team. They have won only two games and have been outscored 32-16 during that stretch, outshot 269-221 and their powerplay is a miserable 3/33. I should also mention that the last time they scored on the powerplay was the 5-2 loss to Dallas which was five games ago. So, in a way, there is nowhere to go but up for this team because if they keep letting this happen then they could find themselves in Ducks or Blue Jacket territory sooner than they would like.

Lines, defense pairings & more after the jump

Jay Harrison is a player who I have been following with interest all season. Going into training camp, I had him as someone who could have been lost on waivers because there were eight defensemen aiming to make the team. He ended up making the starting lineup and since then he has played on both the powerplay and penalty kill and has bounced around among the defense corps in terms of ice-time and assignments. He even found himself on the team's "shut-down" pair with Tim Gleason for a couple games, which is a huge assessment to what the coaches think of him. What I have been wondering is where Harrison fits the Hurricanes long-term. Can he be an all-around defenseman or a reliable shutdown guy? Or is he suited for a depth role in the bottom-pair? After the jump, we'll look at how he's been used this season and where he can fit long-term.

This was a game that I would like to erase from my memory permanently if it were possible, but I have a job to and am here to share all of the ugly details of the 4-0 shutout the Canes endured at the hands of the Montreal Canadiens. I don't even need to get into scoring chances to illustrate how ugly this game was for Carolina because through the first 30 minutes, they were being outshot 25-6. They were going up against a team who is dressing three rookie defensemen, including one who was playing his first NHL game, and could only manage six shots through 30 minutes. Let that sink in for a minute. That is unacceptable no matter what team you are. The final stats don't look as ugly because the Canadiens decided to sit back in the third period while the Canes tried to muster up any offense they could to break the shutout. There's not much you need to do when you're leading 4-0 and outshooting a team 32-12 through two periods of play.

TSN color commentator Ray Ferraro called Carolina's play "one of the worst defensive efforts he has ever seen" and I am inclined to agree with him. Although, I felt that the forwards are much more to blame than the defense corps. So many forwards were guilty of lazy back-checking (Skinner on Subban's goal, for instance) and completely forgetting to tie up Montreal players in the neutral zone and it forced the defensemen into a lot of bad situations. To make things worse, the powerplay was lifeless yet again and Carolina wasn't creating much offense at even strength either when the game mattered. It was a pathetic game all-around and hopefully a wake-up call for a team that's now lost six of their last seven.

We'll revisit the disaster after the jump

Carolina Hurricanes (6-9-3) at Montreal Canadiens (7-7-3)
Bell Centre, 7 p.m.
TV: TSN, RDS

This is one game I have been looking forward to all season because it marks the first time this year that the Hurricanes will face former teammate Erik Cole. I've said a lot about Cole this off-season and how I felt that Carolina can replace him because he wasn't much of a possession driver here and much of his success was dependant on Eric Staal. As you probably know, Carolina has yet to find a replacement for Cole and the wing position on the first line has been a carousel all season. This relates to the poor start Staal got off to (he's picked it up since November) and we're only a month into the season, so I stand by my initial statement.

The reason why I believe Cole's performance in Carolina is replaceable is because he posted very poor possession metrics last season despite playing on the first line. In the WOWY I did for Eric Staal, Cole's numbers were awful when he was playing without #12. Cole's shooting percentage was also higher than it ever was in 2010-11, so he was slightly lucky last season. I am willing to say that having Cole on Staal's wing would be nice right now but I still believe that replacing him should not be a big hassle.

Cole's performance in Montreal has completely reversed. He isn't having any bounces go his way (6.80 on-ice shooting%), but he has been one of Montreal's best forwards in terms of possession and scoring chances. Hindsight is 20/20, I suppose.

Lines, analysis & more after the jump

The Hurricanes are lacking talent in their top-six. You know it, I know it, everyone who watches hockey knows it. Fortunately, the team is finally blessed some organizational depth and have a few forwards currently on the roster who have top-six potential. If there was good thing that came from the injury to Jussi Jokinen, it was that Paul Maurice finally gave players like Anthony Stewart and Zach Boychuk a chance on the second line to see how they would fit in. Fast forward a week later and Stewart is a healthy scratch, Boychuk has played only 13 shifts over the last two games, Jiri Tlusty has been bumped to the fourth line and Zac Dalpe is still only getting 3-5 minutes of ice time per game.

Certainly there has to be a reason for this, right? Let's see how these players performed when getting top-six minutes.

I'm a week late so no analysis for this game.

Carolina Hurricanes vs. New Jersey Devils 11/08/11 Scoring Chances

Carolina's chances are in red, New Jersey's are in white

Individual Scoring Chances

Best EV Forward: Zach Boychuk +4

Worst EV: Forward: Jiri Tlusty & Patrick Dwyer -4

Best EV Defensemen: Jamie McBain, Bryan Allen & Tim Gleason EVEN

Worst EV Defenseman: Tomas Kaberle & Joni Pitkanen -1

Head-to-head at even strength

Some say that the NHL is a sport where you live and die by special teams and while I believe that controlling the play at even strength is more important, special teams performance can determine the outcome of a lot of games. Take Carolina's game last night against the Flyers for instance, the chances were even at 10 a piece when playing at even strength but the difference is that the Flyers scored on four of their chances while the Canes only scored once. It was the Canes special teams which kept them in this game. Yep, two shorthanded goals (one on a penalty shot) from Patrick Dwyer are what put things within reach for Carolina. Oh, you thought I was going to say something about the powerplay? I should because they had a big role in Carolina losing this game. On five powerplay opportunities, the Canes created only one scoring chance and one of those opportunities came when the game was 4-3 in favor of the Flyers. Like I said, special teams can win and lose games for some teams and this ineffective powerplay is really hurting the Canes right now.

More after the jump

Philadelphia Flyers (9-4-3) at Carolina Hurricanes (6-8-3)
7 p.m. RBC Center
TV: FS-Carolinas, CSN-Philadelphia

I described the Canes last game against the Flyers as a "burn the tape" kind of game because of the disaster of a third period the Canes had. Seems that has been a recurring theme since then because Carolina's endured numerous third period meltdowns ever since that loss. Even in their 5-3 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins they took a 3-0 lead into the third period only to have Pittsburgh tie it. Let's hope the team has tightened things up since then and will try to not let the Jagr-Giroux-Hartnell line dominate them like last time. *knocks on wood*

Analysis, lines & more after the jump