The month of December has been quite a ride for Cam Ward. He's been pulled in two games, has given up three or more goals in all but three games and has a save percentage of .882. On the flip-side, he also played two of his best games of the season against Toronto and Vancouver and has shown signs of looking like his older self. And people wonder why I never try to predict goalie performance....

It's especially difficult to predict how a goalie Ward's age will perform because he is in his late 20's, which is the "prime" age for most hockey players but he also debuted at a young age so that's worth keeping in mind. To make things even more difficult, Ward is coming off his best season as an NHL-er so his performance can really go in either direction at this point. Unfortunately for the Hurricanes, his performance has declined a ton compared to last season and while it's not completely his fault, I'm sure no one saw him having a sub .900 save percentage this late into the season. Some people say that he's still feeling all of the mileage that he took on last year and that's a valid argument. He did play more minutes than any other goalie last season (4318 mins.) and saw 30+ shots in 48 out of the 74 games he played and has been under the same amount of pressure this season (has seen 30+ shots in 17 out of 32 games), so maybe this is just his workload catching up to him?

Over at Broad Street Hockey, they looked at Ilya Bryzgalov's save percentage in line-graph form going by 10-game averages. Bryz has been awful this year and looking at how he has performed over his career and seeing his highs and lows is a good way to determine if his poor play was just a rough patch or him steadily declining. They determined that Bryz is playing the worst hockey of his career but history suggests that he should rebound. When reading that article I thought to myself "Hey, you know another great goalie who is playing bad right now? Cam Ward." so I decided to do this experiment for myself. Every goalie can be expected to go through peaks and valleys so is Ward's current play just one of those? We'll find out after the jump.

A record was set last night at the Consol Energy Center. The Pittsburgh Penguins recorded a total of 27 scoring chances in their 4-2 win over the Carolina Hurricanes, which marks the highest count I have ever recorded for a single team. It could have been an overall record if the Hurricanes had more than 11 total chances but that wasn't the case. Last night's game was mostly a one-sided affair as the Penguins dominated Carolina and everything seemed to go wrong for the Canes outside from the play of goaltender Justin Peters. Making his first start of the season, Peters was thrown into the wolves having to stop 48 out of 52 shots and 23 of 27 scoring chances. Peters was heavily panned for his play last year with the Hurricanes but last night was one of his best performances despite giving up four goals. It could have been a lot worse if it wasn't for him and the Hurricanes owe him one big time.

Aside from Peters and Tuomo Ruutu's goal streak being extended, there isn't too much positive to write about with this game but we're going to dive deeper into it anyway.

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