Winnipeg Jets at Carolina Hurricanes
7 p.m., PNC Arena
TV: FS-Carolinas, TSN - Jets

Tonight's game against the Winnipeg Jets will be the Hurricanes first game against a Southeast Division opponent since the second game of the season where they were blown out by Tampa Bay. They've played fewer games within the division than any other team in the Southeast but this will change in the next week or so, as three of their next five games will be intra-division. I mentioned in an earlier post that the Canes have a great chance to gain an advantage over the rest of the Southeast, but they may have to do it with five key players out of the lineup. In the past week, the Canes have seen Joni Pitkanen, Jeff Skinner, Jamie McBain, Tim Gleason and Tim Brent all sustain injuries and a few of them are going to be out for longer than a few games. This is going to put a lot of pressure on their top players to produce because there isn't much depth present in the rest of the lineup.

The Hurricanes are going to be especially thin on defense tonight, so much that they needed to recall junior defenseman Ryan Murphy from the Kitchener Rangers to play tonight. Murphy was the team's first round pick in 2011 and he has shined as an offensive defenseman in the OHL. His counting numbers haven't been as impressive this year and he has been prone to defensive lapses from time to time, so it's not certain that he's ready for the NHL but he will be getting a test tonight and might even see top-four minutes. 

Carolina's entire organizational depth is going to be put to the test during this stretch of injuries and it will be interesting to see how some of the younger players perform. There are a lot of prospects who are confined to the minor leagues or fourth line minute because there's no room for them in the lineup but injuries are going to force at least one youngster into a bigger role for the Canes these next couple of games. It's up to them to take advantage of this opportunity and if Monday's game against the Canadiens is any indication, things could be very ugly. This roster is better than what they showed on that night, though so I have a feeling that we'll see a different team tonight against Winnipeg.

If you were to poll most Hurricanes fans right now, most would agree that Alexander Semin has been a great addition to the team. He has made their first line a real force to be reckoned with and is usually one of their best players every night. However, I'm sure that most people were hoping that he would have more than three goals 14 games into the season and only one at even strength. His current pace would give him roughly 10-11 goals on the year and that would be only 17-18 in a full-82 game season. It's not that Semin is playing poorly, but the goals just haven't been coming to him for whatever reason.

Going strictly by a goal-per-game rate, one might suggest that Semin is on a decline. He has scored at a rate that was between .4 and .6 goals-per-game for msot of his career but the last two seasons, he's dropped down to below .3. So if you were only looking at goals, then you could say that Semin is on the decline as an offensive player but it's not just all about goals and points. Something people often forget is that a lot of things need to go right for a player to score a goal. The most a player can do when trying to score is find a soft spot in the defense and do his best to pick an open corner in the net when firing a shot on net. I think most would say that Semin has been doing that so far.

So why doesn't he have more goals? To put it bluntly, he hasn't been receiving much shooting luck at all, especially when you compare his numbers with the rest of his career.

Carolina went into last week with a depth chart that looked something like this:

Color key: Orange = Injured player, Blue = Not waiver exempt, Green = Non contract player

Since then, Carolina has seen five different players suffer injuries and now their depth looks more like this:

To sum things up, in the short span of one week the Hurricanes have a top-six forward, who is also their best scorer, their fourth line center along with three top-four defensemen. Replacing them will be two centers from the AHL who have played a combined eight NHL games and three defensemen who are currently undergoing their first season in the NHL. One of which was just recalled from junior hockey. Carolina's depth wasn't anything to brag about to begin with but they are going to be even more strained now with third liners and AHL-callups making up most of their top-nine. 

Carolina's top-end talent is much better than it was last season thanks to Alexander Semin and Jordan Staal but after that top line, things get very dicey and I haven't even begun to talk about the state of the Canes defense. Justin Faulk might be having an outstanding season, but the cupboard is somewhat bare after him considering all of the injuries. At least one of Michal Jordan, Bobby Sanguinetti or Ryan Murphy will have to step up into the top-four if the roster stays as it is.

If there is a bright side to this situation it is that injuries are temporary and Carolina's roster isn't going to look like this for the rest of the year. In fact, they might be getting Joni Pitkanen back very soon but let's say that it does stay like this for a few more games. What will happen then?

Well, if Monday's game against Montreal is any indication it won't be pretty, but I hope that isn't the norm we will see from this roster on a nightly basis. Kirk Muller and the rest of the coaching staff know that this team has a realistic chance of making the playoffs so it's going to be up to them to get the most out of the hand they've currently been dealt. It's not an ideal situation but the Hurricanes aren't completely hopeless either.

Many of the guys who were called up were among their AHL affiliate's best players and now is a good time to see what they have to offer. Both Riley Nash and Jeremy Welsh were possible candidates to make the team out of training camp but ultimately got lost in the numbers game and started in the AHL. The injuries give these two a chance to show the coaching staff what they have and if they are cut out for the NHL. Zac Dalpe is also an option to be called up and he honestly doesn't seem like a bad option in Skinner's absence.

The defense is in a similar situation only a couple of these players weren't expected to make the NHL until at least another year. Then again, Michal Jordan was an AHL All-Star this year and has been one of Charlotte's best defensemen, so giving him a taste of the NHL now may not be the worst thing in the world. The high number of injuries also allows Carolina to give Ryan Murphy a tryout without the risk of burning a year of his ELC. I still think he isn't ready but playing him in one or two games can't hurt right now with the shape Carolina's defense is in.

Injuries are something that every team has to deal with and unfortunately for the Hurricanes, they all seem to be happening at once. I mentioned in an earlier post that Carolina doesn't need to overacheive that much to make the playoffs or win the division, but they might need to if the injuries to Skinner, Pitkanen, McBain, Gleason and Brent are prolonged. Hopefully this stretch of injuries doesn't last for more than a couple weeks but until everyone gets healthy, it's going to be up to the coaching staff to get the most out of this roster and the players to perform. If Monday's game is a sign of things to come then hard times might be ahead for Carolina, but I have a feeling that they are better than what they showed that night.

In case you didn't know, the Southeast has been clearly the weakest division in the NHL so far. After Tampa Bay's 4-2 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs last night, they are now tied with the Hurricanes for first place in the division with 17 points. Both team's records would put them no higher than third in any other division and make them bubble playoff teams if the automatic qualifer was done away with. I said at the beginning of the year that this division would be very weak but somewhat competitive and so far it's proven that with the Lightning and Hurricanes tied for the top spot and likely alternating throughout the course of the season. The Winnipeg Jets are also not too far behind with 13 points and could find themselves back in the hunt with a good winning streak.

This all begs the question, what will it take to win the Southeast Division this year? The cut-off point for a playoff spot has been predicted to be about 55 points which would equate to roughly 94 in a full 82-game season. Florida had 94 points and won the division last year and I'm hoping that it will take more than that this season, but we could be looking at a similar finish if things continue to stay as they are. 

Let's say that 55 points is what it will take to win the division. How close are the Hurricanes from getting to there compared to their Southeast adversaries? The good news is that they are ahead of the pack, albeit only slightly.

Thanks to a plethora of injuries, the Hurricanes went into last night's game short on talent and forward depth and came away with their worst offensive performance of the season. Carolina's injury depleted lineup created only nine even strength scoring chances, four of which coming in the final two minutes of the second period, and eleven overall. Both are season lows for this team and about what you would expect from a squad that's missing their best scorer and top offensive defenseman. If there was ever a game for Montreal to start Peter Budaj, last night was ideal, as the Hurricanes could not generate much of a sustained attack on the veteran back-up. All of which resulted in the team's first shutout loss of the season.

I mentioned in my recap that Carolina had a good gameplan going in, as they were able to get the puck deep and had a few great shifts where they were able to keep the puck in the Canadiens zone but couldn't generate many shots. The scoring chance report reflects this well as the Canes did not have many quality chances but they didn't allow many to the Canadiens either, allowing only 10 at even strength on the game. Carolina's depth forward did not do much and they are partially to blame for the low offensive output, but the Canes top line was still in-tact last night and they did not do much either. Some credit goes to Montreal's defensive play but Carolina's first line definitely had an off-night for their standards.

We'll take a closer look at how they and the rest of the team played last night after the jump.

There weren't a lot of Hurricanes fans who were expecting the team to win tonight given the roster they were dressing. It's hard to expect much when your team is missing three top players along with one of their key special teams contributors. When said players are being replaced with guys from the AHL (one of which was jetted to the game on the same day), it was very important to keep your expectations in line coming into this game. The only thing we knew for sure coming into tonight was that this would be a very ugly game and it certainly delivered on that front. 

The Hurricanes and Canadiens played what was a very low-event, tight checking game with not much action at either end. Both teams combined for only 36 even strength shots and weren't able to apply much sustained offense aside from a few instances. Neither team was able to build much offense but the Hurricanes struggled to generate a lot of chances and shots on goal in general. They were able to gain Montreal's zone easily and keep the puck deep, but it wasn't resulting in much offense. Most of Carolina's possessions consisted of them with them working the puck around the boards and getting maybe one shot on goal if they were lucky. The stat sheet reflects this as the Canes had only 19 shots on goal with 21 shot attempts that either missed the net or were blocked. All of this led to a 3-0 shutout loss to a team starting their back-up goaltender.

Carolina was forced to make the best out of a bad situation tonight and their forward depth issues showed up in a bad way.  It was very frustrating to watch but it's not anything worth panicking over if you're a Carolina fan. There are only going to be a few games where they dress a roster like this again and things should hopefully get better once Skinner, Gleason, Pitkanen and Brent return to the lineup. Right now they just need to put the loss behind them and get healthy for Thursday night when the Winnipeg Jets come to town.

Big offensive performances are somewhat common in junior hockey and you'll often see more than a few players record at least a point in every game they played in a given week. We've seen this a few times with the Hurricanes CHL prospects this year as both Ryan Murphy and Brock McGinn have put together some impressive offensive weeks over their career but none of their recent outputs tops the weekend Victor Rask just had. The Canes 2011 second round pick exploded for the Calgary Hitmen this past week with four goals and eight points in only four games, recording a hat trick in one of them. This pushes him to above a point-per-game pace on the season with 29 in 26 games in the top-10 on the team in scoring despite not playing for half of the season.

It's pretty easy to see why the Charlotte Checkers wanted to keep Rask on the team to start the year when you look at how well he is playing with the Hitmen. His play-making skills and willingness to go to the dirty areas to score can be such a big help to the Hurricanes when he gets older. He'll probably be with one of the big clubs to stay next season and while he probably won't be posting numbers like this, Rask has the tools to contribute at higher levels. It will be exciting to see how the rest of the year pans out for him as the Hitmen continue their push for the playoffs.

More on Rask and the other prospects is coming after the jump.

Carolina Hurricanes at Montreal Canadiens
7:30 p.m, Bell Centre
TV: FS-Carolinas, NHL Network, TSN-Habs, RDS

The Hurricanes and Canadiens might be based in different countries but they have more similarities than you think They both are coming into this game on three-game win streaks and currently have similar record with the Canadiens being only one win better than the Hurricanes at 9-4-1. Both teams have been playing very well as of late, but the Hurricanes will be missing four players from their lineup and are far from 100% right now. They managed to play a very strong game against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday night with defensemen Joni Pitkanen and Tim Gleason out but tonight's game will be a much bigger challenge as they'll have to make due without these two along with Jeff Skinner and Tim Brent.

Basically, the Hurricanes will have to find a way to win tonight without two of their top-four defensemen, a top-six player who is also one of their best scorers and one of their main contributors on both special teams units. All teams have to go through injuries and it's often the teams with depth who succeed and the Hurricanes organizational depth will be put to a very tough test if their injured players are out for longer than expected. We've talked a lot about how well some of the guys in Charlotte are playing and how they didn't make the team due to the numbers game. Well, here is their chance to step up and show everyone what they've got. The circumstances are far from ideal, but if anything tonight's game should provide a good chance to see some of the Canes younger talent. Getting a win would be nice, too but the deck isn't stacked in their favor right now.

Some unfortunate news came earlier today when the Hurricanes announced that Jeff Skinner wasn't feeling well at practice today and would not be traveling with the team to Montreal for tomorrow's game. This will leave three key players out of the lineup with Tim Gleason and Joni Pitkanen also injured but that's hopefully only a short-term concern. More people are worried about the health of Skinner and how serious his injury is. As of right now, it's only been announced as an "upper-body concern" but with Skinner's concussion history and the number of hits he has been taking lately, it's easy to get really worried about this. 

Skinner is the second highest scorer on the team behind Eric Staal, so losing him would be a significant blow but even if he is out for more than a couple games, the Canes second line should be in decent shape because of the guy centering it, Jordan Staal. One of the reasons the Hurricanes traded for Staal in the first place is because he has shown the ability to carry almost every line he has centered for his entire career and do it while being matched up against opposing team's top lines. He was able to do this with the Penguins and he's been doing a fine job in that role with the Hurricanes so far.

For most of this season, he has been playing in a tough-minutes role alongside Jeff Skinner and Patrick Dwyer and this line has been the Canes best offensive unit in terms of producing scoring chances. The amount of offense they've been creating is actually surprising considering the type of assignments they've been receiving but Staal, Skinner and Dwyer have been getting the job done. I'm sure Skinner has played a big role in this but Staal's ability to drive the play forward at even strength has always been among the best in the league so there is no doubt that he is playing a big role in this line's success, too.

Taking Skinner off this line is going to obviously cause them to lose a lot of offense, but that doesn't mean it will become useless. Staal wasn't exactly blessed with playing with offensive juggernauts during his time with the Penguins as his most common linemates in Pittsburgh include the likes of Tyler Kennedy, Matt Cooke, Ruslan Fedotenko, Petr Sykora, Pascal Dupuis, Chris Kunitz and Max Talbot. None of those lines will strike fear into the hearts of opponents, but Staal was able to make most of them very effective (Sykora being the only one he struggled with) and they ended up being useful lines who could at least drive the play forward. What's to say that he can't succeed with someone like Patrick Dwyer, Jussi Jokinen, Jiri Tlusty, Zac Dalpe or even Drayson Bowman?

The Hurricanes obviously can't stick anyone with Staal and hope things work out because his linemates in Pittsburgh were talented and somewhat useful away from him. However, Staal has proven that he doesn't need a scorer on his wing to succeed, so the Hurricanes can probably get by with overslotting someone on the second line for now without crippling the team's offense.

Staal has been with Skinner for most of the year, but Muller shook things up a bit for the Tampa Bay game and put him with Jiri Tlusty and Patrick Dwyer while placing Skinner on a line with Jussi Jokinen. The Canes ended up losing 4-1 but Staal's play was not the reason why. They were actually very effective at driving the play forward, created four scoring chances as a unit and Staal was on-ice for six total chances throughout the game. They were also matched up with Steven Stamkos' line for most of the contest and completely held him in check.

I don't want to get carried away over one strong game, but Staal really played well that night and he was doing it without having a top-end talent on his line like he did in Pittsburgh. If he can continue to do that with someone like Dalpe, Dwyer or Bowman then the Hurricanes might be in good shape without Skinner. At the very least, they should be able to be a line that keeps the puck in the opponent's zone and creates scoring chacnes whenever they are on the ice.  The Hurricanes are going to be weaker offensively with Skinner out of the lineup and I'm not sure who will take over his minutes on the powerplay, but I'm confident that the second line will be fine as long as Jordan Staal is the one centering it. This might actually be a good test for him to see how much he can elevate the play off his linemates.

Over the last few months, I've discussed the importance of neutral zone play and tracking zone entries and today, we are finally going to take a look at how the Hurricanes are performing in that regard. Anybody who reads this blog already knows that I am a big follower of the statistical side of hockey and I've been tracking scoring chances for the Hurricanes (among other teams) for the past year or so. Scoring chances and shot-based metrics such as Corsi and Fenwick do a good job of showing which teams are controlling possession and tracking neutral zone play enhances this. 

Think of it this way one of the goals in hockey is to spend more time in your opponent's zone than not, and winning the battle in the neutral zone is a necessary step to accomplish that. Shot-based stats tell you who is spending the most time in their opponent's zone and making the most of their opportunities, but tracking zone entries and neutral zone play can build on this in a number of ways. Being able to control the neutral zone is what leads to teams having more extended time in their opponent's end and in turn, leads to more shots and goals against.

So how do we track neutral zone play? The process is very simple, we look at which players are entering the offensive zone and whether or not they are doing it with control of the puck. It's been shown in past studies that teams who enter the zone with possession are more likely to create shots and scoring chances than teams who just simply play dump-and-chase. Not that dumping the puck in is always bad, but it's essentially giving possession to the other team in most cases and getting the puck into the zone with possession usually leads to more offense, more goals and usually more wins. Tracking neutral zone performance can tell us which players help their teams win more by seeing which ones are the strongest at driving the play forward. It can also tell us who creates the most offense off of their entries, reveal why some players struggle to move the puck forward and who might be a passenger on their line.

I've been tracking zone entries for the Hurricanes and two other teams this season to help expand on this study and see which players are the strongest in terms of neutral zone play. I did this by re-watching every game this season and noting which players got the puck into the offensive zone and if they did it via carry-in, dump-in, pass, tip or another method. It's a simple but time consuming process that can reveal a lot of interesting things about many players and teams in the league.*

After the jump, we'll take a look at what the Hurricanes neutral play says about them and their players.

* I did not count dump-ins where players went off for a line change because the team is obviously not trying to create any offense off those.