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.

There are some people who hate change and it's understandable. Going through changes is never easy for anyone, especially when something has been the same way for such a long time. That's just the way humans work and sometimes it's justified because change isn't always a good thing. In the case, however, change can lead to great things and the Carolina Hurricanes underwent a pretty massive change this off-season. They lost a key cog in Brandon Sutter but also gained a couple huge pieces in Jordan Staal and Alexander Semin.

No one knew whether or not these two players would work out for the Hurricanes but one thing we did know coming into this season was that we were going to see a completely different Hurricanes team. Not many knew how to respond to it. Some were worried, some were excited and some had no idea what to expect from this new-look team. As fans, it's been awhile since this club had made a few big splashes in the off-season and we had gotten used to the way this Hurricanes team had look for the last few years. A huge change like they had undergone this off-season obviously led to some skepticism by many people, myself included.

Despite that, it's hard to argue that some big changes were needed in the Hurricanes case. This club had missed the playoffs three years in a row, were consistently among the league's bottom-feeders in even strength play and were on track to be a lottery team before Maurice was fired in favor of Muller in Decemeber of 2011. Change was brought on the coaching front last year and we saw the player personnel moves to go along with it during the following off-season with the hope that they would change this team for the better.

The Hurricanes managed to put together one of their best defensive efforts of the season last night and they somehow did it with a depleted blue-line corps. They held the Maple Leafs to only seven scoring chances at even strength (six excluding empty net situations) and only 10 chances overall. Part of the reason for their success was having their top-nine be relentless on the forecheck for most of the game and trapping the Leafs in their own zone. The plan worked out quite well as Toronto's offensive chances were very limited and the Hurricanes dominated both the shot and chance count.

Carolina played a terrific game but the Leafs were also horrible in their own regard and that has to be taken into account. Sure, a reason why the Leafs played so poorly is because of how well Carolina was able to bottle them up at even strength but you'll struggle to find a team who played worse than Toronto did last night. On the bright side, the Hurricanes won a few games on the road trip despite not playing their best hockey and last night, they played went back to dominating their opponent at even strength and played one of their best games of the season.

Tonight's game against the Toronto Maple Leafs had the makings of being one of those old fashioned, high scoring run-and-gun style contests where the winner would be determined by who had the last shot on net. The Hurricanes, who haven't been good defensively this year, were missing two top-four defensemen in Joni Pitkanen and Tim Gleason while the Leafs have injuries all across the board and are currently icing two AHL-ers in their top-four. It ended up being somewhat of a low-scoring affair with the Hurricanes putting together one of their best defensive efforts of the season.

The Canes gave up only 18 shots at even strength and 23 overall, which is pretty amazing when you consider who they were dressing in their defense corps. They managed to do this by employing the same strategy as they had in the New Jersey game, which was forecheck hard, force turnovers and trap the Leafs in their own zone for most of the game. I thought it would be difficult for the Canes to do this with a depleted defense, but they really suffocated the Leafs tonight and did everything they could to keep the puck out of their own zone. A large part of this was due to the excellent play fo the top-line, who forced a lot of turnovers to disrupt Toronto's breakout attempts, and the makeshift #2 defense pairing of Jamie McBain and Joe Corvo. If you told anyone that this particular d-corps gave the Hurricanes their best defensive effort of the season, they would think that you were lying but that's what happened tonight.

Some people say that the first game home after a long road trip is tough because there is a lot of pressure on the home team to perform well in front of their fans. Even if that is true, it didn't look like that affected the Canes tonight as they took home a very impressive win against a hot Toronto team and now have a well-deserved few days off. Let's hope that they don't lose much steam when they hit the road again for Monday's game against the Montreal Canadiens.

Toronto Maple Leafs at Carolina Hurricanes
7 p.m., PNC Arena
TV: FS-Carolinas, Leafs TV

The Hurricanes finally return home after twelve long days on the road and they come into tonight's game against the Toronto Maple Leafs on a high note, winning four of six games on the road trip. Getting those wins were huge, but the Canes did not come out of this trip unscathed as not only did defenseman Joni PItkanen sustain an injury but fellow blue-liner Tim Gleason is also banged up and did not skate with the team today. Neither injuries appear to be anything serious according to reports so that is good news, but they are still likely going to miss tonight's game, adding more strain to a defense corps that wasn't great to begin with.

To fill Gleason's spot in the lineup, the Hurricanes called up Michal Jordan from Charlotte. Jordan has been one of the Checkers best defensemen all season long and stepped into an even bigger role after Justin Faulk and Bobby Sanguinetti were called up to the NHL. He's known more for his puck-moving skills but he has been a tough-minute player in Charlotte and has killed penalties, as well. Seeing how this will be his NHL debut, I'm not sure how many minutes he will be playing but he might end up getting significant playing time with Bobby Sanguinetti playing tonight as well. That is unless Kirk Muller plans on icing Justin Faulk & Jay Harrison for 30 minutes each.

Jordan will be one of four players in Carolina's defense corps tonight who are under 25 years of age and there are two ways you can look at this. If you're a glass half-empty guy, you might be excited about how Jordan looks and the fact that the Canes have a young defense corps with a ton of upside. If you're a glass half-empty person, then you'll probably be worried that Carolina's defense corps tonight will consist of two AHL-ers and five guys who would probably be on most club's third pairings. Let's hope they can keep the puck in the Leafs zone more times than not. The Leafs are also far from 100% right now but they have been rolling the past week or so with six straight wins, so tonight's game being at home might not have as much of an advantage as one would think.

There are a lot of things to like about this year's Hurricanes team. The offense is much better than it was last season, they have more depth and this team is a lot more fun to watch than last year's squad. The defense, however, has had it's share of problems and it's been very evident on the penalty kill. The Hurricanes penalty kill ranks third to last in the NHL, gives up more shots per 60 minutes than any other team in the league and has been partially responsible for at least three of the team's losses this season. There have also been a few games where the Canes PK has surrendered multiple goals, including last Monday's game where the Islanders tagged them for four goals.

Even strength play is often what dictates success in the NHL and while the Hurricanes have been good in that department, giving up a goal more than once every five times they are on the penalty kill can easily put a team in a hole. The Hurricanes are somewhat lucky to be in a good position now despite this terrible penalty kill when you think about it. The worst part of it is that their PK woes haven't been due to bad luck, they've been giving so many shots on the PK that they would still be ranked near the bottom of the league even if Cam Ward/Dan Ellis weren't posting a combined .825 save percentage.

An easy solution to a bad penalty kill is to stay out of the box, but I honestly think that penalties are unavoidable this season because the refs are calling basically anything borderline, so a better solution is to fix the penalty kill. How should the Hurricanes do that, though? They lost their best penalty killing defenseman in Bryan Allen and didn't replace him, so there isn't much they can do there with the current roster as far as the defense corps goes. They do have some fine defensive forwards and they should be able to help out, but it clearly hasn't been that way so far. 

After the jump, we'll take a look at some of the mistakes the Hurricanes penalty killers have been making, who some of the biggest offenders are and what can be done to fix it.

The Hurricanes managed to pull out a 4-2 win over the New Jersey Devils last night and they did it on the back of one of their weakest offensive performances of the young season. The Devils held Carolina to only nine scoring chances at even strength and 12 overall, which are season lows for the Hurricanes this season. New Jersey is also only the third team this season to outchance the Hurricanes this year, so you could probably classify this as another game the Canes won despite not having their best showing. While that might be true, I think the Canes played a solid game considering the circumstances (last game of a six game road trip and the second night of a back-to-back) and against a very tough opponent in the Devils. 

Still, I think it's worth pointing out that the Canes have not outchanced an opponent at even strength since the Toronto game last Monday and haven't been nearly as good at even strength as they were earlier in the season. It might be due to a combination of them playing in more close games and having their last six on the road. A return to the PNC Arena might help fix this but until then, let's enjoy the fact that they won four out of six games on this road trip. 

Tonight's 4-2 victory over the Devils was easily the Carolina Hurricanes biggest win of this young season. Not only does it clinch a 4-1-1 record on their road trip, but they were also able to get a win over a team that has been at the top of the Eastern Conference for most of the year. As expected, the win did not come easy as they found themselves down 1-0 in the first period again despite outplayed New Jersey in most of that frame. They managed to battle back again and tie the game early in the second period on the back of a powerplay goal by Jussi Jokinen. Patrick Dwyer would then provide the go-ahead goal in the dying minutes of the frame by deflecting a Jay Harrison shot past Brodeur. 

A large reason why the Hurricanes gained this lead was because they were forechecking hard and skating circles around the Devils during the first 40 minutes of the game. They gained a big territorial advantage over New Jersey during that time and it was hard to tell that they were playing the second half of a back-to-back game. Then the third period happened. Carolina began to look tired, were getting pinned into their own end, lost one of their best defensemen in Joni Pitkanen and gave up an early goal to Ryan Carter which tied the game.

Carolina's dominance at even strength had all but faded by then, but they received some help from their special teams units, which have been rather cold as of late. First, they were able to successfully kill off Joe Corvo's penalty early in the period and would then get a huge powerplay goal from Jiri Tlusty to give the Canes a 3-2 lead. From then on, the Canes basically did the best they could to hang onto the lead by limiting the Devils scoring opportunities and they just managed to survive with some help from goaltender Cam Ward.

The Hurricanes definitely left everything all on the ice tonight and even if they just managed to get by, it was great to see them pull out a win all things considered. I'm sure many people would have been happy if they only earned a point in the standings with this being their third game in four days and the final game of a long road trip, but the Canes had their sights set higher and managed to achieve it.

Winning four out of six games in this stretch of the schedule is no easy feat at all, so this could hopefully lead to greater things down the line for this team.

Carolina Hurricanes at New Jersey Devils
7:00 p.m, Prudential Center
TV: FS-Carolinas, MSG+

The Hurricanes have a chance to end this six-game road trip on a high note by winning four out of six games and taking home nine out of a possible 12 points with a win tonight over the New Jersey Devils. At the beginning of the year, I said that the Hurricanes need to make it out of this road trip with a winning record and they managed to clinch that last night with a win over the Islanders. A win over the Devils tonight will make it a much bigger success but it isn't going to come easy because much like the Islanders, the Canes had little to no success against New Jersey last season.

Carolina is also going to come out much stronger than they did last night, too. They might be able to get away with a bad first period and giving up four powerplay goals against the Islanders but that probably won't happen against the Devils, who are arguably the hottest team in the NHL right now. This being the second game of a back-to-back on the road likely means that the Devils will be the fresher team tonight, but hopefully the Canes can build off last night's game and do enough to at least earn a point in the standings.

The good news is that the schedule gets slightly easier after this game and the Hurricanes will be back at the PNC Arena very soon.