Nashville Predators (37-19-7) at Carolina Hurricanes (23-26-13)
TV: FS-Carolinas, FS-Tennessee
RBC Center 7 p.m.

The Hurricanes did not make any trades on deadline day but they did make a few small moves within the organization and the one that caught everyone's eye was the decision to re-call Zach Boychuk from Charlotte. Many thought that this should have been the year for Boychuk to break into the NHL but that hasn't happened yet. He got a 13 game audition earlier in the season and only had two points during that stint, which got him sent back to Charlotte. A few people have written him off as a bust but I think there is still plenty of hope left for Boychuk to become an NHL player. Remember, he was stuck on the fourth line for nearly every game during his call-up and when he was given top-six minutes, he played pretty well.

Kirk Muller has been the opposite of Maurice in the sense that he is putting his younger players in positions that they can succeed in. Meaning he won't glue Boychuk to the fourth line and put him with some talented linemates just like he did with Drayson Bowman, Zac Dalpe and Jerome Samson. Boychuk's window of opportunity isn't that large because Dwyer isn't going to be out for that long and Chad LaRose is close to returning so he is going to need to take advantage of his ice time for these next few games and prove to everyone that he can make it in the NHL. He's played 69 games with the Canes and has only accumulated seven goals and 18 points, which means he's got a lot to prove even if he has played well at the AHL. It starts tonight with tonight's game against the Nashville Predators

Lines, Scoring chances & more after the jump

In an enormous three game sample, the Hurricanes did the impossible and managed to outshoot and outchance their opponents at even strength. Before we start celebrating, I should also tell you that they won only one game this past week and lost the other two via the shootout. What went wrong? In cases like this, goaltending is usually the problem but not this week. Justin Peters was outstanding in all three of his starts and the only reason they got a point against Florida. The reason why the Canes went 1-0-2 last week was because they couldn't stay out of the box against Anaheim and played a lousy third period against Florida where they sat on a two-goal lead.

The team is still learning and we're seeing some improvements but they clearly have a long way to go before they're a good team again.

After the jump, we'll take a look at some individual standouts from the past week.

Whenever a team makes a trade that involves a first round pick, the team that is getting that pick in return is often regarded as "the winner" of the deal because first round picks are something that is coveted among fans and GMs in the NHL. Draft picks are treated as currency during the trade deadline and the general idea around the league seems to be that a decent player will get you a mid-round pick, a good player will net a 2nd round pick in return and a great top-six player is worth a first round pick. At least that's how things seem to go around this time of the year. Whenever a deal involving a first round pick is made, the team that gave up the pick "overpaid" for a rental while the other team got a "great return." What a lot of people fail to realize is that teams giving up first round picks at this time of year are probably selecting in 17-30 territory and a first rounder there is completely different than one in the top five.

Let's take the recent three-way trade between the Avalanche, Red Wings and Lightning as an example. The Red Wings essentially gave up a first round pick (which went to Tampa) for defenseman Kyle Quincey, who is a free agent after this year. At first glance, this looks like an overpayment for the Red Wings because "Oh my god they gave up a first round pick!" but when looking at the deal closer, it makes a lot more sense for Detroit. The Wings are going to be picking late in the first round, have a decent prospect pool and needed a 3rd pairing defenseman better than Jakub Kindl. This is a team trying to win the Stanley Cup so a pick between #20-30 doesn't mean as much to them as it does to a rebuilding team.

That's the risk you take when you trade for only draft picks. None of them are sure thing and that's especially true with ones that come in the latter half of the first round. I'm not saying that draft picks don't have any value, but not every first round picks is going to be a star and teams who want to win now are fine with dealing those away if that's what it takes to acquire a player. I think this is why you're seeing more contending teams dealing their first round picks now.

To see what kind of value first rounders have, we're going to take a look at past trades involving first round picks and what they turned into. That will start after the jump.

If you've following the Hurricanes this month, you should not be surprised that all five of their losses have been by only one goal. To add to that, four of those losses have come in overtime or the shootout with their second shootout loss coming tonight at the hands of the Florida Panthers. It is their sixth loss in the breakaway competition this season and they have still yet to win a game that has gone this far.

Before we talk about how silly the shootout is, let's back up and look at the rest of the game and see why the game even went to extra time in the first place. The Canes had a 2-0 lead entering the third period but they also were being outshot 30-19 and outchanced 14-9 at the time. With how well Justin Peters was playing, all the Canes had to do was not sit back and try not to lose the game. Unfortunately, that's what they did and Florida ended up tying the score with goals from Tomas Fleischmann and Wojtek Wolski. You can say that the shootout has been a problem for the Canes all season but the truth is that horrible territorial play and lackluster showings in the third peirod are bigger problems that need to be fixed. It's been going on all season and it reared it's ugly head again tonight.

Florida was the better team but Carolina got the bounces and the goaltending they need to get at least a point. What they didn't get was the strong defensive play and territorial game that you need to secure a regulation win.

Scoring chances & more after the jump

Cam Ward is a tough goalie to figure out. He is paid as if he is one of the league's elite goaltenders, but his career numbers show that he isn't. He is an above average goalie who is very streaky and I'm sure most of us know that. Goaltender performance is hard to predict but what makes Ward such a strange goalie is that he can go from playing like John Grahame to Tomas Vokoun in the span of a season, and we've seen that first hand this year. We all know that Ward is streaky and that he's played great for the last two months but what you may have not known is that this current hot streak is on is one of the best of his career.

Find out more after the jump

The situation that the Hurricanes have with their current free agents has been scrutinized to death over the past few weeks and we all got a little relief a couple of days ago when Tuomo Ruutu was re-signed to a new deal. There is still one important player whose future with the team is uncertain and that, of course, is defenseman Bryan Allen.

With names like Nicklas Grossman, Hal Gill and Pavel Kubina being traded away for 2nd round picks and more, it would make sense for Carolina to trade away Allen because his return will likely be high. He is better than all three of those defensemen and is younger than all of them except Grossman. If they are going for second round picks, Rutherford should be able to get that and more in return for Allen.

Although, is it possible that Rutherford sees Allen as an important part of the team going forward and doesn't want to trade him? Absolutely. Allen has been phenomenal in a shutdown role this year and has been one of the team's best defensemen. Carolina's playoff chances are bleak, which means the general rule of thumb is for the Canes to sell off pending free agents and other assets for draft picks and "future considerations." Jim Rutherford has done the opposite of that, signing both Tuomo Ruutu and Tim Gleason to new contracts. After the jump, I'll explain why Allen could be the next guy who is inked to a new deal.

The shootout hasn't exactly been the Hurricanes strong point this year as they have yet to win a game that has gone that far and dropped yet another decision via the shootout tonight with a 3-2 loss to the Anaheim Ducks. You can debate all you want about how silly the shootout is and how it determines whether or not a team gets an extra point, but that's unfortunately how the game works now. Overtime play in general has been a problem for Carolina this year as this puts them tied for the league lead in OTL's with Los Angeles and Florida. Carolina's point total enjoys those 12 charity points, but the team's inability to play well four-on-four has been exposed many times this year and it's usually in games that go to OT.

Tonight's game, however, was not one of those times. Carolina played a fine game at even strength and outchanced the Ducks 23-16. They were outshot overall, but that was mostly due to the Canes inability to stay out of the box and the Ducks taking full advantage of their powerplay opportunities. Carolina was able to test Ducks goaltender Jonas Hiller numerous times but he was constantly up to the challenge and shut down most of the Canes best opportunities. At the other end, Justin Peters played another solid game for Carolina as he had to make quite a few impressive saves himself, which is why this game ended up going to overtime and eventually a shootout.

I know Carolina is only eight points back, but in order to make the playoffs the Canes would need to go on a miracle run. When I say that, I mean they need to win 18 of their next 21 games in regulation to get in. The odds of that happening are highly unlikely, so there's no need to get upset about losing in a shootout. Carolina played a good game tonight, they got another quality start from their #3 netminder and they are figuring out who fits into the team's plans going forward. That's what matters right now.

Scoring chances & more after the jump

After weeks of waiting to find out what would happen with Hurricanes winger and pending UFA Tuomo Ruutu, we finally got our answer today. The 29 year-old Finn will be staying in Raleigh for the foreseeable future as he just signed a four-year contract worth $19 mil. The contract will pay him $4 mil. next season and $5 mil. the three years after that which equates to a cap hit of about $4.75 mil. per year.

Let's get one thing out of the way, this is an overpayment and a pretty big one at that. Ruutu is a superb player and a great player to have in your top-six but I can't say that he is worth $4.75 mil. Yes, he scored 26 goals in 2008-09, which was mostly due to some absurd powerplay production, but he hasn't gotten close to that since then. His career high in points is 57 and his point pace has hovered around 45-55 for most of his career so we know where he stands right now. This year, he was on pace to score more than 20 goals for only the third time in his career and put up around 45 points. He's also 29, so what we're seeing right now is what we'll get for the next few years. In other words, Ruutu is good for about 15-25 goals and 45-55 points for the next few seasons. Is that worth $4.75 mil.? I don't think it is.

While this is an overpayment, I do not think that this contract should be considered an albatross or a mistake or Jim Rutherford's part. First of all, look at some of the players who are making $4.5-5 mil. right now. You'll see names like Tomas Fleischmann, Ryan Malone, David Backes, RJ Umberger, Brooks Laich and Martin Erat. All of them except for Backes fall under the "overpaid" category but that's the way the market has been. If Rutherford had let Ruutu walk, another team would have given him a similar contract with how this year's free agent class looks. I was hoping Ruutu would take less money but I think Rutehrford overpaid by less than $1 mil. here given the market.

The issue I had with letting Ruutu walk is that replacing him over the off-season would be a huge pain. Rutherford would have either did the same thing he did this off-season with Erik Cole by going the cheap route to replace him (which didn't work out at all) or overpay for another free agent. If we were going to spend around $5 mil. a year for a player, I'd prefer it to be someone who is better than Ruutu but, as I mentioned earlier, the free agent market doesn't have much to offer. If I were running the Canes, I would offer Ales Hemsky a three-year deal at a high cap hit and see what we can get out of him. He's a legit first liner and would be perfect for Carolina if he stays healthy but what are the odds of a deal like this happening? Rutherford has never been terribly active in the free agent market and there are going to be a lot of teams going after Hemsky. I don't know if the Canes would be able to land him. Keeping Ruutu around isn't the worst thing they can do, especially with the success he's had with Staal this year.

Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of concerns with this contract. Ruutu's possession rates have been declining over his career and while I do think he will stay productive for the remainder of his contract, it's worth keeping an eye on. Injuries are also a problem with Ruutu given how physical he plays and the fact that he's hurt now shows that. The increased salary will also increase his expectations because people are going to want to see more from a guy who is earning $4.75 mil. a year than one making $3.9 mil. I don't expect his production to take any huge leaps forward (or backward) so I can imagine this being a problem down the line when people look at his contract compared to his production.

Regardless, a four year deal isn't that bad of a contract even if the cap hit is high and I don't think this will hurt Carolina's future plans that much. Rutherford operates on a budget the the Canes are rarely a cap team. I can see Ruutu's salary playing a factor when it comes time to give Jeff Skinner a new contract but that's about it. If this were something like six years with the same cap hit, then I would be upset and say that it has the potential to become an albatross, but a four year deal is much less likely to sink a team.

In short, the Canes overpaid to keep Ruutu around but they made the right call by giving him four years instead of something longer than that. There were likely better options out there but at the very least, the Hurricanes shouldn't expect Ruutu's production to tail off completely for the rest of his contract and they have one less hole to fill in their top-six. It's not ideal, but I am content with this for the time being.

Based on their opening day roster and their lack of activity in the off-season, many people had the Winnipeg Jets as a longshot to make the playoffs. As of today, they are knocking on the door of the top 8 in the Eastern Conference as they are currently tied with Ottawa and Florida with 65 points. The only thing that's keeping them from leapfrogging those teams is the fact that they have played more games. The fans in Winnipeg are happy enough to have the NHL back in Manitoba and I can only imagine how ecstatic they will be if the Jets make the playoffs. They have the luxury of playing in the Southeast Division so it is possible, but is there anything that GM Kevin Cheveldayoff can do to give his team a boost and give the Atlanta/Winnipeg franchise their second playoff appearance?

It is really tough to say the moment because, much to everyone's surprise, Winnipeg is a good team and is actually superior at controlling possession when the score is close than their Southeast peers. This is a strange team because they play much better at home than they do on the road. They control roughly 52% of the Fenwick close events at home compared to only 48% when they play away from the MTS Centre. They are also at a disadvantage when it comes to games in hand as both Washington and Florida have played at least three fewer games than them. Cheveldayoff is also a first-year GM, so it's hard to figure out what he will do because we do not know his spending habits or if he has a certain budget like a lot of GMs do.

Needless to say, Winnipeg has holes to fill but with most of their top young players already on the roster and not much to give in terms of prospects, I don't think they will make too much noise over the next week. Still, it's worth taking a look at what needs they could address when gearing up for a playoff push. We will do that after the jump.

Last night's game was the first time this season that the Hurricanes truly dominated their opponent. They've had a lot of great games and big wins, but their 5-0 shellacking of the Caps was the first time that I can remember them walking all over another team. Everything seemed to be firing on all cylinders yesterday. They outshot the Caps 40-17, outchanced them 15-7 at even strength, scored on both the powerplay and penalty kill and they got one of the best efforts of the year from Eric Staal. Like last Monday's game against Montreal, Staal seemed to be playing on another level that we haven't seen much of this year and added another two goal, three point performance to his resume this year. With Ward, Pitkanen and Ruutu out of the lineup, Staal needs to be the team's best player and he was last night. Granted, Washington looked awful on so many different levels but the Canes took full advantage of that and bulldozed them.

Congratulations also go out to back-up Justin Peters who earned his first NHL shutout last night even though he didn't have do to much. I have been begging for the team to give him a lighter workload for awhile and they did just that as he only had to stop 17 shots and 10 scoring chances in a rocking chair, shutout performance. The team always seems to give up 30+ shots with Peters in net anyway, so this was a refreshing change.