At the end of each month, I am going to reflect on the happenings within the Southeast division to get a better idea of the competition the Canes are going up against. What I'm going to do with this feature is first post the standings after a month, then the team's performance during that month going by goals for, goals against, special team performance and Pythagorean win expectation. A Pythagorean win expectation is a formula that's used a lot in baseball where they take the amount of runs a team scored during a year, square it and divide it by the sum of the squared amount of runs the team scored and gave up to get a winning percentage. This shows how much a team is milking the OT point and how many wins a team "earned." I'm not 100% sold on this method for hockey but I find it interesting so I'm experimenting with it for now. After that, I'll break down each team's performance during the month and determine who I feel has been the team's three best players during the month.

We'll start after the jump.

When Jussi Jokinen collided with Tampa Bay forward Ryan Shannon last night, his leg/ankle landed in a very awkward position and immediately I knew that it would be something bad, which it was. Jokinen is now out 3-4 weeks with what is being called a "lower-body injury." Jokinen was the team's best forward when playing at even strength last month and has been the most consistent when providing offense so this injury is huge. Carolina's second line has arguably been their strongest this season and Jokinen plays a big role on it so that makes things even worse.

However, there are some positives we can draw out of this situation. The first one being that it opens up a spot in the top-six and both Ruutu and Skinner can play center so they can possibly take over Jokinen's role there. When it comes to finding someone to move up to that line, I made a post yesterday about how the Canes have two young, offensively gifted prospects playing on the fourth line this year. This could be Zach Boychuk's biggest chance to shine and show that he can be a top-six forward in the NHL. I don't know if this means he will take over Jokinen's spot or play on Staal's line (which isn't out of the question) but I think he will get his shot. The same goes for Zac Dalpe but he will be playing in Charlotte on a conditioning stint for the next week or so.

Also, Drayson Bowman was called up from Charlotte to take over Jokinen's roster spot and if anyone remembers, I wrote a post about him and how I wanted him to make the team out of camp. I'm a little biased because I prefer a team that's in a rebuild phase like Carolina is right now to give their younger players more time in the NHL if they have the roster space. Bowman already played 23 games during the 2009-10 season and failed to record a point but if you read the article linked earlier in the paragraph, I said that he was creating plenty of chances with tough ice time. He was playing bottom-six minutes but Bowman is pegged as more of a goal-scorer so I think this could be a big opportunity for him, as well. He did well in a checking role last season so it would not surprise me to see him used on the fourth line here but I wouldn't rule out top-six minutes for him either.

Of course, there are players like Anthony Stewart and Alexei Ponikarovsky who may get another shot at the second line, too. Hell, Jiri Tlusty is playing on the first line now so anything can happen. My point is that while this is a huge setback, it also provides a big opportunity for the younger players on the roster. I just hope they can live up to the task because Jokinen was putting up points, creating chances, winning face-offs and playing a lot of tough minutes over the first month. Those are some big shoes to fill.

I mentioned in the Tampa Bay preview that one of the reasons that I'm looking forward to this homestand is because Paul Maurice will be able to match lines easier and be able to use his players more effectively. Carolina has played eight of their first 11 games on the road so Maurice hasn't gotten the luxury of having the last change for most of this season and it's had a slight effect on some players zone starts. I wanted to see just how much Maurice is using the last change to his advantage this season and how it compares to how players were used on the road. To do this, I took each player's offensive zone start rate from Carolina's home and away games and did some simple math to figure out the difference. The trade-off some players had were pretty ridiculous.

More after the jump

Tampa Bay Lightning (5-4-2) at Carolina Hurricanes (4-4-3)
RBC Center, 7 p.m.
TV: FS-Carolinas, Sun Sports
Opposing Viewpoints: Lightning Hockey Blog, Raw Charge

After playing seven of their first 11 games on the road, Carolina returns to RBC Center for a three game homestand starting with a rematch of their season opener against the Tampa Bay Lightning. I'm sure most fans remember what happened that game so I won't need to refresh your memory on that. It's best we forget about that disaster anyway. What I can tell you is that Carolina has been playing well at home this year. A 2-1-1 record isn't going to set the world on fire but the only games Carolina outshot their opponent were their four home games and that was a big factor in them earning points in 3/4 of those games. I know a lot of it has to do with Paul Maurice getting the final change and being able to match lines (more on that later) but the Canes using home ice advantage like this can go a long way over the season. These next three games will be very interesting and it's important that Carolina at least earns points in all of them.

Analysis, lines and more after the jump

One thing many Carolina fans, myself included, have been frustrated with is Paul Maurice's lack of use of the team's fourth line. It depends on the team, but most NHL coaches usually give their fourth lines 5-9 minutes a game and that number changes depending on what the score is and what type of players make up those lines. If you have a fourth line like the Devils that consists of players like Cam Janssen and Eric Boulton, you can expect them to hover around 5-6 minutes a game because they are generally liabilities on the ice outside of their physical presence. However, a fourth line like Boston's which consists of solid defensive players like Gregory Campbell and Daniel Paille will likely play closer to 9-10 minutes a game because they bring more to the table and can help protect leads in close games.

The Hurricanes fourth line this year has regularly consisted of Tim Brent, Anthony Stewart and one of Brett Sutter, Zac Dalpe and Zach Boychuk. We have a defensive center, a somewhat one-dimensional player and two rookies who are known for their offensive potential. The fact that the last two have been receiving fourth line minutes is probably what's been frustrating fans the most because Maurice has not made much use for the fourth line this year. He has given the them an average of approximately six minutes per game and uses them in extremely sheltered situations.

Here's a graph showing how much ice time the fourth line has received this year compared to others.

The fourth line has received roughly 15% of Carolina's even strength ice time this season, which is very low compared to how much it's been spread out among the other forwards. Also take note of how the third line is getting slightly more minutes than the second line. Sutter's line was used a lot more in games where the Canes were leading for a long stretch of time (@Boston, vs Chicago). The game where the fourth line received the most ice time was the 5-1 beatdown against Philadelphia. They had an average of about nine minutes that game and I'm guessing Maurice decided to give them more ice time because the team was trailing by so much.

What I want to know is how other teams deploy their fourth lines, so I'm going to be paying special attention to that this season and will have a post on it once I compile on the data. Going back to Carolina's issue, I think the bigger problem is the personnel Maurice chooses for the fourth line. I'm guessing six minutes per game is the average for most team's fourth lines, but why are two players with loads of offensive potential like Dalpe and Boychuk being used there? I've heard from a couple sources that it's to "strengthen their defensive games" but they would be in Charlotte now if that were the case and wouldn't be starting over 50% of their shifts in the opponent's zone. Brent fits the role fine, Stewart does to an extent but Dalpe and Boychuk really should be getting more minutes, especially with the team having scoring issues and the wings on the first line being a revolving door.

Carolina finished this most recent week the same way as they did the one before with a 1-1-1 record. The big difference this time is they actually outshot two of their opponents and didn't need to rely on special teams to win their one game. Hell, they actually played some great hockey in the games against Ottawa and Chicago which is very refreshing to see. Unfortunately, things ended on a bad note with the 5-1 beatdown they took at the hands of the Flyers and they ended up being outscored 7-6 this week. If we can take any positives it's that the team is playing slightly better at even strength than they were earleir in the month but there's still plenty of things to work on. The powerplay converting only once on ten attempts is one problem along with the top line still being in a pretty bad slump. There's a lot of good and bad to break down, so let's go through it all after the jump.

As most of you know, I have been keeping track of the Carolina Hurricanes scoring chances this year and I thought it would be a good idea to share some of the team's data now that we're a month into the season. First, I'll go over what scoring chances are and why they are important to refesh some people's memories. A scoring chance is a shot directed at the net from what is defined as "a dangerous scoring area." That area being shown in this diagram. The reason why bloggers like myself keep track of scoring chances is because they help us judge how well a player is performance by either creating or preventing offense. Many advanced stat bloggers use corsi for this, which is also a fine stat, but scoring chances are better for determining which players are creating and/or preventing more goals. Why? Because more goals tend to come from the scoring chance area than anywhere else. Corsi is great for judging which players are carrying the play but that doesn't always mean they are creating chances. For instance, let's say we have a player who is on ice for a lot of shots on net but most of them are coming from the perimeter. He would probably have a high corsi rating despite not creating any chances. On the flipside, we could have a defenseman who is on ice for a lot of shots against but most of them come outside the face off circle. He would probably have an unfavorable corsi rating but a high scoring chance rating.

Now that we got that out of the way, let's use this data to examine the Hurricanes first month of the season. I think the best way to describe the Canes first month is that things could be worse but they could be a lot better. They are a bottom ten team in 5-on-5 goal differential, own only 43.8% of the shots at even strength and only 46.1% of the scoring chances. That isn't going to win you a lot of games. I've mentioned this before but Carolina has only outshot their opponent at even strength four times this month and have yet to outshot or outchance anyone on the road. However, the Canes were able to come out of October with a 4-4-3 record and earned a couple extra points in some games due strong special teams (games at Buffalo and Boston). That's good for a .500 record in the NHL, but If we want Carolina to win more games in the next few months, they are going to need to do a much better job at creating chances.

We'll look at things more closely after the jump.

In the recap of Friday's game against Chicago I said that everything went right for the Hurricanes. Last night's tilt with the Flyers was the complete opposite of that or at least the third period was. Through the first two periods, the Flyers were outplaying Carolina but not by a large margin. The game was tied at one a piece and Philadelphia was only outshooting Carolina 20-18 and outchancing them 14-11. As John Forslund put it, "the Flyers weren't performing a blitzkreig on the Canes yet" but that all changed once the third period started. Backed by an early goal from Jaromir Jagr, the Flyers just throttled the Hurricanes in the final frame scoring four unanswered goals, outchancing Carolina 11-3 and outshooting them 14-7. Nothing went right for Carolina at all as the Flyers just kept coming with one attack after another and negating any kind of offense the Canes threw their way. If this doesn't sum up how bad this game was then I'll let this stat do the talking. Carolina gave up more chances on the powerplay than they did shorthanded. That's how bad things went.

More after the jump...

It's time to head back to the film room and look at the goal-causing errors that occurred over the last five games. If you don't remember how this process works then let me refresh your memory. I go over every play where the Hurricanes gave up a goal and determine which players were at fault for the goal being scored. Sometimes it's due to a forward losing his man in the neutral zone, a defenseman not being able to cover the front of the net or both. Whichever players contributed to the opposing team scoring the goal will be charged with errors. Keep in mind that I'm mainly looking at even strength play here but I will point out if there was an egregious errors on the penalty kill.

When we last left off, Tuomo Ruutu was leading the way with five goal-causing errors. Things were much better for him over the last five games but there was still a lot of ugly hockey played over this time. Let's take a closer look.

I believe that most people would agree that tonight was the best game the Hurricanes played all season. The Canes accomplished a lot of things they struggled with in the last three games; they killed penalties, played excellent defense and most importantly, they kept up the pressure in the offensive zone even after they had a lead and didn't let the Hawks back into the game. Aside from Cam Ward, I think Tim Gleason and Bryan Allen are tonight's MVP's. They were able to completely shut down the Toews line and kept them from being a factor this entire game. This may have been the closest thing we've seen to a "perfect" game played by Carolina all year. Everything just seemed to work for them while the Hawks couldn't generate any kind of response.

I should also mention the Canes outchanced and outshot Chicago at even strength. First time we did both in consecutive games! Huzzah!

Scoring chances and more after the jump