Judging the quality of a goaltending prospect is very difficult and projecting their future performance is even more challenging. The reason for this is because goaltending performance tends to be very random over the course of time and the difference between the eighth best goalie and twentieth is usually very small in any given league. That and a top goalie in one league doesn't always make a smooth transition to the next level without some growing pains. Carolina goaltending prospect Mike Murphy is a good example of that.

When Murphy first arrived in the OHL, he struggled for playing time and had a save percentage of less than .900 in 21 games played. Once he got his feet wet and played more games, he became one of the better goalies in junior hockey and had a fantastic season in 2008-09 with a .941 save percentage in 54 games played. His post-junior career has also been pretty solid as he has been splitting starting duties with the likes of Justin Peters and Justin Pogge in Charlotte the last few years. Last season, however, was a bit of a step down for him. He was battling some injuries and posted a save percentage of only .908 in 37 games. It wasn't a major decline from the previous year but a step down regardless.

Murphy did get to make his NHL debut last season, though and set an NHL record by becoming the first goalie to be charged with a loss despite not giving up a goal. The Canes were trailing by three when he entered a game against Calgary, scored once to make it a two-goal game and then the Flames would score an empty net goal to make it 7-4. Carolina then scored two last-minute goals to make it 7-6 and Murphy ended up getting charged with the loss because the ENG ended up being the game-winner. It's a strange occurrence that will probably lead to Murphy becoming a hockey trivia question.

As for Murphy's AHL track record, I think that he will rebound in another season there so I'm not too worried about his performance there. The biggest issue for Murphy in the pros seems to be related to playing time more than anything else. Ever since Murphy has been in Albany/Charlotte, he has had to split time with someone in net and has never played the majority of a season because of this. The injury he sustained last year probably got in the way of that, too. The Checkers haven't been able to guarantee Murphy the starting job while he has been there and I think this coming year would have been the same with Peters being re-signed and John Muse possibly being added to the team. This may have influenced Murphy's decision to sign with HC Spartak Moscow of the KHL for next season.

The Hurricanes decided to qualify Murphy despite this, so he will stay in the organization once his contract in the KHL expires. This is a smart move by Carolina because Murphy is still very young (23) and the team is going to need to find a heir apparent to Cam Ward sooner or later. We don't know if Murphy will be that guy just yet but he could be depending on how he develops in the coming years. Judging from his career totals, he tends to get better once he plays more games so I would have liked for him to spend another year in Charlotte but if he can find a starting job in Russia then that is fine, too. As long as he keeps improving and the Hurricanes can hang onto his rights to keep him in the system.

Murphy's playing style reminds me a little bit of Braden Holtby of the Washington Capitals in the sense that he's pretty aggressive in net and has some very quick reflexes. It's both a good and a bad thing because he can make some spectacular recovery saves but he also tends to put himself in bad positions as a result of overplaying some shooters. Goaltenders usually take a longer time to develop than others so the Hurricanes will know what they have in Murphy in another couple years. Projecting his full potential will be tough because he's going to be playing in another league next year, but the thing to remember with goalie prospects is that the most you can hope for is for them to be quality starters.

You can drive yourself crazy searching for the next Jonathan Quick or Tim Thomas, so the best you can do is find someone who you think can be average in net and hope that he can play out of his mind for some period of time. Can the Hurricanes get that with Murphy? I can't tell you but he appears to be on a pretty decent track and I wish him the best of luck in the KHL.

Continuing the trend of re-signing players, the Hurricanes decided to lock up defenseman Jay Harrison by giving him a three-year contract extension worth $4.5 mil. The deal will kick in next season and will pay him $1.5 mil. per season. Harrison played his second "full season" in the NHL last year but he's been working his way around the league for many years now. He was a second round pick by the Toronto Maple Leafs back in 2001 and had trouble finding a place in the NHL for most of the decade. Jim Rutherford and the Hurricanes scouting staff saw something in him sometime in 2009 and decided to give him a shot. A couple years later, he has become a mainstay of the Carolina blue-line and was a top-four defenseman in Raleigh last season.

Harrison has shown a lot of resilience and determination over his career, which is a large reason why he was Carolina's nominee for the Bill Masterson Memorial Trophy this season. The most admirable trait about Harrison is his work ethic and he has shown that over the years both with the Hurricanes and other teams that he has been involved with. He managed to play more minutes than he ever had before last season and certainly made the most of it by having the best year of his career no matter which way you look at it. Harrison set career highs in goals, points, minutes played and took on a lot more responsibility than he ever had before, so he gave the Hurricanes a huge bargain for the $650k that they were paying him last season. It's hard to say that he did not earn this extension and a significant raise.

As for the contract itself, it's roughly in line with Harrison's value right now. The Hurricanes were using him in the top-four last season because of how good he worked with rookie Justin Faulk, so this deal could be a potential steal if he continues to improve. However, if you take a look at Harrison's underlying stats from last season then it becomes clear that he would likely be a third-pairing defenseman or a borderline top-four guy on most teams. He received secondary tough minutes with Carolina last season and was on ice for a high volume of shots against at even strength, so he had issues with holding his own against tougher opponents. If you look at his performance over the year, you'll notice that he had a strong first 20 games or so but then saw his performance drop around the time he got hurt and it took him awhile to get back up to speed.

There are two reasons for the sharp drop in scoring chance percentage, the first of which obviously being the injury. The other factor was that he was playing on the team's sheltered defense pairing with Tomas Kaberle before he got hurt. The injury didn't cause him to miss that many games but when he came back, Kaberle was traded and Harrison was placed on a tougher defense pairing and that definitely affected his play a little bit. Harrison was able to thrive in a more offensive role but once he wasn't in that situation anymore, he struggled a little, but was able to adjust and he and Faulk made a very solid defense pairing. I have to think that his chemistry with Faulk was one of the reasons why he was signed to this deal, which makes a lot of sense.

I mentioned earlier that if Harrison continues to improve then this could be a steal but if his play stays where it is now, the contract is in line with his current value. Since he is almost 30, what we're seeing now is probably what we're going to get with Harrison and we know that he can play well as a third-pairing defenseman and be serviceable as a second-pairing guy. That's definitely worth $1.5 mil. per year for a team that doesn't have cap issues. Compare him to other defensemen with $1.5 mil cap hits and the deal looks about right for him. The three year commitment (technically four years) is a bit dicey but I don't think it's much of a problem since the contract is movable and there is still room to add another player or two once Joe Corvo's contract runs out after next season. 

Rutherford is always someone who rewards hard work and it's hard to find someone in the organization who has worked harder than Jay Harrison these last couple of years. This is a very fair contract for someone who has proven himself to be at least a solid depth defenseman who can also be used in a bigger role if neccessary. It wouldn't surprise me if Harrison is playing big minutes to start next year if the team's current defense corps stays put.

The Hurricanes did not have a good season but there were quite a few players in the system who got a taste of the playoffs in their respective leagues this year. One of those players was defenseman Keegan Lowe of the Edmonton Oil Kings. Lowe served as alternate captain on the WHL champion Oil Kings and was also one of their top defensemen. His team was unable to capture the Memorial Cup but Lowe played a big role in Edmonton's successful season as he was a very steady blue-liner and helped compliment some of their more offensive minded defensemen.

Lowe's development has always been put under a magnifying glass in Edmonton because he is the son of Oilers great Kevin Lowe and I'm sure the folks in Alberta have noticed his game improve over the years. He just finished up his third year of junior hockey but is still only 19 years old and has developed into a solid, stay-at-home defensemen for the Oil Kings and that's about what he projects to be at the pro level. How much upside he has remains to be seen but he could find himself playing an even bigger role in Edmonton this coming season with Mark Pysyk likely graduating to the pro level, which means that we should have a better idea of Lowe's potential then.

Standing at six feet and three inches, Lowe possesses the frame of a solid shutdown defenseman and I'm sure that he is going to put on a few extra pounds when he gets older, so it's possible that he can work his way to the NHL if he works hard enough. The Hurricanes do have a bit of a need for a stay-at-home defenseman with top-four potential since Brian Dumoulin was traded and Lowe might need to be one of those players to step up into that role. As of right now, we don't know if he can fill that void and he could easily turn into a career AHL-er or a bottom-pairing defenseman at best. It is still too early in his career to determine this, though. Lowe isn't completely one-dimensional since he does contribute offensively but he is more known for playing a strong game in his own zone and his puck-moving skills aren't exactly a force to be reckoned with. He's also spent a lot of time in the sin bin the last couple of seasons with over 100 penalty minutes in consecutive years.

Personally, I never know how to project young defensemen and it's especially difficult to gauge the talent of a stay-at-home defender like Keegan Lowe. Since most of their contributions don't show up on the scoresheet, you have to watch at least some of their games to get an idea of what kind of upside they have and what they could do in the future. Even after that it is tough to predict what they will become in a few years (take Luke Schenn for example). Judging from what I saw in the Memorial Cup, Lowe plays a very physical style and is very good at winning battles in front of the net. He is also a pretty decent skater for a stay-at-home defenseman. My concern with Lowe is if he can be as effective physically at the next level because he isn't the strongest player and this could be a problem when he's taking on bigger forwards.

Carolina fans could have an even better idea of what to expect from Lowe in a couple months if he is with the team at the Traverse City prospects tournament. He still has not earned a pro contract but I get the feeling that will change by this time next season and we could see him in Charlotte in another couple of seasons. Right now, Lowe is one of the team's more intriguing prospects but his full potential is still unknown and he is behind some of the team's other defensive prospects such as Danny Biega and Mark Alt. I'm very excited to see what he can do next season, though.

Let's take a trip back to the year 2008, this is when Riley Nash was considered one of the Edmonton Oilers' top prospects. He was taken in the first round the previous season and was one of the top scorers on Cornell University's hockey team, a squad that featured Colin Greening of the Ottawa Senators. Nash was an absolute stud in college as he not only was a point-per-game player in college, but he excelled at the defensive side of the game, as well. Unfortunately for the Oilers, he seemed to fall out of favor with the organization there and was traded to the Hurricanes at the 2010 NHL Draft in exchange for one of Carolina's second round picks. Since then, Nash has been playing with Carolina's AHL affiliate in Charlotte and got his first taste of the NHL last season appearing in four games with the Hurricanes.

There were a lot of high hopes for Nash out of camp last season as he was one of the team's final cuts and was very impressive in the pre-season. Getting to play a more defensive system his junior year at Cornell has paid dividends for him as the coaching staff seems to like his defensive game and it gives him an edge to make the NHL over those who are more one-dimensional. His ability to win face-offs is also something that the coaching staff in Charlotte has liked about him as it is one of the reasons why he is a big part of the Checkers penalty kill. 

So why is Nash ranked so low on this list? For one, he had a very tough year offensively with the Checkers as he had only 8 goals and 20 points in 58 games there and would probably be on a checking line on most teams. If he stays in the AHL next season, there's a good chance that he'll play on the third line there depending on what happens with Zac Dalpe and Victor Rask. Nash's ceiling is supposedly higher than that, but right now it's looking more like he will be a bottom-sixer in the NHL. Not that there is anything wrong with that, because the Hurricanes are in need of quality depth forwards and Nash could be in the NHL as soon as next season. His biggest challenge will be beating out Dalpe and Jeremy Welsh for a roster spot this September.

Nash is older than some of the Hurricanes' other prospects so his window of opportunity isn't as large, but his chance could come this year since the Hurricanes need a third line center. Jim Rutherford elected not to fill this void through free agency because of the depth the Canes have in their system and one would have to believe that between Dalpe, Welsh and Nash, the Canes should have their third line center for next season. Nash's strong defensive instincts might give him an inside edge over Dalpe and Welsh because Carolina''s third line typically plays the shutdown role, something that Nash could be a good fit for. That being said, I think he may need to improve offensively to earn a full-time role in the NHL because the Canes are going to need to improve their scoring depth next season and Nash has struggled to put up points at the NHL level.

It's tough for me to consider Nash one of the team's top prospects right now because there are others in the organization who have more NHL experience or have been more impressive in their respective leagues. This can easily change if Nash makes the NHL next season or has a great year in Charlotte, though. He will certainly have the opportunity to do so, I know that. It's going to be an interesting training camp.

Beau Schmitz may have only signed with the Hurricanes this spring but he has been on the team's radar for quite awhile. He was invited to play with the team at the Traverse City prospect tournament in each of the last two seasons and has played for the Plymouth Whalers of the OHL for the last four years, a team owned by Peter Karmanos Jr. The Hurricanes finally decided to ink him to a three year, entry-level contract in March after he had a terrific season as captain for Whalers. Schmitz tallied 14 goals and 54 points in 62 games with Plymouth this year. His 14 goals ranked him fourth among OHL defensemen and his 40 assists ranked him third. He was also named to the OHL's third All-Star team.

I'm not sure how far Schmitz will make it in the pros because he only emerged as a major threat in this most recent season and he just turned 21, so we might have to wait and see how he does against older competition before we know what his full potential is. It is hard to ignore what he did last year, though. He was the top defensemen on a very good Plymouth team that featured Carolina's 2010 third round pick, Austin Levi and was one of the better offensive blue-liners in the OHL last season. Schmitz's offensive instincts have been well-documented but he seemed to take things to another level this year with his offensive output. He also racked up a lot of penalty minutes due to being involved in more than a few scraps.

Because Schmitz has played four years in the OHL and now has an ELC, it's very likely that we could see him in Charlotte next season but he might have some competition depending on what happens with Marc-Andre Gragnani and Bobby Sanguinetti. There are only so many spots available but I think Schmitz has to take the next step to the pros next season because he was already an overager at the junior level and I'm sure he would rather play with the Checkers than go to the ECHL.

Schmitz is an overager who went undrafted and most players like that don't turn into anything special but I think he showed a good amount of potential last season with the Whalers. The Hurricanes clearly saw something with him since they decided to give him an ELC, so it's possible that he may have a good future with the Checkers but I'm not sure what will happen after that. There have been a lot of players who have gone on to have careers despite going undrafted, so maybe Schmitz will fit into that category but we probably won't know until another year.

As for right now, Schmitz is good enough to be considered one of the Hurricanes better young players. Yes, he was competing against younger competition in the OHL but it's hard for me to argue with the results he put up there. Plus, he is still only 21, so he could easily move his way up this list if he has a good season with the Checkers. I think he has more than a fighting chance to make the roster there and could be one of their top defensemen if he can build on his success in Plymouth the last couple of seasons.

You want your prospects to get better as they get older and Schmitz has been able to do that so far, which is why he made the list. If he can keep getting better while playing against tougher competition in the AHL then he might have more promising of a future than some may have previously thought.

Every fan loves to play the role of Armchair General Manager during the off-season. They always think that they can fix all of a team's problems within one off-season by making a series of big moves to shake up the franchise. You'll see them make a lot of trade proposals that  involve dealing spare parts for a star player (Dubinsky, Michael Del Zotto + a pick for Bobby Ryan is the most popular one) and try to make major pushes at signing every top free agent and maybe one or two of those moves will actually happen. The fact is that most teams are likely competing with at least three or four other clubs when trying to trade or sign a player and it takes a lot of luck (or a lot of money) to actually get big signings done.

Acquiring star talent through free agency and trades is always tough to do for a small market team like Carolina, so another idea that has been thrown around is sending out an offer sheet to a restricted free agent who hasn't made much progress in re-signing the team that currently holds his rights. An offer sheet is somewhat of a rarity in the NHL today as there have been only been seven since the lockout and only one of them hasn't been matched (Dustin Penner to the Oilers in 2007). The popularity of offer sheets has now increased by a tenfold this past week with Shea Weber signing the 14-year, $110 mil. offer sheet that the Philadelphia Flyers sent him and there have been plenty new offer sheet proposals showing up on the Internet since then.

The offer sheet sent to Weber was especially rare because the Flyers found a loophole in the CBA where they could put the Predators in a position where they would be unlikely to re-sign him. The deal is extremely front-loaded and Weber will be paid about 72% of his overall salary in the first six years of the deal. He is also going to be paid over $26 mil. in the next 12 months, which is tough for a small-market team like Nashville to afford because that is a lot of money to pay someone up front. It isn't as big of an issue for the Flyers, who are owned by Comcast and have pockets as deep as the Grand Canyon. This offer sheet is also rare because it's not every off-season that one of the best players in the NHL is an RFA right in the prime of his career. Stamkos and Doughty were RFA's last season, but they were much younger and somewhat less established than Weber is right now.

The Predators still have a chance to match the offer sheet but Flyers GM Paul Holmgren did a phenomenal job to make this as difficult as possible on the Predators. As a fan of a small market team, this worries me because it shows that teams with more money like the Flyers are not afraid to take advantage of smaller market teams. Although, the Hurricanes may not have a lot to worry about because they have most of their best players locked up for the next few seasons and will probably ink Jeff Skinner and Justin Faulk to new deals before the threat of an offers sheet occurs. Then again, the chances of this happening to them with either of those players are slim. 

Why? Because unless Skinner and Faulk develop into elite talents before their entry-level contracts run out. they can probably match whatever offer a team sends them. No one is going to offer them a long-term deal worth over $7 mil. a year at this point and if they do, they are taking a big risk because neither are worth elite money. Skinner might get an offer sheet in the $4-6 mil. range if he has a great season but it seems unlikely that even a team with a lot of money would do that right now, so I think the Canes will have plenty of time to lock-up Skinner before next off-season and shouldn't be too worried about him signing an offer sheet.

This goes hand-in-hand with how rare offer sheets are in today's NHL and why I do not think the Hurricanes will send an offer sheet to someone like Jakub Voracek or Evander Kane. Both the Flyers and the Jets know how important those two players are to their respective organizations and they aren't going to let them go for nothing. Both players are worth at least $4 mil. under the current cap (Voracek may get less) and if a team decides to offer sheet them for anything north of $5 mil. on a long-term ticket is taking a big gamble. That's probably what it will take to get one of these two players to sign an offer sheet and I still believe that their respective clubs will match whatever offer they get. This is why you don't see a lot of offer sheets today. I have no doubt that GMs send them out more often than we think, but getting a player to sign one is the tricky part. With that in mind, it might be tough for Philadelphia to hang onto Voracek but I suspect that they will try to deal off one of their high-priced defensemen before letting him walk away for picks and nothing else. The Jets, on the other hand, will likely match whatever offer Kane signs to.

Teams have to make convincing offers to get players to sign offer sheets, which means that they risk losing at least a first round pick and that's tough to do if the future of the club is uncertain. I know that Jim Rutherford wants the Hurricanes to be competitive as soon as next season but that isn't a certainty even with the addition of one of Voracek or Kane. If the Hurricanes give up a first rounder for one of them, they could be giving up a pick in the top-15 if things don't work out, which could possibly hurt the franchise as a whole in the long run. Things might be different if we KNEW this team was going to compete next season but we don't know that right now.

I understand that in order to get great players, you are going to have to give up some value but you still have to assess a good risk from a bad one and at this very moment, offer sheeting Voracek or Kane at a price that neither their current teams can not afford would be a bad risk. Both teams have the money to re-up those players and are willing to make cap space for it so the only way a team can pry them away is by getting them to sign an offer sheet with a very high cap hit, which will cost the Hurricanes at least a first round pick. You decide if the result is worth the cost.

Now, if you will allow me to play Armchair GM for a second, what I would do to fill the Canes need for a top-six winger is sign a certain unrestricted free agent. I have already mentioned him countless times and have given the reasons on why I think he would be a great addition to this team. In fact, I have driven this point home so much over the last few months that I am not going to mention his name here because you should know who I am talking about right now. All we have to do is wait and see if Rutherford decides to pull the trigger. Honestly, if JR is looking to gamble, then this certain UFA would likely be his best option, not an offer sheet.

The summer of low-key free agent signings continues for the Hurricanes as they have inked right winger Tim Wallace to a two-way deal. The details of the contract have not been released yet, but I would assume that it's less than $1 mil. given that Wallace is in his late-20's and played his first "full" NHL season only last year. He started last season with the New York Islanders and was claimed off waivers by the Tampa Bay Lightning in February, where he tallied eight of his nine total points. Wallace also played 24 games last season with the Islanders' AHL affiliate in Bridgeport where he scored 9 goals and 20 points.

Wallace is a veteran of the AHL as he has spent the majority of his professional career in the minors and he has been a very good player at that level, too. At the NHL, however, Wallace has mainly been used as a fourth-liner. He is depended on to play about less than 10 minutes a night, doesn't kill penalties or contribute on the powerplay and doesn't offer much else other than providing a big body to play a physical role. That being said, his underlying numbers from last season were not horrible. Wallace managed to not get killed territorially despite starting almost 60% of his shifts in the defensive zone, so that's something.

So what can Tim Wallace do for the Hurricanes? Hopefully the same thing that he did for the Lightning last season. Take defensive zone draws, be able to somewhat drive the play and give the team at least 10 points. That's about what you should expect from a fourth-liner and it's what Wallace brings to the table and it's also nice that he has a physical edge, too. Wallace is a similar player to Anthony Stewart in the sense that he is a fourth liner and doesn't have a ton of upside but he can give you at least 6-10 minutes of decent player per night. They also had a lot of good fortune last season as both players had very high shooting percentages and their respective teams had unsustainable high on-ice shooting percentages, too. The Lightning's 16.4% on-ice shooting percentage is something that's probably going to come down dramatically next season if Wallace makes the Hurricanes next season.

It wouldn't surprise me if Wallace started next season in the AHL and spent most of his time there because he's a proven AHL veteran and the Hurricanes don't have many open roster spots next season. They do need a fourth line winger but that role is likely going to be assumed by Andreas Nodl or Patrick Dwyer with third line possibly having a more offensive role than in years past. That could leave both Wallace and Stewart in the lurch next season because I would expect Dwyer or Nodl to have spots on the team over them next season but anything is possible. I'm not entirely sure how Kirk Muller will roll his lines next year, so it's possible that Wallace will fit into the team's plans next season as a fourth liner so we'll see how things work out.

Wallace's ability to handle more defensive assignments could give him the edge over Stewart for next season but he also has a two-way deal, whereas Stewart has to be paid $1 mil. even if he is in the AHL next season. If both are equally good and the final roster cuts come down to between the two of them, I would expect Stewart to stay for that reason unless the team decides that they don't want to keep him anymore. Wallace has a good track record in the minors so he should be a solid contributor in Charlotte if he doesn't make the Canes out of camp. The Checkers had some forward depth issues last season, so adding an experienced player to help out there is a good move.

Most Hurricanes fans are familiar with Jerome Samson. He's been a regular with the team's AHL club for five years, which dates back to the time when their affiliate was in Albany. He has gotten to play 46 games with the Hurricanes over the last three years and finally tallied his first NHL goal this past season, which might be a surprise when you look at his AHL numbers over the years. The 24-year-old Quebec native has been one of the Checkers top scorers ever since he joined the club and is a very important player there. In the NHL, however, he hasn't quite made his mark and has only been dependend on for short periods of time.

Why hasn't Samson been able to stick in the NHL? It could be a number of reasons. He fits into the mold where he thrives when given top-six minutes but has been a tweener in the NHL because he hasn't been able to adjust being in a checking role. Then again, you can argue that he hasn't been given much of a chance to succeed with the Hurricanes because he was playing only 6-8 minutes a game before this season. Another thing is that Samson has put up strong underlying numbers in the small 46 sample of games he's played with the Canes so it's not like he hasn't been making the most of those minutes. He was actually somewhat impressive at times while playing on Eric Staal's line during his call-up stint this year and it wasn't a surprise to see him finally get on the score sheet now that he was given decent linemates.

Samson is pretty old in terms of prospects (he turns 25 in September), so what we see from him in the next couple years is probably what we're going to get for the rest of his career, and I'm not sure if he'll be in the NHL or with the Hurricanes when he's at his peak. Carolina has too many third liners currently at their disposal and unless Samson emerges as a top-six talent during training camp or the pre-season, it's unlikely that he will be with the Canes aside from emergency call-ups and whatnot.

With that being said, I really like Samson and think that he has a future in the NHL. The reason I say this is because he has been a terrific possession player at the AHL and a solid goal-scorer on top of that. He had 223 shots on goal in only 57 games with the Checkers and managed to score 20 goals for the fifth straight season despite spending a portion of the year in Charlotte. He might have trouble adjusting to playing against NHL talent but I think he will eventually find a home in the NHL even if it is not with the Hurricanes. Give him solid linemates and reasonably soft minutes and he could succeed. That seems to be how things work out for a lot of AHL stars who make their NHL debuts in their mid-20's. 

I talked about Samson's future with the club a few months ago and determined that he would probably become an NHL-er with another club but the Canes decided to qualify him after this off-season, so he will get another shot here but I think he ends up staying on the Checkers when all is said and done. He could surprise some people when he gets his shot in the NHL but I don't know if he will get that opportunity next season unless a lot of injuries happen or he really stands out amongst the other forwards. I will be pulling for him, regardless.

We are starting off this feature with one of the most accomplished prospects in Carolina's system, Justin Shugg. Shugg has been a part of two Memorial Cup winning teams with the Windsor Spitfires and won the Kelly Cup with the Florida Everblades this past season. Making his pro debut this year, Shugg recorded 5 goals and 13 points in 33 games with the Charlotte Checkers, missing two months with an injury. That isn't the most impressive stat-line but what puts Shugg on this list over others who didn't make the cut is that he has been near-dominant at other levels.

Shugg was a point-per-game player with Windsor and Mississauga during his last two years playing at the junior level and was a 40 goal-scorer in 2010-12. He was also a point per game player with the Everblades during 12 regular season games and 11 playoff games. His performance at the lower levels has been nothing but impressivee as he has been able to be an impact player at the OHL and the ECHL but that has yet to translate to this success to the pros, which is a little worrisome but he is only 20 years old. He was named one of the Top 100 prospects of the 2010 NHL Draft by Cory Pronman of Hockey Prospectus and his play-making and scoring skills were a big reason for that. Since then, he's lived up to that reputation everywhere but the AHL, but I don't think there's anything to worry about with his development.

The issue with Shugg is that he needs top-six minutes to succeed and he wasn't getting that in Charlotte because he didn't produce consistently, which is why he was sent to the ECHL. The good news is that he made full use of his minutes there and played a big role in the team winning the Kelly Cup. He was playing on a line with Zac Dalpe for part of the season in Charlotte, so he was likely being matched up against tougher opponents and had trouble adjusting. This is something that is correctable with some time and experience, so I would expect bigger things from Shugg next season.

Another thing that might work in his favor is that one of Drayson Bowman, Zac Dalpe, Zach Boychuk or Jerome Samson could have a chance of playing with the Hurricanes on more of a full-time basis next season, so that could leave the door open for Shugg to play a bigger role. I'm pretty excited to see how he does then because he's clearly been able to get it done at every other level and I think it should carry over into the pros after he gains some strength, size and experience. He probably won't put up such gaudy numbers, but I see him being a useful player for the Checkers and possibly one of their top scorers in the next couple of years.

As far as his future in the NHL goes, that's still an open book. I never know what to expect from players who put up big numbers in junior because some of them end up being something special while others don't amount to much. Shugg hasn't turned 21 yet and was in the pros last season, so that's a promising sign but he also wasn't able to make that much of an impact either. Next season should tell us more about him and give us a better idea of what kind of future he has. If he has a great season and becomes one of the Checkers top-scorers, then he will definitely jump a few spots on this list.

We are currently in what I refer to as the "doldrums" of the NHL off-season, meaning that the "madness" of free agency has gone by and there isn't much news except for maybe one or two signings per day. It's a little boring if you're a hockey blogger like me, but it's also nice because it gives you some extra down time to work on other projects. One feature that I have had in mind for awhile is leaching off the Oilers blog Copper & Blue's idea of going through the organization's best players who are under the age of 25. This isn't limited to only prospects because having young talent in the system is important to any team and not just the ones who are rebuilding. The core of every team eventually starts to age and a new crop of young talent has to replace them when that time comes.

This is why having good organizational depth is important and it's never a bad thing to have a lot of quality players in your system who are under 25. Every player is different but the general rule of thumb is that a player enters their "prime years" in their mid-20's and they continue to get better until then. Most player who are under 25 still haven't come into their own and are still fixing the possible holes they might have in their games. The absolute ceiling of most young is always unknown, so having a lot of younger guys with solid potential is a must for every organization. Of course, many young players don't end up being much more than third liners, role players or career AHL-ers, but there's nothing wrong with getting as much young talent as possible and seeing what it can develop into.

The purpose of this feature is to examine the quality of the Hurricanes system and what some of these young players can do for them in the next few years. I will be featuring one player per day, discuss their most recent season, their development and what kind of potential they are showing and explain my ranking. My rankings are based on what they have done so far rather than what kind of potential they show. In addition to that, this feature should spark some discussion about what needs should be addressed in future drafts and trades. Before we dig into the rankings, I will talk about some players who didn't make the cut.

Before going through the rankings, we are going to discuss some of the players who didn't make the cut.