Don't look now but the Hurricanes have outchanced their opponents in each of their first three games this year and they managed to do it last night without the "aid" of score effects, as they were playing with the score tied or with a lead for most of the contest. Yesterday's game was easily Carolina's most impressive performance in this still very young season. Not only did they get the win, they also recorded a season-high 22 scoring chances and outplayed Buffalo in all three areas.

They didn't completely mow the Sabres over at even strength (chances were only 15-13 during 5v5 play) but they more than made up for it on special teams by completely shutting down the Sabres powerplay. Losing the special teams battle was one of the main problems for the Hurricanes in their first two games and they did a great job of improving on it against Buffalo.

Scoring chance breakdown coming after the jump.

For the second game in a row, the Hurricanes outchanced their opponents only to come out on the losing end of a blowout. Despite outchancing both Florida and Tampa Bay by a combined 40-34 and 32-23 at even strength, the Canes have been outscored 2-9 and now find themselves starting the year with an 0-2-0 record. This is frustrating to watch, but the fact that Carolina has been winning the battles at even strength should mean that better days are on the horizon. I mean, simple regression should tell you that the Hurricanes aren't going to continue to shoot at less than 3% forever and Ward won't continue to let in more than 20% of the shots he faces in the long-run. So this team isn't as bad as their -7 goal differential through two games would lead you to believe.

There are some problems with this team, though and the main killer in both games has been slow starts. They had a parade to the penalty box in the first period against Florida resulting in three powerplay goals against. The same trend continued against Tampa Bay, as the Hurricanes created only three scoring chances (despite several offensive zone draws) and allowed two early goals to put themselves in a 2-0 hole heading into the first intermission. Carolina managed to wake up after that and ended up on the right side of the shots and scoring chance ledger, but the slow starts are something that really needs to be fixed. Cam Ward hasn't been playing well enough to bail them out of it and they can't keep spotting teams 1-2 goals five minutes into the game.

Scoring chance breakdown coming after the jump.

It's a new year, which means that it's time to restart our regular breakdowns of the Hurricanes scoring chance numbers. Wish that I could begin this on a happier note but the Hurricanes didn't get off to the start they planned last night, losing their season opener 5-1 to the Florida Panthers. I know that breaking down the gruesome details of a blowout loss is never fun, but it's a necessary evil that us statisticians have to do and the numbers from last night's game actually aren't as the score indicates. This was something I refuted a few times in the recap and on Twitter, but Carolina played a fairly strong game at even strength and ended up on the ugly end of a loss thanks to terrible discipline, penalty killing and sub-par goaltending. It would have been a completely different game if a few more breaks went their way in the second and third period. That's just the way the puck rolls sometimes, though.

Scoring chance breakdown is coming after the jump.

No one can take away what Jeff Skinner accomplished in his rookie season where he netted 30 goals and took home the Calder Trophy, but I had my doubts about him repeating that kind of year because he received such good fortune when it came to shooting at even strength. I was expecting another good year from him, but his boxcar numbers were bound to tail off a little since it's hard to maintain a 15.7% even strength shooting percentage and have your teammates shoot at over 10% whenever you're on the ice. Most players tend to see those kind of numbers regress eventually and it took only a year for regression to catch up with Skinner.

Skinner saw his shooting percentage drop from 15.7% to 10.5% at even strength while his powerplay shooting percentage fell from 14.3% to 9.5%. His on-ice shooting percentage also took a significant plunge from 10.97% to 9.28% during five-on-five play, all of which resulted in Skinner finishing with fewer goals and points last season. However, despite suffering some major shooting regression, Skinner's point-per-game total was still very respectable as he scored at a .687 PPG rate and a large part of this was because his game improved in so many other areas.

One sign of a player having potential long-term success is his ability to control possession at even strength and this was something Skinner excelled at last season. He was getting a bit of a push in zone starts, but Skinner still outperformed the rest of the forwards when it came to driving the play as the Canes controlled 50% of the even strength shot attempts when he was on the ice. On a team that was a sinkhole in terms of possession last season, that is no easy accomplishment. Skinner's ability to keep the puck in the offensive zone led to him getting more shots on goal, recording over nine shots for every sixty minutes he played. Eric Staal had 7.5 shots per 60 minutes last season, so that should give you some perspective on how good Skinner was at creating offense.

His sophomore year may have a black mark on because he suffered a concussion and had a bit of an attitude problem, which resulted in him being sidelined for a couple games by Mr. Shanahan. Outside of that, Skinner had a fantastic sophomore campaign. He has shown the ability to carry a line and is close to establishing himself as the team's best offensive threat (although he's got some competition with Alex Semin coming to town). The only other thing that I would like to see is for Skinner to do what he did last season but without the benefit of protection in terms of quality of competition. He only turned 20 in May, so he has time to be that kind of player but he isn't there yet despite his high-end offensive talent. 

My expectations for Skinner this year are a bit lofty given the kind of season he had last year. If he can continue to produce a high amount of offense and see his shooting percentage rebound and stay healthy, then he could have a scoring line more similar to his rookie season. His shooting percentage is obviously one of the x-factors but another is what kind of minutes he is assigned. After the jump, we will discuss that and dive deeper into my projection for Jeff Skinner's 2012-13 season.

When looking at shot-based stats like Fenwick, Corsi and Scoring Chances, it is always important to take context into the situation. I often emphasize this point when I go over the numbers for individual players but it is also important to take them into account at the team level. Individually, context is applied by looking at where a player began most of his shifts or what kind of situations he was utilized in but on a team level, we look for score effects.

The idea behind score effects is that a team is more likely to play a passive style while protecting a lead and will be more aggressive if they are trailing. This is especially true for games that are blowouts since there usually isn't much reason for a team to be constantly attacking the offensive zone when they are already leading by 3-4 goals. Thus why most stat-minded bloggers look at what a team's underlying numbers are with the score tied or in close game situations. Roughly 75% of even strength hockey is played when the score is close, so weeding out score effects is a good way to see how a team performs during the most important parts of the game.

Eliminating score effects for Corsi and Fenwick is easy using Vic Ferrari's Time On Ice site, but scoring chances are still a work in progress because there are only a handful of teams that are being tracked. After the jump, we will look at the Hurricanes' even strength numbers during each game state.

Unlike the forward lines, the Hurricanes did less juggling with their defense pairings and had a few units that stayed together for most of the season. Injuries to Jay Harrison and Joni Pitkanen caused some of the pairings to be switched around but for the most part, the Hurricanes kept their defense pairings the same for portions of the year. Tim Gleason & Bryan Allen handled most of the tough minutes, Justin Faulk and Jay Harrison played against second lines and provided offense while Jamie McBain and Jaroslav Spacek played the easier minutes and were also relied on for offense. Most Hurricanes fans were comfortable with these pairings but it's unlikely that they will stay in-tact next season.

Change is something that is normally unwelcomed but I would expect there to be a new look to the pairings next year. With Allen's return being an uncertainty, Pitkanen being healthy (knock on wood), free agents being signed and the possibility of others being promoted from within, it's almost a guarantee that Carolina's defense will look somewhat different. To see how drastic these changes will affect the team and what kind of players need to be brought in to fill these holes, we can look at how certain defense pairings performed this year. 

There's been a lot of debate over who the "top" defense pairing for the Canes was this year, especially since the team's usually #1 defenseman spent most of the year on the shelf and looking at how they did by scoring chances will let us know what pairing really was the best for Carolina. More importantly, this will give us a better idea of which defenseman are best suited for certain roles. We know that whoever played with Gleason was assigned tough minutes while those who played with Spacek were given easier minutes. Seeing who played well with those defensemen and who didn't will show if there is any other defenseman on the roster capable of playing the toughs next season. This is very important to look at with free agency coming up and Allen possibly departing.

We all know the Canes will be looking for a defenseman but is it possible that there is someone on the roster who was underrated or someone who could possibly replace Allen. We will find out after the jump.

Just remember each player's role before making judgments on the numbers because what kind of minutes a player is used in often affects their scoring chance/shot data. To make things easier on yourself, refer to the team's Usage Chart.

When the Hurricanes announced their lines for opening night back in October, one of the surprises was having Jiri Tlusty placed on the first line. For the majority of his career in Carolina, Tlustly was never more than a guy who could be used for around 10 minutes a night in a checking role. The Canes decided to keep him around for another year at a cost near the league minimum and they ended up getting a lot for money with him. Tlusty set career highs in goals, points and looked more like the player the Toronto Maple Leafs drafted in the first round a few years ago.

The decision to place Tlusty in the top-six at the beginning of the year doesn't look as confusing now as he was a regular there for most of 2011-12. He was actually one of Eric Staal's most common linemates and the two surprisingly showed some great chemistry together. Tlusty's career season earned him a new contract as he will be with the Hurricanes for the next two years at about $1.6 mil. per season.

There is no doubt that Tlusty deserved this extension and I'm very happy about the season he had but I can't help but feel a tad skeptical about the chances of him having another year like this. Tlusty is still young and has been able to score at relatively high levels in other leagues, so this year could be just him growing as a player. Unfortunately, his underlying numbers don't quite agree with that narrative. Tlusty is improving but his success this season was largely dependent on two things; Eric Staal and good luck. A detailed look at this after the jump.

The Hurricanes sure like to keep the families connected. Not only do they have two Staal's in their organization but three members of the Sutter family tree as well. The one who most fans know about is Brandon Sutter, who plays an important role as the team's third line center, but one who the national media may not know about is his cousin, Brett Sutter. There's a very good reason for that, though. Brett might be vital to the Hurricanes organization as the captian of their AHL affiliate, the Charlotte Checkers but he has yet to make his mark in the NHL and time is running out for him to do so.

Sutter has spent the majority of the last five seasons in the AHL and wasn't much of a scorer there, and that limits what he can do in the NHL. Which is the reason why he is usually regulated to fourth line duty and called up on either an emergency basis or to be a fourth line plug. The most time he played in a game this season was 9 minutes and 35 seconds so that should tell you what kind of role he played when he was called up. The 15 games he played this year was also a career high for him. Now, you can't judge a player on a 15 game sample size but whenever Sutter was in the lineup, he wasn't very effective. He failed to outchance the opposition in every game he played in and this was with fourth line assignments, which is pretty weak competition.

The Hurricanes' fourth line is known for playing the "energy role" and aren't really depended on for scoring or defense. They are mainly expected to play 5-10 minutes a night, hit a few players, work hard and not get destroyed. You can say that Sutter played this role but that doesn't mean that he helped the team. In fact, the Hurricanes were outshot heavily whenever Sutter played and he was on ice for fewer chances than the amount of games he played. There's no doubt that Charlotte will definitely want him to stick around for next year but it doesn't seem like he'll be getting a call-up to Raleigh any time soon.

Scoring chance breakdown coming after the jump.

If I had to name a few players as those who would be "untouchable" on the Hurricanes in regards to a trade, Brandon Sutter would be one of those players. His scoring line isn't the most impressive but he plays one of the most important roles on the team as the third line center. That doesn't sound like much at first glance because every team has a defensive center, but what makes Sutter so important to the Hurricanes is how well he plays this role. Sutter plays some of the toughest minutes in the NHL, regularly being deployed in the defensive zone and matched up against opposing team's top lines.

Sutter along with his linemate Patrick Dwyer take up almost all of the defensive responsibilities among the team's forward corps and this allows players like Eric Staal, Tuomo Ruutu and Jeff Skinner to play easier minutes, thus helping the team's scoring. In addition to that, Sutter is one of the team's better shot-blockers and has a pretty good set of hands that make him a solid two-way threat that other teams need to be aware of. Most people who get to watch the Hurricanes are aware of Sutter's value and what he brings to the table, but players like him are usually among the most under-appreciated in the league because defensive forward isn't a noteworthy position.

They don't score a lot and their performance isn't shown in most underlying stats either because the ice is tilted so heavily against them, especially for a player like Sutter who plays some of the toughest minutes in the NHL. This is where applying context to one's playing situation would come in handy and Sutter is probably at the top of the list of players who would have their numbers improve if they were adjusted for their starting position, which has been done in the past. We aren't going to do that here, but we are going to look at how Sutter has performed throughout the year but remember to keep his playing situation in mind when you look at the raw data.

A look at those numbers is coming after the jump.

The word "unnecessary" came to mind when the Hurricanes signed Anthony Stewart to a two-year deal last summer. Stewart was coming off a career season with the Atlanta Thrashers the previous season where he had 14 goals and 39 points in 80 games. Going by that alone, one would think that Stewart had top-six potential and and might succeed in a third line role with the Hurricanes. However, Stewart's scoring line last season was incredibly misleading and I was a lot more skeptical about this signing than others were.

Stewart might have had good counting stats with the Thrashers last year, but his underlying numbers painted a much bleaker picture. Whenever he was on the ice, the Thrashers were getting outshot badly at even strength and that was with him starting 54.5% of his shifts in the offensive zone. Stewart was also never a huge point producer in the AHL and his previous career high in the NHL was 7 points in 59 games. AHL success doesn't always translate to the next level but players who don't produce in the minors generally don't go onto be productive scorers at the NHL. This, along with the fact that 10 of Stewart's 14 goals last year came during the first half of the season, made me think that Stewart's 39-point campaign was an aberration and that he wouldn't be anything more than a fourth liner on the Hurricanes.

This is why I felt that signing him was unnecessary. He isn't good enough defensively to play on a checking line or in a shutdown role and he doesn't have the skill set to play on one of the top two lines either. All the Hurricanes could do was give him 6-10 minutes of soft ice-time per night and hope that he didn't hurt the team. That is exactly how the Hurricanes used him for most of the year and Stewart may have scored nine goals, but a closer look at his numbers show that he probably wouldn't be in the NHL on a good team. A look at those numbers is coming after the jump.