In the past, I have talked about how I hold certain players to higher standards than others because of the situations they are used in or how much they are being paid. For the Hurricanes, the player that is held to the highest standard is their team captain, Eric Staal and there are plenty of reasons to expect a lot out of him. Staal has been the Canes best player for the last seven years, he is being paid top-level money and he has been at least a 70-point player since the lockout. As fans, we have become accustomed to seeing Staal be a dominant force, which is probably why most people see this year as a disappointment for him. He had 70 points in 82 games, was one of the few forwards with a positive even strength scoring chance differential and led the team in shots on goal.

For most players, this would be a great season, but a lot of fans thought that Staal lost a step this year. Why is this? For one, his scoring rate was down from what it was in previous seasons (dropped from .94 to .85 points per game this year) and he got off to possibly the worst start of his career. Staal had only 12 points through the first 26 games of the season, which is bad for most players but even worse for player of Staal's caliber. It's tough to figure out what was wrong with Staal during that time but a lot of it was related to bad luck. His shooting percentage this season was lower than it has ever been (9.2%) and the Hurricanes, as a team, were shooting at an extremely low rate in the first half of the season. The Hurricanes goaltenders were also stopping only .897 of the even strength shots they faced when Staal was on the ice, which directly affected his horrible plus/minus that was harped upon for most of the season.

The point here is that some of the things that contributed to Staal's "down year" were out of his control because it certainly isn't his fault that the team's goalies couldn't stop a beach ball whenever he was on ice at even strength. That's something that was overlooked during his rough first half of the seaso. Another thing that was somewhat overlooked is how good Staal was after the rough start. He had 58 points in his 56 games since December and still finished with 70 points despite having only 12 in two months. Staal's overall year might have been a disappointment but it's hard to look at how he played over the last four months and say that he underachieved.

Players who produce as much offense as Staal aren't going to shoot at less than 9% forever, so it was only a matter of time before Staal had a scoring outburst, but a look at his underlying numbers show that Staal had some legitimate stretches of bad play this year and guessing which part of the season they came in shouldn't be too difficult.

We will look at those numbers after the jump.A

If there is one positive thing to take away from the Tomas Kaberle fiasco last, it is that Jim Rutherford was able to dump off his contract on then Montreal Canadiens GM Pierre Gauthier without giving up much of anything. All the Hurricanes had to do was take on the expiring contract of 37 year old defenseman Jaroslav Spacek in return and this deal ended up being more than just a salary dump. Spacek quickly found his role in Carolina as a third pairing defenseman and made a great first impression in his Hurricanes debut by recording two assists. He was able to give the Hurricanes stronger defensive depth as he performed very well as a sixth defenseman and proved to be a good mentor for some of the younger defensemen, most notably Jamie McBain.

Spacek was just about everything you would want a third pairing defenseman to be and his experience could make him somewhat valuable to the Hurricanes going forward. Does that mean that the Hurricanes should re-sign him in the next couple of weeks? Not necessarily. While Spacek was solid when healthy, he was also very brittle and missed a considerable amount of time with various injuries. This is something that Spacek has struggled with for the last few years and it's gotten worse as he's gotten older. His limited mobility and durability also make him no more than a third pairing defenseman at this point in his career, which is a role that shouldn't cost a team more than $2 mil. per year. Spacek might re-sign under those terms but it seems more likely that he will be the odd-man out given how many defensemen Carolina has in their system right now. A one-year deal wouldn't be out of the question, though.

As of right now, it is tough to say what the Canes will do with Spacek but if he wants a new contract, his play last season might be able to help him earn one. His point total isn't going to wow anyone, but Spacek was able to control possession as he had the highest scoring chance percentage at even strength among Carolina defensemen.  After the jump, we will take a closer look at the season Spacek and see why he was able to succeed in Carolina.

After having a tremendous rookie season and taking home the Calder Trophy, Jeff Skinner's sophomore year was met with much anticipation. There were some who feared that he would have the dreaded "sophomore slump" and while he did score fewer goals, anyone who watched Skinner play this year could see that he looked like a better overall play. Skinner looked stronger than he did his rookie season and he is showing signs of becoming a complete player rather than just a goal-scorer. My biggest concern with Skinner after his rookie year was wondering whether or not he had the ability to carry a line at such a young age, and in only his second season he proved that he could. It makes Skinner a huge bright spot in a mostly forgettable season and a great sign for things to come.

In addition to that, Skinner was also one of the team's most consistent forwards at creating scoring chances and managed to keep his head well above water on a team that was very poor at controlling both possession and scoring chances. Most of the time, it takes a couple seasons to develop their games and become more well-rounded players but Skinner appears to be ahead of the game in that department. He is already shown the ability to carry lines, drive the play forward and he's even killing penalties now, too. Most of the news surrounding Skinner was negative because he suffered a concussion and his bad attitude has gotten both him and the Hurricanes into trouble. Skinner is just a kid but his play on the ice and with the puck has matured at a quicker rate than anyone could have imagine. However, his antics between the whistles is something that he needs to work on because that overshadowed what was a great season for him.

After the jump, we'll take a look at Skinner's underlying numbers throughout the season and see just how good he was.

Last season, one of my favorite call-ups from Charlotte was Jerome Samson. He didn't score a goal in the 23 games he played in, but he was effective at getting shots on goal and creating scoring chances. I felt that he would be effective in a depth role and would eventually get on the scoresheet if he continued to do the same things he did last year. Samson didn't make the team out of camp and wasn't called up until mid-January but he made an immediate impact by scoring his first NHL goal in his season debut against the Philadelphia Flyers. After that game, Samson struggled to stay in the lineup and was sent down for good in early-March. I was a little disappointed but not entirely surprised because it is hard to keep a guy in the lineup if he's getting top-six minutes but can't score.

The reason why I liked Samson so much last season is because he showed the ability to be effective offensively even if the wasn't scoring, and this team desperately needed forwards who could drive the play. Samson wasn't nearly as good in that department this season and that coupled with his inability to produce points made it tough for him to stay in the NHL. At the AHL level, Samson is a pure goal scorer and a very effective offensive player but he has still yet to translate that into NHL success and at 24, it is tough to say that he will ever turn into a goal-scorer at this level.

I think that Samson has a future in the NHL but he seems to work best as a depth forward or a third-liner because he can at least be someone who can help drive puck possession and create energy. Unfortunately, I don't think he will make it in the NHL on the Hurricanes because what they need is a goal-scoring winger. This team has enough players similar to him and he could end up being an odd-man out this off-season if he can't find his scoring touch. He was actually given top-six minutes in Carolina this season but didn't produce much with them and Kirk Muller wasn't going to keep him on the team to be a fourth liner. That isn't going to work for Samson or Charlotte so he was better off finishing the year in Charlotte.

Sixteen games isn't the best sample size to go by, but we're going to take a closer look at the year that was for Samson and see how he might have been less effective at driving the play than his strong corsi relative rating suggests.

If you could sum up Tuomo Ruutu's season in one word, it would likely be "inconsistent." At the end of October, Ruutu had only four points and a lot of people wondered if he was playing through an injury because he didn't look like himself at all. We all knew that Ruutu couldn't continue to play this poor forever and he eventually came around with a solid performances in November and December, and the talk among fans shifted to Ruutu needing to be re-signed or traded for Kings Ransom because he appeared to be the team's best forward at the time.

December remained Ruutu's highest point of the season as he would cool off in January and sustain an upper-body injury in February which kept him out of ten games. His quality of play after returning from the injury was underwhelming to say the least as he struggled to get back up to speed with the rest of the team and found himself in Kirk Muller's dog house for a couple games. This was something that troubled a lot of fans because Ruutu had signed a four-year contract extension worth $4.75 mil. per year about a month prior and getting on the coach's bad side can have some bad long-term effects.

The issue with Muller ended up not being as big of a deal as it was made out to be, but there is going to be a lot of talk about Ruutu's price-tag and whether or not he isn't worth the 18 goals and 34 points he produced this season is worth $4.75 mil. This was Ruutu's lowest point total since 2007-08 and he was just coming off a career high 57 points the year prior, so I think we can expect better boxcar stats from Ruutu next year. He also produced at what is considered a top-six rate at even strength, which is a good sign for next season.

What concerns me the most is that Ruutu's inconsistencies are not only present in his counting stasts, but his underlying numbers, as well. A look at those is coming after the jump.

One of my favorite moves that Jim Rutherford made last off-season was the signing of Alexei Ponikarovsky to a one-year deal at a very low cost of $1.50 mil. I liked this move because while Ponikarovsky was coming off a bad season with the Los Angeles Kings (5 goals, 15 points in 61 games), he was previously an 18-21 goal scorer for a good part of his career and had top-six potential. The other thing I liked about Poni was his ability to drive possession at a pretty high rate. He has been extremely well at doing this over the last few seasons, so even if he wasn't scoring, he would at least be contributing in other areas. That last sentence sums up his year with the Hurricanes perfectly. 

The Poni Express' career as a Hurricane lasted 49 games before he was traded to the New Jersey Devils for Joe Sova and a 4th round pick, but I think he played a lot better than his 7-7-14 scoring line indicates. He is a player who I thought "did everything but score" because he was used in so many roles this year and performed well in most of them. The only problem was that he just couldn't seem to hit the back of the net no matter how many shots he got off. Whether you want to blame that on a 7.1% shooting percentage or a "lack of finishing ability" is up to you.

Either way, Ponikarovsky has proven himself to be a useful piece but he is more suited for a third-line role now, which is something that the Hurricanes did not need this year. Which is why he has performed better on the Devils, a team that was starving for depth forwards and Ponikarovsky gave them exactly what they needed at the time. I have a feeling that he will have a job in the NHL next year.

After the jump, we will take a look at the underlying stats from Poni's tenure with the Hurricanes and see in which ways he was useful here, and how he was not.

This series has been in the books for almost a week and there has been plenty of time for the pundits and bloggers to create their narratives about the Coyotes sending the Preds home in only five games. Last time I checked, the ongoing story is that that the Preds ran into the "hungrier team" and had their chemistry ruined by two lazy, misbehaving players. Some other explanations I've heard are saying that the Preds took Phoenix too lightly and were "believing the hype of their own team" after they knocked off Detroit.

People are entitled to believe what they want but most of the underlying numbers say that the Preds played much better than the results might indicate. They outplayed Phoenix at even strength, had a stronger powerplay and controlled possession but goaltending ended up being the difference maker. Coyotes goaltender Mike Smith has carried over his incredible play from the regular season into the playoffs and was the main reason why the Coyotes were able to make such short work of the Predators.

All but one of Phoenix's wins were decided by a goal and Nashville actually outchanced Phoenix in all but one game this series, so this series could have gone in a much different direction if the Preds got a few bounces. Pekka Rinne was good, but Mike Smith was just better and that ended up being the big difference maker. With that being said, there were a few other things that went awry for Nashville and they are not all centered around Alexander Radulov.

A closer look at this series is coming after the jump.

After re-upping with the Canes for three years at $4.5 mil. per year, Joni Pitkanen did not have the best season to start off his new contract. He battled injuries for most of the year, missed 52 games a concussion and knee surgery and wasn't exactly great when he was healthy. Pitkanen has always been more known for his offense but he's been a very good all-around type player for the last couple of seasons. This year, he delivered on the offensive front with 17 points in 30 games but his play in the defensive zone was spotty to say the least.

Pitkanen's underlying numbers are pretty interesting because going by shot/possession stats, he appeared to play decent at even strength but his scoring chance data tells a much different tale. Only Tim Gleason and Derek Joslin had a worse scoring chance ratio than him, and the former plays much tougher minutes than Pitkanen does. In my time tracking scoring chances, I have only seen this happen with a few players but it could possibly mean that Pitkanen was on ice for more high quality shots against than others. 

However, Pitkanen didn't get easy minutes at all this year either as he ranked third on the team in corsi relative to quality of competition, which means that he was used regularly against second and third lines. That sounds pretty normal for a guy who plays top four minutes but it's a little tougher than the workload that Pitkanen had the year before. At $4.5 mil. per year, I think Pitkanen should be able to handle these assignments but I also believe that a more stable defense partner could help him, as well. 

A look at Pitkanen's underlying numbers from the past season is coming after the jump.

Sometimes GMs will find hidden gems on the waiver wire and while Andreas Nod isn't exactly a diamond in the rough, he is a very useful player and the Hurricanes were able to get him for next to nothing at the end November. Nodl's career with the Hurricanes didn't have a great start as it took Kirk Muller a little over a month to find out Nodl's strengths and decide where he fits in the lineup. It was then that Nodl's play started to improve and he became a regular on the team's third line with Patrick Dwyer and Brandon Sutter.

Nodl has never been a great puck handler and needs top-nine minutes to succeed but his terrific defensive play is something that gets overlooked by a lot of people and makes him valuable to a team like the Hurricanes. Fortunately, this did not pass over Muller's head and he made Nodl one of the team's "heavy lifters" and Nodl performed fairly well in this role. Nodl's defensive skills keep him from being a replacement level player but you can find guys who have similar skills to him for close to the league minimum. Hence why the Canes were able to get him off waivers.

With that in mind, I think Nodl has a lot of potential and plays a big role on the third line but his offensive skills are something that needs a lot of work. That isn't his role but one of my complaints from this season was that the Hurricanes weren't getting enough offense from their third line and Nodl was a key reason for that. He did a lot of good things even when he wasn't scoring, though and that point is reinforced when you look at his underlying numbers from this year.

There were a lot of bloggers and pundits who predicted the Phoenix Coyotes taking a large step back this season because they lost an top-tier goaltender in Ilya Bryzgalov and replaced him with Mike Smith, a goalie who had a sub-.900 save percentage last season and was waived by the Tampa Bay Lightning. It is probably a safe bet to say that not many thought the Coyotes would make the Western Conference Finals and even fewer that predicted Mike Smith would be the reason why they would get that far. Fast forward to May and the Coyotes are one of the last two teams remaining in the Western Conference on the back of Mike Smith's .948 save percentage.

Going into this series, I gave the Predators the advantage because I thought they would be relying on goaltending less than the Coyotes and that was true for the most part. They outchanced Phoenix 19-11 in game 5 and 15-11 at even strength but Mike Smith, once again, played lights out and was a key role in Phoenix's 2-1 win over Nashville to eliminate them from the playoffs. Phoenix wasn't getting dominated at even strength, but the puck was in their end for most of the night and goaltending was the deciding factor in yet another game. You have to wonder how long this kind of strategy will keep up for the Coyotes but it's gotten them pretty deep in the playoffs now and they are only eight wins away from the Stanley Cup. It is pretty unbelievable when you look at their numbers over the series. We will look at those numbers later, but for now, we will look at how game 5 went.