Yesterday, I talked about Drayson Bowman who is one of the Hurricanes prospects that has a very good chance of becoming a full-time NHL-er next season. GM Jim Rutherford has even gone on record saying that he's impressed with Bowman's development, but one player who he might not be as impressed with is 2008 first rounder Zach Boychuk.

Boychuk played only 16 games with the Hurricanes, failed to score a goal and recorded only two points. Some had labeled this season as a "make or break" year for him and he started things off on a poor note by failing to make the team out of camp. He didn't make much of an impact once he was called up either and that has been the case for most of his career as a Hurricanes.

That being said, Boychuk did a lot of good things when he was with the big club even if he wasn't showing up on the scoresheet, it just wasn't enough to impress either coach and Rutherford is going to have a tough decision on what to do with him this off-season. He's a restricted free agent and I'm not sure he will even get a qualifying offer at this point. Part of me thinks that is an awful idea because he is only 22 and still has a window to make it in the NHL, but it doesn't seem that the coaching staff or front office is high on him at the moment so Boychuk could find himself with a different club come next season.

After the jump, we'll take a closer look at Boychuk's season and see if it is smart for the organization to give up on him now.

Continuing our statistical look at the Carolina Hurricanes' players in the 2011-12 season, we move onto Drayson Bowman who is one of the team's better forward prospects. There were a few fans who thought he would make the Hurricanes out of camp, but he ended up starting the year in Charlotte and was on-and-off the roster for most of the season. He seemed to finally settle into a third line role around the time of late-February/early-March, though and it looks like he should be on the team to start next season.

Bowman is a player who I thought did everything right except score and that was the case for all of last season and most of this year. He was always one of the Canes' better players at controlling possession and creating offense but the goals just weren't coming. Part of this is due to bad luck because Bowman was getting decent ice time for most of the season but it could suggest a lack of finishing ability, too.

Thankfully for Bowman, he finished the year on a relatively strong note and ended up with six goals and 13 assists in 37 games. That isn't great but also not terrible for a kid called up from the AHL. Plus, Bowman does so many other things well that I think he's earned a strong look for a roster spot next season. If anything, he could be a solid third liner that gets the puck into the right end of the ice. 

After the jump, we'll take a look at Bowman's underlying numbers and how he performed compared to the rest of the team.

Over the next couple of weeks, I am going to take a player-by-player look at the Hurricanes' scoring chances to review their season's. There will be two parts done for each player, a scoring chance recap which will consist mostly of numbers and a more thorough review which will talk about the player's season as a whole, the roles he played on the team and what kind of outlook I have for the player next season. It'll be a long process since going through the data takes time, but I think it will be worth while in the end. Going by memories and boxcar stats can tell you one thing about a player, but going deeper into the data tells you a lot more, which is why I am doing this project.

To kick things off, we are going to take a look at one of the Hurricanes more interesting players in Bryan Allen. He was acquired from the Florida Panthers near the end of the 2011 trade deadline for Sergei Samsonov and has played a bigger role than a lot of people expected him to. Most thought that he would be a third pairing defenseman for most of the year but he ended up getting top-four minutes on a lot of nights and was part of the team's main shutdown defense pairing for most of the season.

He played some of the toughest minutes on the team and was considered a reliable shutdown guy for most of the year. Allen is a free agent come July and the general consensus is that most Carolina fans want to keep him around because of how good he played this season. Was he as everyone perceived him, though? Going by scoring chances he was, but not for the entire year. A closer look at this is coming after the jump.

There really isn't much to say about this game other than the Canes got off to a horrible start and score effects did the rest. Congratulations to the Florida Panthers on winning the Southeast and making the playoffs for the first time in over a decade. This isn't the way that I wanted the Hurricanes to end their season but a rebuilding team is going to take their lumps. Carolina had a miserable first half to the season and it looked like they were destined for a lottery pick, but they have improved a lot since January and it looks like there are some pieces here that we can possibly build something with. It's too bad that the season had to end on a losing note, but don't let it erase the great things we have seen over the last couple of months.

Now it's time to look forward to the off-season and what Jim Rutherford will do with the Canes #8 pick.

History was made last night at the PNC Arena as the Hurricanes on their first shootout of the 2011-12 season. It only took them 81 games and seven attempts but they finally came out on the winning side of the skills competition and it was nice to finally get the monkey off their back there. Sure, the odds of winning a shootout is the equivalent of flipping a coin, but when you've witnessed 16 overtime overtime losses, six of which coming in the shootout, over the course of one season, it makes you want to pull your hair out so it was nice to see a win in that situation. 

Last night's game wasn't exactly the perfect way to close out the PNC Arena since the Hurricanes had a stretch of about 20 minutes where the Canes looked flat and it didn't help that the refs were calling anything and everything. There were approximately 28 penalty minutes between both teams, which meant that this game would likely be decided by special teams and that was almost the case. The Hurricanes only goal came on the powerplay and the Canadiens were given a 5-on-3 late in the third period which very well could have decided the game, too. Both teams were relatively even in shots and scoring chances (19-18 Carolina overall) so it was fitting that this game needed to be decided by extra time and a shootout. It was also nice for Carolina to finally catch a break in the shootout and end the season's home stand on a winning note.

After that debacle against the New Jersey Devils, I said that I wanted to see the Hurricanes put forth a good effort in their last three games of the season and they certainly did that tonight in a 2-1 win over the Ottawa Senators. This was far from the best game that the Hurricanes have played because they had more than a few defensive slip-ups, got into penalty trouble and had to rely a bit on Cam Ward to bail them out of some tough situations.

The Hurricanes also made some good adjustments in the second period and did a much better job of limiting Ottawa's scoring chances after that. They kept a lot of the Senators shots to the outside and were doing their best to lighten the workload on Ward and it was effective for awhile. Ward still had to make a lot of big saves to keep the Hurricanes on top, but the volume of chances he saw in the second and third period wasn't nearly as hectic as the onslaught he faced in the first period, at least while the Canes were playing at even strength. All hell broke loose when the Sens pulled their goalie.

Anyway, this was a nice road win for the Hurricanes. They got a few lucky bounces, most notably on Brandon Sutter's goal, but they weren't terribly outplayed by the Senators at even strength and did a fine job of protecting their lead, something they have struggled mightily with throughout the season. We also got a possible glimpse into next season with some new defense pairings.

The Hurricanes may have finished March with a "winning" record of 7-6-3 but they did not play their best hockey this month at all. Out of the 16 games they played, the Canes outchanced their opponent at even strength a grand total of four times and controlled roughly 45.6% of the scoring chances during five-on-five play. A few awful games are bound to happen with those kind of numbers and the Canes had their fare share of blow-ups in March. They were shutout twice, were blown out by Columbus and surrendered a 4-1 lead against the Red Wings in a game where they were outchanced 23-9 at even strength.

They had a nice four game winning streak which gave fans some false hope of a miracle playoff push but the writing was on the wall that this team was about to go through another rough patch and it happened. The Hurricanes aren't doing enough at either end of the rink to be a competitive team and things seemed to hit a wall this month as they gave up almost 40 more chances at even strength than they created. Hence why I think the team's defensive play is something that needs to be heavily addressed this off-season.

You'll notice that in the individual player reports, that a lot of the team's top offensive contributors are giving up way too much in their own end. We'll look at those numbers after the jump.

This may have been one of the worst performances that the Hurricanes have turned in this season. Not only were they shutout 5-0 by the Devils, but they looked just flat-out pathetic in doing so. Carolina had only six even strength scoring chances through two periods of play and that was with them playing from behind. The 'Canes getting outchanced every game is something that I am used to, but this is the first time under Kirk Muller where the Canes looked like they weren't even trying. They took careless penalties, were lazy in all three zones and committed some horrendous turnovers that led to chances and goals for the Devils.

I know that they were "officially" eliminated from the playoffs and played a game last night, but this was a completely lazy and uninspired performance from the Hurricanes and I know that Muller will not stand for this. It's a little hard to get too upset about this kind of performance because all losing does is effect the team's draft position but if the Canes are going to lose out, I'd rather it be from lack of talent than lack of effort like we saw tonight. A high draft pick isn't going to magically fix a team and it certainly won't fix the Hurricanes if they put together another performance like tonight.

There's three games left in the season and I hope the Hurricanes can put together some stronger performances than this. Win or lose.

Scoring chances & more after the jump

For what I feel like is the twentieth time this season, the Carolina Hurricanes played a solid game for about 40 minutes, took a lead into the third period only to give it up and lose the game in overtime. That might be a bit of an exgerration, but I feel like I've seen this script way too many times this season and seeing this team constantly blow leads eventually grates on you.

Tonight's 4-3 loss to the Jets was especially frustrating because it seemed like Carolina had control of this game for the first two periods but let things slip away by playing poorly in the third period. While Carolina did have a huge advantage in shots, they were not winning the battle at even strength at all. Both teams were tied with 10 even strength chances through two periods of play and what gave Carolina the advantage was the excellent play of their penalty kill and their powerplay producing seven scoring chances.

Those helped the Canes out on the shot and chance chart, but not on the scoreboard. It's not too often you see a team create that many powerplay chances and not get rewarded for it, but that was the case tonight. Had they scored on one of those chances, then this could have been a different game but it's hard to fault the failed powerplay for the other things that went wrong in the third period.

There's a lot of things to breakdown but I think this stat sums things up well. The Hurricanes held the Jets to 16 shots on goal through the first two periods. They allowed 18 in the third alone. Protecting a lead. How does it work?

Scoring chances & more after the jump

Sometimes a great first period, solid defensive play and bad goaltending by the opposing team is enough to win you a few games and that was the case for the Hurricanes tonight in their 3-0 shutout over the Maple Leafs. The Hurricanes played terrific for the first 20 minutes in outchancing the Leafs 5-1 and gaining a 2-0 lead and then finished things off by sitting back and letting their defense and Cam Ward do the rest of the work. They gave up 31 shots, but only 12 were registered as scoring chances by my count and Ward didn't exactly need to stand on his head for the Canes to win this game.

Taking advantage of a cold goalie also helped as all three goals that Jonas Gustavsson let in were very soft and he was given the hook less than a minute into the second period. Toronto's offense really could not generate much the rest of the way as the Canes managed to bottle them up in the neutral zone and keep most of their shots from outside of the scoring chance range. After getting hammered by Detroit on Saturday night, it was good to see Carolina's defense respond with a strong performance against Toronto. Albeit, it was against a much weaker team with one of their top scorers out of the lineup.

Carolina is likely going to get a high spot in the draft so I don't really care about "tanking" at this point of the season so I'm happy with the team winning.

Scoring chances & more after the jump