You always have to expect the unexpected in the playoffs and the Rangers/Capitals series has been full of surprises. I think most people were expecting a lot of close games going in, but what they probably weren't expecting was for the Rangers to look as poor as they have at times this post-season. Despite being the lower seed in this matchup, the Rangers were a much stronger team at even strength during the regular season and could take advantage of this series if this carried over into the playoffs. Instead, the Rangers have been outplayed in at least three of the five games and now find themselves on the brink of elimination heading into Game Six after losing to Washington in overtime. The Rangers have especially had a lot of trouble playing away from Madison Square Garden and last night, they played as poorly as the "Fire Tortorella," and "Buyout Richards" enthusiasts make them sound to be.

Things started off well for the Rangers as they scored the opening goal less than a minute into the game but it was all downhill after that. The Rangers offense went to sleep after the first period, getting outshot 19-9 in the second and third period while generating only two total scoring chances. It's not that they weren't trying to create offense, they just couldn't seem to get out of their own zone to save their lives. You can attribute this to the Capitalsr relentless forecheck and the Rangers not playing aggressive enough to beat it. The Caps ended up with more blocked shots than the Rangers, but I felt like New York was playing a more laid back system than Washington and put more emphasis on shot blocking than trying to out-shoot Washington.

It's understandable that Tortorella wouldn't want to get in a run-and-gun style game against a team like Washington, but spending this much time in your own end is just as dangerous. Henrik Lundqvist was the only reason why this game stayed tied for as long as it did, as he backstopped the Rangers as much as he could and bailed them out of numerous tough situations. As great as Lundqvist is, the Rangers looked like they were playing not to lose for 40 minutes, big no-no in the playoffs, and it eventually burned them. The Rangers have played well at home, so they have a chance in this series but they still need to win one more game at Verizon Center to advance and that seems unlikely barring some improvements.

The Charlotte Checkers season came to a disappointing end last weekend when they lost their first-round series to the Oklahoma City Barons on the heels of two blowout losses. Disappointing ending aside, it was a great season for Charlotte as the team managed to finish fourth in their conference despite using 42 different skaters and having to deal with numerous roster changes once the NHL season resumed. Developing a strong farm system is a key to success in this league and the Checkers great season should give some fans hope about the future of this organization. However, it's always tough to find out which AHL players have any future at the next level. 

There are always players who put up huge numbers at the AHL level and get fans excited about their future only for them to become nothing more than fringe guys at the next level. Carolina found this out the hard way with Zach Boychuk, who looked always performed well in the AHL but ended up not doing much at the next level and ended up being waived by three different teams this past season. You always want your prospects and farm teams to do well but it's important to remember that a player who is able to succeed at the AHL level doesn't mean he will become a full-time NHL-er. Some players have trouble adjusting to the speed and physicality of the NHL or aren't defenisvely sound enough to play a depth role, so they end up being career AHL-ers or go pro with another club.

The tough part is always sorting these players out and it's very tough to do if you can't watch every game. Usually the only way to find out if they are ready or not is to try them out at the NHL level and see how they do. Some players from the Checkers have become regulars in Carolina's lineup (Riley Nash & Drayson Bowman) while others have teetered back and forth for most of their careers (Zach Boychuk & Zac Dalpe). It's also tough to judge how a player performed at the AHL level with just statistics alone becuase the only ones produced by the league are goals, points, penalty minutes, plus/minus and shots on goal. Things such as ice-time and shot/possession data are not available to the public.

In the past, I've discussed how much luck plays a role in goal/point totals and plus/minus and how often they can change from year-to-year, so I'm always iffy with using that to judge a player's performance. Shots on goal, however, can tell you quite a bit about how well a player performed offensively in a given year since that is something he has more control over. Let's say a player gets 150 shots on goal in an 82 game season and scores on 17% of them, giving him 25 goals in a year. The next season, he has 175 shots in five fewer games but scores on 10% of them, which would give him 17-18 goals in a season. Most people will point to his goal total and say that he had a disappointing season offensively when he was actually producing more shots on goal than he did in the previous season. A lack of finishing ability would probably be pointed to as the reason for it, but I think luck has a bigger factor on one's goal total than most believe.

Given that bit of information, I went through the boxcar numbers for every Checkers player and noted who was performing the best in not only scoring, but shots on goal as well. This will give us an idea of who was creating the most offense and who could possibly be ready to make the jump to the NHL next season. To do this, we're going to look at each player's NHL shot equivalency rates which were drawn up by Stephan Cooper of Habs Eyes on the Prize. I've done this analysis in the past so if you want a refresher on what the formula is and how it is drawn up, visit this link or the Habs Eyes on the Prize article linked to earlier.

Last week, I picked apart and analyzed the performance of the Hurricanes defense corps and talked about the reasons why they struggled. One of the conclusions I came to was that the Hurricanes had too many third-pairing defensemen on their roster and not enough guys who could handle top-four minutes without getting hammered at even strength. The other problem that some have pointed to is that their defense corps was over-populated with puck-movers and didn't have another big, physical crease-clearing defenseman to compliment Tim Gleason and make life tough for opposing forwards.

It's not a false statement, but is having a lot of defensemen who are capable of moving the puck really that big of a problem? Think of it this way, you win hockey games by being able to control possession, create offense and scoring more goals than the opposition and puck-moving defensemen can help with this. The problem with the Hurricanes set-up wasn't that they had lot of puck-movers, it was that they couldn't keep up with opposing team's top forwards (McBain & Corvo in particular) and would be third-pairing guys on a contending team. Had they signed a "crease-clearer" like Greg Zanon or kept Bryan Allen, they would have likely had the same issues because, as we saw this year, these two are nothing more than third-pairing defensemen who struggle when having to go up against more skilled forwards.

Something that was claimed to be "missed" from the Hurricanes defense this season was their willingness block shots and play tougher in their own zone. Shot blocking is a skill that I value but it's something that I feel is vastly overrated by fans and the mainstream media. Whenever a defenseman gets in the way of an opposing shot, they are usually lauded for their toughness and sacrificing their body for their team's benefit. Blocked shots are also a real-time stat that's counted for in every area and are often pointed to as a way to see which team is performing better defensively. However, blocking shots usually isn't the best way to judge defensive play.

Think of it this way, if a defenseman blocks eight shots in a game, it means that the opposing team had possession in his zone long enough to attempt at least eight shots in approximately 15-20 minutes of ice time. If the opposing team has the puck 70% of the time when this defenseman is on the ice, it doesn't say a lot of good about his defensive play because he can't keep the puck out of his zone and his one redeeming asset is that he gets in the way of shots but that can only do so much for him if he can't clear the puck or get it out of his zone cleanly. Hence why blocking a lot of shots can be a misleading measurement of defensive play.

This isn't to say that blocking shots equates to poor defensive play because there is value in blocking shots and it puts a lot less stress on the goaltenders if their defense can help them out by getting in the way of pucks. It's just that teams who are constantly trapped in their own zone and have to scramble to block shots all the time probably aren't as good of a defensive team as one that denies the opposing team space and prevents shot attempts. This is why I think the blocked shot stat kept by the NHL can be significantly improved by showing the percentage of shots a team or player blocks instead of just the total number of blocked shots.

Derek Zone of Copper & Blue and NHL Numbers unveiled a new stat last year showing each player's even strength blocked shot percentage to help us more effectively gauge the best and worst shot blockers in the NHL by looking what percentage of even strength shot attempts against they blocked. The Hurricanes lost two very good shot blockers in Bryan Allen & Jaroslav Spacek this past year and ended up dropping from 9th to 20th in the NHL in total blocked shots. However, if you look at the percentage of shots the Canes blocked, the team has actually improved.

"Jordan's better" was the chant of choice for Winnipeg fans during the Hurricanes visit to the MTS Centre on March 18, 2012 as Jet fans tried to do their best to rile up the Hurricanes captain. The chant was short lived, as Eric Staal would go on to have a three-point game that night and lead the Canes to a huge comeback win over a divisional rival. I think Winnipeg has been in the division long enough for fans to know their fan's culture and trolling opposing players is kind of their shtick. However, the whole debate of which Staal brother is the best was something that was being debated around this time last year.

Eric Staal has always been the older brother and the best of the quartet. He's the one with an 100-point season under his belt, a Stanley Cup ring and an Olympic gold medal to his name and he has been a #1 center for basically all of his career but if rewind to one year ago, Eric had arguably his worst season in the NHL. He still finished the season with 70 points in 82 games, but his goal total was its lowest since his rookie season, his plus/minus was amongst the lowest in the NHL for a good part of the year and his point-per-game rate was the lowest it had been in four years. Meanwhile, Jordan Staal had a career season offensively. He scored a career high in goals with 25 and had the highest point-per-game rate of his career with 50 points in 62 games.

Eric still had better numbers, but there were a lot of people wondering if Jordan could emerge as the superior Staal brother with Eric approaching 30 and Jordan set to enter the prime of his career and becoming more of a threat offensively. The common belief was that Jordan Staal has the talent to be a star forward but was being "confined" to a third-line center role with the Pittsburgh Penguins because of their center depth. I always felt that claim was overblown because Jordan's had plenty of chances to center one of the Penguins top-two lines with Crosby & Malkin spending much of the last two seasons injured, but still, a lot of people wondered what Jordan could do if he was put in a more offensive role and if he could emerge as the best Staal brother.

Those who were hoping to see Jordan in a more offensive role got their wish this season after he opted to not re-sign with the Penguins and was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes last summer. It was an opportunity for Jordan to take advantage of playing more minutes with better linemates and possibly have the "break-out" season that many were hoping he would have. Things didn't quite work out this way in his first season, though. In fact, when you look at how the seasons for both Staal brothers went, it's really interesting to see how much they contrasted with everyone's expectations. 

We continue our scoring chance tracking of the playoffs by moving onto the Rangers-Capitals series, which was one that many people had a split view on. One side of hockey fans see this as the Caps series to lose because they are the hotter team coming in, losing only one game in regulation in the month of April and being led by one of the NHL's best players in Alexander Ovechkin. On the other hand, some people view Washington's recent success as one that is built on a house of cards due to their poor territorial play and that their luck will run out in the playoffs. The Rangers had to claw their way into the playoffs, but their body of work for the entire season is slightly better than Washington's so it's easy to see why people would favor them in this series. However, in Game 1, it was the "hot team" that came out on top and Washington's path to victory was similar to how most of the second half of their season went.

The Caps were largely outplayed during even strength play, as they recorded only seven scoring chances when the terms were even and recorded 16 fewer shot attempts than the Rangers. It's not terribly surprising that this happened because the Caps have been a weak team at even strength for most of the season, but fortunately for them only 1/3 of this game was played at special teams and that's an advantage that works in their favor. Washington basically go to start the game on the powerplay after the Rangers were whistled for a too many men on the ice penalty and were able to establish a territorial advantage for the majority of the first period due to that. They only scored on one of their five powerplay opportunities, but I think it worked in Washington's favor that so little of this game was played at even strength because that area hasn't been their strong suit this season and the Rangers were the ones carrying most of the five-on-five play.

Needless to say, this was a very weird and sloppy game and exactly the type of game the Caps needed to win if they want to take control of this series. They got a little lucky with the Rangers missing the net so often and Jason Chimera scoring a soft goal on Henrik Lundqvist, so I would expect a slightly different result in Game 2 if the Rangers continue to control the play at even strength like they did last night.

Over the last two seasons, I have been doing my best to take a closer look at the Hurricanes performance by keeping track of their puck-possession stats. Why? Because there is a lot that goes into winning hockey games and over time, it's been noted that the teams who are best at controlling puck-possession during even-strength play are usually better set for long-term success. In most recent years, the Hurricanes have been an awful team at controlling puck-possession, ranking in the bottom-half or bottom-third in the NHL in that category. That all changed this season, though.

In close game situations, the Hurricanes were winning the battle at even strength for most of the year. There was a point where they were a top-ten team in Fenwick Close and were doing a fantastic job of controlling puck-possession. This would lead to a happier ending in a full-year but some things went terribly wrong. Both goalies got hurt, the roster was beaten up and the team went through periods where they couldn't buy an even strength goal to save their lives. In a shortened year, that will normally do you in and while I don't think this club would have made the playoffs if they were a little more lucky, all of their numbers indicate that they were better than where they ended up in the standings.

There's another side to this story, though. Puck-possession may have been one of the Hurricanes strong suits this season but scoring chances were not. They controlled the puck in the opponent's offensive zone a lot, but there were many games where it didn't result in much offense and by that, I mean scoring chances instead of just shot attempts. There has been evidence which shows that strong puck-possession leads to scoring chances in the long-run and that Fenwick (Unblocked 5v5 shot attempts) and scoring chances are strongly correlated, so good puck-possession should lead to better scoring chances in a full year, right? 

Possibly, but this obviously wasn't a full season and things worked out much differently for the Hurricanes, as their ability to control scoring chances was still a problem this year even though their play at even strength improved considerably.

After doing a quick survey of Hurricanes fans, it's pretty clear that the number one concern for the team this off-season is improving the defense, and rightfully so because the Hurricanes blue-line had a ton of issues. They were one of the worst teams in the NHL at preventing shots on goal during 5v5 play, had an atrocious penalty kill and constantly gave up odd-man rushes and scoring chances on almost a nightly basis. To make things worse, their defense corps was constantly banged up throughout the year and they ended up going through 12 defensemen over 48 games. The Hurricanes came into this season with a defense that could be fine if they all stayed healthy and played to their full potential. Unfortunately, Murphy's Law was in full effect last season and just about everything awry.

So, how do the Hurricanes go about fixing their defense? Personally, I think it relates both to the team's system and their personnel since Kirk Muller runs an umtempo system where slower, stay-at-home defensemen would be less effective than they would be in a more conservative system, but I think most would agree that the Canes blue-line corps could use some shoring up. The only true "shutdown" defenseman they have is Tim Gleason and he is surrounded by guys who are either more known for their offensive skillset or are guys who would be third-pairing defensemen on contending teams. That definitely needs to change in the next few years if the Canes are going to get back to the playoffs. 

Before we go about discussing how to "fix" the Canes defense, we're going to take a look at the odds and ends of their defense corps from the past year. Observing how Muller used each player and how they performed in their minutes will give us a better idea of where everyone stands and what areas needs to be worked on specifically. It should also give us a clue of which players stand out in the defense corps and which ones need to go.

I'll be breaking down this in a few different areas. First, I'll show how Muller divvied up the ice time among his blue-liners throughout the year to see who he favored and if there were any changes over time. After that, I'll show which defensemen constantly got the tough assignments and how that changed throughout the season and then finally, we will look at how each player performed in those situations. It will a way to provide context to the numbers that I have been reviewing for most of the season and give us a better idea of the state of this defense corps.

So who is the star of the Hurricanes defense and who are the ones dragging things down? We'll find out after the jump.

We've gone over the East, so now it's time to shift our focus out to the Western Conference, where many of their games are played while you are sleeping. The West does have plenty of teams that are worth staying up late for, though and insomniacs are going to be treated to some excellent playoff action in the upcoming action with the first round featuring some very interesting matchups. Last year, everyone got to see the Kings pull off an incredible run as an eight-seed to win the Stanley Cup and they are in a good position to make another run this post-season with the strong team they have assembled. They do have a tough first round match-up, though and the West features a lot of very good teams that could stand in the way of the Kings pulling off a repeat.

After the jump, we'll take a look at the matchups and who has the best chances of advancing out of the first round.

It's depressing that this will be the fourth year in a row that the Hurricanes failed to make the playoffs, but there are still plenty of exciting matchups to talk about in this year's first round. The shortened season was going to lead to a lot of interesting outcomes for this year's post-season and it certainly delivered on that promise, as three new teams from the Eastern Conference made the playoffs, a few of which not many expected. I'm sure that most would have laughed at you four months ago if you said that Montreal would win the Northeast after being the second worst team in the NHL last year. They would have done the same thing if you went onto predict that the Islanders would make the playoffs while the New Jersey Devils, last year's Eastern Conference champs, would be on the outside looking in. At least the Southleast Division lived up to its mantra of sending in only one team. Regardless, it looks like NHL fans are in for another exciting first round this year and there are a few series that could really go either way.

I'm sure that each of the fan blogs for these respective teams are working around the clock to break down their own series, but writing playoff predictions and previews is kind of a "tradition" for hockey bloggers, so I figured that I'll post mine here anyway. Most of people's playoff predictions are often based on picking whichever team is the "hottest" coming into the post-season or which team has the most experience on their roster. As most of you know, I have a different approach when it comes to predictions. I'm going to take a look at each series and see how each team matches up in terms of even strength play, how lucky they have gotten and how they have performed on special teams. Luck has played a huge role in a lot of teams making it in since this is a shortened year, so be prepared to see plenty of interesting matchups after the jump where I'll break down each series.

This season didn't go nearly as well as most Carolina fans thought it would. Instead of competing for a playoff spot, the Canes finished with a bottom-five record in the NHL and the only thing they have to hang onto is that they'll probably get a good building piece in the upcoming NHL Draft. The team was in a good position for awhile but they ended the season going 4-16-3 which effectively removed them from contention both in the Southeast and the playoff race. This team was far from perfect and struggles were going to happen, but I don't think anyone predicted a fall from grace like this happening. The popular explanation from most pundits are that the injury to Cam Ward sunk their season since the team went 10-19-3 without him, but there have been a lot of other different reasons drawn up, too. The Canes have been described as a team that is "soft," "fragile" with their biggest criticism being that they aren't "tough to play against" and that is ultimately why they aren't in the post-season.

I'm not doubting any of those claims since this team has a tendency to unravel once things started going wrong but I felt that there were other factors that contributed to this team falling apart down the stretch. Some of which they had control over and others they did not. There were going to be a lot of strange things happening in a shortened season (The Leafs are in the playoffs for starters), and things like injuries, luck and hot streaks were going to play a role in which teams made the post-season. Unfortunately for the Hurricanes, they were on the negative end of just about all of these things which magnified the flaws they already had. Thus, they find themselves waiting for the Draft Lottery announcement on Monday instead of preparing for a playoff series.

As far as the Hurricanes collapse goes, there are five things in particular that I feel contributed to it.