All Carolina fans breathed out a collective sigh of relief when it was announced that Eric Staal would be ready for the 2013-14 season after suffering a sprained MCL while playing in the World Hockey Championship. As team captain, Staal's presence would have been missed in the locker room if he was out for a longer time but his impact on the ice would have been an even bigger void to fill. Staal has been the Hurricanes best offensive player for the last eight years and he is coming off one of his best seasons of his career. There is normally a lot of criticism directed towards Staal and his large contract but this year, he earned every penny of his $8.5 mil. salary.

After being held without a point in the first two games of the season, Staal recorded a hat trick in the Hurricanes 6-3 win over the Buffalo Sabres and didn't look back after that point. He finished the year with 18 goals and 53 points in 48 games, which is pro-rated to 90-91 points in a full-season, and his line with Alexander Semin & Jiri Tlusty basically carried the team offensively for basically the entire year. Seeing how there were only 12 games this year where Staal did not record a point, it's more than fair to say that the Hurricanes scoring woes can't be pinned on him and his line. All but 10 of his points also came at even strength, so that makes his season even more impressive.

It was quite a special year for the oldest Staal brother and it's a shame that the Canes had such a bad season because Staal's production, along with the rest of the first line's, ended up being "wasted" in a way. Staal still has plenty of good years ahead of him, but it will probably be difficult for him to replicate his even strength point-production from this past season. It's not that Staal isn't capable of scoring at an elite rate, because he is, but more to do with the fact that Staal's past season was so absurd and very few players have been able to produce at that level annually. For some perspective, Staal had more even strength points than any other player in the NHL and the second highest 5v5 scoring rate, (trailing only Sidney Crosby)  which was also the seventh highest since 2007-08. Staal is a fantastic player, but expecting him to continue producing at this rate is unreasonable because so few players have been able to do it.

That being said, Staal will still be only 28 years old at the start of next season and is now playing with better linemates than he ever had before, so Staal can still perform at a high level even if this season was an aberration of sorts. After the jump, we'll take a closer look at the year that was for the Hurricanes captain and get a better idea of what to expect from him in future seasons.

Fan expectations always vary from player to player in a given year and this season, I think Carolina fans had higher hopes for Jordan Staal than anyone else on the roster. It made sense to expect a lot from him, too. He has always been one of the best two-way centers in the NHL and has shown the ability to be even more than that during his time with the Pittsburgh Penguins when given the opportunity. The Hurricanes also gave up a fan-favorite player (Brandon Sutter), a promising defensive prospect (Brian Dumoulin) and a high-first round pick to acquire him, so Staal was going to need to do a lot to prove himself with the fans and win them over. In addition to that, Staal signed a long-term deal with the Hurricanes shortly after they traded for him and is going to be an integral part of this team going forward.

While Jordan did not have a bad season, he seemed to be a disappointment in the eyes of a lot of fans based on results alone. During his Pittsburgh days, the common belief with him was always that he had the ability to be a top-six center on a lot of clubs and was never given the linemates, ice-time or power play time to perform at that level because of the Penguins center depth. I've always thought that these claims were overblown because injuries to Sidney Crosby & Evgeni Malkin have given Jordan the opportunity to step into a bigger role, but it still isn't far-fetched to say that he hasn't reached his peak offensively. After all, he was coming off a year where his even strength point production was at a first-line level and it was not the first time in his career that he put up these kind of numbers. Staal has also done an amazing job of dominating puck-possession while playing tough minutes throughout his entire career, so there was a lot of evidence to believe that Jordan Staal could take that next step and be a top-tier player.

Unfortunately, the Hurricanes didn't get those results this year. Staal had his lowest even strength scoring rate since 2007-08, had the second worst plus/minus rating on the team and his point-per-game rate was the lowest it had been in three years. Staal still had a good season, but since he was playing in a bigger role than he was in Pittsburgh, a lot of people were expecting more so he had a disappointing season in a lot of people's eyes. 

If you judge a player only on boxcar stats then yes, Jordan had a disappointing season, but there is more to the game than just that and Jordan actually excelled in a lot of areas this year, many of which don't show up on the scoresheet.

Even in a year with a $70.3 million salary cap, finding players on cheap deals is essentially to building a winning club. Not every team has the same funds and those in smaller markets have to find players on bargain contracts to stay in contention rather than try to outbid their competitors. Big market teams have to do this, as well and it will be important next year with the cap going down, whether it's through entry-level contracts or buying low on certain free agents. The Hurricanes have done a fine job of acquiring these types of players over the years and they've had to do it out of necessity for awhile since they normally operate under a budget. Things have changed a bit over the last couple of years, though as Jim Rutherford has stated that he plans for the team to spend more money than in years past. That gives them some more wiggle room, but finding good deals will still be important.

The Hurricanes are still not going to be a cap team and are set to be about $9 mil. under the limit next season. With over $4 mil. committed to eight players next season and a few holes on the roster to fill, finding bargains is going to be essential. It's tough to predict what exactly you are going to get from a player each year, but one way to judge his contract is looking at his "Goals Versus Salary" value, which was developed by Robert Vollman. Each player has different expectations and more is expected out of players with higher salaries than those who are making the league minimum. Goals Versus Salary (GVS) tells us how each player performed relative to these expectations. 

GVS is determined by looking at each player's "Goals Versus Threshold" value, which is a stat that shows the offensive, defensive and shootout "value" of each player, and comparing it to what is expected of them based on their salary. Their expected value is determined by taking their salary, subtracting it by the league minimum salary and multiplying that number by 1.99, which is the number of goals $1 mil. is worth under the current salary cap. Originally, the rule is that 3 goals costs $1 mil., but that was when the cap was much lower so I adjusted the value to what it is now. For more information on GVS, check out Hockey Prospectus' articles about it here.

After the jump, we'll look at who gave the Hurricanes the most for their money based on GVT.

A "need" that Hurricanes GM Jim Rutherford wanted to address last off-season was acquiring an enforcer to help prevent other teams from taking liberties on some of Carolina's more skilled players. The Hurricanes specifically wanted to invest in some protection for Jeff Skinner, who has already suffered two concussions in his young career, and the old theory is that getting a "tough guy" will help prevent other teams from roughing up your stars. The times have changed in the NHL, though and enforcers don't play as big of a role as they used to. In today's NHL, most "tough guys" play less than 10 shifts a game and aren't even on the ice long enough to serve as "protection" for star players. They aren't very skilled players, so coaches generally don't give them a lot of ice time and it's a rare occurrence for an enforcer to be out there in a key situation. This is the role of the enforcer in the NHL now and why the idea of them providing "protection" for stars is silly. The Hurricanes found this out the hard way when they acquiring Kevin Westgarth from the Los Angeles Kings this season.

Compared to other enforcers across the league, you can do a lot worse than Westgarth because while he isn't particularly a useful player at even strength, he isn't a complete liability like Jared Boll, Cam Janssen or Colton Orr. That being said, he still doesn't contribute in many other areas outside of his intangibles and as a result, he spent a fair mount of the season in the press box and whenever he was in the lineup, he played an average of about five minutes per game. You need to be able to roll all four lines to be a competitive team in the NHL now and dressing Westgarth to play 5-8 shifts a night isn't accomplishing that. I don't have that many bad things to say about Westgarth as a person because he knows his role and says all the right things, but I don't think the Hurricanes were icing their best possible lineup when he was playing.

As far as him "protecting" the Hurricanes other players goes, Skinner was hurt twice this year and Westgarth was in the lineup in both games. Neither injury was his fault, but this shows the limitation of enforcers in today's NHL. It's tough for them to protect star players because they are rarely going to be on the ice at the same time as them and they only take action after said injury occurs. Protecting younger players is always going to be a tough challenge but there were probably better ways to do it than acquiring an enforcer.

After the jump, we'll talk about what contributions Westgarth made when he actually got to play.

We will continue our player reviews from this past season by taking a closer look at the year that was for Tim Gleason. Recently signed to a four year, $16 mil. contract, Gleason is set to be a key cog in the Hurricanes defense corps for the next few season and is expected to provide a solid, veteran presence for players like Justin Faulk to learn after. Gleason has also established himself as a fine shutdown defenseman over the last few years. The Hurricanes have always leaned on him to do the bulk of the heavy lifting for the defense corps, as he is normally matched up against the opposing team's best forwards and is a regular on the team's first penalty killing unit and for the most part, his performance has been very good compared to similar defensemen. He was also coming off his best season in the NHL and was expected to anchor the team's "new" shutdown defense pairing with Justin Faulk for most of the year. Unfortunately, Gleason ended up being a different kind of anchor.

There are a lot of different types of "shutdown" defensemen out there and I've always considered Gleason one of the more underrated in the league. As it was noted earlier, he managed to fare okay territorially in tough minutes, can skate well and not be a liability when it comes to things like leading breakouts and moving the puck out of the zone. This year was a different story, though as Gleason posted some very ugly underlying numbers for his standards and looked considerably slower this year compared to year's past. This led to him getting bumped off the top defense pairing for part of the year and even benched toward the end of a few games.

Some of this wasn't exactly his fault since it was revealed at the end of the season that Gleason was playing a lot of the year with a broken foot, which is tough to deal with no matter what minutes you play. Gleason only missed six games this season despite this and that was the first time in over two years that an injury forced him to miss any action, so that says a lot about his toughness and pain threshold. Gleason's durability is very admirable, as I am sure this isn't the first time he's had to battle through an injury but I think it was pretty clear that the injury was affecting his play quite a bit since his performance this season was much lower than what is normally expected from him.

Gleason is normally the type of shutdown defenseman who can take away space from opposing forwards, preventing shot attempts and be useful with the puck by helping drive the play forwards, but some of these qualities were there for most of this season and it had a chain reaction on the rest of the defense. Again, Gleason clearly was not at 100% for most of the year, so I can't be too hard on him but when you put this much weight on the shoulders of one player and he struggles, the rest of the defense suffers because they have to pick up the slack. When healthy, Gleason is easily this team's best shutdown option and capable of playing in the top-four but he wasn't healthy this year, so he was a little less than that.

After the jump, we'll take a closer look at his season.

It's about that time of the year where we will look back at the season that was for the Hurricanes by taking a look at the individual performance of each player.  Last season I did this by showing how effective each player was at controlling scoring chances but I'm going to take a different route this time. Scoring chances are very important, but they're just part of an even bigger picture, so we're going to dig a little deeper with our player analysis this season. We're going to be looking at how they were used and how they performed in all three zones. This means looking at their ice time, special teams usage, quality of competition, zone starts and their performance by scoring chances, puck-possession, scoring chances and point-production. We want to be thorough as possible with this analysis so that everything is covered, so we're going to be looking at basically everything I've tracked along with data that is available on sites such as Behind The Net. 

Who better to begin this analysis with than the fan base's scapegoat of choice for most of the year, Jamie McBain? Going by the eye-test and most fan's opinions, McBain's third season in the NHL was a tough one. He was on-pace to have his lowest point total in a full season (8 points in 40 games), gained a reputation for making bad defensive mistakes and his most memorable moment of the season was when he back-handed the puck into his own net on a clearing attempt. This may have been only McBain's third full-season in the NHL, but I think management and fans had some higher expectations for him.

At 25 years of age, McBain is still young but we're starting to see more of what kind of player he is and right now, he is pretty much a third-pairing defenseman and not much more than that. The Canes had him take on a larger role for parts of the season due to injuries and he struggled with them, so I think it's fair to say that he is basically just a #5/6 defenseman at this point of his career. The Hurricanes had too many of these players, which led to McBain's name being circulated in trade talks for the latter half of the season and will continue to be for most of the summer. That and every Carolina fan seems to want him off the team because all they remember are the mistakes. 

Scapegoating is one of my least favorite things in sports because it is rarely ever one player's fault, especially in hockey when you have six different players on the ice at the same time. Whenever a fan finds a scapegoat, they become the subject of harsh ridicule and anything good they do is virtually unnoticed. McBain definitely deserved some of this because his mistakes were just plain horrible to watch at times, but was he as bad as some of the scapegoats would lead you to believe? Let's find out.

When I wrote about who the Hurricanes should select with with fifth overall selection in this summer's draft, I said that they should take the best player available. Defense might be their biggest need right now, but  thinking long-term, the Canes are going to have to replace Alexander Semin, Tuomo Ruutu and possibly Jiri Tlusty so taking a forward isn't the worst thing you can do. It's a lot more appealing to take a forward early because a lot of the forwards at the top of this draft are some of the best prospects the draft has seen in quite some time. Drafting for needs is an advisable route to go, but you also want to get the most value out of your picks and the Hurricanes could pass on a potentially elite player if they choose to take a defenseman at fifth overall.

It's okay to be skeptical of any player in this draft because there's always the potential that one of them might be a bust or not work out in the NHL, but when you look at how good the top of this draft is, it's hard to not get excited about adding one of these prospects to your organization. How good are they, though? Going by their statistical performance, some of them are the most promising young players to come out of their respective leagues in years.

One of the growing developments in hockey analysis is tracking zone entries to gauge a team's performance in the neutral zone. Why is neutral zone play important? I've gone over this a few times, but I don't have a problem repeating myself. A recent study done by Eric Tulsky and some other hockey bloggers & researchers have shown that being able to win the battle in the neutral zone leads to a team outshooting their opponents more often and in turn, getting more scoring chances and possibly winning more games. However, the team who wins the battle in the neutral zone isn't the one has more entries, but rathers who gains the offensive zone with possession more often.

This was an interesting discovery because dump and chase play is something that's often encouraged by coaches, ex-players and analysts and it kind of makes sense in theory. Simply getting the puck deep is a safe play and often considered a good strategy to use if the other team is playing a trap-style defense that would increase the risk of a turnover if you attempted to carry the puck across the blue-line. Although, how effective dump and chase play is depends on how strong of a forecheck you have because you are essentially giving up possession of the puck and the only way to get it back is to beat out the opposing defense to it or force turnovers. Because of this and many other factors, it has been determined that carrying the puck into the offensive zone is what leads to more shots and in turn, more scoring chances and goals as opposed to entering the zone without possession.

You may remember that I started posting the Hurricanes zone entry stats in my post-game reports later in the season and that I was making note of how often the team gained the blue line without control of the puck. The statements made above as well as in the articles linked should tell you why I was frustrated with that. However, there were some games where the Hurricanes were getting a fair amount of offense off uncontrolled entries and it made me wonder if dump & chase play can also be successful if done with the right players. For instance, a dump-in by Jiri Tlusty would have a better chance of leading to a shot or a scoring chance on goal as opposed to one by Tim Brent because Tlusty plays with better linemates who would likely win the race to the puck. Kirk Muller's system seems to rely on dump & chase play quite a bit and while it worked with some players, it's impact as a whole wasn't great.

We'll explore this more after the jump.

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.