Last week, I used Greg Sinclair's Super Shot Search application to determine how many scoring chances each player on the Hurricanes contributed individually and whether or not it related to the amount of goals they scored. The study revealed some interesting information about a few players but ultimately didn't prove much since we were only looking at one year's worth of data. With only one year's worth of data tracked, it was unknown whether or not the ability to create scoring chances was a skill or just random variation that could bounce around every year. There is only one way to find this out; collect as many seasons worth of data as you can and see if there are any noticeable patterns, which is what I did with the Hurricanes using the Super Shot Search app. 

This app only goes back four seasons, which is still a small sample size overall but it should be big enough to notice some patterns with certain players scoring chances rates and how much it affected their goal total. I basically followed the same procedure from my article last week where I looked at how many scoring chances a player recorded in a year, broke it down by game, by ice-time and noted what percentage of the shots they recorded were scoring chances. Only instead of doing it for just one season, I used this process for every Carolina player in the last four years. I also included recent seasons for former Carolina players so I now have four years worth of data for everyone involved with the Hurricanes during that time period.

If you have talked to anyone who has dabbled with in-depth hockey stats before, they will probably tell you that shots are the most debated and controversial topic among statisticans and regular bloggers. Most hockey statisticians use simple shots for/against to judge how effective certain players and teams are at controlling the pace of play, which usually translates to a team winning more often than not. Despite numerous evidence showing that controlling the shot battle usually leads to more victories, there have been detractors to this theory. The usual argument against shots being a predictor of success is that there are some teams who are better at controlling "shots of higher quality" than others. In theory, this makes a lot of sense because shot that comes from close in the slot has a better chance of being a goal than a harmless looking wrister from a weak angle. Thus, the scoring chance project was launched last season where numerous bloggers tracked scoring chances for their favorite teams, myself included. This process has been explained numerous times but if you want a refresher of how we tracked chances, go here.

There have been at least 18 individual team seasons tracked over the last few years and Eric T. of Broad Street Hockey and NHL Numbers discovered a couple months ago that the difference between shot differential and scoring chance differential is minimal. Tracking scoring chances showed us nothing that simple shot data couldn't, so the claim has been made that tracking scoring chances is unnecessary and not more of a predictor of future success. On a team level, I agree but I am still believe that scoring chances have some value, but on an individual level rather than a team level. 

Using scoring chance differential doesn't prove to be anymore useful than using shot data, but most fans will tell you that a certain player is better at creating scoring chances than another. These opinions are likely subjective and don't mean much at face value but I've always felt the same way. Whenever I watch a game, I notice that there are some players who are better at getting shots off from dangerous scoring areas and those players could have more value than others. The problems with this belief is not knowing how much of a difference there is between a scoring chance and a regular shot on goal in the long run. You also have to wonder if the number of scoring chances a player records in a year is sustainable over the course of multiple seasons or not. 

To see how much of a difference shot location makes for an individual player (if any at all), we can look at where each player shot the puck in a given season and see how many of his shots came from within a dangerous scoring area. This could show us how effective a certain player is at creating offense or how more likely he is to score than a player who is less effective at getting into scoring areas. With help from Greg Sinclair's Super Shot Search web site, I looked at every shot each Carolina player last season and determined whether or not it was a scoring chance. After that, I used this data to see how effective each player was at creating scoring chances.

A closer look at the data is coming after the jump.

Much of the discussion of the Hurricanes this off-season has been concerning their revamped top-six and the issues they have on defense. While there is no doubt that these are very important areas of discussion for next season, something that might be getting overlooked is the team's third line and how different it will look next season. I have talked about this before, but substituting Jordan Staal for Brandon Sutter allows the Hurricanes to change the dynamics of their forward corps and we could see the third line used in a completely different way than before. For the last couple of years, the Canes third line has been your prototypical checking line that was used in a heavy defensive role. Carolina having terrific defensive forwards like Sutter, Patrick Dwyer and Andreas Nodl allowed them to have a unit that they could use in such situations.

With Sutter gone, some might think that the Canes need a defensive center to fill that void but that isn't necessarily true since both Staal brothers are capable of playing against the toughs and they have enough players in their system capable of centering the third line right now. With the top two lines likely handling most of the tougher assignments, the bottom-six could be able to play a more offensive role than they have in the past. I've mentioned the possibility of the Hurricanes running this type of system a few times before and that is mainly because they have a good personnel to do so.

Think about it, one of the team's biggest problems last year was not having enough forwards who were of top-six quality and that they had to use players who would be third liners on most teams on the top two lines. Scoring was hard to come by last season and one reason for that was because their top-six regularly consisted of players like Chad LaRose, Jiri Tlusty, Drayson Bowman and and Jerome Samson. None of whom are bad players but they aren't exactly ideal top-six options. Despite that, they all did a fine job playing in the roles they were assigned last season and could have a lot of success in an offensive third-line role. One player in particular who may have a lot of success in this role is Chad LaRose. 

The versatility of the Hurricanes top-six is something that I have often praised on this blog and many other places. Having a few players who can effectively play both center and wing and all but one player slated to be in the Hurricanes top-six next season can do that, the one exception being Alexander Semin. How the team will roll their lines next season is anyone's guess at this point, but there have been a lot of predictions saying that Eric Staal will be the one moving over to the wing on the first line with his brother, Jordan, playing center.

Eric has experience playing on the wing but he still hasn't played there for a substantial amount of time aside from the Olympics. Making the assumption that he will be able to play there full-time without issue is a bit premature and it's also overlooking a player who has more experience playing on th wing, that player being Jussi Jokinen. Jokinen played center full-time last year and was very successful at it, but let's remember that he played left wing in the two previous years and was very successful in that role. He also had his best offensive seasons in the years he was playing on the wing so it seems like if anyone is going to be moving over, it will be Jokinen.

There are reasons to keep him at center, though. Jokinen was the team's best face-off guy last season and his popular line with Jeff Skinner and Tuomo Ruutu was the team's best unit in terms of controlling scoring chances at even strength. It might be wise for the Hurricanes to keep that line intact given their success, but the additions of Jordan Staal and Alex Semin sort of changes that. The Hurricanes have more offensive weapons to use now, so might be able to spread out their lines a little more evenly than they have for the last couple years. 

Ultimately, the Hurricanes are going to do what optimizes Jokinen's skills the best and what helps the team the most, so does that mean keeping him at center or moving over to the first line? After the jump, we will look at Jokinen's history at both positions and determine what suits him best.

Jim Rutheford continues to make hockey headlines this summer as he announced that the Hurricanes are close to announcing that they are close to signing Jeff Skinner to a contract extension. This was something I was hoping the team would get done this off-season because this is arguably the best time to get Skinner re-signed. Why is now a good time to do it? Because he has one year left on his entry level contract and the Hurricanes are in position to have him locked up for the next few years at a decent value. This isn't to say that waiting until next summer to re-sign him is the worst thing in the world, but he will likely come at a lower cost if the Hurricanes do choose to extend his contract now instead of later. The cap might be at $70.3 mil., but the Canes are still a small market team and need to get the most value out of their players, and they have a good chance to do that with Skinner right now. It is also possible that the CBA might restrict teams from locking up players long-term, so getting Skinner's contract out of the way now would be a good option.

Just how much is Skinner worth, though? He has 146 games of NHL experience, which isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things, but he has produced a lot during his two seasons in the NHL. Skinner took home the Calder Trophy his rookie year with a 31 goal, 63 point campaign and had a fairly successful sophomore campaign where he missed 18 games with a concussion. He still scored 20 goals and 44 games despite the injury and produced at a higher rate at even strength than any other Carolina forward. Not only that, but he was one of the Hurricanes best players at controlling scoring chances, so he has brought a lot of value to the team during his short time here.

Skinner is obviously worth a lot to the Hurricanes, but figuring out how much he is worth in actual dollars is somewhat of a tough challenge. Players who are coming off their ELC's usually do not get big, long-term deals unless they are a potential franchise player and even then it sometimes doesn't happen. Most Hurricanes fans would agree that Skinner is a franchise player and should get a long-term contract that at least spans his RFA years, so there shouldn't be much of a debate there. His cap hit and salary however, is tougher to figure out because you would ideally look at the contracts of comparable players to find out how much someone is worth and there haven't been that many players in the league who had the impact Skinner did when they were his age, at least in the salary cap era.

That being said, there have been plenty of forward who had productive seasons while they were on their ELC's and were rightfully rewarded with big contract extensions. Comparing what Skinner has done so far to what other players have done during their ELC's will give us a better idea of what kind of contract Skinner might get if Carolina decides to extend him now. Although, it is worth keeping in mind that the salary cap has changed a lot during this time period so it's likely that Skinner could get a bigger contract than some of his comparables did.

Information courtesy of Capgeek

These are the 20 players who had the highest point-per-game rates during their entry-level contract years, how much money they made in their ELCs and the cap hit of their new deals. You can see that Skinner ranks around the middle of the pack and has scored at a rate similar to what Patrice Bergeron and Claude Giroux had during their ELCs. Bergeron might be the most comparable player to Skinner because he was also a teenager when he entered the league. He played the majority of his first two seasons, scored 16 goals and 31 points the first year and broke out with a 31 goal/73 point performance the next season. Boston rewarded him with a five-year, $23,750,000 mil. contract with a cap hit of $4,750,000 per season. Bergeron's fantastic two-way play may have earned him some more money on top of that, but if we're looking at just scoring rates, he makes a good comparable to Skinner and I can easily see Skinner getting that kind of contract for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, the Hurricanes will likely want to sign him to a deal that spans his RFA years, which would be four seasons after his ELC runs out, so the contract will have to be at least four years. The Canes are also going to want to keep Skinner around for a couple more years on top of that because of his age, so it's not out of the question for him to get a deal that's in the 4-6 year territory. That way, you have Skinner under team control for most of his prime years and can possibly look into extending him again once that deal runs out. He will be in his mid-20's when that deal runs out, so they probably won't look into anything long-term after that but that's another issue for another day.

The money Bergeron got also sounds roughly in-line with Skinner's value right now but it's very possible that he could make more than that because the salary cap is so much higher now than it was back then. A $4.75 cap hit is roughly 9% of a $50.3 salary cap and 9% of the current salary cap would be about $6.6 mil. Now, it's doubtful that Skinner will get that much, but the point here is that Skinner receiving big money isn't out of the question with the salary cap being as high as it is now. I don't think Rutherford will be that extreme, though because Skinner is getting a long-term deal and the cap can always go down once the new CBA kicks in. Him getting $4-5 mil. per year is the most likely scenario, especially when you look at the contracts given to Jordan Staal and Tuomo Ruutu.

Now is the best time for Skinner to receive an extension for a number of reasons. The Hurricanes can likely keep him under team control at somewhat of a reasonable price and get a deal set in place before the new CBA gets finalized. If they were to wait until next off-season, they could run into a situation where they might have to pay him more than they would right now. It's a good thing that Rutherford recognized this and was proactive about the situation.

Both special teams units were a problem for Carolina last season as both their powerplay and penalty kill had success rates that ranked them in the bottom-ten of the NHL. I discussed the other day about how the penalty kill could still be a major problem for this team next year but the powerplay is a different story. The Canes may have had the 10th worst powerplay percentage in the league but it really wasn't as bad as this stat indicates. In fact, the Canes powerplay was actually very good at getting shots on net and were at least recording scoring chances while they were with the man advantage. The reason why they ranked so low was because they were in the middle of the league in powerplay shooting percentage and had more powerplay opportunities than all but nine teams in the league. The penalty kill is still a huge question mark heading into this coming year but the powerplay has a great chance of improving. 

Simple regression alone suggests that the Hurricanes will have a better powerplay than they did last season if they can continue to get a high number of shots on net, but another thing to consider is the additions of Alexander Semin and Jordan Staal. We all know that these two are going to give the team a huge boost but these two also played a lot of minutes on the powerplay with their previous teams. Last season, the Hurricanes powerplay regularly featured players like Tim Brent, Chad LaRose and Jiri Tlusty and I shouldn't even need to tell you that both Semin and J. Staal should provide a significant upgrade there.

The Canes should have a more effective looking powerplay unit on paper next season but regression is also in order for two of their newest forwards in both a good and bad way. After the jump, we are going to look at how much the additions of Semin and Jordan Staal will boost the team's powerplay and what kind of results we could see from the both of them.

A main goal for the Hurricanes this off-season was to strengthen their top-six by adding at least one top-line player, something they accomplished by trading for Jordan Staal and signing Alexander Semin. Not having enough horses up front was a major problem for Carolina last season, so both of these additions are going to go along way in improving that. However, another problem for the Hurricanes over the last few years has been extremely poor defensive play and it's debatable to say that their defense heading into this season is better than last year's unit. 

This is especially true on the penalty kill as the Hurricanes were in the bottom-ten in terms of penalty kill success percentage and were also just outside the bottom-ten at preventing shots against when playing with a man down. We all know that the Hurricanes struggles to control play at even strength put them in a lot of holes last year, but their porous penalty kill also contributed to that. There were a lot of games last season that got out of hand because the Hurricanes would get into penalty trouble and inevitably have a lot of shots and goals scored against them during those sequences. Granted, you are already playing with a disadvantage if you are on the PK, but there are a lot of teams with strong PK's and the secret to their success is easy to figure out; they were very good at preventing shots against.

Preventing the opposing team from getting shots on net during the penalty kill isn't as hard as one would think. A simple face-off win and successful clear usually drains at least 10 seconds off the clock and it takes longer than that for the opposing team to set up shop once they get the puck in the zone. After that, the team on the kill has to do their best at keeping the puck to the outside and gaining possession whenever they can so they can erase more time off the clock. Blocking shots and preventing opposing forwards from screening the goalie is also very important when it comes to killing penalties, as well and the latter was something the Hurricanes had a big problem with, namely the defensemen.

This may become an even bigger problem next season with Bryan Allen, one of the team's top penalty killers, gone and no replacement brought in. Another key penalty killer in Brandon Sutter was also lost this off-season, so the team's PK units are going to feature some new faces this season. Given how bad the Hurricanes PK has been the last few years, change may not be the worst thing in the world but is there a chance that the Canes PK might be worse than what it was before? After the jump, we will take a closer look at this and discuss what some of Carolina's PK units could look like.

As a hockey stat guru, it warms my heart to hear that front offices around the league are keeping an open mind into hockey analytics, which is  why I was excited to hear that the Hurricanes were using certain "advanced" analytics to back-up their decision to sign Alex Semin to a one-year contract worth $7 mil. This fact was revealed by Canes PR guy Mike Sundheim on Twitter and later confirmed by GM Jim Rutherford in a press conference. It's always good to do you homework before you make a big signing and it's good to see that the Canes did some fact-checking before signing Semin to this deal.

Blogs like mine and many others across the Internet will always do a thorough background check on a player before deciding if he is a good fit for the team they root for by using shot-based metrics such as Corsi and Scoring Chances along with looking at a player's scoring rates. If you listen to the press conference from Rutherford, you will learn that he performed about as thorough of a background check with Semin as you could imagine but the type of analytics they used is a little different from the ones that you may be familiar with on this blog and other places across the Internet.

I looked back at Sundheim's tweets to see if he mentioned anything about the type of stats the front office was using and he mentioned quite a few. First of all, it appears that the Canes were using percentiles to gauge a player's value rather than just simple rankings. A percentile shows the percentage of a sample lower than the point (or in this case the player) of interest. They were also apparently looking at how often a player scored in "high pressure situations" and against "top forwards on the opposing team."  Plus/minus for these situations were also looked at. These stats were used as a way to combat the opinions of Semin not being "clutch" in the post-season or when the game was on the line.

Per Sundheim, "high pressure situations" are when the game is tied in the second and third periods or when the game is close during those frames. Overtime is also included in this, obviously. The top 2-3 forwards on each of the opposing team are selected by whoever comes up with these statistics. It is also not clarified whether or not the team is looking at the amount of goals/points a player scored or the amount that he is on-ice for but either way, Semin ranked very high in all of these categories and that obviously factored into their decision to sign him.

There are some issues that arise with these stats and the biggest of which being that the "high pressure situations" could eliminate a good chunk of the game and cause them to look at some small sample sizes. A lot of hockey statisticians prefer to look at data when the score is close or tied, so that is understandable but I'm not sure that I agree with elminating the entire first period from the sample. We're in sort of a "dead-puck" era with a lot of close games, which makes every goal huge. Throwing out a few goals because they were scored in the first period seems a bit strange, in my opinion.

The fact that they are only looking at data when a certain player was used against "top 2-3" forwards on the opposing team also limits the scope because there are a lot of times when a star forward is matched up against a checking line, the latter of which probably doesn't have one of the "top forwards" on it depending on the scorer's definition. Therein lies another potential issue; How does the scorer decide who the "top 2-3 forwards" are? Seems a little too subjective if the team in question is playing a team with not much star talent. I understand the rationale behind this stat because it is probably another way of looking at "quality of competition" like I do often, but I also think that it could lead to an issue with sample size.

One final thing I would like to know about these stats is if they look at the amount of shots or scoring chances a player produces in these situations. I'm probably beating a dead horse with this by now, but it's tough to use goals and points as a predictive stat because of how much luck is involved with them. Semin, in particular, had a very unlucky season with a poor shooting percentage and could have created more goals in these "high pressure situations" if he shot closer to his career average. Shots obviously don't catch your attention as much as goals do, but they are also very important to look at because shots are what a player has the most control over. Seeing if a player can drive possession at a high rate usually means that they are likely to score more in the future than a player who isn't.

I may have my issues with these stats and how valid they are but in the end, we can both agree on that Semin for one-year at $7 mil. is a terrific signing for Carolina. Semin not only can perform in these "high pressure situations," he can drive possession at even strength, when the score is tied, and when the game is close and that is going to really help Carolina next season. Plus, he also has scored at a high rate at even strength for most of his career. It may not be the way that I, or many others, are used to doing things, but it is nice to see a team take an analytical approach to rate players and use it to factor into their front office decisions.

Ever since the Hurricanes made the huge trade on draft day to acquire Jordan Staal, a question that has been running through my mind is how will the Hurricanes plan to use him. Having so many centers available in your top-six can be both a blessing and a curse because it's good to have a lot of versatile players but at your disposal but at the same time, it makes it tough for the coaching staff to figure out the right lines. Adding Jordan Staal gives the Hurricanes five guys in the top-six who are natural centers and three of them have spent a good part of their careers playing the wing so if anyone is going to be moving over full-time, it's likely going to be one of Skinner, Jokinen or Ruutu.

How those three are used will depend on what Kirk Muller does with Jordan Staal and there are a lot of ways he can be realized, really. Some say that he might be centering the first line with Eric playing the wing and if that happens, the Ruutu-Skinner-Jokinen line from last year remains intact. The only problem with this plan is that Eric has little experience playing on the wing outside of the Olympics and I feel that using him there is playing away from his strengths. The more likely approach is likely going to be having the Staal Brothers center the first and second lines with the wings being filled in by the rest of the top-six. 

An issue that arises out of this strategy is that Carolina's depth on the wings is about as shallow as a rain puddle, so they may need to overslot a player or two here. Right now it is tough to figure out who those players will be since a few roster spots are still up in the air and there is still time for the Hurricanes to acquire another player to fill this void. Let's say that the Hurricanes enter next season with the current roster, though. Who flanks the first and second lines?

To help find an answer here, we are going to revisit the "Player Usage Charts" developed by Rob Vollman, only with some minor tweaks added. Instead of using Corsi Rel., which takes the difference of the players on and off ice Corsi ratings, I'm going to use zone start adjusted corsi for the bubble size. This corrects a player's corsi rate to factor in where he started most of his shifts. Check out this post from Driving Play to see the formula and the methods used. In addition to that, I made another chart using a player's ESP/60 rate for the bubble size to show how often a player was scoring at even strength. This will give us an idea of players who were used in similar situations to Jordan Staal and who can thrive in similar minutes (or play them without getting slaughtered).

We will look at both charts and discuss Jordan Staal's usage after the jump.

Even after trading for Jordan Staal and coming up short in the Zach Parise sweepstakes, Carolina GM Jim Rutherford has still discussed the possibility of bringing in another forward for the top line. This is easier said than done because the free agent pool was already shallow enough and most of the big names are already off the market. With even fewer players available now, Rutherford is going to have to either overpay to get someone, take a risk on a low-valued talent (think something similar to the deal Wolski got) or possibly work out a trade with another organization. Acquiring Jordan Staal changes the foundation of the team and reduces the severity of a need for a top-six winger, but there is no doubt that the Hurricanes still need one for at least next season.

The biggest thing that is standing in the way of the Hurricanes making a signing is that they have very limited options in terms of who they can go after and what kind of contract they can give out. They have a few guys in the system who are going to be looking to play in the NHL within the next couple of seasons and probably can't afford to tie up a roster spot for the next five or six years with Ruutu and the Staal brothers locked up for awhile. An ideal situation for the Hurricanes would be to sign someone to a one or two year contract regardless of the cap hit and see how they work out. One of the main problems for the Hurricanes last season was the lack of quality top-line wingers, so Rutherford probably knows that he needs to at least try to acquire someone this year.

Who is available right now, though? If Rutherford wants to go the free agency route, there are still at least three players who he can go after and at least two of them are going to be looking for big money. Even with the cap currently over $70 mil., a team like the Hurricanes needs to get the most value out of the players they sign and that's especially true with the amount of money tied up in players like Ward and the Staal brothers. The Hurricanes not only need to acquire someone who will give them good value, they need to sign a player who also fits their system, which means that they will probably favor a player who can play in a power-vs.-power type role and not be overly dependent on his linemates.

After the jump, we will look at these said free agents and it will be up to you to determine which one fits the system best.