Every week during the regular season, I would review the Carolina Hurricanes performance during said week and one of the first things I looked at was how certain players were being used. I did this by utilizing an "OZ QoC Chart" which plotted a player's offensive zone start percentage against his corsi relative to quality of competition number. Players who were used in the toughest situations were found in the upper left part of the graph while players being used in easier situations were in the lower right part of the graph. This was a very helpful tool for my analysis and it was interesting to see how player usage changed throughout the season. 

The creator of OZQOC Charts, Rob Vollman, has been working hard all season to improve these charts and make them more friendly to those new to advanced hockey statistics. One way he did that was renaming them as "Player Usage Charts" and adding a couple other tweaks, as well. The biggest addition are the bubbles which represent a player's corsi relative. A blue bubble indicates a positive corsi relative and a white bubble indicates a negative corsi relative rating. The larger the bubble is, the greater their corsi relative numbers were. This helps us show how effective a player was at pushing the puck forward and creating offense. 

I have used versions of this chart in the past, but the modifications that Vollman has made to them have made them much easier to read and it's much easier to identify certain holes that a team may have. If you are unsure where to start with advanced statistics and are interested in learning about them, Player Usage Charts are a great first step. They are very compatible and aren't too difficult to figure out. The best part of it is that they are available for no cost, all you have to do is download this pdf and spend a good hour or so looking over them. The pdf linked features analysis from Vollman and dozens of other hockey bloggers, including myself, who interpret the charts for their respective teams and a lot more. 

After the jump, we're going to take a look at the Hurricanes' chart, go over what I said in the feature and do some further analysis.

Without question, one of the top priorities for Carolina this off-season is acquiring a top-six winger, preferably one who can play on the first line with Eric Staal. Jim Rutherford has stated that this is what he plans to do this off-season but a problem he will run into is that the free agent pool this year is very shallow. There will be at least seven teams bidding on one player which means that someone is going to have to overpay to acquire him. his strategy will help a team in the short-term but it could also hurt them a few years down the line when they are still paying big money for a player whose production is declining. This is the same dilemma that most of the teams trying to sign Brad Richards ran into last year. The Rangers knew they could be a contending team as soon as this year, which is why they felt the need to give Richards that big contract. Carolina probably doesn't have the same mindset, so the likelihood of Rutherford handing out a big deal is slim.

However, this doesn't mean that Rutherford isn't going to be aggressive in his search for a top-line winger because he has to take that approach if he wants to land anyone who will make an immediate impact. There might be a chance of the Canes landing a big name free agent, but if don't, who else is out there and how much are they available for? I looked at some of the players that Rutherford could possibly buy low on a couple months ago, but that only covered certain players. After the jump, we'll take a look at all of the potential unrestricted free agents who could possibly play in the top-six for the Hurricanes and determine which ones are the right guys to go after.

The decision on which player the Carolina Hurricanes should take with the eighth pick in the NHL Draft is anything but unanimous but one thing that can be agreed on is that it should be a forward. The Canes do have a decent future up front with Jeff Skinner and Brandon Sutter already contributing at the NHL level, but their prospect pool is very thin. The team's best forward prospects who aren't currently on the roster project to be 2nd/3rd liners in the NHL or have little chance to even make the league, so they definitely need to strengthen the depth of their forward corps and this draft is a great chance for them to do that. While there are a lot of defensemen projected to go in the first round, there are also a lot of very talented forwards who the Canes can take with any of their picks.

Carolina has ten picks this draft and while lower round picks never project to amount to much, you can never have too many good young players in your system, so the Hurricanes need to make their picks count. There are always a few late round picks who make the pros out of nowhere and it's possible that there might be a few lurking in this draft. Countless times you will see a GM value things like talent, size and skill over their performance which leads to some guys falling in the draft. One way to find these players is to look at their point-per-game total at their current level and see who is playing well by this standard. 

Over the next couple of weeks, we are going to use this method for different leagues to evaluate certain players in the draft and see which ones might be available when it's the Hurricanes turn to pick. It isn't perfect because goals and points alone aren't the best way to judge a player, especially ones who are in junior hockey. A player could have a great season that's driven completely by a high shooting percentage or he might be used in more favorable situations compared to others among other complications. Unfortunately, the amount of data available in these leagues is very limited so this is the furthest amount of statistical analysis that can be done for a lot of prospects. I was also going to include their NHL Equivalency value, but that probably doesn't mean much to the Hurricanes. There's a 90% chance that all of the players they take will not make the team next year, so how their performance last season compares to the NHL level doesn't mean much.

After the jump, we are going to take a look at the forward prospects who played in the Canadian Hockey League last season. This is the most popular junior league in the world and a good chunk of the players in the draft usually come from there, so we are going to get a decent sample of players to examine here. Are there any hidden gems coming from the CHL this year? Let's find out.

For a young player, adjusting to the speed and skill of the NHL is very difficult and it usually takes years of development before they are ready to contribute full-time. This process is especially true with defensemen as most of them aren't ready until at least their early-20's. Young defensemen in the NHL are generally used in a more sheltered or offensive rule because they are still learning the game and are obviously going to have trouble facing pro-level forwards. This is the case with just about every young defensemen no matter how big or talented they are because a good majority of them are coming straight from either a junior level or college, which doesn't compare to what they will have to deal when they get to the NHL.

It takes a really special talent to make it in the NHL at a very young age and there have been only 16 defensemen since the lockout who have played more than 30 games in the big show before they turned 20. One of those 16 players is Justin Faulk of the Carolina Hurricanes. Faulk still has a ways to go before he is a top-tier defenseman but his pro career got off to a great start this year. He was playing over 20 minutes a night, was used in just about every situation and looked incredibly poised for someone his age. He was also arguably the team's best puck-mover last season with Joni Pitkanen on the shelf for most of the year.

The major concern with Faulk is his defensive game. He had trouble controlling possession at even strength and the Canes gave up a lot of scoring chances when he was on the ice. The ongoing explanation for this is that Faulk is still very young and most players his age playing his kind of minutes would fare no better. This got me thinking, how does Faulk compare to other defensemen his age? What situations were they playing in and how did they perform? Was Faulk better or worse than them and most importantly, what predictions can we make about Faulk's future based on it?

After the jump, we will look at the 16 defensemen who played at least 30 games in the NHL before their 20th birthday and see how Faulk's performance during his rookie season compares to them.

Something that was discussed a lot over the course of the season was how hard the Hurricanes centers worked over the off-season to improve their overall performance at the faceoff dot. This was something that needed to be done because the team was just awful at faceoffs during the 2010-11 season (44.6% success rate) and it was one of the reasons why they struggled so much on special teams then. With face-off master Rod Brind'Amour now serving as an assistant coach, the Hurricanes made a considerable effort to improve their ability to win draws this year and it paid off. The Hurricanes went from being the second worst face-off team in the NHL to the 10th best. Just about every player who takes faceoff regularly saw an improvement, as evidenced by the table below.

Staal has struggled with face-offs his whole career but he made a huge leap forward this season and won well over half of his draws. Brandon Sutter also improved significantly after being brutal at the faceoff dot last season and Jussi Jokinen got even better. The only player who didn't improve at faceoffs was Tuomo Ruutu, who went from bad to worse. Perhaps the strangest thing here is that Tim Brent won less than 50% of his draws even though his ability to win faceoffs was one of the reasons that teh Canes signed him in the first place.

There is one big problem with all of this information, which is that faceoff percentage, in general, is misleading and somewhat overrated. No one is denying the importance of winning a faceoff but there is a lot of grey area that can cloud up the accuracy of a player's faceoff percentage. If you were to watch every single faceoff that happens in a game, you will probably notice that not all of them are won cleanly. There are many cases where the wingers have to battle in the trenches to come out with the puck. Sometimes the two centers will battle for the puck for a good couple of seconds and neither come away with posession. Then there are other instances where one team wins the faceoff but fails to come away with possession because the players covering the points can't keep it in or the opposing team forces a turnover.

This shows that, while important, winning faceoffs can be overrated, misleading and not the best way to judge a player's ability. If a team can win a faceoff but not control possession, then winning the draw becomes essentially meaningless. Which is why a player needs to be able to do more than just win faceoffs to have a considerable amount of value. However, wining faceoffs plays a huge role in the success of two main areas; the powerplay and penalty kill.

A faceoff win on the powerplay likely means more zone time and a greater chance at being able to strike with the man advantage, while a faceoff win on the PK usually kills off at least 10-20 seconds of the powerplay, so winning the draw can go a long way on special teams. With that in mind, let's see if the Hurricanes have improved their faceoff numbers in all three areas and who has improved the most compared to last season.

The Hurricanes are a team with plenty of holes but Jim Rutherford has made it clear that finding a forward to play on Eric Staal's line will be the top priority, whether that be by trade or free agency. While the contributions that the team got from Jiri Tlusty and Chad LaRose were nice, they aren't ideal first liners and probably wouldn't be getting those minutes on a lot of teams in the league. So it is obvious that there is a big hole to fill there, but Rutherford is going to have a hard time filling this hole because the free agent market this summer is very thin if you're looking for a winger.

The player who is first on most Hurricanes fans wishlist is Zach Parise from the New Jersey Devils, who is one of the top players in the league at his position. Fans really seem to want Rutherford to make a push for him and while it would be wise for him to do so, the problem is that he will need to outbid at least ten other teams in order to get him. Parise is going to want a very long contract and I don't think the Hurricanes can take that risk right now. The team is rebuilding and still has long-term money invested in Staal and Ward, so I don't think adding another 5+ year deal is the best way to go at the moment.

While the Hurricanes are going to need to take a few risks in order to acquire a top-level player, I don't think that Rutherford can give Parise what other teams are willing to offer him. There's just too many teams in the mix and Parise's demands are going to be pretty large. There are other options, though and one of them might be unpopular with some Caniacs. Yes, I am talking about Alexander Semin of the Washington Capitals.

Semin might not have the greatest reputation around the league but he is a great talent and I think the Hurricanes might have somewhat of a realistic shot at signing him this off-season. Find out why after the jump.

Carolina's young defenseman Jamie McBain is probably one of my favorite players to analyze because the fanbase's opinion always on him always seems to be split. On one hand, people see a skilled player who is slowly, but surely, adjusting to the NHL and will be a great top-four defenseman in the next couple of years. Then you have the people who see him as a complete liability on defense and should be dealt for a team that needs a puck-mover. There are also individuals in the same crowd who think that he should be moved to make room for Ryan Murphy, the Hurricanes' first round pick from last year.

I have discussed McBain many times in the past and have determined a few things. The first of which is that he isn't quite ready to play tough minutes yet and was most effective when used in a third-pairing role with Jaroslav Spacek. In addition to that, I said McBain is good enough that he doesn't need to be completely protected and that his most recent season wasn't much different from how he performed in 2010-11. He just looked worse when he was being used in tough situations that he likely wasn't ready for.

McBain has his flaws and probably isn't going to be a top-pairing defenseman but it is my opinion that he hasn't been nearly as bad as a lot of fans have made him out to be. That being said, I think that he has his limits and I do question whether or not he has the ability to play tough minutes in the future. He doesn't need to play this kind of role, but it would make him a much more valuable player if he does. Justin Faulk playing a top-four role at only 19 years of age is another thing that probably made McBain look worse than he really is, since he is 24 and has struggled in similar situations.

There are a couple things to remember with that last point. 1) Defenseman in general take a long time to develop. Faulk is an exception to this rule. 2) At 24, McBain is still relatively young and this season was only his second full-year in the NHL. Saying that he will never be a good defenseman now when he has played a top-four role and posted decent to good possession metrics on a bad possession team is just silly.

Where is McBain in his development, though? It seems like the "peak age" for players is getting younger each year in the NHL so it would be good to know where McBain stands compared to other defensemen his age. We will explore this issue after the jump.

With only so much information from other hockey leagues available, it is very difficult to project how a prospect will perform in the NHL. To know exactly what kind of player he is going to be, you have to watch him on a somewhat regular basis, see what kind of roles he plays and the style of play he has. Unfortunately, doing that for every prospect is unfeasible so the best us fans can do is watch whatever games we can and go by their stats at other levels.

One method that I talk about on here is NHL scoring equivalencies developed by Gabe Desjardins at Behind The Net Hockey. I've mentioned this more than a few times but to refresh your memory I will explain how equivalencies work. Desjardins took the stats from players who jumped from one league to the NHL and noted how much of their scoring they kept. The general idea is that it is harder to score in the NHL than it is in other leagues and that is represented by an equivalency translation drawn from the performance of other players.

After the jump, we awill look at the most recent seasons for all of the Hurricanes' prospects and use their equvalency translation to get an idea of what their performance of the NHL will be like.

When I look at the Hurricanes' scoring chance numbers that I have been tracking since the beginning of the season, there is a lot of emphasis placed on even strength play. This is because most of the game is played at five-on-five and it is generally better to use even strength data as a way to find out a player's talent level. With that being said, special teams are very important, too and Carolina had a lot of trouble on both the powerplay and penalty kill this season. Their powerplay was not nearly as bad as their 19th ranking suggests, as they were getting shots on net with the man advantage but their PK gave up a lot of shots and chances.

There were a lot of different players used on both special teams units this year, so finding out who was the most and least effective will give us a better idea of what holes the Hurricanes have to fill next season. The PK appears to have quite a few holes judging by how many shots they surrender on a nightly basis.

Other than going by goal and points, one effective way to find out who is the most effective on special teams is to look at how many scoring chances the team surrenders when a certain player is on the ice. After the jump, we will look at those numbers from the Hurricanes last season.

At the beginning of the season, I attempted to project the performance of every regular skater on the team by looking at players similar to them going by their career scoring patterns. The way this method is utilized is that the player's performance is supposed to mimic those of their comparables and their projected performance of a given year will fall in between a certain set of point. This is essentially what I did for my projections but I also looked at the player's career performance and took into account what kind of ice time and linemates he would have throughout the year. I also came up with one projection instead of a range of points because I thought it would be a good challenge. 

Some of my projections were accurate while others were completely off and we are going to go through all of them after the jump.