On Monday evening, I joined the folks at Driving Play for their playoff race podcast and one of the topics that came up was the battle for the last two spots in the Eastern Conference. The Ottawa Senators, Buffalo Sabres and Washington Capitals are currently separated by a total of four points and at the time of the recording, the Sabres and Caps were tied with 84 points going into their showdown the next day. When we were asked which two of these teams would be the most likely to make the playoffs, I said that Ottawa will likely stay in the 7th spot and that Washington will make it in because Buffalo isn't that good.

Well....I got at least one of those predictions right. Ottawa is sitting tight at the #7 spot but the Sabres absolutely demolished the Caps last night 5-1, have claimed the #8 spot in the East and I look kind of like a jackass. There is still another week of hockey to be played so things can change but Buffalo definitely has to like their chances of making the playoffs now when you compare their schedule to Washington's.

The reason why I did not pick Buffalo despite their recent hot streak is because they are still a pretty bad team when playing at even strength in close games . Another thing is that a main reason for their turnaround is Ryan Miller having a .937 even strength save percentage in March and quite a few of their skaters have been striking gold lately as nearly 10% of their five-on-five shots have been goals. I figured that they will cool off eventually and return to how they were earlier in the season but I overlooked a couple things.

1. There's only a week left in the season the small sample size of Buffalo's hot streak could be enough to get them in.

2. Washington hasn't been that much better, if at all.

More to come after the jump.

It's time for our weekly look at the Southeast Division and it looks like things have boiled down to a two-team race as the Jets have fallen out of the picture. The Southeast Division will likely be won by either the Florida Panthers or the Washington Capitals and from the looks of things, the Cats have a big advantage. They have a three point lead and one game in hand over the Caps which means that they will probably win the division unless they lose out or something drastic. The Panthers also have games against Columbus, Minnesota and Carolina, which gives them an advantage compared to the Caps who have to play Boston, Buffalo and the Rangers to close out the year.

Based on schedule alone, Florida has a huge advantage even though they don't appear to be much better than any other team in the division. Washington has a shot at the division but it might take them winning out and getting a little bit of luck along the way. They haven't been getting much of it on special teams lately, so they will need for things to turn around there.

Regardless, I think Washington is good enough to at least make it in the playoffs but they really need to win their next game against Buffalo and at least earn points in all of their remaining games to solidify their chances. Ottawa winning tonight makes things slightly more difficult for them.

Any hope that the Hurricanes had for a miracle playoff push is all but gone now as they went 1-2-0 last week with two bad losses to the Columbus Blue Jackets and Detroit Red Wings. They ended up getting outshot and outchanced by a wide margin overall but that's mostly because of the Detroit game where they gave up over 50 shots on goal and 25 scoring chances. Carolina actually had the advantage in scoring chances in the games against Florida & Columbus but ended up negative overall because of the beating they took in Detroit. 

They always say that the scoreboard is where things count the most and Carolina was outscored 10-4 at even strength this past week. The Hurricanes have been able to keep a respectable goal differential over the past couple months but that obviously went out the window after that Jackets game. This is what usually happens when you get outshot regularly, though and it was only a matter of time before the Canes ended up getting burned. The team's talent level just isn't high enough to compete with the top teams in the league right now and we saw that against Detriot when they blew a 4-1 lead and were heavily outshot. Carolina has some nice pieces but they need to add a couple more forwards and maybe a defenseman to become a better possession team than they are now. Then we can start talking about whether or not this team will become a playoff contender.

The only thing that was discouraging about this week was that the team has at least been competing in every game under Muller and not laying down but we didn't see that in the Columbus or Detroit games. Brighter days are ahead but first, let's revisit this past week and single out some performances.

The last place a player wants to end up in is the coach's "doghouse" and it appears that the Hurricanes newly re-signed forward Tuomo Ruutu is in that spot right now with head coach Kirk Muller. There was some suspicion that Ruutu was in trouble on Friday when he was placed on the fourth line during the third period in the game against Columbus. That thought was confirmed the next day when Ruutu was benched six minutes into the third period after playing a total of three shifts in that frame.

Ruutu's performance since returning from injury has been underwhelming to say the least. He has only one point in nine games and the only game where I thought he made a difference was Wednesday's 3-1 win against Florirda. Ruutu needs to be out there making a difference in every game and going by the numbers, he has not been doing that at all.

Here's a game-by-game breakdown of Ruutu's scoring chance numbers & zone starts since returning from his upper-body injury.

In addition to this, Ruutu has only been on ice for two of the Hurricanes even strength goals and six of the opponents while controlling way less than 50% of the even strength corsi events. This is a very small sample size so it likely doesn't mean much in the big picture but it is safe to say that Ruutu's performance has not been up to standard in these nine games. Ruutu was one of the team's best forwards for most of the year so for him to be outchanced by 10 over nine games is pretty bad. Although it's a little odd for him to be starting in the defensive zone more because that's not how he's normally utilized, but it's still easy to see why Muller could be frustrated with him. We've seen Muller demand a lot out of his players and he clearly wants to see more out of Ruutu than what he's done so far.

The numbers explain things pretty clearly, but to get a better idea of what caused Muller to bench Ruutu, I went over his shifts from the last two games to see if there's any visual evidence of Ruutu playing poorly. I did a similar project with Zach Boychuk earlier in the month when he was benched and demoted. We'll begin this after the jump.

Eric Staal is having a very odd season to say the least. In November, he had only four goals and 12 points and looked to be on pace for his worst season since 2003-04. However, ever since the calendar turned 2012, Staal has been producing at over a point per game and is a good bet to put up at least 70 once the season is over. What's the reason for such a drastic turn-around? Some have said that the health of his brother Marc Staal, who missed time with a concussion after taking a hit from Eric, was the reason for his slow start. Other have said that firing Paul Maurice & hiring Kirk Muller as head coach is the reason for his turnaround, but the truth is that Staal's play has been relatively consistent throughout the year and a lot of what went wrong earlier in the year was beyond his control.

After the jump, we'll explore how Staal's shooting percentage, shot rates and possession numbers have changed over the year and explain why his low +/- really isn't that big of a problem.

Last season, the Hurricanes had one of the worst powerplays in the league as they ranked 24th in powerplay percentage and were in the bottom-five in getting shots on goal. Things weren't expected to get much better this season with the departures of both Erik Cole and Joe Corvo but if you can believe it, Carolina's powerplay has actually improved a lot when it comes to getting shots on goal. They rank 9th in the league in that department but they are still having problems finding the back of the net. Going from having the 24th ranked powerplay to 19th looks like an improvement but the powerplay is still clicking at only 16.4%, which is less than a percentage better than they were last season? They also have scored 40 5-on-4 goals this season and aren't on pace to top their 49 goals from last season.

So, if the Canes aren't scoring goals that many goals with the man advantage, how has their powerplay improved? We'll look at that after the jump.

Carolina's blue-line has been missing a key piece for most of the season as they have gone about three months without the services of Joni Pitkanen. He has been out since early December with both a concussion and a knee injury which required surgery but according to reports, he could be returning to the lineup as soon as Wednesday. His presence on the powerplay has been missed greatly and so have his puck-moving skills so getting him back will be a huge boost to the lineup. The question is, how will the Hurricanes use Pitkanen when he returns? The nice thing about a defenseman like Pitkanen is that you can use him in almost anyway you want. He can play top pairing minutes but can also play the powerplay/offensive specialist role and kill penalties if you need him to. After the jump, we'll take a look at how Kirk Muller and Dave Lewis might use Pitkanen based on who he's had success with in the past and what would work best for the rest of the defense corps.

We've seen this team put together winning streaks despite getting dominated in the possession game and this past week was one of those times. The Hurricanes won three out of their four games and controlled roughly 45% of the corsi events at even strength. To most people, this would tell people that the Canes are a house of cards and a tough losing streak is right around the corner, but if you were to go by only shots and scoring chances, their underlying numbers do not look nearly as bad. The Hurricanes actually controlled 50.3% of the even strength shots this past week but only 49.5% at even strength, so they were being outplayed but not nearly as bad as the possession numbers indicate.

Numbers aside, I'm sure that many fans are feeling good about this past week. They shutout the top team in the Western Conference, had two comeback victories and a good effort against the Eastern Conference leading New York Rangers. The Canes lack the talent to be a dominant possession team right now but Kirk Muller has them giving their best effort every night and I'm glad that we're starting to see more wins come with it. Although, I am a tad skeptical about how these final ten games will go because the Canes are still spending a lot of time in their own end and that's going to come back to hurt them sooner or later.

After the jump, we'll single out some performances from the last week.

Players like Jerome Samson are frustrating because they are known as goal-scorers, need top-six minutes to be successful and have scored at nearly a point-per-game pace in every level but the NHL. Every team has a player like this in their organization and most of them are kept around for scoring depth at the AHL level and for emergency call-ups. Samson seems to fit in this class because he has been a 20-goal scorer for the Hurricanes AHL affiliates in Albany & Charlotte over the last four (could be five) seasons and has still yet to make his mark in the NHL. He has played 46 games with the Hurricanes over the last three years and has accumulated a grand total of nine points and scored his first NHL goal only this season.

Samson is a restricted free agent at the end of the year and considering that he was scratched in favor of Derek Joslin, a defeseman who has been forced to play forward due to depth issues, and eventually sent back to the AHL, many are wondering if Samson's time with in the NHL is coming to an end. His future with the organization is not looking promising but who is to say that Samson is destined to be a career AHL-er at the age of 24? With so many 19-21 year olds entering the league, it's tough for older "rookies" like Samson to make their mark in the league but it isn't impossible for a player to enter the league and become a full-time player in their mid-20's. The question is can Samson become a full-time NHL player next season at the age of 25, what kind of player will he be and will he break into the NHL as a Carolina Hurricane? Those will be explored after the jump.

The news of Bobby Sanguinetti being called up has a lot of people talking about the future of Carolina's defense corps and how bright it is. With young players like Justin Faulk, Ryan Murphy, Brian Dumoulin, Mark Alt, Danny Biega and Sanguinetti in the system, there is a reason to be excited and we've seen Faulk step in and contribute immediately. However, it will be awhile before some of the other prospects start making an impact and if Carolina wants to become a competitive team again, their defensive play is going to need a ton of help. They are last in the NHL in shots allowed at even strength and are a bottom-10 team on the penalty kill.

In my latest weekly report, I made a note saying that this team was giving up too many chances on a nightly basis and they reached a new low last week by surrendering 77 scoring chances over four games. You can't give up over 20 scoring chances per night and expect to be a winning team, so defense has to be somewhat of a priority for the Hurricanes over the next couple of years. Adding a scoring winger would be nice, but I feel that Carolina's defense really needs to be addressed with this rebuild. I've discussed goaltender Cam Ward and how his inconsistency has been a reason why Carolina is in the spot they are right now. The team's poor defensive play is a reason why Ward is depended on so much and why the Canes have lived and died by his performance this year. Addressing this need can go a long way.

When I say "defensively play," I do not mean that the defense corps needs to overhauled because I do not think the play from our blue-liners has been horrendous this year. More times than not, the defensemen are put into bad situations due to the forwards refusing to back-check or commit to playing in the defensive zone. It has led to some odd-man rushes and catastrophic breakdowns that turned into goals for the opposing team. Both goals Tampa Bay scored on Saturday night are examples of what I am trying to explain.

Going by what I see, I believe that the forwards are more of a problem with the Hurricanes poor defensive play than the blue-liners themselves, but part of the fun of being a statistician is testing hypotheses like the one I just came up with. Is the Hurricanes poor defensive play mostly due to the forwards not playing a strong two-way game or is it the fault of the blue-liners? It would be nice to know this now so we know what holes to fill over the off-season and whether or not bringing in another defenseman is a need. We'll start examining this after the jump.