If you were to poll most Hurricanes fans right now, most would agree that Alexander Semin has been a great addition to the team. He has made their first line a real force to be reckoned with and is usually one of their best players every night. However, I'm sure that most people were hoping that he would have more than three goals 14 games into the season and only one at even strength. His current pace would give him roughly 10-11 goals on the year and that would be only 17-18 in a full-82 game season. It's not that Semin is playing poorly, but the goals just haven't been coming to him for whatever reason.

Going strictly by a goal-per-game rate, one might suggest that Semin is on a decline. He has scored at a rate that was between .4 and .6 goals-per-game for msot of his career but the last two seasons, he's dropped down to below .3. So if you were only looking at goals, then you could say that Semin is on the decline as an offensive player but it's not just all about goals and points. Something people often forget is that a lot of things need to go right for a player to score a goal. The most a player can do when trying to score is find a soft spot in the defense and do his best to pick an open corner in the net when firing a shot on net. I think most would say that Semin has been doing that so far.

So why doesn't he have more goals? To put it bluntly, he hasn't been receiving much shooting luck at all, especially when you compare his numbers with the rest of his career.

In case you didn't know, the Southeast has been clearly the weakest division in the NHL so far. After Tampa Bay's 4-2 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs last night, they are now tied with the Hurricanes for first place in the division with 17 points. Both team's records would put them no higher than third in any other division and make them bubble playoff teams if the automatic qualifer was done away with. I said at the beginning of the year that this division would be very weak but somewhat competitive and so far it's proven that with the Lightning and Hurricanes tied for the top spot and likely alternating throughout the course of the season. The Winnipeg Jets are also not too far behind with 13 points and could find themselves back in the hunt with a good winning streak.

This all begs the question, what will it take to win the Southeast Division this year? The cut-off point for a playoff spot has been predicted to be about 55 points which would equate to roughly 94 in a full 82-game season. Florida had 94 points and won the division last year and I'm hoping that it will take more than that this season, but we could be looking at a similar finish if things continue to stay as they are. 

Let's say that 55 points is what it will take to win the division. How close are the Hurricanes from getting to there compared to their Southeast adversaries? The good news is that they are ahead of the pack, albeit only slightly.

Some unfortunate news came earlier today when the Hurricanes announced that Jeff Skinner wasn't feeling well at practice today and would not be traveling with the team to Montreal for tomorrow's game. This will leave three key players out of the lineup with Tim Gleason and Joni Pitkanen also injured but that's hopefully only a short-term concern. More people are worried about the health of Skinner and how serious his injury is. As of right now, it's only been announced as an "upper-body concern" but with Skinner's concussion history and the number of hits he has been taking lately, it's easy to get really worried about this. 

Skinner is the second highest scorer on the team behind Eric Staal, so losing him would be a significant blow but even if he is out for more than a couple games, the Canes second line should be in decent shape because of the guy centering it, Jordan Staal. One of the reasons the Hurricanes traded for Staal in the first place is because he has shown the ability to carry almost every line he has centered for his entire career and do it while being matched up against opposing team's top lines. He was able to do this with the Penguins and he's been doing a fine job in that role with the Hurricanes so far.

For most of this season, he has been playing in a tough-minutes role alongside Jeff Skinner and Patrick Dwyer and this line has been the Canes best offensive unit in terms of producing scoring chances. The amount of offense they've been creating is actually surprising considering the type of assignments they've been receiving but Staal, Skinner and Dwyer have been getting the job done. I'm sure Skinner has played a big role in this but Staal's ability to drive the play forward at even strength has always been among the best in the league so there is no doubt that he is playing a big role in this line's success, too.

Taking Skinner off this line is going to obviously cause them to lose a lot of offense, but that doesn't mean it will become useless. Staal wasn't exactly blessed with playing with offensive juggernauts during his time with the Penguins as his most common linemates in Pittsburgh include the likes of Tyler Kennedy, Matt Cooke, Ruslan Fedotenko, Petr Sykora, Pascal Dupuis, Chris Kunitz and Max Talbot. None of those lines will strike fear into the hearts of opponents, but Staal was able to make most of them very effective (Sykora being the only one he struggled with) and they ended up being useful lines who could at least drive the play forward. What's to say that he can't succeed with someone like Patrick Dwyer, Jussi Jokinen, Jiri Tlusty, Zac Dalpe or even Drayson Bowman?

The Hurricanes obviously can't stick anyone with Staal and hope things work out because his linemates in Pittsburgh were talented and somewhat useful away from him. However, Staal has proven that he doesn't need a scorer on his wing to succeed, so the Hurricanes can probably get by with overslotting someone on the second line for now without crippling the team's offense.

Staal has been with Skinner for most of the year, but Muller shook things up a bit for the Tampa Bay game and put him with Jiri Tlusty and Patrick Dwyer while placing Skinner on a line with Jussi Jokinen. The Canes ended up losing 4-1 but Staal's play was not the reason why. They were actually very effective at driving the play forward, created four scoring chances as a unit and Staal was on-ice for six total chances throughout the game. They were also matched up with Steven Stamkos' line for most of the contest and completely held him in check.

I don't want to get carried away over one strong game, but Staal really played well that night and he was doing it without having a top-end talent on his line like he did in Pittsburgh. If he can continue to do that with someone like Dalpe, Dwyer or Bowman then the Hurricanes might be in good shape without Skinner. At the very least, they should be able to be a line that keeps the puck in the opponent's zone and creates scoring chacnes whenever they are on the ice.  The Hurricanes are going to be weaker offensively with Skinner out of the lineup and I'm not sure who will take over his minutes on the powerplay, but I'm confident that the second line will be fine as long as Jordan Staal is the one centering it. This might actually be a good test for him to see how much he can elevate the play off his linemates.

Over the last few months, I've discussed the importance of neutral zone play and tracking zone entries and today, we are finally going to take a look at how the Hurricanes are performing in that regard. Anybody who reads this blog already knows that I am a big follower of the statistical side of hockey and I've been tracking scoring chances for the Hurricanes (among other teams) for the past year or so. Scoring chances and shot-based metrics such as Corsi and Fenwick do a good job of showing which teams are controlling possession and tracking neutral zone play enhances this. 

Think of it this way one of the goals in hockey is to spend more time in your opponent's zone than not, and winning the battle in the neutral zone is a necessary step to accomplish that. Shot-based stats tell you who is spending the most time in their opponent's zone and making the most of their opportunities, but tracking zone entries and neutral zone play can build on this in a number of ways. Being able to control the neutral zone is what leads to teams having more extended time in their opponent's end and in turn, leads to more shots and goals against.

So how do we track neutral zone play? The process is very simple, we look at which players are entering the offensive zone and whether or not they are doing it with control of the puck. It's been shown in past studies that teams who enter the zone with possession are more likely to create shots and scoring chances than teams who just simply play dump-and-chase. Not that dumping the puck in is always bad, but it's essentially giving possession to the other team in most cases and getting the puck into the zone with possession usually leads to more offense, more goals and usually more wins. Tracking neutral zone performance can tell us which players help their teams win more by seeing which ones are the strongest at driving the play forward. It can also tell us who creates the most offense off of their entries, reveal why some players struggle to move the puck forward and who might be a passenger on their line.

I've been tracking zone entries for the Hurricanes and two other teams this season to help expand on this study and see which players are the strongest in terms of neutral zone play. I did this by re-watching every game this season and noting which players got the puck into the offensive zone and if they did it via carry-in, dump-in, pass, tip or another method. It's a simple but time consuming process that can reveal a lot of interesting things about many players and teams in the league.*

After the jump, we'll take a look at what the Hurricanes neutral play says about them and their players.

* I did not count dump-ins where players went off for a line change because the team is obviously not trying to create any offense off those.

There are some people who hate change and it's understandable. Going through changes is never easy for anyone, especially when something has been the same way for such a long time. That's just the way humans work and sometimes it's justified because change isn't always a good thing. In the case, however, change can lead to great things and the Carolina Hurricanes underwent a pretty massive change this off-season. They lost a key cog in Brandon Sutter but also gained a couple huge pieces in Jordan Staal and Alexander Semin.

No one knew whether or not these two players would work out for the Hurricanes but one thing we did know coming into this season was that we were going to see a completely different Hurricanes team. Not many knew how to respond to it. Some were worried, some were excited and some had no idea what to expect from this new-look team. As fans, it's been awhile since this club had made a few big splashes in the off-season and we had gotten used to the way this Hurricanes team had look for the last few years. A huge change like they had undergone this off-season obviously led to some skepticism by many people, myself included.

Despite that, it's hard to argue that some big changes were needed in the Hurricanes case. This club had missed the playoffs three years in a row, were consistently among the league's bottom-feeders in even strength play and were on track to be a lottery team before Maurice was fired in favor of Muller in Decemeber of 2011. Change was brought on the coaching front last year and we saw the player personnel moves to go along with it during the following off-season with the hope that they would change this team for the better.

There are a lot of things to like about this year's Hurricanes team. The offense is much better than it was last season, they have more depth and this team is a lot more fun to watch than last year's squad. The defense, however, has had it's share of problems and it's been very evident on the penalty kill. The Hurricanes penalty kill ranks third to last in the NHL, gives up more shots per 60 minutes than any other team in the league and has been partially responsible for at least three of the team's losses this season. There have also been a few games where the Canes PK has surrendered multiple goals, including last Monday's game where the Islanders tagged them for four goals.

Even strength play is often what dictates success in the NHL and while the Hurricanes have been good in that department, giving up a goal more than once every five times they are on the penalty kill can easily put a team in a hole. The Hurricanes are somewhat lucky to be in a good position now despite this terrible penalty kill when you think about it. The worst part of it is that their PK woes haven't been due to bad luck, they've been giving so many shots on the PK that they would still be ranked near the bottom of the league even if Cam Ward/Dan Ellis weren't posting a combined .825 save percentage.

An easy solution to a bad penalty kill is to stay out of the box, but I honestly think that penalties are unavoidable this season because the refs are calling basically anything borderline, so a better solution is to fix the penalty kill. How should the Hurricanes do that, though? They lost their best penalty killing defenseman in Bryan Allen and didn't replace him, so there isn't much they can do there with the current roster as far as the defense corps goes. They do have some fine defensive forwards and they should be able to help out, but it clearly hasn't been that way so far. 

After the jump, we'll take a look at some of the mistakes the Hurricanes penalty killers have been making, who some of the biggest offenders are and what can be done to fix it.

After yesterday's overtime loss to the Flyers, I did a quick Twitter poll to see what the general feeling was about Carolina's first ten games. There were a lot of mixed responses but the most common answers I got from fans were were "improving," "fun to watch" and "inconsistent." So the general consensus among fans seems to be that this team is heading in the right direction but they still have issues that they need to sort out before they get to where they want to be. Overall, there were more optimistic/hopeful responses than negative, so fans are a little more optimistic about this team.

Fans spirits appear to be higher than they were a year ago, which is why it might surprise some people that the Hurricanes also had 11 points after their first 10 games last season. Their records were very different as the Canes have won at least half of their games whereas last season they were only 4-3-3 and gained a few points from overtime/shootout losses. Their goal differential of -2 is also the same as it was after 10 games last year, which is pretty interesting because of how badly things unraveled after that point. 

The good news is that this team appears to be less in danger of falling off a cliff and out of the playoff race early like last year's squad was. Their goal differential might be the same as it was after ten games last year, but the Canes have done a much better job at controlling the shot battle, which should lead to more positive things if they can keep it up. More importantly, they are also a much stronger team when it comes to even strength play.

Score effects (i.e. playing from behind due to giving up the first goal) have obviously played a role in the Hurricanes high shot totals, but they are still producing a lot of offense and are controlling possession more often than not. The only time they struggled to do so for an entire game was against Ottawa this Thursday. It's also worth noting that the Canes are outscoring their opponents at even strength (granted, it's only by one goal) so their goal differential is beginning to match their play in that area of the game.

Last season, the Canes were getting plowed in the shot battle at even strength even during close games and the percentages eventually caught up to them, which resulted in a poor month of November. Will winning the shot battle lead to a stronger next ten games this season? That remains to be seen, but history suggests that it will. That being said, I'm expecting their shot percentage to decrease a bit over the next few weeks because it's unsustainably high right now at over 60%. Scoring chances also paint a positive picture with the Canes outchancing their opponents 147-132 at even strength through the first ten games. It's much stronger than where they were at this point last year and should hopefully lead to some more wins.

Aside from special teams, the big concern with this team is their defense. They have been able to produce enough offense to be a net positive overall, but they are still giving up over 30 shots per game and 18-19 chances...at even strength. It was kind of expected with the defense corps being over-populated with puck-moving defensemen and not enough shutdown-type players. This style of run-and-gun hockey is very fun to watch and probably more suited for this roster, but it puts a lot of strain on the goaltending and I'm not sure how successful it will be in the long-run.

I mentioned in a recap that the Hurricanes aren't going to be able to outscore their problems every night and they haven't been able to so far this year. Their team shooting percentage at 5v5 is only 6.6% so they are probably due for some regression there but overall point remains. That being said, the Canes first 10 games this season have me feeling somewhat confident about this team but there obviously some concerns and holes to fill. They're still playing well territorially and are due for some bounces to go their way, so I think Carolina finishes these next 10 games with a record above .500.

Most of the talk surrounding the Carolina Hurricanes right now is centered around how well some of their top forwards are playing right now. Eric Staal is off to his best start in quite some time, Alexander Semin has been producing well and so have both Jordan Staal and Jeff Skinner. The fact that these four are providing most of the offense is a good thing because the Hurricanes need them to produce if they are going to have a chance at the playoffs. They can't be the only ones producing, though because they are going to have off-nights and that's where the rest of the team needs to pitch in. So far, that hasn't been happening.

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that the Buffalo Sabres were going to run into trouble because they had one line doing basically all the work. The Hurricanes aren't too far off from being in that territory as their top-six has been on-ice for all but one even strength goal and their first line has produced about 36% of their total goals on the season. Again, it's good to see the top-six doing their job but not having much scoring depth is going to hurt the team eventually.

I made a few pie-graphs to show just how skewed Carolina's offense has been this year and it really illustrates how much the top-six is being leaned on, especially the first line.

One of the reasons why the Hurricanes acquired Jordan Staal this summer is because he is the type of player who can make the rest of your roster better. We've been over this hundreds of times before, but J. Staal's ability to drive the play and create offense despite playing the toughest minutes on the team allows Kirk Muller to free up some of his other lines to easier minutes. We've seen Muller utilize this strategy by giving Jordan Staal's line the majority of tough minutes while Eric Staal's line has gotten easier zone starts against secondary competition and the third line of Jussi Jokinen, Chad LaRose and Drayson Bowman have gotten some of the "easiest" assignments on the team.

In theory, this strategy makes a lot of sense because the Staal brothers are good enough to handle the toughs and Jokinen was able to efficiently move the puck forward last year in a similar, protected role. So far, one side of this plan has worked out well as Eric Staal's line has done a marvelous job of creating offense and scoring chances but the third line has struggled. One would think that Jokinen, LaRose and Bowman should be able to thrive in a third line role where they aren't being matched up the best that the opposing team has to offer but they haven't been getting the job done. No one on this line has a point yet this season and all three are on the losing end of the scoring chance battle at even strength.

The most alarming thing about their performance thus far is the fact that they haven't been able to push the play forward despite the easier assignments they've been receiving. That and they've been pretty brutal at both ends of the ice in terms of creating and preventing scoring chances.

Jamie McBain's goal on Monday night's game against the Boston Bruins was a bit of a milestone for the Hurricanes. Not only was it the young defenseman's first goal of the season, but it was also the first time all year that the Hurricanes scored in the first period. That's right, it took five games into the year for the Hurricanes to finally score in the first period and they've scored the opening goal only once in those five games, too.

Obviously, this is a very small sample size to work with and it could end up not meaning a lot in the big picture, but I think most Carolina fans would agree that this team has had a problem with slow starts this year. They've been outscored 1-8 in first periods this year and have spent the majority of three games battling back from holes that they dug themselves into. Just what is going wrong for the Canes at the beginning of games, though? Some might say that the team has a tendency to come out sleeping for the first ten minutes like they did in the Bruins game on Monday but getting into penalty trouble is what sunk them against the Florida Panthers on opening night.

Whatever the case is, the Hurricanes really need to start playing better in the opening 20 minutes because a poor start usually sets the tone for the rest of the game. I've mentioned before that the Hurricanes play at 5-on-5 has been pretty solid this year but it would mean a lot more if the team wasn't playing from behind for most of their games. Teams usually outshoot the opposition when they are playing from behind so Carolina having the advantage in shots and scoring chances during even strength play would mean a lot more if they were either tied or leading for most of their games.

Just what is the root of the problem for the Hurricanes in the first period, though? After the jump, we will take a look at how Carolina has played in the first 20 minutes compared to the rest of the game to see if we can find any answers.