Chad LaRose had to go through four leagues and five different teams before making it in the NHL, so he knows a thing or two about playing a lot of different roles. For the Hurricanes this year, LaRose was used in just about every different role you can imagine for a winger. He played on every line at least once, was a regular on the powerplay, killed penalties and was utilized in tough situations at times, too. The result? LaRose had a career high of 32 points, matched a career-best 19 goals and this was despite missing 15 games with an upper-body injury. LaRose has always been praised for being a versatile player and he showed that this season by effective in most of the roles he was assigned. The Hurricanes had a severe need of wingers who could produce offense this season while LaRose isn’t exactly an ideal top-six forward, he was able to help the Canes in many ways this season.

Players like LaRose are the kind of guys that a lot of teams have but that doesn’t mean that what they do isn’t important or beneficial. LaRose doesn’t have the best hands, he will probably never top 35 points in a season and is best suited for a third line role, but it is hard not to like what he does for this team and he was one of Carolina’s better forwards this season.

After the jump, we will review the ups and downs of LaRose’s season.

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Last week, I looked at the Goals Versus Threshold (GVS) values for each of the Hurricanes’ players this past season to see who was contributing and preventing the most goals compared to a replacement level player. In that article, I mentioned that I had some issues with the GVT formula (specifically for calculating defensive value) but I do see this as a useful way to evaluate some players when context is added. Hockey is too complex of a game to have one end-be-all statistic for a player, but metrics like GVT are a good start to judging a player’s value and we can use a player’s GVT value to determine many other things.

One of those is finding out how much a certain player is producing relative to his contract’s value. To do that, you would use a stat called "Goals Versus Salary" which compares a player’s GVT with what is expected from a player who is making the same amount of money. For instance, a player making $6 mil. per year is expected to produce more than someone who is making half that so judging a player’s performance compared to their salary makes sense for a team who is on a budget, like the Hurricanes.

The method to determine a player’s GVS value is actually pretty simple. What you do is you subtract the cost of a replacement level player (about $500k) from a player’s salary, multiply it by 2.2 and then subtract that from the player’s GVT value during that year. In the original formula, you would multiply it by three because GVS works by judging how a player should perform above replacement value. A team with 20 replacement level players would cost about $10 million, which would leave you with about $54.3 left in cap space under the current arrangement. The salary cap was lower when this formula was invented, so I decided to adjust it to reflect the current salary cap. Anyway, with the league average GVT being 120, each player is expected to contribute at least 2.2 goals per every $1 mil. they make under the current salary cap. This means that you would expect players making more money to produce more than someone making near the league minimum.

Jim Rutherford has done a pretty good job in his tenure of finding good bargains for his money, so understanding GVS is something that can really help out a team working with a budget like the Hurricanes. After the jump, we will look at which players gave the Hurricanes the most bang for their buck.

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At the beginning of the season, the Hurricanes had nine active defensemen on the roster which meant that certain players had to perform well to stay in the lineup. One of those players was 29 year-old defenseman Jay Harrison. Harrison spent most of the 2010-11 season as a depth/third pairing defenseman and many thought that he could end up being a waiver wire victim with the Hurricanes blue line being so crowded. Little did we know that Harrison would end up not only staying on the team for the entire year, but have a career season and regularly play in the Hurricanes’ top four, as well.

Harrison set career highs all across the board and was a nice story for the Hurricanes this season, but the question going around everyone’s minds is whether or not he would be a top-four defenseman on a contending team. My opinion of him before this year was that he was a good depth defenseman, but I was unsure of how he would perform in a tougher role. Well, he found that out this year as the Hurricanes really tested his limits. He played about 20 minutes a night, was used on both the powerplay and penalty kill and regularly faced tough competition alongside rookie Justin Faulk.

His performance this season marked a big improvement from the previous two years but Harrison ceiling is only so high and that was proven this year as he could only do so much while playing in the top-four.

After the jump, we will take a closer look at Harrison’s season, examining both the ups and downs.

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No one else on the Hurricanes had an experience like Justin Faulk did in the year 2011. If winning the NCAA Championship with the University of Minnesota-Duluth last April wasn’t enough, Faulk signed his pro contract less than a week later and participated in the AHL playoffs. After impressing many people at training camp and the Traverse City tournament, Faulk made the Hurricanes opening night roster and played top-four minutes right off the bat. He was sent down after three games but was recalled later in November and managed to stay on the team permanently. It’s hard to believe that Faulk turned only 20 years old in late March because he’s gained so much experience already.

When the Hurricanes drafted Faulk in 2010, they knew they were getting a good player and most scouts projected him to be an offensive defenseman who was probably a few years away from being NHL ready. What they probably didn’t see coming was Faulk playing 20+ minutes a night, contributing on both special teams units and being a possible candidate for the Calder Trophy. Oh, and Faulk managed to do all of this despite being a teenager for most of the season.

In a year that was mostly full of downs for the Hurricanes, Faulk was a great story and one of the team’s bright spots. After the jump, we are going to take a closer look at Faulk’s season and examine his strengths as well as his flaws.

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Defensive forwards are often the most under-appreciated players on most teams. What they do usually doesn’t show up in highlight reels or the scoresheet, but they play important roles on the team despite that. Patrick Dwyer, in particular, plays a very important role on the Hurricanes and some of the toughest minutes in the NHL. Although this probably isn’t news to those who are fans of the Hurricanes and watch most of their games, because there is a good chance that they know what Dwyer does and how his contributions help the team. How well does he play this role, though?

This season, Dwyer was Carolina’s best defensive forward and the key word there is "defensive." Dwyer is a great skater and plays a very sound and responsible game in his own end, which makes him a perfect fit for the team’s third line with Brandon Sutter. He actually played more minutes than he ever has before in the NHL, mainly because he logged a lot of time on the penalty kill and was trusted with top-nine minutes regularly. However, Dwyer’s offensive upside (or lack-there-of) make it difficult for him to become anything more than a third-liner in the NHL.

We’re going to take a closer look at Dwyer’s season after the jump.

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With advanced stats in hockey growing by the second, there have been a number of new metrics devised to judge and predict player performance. One of the most popular is Goals Versus Threshold (GVT) which measures how many goals a player is worth compared to a replacement level player. This stat was developed by the people at Hockey Prospectus and is broken down into three different parts: Offensive GVT, Defensive GVT and Shootout GVT. All three areas are looked at because the point of GVT is to find out who is contributing the most to wins. Goals lead to wins, so it is necessary to look at a player’s performance outside of his goal, point & plus/minus total. Goaltending is also looked at, but that is a completely different system.

A closer look at GVT and how the Hurricanes players performed by this stat is coming after the jump.

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In an effort to improve the team's fourth line and performance at the face-off circle, GM Jim Rutherford decided to sign Tim Brent to a two-year deal which had a very low cap hit of $750k. Brent was coming off a solid season with the Toronto Maple Leafs and the thought was that he would help give the Hurricanes' fourth line some structure, possibly help their penalty kill and win a few face-offs. Brent ended up helping in only one of those three areas, but he contributed in a lot of other different ways, some of which not many expected.

Brent played on the fourth line for the majority of the season, but he also saw ample time on the powerplay and posted a career high 12 goals and 24 points. For someone who regularly plays fourth line minutes, that is very good and surpassed a lot of the expectations people had for Brent this season. Brent actually was a key part of the second powerplay unit being very effective playing the point there and it showed a side of his game that not many knew he had. He is expected to continue playing his role as the fourth-line center throughout next season but what are the chances that he has another year like this one? We will explore that issue and take a closer look at Brent's season after the jump.

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We are continuing our analysis of the Hurricanes season that was by going down the roster and today's subject is the team's first round pick from 2008, Zach Boychuk. I am sure that I'm not the only one who was hoping that this would be the season that Boychuk would blossom into a full-time NHL-er. With Erik Cole leaving and roster spots open, he had a good chance of at least making the team out of camp or being being called up sometime later in the season. Alas, played only 16 games with the Hurricanes this year and there are questions on whether or not he will be qualified next month or be granted RFA status.

There isn't a lot to write about what Boychuk did with the Hurricanes this season because his time in Raleigh was shorter than some of Joni Pitkanen's shifts, but there is plenty of talk about in regards to Boychuk's future with the organization. At 22, he is still growing as a player and had another solid season in Charlotte, but the fans and front office's patience with him is beginning to wear thin. After the jump, we will discuss what Boychuk did this year, what the future holds for him and whether or not it will be with the Hurricanes.

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Shot blocking is something that is always fawned upon by media members as a vital skill to have if you want to go far. The recent playoff series between the Rangers and Capitals has magnified this point since both teams have limited the opposition's scoring chances by crowding up the areas in front of the net and not allowing any shots to get through. No one will doubt the importance of shot blocking, especially for teams who aren't good at controlling possession. It provides a way for a team to possibly make up for not having forwards capable of driving the play at a high rate and make things easier on their goaltenders. However, teams who block a lot of shots do have their issues.

Teams that end up blocking a lot of shots usually means that they are spending most of their time in their own zone, which isn't a good thing. If you were to look at the top shot blocking team's in the league, you'll probably notice that most of them aren't exactly good at driving possession. Another thing you will notice is that seven of the top ten teams in the NHL missed the playoffs, as well. It shows that while shot blocking is very important, it should be the only thing that is relied on to win games.

With that in mind, shot blocking is often used to judge how good a player is defensively but there are a lot of times when a team's leading shot blocker just ends up being on ice for a lot of shots against and is forced to get in the way of a lot of them. A better way to find out who is the best at shot blocking is to see how many shot attempts a player was on ice for and see what percentage of them he blocked. Thanks to Derek Zona and George Ays, we can do that. Although, there aren't many surprises with Carolina's players.

More after the jump

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One of my favorite players to analyze this year has been Carolina's young defenseman Jamie McBain. When I say that, I mean that his season has been a pretty wild ride and following it has been interesting to say the least. He may have been in the press box on opening night, but over the year, he was used in just about every role on the defense corps. McBain spent a lot of his time playing in both the top-four and the third-pariing while contributing to both special teams units, which showed how versatile he is at such a young age. His performance in these roles, however, is what made this season such a roller coaster for him.

Statistically speaking, McBain had a decent year with 8 goals and 27 points, which is three fewer than he had last year but still solid for a defenseman. McBain also had the highest even strength scoring chance ratio among Carolina defensemen who were on the team for the entire season, which looks like an impressive feat at first glance but you have to dig a little deeper to see why McBain was seemingly able to outperform most of the defense this year. McBain had a solid year overall, but I think some of the credit for his success should be attributed to both Kirk Muller and Jaroslav Spacek, which is something to keep in mind when it comes time to renew his contract in a couple months.

I have little to no doubt that McBain will be qualified and retained, but where he fits in the lineup next season is something that is up in the air. Find out why after the jump.

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Continuing our look at the individual performances from the Carolina Hurricanes players last season, we move onto one of the team's more impressive call-ups from Charlotte, Drayson Bowman. There were some people, myself included, who thought that Bowman had a decent shot to make the Hurricanes out of camp but he would start the season in Charlotte and was eventually called up in November. After not making much of an impression in his first call-up, Bowman would get another shot in mid-December where he was immediately given top-six minutes and had an impressive two goal performance against the Vancouver Canucks.

Bowman would go the next 22 games without scoring a goal and spent most of the month of January in the AHL but he did a lot of good things away from the puck and was impressive enough for the coaching staff to play him in 37 games while giving him top-nine minutes. He settled into a third line role with Brandon Sutter toward the end of the year and made a strong case to be on the Hurricanes to start next season. Similar things were said about him at the end of last season, but he appears to have found a role on this team and the fact that he scored a little bit should help, as well.

After the jump, we will review the ups and downs of Bowman's season and discuss whether or not he will find a permanent spot on the Hurricanes next season.

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One factor of the game of hockey that is mentioned sometimes but isn't talked about a lot is the role of luck and variance. Watch any game and you will probably see a player get a perfect shot or scoring chance away only to have it stopped by the goaltender or go off the goalpost. Sometimes a player will miss the net completely despite being in perfect position. Things like this happen fairly often and when they do, you will probably hear a fan or commentator say say "that's just unlucky" or something similar shortly after. Most people talk about how these bad bounces happen from an individual standpoint, but what about over the course of an entire season?

Goals, points and plus/minus are the usual metrics used to judge a player's performance, but if you were to take a look at a certain player's scoring stats and plus/minus over the course of a few seasons, you will probably notice that they tend to bounce around a lot. This is mostly because goals for and against are a result of factors that might be out of a player's control and goal scoring patterns usually come in streaks. I mentioned earlier how the most a player can do is get into a good position to create a scoring chance and the rest is up to the goaltender. The shot might also go off the goal-post or miss the net completely, we saw plenty of that in game 4 of the Predators-Coyotes series last night.

An example within the Hurricanes is the season Jussi Jokinen had in 2009-10 when he scored 30 goals. Expecting this kind of production from him every season isn't fair or reasonable because he shot at 18.8% that year, which is a pretty high shooting percentage, especially compared to his career average of 13.2%. He did spent most of that year playing as a winger on a line with Eric Staal, so that partially explains his high goal total but luck also played a huge role because a shooting percentage that high is going to come down to Earth no matter how good you are. On the flipside, Jokinen shot at only 10.2% this year which is pretty low for him and he had only 12 goals a result, his lowest total in awhile. Keeping in mind that Jokinen was one of Carolina's better possession players at even strength, it is fair to say that he got a bit unlucky this season and is better than his goal total indicates.

A similar concept applies with plus/minus. This stat is usually determined to figure out who is good and bad defensively when it really isn't the best way to go. Remember, every skater that was on ice for a goal is given a plus or minus, even if they weren't involved with the play at all. Let's pretend that a defenseman is on ice for two goals against and both of them were incredibly soft goals that the goaltender usually stops. That defenseman would be charged with a -2 and will have a "bad game" in most people's viewpoints because of that but in reality, there was nothing he could do about either goal that was scored. This is why I usually look at shot metrics before goals for/against stats to judge a player's overall performance. There's just too much luck/variance involved in these stats.

One way to see how big of a role luck had in a player's season is to look at a stat called PDO. This sounds like some big, complex stat with a complicated formula but it is only the sum of a player's on-ice shooting percentage and on-ice save percentage at even strength. The average is considered 1, 100 or 1,000 depending on what numbers you use and a player's PDO is expected to regress back to that point no matter how high or low it is. PDO usually has the biggest impact on a player's plus/minus rating more than anything since it looks at on-ice shooting and save percentages but it can be look at on a team level to help explain certain hot and cold streaks.

For instance, the Los Angeles Kings are surprising a lot of people this post-season with how they eliminated the Canucks in five games and are now one game away from eliminating the St. Louis Blues as an eight seed, but they have actually been a good team all year, just unlucky. Sometimes legitimately bad teams maintain a low PDO all season but the Kings have been controlling shots and scoring chances at even strength all season, they've just fell victim to bad shooting luck for most of the season. The addition of Jeff Carter and simple regression to the mean has played a role in them turning things around at the best time possible.

Now that I've gotten the theory and statistical mumbo jumbo out of the way, let's take a look at how luck has effected some players on the Hurricanes this season. Something we'll do after the jump.

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It is that time of the year again. The season is over and the excitement of the off-season is just around the corner. From the sound of things, GM Jim Rutherford plans to be somewhat active in the free agent market this year and it's gotten a lot of people curious about what moves he will make. Before we talk about signing free agents, we are going to evaluate the performance of their roster players from this year. This will give us a better idea of where the Canes' strengths and weaknesses are and what holes they will need to fill this summer. We are going to start things off with someone who may not be in Carolina next year in Bryan Allen.

Allen was acquired at the 2011 trade deadline from the Florida Panthers in exchange for Sergei Samsonov's expiring contract and he has slowly emerged as one of their better blue-liners since then. He spent most of this season on a defense pairing with Tim Gleason and the two became Carolina's go-to shutdown defense pairing. Allen was brought into be a solid stay-at-home defenseman who could play top-four minutes and he did his job for the most part this season.

This should be an interesting off-season for Allen because his contract expires in July and it is up to the Hurricanes to decide whether or not they want him back. The question is how much is Allen worth and the Hurricanes afford to give him that? After the jump, we will examine this issue and take a closer look at this past season for Allen.

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Context is something that all sports statisticians look to achieve but have yet to find a perfect method for doing so. Hockey stats in particular are tough to judge based on raw data alone. There are so many players who are used in different situations and every stat must be taken with a grain of salt. This is especially true for shot-based metrics like Corsi (even strength shots attempted) and scoring chances. A player who starts a majority of his shifts in the defensive zone is going to be on ice for more shots and scoring chances against no matter what because he starts so many shifts in his own end. The same can be said for a player who is regularly matched up against tougher competition, only to a lesser extent if they are given a territorial advantage.

Take a player like Brandon Sutter for instance. He plays tougher minutes than most players in the league and has a raw scoring chance percentage of 44.5%. That looks very bad at first glance, but what would his numbers look like if he started more than 34.8% of his shifts in the defensive zone? Thanks to the outstanding work of George Ays from Blueshirt Banter, we can adjust player's scoring chance ratings to see what they would look like on a level playing field.

Using scoring chance data from teams who are currently being tracked, Ays figured out that every extra start in the offensive zone a player has is worth 0.425 in scoring chances. Using this model, we can figure out what the Hurricanes players' scoring chance numbers look like adjusted for zone starts. What we are going to do is look at each player's zone start data from Behind The Net to see how many extra shifts he begins in the offensive zone. Using that, we get an adjustment number and apply it to the player's even strength scoring chance differential. A breakdown of this data is coming after the jump.

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News & Observer beat writer Chip Alexander broke the news earlier this evening that the Hurricanes have re-signed 24-year old forward Jiri Tlusty to a two-year contract extension. The deal has a cap hit of approximately $1.6 mil. and will pay Tlusty $1.5 mil. next season and $1.7 mil. the year after.

Tlusty is a former first round draft pick of the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 2006 draft and has been a solid member of the Hurricanes ever since the was acquired in a trade involving Philippe Paradis in late 2009. He spent his first couple of years in Carolina in the bottom-six but found a home on the top line with Eric Staal last season after having a breakout campaign. Tlusty finished the season with career highs in goals and points (17 and 36 respectively) and proved to be a huge bargain for the $525,000 he was making at the time.

He managed to turn this career year into a well-deserved contract extension and will look to stay in Carolina's top-six next season.

The statement from the team follows the jump.

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One bright spot for the Carolina Hurricanes this season has been the emergence of rookie defenseman Justin Faulk. At only 19 years of age, Faulk played top-four minutes on the Hurricanes defense corps and didn't need to be sheltered from tough competition. His development has occurred at a much quicker pace than anyone could have expected and it's gotten a lot of fans excited about his future. Some even say that he should have been the finalist for the Calder Trophy, which I do agree with.

The fact that Faulk was playing 20-25 minutes a night at such a young age is impressive enough, but I was a bit skeptical of his performance. If you look back to my statistical review of the Hurricanes season, you'll see that Faulk wasn't winning the battle at even strength because he was giving up a lot of scoring chances. That is a cause for concern but I don't think it's too alarming given Faulk's age. He only just turned 20, so I don't expect his game to be fully polished yet, but even strength play wasn't the area where Faulk shined this season, it has actually been special teams.

Even strength is usually the best way to measure a team or a player's performance, but special teams also play a big role, and whenever the Hurricanes were on the powerplay or the penalty kill, Faulk was arguably their best player. We will look into this after the jump.

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One area of hockey that is growing is the development of more in-depth statistical analysis and how widely these stats are being used by bloggers, media members and certain team's front offices. Stats like goals, assists, points, hits and plus/minus are what usually carry the most weight when it comes to judging a player, but factors such as luck and variance show that these stats shouldn't be the only things that are looked at.

With more information being available to the public through game play-by-play sheets on NHL.com and web sites like Behind The Net, everyone can look into the many different factors that play into the game of hockey and how much we can find out about a certain player's performance through them. Through these stats, we can find out things like how many shots a player attempts in a game, what kind of situation he is playing in, how much he is doing to generate offense and whether or not a bad season could have been due to luck.

This part of the game is still a work in progress and there are still a lot of kinks to be worked out, but there is definitely a lot you can discover about a team or a player when you look at some of the more in-depth metrics that are out there. Names like "Corsi," "Fenwick" and "QualComp" might be off-putting at first, but they are pretty easy to understand once you look into them.

These stats are something I specialize in on my blog Shutdown Line, and I will be sharing a lot of this information here on Canes Country. After the jump, I am going to explain some of these stats and apply them to the Carolina Hurricanes most recent season.

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One of my favorite things to do is dive into the more statistical side of sports and sites like Football Outsiders and Pro Football Focus have helped make this side of the game more popular on the Internet. One of the things they look at is defensive coverage stats which show how many times a certain player was targeted by the opposing quarter back and how well they performed against them in terms of how many yards, first downs and touch downs they gave up. I can't seem to find this data anywhere on the site for individual games, so I thought it would be a good idea to track today's game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and post it here so that the information is available.

The Panthers have had a porous defense for most of the season and it's largely due to injuries in the secondary and linebacking corps and things didn't get any better in this game with Charles Godfrey and Captain Munnerlyn inactive. Due to that, I thought it would be interesting to see how guys like Darius Butler, RJ Stanford and Jonathan Nelson performed in starting roles so we can get a better idea of who is more likely to stick around next season. It's tough to make judgments on a player from just one game but I thought this would be a good starting point and something that we could possibly expand on. I think most of us have a good idea of who the best and worst players on the team are in terms of pass coverage, but going more in-depth and exploring the stats can unveil some things we might overlook while watching the game.

Without further ado, we'll take a look at those stats from yesterday's game against the Bucs after the jump

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Hey everyone, my name is Corey Sznajder and I run the Carolina Hurricanes blog Shutdown Line. One of the main things I do there is look at the statistical side of the game and one of the newest tools going around the blogosphere are "OZ-QoC Charts" or "OZ Coke" for short. What this does is provide an easy-to-use graph that shows how coaches are using a player and how they are performing in that role.

The method is pretty simple, but a little difficult to explain so bare with me here. To show this we plot a player's offensive zone start percentage (x-axis), which is the percentage of shifts he has started in the offensive zone, against his corsi relative to quality of competition (y-axis) to show how tough his assignments are. Players who are taking on the toughest assignments will likely be found in the upper left hand part of the graph because they are taking most of their draws in the defensive zone and are facing tough competition. Those who get easier assignments will be found in the lower right hand section of the graph because they start more of their draws in the offensive zone against weak competition.

To show performance, I used a bubble graph for each player with the size of the bubble showing their corsi relative, which gauges how much they are driving possession compared to their teammates. The bubbles are also color coded to show if they have a positive (blue) or negative (red) corsi relative. If they have a large blue bubble, then they are driving play well and they are doing the exact opposite if they have a large red bubble.

I do this weekly for my Hurricanes report card and made graphs for the rest of the Southeast division since I think this kind of stuff should be spread around the league. This isn't the easiest to explain but it makes sense when it's put into action. Check out Robert Vollman's post at Hockey Prospectus for more information.

Without further ado, let's see how Guy Boucher's been deploying his forwards and defensemen this year.

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Hello, everyone. My name is Corey Sznajder and I run the Carolina Hurricanes blog, Shutdown Line. One thing I've been doing over there is monitoring how our coaches have been using the players over the course of the year. To do this, I've been using "OZ "Coke" Charts," which have been circulating all over the hockey blogosphere this season. What these charts do is provide a simple, easy-to-use graph that shows which situations players are being used in.

To do this we, take a player's offensive zone start percentage (x-axis) and plot it against a player's corsi relative to quality of competition (y-axis). A player that's getting less offensive zone starts and is put against tough competition is likely in that role because the coach trusts him for his defense. So, if we have a player that's in the top left part of the graph, it means that he's been receiving the toughest assignments on the team. It's a little complex at first but once they are put into context, things make a lot more sense. For more information on this, check out Robert Vollman's feature on OZ "Coke" Charts at Hockey Prospectus.

Like I mentioned earlier, I've been monitoring this for the Hurricanes all season but I also like to see how other coaches utilize their forwards and decided to make graphs for every team in the Southeast and after the jump, we'll take a look at how Kevin Dineen's been using his forwards and defensemen this year.

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The last few weeks, Behind The Net has been analyzing every team’s defense corps using time on ice data. What they’ve been looking at is how much a defenseman has played at even strength, on the powerplay and shorthanded to see which defenseman is used in certain situations. It is one way to look at which players can be considered "shutdown defensemen," "powerplay specialists" and which ones can do it all. Another thing they are looking at is how a certain player’s role changed over the course of the season due to injuries or trades. I decided to take a look at the Washington Capitals defense using their method. Of course, having 9-10 lines bunched together on one graph can make things difficult to read, so to fix that they broke down the defensemen into two groups; "Mainstays" and "Movers and Shakers." Mainstays are ones whose roles stayed consistent all season and "movers and shakers" are ones who changed over time.

Going into this season, defense was a major concern for the Caps. Some thought they would be the first in line to sign someone like Anton Volchenkov or Dan Hamhuis last July to help gain a "shutdown defenseman" which it appeared they needed at the time. Instead, GM George McPhee elected to put trust in younger players like Karl Alzner and John Carlson to help shore up the defense. That move payed off as Alzner and Carlson saw the toughest competition on the team and were very effective in shutting them down. However, injuries plagued the Caps defense corps for most of the year. Mike Green missed time with a shoulder injury in October and had multiple concussions later in the year, Tom Poti only played in 21 games and Jeff Schultz was out for nearly the entire month of December. McPhee did take action at the beginning of December by trading for Colorado’s Scott Hannan to help give the Caps more depth on the blue-line and he helped give Washington a veteran, stay-at-home defenseman which they needed. Also kept less effective players like Brian Fahey and Tyler Sloan from seeing a lot of ice-time. However, with Green and Poti missing almost the last three months of the seasons, the Caps lacked a puck-mover on the blue line which resulted in the team trading for Dennis Wideman who gave the Caps just what they needed. Unfortunately, a horrifying case of hematoma caused him to miss the playoffs which proved to be a big loss, especially when it came to the Capitals powerplay. The good news? There’s still a lot of depth here next season but injuries seem to plague the Caps defense corps at the worst times possible (i.e. April/the playoffs). Also, Washington has seven defensemen under contract and Karl Alzner and Scott Hannan aren’t one of them. However, I think it’s a given that they re-sign Alzner but Hannan is another story. If the team wants to keep Hannan, then I could someone like Poti traded but that’s another matter for another day. For now, let’s take a look at how each defenseman was used:

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I thought I would expand on my balanced corsi post  and use it for other teams, so I included it in this scouting report I made for the Caps series against the Rangers.

Quick Facts:
16th in goals per game
5th in goals allowed per game
18th ranked powerplay
10th ranked penalty kill
+.5 shot differential
Record vs. Washington: 3-1-0
Clear Victory Record: 18-12
Leading goal scorer: Brandon Dubinsky (24 goals)
Leading point getter: Brandon Dubinsky (54 points)

Most Caps fans probably know the Rangers well already since we’ve faced them a lot of times over the years and in the playoffs two years ago where they gave us quite a scare in the first round. We also know them as the team that shut out and embarrassed us twice this season, once on home ice and once on the road. I’ll have a post on the season series a little later but for now, let’s examine our opponent for the next couple weeks.

The Rangers have had a very "up-and-down" season this year and it’s evidenced by Blueshirt Banter’s look at their scoring chances in 2010-11. Sometimes, you’ll get the team that lit the Caps and Flyers up  for 6+ goals and other nights you’ll get the team that was shut out by Atlanta. It’s hard to predict what exactly will happen but I’m sure most of us know that this Rangers team is very dangerous when they are clicking.

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via d.yimg.com

I’m sure many of you are familiar with corsi numbers but if you aren’t here’s a brief summary; It works in the same way that the plus/minus system does only it uses shots instead of goals. For instance, if John Carlson is on the ice while 14 shots directed at the opponent’s net and 12 were directed at his own, he would have a corsi rating of 2. However, one problem with corsi rating is that it doesn’t bring context into the system. Players who take a lot of defensive zone draws are going to have low corsi ratings because well, they spend a lot of time in their own zone. Manny Malhotra having 75% of his starts coming in the defensive zone being a good example of this. This is where balanced corsi is nice.

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It’s a frustrating time for Washington Capitals fans right now with how the team is under performing. So, I thought it would be a fun idea to take a look at how some of the recent former Capitals are doing to lighten the mood a little. I’m only going back the past two seasons since I didn’t want to make this post too lengthy. I'll also see if the team is better off with them gone or not. The folks at Nucks Misconduct deserve credit for the idea.

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With the Panthers not in the playoffs, I was wonder who everyone was bandwagoning this season. I was riding the Ravens bandwagon for the playoffs but they’re eliminated now. So, I’m stuck with a bit of a conundrum here as I don’t know who to root for of the remaining four teams. I thought it would be a fun idea to go through the teams and weigh the pros and cons of each one from a Panthers fan’s point of view.

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While the offense was a complete disaster for the Carolina Panthers in 2010, the defense wasn’t too awful. With Julius Peppers gone, there were bound to be problems with the pass rush, and there were. The whole unit only produced 30 sacks (T-17th in the NFL) for the season and 11.5 of them came from DE Charles Johnson. While that was a problem all season, the bigger problem was their inability to stop the run. They allowed an average of 125.5 rushing yards per game (23rd in the NFL) and while that doesn’t seem too abysmal on paper, it is when you watch running backs like Marshawn Lynch and Carnell Williams have big games against your team. It’s even scarier what good running backs did to them. The Panthers being very thin at defensive tackle had a lot to do with this but their solid linebacking corps kept things from getting too ugly. The pass defense wasn’t too awful. 11th in the league in yards given up and 17 INT’s forced. However, they also allowed 17 passing TD’s. The defense would also spend the majority of every game on the field due to the offense being ineffective and they became worn down faster and gave up very long drives to other team’s offenses. Let’s go and single out some players now, shall we?

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Before talking about next season, I'm going to review and grade the position players for the Carolina Panthers to identify where the major holes on this team are. Today I'll do the offense, tomorrow I'll do the defense and special teams. I got the idea from the Buccaneers blog on here.

The root of the problem for Carolina this season starts with their offense. They were dead last in the league in just about every category except for rushing. You can’t win when you score an average of 12.7 points per game and turn the ball over 35 times in a season. The offense having numerous three and outs led to the defense being on the field too long and being worn out by the end of the game. It was a perfect storm for the Panthers offense, really. Three young QB’s on the roster, terrible playcalling, bad pass protection, injuries and an inexperienced receiving corps. It’s really no surprise that this team had the worst offense in the league even with two stud running backs.

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I thought this would be a fun idea. Even in a rough season like the Panthers just had, there were still a few positives. Sure, we only had 2 wins but there were plenty of moments which made fans jump out of their chairs and get excited. Unfortunately, there weren’t a lot of those so weeding out a top 10 was somewhat easy and difficult at the same time. It was easy to narrow down the big plays because I remembered most of them when they happened. It was difficult because I had to lower my standards a little bit of what qualifies as one. Anyway, here are 10 great plays from the Carolina Panthers 2-14 season.

10. Mike Goodson’s 26 yard TD run vs. Cleveland

Goodson’s been a pleasant surprise for the Panthers this year as he’s done a nice job of filling in for the injured DeAngelo Williams. This is him basically doing what he usually does which is "hitting the hole" (thanks Torry Holt) and finding gaps in the defense and bursting through them. This 26-yard gallop got the Panthers on the board against Cleveland on their first drive. Definitely one of the nicer offensive plays we’ve seen from the Panthers this year. Also up for consideration was his 30+ yard desperation run off a screen pass during the Panthers last drive in the same game.

9. Greg Hardy’s blocked punt vs. New York Giants

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a video clip of this but it was a great play by the rookie defensive end and one of the few bright spots in this ugly game to start off the season. Hardy was considered to be  a "steal" in the draft for the Panthers and he’s definitely played very well when he’s been given time. 30 tackles and 3 sacks for him on the season. That and this nice play.

8. Sherrod Martin’s interception off John Skelton vs. Arizona

Surprised that Martin only ended up with one INT on the year (even more surprised that Charles Godfrey had 5) but this was a very nice one. He saw an overthrown pass from Arizona QB John Skelton, intercepted it and returned it inside the 20 yard line. This play also set up a Carolina TD. Another nice play from him was him forcing a Lance Moore fumble against New Orleans at the goal line. I almost put that on the list but thought this play was better.

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