NHL analysis

Major Additions: Jeff Hamilton, Matt Cullen

Major Subtractions: Josef Vasicek, Shane Willis

Analysis

Oh how the mighty have fallen. The Hurricanes stood mostly still over the summer, despite missing the playoffs by a healthy 3 spots (if only 4 points) when far more is expected of the team. Of course, they did very little the summer after winning the Stanley Cup and went almost instantly from elite to ordinary-at-best.

The Hurricanes need three things to happen if they want any success this year: first and most importantly, they need Cam Ward to have a better year (neither John Grahame nor Michael Leighton is a suitable solution should he falter).

Second, Eric Staal needs to regain the form that saw him net 100 points a few years ago. Rod Brind’Amour is best used as a second line centre.

Third, the ‘Canes need a better performance from their blueline. A healthy Frantisek Kaberle will help; however, their deep but stud-less defence either needs an unexpected star to show up (unlikely) or needs to collectively outperform their expectations.

I just don’t see it. Cam Ward to me is the Achilles heel of the team, and I don’t see them improving in that area anytime soon. They have fewer than $5 million in cap space with which to add to the team and have a number of their key players (including three of their top five defencemen) heading for unrestricted free agency next summer. Difficult decisions approach, particularly if the team finds itself on the bubble of the playoff picture nearing the trade deadline. Do they move proven performers like the woefully underpaid Cory Stillman or do they attempt to add to their roster?

The Hurricanes had better start deciding who they wish to keep and who they can afford to lose, because they are likely to be a bubble team for most of the season.

For all those (myself very much included) who complain about the scheduling format of the NHL, there are times when it is obvious the guys in charge got at least some parts of it sooooo right.

As of right this instant, it’s looking like the playoff race in the East is down to two teams - Toronto and Montreal - fighting for the 8th spot.  The Hurricanes and Islanders are all but finished while the Rangers and Lightning have all but clinched their spots.  Carolina and Long Island sit 4 points out of 8th with 4 games each left to play, and they would have to jump over both Toronto and Montreal to get in.

Once you’re convinced that it’s more or less a two horse race, take a peak at the schedule.  Look ahead about one week, to April the 7th.  What’s that?  Montreal in Toronto?  Damn straight!

I’m already looking forward to next Saturday night.

If you look at the very bottom of the page, you’ll see that I have installed Spam Karma.  It was like someone flipped on a light switch this morning: I’ve had more spam comments today than in the past month.  If you post a comment and it doesn’t appear, please send me an email (nhlanalysis@gmail.com) and I’ll do my best to rectify it immediately.

On hockey related news: the Hurricanes just might be done.  Back to back losses to the Leafs and Flyers, combined with a collapse in goal (recently injured Cam Ward was yanked in two straight games then benched for tonight’s loss to the worst team in the NHL).  Odds are they intended him to sit this game anyways, but now it appears - true or not - that the team has lost confidence in Ward.  Turning to John Grahame remains a dubious choice, at best.

Given the tightness of the race, this is just the sort of collapse no team can survive.  They’ve still got time to bounce back, but not much time.

Here’s a look at the Eastern Conference race for the final three playoff spots, in order of least likely to most likely to make the playoffs (ordered by using my Predicted Final Standings as of March 20, 2007):

Boston is all but finished.  They sit with 73 points, 11 games left, with by far the toughest schedule of any of the teams fighting for a spot.  The weakest team that Boston plays is Montreal (three times in fact).  The best Boston can hope for is to play spoiler (two wins against Montreal would help the teams above them quite a bit).

Florida is further out but has a very slightly higher chance.  They have 73 points but only 10 games to play.  They get the bonus of playing Philadelphia and Washington, as well as Atlanta, Tampa Bay (twice) and Carolina (twice).  Given their strong play since the trade deadline, Florida remains a long shot but not out of the question.

Montreal is tied with two teams at 78 points, but they’ve played one game more than Toronto and two more than the Islanders.  They’ve been in a tailspin since December that only got worse when their starting goaltender was injured.  Three games against Boston is Montreal’s only remaining hope - anything less than a full sweep of those games would all but eliminate the Habs all on their own.  Montreal also has two remaining games against the Rangers and close the season in Toronto, so even if Montreal isn’t in the playoffs they will have a huge say in who is.

New York Islanders face a goaltending dilemma as long as Rick DiPietro is injured.  The good news is that he looks set to return.  The bad news is in his absence the Islanders went from being solidly in the playoffs to fighting for their lives.  Their schedule difficulty ranks in the middle of the pack, easier than Tampa Bay, Toronto and Boston but harder than Florida, Montreal, Carolina or the Rangers.  Ryan Smyth has had more of an impact on the Oilers (no victories since he left) than on the Islanders since the deadline.

Toronto has struggled in games they ’should’ win and done better than expected in games they should have trouble with.  With a schedule more difficult than any team in this race except for the Bruins, the Leafs are likely to fall short.  In another week this should be decided - two games against Buffalo and one against New Jersey don’t leave much room for error.  The games that follow against Carlina, the Islanders and Montreal will only be important if they don’t drop out of the picture before they get there.

Tampa Bay should be solidly in the playoffs but they are not.  How much longer will the Lightning stand behind Tortorella’s “encouragement” tactics of his goaltenders?  Tampa has a pretty tough schedule but they have the largest margin for error, leading this pack of players and even within striking distance of third by catching Atlanta (not likely given the Thrashers’ play since the trade deadline).

New York Rangers have been the only solid team in this race over recent games, due almost exclusively to the play of Henrik Lundqvist.  If that trend continues the Rangers will easily slip into the playoffs, possibly as high as 6th place.  If Lundqvist stumbles, even having (by far) the easiest remaining schedule in this race won’t save the team.  The best team the Rangers have left to play are the Penguins.  Their numerous games against teams in the race include the Islanders (twice), Montreal (twice) and Leafs.  That many “4 point” games could swing things in almost any direction.

Carolina has goaltending issues, though not the issues I long predicted.  Cam Ward has been solid enough but now he’s hurt.  Carolina’s remaining schedule is easier than anyone’s but the Rangers here and they sit in a playoff spot - barely - right now.  The Canes need other teams to stumble but that seems almost certain to happen.  Two games against Tampa Bay will be key.

The Carolina Hurricanes get long-awaited help for their power-play back when Frantisek Kaberle returns to the ice tonight.

James Mirtle:

This is a team that is dead last in production from its defence, a team without a power-play quarterback that has used a slew of middling defenders (Andrew Hutchinson, David Tanabe, Bret Hedican, Anton Babchuk) to essentially act as dead weight with the man advantage for two-plus minutes a game.

The power-play goal totals for that quartet this season? Three. Power-play assists? Fifteen.

The Hurricanes are a team with far too much talent to rank 25th in the league with a dreadful 15.4% conversion rate.  Kaberle will almost instantly inject some life into the first PP unit, which is a very welcome improvement to a team whose playoff spot is precarious and getting precarious-er every day.

Of course, Kaberle’s return has also fueled the trade speculations as pundits point out the 10 NHL level defencemen now carried by Carolina.  It’s unknown what exactly GM Jim Rutherford will be looking for, though a veteran netminder to backup Cam Ward (it shouldn’t be too hard to find an upgrade over John Grahame), a few grinders to help replace some of the players lost from last year’s team, or perhaps merely some depth for the future (5 players are slated for UFA, including Scott Walker, Ray Whitney and Eric Belanger, while Cam Ward will be in line for a significant raise as a RFA).

Editor’s note: this was a forum post I wrote over at the mapleleafs.com forums (my user name there is gekko).  It’s applicable beyond the Leafs, although the players mentioned are mostly Leafs players, so I decided to copy and paste it here, as well.

—

It is a fact that only one team (the New York Rangers) have won a Stanley Cup in the last 10+ years without at least one player drafted in the top 5 overall by that team.  Given the emphasis on depth since the lockout ended, I would be surprised if this trend continues much longer, but it is a fact and it is worth noting.

The most recent champs, the Carolina Hurricanes, managed this almost entirely by accident: after making it to the finals one year, they absolutely tanked and were rewarded with Eric Staal.  And I think we can all agree that Staal was one of the integral parts ot he Hurricanes cup run.

Sluggo and I will and have disagreed in how many other key players on the team were drafted and/or developped by the Hurricanes, but we can agree on Staal at least.

There are a few ways a team like the Leafs can get a top five pick (and in some drafts, like this years, picks 4-5 are almost indistinguishable from picks 6-7 or even lower, so top five is not strictly neccessary).  More players are developping at an earlier age, and so the number of players who can and will be possible “franchise players” is going up almost every year.  Last year we very nearly got there - without the late season surge we would have had a top ten pick easily and could have been in the top 5 with either a particularly bad final month or a slight up-trade of picks on draft day.  It’s unfortunate that the Leafs were contenders for that last playoff spot so late into the season, since it made it even more bitter to see our draft pick get lower and lower and yet still miss the post-season.

A Carolina-like disaster season is not entirely out of the question (maybe that’s why we signed Gill  ).  Kaberle, Kubina and McCabe are locked up for 4-5 years, so a year or two would still leave the blueline mostly intact.  The forward lines would look very different of course, meaning if we do have a fall apart season and are on the outside looking in come trade deadline, Tucker, Peca, Kilger, Ponikarovsky and possibly even Sundin would be the likeliest candidates to be traded.  This wouldn’t be a bad outcome, as most top draft picks who have immediate (within 2-3 years) and dramatic impact are forwards.  Defencemen and goaltenders, no matter how good, tend to take a few years longer to develop.

The other alternatives are trading for a recently drafted top pick or an upcoming top draft pick from a team low in the standings.  Neither are very likely to occur, although things do happen (Johnson from Carolina, for example).  There are even rumblings that Evgeni Malkin wants out of Pittsburgh (not happy playing second fiddle to anyone, even Crosby), though the odds of the Leafs landing him are slim, to say the least.

As I said, the more likely outcome is that the new rules and emphasis on depth will take away from the need for a top five pick.  What the Leafs - indeed every team - need to be successful are for their players to over-perform.  Who expected Gerber to get 38 wins or Eric Staal to take a run at the Art Ross trophy before the season started last year?

Can the Leafs do that?  Pre-season says no, but we all know that the pre-season means nothing.  I for one am hopefull but I’m waiting to see how big an impact Paul Maurice has on the team.  Even with a reduction in scoring from last year, if the Leafs can reduce the shots and goals they allowed, they should be poised to at least make the playoffs, where anything can happen.

See parts 1 and 2 here:
Atlantic - Crosby, Malkin, Staal
Northeast - Forward vs. Defence Salaries

Southeast Division: Carolina’s Pre-Season Woes

The defending Stanley Cup Champions limped to a 1-4 record in the pre-season, struggling with injuries even before they stepped on to the ice, and trading away their top defensive prospect in what many are calling a panic move by a team desperate to replenish its blueline.

Frantisek Kaberle, the premier offensive defenceman on the team and the man who scored the Stanley Cup winning goal last year, is expected to miss about half the season. Ditto for Cory Stillman, one of only a handfull of players ever to win Stanely Cups in consecutive years (the lockout year is dead to all true hockey fans :P) for different teams. Added to their loss were the off-season departure of Martin Gerber, Matt Cullen and Aaron Ward, as well as the two rented players Doug Weight and Mark Recchi, and Carolina is looking decidedly thin.

Carolina led in 22 goals in its 5 games and managed only 14. They got to watch as every single team in their division managed to pick up at least 2 and a half times as many points. Time to panic?

No, not quite yet. Let’s keep a few things in mind here:

- The loss of Kaberle and Stillman aren’t indefinate. Both players will return to the team and will greatly help the team when they need it most (stretch run).
- Pre-season sucks. No other way to say it. The pre-season is over and thankfully can now be thrown directly where it belongs - out of sight and out of mind.
- Despite their losses over the summer, Carolina still boasts Rod Brind’Amour, Eric Staal, Erik Cole and more. They will not be as deep a team as they were last year, but last year they pretty well defined what depth is in the post-salary cap NHL, so that’s no big surprise.
- Trading away Jack Johnson was a better deal than many are giving the Canes credit for. Johnson had expressed his intent to return to College and may even finish his degree and use up his eligibility to play College hockey while doing so. This could put Johnson back into the draft in 4 years! Carolina managed to dump Tverdosky’s hefty salary and acquire Eric Belanger and Tim Gleason, both young players who will immediately impact the lineup. If - and that’s always a capital-I-capital-F IF with young players - Johnson turns out to be as good as the Kings hope, Carolina may end up looking back and cringing on this deal. But that time, if ever it arrives, is years away.

Question marks remain - notably in goal, where Cam Ward must now face a full 82 game season with a heavy burden on his very young shoulders - but the Hurricanes whethered to storm of post-glory free agency about as well as could be expected.

ADDITIONS: John Grahame; Trevor Letowski; Scott Walker; Shane Willis; Pat Dwyer

SUBTRACTIONS: Martin Gerber; Matt Cullen; Aaron Ward; Doug Weight; Josef Vasicek; Mark Recchi

Analysis

Well, first off let’s get the easy prediction out of the way first: Carolina will not do as well next year. However, they will have a very strong team for years to come.

A number of the changes will not be really felt: Doug Weight and Mark Recchi were only with the team for the end of the year, while players like Grahame and Dwyer are fringe players at best.

On the subject of John Grahame, what exactly were the Hurricanes thinking? Grahame couldn’t get in done in Tampa Bay and won’t be a suitable replacement for Gerber. With all the goaltenders available this offseason - notably Manny Legace but also the very available Nabokov or Giguerre - you’d think Carolina could have done better. The end result is that more pressure will be heaped onto Cam Ward.

Now, Cam Ward handled the pressure very well during the playoffs last year, but throughout an 80 game season is another story. And as I’ve mentioned regarding several teams already, a successful rookie season does not equate to a successful long term career - especially not for a goaltender.

Matt Cullen and Aaron Ward were important role players for the team last year and emerging youngsters will be needed to fill the void they left. Vasicek will be missed but certainly wasn’t a central piece of the puzzle.

The returning pieces from last year’s team are far more reassuring. Brind’amour was the unidsputed captain last year of a team that included Eric Staal, Doug Weight, Mark Recchi, Glen Wesley, and more. Locking him up long term was smart and will provide stability for the franchise for years to come. Eric Staal will only be better next year and will likely be leaned on even more. Eric Cole, before his injury, had 30 goals and 29 assists in 60 games. If he can repeat that kind of performance for the next 3 years, he’ll be a bargain.

If Cam Ward handles the pressure of the #1 spot, Carolina will remain dangerous indeed. Even if he falters, the team in front of him is deep enough to easily make the playoffs. However, I can’t see Ward maintaining his form. Although he won the Con Smythe last year, he was pulled a couple times and simply wasn’t the starter last year. He played in only 28 games of the regular season.

Carolina should still be considered the favourite in the Southeast division next year but will have to watch over their shoulders for Tampa Bay, Florida and especially Atlanta.