When the Canes changed captains, what changed besides the letter on the jersey?

By Brian LeBlanc
NCSportsTalk.com - Puck Drops
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On January 20, the Canes dropped a bombshell in naming Eric Staal the 13th captain in team history, relegating Rod Brind'Amour to elder-statesman status and inaugurating a new era in the history of the Canes.  The move was made 48 games into the season and sparked a red-hot run through the following two-plus months that saw the Canes go 19-8-2 and make a serious run at a playoff spot, a feat thought impossible after the team entered December with 15 points in 27 games.

To anyone paying attention, the Canes' play in their aborted attempt to make the postseason was a direct result of Staal assuming the captaincy.  But do the stats validate the move?  Puck Drops has crunched the numbers and looked inside what fueled the Canes' rise up the standings after January 20th.

Power Play: Under Brind'Amour: 31-195, 15.9%; Under Staal: 25-137, 18.2%
The power play was a bone of contention all season for the Canes, and while the man advantage clicked more frequently after the switch it wasn't much of a bump.  More interesting to me than the stats under different captains is the stats with and without power-play quarterback Joni Pitkanen.  Without Pitkanen in the lineup, the Canes' power play hit at an anemic 12.5% in the eleven games he missed, while with #25 the power play clicked at 17.6%; not great by any stretch, but a significant improvement nonetheless. 

Jamie McBain's emergence late in the season gives the Canes a pair of potential power-play quarterbacks, and hopefully will take the onus off Pitkanen as the linchpin of the Canes' man advantage.

Penalty Kill: Under Brind'Amour: 160-204, 78.4%; Under Staal: 98-116, 84.5%
It was widely thought that the power play would be the beneficiary of the captaincy change, at least in the short term, but the penalty kill improved by more than six points after January 20 and had as much to do with the Canes' late-season success as anything.  Fifteen times the Canes allowed more than one power-play goal in a game, but only twice after January 20.  Before becoming captain, Staal didn't kill as many penalties as he found himself killing late in the season, and it seems that the switch allowed Rod Brind'Amour to fall back into a secondary penalty-killing role, with the likes of Brandon Sutter, Patrick Dwyer and even Staal himself picking up the heavy lifting while down a man.

Goals For: Under Brind'Amour: 117 in 48 GP (2.44 avg); Under Staal: 109 in 34 GP (3.12 avg)
Goals Against: Under Brind'Amour: 161 in 48 GP (3.35 avg); Under Staal: 90 in 34 GP (2.65 avg)
Now we're starting to see where the captaincy change sparked the team's late run.  Just looking at those numbers makes you wonder where the second-half team was in October and November.  A 3.12 goals-for average for the entire season would have ranked the Canes fifth in the NHL, and the 2.65 goals-against average would have ranked 11th, not great but certainly better than the 26th overall the Canes finished the season at.  Given that the power play struggled both before and after the switch, the difference was largely at even strength and shorthanded, where the Canes went from 1.79 goals per game under Brind'Amour to 2.47 under Staal.

Shots For: Under Brind'Amour: 1417, 29.5/game, 8.5% shooting pctg; Under Staal: 985, 29.0/game, 11.0% shooting pctg
Shots Against: Under Brind'Amour: 1492, 31.1/game, 10.8% shooting pctg for opposition; Under Staal: 1082, 31.8/game, 8.3% shooting pctg for opposition
The shot stats are the most striking example of the change that took place in the team after Staal was named captain.  Despite taking fewer shots per game and allowing more, the shooting percentages for and against were almost mirror images of each other.  Before the switch, the Canes' shooting percentage extrapolated to a full season would have ranked 27th in the NHL, while the shooting percentage for the opposition would have ranked dead last.  Meanwhile, after the switch, the opponent's shooting percentage would have ranked sixth over the full season, while the Canes' 11% shooting percentage would have trailed only Washington's 11.6% rate for a full season.

So what happened?  Simply put, the Canes got more confident.  With the early-season struggles, the Canes were encouraged to put any puck on net that they could get and hope for rebounds or a fortunate bounce.  As the team's confidence came back by winning more games, the Canes were able to pick and choose better shots and the likelihood of those shots going into the net increased substantially.  The shots against are a little more concerning, but what's really impressive is that for the majority of the stretch run the net was manned by Manny Legace and Justin Peters.  The Canes did a good job of clearing lanes late in the season and allowing whoever was playing to see the puck and make easy saves.

Now, the question becomes how can the Canes translate their late-season success into a full season of solid play in Staal's first full season as captain?  Paul Maurice was asked in the end-of-season press conference if he anticipated any problems in keeping the work ethic up where it needs to be; after all, changing captains in midseason is a rarely-fired bullet, and once it's fired you (a) can't go back and (b) don't have it at your disposal again.  Maurice was unsurprisingly optimistic about the Canes' abilities no matter who wears the C, but the team now has no margin for error.  They've seen what happens when a team takes the first half of the season off, and more importantly they know what needs to happen to succeed in a playoff push.  Now, with Staal the unquestioned leader of the locker room, will they be able to translate that knowledge into success on the ice?