Wednesday, May 26, 2010

The new sheriffs in town

By Brian LeBlanc
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Jim Rutherford has long been the dean of Southeast Division general managers.  Since taking over the GM’s seat in 1994, he has presided over three division titles, two conference championships and the 2006 Stanley Cup champions, while being named executive of the year by the Sporting News both years that his team made the Stanley Cup Final.  Rutherford and Washington Capitals GM George McPhee are the two rocks of stability in the division, and that loyalty has been repaid in the form of eight combined division titles out of 11 awarded since the division was created in 1998.

But in the last couple of months, the corner offices in the other three division teams’ front offices have changed rather substantially, and Rutherford and McPhee now face their first sustained challenges from the other members of the division.  To this point, they’ve enjoyed a monopoly on the division that’s only been challenged by one team, at most, at any given time.

To wit:

The Florida Panthers have now gone nine straight years without making the postseason.  Since making the Stanley Cup Final in 1996 under Bryan Murray, the Panthers have fallen into a slow decline that bottomed out in 2006 when then-GM Mike Keenan shipped Roberto Luongo to Vancouver for seven games of Todd Bertuzzi and some spare parts (with apologies to Alex Auld and Bryan Allen, “spare parts” might be a bit generous).  In a bizarre coincidence, Keenan resigned three months later to be replaced by coach Jacques Martin, who assumed both roles and did his best to keep the Panthers mired in mediocrity.  Martin, of course, was last seen leading the Montreal Canadiens to an improbable berth in the Eastern Conference final.

The Tampa Bay Lightning posed the most long-term challenge to the Carolina/Washington superiority, with two straight division titles starting in 2003 and a Stanley Cup in 2004.  However, those glory years were sandwiched in between some seriously poor play, including the only time in NHL history a team has lost 50 games for four straight years and another year at dead last in the league in 2007-08.

And then there’s the Atlanta Thrashers.  Dear Lord.  Since entering the NHL in 1999, the Thrashers have yet to win a playoff series, or even a playoff game (their sole appearance led to a sweep by the New York Rangers in 2007, a year in which they won a fluke division title), they’ve used first-round picks on the likes of Patrik Stefan and Boris Valabik, they’ve made some awful trades (Braydon Coburn for Alexei Zhitnik? Yep, that happened), and they sold their only indisputable franchise player, Ilya Kovalchuk, for ten cents on the dollar at the 2010 trade deadline.  The only consistent piece? Don Waddell, who was GM from day one until he was bumped up to team president in April. (The Atlanta Thrashers: where sustained mediocrity earns you a promotion to president! Get your season tickets today!)

However, in the last month, the division has seen a radical readjustment, and Rutherford will need to be on his game.

In April, when Waddell was promoted, Rick Dudley was named his replacement. Dudley was plucked from the Chicago Blackhawks in 2009, and in case you hadn’t noticed, the Blackhawks have done pretty well for themselves lately.  Dudley was assistant GM to Dale Tallon, and helped engineer a turnaround for the ages, from dead last as recently as 2004 to 20,000+ sellouts and two straight appearances in the conference final.  Dudley’s track record also includes rebuilding the Lightning from rock bottom in the early 2000s, laying the groundwork for Jay Feaster to build a Stanley Cup champion, and the Thrashers job is his third within the Southeast; he also ran the Panthers before heading to Chicago in 2005.   Dudley was a flop with the Panthers (but, then again, who wasn’t?), but his time with the Blackhawks has rejuvenated his career and made him a hot commodity among GMs.  He was hired to be the heir apparent if Waddell fell flat on his face again; he did, and here we are.

Meanwhile, on the other coast of Florida, when Martin left to head to Quebec his replacement was assistant GM Randy Sexton, who in his only previous turn as a GM he oversaw a historically bad 30-109-15 Ottawa Senators team in the early 1990s.  It should surprise no one that Sexton was unsuccessful in getting the Panthers back to the postseason, so it was no surprise that Sexton was out of work after one season as Panthers GM.  Who replaced Sexton was a candidate that was way out of the Panthers’ comfort zone.  Dale Tallon, the man Dudley reported to in Chicago, was named Panthers GM last week, and brings with him the most impressive resume of any Panthers GM since Mike Keenan.  Tallon is widely regarded as the brains behind the Blackhawks’ success, and despite losing his job thanks to a paperwork snafu that momentarily made three young Hawks players unrestricted free agents Tallon was one of the most sought-after GM candidates in the league.  His hire immediately upgrades the Panthers’ front office, and gives some much-needed respect to an organization that hasn’t earned any in the last nine years.

As for the Lightning, when Jay Feaster was shoved out the door in 2008 by the gong show otherwise known as the Oren Koules/Len Barrie administration, the destruction of the franchise was complete.  Newly-minted GM Brian Lawton did his best to handle the circus, but when Jeff Vinik took over ownership he put Lawton out of his misery.  Then, today, Vinik hired Red Wings legend Steve Yzerman as Lightning GM, a stroke of brilliance that has immediately changed the narrative in Tampa.  No longer is the Lightning front office the Keystone Kops in suits; now, they have a Hall of Fame forward running their hockey operation and have taken a huge step toward restoring the respectability that the Lightning had earned by winning the Stanley Cup and destroyed by severe incompetence from the owner’s suite.  Comparisons of Yzerman to Wayne Gretzky aren’t accurate, since while Gretzky apprenticed under no one before being named to an executive position with the Phoenix Coyotes, Yzerman served in the front office of the most successful NHL franchise of the past fifteen years.

What does all this mean for Rutherford?  The immediate reaction is that no longer will the Southeast be a division of pushovers.  The proven track records of Tallon and Dudley, combined with the respect Yzerman has earned over nearly 30 years of service to the NHL in some capacity, immediately make all three destinations more attractive than they were just a few months ago.  Rutherford has proven in the past that he’s able to adapt to changing forces at work around him, but this is the biggest upheaval the division has seen since its inception.  Nearly overnight, the division got a whole lot tougher, and it starts in the general managers’ suites.  While no one is expecting Atlanta, Florida or Tampa Bay to contend for the Stanley Cup next season, the pedigree of success brought to all three franchises by their new GMs will trickle down and make all three teams tougher to play against.

Rutherford will need to be proactive if the Canes are to stay among the cream of the Southeast crop.  For the first time in a long time, there will be more than one team nipping at the heels of the Canes and Caps, and now it’s up to Rutherford and McPhee to keep their teams in the position they’ve been accustomed to occupying. 

Monday, May 24, 2010

Report: Karmanos interested in selling up to 50% of Hurricanes

By Brian LeBlanc
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We interrupt our retrospective of the Canes’ season to bring up news that isn’t exactly breaking, with the exception of one twist.
 
It’s been a longtime open secret around the Hurricanes offices that owner Peter Karmanos would like a minority investor to share the wealth, so to speak, in the operation of the team. Since general partner Thomas Thewes passed away in 2007, Karmanos has held 100% ownership of the team, but even before Thewes’ death Karmanos, then majority owner but not sole owner, had been looking to sell a portion of his stake in the team to a local investor or group.
 
Today’s news simply reiterates the longtime boilerplate news, but it does lend some urgency to the proceedings, as Karmanos has retained search firm Allen and Company to assist him in finding a local partner to purchase up to 50% of the team. In an interview with Sports Business Journal’s Daniel Kaplan, Karmanos flatly states that he has no desire to sell the entire team, and reading between the lines it seems that he still intends on being the lead decision-maker for the team, and the search will initially focus on North Carolina-based potential investors.
 
Assuming the search firm finds one of those local investors, this could potentially mean very good things, both from a franchise-stability perspective and a more practical, dollars-and-cents viewpoint. Karmanos has lost money every year the Canes have been in North Carolina with the exception of 2006, the year the team won the Stanley Cup. No owner wants to subsidize losses forever, even one as dedicated to the game of hockey as Karmanos, so looking for a partner now could preclude a fire sale down the road.
 
However, if the search firm is unable to find a local investor, or only finds people interested in 100% ownership, things could get a little hairy. As the SBJ article noted, it’s a buyer’s market, and any potential investor has the upper hand with Karmanos in regards to ownership percentages.
 
Either way, this looks like it may be the start of an endgame for a soap opera that’s run along in the background for nearly ten years.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Reviewing the prognostications: Forwards

By Brian LeBlanc
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Every season, one of the requisite assignments for hockey writers is to come up with a list of predictions for the upcoming season.  Here at Puck Drops, we willingly obliged last September, offering predictions of what we thought would happen in the Canes’ 2009-10 season.

However, few sites actually dig those predictions out of the mothballs at the end of the season and see how they did.  We have no problem doing so, even though after reading back through the predictions you might (rightly) wonder why we even waste our time doing them in the first place. 

Here, then, are the predictions we made at the start of the season and exactly how far offbase they were.  Remember that the predicted totals assumed that the player would play every game, so we also give the per-82-games pace for the player’s season stats.

 

Here we go…

 

Eric Staal

What was said then: “Expect the consistent Staal to come close to 100 points again, with a chance to pass the plateau for the first time in his career if everything goes right.  Projected totals: 42 goals, 55 assists, 97 points”

What happened: It was a wild year for Staal, who played through almost the entire season with a host of injuries, including an upper-body injury that knocked him out for most of November at a time when Cam Ward was also injured.  Despite a slow start, Staal caught fire after being named captain on January 20, going for 19-18-37 in the final 34 games of the year (an 89-point pace) and notching two hat tricks, the second his franchise-record 10th career hat trick.  An odd year for the Canes’ captain, but if his end-of-season performance is any indication he should bounce back just fine next year.  Totals: 29-41-70 in 70 games; per 82 games, 34-48-82

 

Tuomo Ruutu

What was said then: “He's the space clearer that Erik Cole used to be, and while he might be hard-pressed to replicate last year's success he still should be able to pile in some of the garbage goals he made a living off of last season.  Projected totals: 22 goals, 37 assists, 59 points”

What happened: Ruutu rode shotgun on Staal’s line most of the year, at least until January 10 when he injured his shoulder in a fight with Colorado’s Darcy Tucker.  Even though he came back before the Olympics (and played in Vancouver) he clearly was not the same player after the injury, and he finally shut it down for good in late March.  When healthy, he was a force, and he proved our guess correct by scoring 11 of his 14 goals (most of them of the dirty variety) before he was injured.  Ruutu and Staal seem to be developing the same sort of chemistry as Staal had with Cole back in the day, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Ruutu-Staal-Jokinen combination together most of next year as long as everyone stays healthy. Totals: 14-21-35 in 51 games; per 82 games, 22-34-56

 

Erik Cole

What was said then: “As long as the expectations aren't set too high, Cole should be fine, but an extended cold spell could result in him toiling on the third line.  Projected totals: 19 goals, 34 assists, 53 points”

What happened: Cole broke his leg in the second game of the year and never really gained a foothold even after returning at the beginning of November.  A second injury, probably to his neck although the team never confirmed it, knocked him out for more than two months and when he finally returned he indeed toiled on the third line alongside the likes of Patrick Dwyer and Tom Kostopoulos.  It’s hard to admit for a guy who has meant so much to the Canes over the years, but Cole is little more than a role player now and his days of consistent 50-point seasons are probably gone for good. Totals: 11-5-16 in 40 games; per 82 games, 23-10-33

 

Ray Whitney

What was said then: “Whitney is the playmaker of the second line, and he should be in line for another quietly effective season.  Projected totals: 29 goals, 58 assists, 87 points”

What happened: It was probably a bit excessive to pencil Whitney in for a career-high in assists and points at age 37, but Whitney had earned that respect after going for 77 points the year before and showing that he still had it.  Whitney spent most of the year on a line with Brandon Sutter, who was the biggest surprise of the season but isn’t an offensive dynamo by any stretch, his 20-goal season notwithstanding.  Likewise, Whitney saw his production drop, although he still finished third on the team in scoring and, since he was not traded at the deadline, will likely return next year to do more of the same.  Totals: 21-37-58 in 80 games

 

Matt Cullen

What was said then: “Playing the point on the power play all season might inflate his assists total at the expense of his goals, but the consistent Cullen will likely see his 40-point streak continue this season.  Projected totals: 17 goals, 33 assists, 50 points”

What happened: Cullen was shuffled to the third line for most of the year as the emergence of Brandon Sutter gave the Canes two #2 centers, but his production didn’t dip much and he continued to form a great penalty-killing tandem with Chad LaRose, tying with Tom Kostopoulos for the team lead with two shorthanded goals apiece.  Since Cullen was to be an unrestricted free agent at season’s end, the Canes shipped him to Ottawa just before the Olympics for Alexandre Picard and a second-round draft pick, but while in Raleigh Cullen continued to put up consistent numbers.  Could Cullen return for a third tour of duty in Raleigh this offseason? It seems unlikely, but as we’ve learned, the Canes are by far the best situation for the consistent Cullen. Totals: 16-32-48 in 81 games

 

Chad LaRose

What was said then: “The temptation is to mark Rosey down for a letdown season now that he has his contract in hand, but don't doubt the guy that has worked his tail off for everything he's ever earned in a Canes sweater.  His first career 20-goal season should be in reach after he missed out by one goal last year.  Projected totals: 21 goals, 27 assists, 48 points”

What happened: Like so many others on the Canes roster, LaRose had a season hampered by injuries, including a lower-body concern that kept him out of action for over a month in December and January.  He got off to a horrendously slow start, not scoring a goal until November 21 and bringing to mind the 2006-07 season where he couldn’t buy a goal to save his life.  LaRose did indeed have a letdown season, although most of it wasn’t of his own doing and he got hot toward the end of the year when finally healthy.  His pairing with Matt Cullen worked well for both players both at even strength and on the penalty kill; with Cullen gone, will LaRose mesh as well with anyone else on the roster? Totals: 11-17-28 in 56 games; per 82 games, 16-25-41

 

Sergei Samsonov

What was said then: “Depending on what happens with Cole, Samsonov is the most likely candidate to move around in the lineup, and his play last season shows that he will fit just about anywhere on the roster.  Projected totals: 17 goals, 32 assists, 49 points”

What happened: Given who he played with, it’s a wonder Samsonov even got to 14 goals.  Like last year, Samsonov spent a good amount of time on a wing with Rod Brind’Amour, who was even more offensively challenged than he was last season when Samsonov had 48 points.  As a result, Samsonov’s production tailed off to a level not reached since 2006-07 when he was in Montreal, and he enters this offseason as a potential trade or buyout candidate depending on what the Canes do in the market.  Samsonov elicited the same frustration that he showed in Chicago and Montreal this year, and he didn’t display the consistency needed to play top-nine minutes.  As a result, he’s stuck in no-man’s land and there doesn’t seem to be a quick out for him. Totals: 14-15-29 in 72 games; per 82 games, 16-17-33

 

Rod Brind’Amour

What was said then: “His position in the pecking order of centers is now a clear third behind Staal and Cullen, so he might not have the ice time necessary to reach 50 points.  He'll come close, though.  Projected totals: 19 goals, 26 assists, 45 points”

What happened: Take your pick. Stripped of the captaincy? Check.  Ice time levels not seen in his career? Check. A healthy scratch (December 7 in Pittsburgh)? Check.  Add it all up and it was bar none the most disappointing season of Brind’Amour’s career, and his late-season renaissance in 2008-09 seems more and more to be an anomaly.  His nine goals tied a career low set in 1999-2000, the season in which he was traded to Carolina and only played 45 games.   In the last two seasons, Brind’Amour is a stunningly awful minus-52 (!!!!!!!!!!!), following a team-worst-by-a-mile minus-29 this season. It would still surprise me if he didn’t return next year, but his role will essentially encompass that of elder statesman and faceoff specialist, and little else. Totals: 9-10-19 in 80 games

 

Jussi Jokinen

What was said then: “A full season in the Carolina system may provide some pleasant surprises for Jokinen.  Projected totals: 22 goals, 17 assists, 39 points”

What happened: With apologies to Brandon Sutter, whose emergence gave the Canes a pleasant surprise and allowed them to survive with Brind’Amour’s sub-par production, the fact that Jokinen led the team in goals was the story of the year.  Jokinen found a home on Eric Staal’s wing and didn’t move much from there, and as a result he earned his first 30-goal season at any level in his career.  When Team Finland looked elsewhere for the Olympics, Jokinen insisted that he wasn’t disappointed, but considering 22 of his 30 goals came after he learned of the snub you can draw your own conclusions.  Jokinen’s versatility allowed the team to weather the double-whammy of Staal’s injury and Brind’Amour’s disappointing play, and it’s beyond amazing that the Lightning were willing to let him go for next to nothing a year ago. Totals: 30-35-65 in 81 games

 

Scott Walker

What was said then: “Walker will be in a purely checking role for the first time in his Carolina career, and his point production will probably drop accordingly.  Additionally, his style lends itself to being frequently banged up, so this projection is clearly a best-case scenario.  Projected totals: 16 goals, 21 assists, 37 points”

What happened: Yeah, that definitely was a best-case scenario.  Walker spent most of his time this season on a line with Brind’Amour and Stephane Yelle, and it goes without saying that a line like that isn’t going to set the world on fire.  Accordingly, Walker only scored three goals with the Canes before an injury took him out of commission for January and February, and he was eventually traded to Washington for next to nothing at the deadline.  He ended his season with his team blowing a 3-2 lead to Montreal in the first round of the playoffs, and it would surprise no one if he said enough and called it quits.  Totals: 5-3-8 in 42 games; per 82 games, 10-6-16

 

Stephane Yelle

What was said then: “Given the propensity of accomplished penalty killers on the Canes' roster, Yelle will add to one of the top corps in the league, and perhaps most importantly he will buy the Canes another year to develop Brandon Sutter in Albany to take this spot in the lineup in 2010.  Projected totals: 8 goals, 14 assists, 22 points”

What happened: When the Canes needed to do something to shake up the roster early in the season, they indeed called up Brandon Sutter, though it was no fault of Yelle’s that the Sutter-in-Albany experiment ended almost before it began.  Sutter marched right onto the second line and promptly scored 20 goals, while Yelle did exactly as advertised: kill penalties, score every once in a while and play about ten minutes a night.  Mission accomplished, I suppose, and with the Canes out of contention in March Yelle was shipped back to Colorado to lend a veteran presence on a young team that unexpectedly made the playoffs and put a scare into top-seeded San Jose in the first round. Totals: 4-4-8 in 70 games; per 82 games, 5-5-10

 

Tom Kostopoulos

What was said then: “A plugger who will eat up ice time while being responsible defensively, Kostopoulos will mirror his counterpart Walker on the other side of the line and the two should make the Canes' fourth line a very tough one to play against.  Kostopoulos has scored precisely 22 points in four of his five full NHL seasons; why mess with success?  Projected totals: 7 goals, 15 assists, 22 points”

What happened: If you can say that a guy who was brought in to play 12-14 minutes a night exceeded expectations, then Kostopoulos certainly did.  He didn’t exactly show a massive scoring touch, but he tied with Cullen with two shorthanded goals, was the only Canes player to appear in every single game and was one of three players (Staal and Jokinen were the others) to finish with a plus rating.  What you see is what you get with Kostopoulos, and while he will never be on a top-two line he is perfect for what a team needs on its third or fourth line.  In a year where quite a bit went wrong for the Canes, Kostopoulos was one of the things that went very right. Totals: 8-13-21 in 82 games

 

What did we miss?

The obvious omission from the list is Brandon Sutter, who was sent down to Albany out of training camp but came up in the first month of the season and went on to post a 21-19-40 line in 72 games.  I’m still not convinced you can pencil him in as a perennial 20-goal scorer, but he definitely made the decline of Brind’Amour much more tolerable, such as it was.

As the wheels started coming off the season and the Canes called more and more youngsters up, Sutter and Patrick Dwyer (7-5-12 in 58 games) were the most reliable scorers.  Other forwards getting their feet wet included Zach Boychuk (3-6-9 in 31 GP), Jiri Tlusty (1-5-6 in 18 GP), Drayson Bowman (2-0-2 in 9 GP) and Jerome Samson (0-2-2 in 7 GP).  Those four plus Oskar Osala (0-0-0 in 1 GP), who was acquired in a deal for Joe Corvo from Washington at the deadline, will compete for a couple of roster spots at training camp and all five are expected to see at least some consistent NHL ice time next season.  Steven Goertzen and Tim Conboy were also called up for a few games apiece, but neither accomplished anything on the scoresheet aside from a few fights and roughing penalties.

 

Back in a few days with a review of the defensemen…

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Did the Canes let the right goalie go?

By Brian LeBlanc
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At the end of tonight's Eastern Conference final game 2, in which Michael Leighton pitched his second straight shutout behind a team that's now scored fourteen straight goals against the opposition, a friend texted me with a question that I'm sure was on many minds around here: "Why did the Canes get rid of Leighton again?"

And it's a fair question.  After all, Leighton became the first Flyers goaltender to record two shutouts in a row in the postseason since Bernie Parent in 1975, and if you had Leighton sharing a sentence with the only goaltender to backstop a Flyers team that won the Stanley Cup when the Canes lost him on waivers to the Flyers last December, you're either a liar or you hold the winning lottery numbers for tonight.

So did the Canes make a mistake when they sent Leighton packing and anointed Manny Legace as Cam Ward's backup?

Go back to November 7. Starting that night, when Ward's leg was cut by the skate of Columbus' Rick Nash and knocked him out for a month in the midst of a franchise-record 14-game winless streak, Leighton was the only option the Canes had.  Legace was playing for Chicago of the AHL and, despite playing 6 games and posting a pedestrian 3.21 GAA and .898 save percentage, wasn't in any condition to step in and start immediately in the NHL.  Thus, the job fell largely to Leighton, who hadn't distinguished himself to that point, what with a 6.09 GAA and .786 save percentage in a game and a half to that point.

Essentially, what followed was a monthlong audition to run with the ball as Ward's backup after he returned.  That audition was clearly won by Legace.

Legace: 10 GP, 4-4-2, 3.08 GAA, .900 sv%
Leighton: 5 GP, 1-3-0, 3.68 GAA, .869 sv%

Even the woebegone Vesa Toskala, the poster child for awful goaltending this season (and the worst statistical goaltender among qualifying players), managed an .880 save percentage and 3.48 goals-against this season.  So Leighton's performance was almost comically bad in comparison to even the worst goaltending the NHL had to offer this year.

So to the surprise of no one, Legace won the job and Leighton was put through waivers, where he wasn't claimed.  It wasn't until the Canes put him on re-entry waivers that the Flyers snapped him up, and since he went to the Flyers on re-entry the Canes were stuck with paying half of Leighton's remaining salary, although honestly that amount ($182,926.83) is nothing more than the cost of doing business in the NHL.  (As an aside, the Flyers paid Leighton less than $200,000 and he has two straight shutouts in the conference finals. Go figure.)

Leighton's stats with the Flyers (16-5-2, 2.48, .918) were better than Legace's (6-3-3, 2.49, .913) after the latter was awarded the backup job with the Canes, but except for the number of wins they were remarkably similar.  But since no one had any idea what Leighton would do when he joined the Flyers, the Canes made the only reasonable move they could: they went with the better goalie.  On December 15, when Leighton was claimed by Philadelphia, that goalie was very clearly Manny Legace.

So it might be a little frustrating for Canes fans to see their team sitting at home while Leighton backstops his team into a potential berth in the Stanley Cup Final, but considering he cut down his goals-against by over a goal (and, over an entire season, would have ranked him 11th in the NHL in both GAA and save percentage) when he changed teams, there's no doubt that the Canes made the right move in cutting Leighton loose.

By the way, for those interested: Cam Ward's stats were 2.69 and .926, not much worse than Leighton's after joining the Flyers.  In other words, what was a very average year for Ward was a career year for Leighton.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

What went wrong in the circle this year?

By Brian LeBlanc
NCSportsTalk.com - Puck Drops
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Faceoff winning percentage might be one of the most unglamorous stats that the NHL keeps.  No one's going to win an award for top faceoff percentage, unless you consider the Selke Trophy a rough approximation since faceoff wins are so crucial in defensive situations.  It correlates well to success in making the postseason; six of the top 10 teams, led by San Jose at 55.6%, made the playoffs this year, while only two (23rd-place Buffalo and 29th-place Colorado) from the bottom ten advanced to playing meaningful games in mid-April.

The Canes have long been one of the best faceoff teams in the NHL.  Since moving from Hartford in 1997, the Canes finished no lower than 19th, and had an eight-season run from 2000-01 to 2008-09 where they finished first in the league once (2001-02), second twice, in the top ten for seven of the eight seasons and no lower than 12th place.

All that changed this year, when the Hurricanes fell all the way to 25th in the league in faceoff percentage.

Rod Brind'Amour is a longtime ace in the circle, but with his steady downward progression came a similar trend for the Canes on faceoffs.  Brind'Amour finished third in the league in faceoff percentage, but he takes many fewer draws these days than he did in his heyday; 849 this year compared to over 2000 (!!) in 2001-02 when the Canes led the league in faceoff percentage.

When Eric Staal took over as captain for Brind'Amour on January 20, the Canes' fortunes in the faceoff circle took a noticeable swan dive.  The numbers bear out the sad truth:

Under B'A:    
Games winning FO: 19  
Games losing FO: 25  
  W L
Record when winning FO: 6 13
Record when losing FO: 7 18
When FO equal: 1 3
     
Under Staal:    
Games winning FO: 7  
Games losing FO: 25  
  W L
Record when winning FO: 6 1
Record when losing FO: 13 12
When FO equal: 1 1

More stunning is the dropoff after the February 10 trade of Matt Cullen to Ottawa.  Cullen was a key faceoff man when Brind'Amour was unable to take a draw for any reason, and while he usually didn't hit Brind'Amour's high-50% range he was usually somewhere around a 50/50 man in the circle.  Check out what happened when Cullen hit the road and left the faceoffs largely in the hands of Staal and Brandon Sutter:

Before Cullen trade:    
Games winning FO: 23  
Games losing FO: 32  
  W L
Record when winning FO: 10 13
Record when losing FO: 11 21
When FO equal: 1 4
     
After Cullen trade:    
Games winning FO: 3  
Games losing FO: 18  
  W L
Record when winning FO: 2 1
Record when losing FO: 9 9
When FO equal: 1 0

You're reading that correctly: in 22 games after Cullen's trade, the Canes won the majority of faceoffs in three of those games.  That's simply horrific, and raises a couple of salient points.

First, how well could the Hurricanes have potentially done in the standings if they had won the faceoff battle in, say, ten of those 22 games?  Maybe an extra 3 or 4 wins?  For the record, the Canes missed the playoffs by eight points, or...four wins.

Second, what now?  Brind'Amour isn't getting any younger and Cullen is unlikely to return.  Brandon Sutter is the best faceoff man the Canes have remaining, and despite taking the most draws of anyone on the team Eric Staal finished dead last in the NHL among qualifying players with a paltry 41.8% faceoff percentage.  For comparison's sake, the distance between Staal in 84th place and 83rd-place Nik Antropov was 1.6%.  From Antropov to 82nd-place Daymond Langkow? 0.1%.

The Canes are lucky to have Brind'Amour, who's on the short list of the five or ten best faceoff men of the last 15 years, and Ron Francis, who is near the top of that list, both on the payroll.  Sutter seems to be developing into a capable faceoff man (49% this year, up from 38.6% in '08-09), although he still has a bit of a road ahead of him before he becomes Brind'Amour's heir apparent as the go-to faceoff man.  The key, though, is Staal, who will probably take upwards of 1,500 faceoffs next season with Cullen gone and no immediate help on the horizon.  Staal has never cracked the 50% barrier on draws in his career, but if the Canes are going to have any success in the circle he needs to step up to the plate and at least get to the point where he's a capable option on faceoffs.

Bottom line?  When Brind'Amour retires, whenever that time comes, the Canes' faceoff situation could be ugly and remain that way for a significant length of time, barring player movements.  No one else in the system, save maybe Jussi Jokinen (51% in '09-10), shows any signs of becoming a faceoff whiz, and Jokinen's strength is at wing, not center.  For a puck possession team like the Canes, they desperately need to control the puck off as many faceoffs as possible, and by spending time hemmed in their own zone after losing a draw they're increasing the pressure on Cam Ward and the defense, certainly not an ideal situation for any team.

Next year, the Canes will likely have to cross their fingers and hope someone answers the bell.  If Brind'Amour is still around, he will certainly help in the circle, but if he decides to hang up the skates the Canes could be in for a long season at the faceoff dot.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

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?