Carolina Hurricanes Stat Review: Draining the Playoff Swamp in Washington

Coming off a horrible three game stretch, Carolina Hurricanes hoped to turn things around in Washington

Fans knew the game against Washington would be a tough one. Nobody thought it would go down this badly, though, and the loss deals a serious blow to the Carolina Hurricanes playoff hopes. Now, Carolina sits three points back with only one game in hand on the Philadelphia Flyers. Not to mention the other teams that are closing in on the Canes as well. As the graphs will show, the Hurricanes didn’t play an awful game. Sure they didn’t play a great first period, but the other two periods were overall controlled by the Canes. Except, you know, when the Capitals decided to score. Without further ado though let’s soothe our sorrow with the moral victories of statistical superiority. I hear it taste likes haggis and smells even worse.

Shots

Yeah like I said above Washington really brought it in the first period and deserved the lead heading into intermission, but the next two periods the Canes didn’t really play all that bad. The Orlov goal should have been seen by Cam Ward who failed to see that Burakovsky had dropped the puck back to the point. The next goal was bad rebound control by Ward and McGinn fails to trail Kuznetzov, the initial shooter, and the Russain gathers his own rebound and puts it past Ward. It was just one of those games where nothing seemed to go right for the Hurricanes.

Corsi Differential

Yeah, there is no happiness in the world and God doesn’t want the Carolina Hurricanes to have nice things. Normally I would say these results are a result of score effects. But the thing is I adjust all my stats for score and venue effects and the Canes still came out looking this good. I’m not the only one reaching these conclusions that the Hurricanes outplayed the Capitals no matter what the score says:

#Canes dominating expected goals but not on the scoreboard vs #Capitals. https://t.co/GIZiqsF5mn pic.twitter.com/NRInIaSor4

— MoneyPuck.com (@MoneyPuckdotcom) January 24, 2017

Graphs like that in games Carolina needs to win are the worst. I can handle playing bad and getting bad results, but not playing well and getting bad results. Still, there is more suffering ahead my fellow masochists!

Shots and Expected Goals Plots

I don’t think the Jordan Staal, Sebastian Aho, and Elias Lindholm line was a smashing success. Why doesn’t Bill Peters return to the TSA line? The TSA line was one of the most dominant lines in hockey during its short existence and the fact that we haven’t seen it since November makes me start to question the coaching staff even more. Peters needs to stop making Staal carry inferior players. Put Staal with the skilled wingers that can complement his skill set the best. This refers more to the times Staal had to play with Brock McGinn or Joakim Nordstrom than tonight’s line.

On the other hand, putting someone other than McClement as fourth line center seemed to work out very well. It moved that line out of the predictably Dull/Bad half and into the Good/Fun half. But I think you can achieve the same effect by putting Lindholm down there instead of Teravainen. At least Peters wised up and didn’t bench Teravainen for this game. I just think its a little disappointing that it takes a year and a half for the coaching staff to realize that Jay McClement isn’t that good no matter what his perceived defensive “skills” are, and I hope that Jay keeps seeing the press box for the rest of the season for any hope of the Canes making the playoffs.