Carolina Hurricanes Stat Review: Nobody Likes The Capitals

Last night the Carolina Hurricanes lost to the Washington Capitals in the shootout ending their 7 game home winning streak.

Well, the Carolina Hurricanes home streak is broken, but we can create the all new home point streak at eight right?  I know, I know a point streak is as appetizing as cold canned haggis.  Still, Carolina didn’t play offal [Editor’s Note: This pun is though.] and even held the lead in the third period.  But we’ve all seen this story before.  Get the lead into the third, lose it and then summarily lose the game in OT or the shootout.  In an already ridiculous good Metropolitan, letting a division foe leave Raleigh with two points isn’t going to help the playoff chances.  Despite the outcome, let’s see how the Hurricanes actually performed.  All data for the shots and shots attempts is from Hockeystats.ca and the rest Corsica

Shots and Shot Attempts

Seen above, Carolina played really well against the Capitals in the first period both in Shots and Shot Attempts.  The Capitals came back in the second period and started to pull back especially in 5v5 hockey.  Washington helped Carolina’s stats by taking three penalties in the second. Overall the Capitals took six penalties and Carolina converted with the extra man only once.  In the third, the Capitals really took over 5v5 and heavily out shot and out shot attempted Carolina 5v5. Some of this is due to score effects since Carolina took the lead early in the period.

A lot of people want to put the blame on Carolina’s loss of leads to the fact this happens to them every third period.  But it’s not just Carolina.  Almost every team in the NHL with a lead gets

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outshot or out-chanced in the third period.  And almost every team with a lead tries to protect it causing the trailing team getting more shots.  Statistical score adjustment came about because of this very reason.  I don’t know why the Hurricanes have such a bad record with the lead; some of it could be luck, some goaltending, and some mistakes.  But I do know it’s not because they try to “protect the lead” or else you’d see a lot more teams who do the same thing lose at the same rate and that doesn’t happen.

Corsi Differential

The Carolina Hurricanes weren’t very good last night 5v5 against the Washington Capitals.  This might have something more to do with why they lost than anything else.  Brett Pesce and Jaccob Slavin look great as always.  Two games in a row now Skinner’s line performs on the PP but at 5v5 isn’t so hot.  Perhaps the most telling thing is the effect of Jordan Staal on his linemates, especially Joakim Nordstrom.  With Staal, Nordstrom looks like a great middle 6 winger, without Staal Nordstrom is a replacement level player.  I bet Jordan Staal could even make Jay McClement look good on his wing.  Bill Peters does this because Jordan Staal is the only player who makes everyone on the team look better, but I don’t have to like it.  We’ve seen what Staal can do with more talented wingers, and soon hopefully he will get some.

Corsi and Expected Goals

Justin Faulk and Ron Hainsey continue to create a lot of offense when they are on the ice.  Justin Faulk is understandable, but Hainsey that just seems so off from his perception by Carolina Hurricanes’ fans.  Consistently the pair is the team’s best at driving offense when they are on the ice.  The Matt Tennyson/Noah Hanifin also is another pair to look at.  Not since the game against Boston have the two had a really good game.  Given their run of player earlier in November, this could just be a stretch of bad games.  Still, the cries of the Canes third pair being fixed may have been a bit premature.