Carolina Hurricanes Stat Review: Winning In La La Land

Carolina Hurricanes took a 3-1 win against the Kings let’s see what the stats say.

After a devastating loss to the Anaheim Ducks the night before, the Carolina Hurricanes came into L. A. needing a win. It wouldn’t be easy for the Canes since the Kings, while not quite as good as in years past are still a very good puck possession team.  But the Canes were able to escape with a win and wash out the bad taste from the Ducks loss.  Let’s see how the stats played out.

Team Shots and Shot Attempts

Just looking at the shots shows a game a lot closer than it really was.  The Hurricanes were able to jump out to a three to nothing lead in the second and never really looked back.  However, when you look at Corsi the Kings really outplayed the Hurricanes throughout the entire game.  Which is telling as two of the three Hurricanes’ goals came on the counterattack finding a way to

break the pressure.  It won this game, but it is clearly not the normal Carolina Hurricanes strategy.  Some of this difference is due to score effects, but there were large periods of time the Kings penned the Canes in their own zone.

Corsi Differential

The Rask, McGinn, and DiGuiseppie line were really the only line that created quality scoring chances. Faulk and Hainsey were the only defensive pair although that low xGF% for them shows they were allowing better quality shots than normal.  Surprisingly Jaccob Slavin and Brett Pesce switch from the top of the chart against Anaheim to the bottom for this game.

Usage Charts

The interesting thing here is that while Slavin had a large negative Corsi differential, he still helped generate a decent amount of shot attempts.  But Corsi against is just brutal.  No one comes close to allowing the same amount of Corsi against while they are on the ice.  Not sure what the reason is for that especially given that this was a road game and the Kings would have done everything in their power to keep their top line away from this pairing.  Probably can just chalk it up to a bad game.

Again expected goals shows, like Corsi, that the McGinn, Rask, DiGuiseppie line was the Carolina

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Hurricanes best line against the Kings.  It also shows that while the Kings were getting a lot of chances there weren’t really a whole lot of quality ones as nobody on the Hurricanes goes above 1 xGA.  Overall the Hurricanes strangely won as they were pinned in their own zone, but they effectively used the counterattack to score their first two goals.  It’s almost like they decided to just pull into a shell after the first goal and let Cam Ward take them the rest of the way.

Overall this was an unusual win for the Hurricanes as they were pinned in their own zone but effectively used the counterattack to score their first two goals.  It’s almost like they decided to just pull into a shell after the first goal and let Cam Ward take them the rest of the way.  Some of it could be attributed to being tired from playing the night before.  Obviously, that’s a strategy that won’t win them very many games, but it worked in this one.