With every new year comes new beginnings. Luckily for the Carolina Hurricanes, the new year represents a pseudo halfway point to the season; a chance to refocus. The Hurricanes are within striking distance of a wild-card spot and are playing exciting hockey. If the Canes can stick to these New Year’s resolutions, they’ll be serious contenders going into the postseason.
Playing 60 Minutes
The Hurricanes’ biggest weakness this season is their inability to play sixty minutes every night. Usually, the Canes play forty minutes of dominating hockey and twenty minutes of lackluster hockey. They are 10-2-5 when leading after two periods which is last in the NHL. The blown leads have led to a loss of nine potential points. If they want to make the postseason and become perennial contenders, they need to play a solid game for sixty minutes consistently.
Rejuvenate the Power-play
The Canes’ power-play is going through a bad stretch right now. In the last 22 opportunities, they have scored one power-play goal. They’re fourteenth in the league; however, for a while, they were in the top ten. The Hurricanes need to inject life into a stale and could try a couple of things. First, the Canes could call someone up from Charlotte and bring fresh blood into the power-play. Andrew Poturalski and Valentine Zykov are having a good season for the Checkers. Their presence could give the team much-needed finishing ability with the man advantage. Poturalski has 21 points through 33 games this season, and Zykov has a shooting percentage of 16.0. Either option would give the Canes a new dynamic to use on the power-play.
Something else the Hurricanes could try is re-thinking how they approach the power-play. Most NHL teams when up a man, work the puck around the points, keeping the play above the tops of the circles. This is effective because it draws the penalty-kill away from the net and creates space for plays to be made. However, most teams train their penalty-kill to play against this type of power-play. I’d like to see the Canes try approaching the power-play from below the goal line. This is something that has worked really well for the Columbus Blue Jackets who lead the league in power-play conversion. The Blue Jackets work the puck from the half-wall down below the goal line, which opens passing lanes to someone in the slot or on the back door for a quick one-timer.
Convert Scoring Chances
The Hurricanes are nineteenth in the league in goals per game at 2.51 and that needs to change. This is especially true given the number of games lost by a single goal. The Canes currently produce 45.24 even strength shot attempts per game and 29.9 shots on goal per game. They need to convert at a higher rate if they want to push for a playoff spot. These numbers show that they are taking a lot of shots. However, they are not getting quality shots that pose a threat. This problem is solvable and the players we have are skilled enough to make adjustments. If the Hurricanes raise their GF/GP to around 2.65 they would be in a playoff spot right now.
Skinner and Rask Step Up
Jeff Skinner and Victor Rask lead the team in scoring and are a dangerous duo for the Hurricanes this season. However, they have been very streaky. If the Canes want to be successful the pair needs to be a dominant force every night. Both players are on a five-game point drought, and while they can bust out with a three or four game span of point-per-game or better play, the Canes need a consistent scoring threat every night. They haven’t played noticeably bad but if they aren’t scoring the Canes are in trouble. The Hurricanes will rely on Skinner and Rask down the stretch for some much-needed scoring. Both players have the ability to step up and become elite goal scorers.
These are the New Year’s resolutions that the Hurricanes need to focus on over the next 45 games. They are putting an exciting product on the ice and the community is starting to show more support. At the end of the day, the results are the only thing that matter. The good thing is that these resolutions are interconnected. If the Canes can improve in one of the key areas I outlined, the others will follow.