5 Things Carolina Hurricanes’ Fans Should Be Excited About
1. Youth leading the way
People keeping say the Carolina Hurricanes are a young team, and they are. But I don’t think fans truly realize how young Carolina is in regards to the rest of the league. If you go by just a simple average of each players age, the Hurricanes are ranked third in the league by Quant Hockey for the youngest team behind the Jets and the Buffalo Sabres. The team’s average age is 25.557 years and that’s pretty young. If one actually adjusts for the actual impact of the youth by weighting ages by games played the Hurricanes jump all the way to first place. What this means is that while other teams may have younger players on their rosters, the Hurricanes actually have the more young players playing vital roles for the team.
It’s not hard to notice this when you watch the games. Just look at who is having the most noticeable affect on play night in and night out. Players like Sebastian Aho, Jaccob Slavin, and Brett Pesce are performing phenomenally and all three are on entry level contracts. Noah Hanifin plays significant minutes as well on an ELC along with Teuvo Teravainen. Then you have guys like Viktor Rask and Elias Lindholm who are still only on their second contracts.
What about those grizzled veterans Jeff Skinner and Justin Faulk? Both are only 24 years old and just starting to hit their prime statistically. Even old man Jordan Staal is only 28 years old hardly washed up by any means. Basically, the top two defensive pairs of the future and the top forward lines are all under 25 with the exception of Jordan Staal. So yeah, while this year hasn’t been great given the age of the team’s top players there is still plenty of time and room for improvement.
2. Draft Pick Stockpile
Sure we mentioned in Part One of this how the Carolina Hurricanes lack a true top three pick which helps accelerate any rebuild. The next best strategy is to horde as many draft picks as a team possibly can and beat the odds with sheer brute force. Over the next two drafts, the Hurricanes have sixteen picks with an extra second and third round this year. Given Ron Francis’s ability to rustle up picks this number will most likely grow. And while they aren’t top three picks they have a lot of value. There’s been many a battle in history won on just sheer numbers rather than any discernible talent by the army’s commander.
Just look at all the great players on the current roster picked after the first round. Justin Faulk (2nd), Sebastian Aho (2nd), Brett Pesce (3rd), Jaccob Slavin (4th), Victor Rask (2nd). Over half the players of the youth movement mentioned earlier were found after the first round. The guys over at Hockey Graphs also think that the Carolina Hurricanes have the best outlook for the future in regards to draft picks as well.
Basically what it means is that not only do the Hurricanes have a great youth movement, but the franchise’s focus on stockpiling means the pipeline won’t be drying up anytime soon either. Compare this to years past when the Hurricanes would trade picks in order to get that one extra player to push the team into the playoffs. How many times did that work? So far this system seems to be doing a great job of getting talent onto the Hurricanes’ roster.
3. Team Depth
Perhaps the greatest side effect of stockpiling draft picks is the addition to the overall team depth of the Hurricanes. Players like Brock McGinn, Derek Ryan, Phil Di Giuseppe, and Andrej Nestrasil all have contributed at some point to the team. Brock McGinn was one of the NHL’s stars of the week this year while Ryan went on a nice point streak in December. Having players like this in the system gives fans peace of mind that if an injury does come it won’t be a complete disaster at least for the short term.
Sure the Hurricanes are having to give players like this too many minutes right now and that is one of the problems with the team. But being able to properly evaluate talent at all levels is important, and having players like these in the systems shows Francis can bring in great supplemental players without breaking the bank.
4. Tons of Cap Space
Right now the Hurricanes sit at the bottom of the league in regards to cap space, and next year looks to be the same with Bickell’s four million coming off the books as well. Some people see this as a detriment to the team. That the lack of spending shows the team’s reluctance to spend in order to ice a competitive team. I disagree. Especially given the horrible contracts given out this offseason. If anyone thinks that any of those free agents would have made the Hurricanes a playoff contender then it’s a good thing Ron Francis doesn’t listen to you.
Very soon players like Aho, Pesce, and Slavin and are all going to get big paydays. By not signing any big time free agents before the team is ready for them, Francis keeps plenty of space available in order to keep them in the fold. This also allows him to do so with having to play hardball as seen recently with Jacob Trouba and Hamhuis Lindholm. Signing or trading for large contracts should be postponed until the addition of one player ACTUALLY pushes the team into the playoffs or on a deep playoff run. To do otherwise would just be a waste of resources.
5. Excellent Coaching Staff
I’ll be honest. I’ve definitely criticized Bill Peters here before in my writing on this site. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think he’s doing an excellent job. Travis Yost wrote an excellent article about Peters ability to influence the Canes shot rates last summer. I also took a look at the Canes metrics at the start of the year and they showed Bill Peters continuing to improve the team as well. It’s not just in the stats either, the team seems to have bought into Peters’s system as well and while there have been some setbacks recently overall the team has improved year to year.
Next: In Defense of Noah Hanifin
Not to say there still aren’t problems with the team. The power play still looks pretty pathetic no matter what they do with it, and the young team is prone to some really questionable decisions. But what coach is perfect? Even the greats like Bruce Boudreau and Mike Babcock make mistakes, and Bill Peters is no exception. Overall, though, Bill Peters has the team headed in the right direction and performing at its highest level in years. Once all those draft picks start coming through and improving the talent level on the roster it will be really fun to see what Peters can do with an actual playoff contender.