Carolina Hurricanes keep the point streak going this week by going 7-0-3 in their last ten games
In last week’s Weekly Links, we questioned why the Carolina Hurricanes decided to win games given that the season was over. They should have been optimizing draft position over any sort of late playoff push. The odds just weren’t in Carolina’s favor of actually making the playoffs.
Well, the Hurricanes found our lack of faith disturbing and won enough games to pull themselves back into the playoff conversation. With their win last night over the New Jersey Devils, the Hurricanes are officially the hottest team in the NHL taking 17 out of a possible twenty points in their last ten games. Some analysts are claiming they are hotter than some of the best in the industry.
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The most surprising part about the point streak is the Hurricanes are winning on the road. Carolina has rarely had problems putting up W’s at the PNC, but their road record was atrocious. A 9-17-8 record made the Hurricanes the fifth-worst team in the league away from home.
But in their most recent road trip the Hurricanes went 3-0-1, and if not for a fortunate bounce off Brett Pesce’s skate against the Flyers, it could have been four straight wins. This next week sees the Carolina Hurricanes play four at home with three of them against the struggling Detroit Red Wings and Dallas Stars.
If the Hurricanes can go another 3-0-1 in their four home games I may finally start to believe in the playoffs. Too often Carolina has crushed my hopes and dreams of postseason bliss so right now I’m still remaining cautiously optimistic. Until next week, it’s time for the links.
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The Weekly Links
Chip Alexander for the News & Observer wrote about the improved play of Eddie Lack in his last several starts. In the article Lack attributes it to working with a psychologist in order to get more focused on the game and block out distractions. Whatever Lack has done it’s been working and he should keep it up.
Calm Before the Storm wrote an article looking at all the scenarios that could possibly happen in the offseason for the Carolina Hurricanes. Also has a good look at the depth charts for the franchise at each position on the ice. Those charts don’t look near as scary as they did when Ron Francis took over as GM.
Canes and Coffee took a look at all the prospects below the AHL and gathered all the info on which players made the playoffs. I’m sure they will be keeping this updated so it will be a good resource for those people interested in how the Hurricanes’ junior players do in their respective postseasons.
Section 328 wrote about the whole Lack/Ward controversy from a different perspective. Given Lack’s recent play the starting goaltending controversy could quickly become a thing of the past. Let’s hope it’s sooner rather than later.
For our weekly stats article, the folks over at Hockey Graphs continue to do some amazing work. One of their recent articles looks at the effect of again on a hockey players skills. This article tries to move some of the advanced work in baseball analytics and apply it to hockey. Very interesting read that shows that investing in youth is the best way for a hockey team to maximize its winning potential. I wonder which hockey team is following that exact same strategy?
Next: Checking Up on the Checkers
And our last article looks at streaking teams going into the playoffs and how they fare. If the Hurricanes do make the playoffs, they will have done so on the back of a tremendous point streak. Will that carry over into the playoffs at all? This article looks at past examples to see what history tells us.