Carolina Hurricanes: Examining Nino Niederreiter

The Carolina Hurricanes’ offense has been firing on all cylinders this season, yet production from El Nino has been down. Can he turn it around?

First and foremost, let me just say: YOU’RE WELCOME. In case you forgot, let me remind you that the article I wrote on Friday critiquing the Hurricanes goaltending situation led to BACK-TO-BACK SHUTOUTS for the Carolina Hurricanes by Petr Mrazek and James Reimer. So I figured hey, how about I write another article on a struggling Cane to jinx them into playing well? So here. We. Are.

Nino Niederreiter – I’m looking at you!!!! So let’s start by taking a mental trip back to January 17th of 2019 – the day Nino Niederreiter became a Carolina Hurricane. The Carolina Hurricanes were on an absolute tear – 7-2-0 since New Years Eve – and were trying to climb out of the depths of the Eastern Conference. That’s when the man known amicably as El Nino entered the chat.

The Canes pulled a heist that sent a ripple effect through the NHL landscape. Somehow, they managed to offload Victor Rask, who’d effectively done absolutely nothing for them all season (he’d scored just one goal) for a rebound candidate in Nino Niederreiter, who was struggling in Minnesota, but fresh off 4 seasons of a 20+ goal pace.

The Canes (no pun intended) surged after the acquisition. They would proceed to go 24-10-2 in the 36 games after Nino’s addition, and obviously manage to go to the playoffs and all the way to the East Finals. Nino’s role in that can’t be understated.

After coming over from Minnesota, he was sort of a revelation for the Carolina Hurricanes, scoring 14 goals and 30 points in 36 games, forming a lethal partnership on teams’ the top line alongside Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen. If you spread those numbers across an 82-game season, it would project to 32 goals and 68 points.

I’m not saying that anybody should’ve expected that type of production from Nino this season (especially seeing as his goal scoring dried up in the playoffs) but at a 5.25M price tag and his success last season with the team, expectations were obviously reasonably high for Nino going into his first full season with the Canes.

Obviously, he’s paid and is deployed as a top-6 forward, although his game is effective in more ways than just on the scoresheet. He’s got good size at 6’2, 220lbs, and noticeably isn’t afraid to use his frame on the forecheck. He gets to the dirty areas of the ice, and can be a physical presence at times (although his hits have dropped dramatically over his career).

Unfortunately for Nino, he hasn’t been rewarded with much scoreboard success this year, and when you dive deeper into the numbers it’s not really that hard to see why. First off, he’s only taken 77 shots in 45 games this year (just 1.7 per game) compared to 103 in 36 games last season (2.9 per game) and his shooting percentage has dipped dramatically, from 13.6 to 7.8%. On his career he shoots 11.8%, so his goal scoring troubles can be attributed to bad luck.

His usage has also been downgraded from last season. He’s playing over 3 minutes fewer per game (18:17 to 15:10 this year) and he’s also playing :40 seconds fewer per game on the powerplay, and has been demoted to the second unit. He’s also starting just 52% of his shifts in the offensive zone, as opposed to 62% last season. Overall, it’s a recipe for regression.

But there is definitely reason to believe that Nino can snap out of his funk. Obviously the hope is that his shooting luck can turn around (like jeez – this poor guy has hit as many posts as Brock McGinn!). He’s also been re-united with the Aho line, after being part of various other combinations that didn’t work.

Evidently, the Hurricanes have better results when Nino is effective. This season, 17 of his 21 points have come in games that the Hurricanes won, as opposed to just 4 points in their 18 losses. Interesting enough he’s yet to scoring in any of the Canes’ divisional games thus far, and with 15 important ones remaining the team definitely needs him to heat up.

Assuming that he can, the Canes’ top-9 will look as fierce as any in the league on paper. The season is barely half way through and the team already has 7 guys over double-digit goals and 9 guys over 20 points. The team as a whole is top-10 in the league in goals for, and can be even more dangerous with Nino back in form.

Heading down the stretch, exactly what the Hurricanes get from Niederreiter could be a detrimental factor to what they accomplish. Last year, his goal scoring and tenacity was a beyond welcoming addition to the roster, and who could forget his marvelous goal that put the Hurricanes back in the promised land?

Niederreiter’s contributions over the next few months will be absolutely vital to the teams success, so here’s hoping that this attempted jinx will create magic again. But if not, at least we can confide in the fact that we aren’t subjected to watching Victor Rask coast around anymore!

Question for CC Readers: Can Nino re-gain his scoring touch?