Carolina Hurricanes: Nino Niederreiter Needs to Step Up

Nino Niederreiter‘s results are not where the Carolina Hurricanes want them to be. How can the forwards step up and regain his scoring touch?

Nino Niederreiter in his second season with the Carolina Hurricanes only has six goals and sixteen assists to combine for 22 points through the first 50 games of the season. After joining the Canes last year and playing only 36 games for Carolina in the second half of the season he had over twice as many goals (14) and the same number of assists. So where has it gone wrong for the Swiss forward?

Last season Nino was brought over from Minnesota on a one for one swap for Victor Rask, the sweet potato loving former alternate captain for the Hurricanes. Since then his numbers skyrocketed and it was clear that the Canes had won the trade. Nino played on virtually every line and played plenty of top minutes on the top line with Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen.

This season he is struggling to find the back of the net and his numbers have come crashing down. Even while playing with Aho and Teravainen he cannot find his scoring touch. But a lot of that has come down to luck.

His average expected goals per 60 this season has been on par with Teravainen, Jordan Staal, Ryan Dzingel, and Lucas Wallmark. Each of these players has scored more than he has and that has come down to his shooting percentage.

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Sitting at only 4.84% Nino seems to be hitting the netminder more often than he should considering that his expected shooting percentage is actually 8.6%. That puts him at a higher expected shooting percentage than guys like Martin Necas and Teravainen. But there are still seven other Hurricanes with a better percentage.

But what does this all mean?

I have been throwing advanced analytics at you with little to no context. Basically the context here is that Nino is playing well enough for top Nine minutes but not top Six. Add on the fact that he has not been finding his luck as of late with the lack of results and you have the mix of a player who really needs to find his groove once again before falling to the fourth line.

The good news for Nino is that with 32 games left in the season and the Carolina Hurricanes in the middle of a dog fight for a playoff spot he has plenty of time to turn the ship around and perhaps find himself a lucky charm or two.

If this team is going to make the playoffs once again and repeat its storybook performance and perhaps go beyond it from last season they are going to need every player to play at their best and right now Nino is not.

With only a single goal and a single assist in eleven games, let’s hope that the extended break is exactly what he needed to find his game once again and take the next half of the season by storm.

Question for CC Readers: Do you think Nino can turn this season around for himself?