Carolina Hurricanes: Svechnikov’s expected bounceback season

When we think of the Carolina Hurricanes who had fantastic seasons last year, one player that will not come to mind is Andrei Svechnikov. While the Russian was great by most players’ standards, for the former 2nd overall pick, last season was a major downturn. His shot seemed to disappear and he really struggled with putting the puck in the net. This is again by Svechnikov’s standards because this dude can usually score from behind the net as well as in front of it.

Svechnikov only had 15 goals last season in 55 games. He did have 27 assists for a nice total of 42 points, but that’s not the Svechnikov we were expecting considering the year prior he was on pace to break 30 goals when the season shut down. Last season, Svechnikov was on pace for 22 goals. That is nothing like the Andrei we have come to love during his first three years in Raleigh.

So, why can we expect more from Svechnikov this season? Great question. For one, he’ll still be up there with Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen as the SAT line continue to terrorize defense pairings across the NHL. With those two fantastic players beside him for the entire year (regarding Teuvo’s injuries last year), Svechnikov should reap major benefits.

Svechnikov’s shooting percentage last season was also way down from the year prior. His shot total was also down. It was the worst shooting year he’s ever had, so we can expect that to be a better total in the upcoming season. He’ll likely be in the 30 goal conversation again, but there’s a lot of room to improve for Svechnikov. Remember, he’s only 21 and he can get better yet.

One more reason Svechnikov will likely improve is the health of the blue-line getting the puck to him. Assuming they can all stay healthy on the back end, the defense as a unit is better with its puck movement. There’s no longer that issue on the 3rd pairing, the 2nd pairing is still solid and the 1st pair still has incredible potential, as much as we may not like it.

What I’m saying here isn’t that Svechnikov is a product of the team around him. We all know that Svechnikov is a talent that we might have never seen before in Carolina, but there’s a lot of upsides for him to continue to grow and last year he was kind of stagnent. There’s a lot of question still, but you know he can continue to grow, and the better he becomes, the better the team gets.