Some in the Carolina Hurricanes nation have hit the panic button (after two straight shutout losses) for a veritable cornucopia of reasons. Among the leading concern seems to be a serious lack of a big-time scorer added to the roster at the trade deadline. Other teams, mostly in the Eastern Conference, added big scorers. Carolina went with depth options and improvements to a beleaguered powerplay. And those moves track with what the Hurricanes have always used to win. A balanced approach has paid off for the Hurricanes. From top to bottom, the Hurricanes have tried to stack up better than the other teams hitting the ice.
But what does this well balanced approach look like for the Canes, and how does it stack up against the rest of the play-off picture? I decided to take the top and bottom three goal scorers* from each of the division leaders (Boston Bruins, Carolina Hurricanes, Dallas Stars, Vegas Golden Knights) and stack them up against each other.
(Martin Necas, Sebastian Aho, Andrea Svechnikov, Derek Stephan, Jalen Chatfield, Brett Pesce)
Line: 98 G 150 A 248 P
(David Pastrnak, Brad Marchand, David Krejci, Brandon Carlo, Derek Forbort, Connor Clifton)
Line: 92 G, 145 A, 237 P
(Jason Robertson, Roope Hintz, Jamie Benn, Ryan Suter, Colin Miller, Jani Hakanpää)
Line: 107 G, 145, A, 252 P
(Jonathan Marchessault, Jack Eichel, Reilly Smith, Alec Martinez, Nicolas Hague, Brayden McNabb)
Line: 71 G, 112 A, 183 P
Putting those next to each other, here’s how those look
- CAR: 98 G 150 A 248 P
- BOS: 92 G, 145 A, 237 P
- DAL: 107 G, 145, A, 252 P
- VGK: 71 G, 112 A, 183 P
Dallas is the only team that beats Carolina where it matters, and that is in scoring. The Canes beat the Bruins in scoring and pretty well knock the Golden Knights off their steeds, with the exception of their two head to head games where the Golden Knights managed to win both.
If you look, however, at the balanced nature of the Canes, you will see that their bottom three goal scores have more than the bottom three of every team. Jalen Chatfield, Derek Stepan, and Brent Pesce have more goals (14) than Boston’s (13), Dallas’s (10) and Vegas’s (5). Only Toronto’s (currently second in the Atlantic Division) bottom three of Mark Giordano, Zach Aston-Reese, Timothy Liljegren have as many (14) and the Cane’s lowest three.
While Carolina did not add any big name scoring threats to their roster at the trade line, Shanye Gostisbehere has added depth on the defensive unit, and Jesse Puljujärvi will likely add to the offensive side. As he has already stepped into for the injured Andrei Svechnikov, Puljujärvi will bring in more power numbers for the Hurricanes as well.
Top to bottom, the Carolina Hurricanes have a balanced roster that has brought them this far. As we have seen it does not take a “big time” scorer for the Carolina Hurricanes to win. But a well balanced, evenly distributed team with scoring threats at every position.
*Who have played 55 or more games.