Sometimes GMs will find hidden gems on the waiver wire and while Andreas Nod isn't exactly a diamond in the rough, he is a very useful player and the Hurricanes were able to get him for next to nothing at the end November. Nodl's career with the Hurricanes didn't have a great start as it took Kirk Muller a little over a month to find out Nodl's strengths and decide where he fits in the lineup. It was then that Nodl's play started to improve and he became a regular on the team's third line with Patrick Dwyer and Brandon Sutter.

Nodl has never been a great puck handler and needs top-nine minutes to succeed but his terrific defensive play is something that gets overlooked by a lot of people and makes him valuable to a team like the Hurricanes. Fortunately, this did not pass over Muller's head and he made Nodl one of the team's "heavy lifters" and Nodl performed fairly well in this role. Nodl's defensive skills keep him from being a replacement level player but you can find guys who have similar skills to him for close to the league minimum. Hence why the Canes were able to get him off waivers.

With that in mind, I think Nodl has a lot of potential and plays a big role on the third line but his offensive skills are something that needs a lot of work. That isn't his role but one of my complaints from this season was that the Hurricanes weren't getting enough offense from their third line and Nodl was a key reason for that. He did a lot of good things even when he wasn't scoring, though and that point is reinforced when you look at his underlying numbers from this year.

There were a lot of bloggers and pundits who predicted the Phoenix Coyotes taking a large step back this season because they lost an top-tier goaltender in Ilya Bryzgalov and replaced him with Mike Smith, a goalie who had a sub-.900 save percentage last season and was waived by the Tampa Bay Lightning. It is probably a safe bet to say that not many thought the Coyotes would make the Western Conference Finals and even fewer that predicted Mike Smith would be the reason why they would get that far. Fast forward to May and the Coyotes are one of the last two teams remaining in the Western Conference on the back of Mike Smith's .948 save percentage.

Going into this series, I gave the Predators the advantage because I thought they would be relying on goaltending less than the Coyotes and that was true for the most part. They outchanced Phoenix 19-11 in game 5 and 15-11 at even strength but Mike Smith, once again, played lights out and was a key role in Phoenix's 2-1 win over Nashville to eliminate them from the playoffs. Phoenix wasn't getting dominated at even strength, but the puck was in their end for most of the night and goaltending was the deciding factor in yet another game. You have to wonder how long this kind of strategy will keep up for the Coyotes but it's gotten them pretty deep in the playoffs now and they are only eight wins away from the Stanley Cup. It is pretty unbelievable when you look at their numbers over the series. We will look at those numbers later, but for now, we will look at how game 5 went.

After a solid rookie season, Jamie McBain began this year in the press box and had to earn his playing time with seven other defensemen also on the team. It didn't take long for him to be inserted back into the lineup and he had quite a wild year to say the least. With his usual defense partner, Joni Pitkanen, being on the IR for most of the season, the coaching staff had a tough time figuring out how to use McBain and his performance on ice either thrived or suffered as a result.

There were games when McBain was used against the toughs and that had mixed results. He managed to hold his own on some nights and got destroyed on others. The word "sophomore slump" came up a lot with McBain this year when he was playing tough minutes when in reality, he was playing a role that he wasn't fit for and probably shouldn't have been used in. Uncoincidentally, he started playing better in a protected third pairing role with Jaroslav Spacek and saw all of his numbers improve.

McBain's versatility is nice to have and he gained a lot of experience this season, but where does he fit on the team long-term? A look at his numbers from this year show that he is best as a third-pairing defenseman for now but might not be completely helpless in a top four role. A look at said numbers is coming after the jump.

Chad LaRose is one player who I've spent a lot of time defending this season because while he doesn't always make the best decisions and isn't an ideal top-line winger, he simply got the job done when it came to generating scoring chances and possession. He isn't a star player and will probably never score more than 35 points, but he can be used just about anywhere in the lineup and is at least passable in whatever role he plays. LaRose showed a lot of that this season as he was used on every line at least once and played a considerable amount of time on both special teams units. Something else that might be overlooked is that this season was LaRose's strongest in the NHL.

I know that 19 goals and 32 points doesn't look like much, but the latter is a career-high for LaRose and his strong possession numbers show that it wasn't a fluke. Spending a lot of time in the top-six and on the powerplay probably helped, though. The truth about LaRose is that he isn't a pure-goal scorer and probably isn't suited for a top-six role. However, he is an excellent third liner and was one of Carolina's better players this season.

After the jump, we will take a look at LaRose's underlying numbers from this year and how much he benefited the team. It might be a lot more than you think.

Nashville head coach Barry Trotz made a risky decision to keep forwards Alexander Radulov and Andrei Kostitsyn out of the lineup despite their suspensions being repealed. His reasoning was that he didn't want to mess with what worked in game 3 which Nashville won 2-0. This plan ended up blowing up in his face as the Preds were shutout 1-0 by Phoenix last night and now trail the series 3 games to 1.

The Predators did outchance the Coyotes in this game and Mike Smith had to do his part to keep the Coyotes ahead, but the problem throughout the game was that Nashville could not finish their chances. They had control of the game for the last two periods but too many of their opportunities either went off the post or were blocked by the Phoenix defense. Patric Hornqvist's shot data from this game sums things up perfectly. He had 12 shot attempts, four were blocked, five either hit the post or missed the net and only three actually made it on goal.

This was the type of game where the Preds could have used a player like Radulov or Kostitsyn because they had a lot of zone time and chances, but couldn't finish any of them. Radulov and Kostitsyn are two of Nashville's best offensive players and they were kept out of the lineup. I know that hindsight is 20/20 but the Preds haven't exactly been running over the Coyotes this series or scoring a ton. They won game 3 on the back of a strong defensive effort and a shutout from Pekka Rinne. Nashville got off to a horrible start in game 4 and were playing catch-up for the rest of the game and ended up losing because they make the most of their opportunities.

It's a tough loss for the Preds, but I still think that they are far from done. They have outchanced Phoenix in three of the four games this series and can turn things around. It will be very difficult for them to pull it off, though.

Let's not beat around the bush here, the Tomas Kaberle signing was a gigantic misfire by Jim Rutherford. He even admitted it himself. The Hurricanes may have almost made the playoffs in 2010-11 but they were still a team that was rebuilding and had a stockpile of defensemen in their farm system, so bringing in Kaberle on a three year deal was a puzzling acquisition to say the least. I do understand that they were looking for a replacement for Joe Corvo and that they didn't know Justin Faulk would be NHL-ready at such a young age, but committing three years and $12.75 mil. to an aging offensive defenseman isn't something that a team in Carolina's position should do.

Hindsight is 20/20, but those who watched Kaberle in Boston and Toronto the last couple of seasons could have told you that his days of being a top-four defender are long gone. He was used as a third pairing defenseman/powerplay specialist with the Bruins during the playoffs last season and wasn't exactly stellar in that role. That isn't the type of player you give $4.25 mil. per year to and it didn't help that he kept Jamie McBain from playing every night.

That being said, it was thought that Kaberle would be somewhat of an upgrade on the powerplay over Corvo and that he could succeed in a protected role at even strength. That wasn't the case at all in Carolina as he struggled to stay afloat for most of the season, found himself in the press box for one game and was eventually traded to Montreal for Jaroslav Spacek. Rutherford managed to bail himself out of Kaberle's contract but just how bad was he in Carolina? His overall underlying numbers actually are not horrible but that viewpoint completely changes when you add some context to the situation. Follow me after the jump to see what I am talking about.

There are a lot of people who say that a team isn't in trouble in a series until they lose at home, which would make this Predators-Coyotes series very much alive after the Preds shutout Phoenix 2-0 last night. One thing that I have been saying in the first two games is that this series could go either way because both teams are pretty similar in the sense that they aren't strong possession teams and have relied a lot on goaltending this season.

We are now three games into the series and the two teams are even in scoring chances when playing 5-on-5 but the Preds have had the advantage in two of the three games. They didn't get good enough goaltending in the first two games, but that wasn't the case in game 3 as Pekka Rinne recorded his first shutout but the guys in front of him did a terrific job for most of the game in blanketing the Coyotes offense and making their top two lines ineffective for the most part.

Nashville does not need Rinne to stand on his head to win this series, but having him make the big saves when he needs to definitely helps. That's what the case was last night.

At the start of the season, the Hurricanes elected to keep Derek Joslin on their main roster as one of nine eligible defensemen. This looks like an excessive amount but keeping Joslin on the big club was a very smart move in the end. He is signed to a cheap contract and couldn't be sent to the AHL without passing through waivers first, and the team felt that he would be needed sooner or later. He spent the first month of the season in the press-box but Joslin eventually became a regular part of the lineup during the second half of the season, but as a forward and not a defenseman.

With both the Hurricanes and the Charlotte Checkers having a lot of injuries to forwards, depth was desperately needed and Kirk Muller turned to Joslin for that reason in February. It was the first time he had ever played forward in years but his size, decent shot and willingness to get involved physically gave Muller the idea that he would be a good fit for the team's fourth line. This idea did not sound horrible at first and his line with Anthony Stewart & Tim Brent was very popular with fans, but the truth is that Joslin is much better when he is playing his natural position on the blue line.

Joslin isn't the most talented or most effective player in the world, but he is serviceable as a 6th or 7th defenseman. As a forward, he does more harm than good for the Canes and his scoring chance numbers plummeted after he switched positions. We will look at those numbers after the jump.

Jussi Jokinen's 30 goal season back in 2009-10 was both a blessing and a curse. It was great to see him set career highs in goals and points but to many people, every season after that will be seen as a disappointment. The truth is that Jokinen had a once-and-a-lifetime season that year and he probably isn't going to shoot at 18.8% ever again, which probably means that he won't ever repeat that 30 goal/65 point season. However, to say that both seasons Jokinen had since then are disappointments would be silly.

I will admit that I was expecting more than 12 goals from him this season, but Jokinen has consistently been one of the Hurricanes' better forwards ever since he arrived and he was one of their best last season. Next to Jeff Skinner, Jokinen was the team's best even strength forward at creating and preventing scoring chances and he was also one of their better powerplay performers and penatly killers. His ability to win faceoffs at an above average rate earned him the second line center role to start the season and he seemed to blossom in that his line with Jeff Skinner & Tuomo Ruutu was, once again, one of Carolina's best forward units.

Jokinen's point production at even strength was a little underwhelming but a 46 point season is nothing to sneeze at for someone playing in the top-six, in my opinion. Jokinen had a solid season and I think his goal total will rebound next year, especially if he can create chances at the rate he did this season. After the jump, we will take a look at Jokinen's underlying numbers and how he performed compared to the rest of the team.

In a turn of events that I am sure everyone saw coming, the Phoenix Coyotes now have a 2-0 series lead over the Nashville Predators after defeating them 5-3 last night. To win Game 1, the 'Yotes had to rely on goaltender Mike Smith to do most of the work, but that was not the case last night. Phoenix turned in one of their most impressive performances of the post-season and hammered the Preds at even strength; outchancing them 18-11 and outshooting them by 11. 

Going into this series, I was very excited and curious because things could truly go either way. Neither Phoenix or Nashville are dominant possession teams and they both have gotten elite goaltending so it was hard to predict who would control most of this series. That sentiment has reigned true so far as the Preds controlled most of game one while Phoenix dominated most of game 2 during five-on-five play. The reason for the Preds trailing 2-0 ultimately comes down to goaltending.

No, Pekka Rinne has not been atrocious and the Preds defense was pretty brutal last night, but he was out-dueled by Mike Smith in game 1 and gave up five goals in game 2. With the Preds being a team that succeeded laragely on goaltending and special teams for most of the season, Rinne needs to play better than he did last night. Although, that statement can also apply to a lot of the Predators players.