If last night was supposed to be a new "chapter" in Carolina's season, then it got off to a lousy start. The story about this game will likely be focused around Cam Ward's struggles and the team's third period collapse, but they were on life support even before allowing four goals in that frame. New Jersey significantly outplayed them for 2/3 of the game and eventually got rewarded for it in the third when the Hurricanes were on their heels and could not handle anything the Devils brought at them. The Hurricanes had extreme difficulty getting the puck out of their zone and the times they did, they were either clogged up in the middle of the ice or had to play dump-and-chase to get through the Devils defense. Their play away from the puck in the defensive zone was also atrocious, as they were losing puck battles left and right and leaving New Jersey forwards open in the process. They had some stretches of good play, but the Hurricanes were mostly a comedy of errors last night and the third period was the icing on the leftover Thanksgiving pumpkin pie.

It's easy to pin this one on Ward because he let in a couple of soft goals and was far from being in form, but the team in front of him was twice as bad and it's hard to put 100% of the blame on him when you look at how poorly the Hurricanes were outplayed.

If there is one thing Hurricanes fans know from years of following the team, it is that nothing comes easy and last night's 4-3 win over the New Jersey Devils is a fine example of that. This was a relatively "important" game for Carolina and they certainly looked like they were up to the challenge in the early stages, gaining an early 1-0 lead and building on it with another three-goal second period. They also outshot the Devils 19-13 during that time frame and looked like a much faster team compared to what we have seen over the last couple of weeks. It was the first time in awhile that they had significantly outplayed their opponent and with a 4-1 lead entering the third period, the Hurricanes were en route to their first "easy" win of the season. Or at least that's how things appeared then.

As most teams do when playing with a lead, Carolina opted to sit back for most of the third and the Devils gave them just about everything they could handle. They spent most of that period playing in Carolina's end and while the Hurricanes only surrendered nine shots, they had trouble getting the puck out of the zone and were getting severely outworked by the Devils. Carolina did a good job of limiting chances, but this goes back to the reoccurring problem with the team spending too much time defending and playing in their own end, which is going to result in bad things and the Devils nearly got a point because of it tonight. They scored twice in the third period and were an amazing save by Cam Ward away from tying the game. You can chalk Carolina's third period play up to them defending a three-goal lead, but this type of strategy isn't always the best thing to do and it might hurt them against teams with more offensive talent than New Jersey. 

Still, there was enough to be encouraged about from last night, as the Hurricanes outplayed a good possession team for 40 minutes and got two big points in the standings. A nice way to go into the Thanksgiving break before the two teams see each other in a rematch on Friday night.

Fans and bloggers everywhere are looking for answers as to why the Hurricanes offense has struggled so much in the early portion of the season and so far, there have been a variety of answers. The most common one being that the team lacks any net front presence and take most of their shots from bad locations. Going from just gameday observations and my scoring chance data, this seems like a plausible explanation. The Hurricanes have had a very hard time generating scoring chances this year but the problem goes beyond them not having any "net front presence" that fans speak of. The problem is that they struggle to get the puck up the ice and keep it in the offensive zone once they get it there. They have been a very poor puck possession team this season and you generally aren't going to score a lot if you are stuck in your own end. 

That said, there are poor possession teams who have been able to score at even strength despite being at a territorial disadvantage. Colorado, Columbus, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto and Nashville have all scored at a higher goal-per-game rate than Carolina while being worse clubs at controlling territorial play. Why is this the case? One blogger's opinion would be that it all comes down to luck and that these teams have simply gotten more of it than the Canes have this year. After all, only the New York Rangers have posted a worse shooting percentage than Carolina at even strength this year and only two teams have a worse overall shooting percentage. It's hard to get much worse luck than that and it is hard to see the Hurricanes shooting at only 6.9% for an entire season.

However, this is where the earlier theory that the Hurricanes are taking a lot of "bad shots" comes into play. If the Hurricanes are a team that plays most of their game on the perimeter and doesn't consistently go to scoring areas, then it's easy to believe that their goal production will not improve much, especially if they continue to get outshot every night. Does the actual on-ice data match up with our observations, though?

Thanks to Sporting Charts new shot location heat maps, we can see where the Hurricanes are shooting the puck from this year and whether or not we can expect their goal total to improve.

This has been a pretty frustrating season to watch for Hurricanes fans, not because the team has been playing poorly but because of how inconsistent they have been. After losing five games in a row, the Canes went onto earn points in their next five and then followed that up by dropping their next four, three of those losses coming in the previous week. To make matters worse, the team played some of their worst hockey of the season during that stretch and was dominated by two Eastern Conference clubs in their losses to Boston & Detroit. Carolina's even strength play has taken a pretty big step back this year, but the numbers they posted against Boston & Detroit would put them at the bottom of the league if it continued for a long stretch of time. You have to account for injuries, as the team was missing their best play-driving forward, Alexander Semin, for all three games but their even strength performance was still very ugly regardless.

They were able to salvage some good out of this week by defeating Ottawa at home and earning a point in an overtime loss to Boston, but this team has had major problems keeping up with top clubs at even strength and it will hurt them later in the season if things don't improve.

Last night, we saw the Hurricanes go back to their 2013 form for a little bit. They recorded over 36 shots on goal, were showing more creativity with the puck and had long stretches of time where they were the team dictating the play. However, they were also playing a much more open style defensively and gave up a lot of shots to the Senators, especially in transition. In other words, this game wasn't too different from what we saw from last season's team in terms of playing style. The main difference was that the Hurricanes had a few more bounces go in their favor. Carolina was rewarded for their hard work with three goals in the second period and most of their defensive slip-ups didn't hurt the team thanks to some marvelous goaltending from Cam Ward. 

This may have been only one game, but it was refreshing to see the Hurricanes offense show what they are capable of after going nearly a month averaging less than two goals per game. Not having to play an elite possession team certainly helped them, as it was easier for Carolina to establish a forecheck and work their way through the neutral zone, but a change in strategy was another big reason why their offense came to life against Ottawa.

After last Saturday's loss to the St. Louis Blues, I said to myself that I would be okay with that game being the low-point of the season for Carolina. They were vastly outshot in that game and generated a total of five even strength scoring chances, which is pretty abysmal no matter who you are playing. Somehow, the Hurricanes have managed to outdo themselves and follow that game with two even worse performances against Boston & Detroit respectively and their re-match with the Bruins this afternoon was on-pace to be one of their worst games of the season.

Through two periods, the Hurricanes generated only 10 shots on goal and were being outchanced 12-3. This club has had a lot of trouble creating offense, but it takes a lot of effort (or lack thereof) to have that kind of output through 40 minutes of play. The Bruins simply looked like they were in a different league than the Hurricanes for most of the game and probably should have won this game in a blowout when taking that into consideration. The Hurricanes had trouble possessing the puck, sustaining a forecheck, creating chances, getting the puck out of their own zone and pretty much everything you need to do to win hockey games. Yet, Carolina managed to escape Boston with a point and most of that is due to the play of goaltender Cam Ward. 

Ward made 35 saves and managed to keep the Hurricanes in the game, most of his shining moments coming in the second period where they were under siege and outshot 12-4. Every team has a game where their goaltender needs to steal a point or two for them and Ward was able to do that tonight with his performance. The team in front of him had to step up too, which they did in the third period, but this game was all about #30. This was the Cam Ward most were hoping to see this year and while it was nice to see him dialed in, the rest of the team has a ton of issues right now and they have about 20-some games to correct them.

After coming off the high of the five-game point streak, the Hurricanes have now lost two straight and have been knocked back down to reality. That reality being that this team is not very good, or at least not the roster they sent out in Monday night's 4-1 loss to Boston. People can go on and on about how talented this team is and how the Canes problems are related to work ethic, but that isn't what I'm seeing. From my viewpoint, I didn't see anything wrong with the team's "effort" on Monday night and I think the Hurricanes did a lot of things to try to beat Boston. The problem is that you are not going to create much offense with the roster Carolina iced on Monday night. 

Injuries aren't an excuse, but this roster is missing a lot of skill with Jeff Skinner & Alexander Semin out of the lineup and it showed in a big way last night. When Drayson Bowman is playing on your top line and Patrick Dwyer is in your top-six, then it's going to be tough to create/finish chances & carry the play, especially against a top team like Boston. With Semin being out of the lineup, Carolina tried to "keep it simple" against the Bruins and play a North/South type of game. It sounds like a good idea on paper but when put into action, it really wasn't effective at all. Boston was able to beat Carolina to most of the loose pucks and force the Hurricanes to play in their own end for extended stretches of time. There were some moments where the Hurricanes played well and were able to carry the play against Boston, but the Bruins had the edge for the majority of the game and the Hurricanes struggled to get through the Bruins defense when the game was close.

Maybe this team will get better once Skinner and/or Semin return to the lineup but right now, the Hurricanes are not a good team and they are going to get outplayed when going up against clubs like the Bruins.

The Hurricanes climbed up in the Metropolitan Division standings by earning nine out of a possible ten points in their latest home stand and winning two out of three games this past week. They were also able to get their first two wins against the Western Conference this week by taking down the Colorado Avalanche & Anaheim Ducks, the latter of which being an ultra-rare shootout victory. The week ended on a sour note with the Canes getting thumped by the Blues on Saturday night but overall, the general feel is that the Hurricanes are starting to head in the right direction.

Despite a tough schedule, they have managed to tread water in the division and with the team slowly getting healthier, things should continue to get better. At least that's how things appear at first glance. A deeper look at their last three games tells a slightly different story.

Well...that was quite a way to get knocked back down to Earth. After a strong home stand, the Hurricanes traveled to St. Louis and took a beating from one of the best teams in the NHL. The final score may not indicate it, but the Canes were dominated for most of last night's game and were one good penalty kill away from being blown out. It's not terribly surprising either because the deck was stacked against them in many ways. They were traveling on the second night of a back-to-back against two top Western Conference teams, were playing their third string goalie for the 10th game in a row and are dealing with a banged up roster at the moment. The Canes have also been a mediocre team at even strength and do not match up well with the Blues, especially on the road, so I was expecting them to get outplayed and that's basically what happened.

How bad were they outplayed, though? Find out after the jump.

There are a few ways you can look at the Hurricanes shootout victory over the Anaheim Ducks last night. On one hand, the Hurricanes defeated the "best" team in the NHL and were able to fight back from another early deficit to do it. They also saw had another solid defensive effort, holding the Ducks to only nine scoring chances at even strength, providing goaltender Justin Peters with plenty of support yet again. The other side of the story is that the Hurricanes were grossly outplayed by the Ducks at even strength and needed a skills competition in order to secure two points. This suggests that they were more lucky than good last night and anybody who watched the game will probably agree with this sentiment.

The ongoing narrative with this team over the last couple of weeks is that they've "found ways to win" and while they have played well during this stretch, last night was one of their better games. Despite playing the night before, Anaheim was the more energized team and dictated the pace of play. The Ducks are a very good team and the Hurricanes aren't going to win the possession battle against everyone, but Carolina's quest for offense is going to be a real problem down the road. It's nice to see the team showing a commitment to defense, but the Canes had a lot of trouble with turning that into rushes the other way in last night's game.

Yes, they ended up winning and that's the only thing that matters but luck aided them quite a bit.