While the Carolina Hurricanes season ended in disappointment, the team had a lot to be proud of. Now in the offseason, tough decisions will be made, and management will work to put the team in a place to succeed next season. In the meantime, we will take a look back at individual players’ seasons and see how they did. For the Carolina Hurricanes offseason grades, today we look at Shayne Gostisbehere.
Carolina Hurricanes Offseason Grade: Shayne Gostisbehere
Shayne Gostisbehere is an offensive defenceman with good skating ability. While he is not known for elite defensive play, he also is not a complete liability. “Ghost”, as he has come to be known, was drafted in the third round of the NHL Draft in 2012 by the Philadelphia Flyers out of Union College. The South Florida native was the runner-up for the Calder Trophy in his rookie season after he scored 17 goals and 46 points. The sky seemed like the limit for him.
However, in 2021, the Flyers traded him to the Arizona Coyotes in exchange for draft picks. After spending a few years in the desert, the Coyotes traded him to Carolina at the trade deadline this year for a third-round pick. While you could argue Carolina didn’t really need more defence, they did need scoring and help on the powerplay. Getting Gostisbehere may not necessarily completely fix those struggles, but he certainly would help.
Shayne Gostisbehere’s Regular Season
Gostisbehere’s regular season for Carolina started off with a bang. He scored back-to-back powerplay goals in his first two games with Carolina. He seemed like he was going to be the perfect fix for the Hurricanes’ powerplay. However, he cooled off after those games. He would not score again until the final game of the regular season. But he was not playing poorly.
Carolina utilized him for the rest of the season on the third pair with Jalen Chatfield and they complemented each other very well. Both players are very fast skaters who like to play with pace and push the puck. They were able to cover each other defensively due to their skating ability. In fact, that pairing was the top consistent Hurricanes defensive pair in expected goals percentage, Corsi and Fenwick. They were second in the entire league in expected goals percentage with 67.5% for defensive pairs playing at least 100 minutes. So, the analytics back up the eye test that they were driving offence. A lot of that was due to Gostisbehere’s play.
Individually, Gostisbehere scored three goals and seven assists in the regular season with Carolina. This included two powerplay goals and five powerplay points. In 75 games played, he finished the entire year with 13 goals and 28 assists. These 41 points were pretty good for Gostisbehere but not his career-high. It is notable, however, that he produced that much on an Arizona team that was at the bottom of the league in scoring.
His 12.9 expected goals ranked him at sixth in the league for defencemen playing at least 100 minutes and ahead of any other Hurricanes defenceman playing over that amount. Even if he wasn’t scoring, Gostisbehere was good at getting himself into a shooting position and using his skating to generate opportunities. As mentioned above, he was not the perfect fix for the Hurricanes’ powerplay, but he did provide them with another top-level powerplay quarterback outside of Brent Burns.
Shayne Gostisbehere’s Playoffs
Like the regular season, Gostisbehere would play beside Chatfield in all 15 of Carolina’s postseason games. He was not a liability, but he overall was a little less noticeable over that stretch. He had three assists over those 15 games. This was a career postseason high for him, but all other postseasons never saw him play more than 7 games. Two of those points came on the powerplay.
His advanced stats dipped as well. And so did those for the Chatfield/Gostisbehere line. Their expected goal percentage dropped to 55.7% while they had a -1 goal differential. On a positive note, they were in the top four of defensive pairs playing at least 100 minutes in the playoffs in Corsi and Fenwick. Largely, however, they were not quite as noticeable as in the regular season.
This is not very surprising given their high-flying style mixed with the tightness of the playoffs. When the ice seems to shrink, players like Chatfield and Gostisbehere have to figure out how to adjust. And not saying they didn’t, but it’s not atypical to see those types of players’ numbers drop. Carolina would have loved to see Gostisbehere produce a little more in the playoffs. His on-ice expected goals against per sixty minutes were the second best of Carolina’s defenceman, but those stats seemed to almost perfectly correlate with ice time, to which he was also second lowest. Gostisbehere was a solid bottom pairing defenceman in the playoffs, but not quite what he may have been expected to be. This gave a little hit to this Carolina Hurricanes’ offseason grade.
The Verdict
Carolina brought in Shayne Gostisbehere at the trade deadline to provide added offence from the back, defensive depth, and some assistance on the powerplay. He was not expected to be a 40-goal scorer, but more of a complimentary piece to help the team for a fairly low price. For the most part, Gostisbehere fit right into expectations in the regular season. Watching his chemistry with Jalen Chatfield mixed with the advanced analytics to back it up, it’s no surprise that he was driving offence from the back and providing a lot of defensive depth. He certainly helped on the powerplay too but was not enough to really get it over the hump. The playoffs were a little bit more of a struggle but as a number 5/6 defenceman, he wasn’t terrible.
Gostisbehere is another unrestricted free agent for Carolina this offseason. He fits in with the team, specifically with Chatfield, and it would be great for both sides to come to a deal. However, the reality is he could likely get more money and ice time from a different team. If he’s willing to play in a similar role next season and take a team-friendly deal, this writer wouldn’t be surprised to see him return. But most likely he will take his talents elsewhere.
Grade: B
Check out our last Carolina Hurricanes offseason grades article!
Main Photo: Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports
