It must be the season of the witch for the Carolina Hurricanes to start the 2023-24 season. In what must be a Halloween “trick”, the Hurricanes have operated and produced results that largely run counter to their norm. And frankly everyone’s expectations. It’s early in the season so some of the large discrepancies may settle down and the team may go back towards their typical identity, but for now the world seems upside down for Carolina.
2023-24 Carolina Hurricanes Season Starting Unexpectedly
The spread between expectation and reality can create many emotions. Excitement, confusion, disappointment. Each is a candidate depending on the expectation and the reality. The start of the Hurricanes season has probably produced some of each of these emotions and others for fans and players alike.
Let’s start with the expectation. Coming off of the heartbreaking end to last year’s playoffs, the Hurricanes looked like they would need to address goal scoring as a focal point. Scoring chance generation was there but the finishing ability was just under what was desired for a team with Stanley Cup aspirations. On the other side, defensively the Hurricanes were great. The three-goalie rotation of Frederik Andersen, Antti Raanta and Pyotr Kochetkov was working and Carolina’s deep defensive group was excellent at suppressing chances. In line with this thinking, the power play needed some work while the penalty kill was one of the best in the league. While this article looks at the bigger picture, we will take a look in our next article at special teams specifically so stay tuned.
The Offseason’s Effect on Expectations
The Hurricanes addressed some needs in the offseason but also seemingly added strength to strength. After re-signing Andersen and Raanta to keep the goaltending trio together, they made a big free-agency splash to add Dmitry Orlov on the backend. That in addition to maintaining their top-four defencemen plus Jalen Chatfield as well as adding Anthony DeAngelo meant the defence was almost guaranteed to be back and stronger than ever. DeAngelo was also pegged to be a big help on the power play.
Upfront, the Hurricanes addressed goal-scoring and added some grit by signing Michael Bunting. Bunting would be a help to the power play as well with his net-front presence and goal-scoring ability. Even though top-six winger Andrei Svechnikov was recovering from a season-ending injury, the forward group was deep. The only missing piece might have been a true 40-goal-scoring (or more) sniper. But they don’t grow on trees. And that’s not to say that a current player still growing couldn’t possibly hit that mark.
Offensive Explosion
Carolina has shown consistently over the last few years that generating scoring chances was not an issue. Converting them was more of a problem. But so far, six games into the season, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Carolina’s offence has been on a tear. They are second in the league in goals for and goals for per game with 27 and 4.5 respectively. They are fourth in the league in expected goals with 24 and much like previous years lead the league in Corsi and second in Fenwick with 58.02% and 56.12% respectively. The biggest change so far in the advanced analytics department is to their goals scored above expected at 4.58, good enough for fourth in the league.
Top Producers
It is impressive to see these results from the team as they have still been without Svechnikov, and for many games star centre Sebastian Aho. They are still able to generate chances offensively and drive play, as the analytics show, but their conversion seems to have taken a big step forward. Leading the way for Carolina are Seth Jarvis, Jaccob Slavin and Jesperi Kotkaniemi with seven points each. Jarvis leads in goals with four while Slavin and Kotkaniemi have three each. While other players such as Brady Skjei and Martin Necas share in the second place slot with six points, the play of Stefan Noesen (six points), Teuvo Teravainen (five points with four goals) and to a slightly lesser degree Michael Bunting (five points) have been noteworthy.
Slavin has been having a big offensive breakout so far including two shorthanded goals. A change to his curve may have helped. Meanwhile, Jarvis is finding a way to put the puck in the net while Kotkaniemi is finding a place in front of the net and the low slot. Noesen has found a way in the last few games to make elite passes around the net leading to goals.
Changes Giving Results
While the goal-scoring continues to spread around the team generously, the forwards finding places in tight seems to be contributing to better conversion. This not only means the team can convert around the net, but that other areas of the offensive zone are wider open for goalscoring chances. Of course, puck luck or simply better shots could always be a factor as well. Regardless, if this scoring rate can continue through the season, and hopefully into the playoffs, that will be a great help to the team. But with all of this goal-scoring positivity, the team really needs to get back to its old ways in other areas…
Defensive Breakdowns
If this team near the top of the NHL in goals scored isn’t weird enough, their defence has also turned completely upside down from years past. Defence has been the team’s bread and butter. And almost a model for other teams when it comes to suffocating opponents. They play a somewhat unique man-to-man style defensively with a heavy forecheck in the offensive zone. This requires a lot of work and all hands on deck, forwards and defencemen, but when executed, it is hard to break. Meanwhile, the trio of goalies have typically been solid when chances do break through as the last line of defence.
The Results Show
Well in the first six games……this has not worked so well. Defensive breakdowns, lost coverage, odd-man rushes and breakaways, too many men being sucked down low, open back door chances allowed, you name it it seems to be happening. The Hurricanes are the league worst in goals against with 30 and goals against per game with an astonishing five. This is not the Hurricanes we have seen the last few years, or frankly ever in the Rod Brind’Amour era. Their goal differential is a negative three. It would be much worse if not for their offensive explosion. Meanwhile, their expected goals against is 20.65 while their goals against above expected is a league-worst 9.35, almost four more than the next worse team. While their shots against seems to still be nothing too crazy, their collective save percentage on shots on goal is a league-low 81.82%.
So the data shows, to oversimplify, they can’t stop the puck from going in their net. They still are stopping chances collectively at a fair rate, but what they allow to get through seems to be going in. This is what Brind’Amour refers to as “taking breathers”. And it’s killing them. Some of this is on the goalies, sure. When you routinely are giving up five or six goals it’s unlikely that some are not on the goalie. But more killer seems to be the general confusion of not just the defencemen, but the entire group of five skaters on the ice at a time. Sure, Aho and Svechnikov and most recently Brett Pesce have been out, but that’s not an excuse for this type of defensive breakdown.
Who to Blame
Many people have focused on the third defensive pairing of Orlov and DeAngelo as being a large reason for these results. In the last few games Chatfield appears to have been given more trust over DeAngelo so the coaching staff seems to feel the same. The stats show this is true, but maybe not as drastically lopsided as it feels like watching.
Yes, Orlov and DeAngelo have the most goals against at six and the most goals against per sixty minutes at 7.98. This is tough to see when they also only have one goal for, even though they should be an offensively gifted pairing. However, their expected goals against is two while their expected goals against per sixty minutes is 2.66. The Jaccob Slavin-Brent Burns pairing has a 3.01 expected goals against per sixty minutes but 3.77 goals against per sixty. Overall, the Skjei-Pesce pairing has been the best.
But what this all shows for the Orlov-DeAngelo pairing is what has been plaguing the team – the chances the opposition gets seem to just be going in. It’s not a lack of stopping chances, it’s a lack of stopping quality chances it seems. Orlov seems to be still adjusting to the system and DeAngelo, well it’s not a surprise he isn’t exactly the model for a defensive defenceman. Orlov should figure it out. He’s too good of a player. But the constant missed assignments and defensive breakdowns leading to grade-A chances against this pair have been a struggle.
Moving Forward
The reality is we aren’t even ten games into the season yet. Yes, trends develop and the contenders versus the bottom dwellers start to take shape. But it is an 82-game season. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. So, with that said, should Hurricanes fans start panicking? No. In some ways it’s almost impressive they are three and three given their breakdowns.
But these trends are intriguing, to say the least. It’s especially interesting given that the team is essentially no different than last year and its additions should have helped without much sacrifice to the Hurricanes strengths. At least that’s how it looked on paper.
Additionally, the spread between the expectations and the results makes this especially noteworthy as well. It’s not like the Hurricanes went from the best defensive team to the middle of the pack, or scoring no goals to finally having a respectable number. Literally the ship turned upside down from one extreme to the other. As mentioned in this article, getting the team to work together as a unit will be key to moving forward. And there’s plenty of time as the season moves forward. But it will take some work. If it can get there though, the team could be a force. Ideally, the goal-scoring continues while the goal-stopping improves. Ideally….
Main Photo Credit: Steven Bisig-USA TODAY Sports
