Can the Carolina Hurricanes win the Stanley Cup in 2018-19? They were among the best teams in the league just over a decade ago, made two trips to the Stanley Cup Final in four seasons, and emerged victorious in 2005-06. Since then, they have made the playoffs just once, and have placed no higher than sixth in their division for the past five seasons.
Next season's Hurricanes may be nothing like last season's. On Jan. 11, Tom Dundon became the team's new majority owner, and on Apr. 30, the Hurricanes terminated the contract of team president and GM Ron Francis. The next day, they hired Rick Dudley as senior vice president of hockey operations, and then confirmed Don Waddell as the team's new president and GM on May 8.
It's hard to predict what changes the team's new management will make in order to steer the Hurricanes back into Stanley Cup contention. A complete roster overhaul may even be under consideration, according to Bob McKenzie's report on TSN 1050 on May 14, which stated that everybody except Sebastian Aho could be available via trade, and that top players like Jeff Skinner were almost certain to move.
The Hurricanes have many options available to them, and as we demonstrated with teams like the Chicago Blackhawks here and the Detroit Red Wings here, statistical analysis can provide some insight into the consequences of each one. In Carolina's case, it wouldn't be impossible to achieve Stanley Cup contention immediately.
Here's how.
Not that far away
Carolina has several key strengths. The Hurricanes have lots of cap space, a solid young blue line, very strong organizational strength, and the second overall pick in the upcoming NHL draft. They led the league with a shot attempt percentage of 54.5, have finished in the top six in killing penalties in each of the past three seasons, and took the fewest penalties for the third consecutive season.
However, becoming a Stanley Cup contender will require an improvement in the crease, a substantial increase in scoring up front, and superior coaching. Hockey analytics can help us explore how the Hurricanes can achieve each of those objectives, which all starts by building from their most notable position of strength, the blue line.
A strong blue line
A player usage chart is a good starting point to determine how the team's players have been deployed at 5-on-5, and how effective the team has been when they were in those assigned roles. In Carolina's case, it's an excellent demonstration of its greatest strength, which is its blue line.
Player usage charts combine several metrics both new and old into a single view, such as the percentage of shifts a player started in the offensive zone rather than the defensive zone relative to the rest of his team (horizontal axis), the average quality of the opposing players he faces (vertical axis), his average ice time (the size of the shapes), and how the team's shot-based metrics change when he's on the ice, which is blue for a positive impact, and red for negative. The following chart is based on a weighted average of the past three seasons, and was prepared by R.J. Weise:
The eye is first drawn to the top-left corner of the chart, which is where the top defensive players are located, who take on top opponents in the defensive zone. Advantageously, defensemen Jaccob Slavin and Brett Pesce have the blue color that denotes positive shot-based metrics, as opposed to the usual yellow (or worse) of those who take on such tough assignments, like veteran center Jordan Staal. Since Slavin is 24 and Pesce is 23, they can provide Carolina one of the league's best shutdown defensive pairs for years to come.
In terms of defensemen with positive blue symbols, Carolina also has team co-captain Justin Faulk in a more balanced two-way role in the middle of the chart. Faulk is a versatile two-way defenseman whose 56 goals over the past four seasons ranks seventh among NHL defensemen, including 26 on the power play, which ranks fourth. He was also the team's oldest defenseman last season -- at age 26. That gives Carolina three young solid defensemen with a combined cap hit of just under $14.16 million.
In the bottom right-hand quadrant is last year's third pair of Trevor van Riemsdyk, who is 26, and Noah Hanifin, who led the team's defensemen with 32 points at age 21. They were used more carefully, in the offensive zone and against secondary competition, and did very well from a shot-based perspective, which suggest they could excel in a top-four assignment. They are each set to become restricted free agents on July 1, and are expected to carry an annual combined cap hit between $4.5 million and $6.5 million.
To stretch the cap space even further, Carolina is in a position to employ several defensemen on entry-level contracts, such as Haydn Fleury, Roland McKeown and Jake Bean.
This wealth of promising, low-cost options on the blue line gives the Hurricanes financial flexibility to invest cap space elsewhere in the lineup, and even to consider offering Slavin, Pesce or Faulk as trade bait in order acquire upgrades for other corners of the roster -- like, say, a scoring-line forward.
Finding scoring up front
Fancy stats aren't required to demonstrate Carolina's lack of scoring up front. With just 65 points in 2017-18, Aho still managed to set the team's five-year high. With his linemate Teuvo Teravainen scoring 64, they doubled the number of times a player has scored at least 55 points in that time period, joining Jeff Skinner, who scored 63 in 2016-17, and Eric Staal, now of the Minnesota Wild, who scored 61 in 2013-14. In just one season of existence, the Vegas Golden Knights already have more over this time span, with five.
The Hurricanes need another three 55-point players, and they happen to have three assets that can help them immediately do so, the first of which is the second overall pick in this year's draft, which will likely be used to select Andrei Svechnikov.
Can Svechnikov join the 55-point club in his rookie season? He scored 72 points in 44 games in the OHL, which works out to 1.64 points per game. Since Jeff Skinner scored 1.41 in the OHL at the same age before scoring 63 points with the Hurricanes in his rookie 2010-11 season, it's certainly possible for Svechnikov to reach 55 in Year One.
Expanding the comparison further, of the 28 forwards to be selected first, second or third overall since the 2005 lockout, 20 immediately began their NHL career, of which eight averaged the 55-point pace of 0.67 points per game -- plus another five were within two points of that. It's entirely reasonable to set Svechnikov's chances of scoring 55 points in 2018-19 as being roughly even, barring injury.
The Hurricanes also have forwards like Julien Gauthier, Nicolas Roy, and Martin Necas in their system. They may not be a threat for 55 points, but having players on entry-level contracts frees up additional cap space for those who are.
That leads us to Carolina's second asset, which is a league-low $47.3 million in total cap space committed for the 2018-19 season, according to Spotrac. That makes free agency an obvious place for the Hurricanes to add more scoring.
Will the Hurricanes be among the teams to aggressively pursue free agent John Tavares? Over the past three seasons, Tavares ranks 16th in the NHL with 220 points in 237 games; that works out to 0.93 points per game, which ranks 19th. At age 27, his scoring is unlikely to decline until the closing seasons of a seven-year contract.
The only concern is that signing Tavares is likely to require $10 million in cap space -- according to our earlier analysis -- but he may only be worth $8 million. Signing Tavares is a high-risk, high-reward strategy that could leave Carolina languishing in mediocrity for even longer if his performance declined due to injury, a bad fit or other factors.
Based on the success of Paul Stastny since being acquired by the Winnipeg Jets at the trade deadline, it's possible that there's someone else who could provide a scoring boost, but who would require less cap space to do it. Stastny has averaged 0.67 points per game over the past three seasons, and would require between $4.7 million and $5.3 million of cap space, according to separate salary prediction models by Matt Cane and Emmanuel Perry.
Here's a list of all unrestricted free agent forwards who have averaged at least 0.5 points per game over the last three seasons. As a point of comparison, Carolina's Derek Ryan, who is set to become an unrestricted free agent July 1, has averaged 0.45 points per game.
The right free agent can temporarily provide a little bit of extra scoring, but at great cost, so it should not be relied upon as the primary means of building a team. Of the 81 forwards who scored at least 55 points last season, only five were signed as free agents, two of whom were from other leagues, Florida's Evgenii Dadonov and Tampa Bay's Yanni Gourde. Only Minnesota's Eric Staal, Dallas' Alexander Radulov and Columbus' Thomas Vanek (who started the season with Vancouver) were NHL free agents.
That leads to the team's third asset, which is the surplus of defensemen that can be used to acquire a high-scoring forward in trade, through which 16 of last year's 81 55-point forwards were acquired. For example, the New Jersey Devils acquired Taylor Hall for defenseman Adam Larsson, and he came within three points of the franchise high of 96 points, set by Patrik Elias in 2000-01.
In this regard, the ideal trading partner could be the Toronto Maple Leafs, whose need for a top defenseman is most urgent, and who have five forwards who scored at least 54 points last season, including young stars like Mitch Marner and William Nylander.
Goaltending
Extra scoring won't help if the goaltending falls flat again. The team's .893 save percentage ranked last in 2017-18, and was in the bottom-four for the third consecutive season and the fourth time in five seasons. More than any other factor, that alone has kept the Hurricanes out of the playoff race.
Last summer, it appeared as if they solved that problem by acquiring Scott Darling from the Chicago Blackhawks, and signing him to a four-year contract with an annual cap charge of $4.15 million. At the time, Darling's .922 save percentage ranked fourth among those to play at least 70 games over his three NHL seasons. In 2017-18, his .888 save percentage in 43 games ranked last among those to play at least 20.
That brings Darling's new three-year average to .906, which is roughly what can be expected from all but a few of this year's free agent goalies -- including long-time Carolina starter Cam Ward, .907.
In addition to these options, it would also be easy for any team to acquire someone like Winnipeg's Steve Mason or Detroit's Jimmy Howard via trade. Each have a three-year average save percentage of .912, but carry annual cap hits of $4.1 million and just under $5.3 million, respectively.
Beyond established NHL goalies, there are also many goaltending options in other leagues. Some teams have already done so, like the Edmonton Oilers, who recently signed Mikko Koskinen, and the Florida Panthers, who signed Harri Sateri last summer, a player that finished third in save percentage in the AHL, .927.
Given the abundance of options and the variability of goaltending performance, the Hurricanes should not invest heavily in this area. Signing two reasonably priced goalies and having them compete with Darling and prospect Alex Nedeljkovic could be the most cost-effective option.
If the Hurricanes do complete a trade with the Toronto Maple Leafs to acquire a forward, then they may want to also have them include goalie Garret Sparks, who led the AHL with a .936 save percentage last season. His 34.4 goals saved above average is the fourth best result since 2005-06, bringing his career total to 62.1, which also ranks fourth in that time span. His career save percentage is 29.2 percent higher than the league average, which ranks first among those to play 100 games.
Coaching
The final ingredient for Stanley Cup success is behind the bench, and the Hurricanes have chosen to take a big risk.
On May 8, the Hurricanes named Rod Brind'Amour as the new head coach, replacing Bill Peters, who resigned Apr. 20. Brind'Amour will become the eighth coach since 2005 to assume this role without any prior head coaching experience at any level. The others were Wayne Gretzky in Phoenix in 2005-06, Guy Carbonneau for Montreal and Denis Savard in Chicago in 2006-07, Rick Tocchet in Tampa Bay in 2008-09, Adam Oates in Washington in 2012-13, Doug Weight with the New York Islanders in 2016-17, and Phil Housley with the Buffalo Sabres in 2017-18. While they are all enormously successful hockey players, this group has not enjoyed very much success as coaches.
Gambling on Brind'Amour is nothing new, because the Hurricanes have never placed an emphasis on head coaching experience. With three seasons of experience in each of the AHL and WHL, Peters was the team's most experienced head coach since the franchise moved from Hartford to Carolina. Peter Laviolette had two seasons in the NHL and AHL and one in the ECHL, Paul Maurice had two years in the OHL, and Kirk Muller had 17 games as an AHL head coach. Based on the success of this group, Brind'Amour may someday become a great coach -- but will it be with the Hurricanes?
The road ahead
Despite a prolonged period of mediocrity, the Carolina Hurricanes have the cap space, organizational strength, and the strong blue line to be Stanley Cup contenders as early as 2018-19.
Their main focus this summer will be to add some scoring up front with their selection at No. 2 overall, a free agent center like Paul Stastny, and a solid young player like William Nylander or Mitch Marner in exchange for one of the team's top defensemen. The Hurricanes will also need to acquire some cost-effective goaltending to compete with Darling for the top job, and find some experienced assistants to help Brind'Amour make the transition to head coach.
No team's path to Stanley Cup contention is easy, but there are many routes available. It should be an interesting challenge to see if Carolina's new management can find one, and successfully navigate it.