With nothing written or half-written and sitting in the DCoJ queue right now and following a long day, today’s Daily Cup of Joe offers a quick look at a few recent Carolina Hurricanes stats mostly of the non-advanced variety.
Jeff Skinner: After a torrid start, he has cooled considerably with only a lone assist in his last 5 games and only 1 goal and 1 assist in 7 games in November.
Lee Stempniak: His slowdown started a bit sooner but has been similarly pronounced. After notching 4 goals and 2 assists in the first 5 games of the season, he has no goals and only 2 assists in the 10 games since then.
The penalty kill: The unit now sits atop the entire NHL with a 90.5 percent success rate for killing penalties.
The Elias Lindholm factor: Lindholm’s scoring woes are well-documented at this point. He has been on the ice for only 2 goals for in 5-on-5 play which equates to a meager 0.62 goals per 60 minutes of ice time. Maybe even more disturbing is the fact that he started the season centering Aho and Teravainen who did very little at even strength with Lindholm but suddenly look incredibly good with Jordan Staal. Now Lindholm is a couple games deep into being reunited with Skinner/Rask who were red hot previously but have not mustered any offense since Lindholm joined them.
Cam Ward: His stats line continues to build after a slow start. He has now allowed 2 or fewer goals in 6 of his last 8 starts. Starting with the home opener against the Rangers, Ward is 4-2-2 with a goals against average of 1.96 and an impressive .930 save percentage.
Go Canes!
Lindholm is not using his insticts at the moment when he has the puck. He tries to do everything too carefully, which slows his game down. He is trying too hard to make things right. Stempniak moves the puck much faster and that is why he is a better fit with Rask and Skinner.
Skinner has been forcing his plays recently. He is trying to make something out of nothing even when the odds are against him and he would be better off passing the puck to his linemates.