Carolina Hurricanes Versus Rangers: Another Disappointing Third Period
The Carolina Hurricanes played the New York Rangers and once again the third period proved all too important to the game’s outcome
Okay, this is another installment in our “By The Numbers” segment where we break down the game according to the stats. Facing the Rangers for the second time in three games, the Carolina Hurricanes looked to at least grab one win and salvage a bad stretch of away games. Like against Boston, the Hurricanes played strong out the gate. And again like against Boston, they faded in the third period and eventually lost. Once again all stats gathered from Corsica and are 5v5 unless otherwise noted.
Shots and Shot Attempts (Corsi)
— Matthew Barlowe (@matt_barlowe) December 4, 2016
The Rangers were even worse than Boston in the first two periods against the Hurricanes. That’s probably because they are a worse team but that’s an argument for a different day. Still, though, the third period remains a bugaboo for the Hurricanes, and the Rangers took advantage. 40% of the Ranger’s shot attempts and over half of their shots came in the third period alone. This is a troubling trend that continues to keep the Carolina Hurricanes from winning on the road.
Corsi Differentials
— Matthew Barlowe (@matt_barlowe) December 4, 2016
Jaccob Slavin went from being on the bottom of this chart to the very top all in just one game. Surprising to see Matt Tennyson in the negative as I felt he played a good game overall. The fourth line of Stalberg-McClement-Nordstrom continues to play well along with the line of Aho-Teravainen-Stempniak.
— Matthew Barlowe (@matt_barlowe) December 4, 2016
Aho, Teravainen, and Nestrasil are in the good quadrant. The most interesting thing is a number of players in the “Pond Hockey” quadrant. Especially notable is Justin Faulk who’s bad positioning led to the fourth goal of the game. Also, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game so influenced by broken sticks. Twice for the Hurricanes and once for the Rangers, the opponent was able to pin them in their zone because of a broken stick. This lead to the third goal by the Rangers after Justin Faulk lost his stick and lost track of the puck trying to get a new one.
Expected Goals
— Matthew Barlowe (@matt_barlowe) December 4, 2016
The most curious thing about this graph is Ron Hainsey’s offensive prowess. The model expects Hainsey to have almost as many goals for as Justin Faulk, and more than Noah Hanifin as well. It seems preposterous, but Hainsey is number three on the team xGF60 and xGF% for the season. He not only is better in the models but in real life as well; Hainsey’s P60 is .59 while Justin Faulk’s is .51. Some of that is probably due to playing with Justin Faulk but nonetheless is still a surprising discovery.
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