We know Carolina is a good puck possession team. They have been for years. They generate a lot of shots and they prevent shots against. However, their inability to dominate the inside game, at both ends of the rink, puts a cap on their playoff success.
The Offense
Using my shot zone analytics tool at TheStanleyCap.com I can see where the Hurricanes are generating shots from. This rink image looks at 5v5 shots on goal by Carolina per 60 minutes of ice time relative to the rest of the league over the past 4 seasons combined (player and puck tracking era).
The numbers show shots per 60 from each zone above or below league average. Carolina dominates the puck possession game and it shows as they are around or above average in every zone. However, they are most above average around the perimeter, left/right points and left/right boards which are very low quality shots. They were also above average immediately in front of the net which are probably indicative of tips/deflections/rebounds which can be higher quality. This play serves them well in the regular season.
However, the playoffs feature even tighter defensive play where teams focus more on blocking shots and defending the are immediately in front of the net. The Hurricanes have not been as effective at getting those rebound/tip shots in front of the net in the playoffs as can bee seen in this chart of their shots per 60 by zone relative to league average in the playoffs over the past 4 seasons.
Carolina is still getting perimeter shots, but their ability to get shots from the crease and low slot has been reduced.
Now to this years playoffs. They dominated the first two rounds of the playoffs.
They were still better at generating the perimeter shots, but they were still able generate more shots. from the inside, particularly in the high home plate region. But this all changed against Florida.
Florida was not only much better at preventing shots in general, but they did an outstanding job at preventing shots from immediately in front of the net. Lets look at this a different way. These two rink images show the percentage shots taken from each zone in the regular season:
And in the playoffs vs Florida.
In the regular season 11.6% of Carolina shots were in the low slot immediately in front of the crease. Against Florida in the playoffs this dropped to just 1.0%. Crease shots were also down from 3.3% to 1.9%. These are the top two scoring zones and Florida all but eliminated Carolina’s opportunities to score from these zones.
Playoff hockey is all about generating scoring chances from the inside and maybe more importantly preventing scoring chances against from the inside. This relates back to my article from the other day where I show that bigger defensemen are better at reducing shooting percentage against, reducing shots from the home plate and reducing rebound shots against in the playoffs vs the regular season.
Defense
The best way to show Carolina’s failures on defense is to give you these four charts which show the percentage of shots against by region at 5v5 in these playoffs relative to league average for the four conference finalists. Here blue is better (fewer shots against).
Edmonton:
Crease shots and low middle slot shots are well below league average.
Dallas:
Crease shots and low middle slot shots are well below league average.
Florida:
Crease shots and low middle slot shots are well below league average.
Carolina:
Crease shots and low middle slot shots are *not* well below league average. A higher percentage of their shots against are in the critical scoring areas.
This is not new for Carolina. This is their percent of shots against by zone relative to league average for the 2023 and 2024 playoffs combined.
Playoff success is hard, but the concept of playoff success is really simple. Defend your net and attack the opponents net. Carolina is not built for either and it showed against Florida. Dominating the possession game only gets you so far. Eventually you will face another strong possession team (such as Florida) and at that point you have to also be able to dominate the inside scoring zones on both sides of the puck. Carolina is not built to do that. Until they fix that they will be a good, but not a great NHL team.