By Dom Luszczyszyn, Shayna Goldman and Sean Gentille
Andrei Svechnikov and the Carolina Hurricanes certainly won’t appreciate it, but something positive did manage to come out of his season-ending, mid-March knee injury: The rest of us got a better shot at watching a competitive first-round playoff series.
The Canes, without one of their few elite offensive pieces, narrowly managed to keep control of the Metropolitan Division through the end of the regular season. Waiting for them on the other side are the Islanders, who weathered a similar storm when Mathew Barzal went down in February with a lower-body injury.
The Isles strung together enough wins down the stretch to stay in the first wild-card spot. Now, they’re hoping that Barzal’s return and the ongoing brilliance of Ilya Sorokin will be enough to upset the league’s most territorially dominant rosters.
The Odds
A 61 percent edge is probably not as lopsided as fans of the league’s second-best team would have hoped for, but it’s not bad for a team that lost two of its biggest offensive weapons to injury.
With Andrei Svechnikov and Max Pacioretty in the lineup, the Hurricanes’ Offensive Rating would jump from plus-12 to plus-32, enough to bring their odds of winning up to 67 percent. We unfortunately don’t live in that world, and so the Hurricanes will have to settle for a roughly 60-40 split.
That gives the Islanders some serious upset potential over the top seed in the Metro Division. With the way Carolina has played since losing Svechnikov, there are some real concerns New York can make due on. The Hurricanes are still rightly favored, but the Islanders are not to be doubted here.
The Numbers
The Hurricanes grade out as the favorite here, and their five-on-five offense is a key reason why. The Corsi Canes keep their name as the most frequent shooting team in the league, and they have the quality to match. But the story in Carolina continues: this team struggles to finish their chances; there’s a difference of 0.59 per 60 between their expected and actual goals that’s the worst in the league to only the Penguins. Being down two wingers who can score only hurts their chances of changing that, especially when going up against one of the best goalies in the league.
The Islanders, on the other hand, aren’t known for their offense. To their credit, in the first year of Lane Lambert as head coach, this team created shots, scoring chances, and goals at a higher rate compared to any season in the Barry Trotz era. Can they take it up a notch once Barzal returns? This team hasn’t seen their forward group at full strength since making deadline additions. And is it enough to get past the Hurricanes’ defense?
Carolina has one of the best defenses in the league — they finished as the top shot and scoring chance-suppressing team at five-on-five. And that’s going to test a team like the Islanders who aren’t the most offensively inclined.
The Canes have to find a way to get past the Islanders, who have a slight edge in Defensive Rating. This team allows more goals than they did with Trotz as coach, but they still have elite goaltending which is why their rating is higher.
So at five-on-five this projects to be a low-scoring series, with offense created almost exclusively off the forecheck considering both teams’ chip-and-chase styles, and ability to grind it out. Considering each power play only heightens the chances of low-scoring games.
The Hurricanes create a lot on the advantage without the scoring to show for it. The Islanders rank in the bottom half in offensive generation, and second to last in scoring ahead of only the Flyers. It’d be surprising to see that change, especially up against the Canes’ power kill.
The Big Question
Do the Hurricanes have enough oomph without Andrei Svechnikov and Max Pacioretty?
It’s always the same question when it comes to the Hurricanes, a team that thrives so much defensively partly because of how much time it spends in the offensive zone. Forecheck, retrieval, cycle, shot, rebound, retrieval, repeat. It’s a style that’s conducive to a lot of shots on net, but not as many shots in the net. That dichotomy was at a low this year, even for this team with the Hurricanes finishing 31st in shooting percentage at five-on-five this year. That’s partially by design — it’s time spent grinding, keeping the puck as far away from their net as possible. It works.
But it works best when they have game-breaking scorers who can finish enough of those in-zone chances. The intriguing acquisition of Max Pacioretty, the continued dominance of Sebastian Aho, the further emergence of Andrei Svechnikov, and the explosive breakout of Martin Necas all looked like they would help change the narrative around Carolina. Finally, they had enough oomph. Now, with two of those players out of the question, the big question that always trails Carolina looms again like a devious shadow. Does the current lineup have enough offensive juice?
It doesn’t look promising. Going into the series Carolina has just four forwards who grade out as above average by Offensive Rating and just two that are above plus-five: Aho and Necas. The former is tied with Minnesota for the lowest among playoff teams, the latter is only better than Los Angeles and Seattle. If the Hurricanes need a goal they really only have two reliable options, and a prayer that one of the depth guys maybe comes through. Maybe.
What makes this all an especially pressing issue in this series particularly is the goalie they’re going up against, Ilya Sorokin. He is the reason an otherwise average team is not only in the playoffs, but has a legitimate shot in a series against an elite team. The team’s Net Rating is plus-28 — plus-30 of that is Sorokin. That’s because no goalie has saved more goals above expected over the last two seasons than his 73, eight ahead of Igor Shesterkin in second. It’s already very tough for this Hurricanes team to score, it’s going to be even tougher against one of the best goalies in the world. Carolina has done fine against Sorokin and Co. this season, but the playoffs are a different beast.
None of this means the Hurricanes are doomed and they still have a deserved edge in this series thanks to their defensive might throughout the lineup. They can easily win by neutralizing any extra offensive oomph that the Islanders might have on the other side and winning a low-scoring grind-it-out affair. It’s the Canes way. But the added offensive question marks from the absences of Svechnikov and Pacioretty are enough to add an extra layer of caution to Carolina’s postseason hopes. Especially in this series.
The X-Factor
How does Mathew Barzal’s return affect the series?
If you can find a more intriguing X-factor in any of the first-round series, let us know. Here we’ve got one of the league’s most dynamic offensive players returning after nearly two months on the shelf, and he’s joining a team that a) managed to make the playoffs without him and b) desperately needs him to be in top form if they want to last all that long.
The best part? It’s really, really hard to make an educated guess about how it’ll work out, mainly because the Islanders got all of seven games and about 70 minutes worth of Barzal and Bo Horvat together before Barzal’s injury. In that limited window, the results were good; with Horvat playing center, the Islanders narrowly controlled expected goal percentage, shot share and scoring chance percentage. In 20 minutes of the two plus Anders Lee, things dialed up; 65 percent of the expected goals, an 11-3 advantage in high-danger scoring chances and a pair of goals. That figures to be the No. 1 trio moving forward. Something else to watch: The Islanders’ power play, generally putrid this season, showed major signs of life with Horvat, Barzal and Lee on the ice together, generating two goals and 24 shots in about 17 minutes of ice time.
In the interim, coach Lane Lambert figured out a viable second line, Zach Parise took on some of the offensive workload, Ilya Sorokin remained in Vezina mode, and things worked out about as well as they could’ve. Adding Barzal to that mix? Interesting.
The Rosters
Offensive and Defensive Rating explainer
These teams have some shared DNA in their forward groups. Both generate the vast majority of their offense off the forecheck — Carolina led the league there by a mile according to Corey Sznjader’s data, while getting more off the rush than only tank-fodder teams like the Ducks and Coyotes. The Islanders’ split was a little less drastic but one-sided all the same. That approach, particularly in Carolina’s case, helps mitigate a lack of dynamism beyond a few players.
As mentioned, that was not the plan for the Hurricanes. For the short time, Pacioretty was available, he slotted in with Aho and Jarvis. In those 33 minutes, the Hurricanes controlled more than 76 percent of the expected goals, 10 of 13 high-danger chances and scored twice (per Natural Stat trick). It was as tantalizing as it was short-lived. Now, with Teravainen playing left wing instead of Pacioretty, the Aho line’s goals/60 dropped 0.6 to 2.88. The end result: Carolina going into the playoffs with top-line wingers posting points/60 of 1.93 (Teravainen) and 1.76 (Jarvis). For the season, both had point totals in the upper 30s. That, obviously, is far from ideal. Whether their competition is Horvat between Mathew Barzal and Anders Lee, a different trio of Islanders forwards or another team down the line, the goals are going to have to come from somewhere. As it stands — and despite the fact that Aho is the most reliably productive player of the six — the Isles have the on-paper edge on the first line, even though Horvat had just three total points in March.
Down the lineup, as you’d expect, Carolina’s depth begins to assert itself a bit. A second line led by Martin Necas should theoretically be able to do some damage; he was Carolina’s leading scorer this season, passing the 70-point mark and setting career highs in goals (28) and assists (43). The issue, though, is that in the 19 games since Svechnikov’s injury, Necas has scored one five-on-five goal and six total points. The main reason for optimism on that line — and maybe for the Hurricanes overall — has been the play of Jesperi Kotkaniemi. He leads Carolina in five-on-five points since Svechnikov’s injury, albeit with just 10, and has generally looked the part of a solid middle-six center after a putrid start to the season. In his final 42 games, Kotkaniemi produced 30 points (12 goals, 18 assists) and posted an expected goal rate of 60. Of course, a decent chunk of that came alongside Svechnikov, but Kotkaniemi still should’ve done enough over the last month to (maybe temporarily) end the debate over the eight-year contract extension he signed last summer.
The Islanders, meanwhile, seem to have found something with the Pierre Engvall-Brock Nelson-Kyle Palmieri line. In 13 games together, that trio was on the ice for 15 goals for at five-on-five and four against, put up an expected goals share of 58.8 percent and controlled 62.6 percent of the shot attempts. Nelson has been particularly outstanding this season, scoring 36 times and setting a career-high with 75 points.
The supporting groups for both teams are about what you’d expect; Carolina’s third line, led by Jordan Staal, adds value mainly through their defensive play, and they’ve got players like Stefan Noesen and Jack Drury, a 23-year-old getting his first extended NHL run, putting up comically high expected goals percentages. Zach Parise had a six-goal March, a month in which the Isles went 8-3-1, and finished with 21. The Isles’ most frequently used line at five-on-five, as seems to have been the case since the late 90s, is Casey Cizikas, Matt Martin and Cal Clutterbuck. “The Identity Line” had itself another run of passable defensive play and essentially zero offensive production.
On defense, the gap between the skaters becomes a bit more pronounced. Carolina gets solid point production there; Brent Burns, Brady Skjei and Jaccob Slavin all have at least 25 even-strength points. Collectively, Carolina gets a lot of offense from its blue line which has an Offensive Rating of plus-21 which ranks behind only Florida and Colorado. The Hurricanes have the defensive might to match too and tracking data really highlights how crucial the team’s blue line is. No group in the league is more efficient with their puck retrievals, and no group defends the blue line more aggressively. That approach is a big part of the reason Carolina possesses the puck so much more than the average team. Their top four has been the strength of the roster.
The Isles, especially if Alex Romanov continues to miss time, will rely heavily on the top pair of Adam Pelech and Ryan Pulock. Their results together have been fine, though tracking data on Pelech suggests that he’s prone to botched puck retrievals, which could cause problems against the Hurricanes’ forwards. The Isles’ pairings have been in flux at various points this season, and Romanov’s availability will determine who plays with whom. If he’s out, Samuel Bolduc — a skilled, mistake-prone rookie — will likely take his place in the lineup.
Of course, the single biggest asset the Islanders have on their roster is Ilya Sorokin. No goalie in the league was better at covering up his teammates’ mistakes; Sorokin’s 51.36 Goals Saved Above Expected (per Evolving Hockey) wasn’t just the best in the league this season. Or the last two. Or the last five. Or the last 10. Henrik Lundqvist, with a 53.0 in 2009-10, is the only goalie in 16 seasons’ worth of GSAx numbers to beat out Sorokin. General managers get to vote on the Vezina, and Linus Ullmark has had a dream season, but Sorokin deserves whatever credit he gets. The Islanders are here because of him.
For Carolina, Freddie Andersen has had a rough go in 2022-23; he’s at .903 on the season (.899 in his last 11 starts), and his GSAx is 46th in the NHL. Andersen also hasn’t played a postseason game since the 2020 play-in with Toronto, when the Leafs lost to the Blue Jackets. Antti Raanta has been sharp behind him, especially in a .925 April. Either way, the Isles hold a major edge. The goaltending gap is the single biggest reason to think the Isles can pull off an upset.
The Key Matchup
Jaccob Slavin vs. Adam Pelech
In a series that’s likely going to be defined by each team’s defensive structure, there’s going to be an emphasis on two of the league’s best shutdown defenders.
For the Canes, that’s Slavin. He’s been one of the best shutdown defensemen in the league over the last few years, and he does so without being super physical or blocking a ton of shots. One of the most impressive aspects is his discipline; it’s easy for defenders to take penalties when trying to take away shots from an opponent. This year, he only took four minors. To date, the most he’s taken in a single season is nine minors. Slavin’s all about smart positioning and stick work to take away shots and scoring chances. He doesn’t always get the praise of high-scoring defensemen, even those who play across from him on a pair. But it’s no surprise, considering the strengths of his game, that each defender Carolina’s brought in to partner with him immediately elevates their game.
Pelech gained recognition over the last couple of seasons for his shutdown play, too. He’s the quieter of his pairing, as Pulock has the heavy shot and tends to score at a higher pace. That shouldn’t overshadow what the lefty brings to the lineup, though, especially come playoff time when he’s elevated his game in the past. The key is going to be maintaining the stability he brings to the Islanders’ lineup against such an aggressive team who will keep up the pressure.
The Bottom Line
The Hurricanes have been a top team in the division all season, and are the rightful favorite in this matchup because of their strong system and two-way play. But the Islanders thrive in a playoff environment, and may be able to make some noise now that they’re here — especially considering Carolina’s finishing situation versus a goalie who can steal a series.
Which team is going to bring the most oomph in this defensive battle? That’s who will be moving on to Round 2.
References
How these projections work
How these projections performed last season
Understanding projection uncertainty
Resources
Evolving Hockey
Natural Stat Trick
Hockey Reference
NHL
All Three Zones Tracking by Corey Sznajder
(Top photo: Josh Lavallee / NHLI via Getty Images)
