Carolina Hurricanes

Metropolitan Division, Eastern Conference · 24 reports in the 2026-27 edition.

The club

2025-26 · 82 games · 250 for, 209 against

How it played

Shot attempts share, five-on-five: 59.8% 1st of 32
Expected goals share, five-on-five: 55.7% 2nd of 32
Power play expected goals per sixty: 7.86 7th of 32
Penalty kill expected goals allowed per sixty: 6.16 2nd of 32

Where the record lies

Finishing goals scored above what the chances were worth: -17.1 28th of 32
Goaltending goals prevented beyond what the chances allowed were worth: -0.2 16th of 32

Carolina Hurricanes scored 17.1 fewer goals than their chances were worth — 17 goals of the record that the underlying play does not explain, and it regresses.

Roster shape

Points-weighted, so these are the ages and origins of the production rather than of the sweaters.

Average age: 28.5; weighted by points
From 33 and up: 15.2%; of skater points
From under 26: 37.7%; of skater points
Homegrown: 42.3%; drafted by this club
Continuity: 96.6%; of last season's five-on-five minutes

The read

the numbers, and the eye

The best possession team in the league by a distance, and the fifth-worst finishing in it — a club that took the puck all season and could not put it in.

The eye and the numbers

Sighted

The book

12th of 32

The numbers

1st of 32

The numbers place it 11 spots higher than the book does. Every report underneath was written with these numbers on screen and the book departs from them anyway, which makes the gap a judgment rather than an oversight.

Both bars rank this club among the 32 in the edition. The report bar is the mean of its players' grades, weighted by the five-on-five minutes each of them played; the numbers bar is their expected-goal share on the same weighting. It counts 21 of the 24 reports on this roster — the rest have no five-on-five record long enough to weigh — and it reads the roster as it stands rather than the club's own last season.

Who the words reach 21 of 24 · 96% of the five-on-five minutes who is left out (3)

The bars above counted every man on the roster with enough ice time to weigh. The paragraphs name whoever they name, and no rule says who that should be — so this says who it was, over the write-up as a whole. Each section below reaches far fewer than this, which is the figure that matters: the section is where the selection happens, and the count sits under each one. The share is of the five-on-five minutes played by the 21 men on this roster who have a measured record.

Not named: Nicolas Deslauriers, Joel Nystrom, Juuso Välimäki.

Who this names 8 of 24 on the roster · 41% of their five-on-five minutes details

Both columns above are searched, and a name counts on the same terms the page links it: in full always, by surname only when one man in the edition wears it. Nothing here says who ought to be named — only who was, so the weighting can be seen rather than guessed at.

Not named here: Brandon Bussi, Jalen Chatfield, Nicolas Deslauriers, Nikolaj Ehlers, Shayne Gostisbehere, Taylor Hall, Mark Jankowski, Pyotr Kochetkov, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, K'Andre Miller, Alexander Nikishin, Joel Nystrom, Eric Robinson, Jaccob Slavin, Juuso Välimäki, Sean Walker.

What the Quant Says

The most extreme team in this edition. Carolina took 59.8 per cent of the 5-on-5 shot attempts, 1st in the league and not close, and 55.7 per cent of the chances, second — then scored 184 5-on-5 goals against an expectation of 201.1, a shortfall of 17.1 that ranks 28th.

Nothing else is out of place: 10th in expected goals against, 2nd on the penalty kill, 6th on the power play, and 96.6 per cent continuity, the highest in the league. The goaltending came out dead neutral. This is a club that did everything except finish, and finishing is the part that regresses toward a team rather than away from it. The whole roster returns to try again.

What the Scout Says

The most deliberately constructed roster in this edition. Carolina has built a top 6 out of small forwards who play in the traffic — Seth Jarvis does his scoring in ice reserved for men 60 pounds heavier, Logan Stankoven is the smallest skater in the league and plays like the biggest man on his line, Jackson Blake has decided the outside is not worth his time — and then staffed the rest of the club with the men who make that possible.

Andrei Svechnikov is the one who makes room: 66 penalty minutes, unpleasant in front of the net, and skilled enough to be a first-line forward while doing it. Jordan Staal arrives late at 6-4 and puts it in. Jordan Martinook forechecks with genuine violence. William Carrier has spent a decade being the man defencemen do not want to retrieve a puck against. Sebastian Aho does the hardest defensive work on the club while producing at a first-line rate. The standing question is what a series does to a group built this way — and whether anybody stops the puck behind it.

Who this names 9 of 14 forwards · 70% of their five-on-five minutes details

Not named here: William Carrier, Nicolas Deslauriers, Jordan Martinook, Eric Robinson, Jordan Staal.

What the Quant Says

59.8 per cent of the 5-on-5 shot attempts, 1st in the league and not close, and 55.7 per cent of the expected goals, 2nd. Carolina generated 3.10 expected goals per 60 at even strength, second only to Colorado. Then it scored 184 5-on-5 goals against an expectation of 201.1 — a shortfall of 17.1, 28th in the league.

The scoring is spread rather than stacked, which is the system working: Sebastian Aho 80 points, Nikolaj Ehlers 71, Andrei Svechnikov 70 with 31 goals, Seth Jarvis 32 goals in 71 games, Jackson Blake 53 points as a fourth-round pick at 23, Logan Stankoven 44 at 5-8. Stankoven and Blake finished in the 99th and 98th percentile in chance share, and Jesperi Kotkaniemi was the only Hurricane whose on-ice rate came out below average. A whole roster on the right side of the ledger is what a 17-goal finishing shortfall looks like from underneath — the chances were there every night, and the puck did not go in. That regresses toward the club, not away from it.

What the Scout Says

Small, fast, and unafraid of the interior, which is an unusual combination to assemble on purpose. Sebastian Aho is the complete forward and the passing is the best part: seam feeds made at speed with a man on his back, from a centre who is also the club's defensive conscience. Seth Jarvis scores 30 at 5-10 because he gets to the ice that hurts and takes what comes with standing in it. Logan Stankoven is low, wide and absurdly strong on his edges, with a centre of gravity around a defenceman's knee, and he wins races he should not and protects pucks with a leverage nobody expects. Jackson Blake arrives before the defenceman decides to move him, which is a different and entirely legitimate skill.

Andrei Svechnikov is the counterweight — big, strong and skilled in a combination rarer than it sounds, protecting pucks below the goal line with his back to a defenceman. Taylor Hall has adapted the way the smart ones do: he used to score from the rush and now scores from the net front. Mark Jankowski is 6-4 and has worked out that being unmovable in front is his only route. Nikolaj Ehlers is the exception and the question — among the three or four fastest players in the league, playing entirely in open ice by design, which is precisely the game a checking series takes away first.

Who this names 6 of 8 defencemen · 93% of their five-on-five minutes details

Not named here: Joel Nystrom, Juuso Välimäki.

What the Quant Says

10th in even-strength expected goals against while attempting almost 60 per cent of the shots, which is the same thing said twice: this team defends by having the puck. K'Andre Miller was on the ice for 62.1 per cent of the shot attempts, the highest figure of any player in this edition, across 1,368 minutes against the best opposition.

The blue line held together through Jaccob Slavin missing 43 games — 4 penalty minutes in the 39 he played — and the men who covered were undrafted or unheralded. Sean Walker took 1,489 5-on-5 minutes, more than any Hurricane, at the 92nd percentile in chances, and had the goals go 64-65 against him while the expected goals ran 75.7 to 57.9 in his favour: a 24-goal swing that is nothing to do with him. Alexander Nikishin arrived at 24 after 5 years of waiting and posted 33 points and plus-18. Shayne Gostisbehere put up 50 points in 55 games from the second pair at 33.

What the Scout Says

2 outstanding defenders, one gifted liability, and a system that flatters everyone. Jaccob Slavin's elite skill is the least visible in the sport: he gives the puck to somebody in a better position, immediately and accurately, under pressure, every time, and he defends entirely with stick and feet because he is never beaten badly enough to have to hold anybody. K'Andre Miller is 6-5 and one of the better skating defencemen in the league, carrying the puck out of trouble rather than passing it out, and very difficult to angle off.

Alexander Nikishin arrived finished rather than raw — he clears the crease, closes gaps with contact, does not mind the corners, and distributes rather than carries. Jalen Chatfield moves it and defends and asks for nothing. Sean Walker takes top-pair minutes honestly. The exception is Shayne Gostisbehere, still one of the better offensive defencemen in the league and all of it in the hands and the head — he walks the line, changes the angle, and finds the seam pass most defencemen do not look for, and he cannot defend the front of his own net and is moved out of the way by anyone who wants to be there. The club hides him carefully and it works most of the time. In a tight series he is the man the other side goes looking for.

Who this names 2 of 2 goaltenders details

What the Quant Says

The one thing this club does not have. Brandon Bussi took 39 games and won 31 of them on a .8936, which is a sentence about the team in front of him rather than about him. Frederik Andersen played 35 and is an Oiler. Pyotr Kochetkov managed the best of the 3 at .8995 across 9 appearances.

The nuance matters here more than anywhere: relative to the chances they actually faced, Carolina's goaltending came out at −0.2 goals, 16th — dead neutral. The raw save percentages look alarming because the shots were the easiest in the league to stop. Neutral goaltending behind the best possession team in hockey is not a crisis; it is simply the one phase that gave the club nothing, on a page where everything else gave it something. But there is no margin in it, and no established starter.

What the Scout Says

The single largest correctable weakness on any contending roster here. Brandon Bussi is large and sound against the volume of low-danger shots a club like this concedes, and the technique is unremarkable and the athleticism ordinary — when he has to make a save that is not already in front of him, it is visibly harder work than it is for the better goaltenders in this book.

Pyotr Kochetkov is the more interesting man. He is not a positional blocker: he tracks hard, moves well laterally, and makes saves out of broken plays that a deeper goaltender would not reach. The trade-off is that he can look scrambly, and against clean looks from distance he sometimes fights pucks he should be swallowing. He has the best career record of the goaltenders here and by some distance the fewest games, and the interesting question is why. There is a strong case the answer to this club's one real problem is already in the room.

The roster

Evidence 20 Full 3 Light 1 No record

No measured season behind one man: Juuso Välimäki. His page carries an older stat line and a judgment, and nothing from 2025-26.

Sebastian Aho

#20

C · Carolina Hurricanes

80 points, and the 100th percentile in shot attempts while he was out there.

Jackson Blake

RW · Carolina Hurricanes

A fourth-round pick with 53 points, shooting from 18 feet.

Brandon Bussi

#32

G · Carolina Hurricanes

31 wins in 39 games, on a .894, which tells you everything about the team in front of him.

William Carrier

#28

LW · Carolina Hurricanes

10 and 3-quarter minutes a night, and half his shots from inside 20 feet.

Jalen Chatfield

D · Carolina Hurricanes

Undrafted, 20 minutes a night, and 2 goals in 167 tries.

Nicolas Deslauriers

#44

LW · Carolina Hurricanes

708 games, 53 goals, and a job that barely exists any more.

Nikolaj Ehlers

#27

LW · Carolina Hurricanes

71 points, 168 pounds, and a shot chart that has never made sense.

Shayne Gostisbehere

D · Carolina Hurricanes

50 points in 55 games from the second pair, at 33.

Taylor Hall

#71

LW · Carolina Hurricanes

The 1st overall pick in 2010, 989 games later, doing honest work.

Mark Jankowski

#77

LW · Carolina Hurricanes

58 per cent of his shots from inside 20 feet, which is the highest share in this book.

Seth Jarvis

#24

RW · Carolina Hurricanes

5-10, 32 goals, and he takes his shots where the goals are.

Pyotr Kochetkov

#52

G · Carolina Hurricanes

9 games, and the best save percentage of the 3 men who played in this net.

Jesperi Kotkaniemi

#82

C · Carolina Hurricanes

The 3rd overall pick in 2018, and the only Hurricane whose numbers were below average.

Jordan Martinook

#48

LW · Carolina Hurricanes

12 goals, 797 games, and the letter on his jersey is the point.

K'Andre Miller

#19

D · Carolina Hurricanes

61.7 per cent of the shot attempts — the highest figure of any player in this book.

Alexander Nikishin

D · Carolina Hurricanes

33 points and plus-18 as a rookie, at 24, after 5 years of waiting.

Joel Nystrom

D · Carolina Hurricanes

A seventh-round pick, 5-11, and 38 NHL games out of nowhere.

Eric Robinson

#50

LW · Carolina Hurricanes

12 goals from 11 minutes a night, undrafted, 455 games in.

Jaccob Slavin

#74

D · Carolina Hurricanes

4 penalty minutes in 39 games, which is the most Slavin number ever recorded.

Jordan Staal

#11

C · Carolina Hurricanes

1,400 games, 20 seasons, and he still shoots from 18 feet.

Logan Stankoven

#22

C · Carolina Hurricanes

5-8, 165 pounds, and the 100th percentile in shot attempts.

Andrei Svechnikov

#37

RW · Carolina Hurricanes

31 goals, and the first season in a while that looked like the 2nd overall pick.

Juuso Välimäki

D · Carolina Hurricanes

A first-round pick, 270 games, and not enough ice to judge him on.

Sean Walker

#26

D · Carolina Hurricanes

Undrafted, 22 minutes a night, and the 99th percentile in shot attempts.

How they were used

2025-26 · 82 games

Measured from shift charts at five-on-five, not projected. Units are built from the strongest partnership outward and ordered by how much they were used; the percentage is the share of the first player’s five-on-five ice time spent alongside each linemate. A low number means the club never settled on a combination. Players who have gone are marked — either to another club, or off an NHL roster altogether, which covers retirement and an unsigned summer alike.