Tweetmail No. 208: Scoring Chances, Workouts & Road Trips

Hello and welcome to Tweetmail, a weekly feature on CarolinaHurricanes.com in which I take your Twitter questions about the Carolina Hurricanes or other assorted topics and answer them in mailbag form. Hopefully the final product is insightful to some degree, and maybe we have some fun along the way.
Let's get to it.

It's not the quantity or quality (it's actually quite good) of the shots that's the problem - it's that they aren't going in.
Here's what head coach Rod Brind'Amour said after Saturday's game against Detroit: "We get lots of chances, too. … We don't finish like we need to. It's tough because guys are working hard to get those chances."
The numbers support this.
First, there's the sheer shot totals. The Hurricanes lead the league - and by lead, I mean just crushing every other team - in shots on goal with 750 through 18 games. That's the

in the first 18 games of a season since 1955-56. It's an absurd per-game average of nearly 42 shots, and the Canes have out-shot their opponents in every game this season except one (a 4-3 win in Chicago on Nov. 8, go figure). At 5-on-5, the Hurricanes still pace the NHL in shots with 568.
Now, the scoring chances. The Canes generate a lot of those, too. According to
Natural Stat Trick
, the Canes have accumulated an NHL-best 640 scoring chances, and a league-leading (leading meaning, again, just crushing every other team) 307 of those have been high-danger scoring chances. At 5-on-5, the Canes continue to put up league-best numbers with 489 scoring chances and 235 high-danger scoring chances. But, it's the conversion on these chances where the team's struggles are magnified. The Canes have totaled 29 high-danger goals (15th in the league) and 19 high-danger goals at 5-on-5 (18th in the league), and they're high-danger shooting percentage ranks 30th in the league, both total (12.78 percent) and 5-on-5 (11.05 percent).
That's all to say that the Hurricanes are generating quality chances (at quantity, too), but they're not going in - exactly what Brind'Amour said above. They simply have to find a way to finish.

Glad you enjoy those videos!
For anyone who hasn't seen: 1) Where have you been?! 2) We've taken you inside the room after each Canes victory at home for Brind'Amour's postgame speech. They're short and sweet and fun, and they tend to always include a reference to "Bill" or "Billy," which is Bill Burniston, the Canes' head of strength and conditioning.

Burniston organizes the postgame workouts for the team, but on the road, it's scaled back for a couple of logistical reasons. One is that each home team provides the visitors with a baseline set of training equipment; there's obviously more at the Canes' disposal in the friendly confines of their locker room gym. Another reason is that there is a time crunch between the end of the game and the bus to the airport, which somewhat limits the time players can spend completing a postgame workout. Both at home and on the road, the strenuousness of a postgame workout is determined by a number of factors with the goal of monitoring and balancing a given player's workload over a certain period of time.
Another travel question ...

The hotel and its nearby attractions vary from city to city, but location is just one of a myriad of considerations the team makes when booking. Hotel decisions are also made based on availability (this is one of the first, really), meeting space, meals, etc.
Though there's only one Metropolitan Division, all 31 of the NHL's clubs play in or very near a metropolitan area, so finding things to do whether in walking distance or a short Uber ride away isn't too difficult a task.

The Hurricanes are currently carrying the maximum of 23 players on their active roster, so when Victor Rask is set to be activated, a roster move will be required. The logical and most likely move will be reassigning the team's fourth-line center, which currently is Clark Bishop.
The three-goaltender situation is more dependent on Petr Mrazek's return from a lower-body injury. Speaking of that, here's what Brind'Amour said about Mrazek on Wednesday: "He's been feeling better. I'm pretty sure he's about to start taking more practice stuff. He hasn't been out there with us yet, but from what I hear, everything is getting real close."
And, the latest on Rask is positive, too. The Swedish center has been skating and working with a stick and puck stickhandling and shooting. Brind'Amour again: "He's getting close to being hopefully cleared to work with us pretty soon."

The Hurricanes don't want to rush Martin Necas back into their lineup, but I get the sense that he'll be back with the big club sooner rather than later. With that said, I don't think there's a specific timetable on it. It's a learning process for the 19-year-old Czech forward.
"What he's focusing on right now is learning to be a good pro, knowing how to defend in his own zone, things that he maybe hasn't had to focus on as much in his career,"
President and General Manager Don Waddell said
. "The NHL is a hard game, and you have to play 200 feet."
Though Waddell said he's not specifically looking for it, Necas is beginning to accumulate consistent points with Charlotte now, as well, with seven points (1g, 6a) in his last six games.
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Enjoy Thanksgiving next week, everybody! Join me the following week for more questions and more answers.
If you have a question you'd like answered or you have a favorite Thanksgiving dish recipe you'd like to pass along, you can find me on Twitter at
@MSmithCanes
, or you can
drop me an email
.
There's still time to score discounted tickets to see the Hurricanes play and also aid your local community. For every four tickets purchased through our Tickets for Turkeys program, the Canes will be donating a turkey to a family in need this Thanksgiving. And, you'll save more than 50 percent on tickets for this weekend's two home games.
Click here
and enter promo code SMITH to take advantage of this offer.