Positives and Negatives from the Carolina Hurricanes' 2014-15 Season

Thirty wins and 52 losses.

So will read the Carolina Hurricanes' record for the next six months after a season-ending 2-0 loss Saturday, a fitting conclusion for a team that finished fourth worst in the NHL in scoring and fifth worst in the standings.

The debut season of head coach Bill Peters and general manager Ron Francis never carried high expectations and essentially met those expectations, as the 'Canes took a decisive step forward in their rebuilding project but nevertheless missed the playoffs for the sixth consecutive season.

The emergence of Justin Faulk as a truly elite defenseman and a solid, albeit not spectacular, comeback season by Cam Ward helped offset the absence of Jordan Staal for half the season, the production nosedive of Alexander Semin and the lack of viable second-pairing defensemen.

Ultimately, though, the 2014-15 Hurricanes proved to be too young, inexperienced and poorly led to overcome a terrible start and make an attempt at a playoff push.

Entering the offseason, what positives and negatives can be taken away from the season past? A breakdown of 10 such lessons falls in the coming slides.

First periods proved to be consistent killers for the 'Canes this season.

Both the 74 goals allowed and the minus-20 goal differential in opening frames ranked fourth worst in the NHL, an accurate representation of the Hurricanes' frequent sluggishness in the early goings of games.

The 'Canes were also almost as bad at overcoming poor starts, sporting a bleak 5-28-4 record (sixth worst in the league) when trailing after the first period.

The trend was perhaps exemplified in two of the team's final three home games of the season. The 'Canes twice conceded a goal in the opening three minutes, did not allow another real (non-empty net) goal for the remainder of regulation and still lost both games, 2-1 in overtime against Boston and 2-0 against Detroit.

Both the Hurricanes power play and penalty kill experienced ups and downs over the course of the season, but the final result was nevertheless the best special teams performance that the club has enjoyed in almost a decade.

Carolina finished fourth in the NHL in penalty-killing efficiency (84.7 percent) and 15th in power-play efficiency (18.8 percent). The units peaked at first and ninth, respectively, at moments earlier in the season.

The sum special teams efficiency—103.5 percent—ranked No. 6 in the league this season and is the team's best since 2005-06. The 'Canes penalty kill will also go down in the record books, as the team's stretch of 13 consecutive games and 36 consecutive kills without allowing a goal from December to January is the third-longest such streak ever.

While advanced stats show that the team's power-play improvement especially may not be as significant as the basic numbers indicate, the new 'Canes coaching staff of Bill Peters, Rod Brind'Amour and Steve Smith will have good reason to claim special teams improvement as the biggest success of their first year.

The Hurricanes incurred a cap hit of almost $13 million, per Spotrac, to keep flashy wingers Alexander Semin and Jeff Skinner on the roster in 2014-15.

The team was rewarded with a whopping 24 goals and 50 points out of the two combined.

Both players received plenty of criticism and support from the media and social media universes, and the effects of injuries—wrist surgery recovery for Semin (six goals, 13 assists) and recurring concussions for Skinner (18 goals, 13 assists)—can be weighed in varying levels when evaluating the performances of each, but it is indisputable that the production did not match expectations.

If both players' goal totals had matched their respective career averages, the 'Canes would've scored 28 more goals this season.

And those 28 additional goals alone would've boosted the team's overall offense from 27th to 22nd and its goal differential from minus-38 to minus-10.

Controversy will inevitably surround both No. 53 and No. 28 throughout their careers in Raleigh, but the scoring shortcomings of both players in 2014-15 cannot be argued.

A defensive stalwart for the 'Canes almost since his arrival in the NHL, Justin Faulk discovered his explosive offensive abilities as he surged into the national spotlight in his fourth season.

Faulk earned All-Star honors for his 15-goal, 49-point campaign, which set the team record for most single-season points by a defenseman.

The 23-year-old led the team in assists (34), power-play goals (7), ice time (24 minutes, 25 seconds per game) and takeaways (70) and ranked second in points (49), hits (157), blocked shots (114) and shots on goal (setting another 'Canes defenseman record with 238). His 55.1 percent Corsi rating led all 'Canes defensemen, per HockeyAnalysis.com.

Faulk also became the 16th player in NHL history to play over 2,000 minutes and the 76th defenseman to score more than 48 points in one of the first four seasons of his career, per Hockey-Reference.com.

While the list of stats and records resulting from Faulk's historic season goes on essentially forever, Faulk's NHL career will not do the same.

Fortunately, he still has about 15 years left, and the 'Canes are already building their team identity around him. The franchise has no brighter spot for the future than No. 27.

The Hurricanes entered the 2014-15 season with Anton Khudobin penciled in as the clear starting goalie: Khudobin, after all, had gone 19-14-1 with a spectacular .926 save percentage the season prior.

But Bill Peters apparently knew something no one else did. Peters' decision to not name an outright pre-opening-day starter out of the duo of Khudobin and Cam Ward was met with surprise and confusion, but Ward went on to earn 22 of the team's 30 wins this season.

Outside of the month of January, Khudobin won a mere three of 26 decisions with a pitiful .893 save percentage. His 5-0 streak in January, moreover, did little to salvage a season-long disappointing performance for the now-28-year-old netminder.

Although luck certainly played a part in No. 31's awful 8-17-6 record—many of the team's worst offensive showings of the year came with him in goal—Khudobin was regardless far from the reliable backstop he was supposed to be.

Just as Khudobin's stock plummeted, Cam Ward experienced a moderate career revitalization and retook the No. 1 goalie role with relative ease.

While his 22-24-5 record and .910 save percentage didn't stand out from a league-wide perspective, Ward's 2.40 GAA was the best of his 10-year career. No. 30 recorded his first five-game winning streak since 2008-09 in early November—then went 11-5-1 from the start of February on.

Ward also celebrated his 500th career game late in the season, a milestone that is both an impressive accomplishment for Ward and a sign that the 'Canes might want to consider selling high on him in this summer's trade market. The 31-year-old is further along in his NHL career than most goalies of the same age are and hasn't been a staple of consistency in recent years.

Regardless of how the next few months play out off the ice, however, Ward's major strides forward in 2014-15 were quietly among the better outcomes of Carolina's season.

Eric Staal's goal Monday in Buffalo ended a streak of 146 consecutive games since the 'Canes last scored a goal with their own goalie pulled (excluding delayed-penalty situations).

The fact that the Hurricanes still lost to the Sabres made the streak's end almost as embarrassing as the streak itself.

The 'Canes have ranked in the upper half of the league in shot attempts per 60 minutes during six-on-five play, including ninth in 2014-15, but scored just two six-on-five goals in the 42 games in which the situation occurred, per war-on-ice.com. The Flames, by comparison, scored 10.

The almost-automatic guarantee that every last-ditch tying attempt will prove to be unsuccessful costs the 'Canes valuable points as well as the resulting confidence of a comeback. Only two teams won fewer games than Carolina did (two) when trailing at the second intermission.

Had the Los Angeles Kings made the playoffs (as was largely expected) this spring, the Carolina Hurricanes would be poised to receive six of the top 96 draft picks at June's 2015 NHL draft.

Ron Francis highlighted a decisive and wise debut season as general manager by committing firmly but not excessively to the rebuilding movement at the trade deadline. Francis garnered three draft picks (first, fourth and sixth rounds) and a solid prospect (Roland McKeown) in exchange for two pending free agents (Andrej Sekera and Jiri Tlusty) but re-signed unheralded defensive forward Jay McClement to a smart-money contract.

The conditional pick in the Sekera-to-Los Angeles trade didn't work out in the Hurricanes' favor this year, but it does leave the team with two first-round choices to start with in 2016.

Francis' decisions were so well-received by the Raleigh fanbase that optimism for the Hurricanes' future is surging by the week despite the team itself finishing 12 points worse than it did last year.

The months ahead will likely contain the complete unveiling of Francis' long-term plan. It's hard to imagine that it will be anything but a smart one.

The Hurricanes did not score a single even-strength overtime goal in the 2014-15 season.

Seventeen times, the 'Canes went to overtime. 12 times, neither team scored and the game went to a shootout, in which the 'Canes posted a 5-7 record. Five times, one side did score, though, and only once was it Carolina—Elias Lindholm's power-play strike in November against Columbus.

In truth, the 'Canes were a disaster during four-on-four situations at all points in the game. The team was outscored 7-1 in such situations and ranked 25th in the league with a 44.7 percent four-on-four Corsi rating, per war-on-ice.com.

The 'Canes seemed to lose all of the confidence they possessed in five-on-four and four-on-five situations when play went to four-on-four. They were hesitant on the offensive end and overly puck-focused in their own third. The result was a plethora of uneventful overtimes and a few disastrous ones.

After an unremarkable AHL campaign a year ago, Victor Rask used a strong training-camp showing to secure an NHL roster spot and went on to rank fourth on the team in scoring.

His 33 points were the 13th most for a rookie in Hurricanes/Whalers franchise history, while his 172 shots on goal were eighth most, per Hockey-Reference.com. Rask showed his responsibility as a two-way center, grew into his role alongside Faulk as a point man on the power play and won the majority of his faceoffs, helping the 'Canes rank third in the league in overall faceoff winning percentage.

But Rask wasn't alone in his contributions.

Chris Terry, boasting one career NHL goal to his name entering this season, ranked fifth on the team with 11 lit lamps. Michal Jordan transformed from a temporary call-up to one of the more reliable defensemen in the lineup during the season's latter half. Even Danny Biega impressed in just 10 appearances, ranking third on the team in Corsi rating.

Add in the evident progression of former top-15 picks Elias Lindholm (17 goals, 22 assists) and Ryan Murphy (four goals, nine assists), and the youth of the '2014-15 'Canes lineup put together a decisively solid season from top to bottom.