Carolina Hurricanes

The difference between the Carolina Hurricanes' performance in the NHL standings and on the ice has been drastic, surprising and, for the team, most unfortunate.

Despite having won just five of 17 games to date and sporting the second-fewest points in the league, the 'Canes have actually strongly outplayed their opponents in possession and shot production on most nights.

Their Corsi differential—another word for shot attempt differential—ranks ninth in the NHL, according to Hockey Analysis. And even with the season-to-date-long absence of Jordan Staal and partial absences of Eric Staal and Jeff Skinner, the team places even better in average shot attempts taken per game: seventh.

Since starting the campaign 0-5-2 and being out-attempted in six consecutive games, the Hurricanes have been in the positives in that category in eight of their 10 matches since. They most recently peaked in Sunday's game against San Jose, where they out-attempted the Sharks by a whopping 89-46 margin, the team's sixth-best performance in such regard in the past three years.

But the 'Canes rather unbelievably lost that game, 2-0, to drop both ends of a weekend back-to-back. They outshot and out-attempted Boston 34-25 and 55-47, respectively, on Saturday, but lost that one too, 2-1.

It seems almost certain that, if Carolina can maintain its nightly strong showings in the possession department, more fruitful results must be around the corner. Until then, however, its consistently upward-sloping moving average line is nothing but a perplexing frustration:

Somehow, the steady production of shooting opportunities and Cam Ward's recent run of dominance isn't translating into victories. The 'Canes keep falling just short—excluding empty-netters, each of their last four losses have been by a single goal.

The squad is certainly missing some key attributes.

Jordan Staal's physicality and size, a great asset in board battles and screens, is missed; Alexander Semin's sniper shot is also notably absent, even though he himself may be healthy.

Outside of top-pairing studs Justin Faulk (who incredibly leads the 'Canes in shots on goal) and Andrej Sekera, no other defenseman has registered more than three points.

Additionally, offseason depth additions Jay McClement and Brad Malone have combined for just two points (no goals) in 31 man-games.

And Bill Peters and Co. can't seem to get both special teams units clicking at the same time. The power play (ranked 13th in the league) has improved significantly after an October slump, but the penalty kill has allowed a goal in five of the last nine games to fall to 17th:

The 'Canes begin a five-game road trip Tuesday in Dallas; three of the five matches are outside the Eastern Time Zone, and four of the five are against teams that made the playoffs last spring.

Advanced stats indicate the stretch, conversely, may not be as difficult as it seems: None of the first four opponents (Dallas, Los Angeles, Colorado and Florida) actually rank higher than 14th in the league (and thus, Carolina) in shot attempt differential.

The Hurricanes could quietly be poised for a breakout road swing, one that could re-ignite their ascent up the Metropolitan Division standings and finally translate performance into wins.

Mark Jones has covered the Carolina Hurricanes for Bleacher Report since 2009. Visit his profile to read more, or follow him on Twitter.

After sitting out five of the Carolina Hurricanes' eight season-opening losses, Brett Bellemore's emergence as a regular defenseman in the lineup has coincided directly with the Hurricanes' ongoing three-game winning streak.

It's been arguably the best three-game stretch of his NHL career.

On the standard box score, Bellemore, now 26, has registered two assists in the three contests, upping his career point total to a mere 12 in 78 career games. His quick decision to throw the puck toward the net directly led to Elias Lindholm's game-winning goal on Saturday against Arizona.

But just as it's always been with the 6'4", 225-pound bruiser, Bellemore's biggest impact has not been in the scoring department.

No. 73 now leads the 'Canes with an average of 3.3 hits per game (20 in six games), including several highlight-reel crunches during last Sunday's meeting with Los Angeles.

Both of Bellemore's hits not only sparked a roar from the crowd, but they also ended L.A. offensive attacks and launched Hurricanes counterattacks in the opposite direction.

In the final minute of Tuesday's game in Columbus, the Blue Jackets entered the zone with speed, seeking a last-second tying goal. But again, Bellemore's long reach and elite defensive awareness came through for Carolina: 

A perfectly timed sweeping poke-check from Bellemore stripped Scott Hartnell of the puck and set up Eric Staal for a game-sealing empty-net breakaway goal.

With young Ryan Murphy currently playing in the AHL and John Michael-Liles scratched since the winning streak began, Bellemore's presence has filled a vital niche of physicality and vision.

Despite his lack of skating speed, his innate ability to foresee where the puck will go, where the hit can be made and where the forward can be tied up along the boards overcomes such a weakness through top-class positioning.

The former sixth-round pick continues to steadily blossom as a reliable lower-pairing defensive defenseman.

Mark Jones has covered the Carolina Hurricanes for Bleacher Report since 2009. Visit his profile to read more, or follow him on Twitter.

Two consecutive sparse crowds at PNC Arena over the weekend has reopened the debate over the Carolina Hurricanes' declining attendance.

The 'Canes managed to draw only 10,870 fans for a Saturday night game against Arizona, then an even smaller 10,519 for Sunday evening's contest against Los Angeles, the defending Stanley Cup champions. The host's first two wins of the 2014-15 season—improving their record to a still-woeful 2-8—earned fewer than 22,000 ticket sales.

Eye-opening images of the swaths of empty red seats patched across the 100 level sparked intrigue and humiliation on Twitter, with proponents of NHL relocation to Hartford, Quebec City and other cities voicing their disgust.

@EmptySeatsPics Carolina Hurricanes 'fans' dont care if Stanley Cup Champs, LAKings r in town. Odd 5pm Sunday start. pic.twitter.com/PoRFQTMErg

— ⁴⁴ (@interst8forty4) November 2, 2014

Management, however, may not have been nearly so surprised.

New team president Don Waddell, hired over the summer to focus on what he told Luke DeCock of the News & Observer would be the "revenue-generating departments," foreshadowed the rough upcoming year at the box office before the autumn even began.

Wrote DeCock back in early October:

The Hurricanes are paying the price for the way Jim Rutherford and Peter Karmanos allowed the business side of the franchise to atrophy, a mess currently undergoing triage under Don Waddell.

Ticket sales are slow – there are discounts available for opening night, the one game out of 41 that should sell itself – suites sit empty, the ownership situation is in flux and sponsors have jumped ship.

Indeed, the 'Canes did manage to sell out opening night, a 5-3 loss to the Islanders taken in by, reportedly, a full 18,860 living humans.

But attendance fell to 14,930 the following Tuesday against Buffalo—although the Sabres are usually one of the least appealing opponents, and it was on a Tuesday early in the season—then down below 11,000 against the pair of Western Conference opponents this past weekend.

Certainly, the 'Canes on-ice performance is affecting the numbers. Attendance against the Sabres was relatively respectable considering the situation; after a winless five-game road trip, conversely, Raleigh sports fans were evidently unexcited to return to 1400 Edwards Mill Rd.

Over the long run, a playoff berth at long last (although it's improbable that will occur this coming spring) should make a tremendous difference in ticket sales. But meanwhile, improvement over the course of the season will likely improve attendance slightly.

Relocation speculation, especially solely from the mere image of some empty seats, is nonetheless ridiculous.

The rumors about a Las Vegas move that were discussed by sports radio host David Glenn (via Triangle Business Journal) earlier this year—fueled by Dan Patrick, a strangely regular critic of the Hurricanes franchise in the past, on his radio show (via Cardiac Canes)—were nothing short of absurd.

Waddell fired back days later, calling it a "pretty horrible rumor." The rekindling of such speculation as a result of this past weekend's (justifiably) low attendance is highly premature.

Based on data from the past three full seasons, I analyzed attendance trends based on month, day of week and opponent, then handicapped projected attendances based on this year's expected overall decline.

The formula predicted an average 2014-15 home attendance of 13,637 for the Hurricanes, down 11.9 percent from last season's average of 15,483.

Individual game-by-game projections for all 37 remaining games at PNC Arena lie in the chart below:

The model projects just one more sellout on the agenda: the home finale in April against Detroit, which takes place on a Saturday and includes one of the league's highest-profile opponents.

On the other hand, it projects just one game with four-digit attendance, a Tuesday game in March against Ottawa, historically the least popular opponent in the Eastern Conference.

If the 'Canes miraculously surge back into postseason contention, numbers will naturally far exceed these projections. If not, though, expect a bleak season replete with sub-14,000 crowds at PNC Arena.

Mark Jones has covered the Carolina Hurricanes for Bleacher Report since 2009. Visit his profile to read more, or follow him on Twitter.

For the first time in franchise history, the Carolina Hurricanes have lost their first eight games in a season.

Friday night, they'll finish a travel-heavy October with zero wins and two points in eight contests.

To describe all that has gone wrong this month—from injuries to almost half of the team's NHL-caliber forwards, to the worst save percentage in the league, to Alexander Semin's ineptitude and Elias Lindholm's invisibility and Ron Hainsey's sluggishness—would surely take all of November.

Here's what first-year general manager Ron Francis told team reporter Michael Smith on Tuesday:

We’re in a hole, and we’ve got to stop digging and figure a way to make ourselves better to get out of it. There’s no easy fix. Other teams aren’t going to feel sorry for you and take it easy on you, so you just have to suck it up and fight through it.

Indeed, the 'Canes are in a hole. A Grand Canyon-sized hole, one might say, with the Arizona Coyotes rolling into Raleigh Saturday.

The two-point October is a new worst for the 'Canes, historically a slow-starting team to begin with, by a wide margin. Even in 2009-10, when the Hurricanes lost 14 straight games between Oct. 10 and Nov. 15, the team still managed to produce seven points in October.

According to Sports Club Stats, Carolina has a 6.5 percent chance to make the playoffs under the site's "weighted" calculations and a 20.2 percent chance under "50/50" calculations.

Most would likely agree even those projections seem high, given that all seven other Metropolitan Division teams currently sport between eight and 13 points.

The 2014-15 campaign is only 9.8 percent complete, but any reasonable hopes that the team's five-year playoff drought would end this year have been long extinguished.

However, Carolina's woes could actually be a disguised blessing.

The tantalizing glints of exorbitantly hyped prospects Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel, NHL.com's projected top two picks in next June's draft, are already calling to the NHL's bottom-feeding teams.

The Hurricanes' lack of top-four selections in the past half-decade has prevented their mediocrity from translating to future promise, as I explored in a recent column. An absolute failure in 2014-15 could change such a fate.

In fact, the Buffalo Sabres may well be most disappointed by the Hurricanes' winless October. Despite their 2-8-1 record, appalling 1.09 goals-per-game average, 2.9 percent power-play conversion rate and outrageous 104-40 shot deficit in the past three games alone, they "trail" the 'Canes by three points in the "race" for last place.

The 28th-place Coyotes, meanwhile, "trail" by five points.

The 'Canes' unprecedented October of loss after loss has completely disrupted the expected hierarchy of franchises dueling for pole position next June.

Inevitably, some digits will begin to accumulate in Carolina's "W" column.

Eric Staal returned in the last game in Vancouver, and Smith reports that Nathan Gerbe and Patrick Dwyer will return in this weekend's back-to-back, helping the forward corps finally return to near-full health.

Stats.HockeyAnalysis.com indicates the 'Canes also rank only 20th in Corsi percentage. Over a significant period of time, it's virtually impossible that their rather respectable 49.5 Corsi percentage would continue to equate to a 0.0 winning percentage in the standings. Conversely, Buffalo currently sports a league-worst 36.7 Corsi percentage.

A complete turnaround and recovery from the most disastrous month in franchise history, however, seems highly implausible.

For the sake of the future of the franchise, the 'Canes might be best off losing as many games as possible.

Mark Jones has covered the Carolina Hurricanes for Bleacher Report since 2009. Visit his profile to read more, or follow him on Twitter.

Entering the 2014-15 season, Anton Khudobin and Cam Ward were expected to vie competitively for the Carolina Hurricanes' No. 1 goaltender job until one proved superior over the other.

So far, the pair of netminders have put forth a mere one strong performance in seven games—all losses for the last-place Hurricanes—and shown little that could validate either one as a deserving starter.

Just over two weeks into the season, Carolina's team goaltending ranks last in the NHL with a dismal .867 save percentage. The league average, by comparison, currently stands at .913.

Outside of the game against the New York Rangers, in which Khudobin stopped 33 of 34 shots to help the 'Canes earn a point, Carolina's save percentage has been below .890 in every other game.

In last week's back-to-back in Alberta, Ward and Khudobin each started once and each allowed five goals, teaming up for a cringe-worthy .808 save percentage in the two contests. The 'Canes have now allowed five goals against in almost half (three out of seven) of their games to date.

Both No. 30 and No. 31 appear lacking in confidence and form, allowing at least one soft goal every night and struggling (outside of the fluky game in Madison Square Garden) to come up with the big saves when called upon.

It's also been a rough first month on the job for goaltending coach David Marcoux, who was hired in July to replace the fired Greg Stefan.

Marcoux has been unemployed (at least in the NHL universe) for the last five years since being axed by Calgary in 2009; Flames goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff—albeit overworked to the extent of 76 starts in both seasons—posted mediocre .906 and .903 save percentages in Marcoux's final two years there.

The half-decade-long break doesn't appear to have had a positive effect on his coaching abilities.

Unquestionably, every part of the team has struggled mightily in this woeful October. After all, the offense has been equally poor on the ongoing road trip, scoring one or fewer goals in three of the four games.

But the performance of Carolina's defense has actually not been as terrible as the scoreboard indicates. Although the 29th-place ranking in goals against isn't pretty, the Hurricanes have nonetheless allowed the 11th-fewest shots on goal and 17th-fewest shot attempts (Corsi) per game, according to war-on-ice.com, in 2014-15.

Instead, the vast majority of the responsibility for how often the red light behind the Hurricanes' goal has flashed falls upon Khudobin and Ward, whose tandem control of the club's netminding has failed miserably in all aspects.

Yes, regression is inevitable. Better times of some sort are inevitably ahead for both, for two goalies with .926 and .909 career save percentages, respectively, cannot realistically carry on in the mid-.800s over multimonth time spans.

Not everything is mathematical, though, and the interminable nightmare observed in the Hurricanes' crease so far appears just as much due to misaligned positioning, slow reactions and nonexistent reliability as to bad luck.

The first priority for the running-off-the-rails Hurricanes moving forward must be to get the goaltending unit back in order.

Mark Jones has covered the Carolina Hurricanes for Bleacher Report since 2009. Visit his profile to read more, or follow him on Twitter.

Injuries to Eric and Jordan Staal have left the Carolina Hurricanes woefully undermanned at center and contributed to the team's disappointing 0-2-2 start.

The gaping hole in the depth chart, however, has provided 25-year-old center Riley Nash with a splendid opportunity to perform in a high-responsibility role.

So far, he's performed at a higher level than ever seen before.

Nash has scored three points in four games in 2014-15, won 37 of 57 faceoffs and set a career high with 21:20 in ice time against Buffalo.

He's assumed a regular top-six role in the absence of both Staals and prospered in it. In the ugly shootout loss to the Sabres, Nash was clearly the best player on the ice, not only registering two points and dominating the faceoff circle but also winning a plethora of puck races and board battles.

Considering the near invisibility of Elias Lindholm and lack of production from Nathan Gerbe in the first week of the season, Nash has been one of few bright spots in Carolina's offense. He's been just as strong defensively, as evidenced by the vast decline in his Corsi against (shot attempts against) statistics—despite a much larger percentage of his shifts starting in the defensive zone.

The Alberta native was drafted 21st overall by Edmonton in 2007, but a strange exchange of negotiations sent him to Carolina in 2010.

The Oilers grew tired of Nash's commitment to Cornell University and dealt him to Carolina for the No. 46 selection (Martin Marincin) in that year's draft. Just a month later, however, Nash decided to leave Cornell after all and sign his entry-level contract with the 'Canes. 

In 2012, Bruce McCurdy of the Edmonton Journal named Nash the ninth-biggest draft bust in Oilers history. Two full seasons and four games of another later, the 6'1" center may not have quite lived up to first-round expectations, but he has certainly developed into a capable two-way NHL forward.

Said Nash to Chip Alexander of the News & Observer during September's training camp:

Although I thought I finished strong at the end of last season, I need to take that next step and become more relied-upon this year. This is the NHL. Every year there’s a new wave of guys coming at you, so you have to be ready to go.

Nash's words have proved prophetic.

Long weak in the faceoff dot, it appears a few offseasons of work and perhaps more time with assistant coach Rod Brind'Amour has helped Nash finally become a viable draw-taker. Nash's 10-game moving average of faceoff winning percentage, ranging from the start of the 2013-14 campaign until today, can be seen below:

No. 20 finished last season with one of the better offensive stretches of his brief NHL career, tallying seven points in his last 14 appearances.

He didn't register a single shot on goal in either of Carolina's first two games of 2014-15, then transformed completely following Eric Staal's injury and his promotion to the upper lines.

According to Alexander, the older Staal is expected to return next Tuesday against Vancouver, three games away from now. Even when he does re-enter the lineup, conversely, Nash may have proved himself worthy of retaining a second-line role.

In a 2014-15 Hurricanes season that already seems destined for failure, the maturation and potential breakout of Riley Nash could emerge as a much-needed source of optimism.

Mark Jones has covered the Carolina Hurricanes for Bleacher Report since 2009. Visit his profile to read more, or follow him on Twitter.

The Pittsburgh Penguins finished last in the Atlantic Division for four consecutive years between 2002 and 2006, winning 28 or fewer of their 82 total games every time.

As a result, the Penguins received a top-five pick in all five drafts during the same time span. Their five selections, in order: Ryan Whitney (eventually traded for Chris Kunitz) in 2002, Marc-Andre Fleury in 2003, Evgeni Malkin in 2004, Sidney Crosby in 2005 and Jordan Staal in 2006.

In 2007, the Pens made their first playoff appearance in five seasons.

They haven't missed it since, accumulating one Stanley Cup ring, two Eastern Conference titles and three Conference Finals appearances along the way.

Such a perfect example of the parity-facilitating system used in North American professional sports—a system meant to help bottom-feeding teams move to the top, but inadvertently ignorant to the plight of merely below-average teams.

The Carolina Hurricanes have missed the playoffs for five consecutive years, a fact very well known by all who follow the team. It's a curse the 'Canes can't seem to shake, a cyclone of mediocrity hovering motionless over Raleigh.

But it's not a cyclone of complete failure. And that's the problem.

The 'Canes have never picked higher than fifth in the draft during their postseason drought, and their 2013 choice with the pick—Elias Lindholm—hasn't yet lived up to top-five billing. A No. 7 pick was used very successfully on Jeff Skinner, a No. 8 pick was dealt brashly to the aforementioned Penguins for the aforementioned Jordan Staal, and the other two brought defensemen Ryan Murphy and Haydn Fleury into the system.

Carolina's five-year bounty of consolation prizes doesn't remotely compare to Pittsburgh's haul from a decade ago.

Simply put, the 'Canes don't suck enough.

With zero wins in their first four games, Staal out until January or February with a broken leg, Skinner's career now in infinite jeopardy (due his third concussion in three years) and a first-year NHL head coach behind the bench, the Hurricanes do have a splendid opportunity to, at long last, really suck in 2014-15.

All it would take would be a bit of boldness from also-first-year general manager in Ron Francis. Deal a few star players for A-grade prospects and first-round picks and—voila!—the 'Canes might get to cherish a top-three selection next June.

Struggling and oft-criticized captain Eric Staal isn't likely to be the Hurricanes' captain too much longer, but he might not even be a Hurricane at all much longer. TSN's Darren Dreger reported Wednesday that the Rangers, Maple Leafs and Oilers may all have interest. 

Meanwhile, Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman wrote Wednesday that 2015 unrestricted free agent Andrej Sekera may also be attracting attention.

Add a now-healthy (albeit risky investment) Jeff Skinner to the trade block, and all the 'Canes could pull back an enormous sum of prospects and picks. After all, Dreger claimed that Staal alone could garner the likes of a first-round selection, Jake Gardiner and either Tyler Bozak or Nazem Kadri.

Is it worth it, though?

The new draft lottery odds are strikingly balanced; the club with the worst record now has a mere 20 percent chance at the No. 1 pick, while the No. 9 team, for example, has a five percent chance (almost double its chances last year). The recipient of the first selection in 2015 may need to be both terrible and lucky.

Moreover, fanbase morale—already a concern—could reach alarming levels if the 'Canes again fail to make the postseason this season. A 15th- or 16th-place finish could make it outright threatening. The long-term effects of full rebuilding may be worth it, but the Hurricanes need as many ticket sales and income as they can scrape out immediately.

As the 'Canes sputter along the dark, quiet, crumbling back roads of the NHL in the coming months, such is the conundrum that will confront Francis daily.

He's expected to diverge strongly from the lackluster indecision of the Jim Rutherford era and bring the Hurricanes back to the playoffs as soon as possible—but taking a risk in attempting to end the drought could, in the end, result in failure on both counts. On the other hand, a complete rebuilding could take so long that Francis is fired before the harvest, or work so ineffectively as to only hand-deliver the franchise's finances another half-decade deep in the red.

Francis and the Hurricanes should, at least, consider the 2002-2006 Penguins' strategy.

But is it worth it?

Mark Jones has covered the Carolina Hurricanes for Bleacher Report since 2009. Visit his profile to read more, or follow him on Twitter.

The Carolina Hurricanes focused on improving defensive depth in the 2014 offseason, entering training camp with nine viable defensemen vying for NHL jobs.

Two games into the 2014-15 season, the unit has already been torched twice by a New York Islanders offense that ranked 17th in the league last season.

The problem wasn't so much the volume of shots allowed—only 26 and 31, respectively—but rather the excruciating breakdowns that helped the Isles convert their 57 shots into nine goals.

Tim Gleason, who the Fox Sports Carolinas broadcast reported had spent his entire summer working on quickness, has looked almost as sluggish and elephant-like as he did last fall.

Justin Faulk, despite assisting on the team's first goal of the season, hasn't stood out as the stalwart he needs to be.

New rotating assistant captains Ron Hainsey and Jay Harrison struggled in the first game as well. Hainsey was made a healthy scratch in favor of Ryan Murphy in the second match, while Harrison's ice time was cut from 19:30 to 12:55.

As a whole, the defense was caught chasing the Islanders' speedy forwards far too often, perhaps losing their patience and structure under the intensity of opening weekend. Such unnecessary chaos left the 'Canes prone to leaving huge gaps of open ice on the reverse side, which eventually led to open shot lanes toward a screened goaltender for New York to take advantage of.

Four graphic breakdowns of the aforementioned defensive disorganization—all four of which came on plays on which the Islanders scored—lie below.

Example A: Everyone Ignoring the Slot

Albeit on a penalty kill situation, all three 'Canes players visible in this image are essentially in no-man's land.

Faulk is limiting John Tavares' passing angle (top of the screen) somewhat but isn't close enough to him to cause much pressure at this moment. Andrej Sekera (No. 4) has allowed Kyle Okposo to get in between him and the puck with his stick in terrific deflecting position.

It's most unclear what Alexander Semin's (No. 28) intentions are, as the eventual goal scorer Brock Nelson (No. 29) has built a huge gap in between them; Semin is on the wrong side of him, too, and doesn't look to be skating hard to change that.

The result of the breakdown can be seen above, as Nelson enjoys a huge gap in the slot to unleash a snap shot upstairs on a helpless Cam Ward.

Example B: Everyone Behind the Goal Line

After a dump-in zone entry by the Islanders, Harrison pressures chaser Ryan Strome but fails to pin him to the boards.

Meanwhile, Victor Rask (No. 49) waits statically for Harrison to retrieve the puck, while Hainsey (left) races behind the net from quite far away to presumably back up Harrison in the puck battle.

Unintentionally but very obviously, all three end up behind the goal line, giving Mikhail Grabovski oodles of time directly in front of the crease after he receives Strome's agile pass. Grabovski's short-range goal eventually becomes the game-winner.

Example C: Everyone on One Side

For the Islanders' fifth goal of the opening game, defenseman Travis Hamonic (No. 3) is gifted the entirety of the right side of the offensive zone.

The 'Canes defense crashed toward the puck on the opposite side, but Strome gets the puck back to Nelson at left point (not seen here), who switches the zone with a sneaky behind-the-back pass.

Hamonic has plenty of time and space to load up his shot, and although John-Michael Liles eventually almost blocks it, the mass of 'Canes migrating horizontally across the zone incidentally screens Ward and Hamonic scores far-side.

Example D: Everyone Flocking to John Tavares, Again

One of Cory Conacher's easiest goals of his career comes thanks to the single-minded focus of the Hurricanes defense on Tavares.

Anton Khudobin fumbles the original shot; Tavares chases down the rebound and attracts the full attention of both Sekera and Rask in the process. Tavares' centering pass finds Conacher very lonely and enjoying it, translating to the tap-in goal.

The Hurricanes will face the Buffalo Sabres—unquestionably the worst team in the NHL—on Tuesday at home.

With zero wins in three games to date, the Sabres have been out-shot by a whopping 131-57 margin, allowing 40 or more shots against in all three contests. They're also on the second leg of a back-to-back, traveling down from Buffalo after a 5-1 loss to Anaheim on Monday (shots were 44-12 Ducks).

If the 'Canes can't win that contest, it's not even worth sending out an S.O.S. for the 2014-15 season. Nonetheless, Tuesday's game does, on paper at least, appear to be a terrific opportunity for a confidence- and chemistry-building opportunity for the defensive (and offensive) unit.

They need it.

Mark Jones has covered the Carolina Hurricanes for Bleacher Report since 2009. Visit his profile to read more, or follow him on Twitter.

The Carolina Hurricanes will seek to restore confidence after a discouraging and destructive training camp, reverse their history of home-opener struggles and win the first half of a divisional home-and-home series with the New York Islanders on Friday night at PNC Arena.

It's an ambitious agenda for the first game of the season.

Minus injured Jeff Skinner and Jordan Staal and benched Anton Khudobin, who will most likely start on Saturday on Long Island, the 'Canes have too much to prove. Eight out of eight experts in The Hockey News' season preview projected Carolina to finish dead last in the Metropolitan Division in 2014-15.

A win over the Isles at home probably wouldn't do too much to shatter such low expectations, but it would at least get the team moving in the right direction.

What critical new aspects should be watched most closely during Friday's game? A breakdown of four particularly pressing questions awaiting answers lies below.

How will Cam Ward handle the pressure?

Cam Ward was unquestionably terrible last season, winning just 10 of 28 decisions and posting a horrendous .898 save percentage. He was marginally better in Raleigh, however, emerging victorious in three of his last five home starts to finish with a 5-5-3 record and .904 save percentage at PNC Arena.

Debuting head coach Bill Peters made a bold decision to start Ward over the statistically superior Khudobin, although the choice may be more symbolic of his confidence in Ward than indicative of the two goalies' positions on the depth chart. It's also worth noting that Ward boasts a 17-3-3 career record against the Islanders.

Each of Ward's three starts in the preseason was better than the previous one, capped off with a .950 save percentage (19 saves on 20 shots) in last Friday's 5-1 win over the Buffalo Sabres. But can he continue his recent upward trend in front of 18,000 fans who have, over the years, already grown weary of Ward's inconsistency?

No. 30 must put together a strong performance under immense pressure on Friday night.

Can Victor Rask continue his dominance in the regular season?

Victor Rask's explosive autumn—one that has launched him from a second-line center in the AHL to the same role in the NHL—has been well-documented. He led all participants in September's Traverse City Prospects Tournament with nine points in four games, and then recorded four points and a 61.3 faceoff percentage in five preseason appearances.

He'll make his NHL debut on Friday between Nathan Gerbe and Elias Lindholm as the Hurricanes' No. 2 center.

There will inevitably come a time when Rask's dizzying career escalation slows, when he must fight through his first NHL slump. Whether that time will hit like a brick wall at the start of the regular season or like a large speed bump two months down the road is not yet known.

How will the special teams perform?

Longtime on-ice captain Rod Brind'Amour has taken on the largest role yet in his brief coaching career this season, with his first priority being a revitalization of the team's perennially dreadful special teams units. The power play hasn't ranked higher than 18th in the NHL since 2007-08, and the penalty kill hasn't ranked higher than 17th (its ranking last season) since 2006-07.

Brind'Amour's efforts seemed to pay off rather effectively in the preseason. The man-advantage unit scored twice or more in three different matches, converting nine of 37 opportunities (24.3 percent) overall. The penalty-killing unit, meanwhile, allowed only three goals to the opposition out of 20 opportunities (15 percent).

Continuing such special teams success—especially against an Islanders penalty kill that ranked second-to-last in the league in 2013-14—should provide an enormous boost, both in the home-and-home series, as well as the 82-game season as a whole.

Will new leadership group make a difference?

A new general manager. A new team president. A new head coach. Two new assistant coaches. One new alternate captain. A new captaincy system.

When Peters named Andrej Sekera as one permanent recipient of the 'A' designation and Ron Hainsey and Jay Harrison as alternating recipients on Thursday, he concluded an offseason that has drastically overhauled the Hurricanes' off- and on-ice leadership more than perhaps any other in franchise history.

Although certainly justified, the sweeping changes may take some time for the 'Canes to adjust to. Or they may not.

Friday night will provide an early indication of the length of transition time necessary.

Mark Jones has covered the Carolina Hurricanes for Bleacher Report since 2009. Visit his profile to read more, or follow him on Twitter.