The Carolina Hurricanes are among the toughest teams to forecast year-to-year in NHL betting. What\u2019s their identity? They\u2019re a young rebuilding team but they also have a few stars in their primes. They miss the playoffs one year and they make a deep run the next. I can never figure out what these guys are. <\/p>\n
One thing we can expect every season from Carolina, though: good production from its top forward lines, good goaltending and a pitiful defense corps.<\/p>\n
CAROLINA HURRICANES<\/strong> The Hurricanes have made a few minor tweaks but their team should at least function in 2011-12 similarly to last year\u2019s squad.<\/p>\n The forward corps is young and high on both size and speed. Eric Staal is the centerpiece and will continue to fill his role as a \u201ccenter\u201d who is also the team\u2019s main goal scorer. He has solid secondary support around him with bruising winger Tuomo Ruutu and slick-stickhandling Jussi Jokinen.<\/p>\n In Brandon Sutter, Anthony Steward and Alexei Ponikarovsky, the Canes have several hulking forwards with room to improve.<\/p>\n The most intriguing development for Carolina last season was that of winger Jeff Skinner. The teenager and first-round pick flourished in his debut season, scoring 31 goals and winning the Calder Trophy as the league\u2019s top rookie. The Hurricanes need him to pick up where he left off. If he doesn\u2019t, Carolina will arguably lack a pure goal scorer. Even Staal, who gets his share, isn\u2019t cut from the same cloth as true snipers like Ovechkin, Kovalchuk and Gaborik.<\/p>\n Looking at Carolina\u2019s depth chart, it\u2019s easy to see what this team\u2019s strategy is. Use the speed and power up front to attack aggressively. If the team turns over the puck, let goaltender Cam Ward bail them out. Ward\u2019s numbers don\u2019t always show it, but he\u2019s one of the most athletic, talented puckstoppers in the game. [ad-4437448]<\/p>\n He\u2019s also apparently the reason why Carolina refuses to invest in a real defense. Adding Tomas Kaberle isn\u2019t fixing the problem; it\u2019s just adding a new Joe Corvo. Tim Gleason is tentatively pencilled in as a top-two guy alongside Joni Pitkanen. Sorry, but that just isn\u2019t a shutdown pair, even if Pitkanen is underrated. Bryan Allen, Jamie McBain and Derek Joslin are just roster fillers, though Joslin has potential to improve. The blueline weakness and lack of elite scoring touch are what might hold Carolina back, just as those factors did last season.<\/p>\n This does looks like a competitive team on paper. Ward will steal a few games and Carolina\u2019s forward depth will make it tough to play against every night.<\/p>\n However, the Hurricanes have too many flaws to be counted upon as a shoo-in playoff team. I see the Hurricanes jockeying with Montreal and Toronto in the No. 8 to No. 10 slots, with one of those three teams making the big dance.<\/p>\n Carolina could easily finish fourth behind Winnipeg \u2013 but i don\u2019t see the reverse upside of the Hurricanes passing Tampa Bay or Washington. To me, there\u2019s a big gap between the Capitals and Lightning and the bottom three teams of the Southeast.<\/p>\n Ironically, as unpredictable as Carolina has been, I\u2019ll dare predict that their 2011-12 result looks a lot like their 2010-11.<\/p>\n Prediction: <\/strong>3rd<\/sup>, Southeast Division<\/p>\n CappersPicks.com\u00a0NHL Betting<\/strong><\/a> and gambling site provides the BEST Online\u00a0hockey predictions<\/strong><\/a> for you to bet on for the 2011\/12 NHL hockey season! Stick with us all season long!<\/p>\n Shea Matthews weighs in with his 2011-2012 Carolina Hurricanes Season Gambling Picks and NHL Preview, plus he provides the lastest NHL odds, Hurricanes future lines, and Stanley Cup predictions\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":195,"featured_media":27013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[52387,52388,52104,52105,35275,35277,35278,17638,17823,1968],"class_list":["post-43788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nhl","tag-2011-hurricanes-predictions","tag-2011-hurricanes-season-preview","tag-2011-2012-nhl-predictions","tag-201112-nhl-preview","tag-carolina-hurricanes","tag-hurricanes-nhl-schedule","tag-hurricanes-odds","tag-nhl-hockey-predictions","tag-nhl-season-preview","tag-stanley-cup-odds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/195"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43788"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43904,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43788\/revisions\/43904"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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