The Carolina Hurricanes will be facing the New York Rangers in their best-of-five qualifying round series. Over the next few days, I’ll be breaking down how the teams match up against one another in different areas and this article will look at which team has the better forward group.
Quickly glancing at the stats, the Rangers ranked fifth in the NHL in goals for per game this season, while the Hurricanes ranked 11th. To me, it's pretty clear that the Rangers have the better top-six but the Hurricanes have the superior bottom-six.
Artemi Panarin was one of the best players in the league this season and was on pace for a ridiculous 113 points per 82 games. Then there’s Mika Zibanejad who was on pace for, and yes, I also had to double-check this, 59 goals (and 108 points) per 82 games this season. It’s not like it was an overly small sample size either, as Zibanejad played in 57 of New York’s 70 games this year. Between Panarin and Zibanejad alone, that’s an average of 97 goals per 82 games this year. If you add the G/82 averages of Carolina’s top three forwards in Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov and Teuvo Teravainen together, you get 93 goals per 82. Essentially, Panarin and Zibanejad were so good this year that they make up for the Hurricanes having an extra star player.
Then, the Rangers still have surprise breakout star Ryan Strome, who averaged 21 G/82 and 69 P/82 this year, Pavel Buchnevich, who averaged 55 P/82 and Chris Kreider, who was on pace for 31 goals P/82. They have a hole in their top-six but so do the Hurricanes and Buchnevich, Kreider and Strome make for stronger top-six forwards than Vincent Trocheck and Martin Necas.
As for the bottom of the lineup, however, one of the Hurricanes’ biggest assets is their depth. Take out Warren Foegele who may play in the top-six and Carolina still has Ryan Dzingel, Nino Niederreiter, Jordan Staal and Justin Williams, as well as a quality fourth-line forwards in Jordan Martinook and Brock McGinn. Take out Jesper Fast, who will fill out New York’s top-six and the Rangers are relying on the very young group of Filip Chytil, Brett Howden, Kaapo Kakko and Brendan Lemieux. Carolina certainly has the advantage in the bottom-six.
While the Hurricanes may have a deeper forward group than the Rangers, however, it’s not by a large enough margin to offset New York’s star forwards and top-six in general. In the playoffs, a team is only going to be more likely to play their best players as often as possible, which is a situation that will favour the Rangers. If there are injuries, the Hurricanes would be able to compensate better than the Rangers, but as for who has the better overall offense, New York gets the edge.
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Here’s today’s poll question (results and discussion will be posted in a future article):
Which team do you think has the better forward group?
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