This piece will be another in my series of player profiles, where I’ll give some thoughts on the performance of a member of the Carolina Hurricanes this season. This article will focus on Brock McGinn.
McGinn had a subpar year (at least from an offensive standpoint) but there were a couple of positives for sure. He got off to a very poor start, where he had just four goals and 10 points in his first 50 games but he ended up scoring seven points in his final 18 games to close out the season. Something to keep in mind as well is that his shooting percentage was just 7.5 per cent this year, the lowest of his career and that influenced his production.
He also had a large role in Carolina’s penalty kill, which was ranked fourth in the league this year. He was averaging 2:25 per game on the penalty kill, which led all Hurricanes’ forwards and finished third in forwards in blocks, despite his limited ice time at even strength. Another positive: he had the lowest number of giveaways of any regular forwards on the Hurricanes.
McGinn played an average of about a minute less per game than he did last season, which can be partially attributed to Warren Foegele’s improvement and the addition of Ryan Dzingel. The Hurricanes have a good base of forwards and between Dzingel and Foegele, the top line, as well as Martin Necas, Nino Niederreiter, Jordan Staal and Vincent Trocheck, McGinn may have a hard time moving back up the lineup. I’d imagine McGinn starts back on the fourth line again next year, though if Justin Williams returns, he could be battling for ice time.
Like I'm doing with my New York Islanders blog, I'll be adding in a poll question for each new blog I write. I'll try to do a weekly post reviewing the results. Here's the first question:
Brock McGinn has one year remaining on his contract. What's your early prediction on his future with the Hurricanes?
Carolina Hurricanes Blogger • 
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