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In this edition of the hotstove, we share our choices for most underrated on the Carolina Hurricanes.
Todd Cordell
Warren Foegele.
There is not much flashy about Foegele’s game. He is just a meat and potatoes, north-south guy who seems to fit in no matter where he slots in the lineup.
He can play on the top offensive line and win pucks for Sebastian Aho. He can also play a smart, simple role on a shutdown line against opposing team’s top players. Wherever he is slotted, you know what you’re going to get. And not in the way of ‘he won’t do anything with the puck but will finish checks and try hard’ sort of way we’ve seen for decades with depth players.
I think Foegele is more effective offensively than he gets credit for. He may not have standout skills but he is smart, has a nose for the net, and gets rewarded accordingly.
Foegele actually put up more 5v5 points than Claude Giroux, Rickard Rakell, Vincent Trocheck, Tyler Seguin, and Patrice Bergeron this season. He is sneaky good.
Sean Maloughney
While the likes of Aho, Svechnikov and Terevainen lead the team forwards offensively, Martin Necas quietly had a breakout season. The 21 year old appeared in only 8 games prior to this season, posting a goal and an assist through those games. This season the young forward went 16-20-36 through 64 games which is decent enough on it's own, but made more impressive comparing him to his teammates.
Necas played about 220 minutes fewer than Aho at evens and 150 minutes fewer than Svechnikov. Despite that Necas finished 4th in even strength goals (11) and came close to matching both the above mentioned players in assists. His 16 assists match nicely to Aho's 18 and Svechnikov's 23. In addition to that he tied Svechnikov in primary assists with 9 and only had two fewer than Aho.
To make Necas's numbers even more impressive is the fact that he spent almost no time with any of the Hurricanes big producers. He played roughly 46 minutes with Svechnikov and Aho and a whopping 2 minutes with Terevainen. Most of the time Necas spent with Trocheck and Foegele who performed well but certainly are not elite.
Numbers via NaturalStatTrick.com
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