In his return to Carolina, Shayne Gostisbehere has been one of the league’s best defensemen to start the season.
The narrative surrounding the Carolina Hurricanes this off-season was that an inevitable step back was looming.
Departures of Jake Guentzel and Teuvo Teravainen promised to sap the team of scoring ability, while the team’s reliable second pairing of Brady Skjei and Brett Pesce was gone, forcing moves up the depth chart and newcomers to try to cover the losses.
With October in the books and a tough road trip handled to the tune of a 5-1-0 record, none of that has come to pass. While all of the team’s new additions seem like good fits, it’s the return of Shayne Gostisbehere that has proven to be the most valuable.
Gostisbehere was a solid fit when he was acquired at the 2023 trade deadline, providing a spark on the power play and some strong puck-moving skill on the bottom pairing as the Hurricanes cruised to the Eastern Conference final before being swept by Florida.
After signing in Detroit and helping the Red Wings to the playoff bubble, Gostisbehere returned to Raleigh to fill one of the vacated spots on Carolina’s blue line, and boy has it ever paid dividends so far.
Immediate Impact on the Power Play
One common denominator in Carolina’s postseason shortcomings has been an inability for the team’s power play success to carry over from the regular season to the playoffs.
Last season, the Canes finished second in the league with 26.91% conversion rate. In the playoffs, that collapsed to 19.4%, buoyed by success in the first round against the Islanders before costly struggles in the first three games against the Rangers in the second round.
It was the same story in 2021-2022, as the power play conversion rate went from 22% in the regular season to 13% in the playoffs.
The lone exception to this massive drop-off in the Rod Brind’Amour era was in fact in 2022-2023, when the power play struggled to a 19% conversion rate in the regular season and only dipped to 17.7% in the playoffs with Gostisbehere at the helm.
You would of course expect some level of regression from the regular season to the playoffs in power play effectiveness given the intensity and quality of opponent teams see in the spring, and it’s thus notable that the only time the team’s man advantage didn’t crater to a disastrous degree was the year they had Gostisbehere quarterbacking it.
Brent Burns has served as the team’s primary power play quarterback since his arrival, and he’s certainly a strong component while a man or two up, but at this point in his career, he lacks the dynamism and quick decision making that a player like Gostisbehere brings to the group. Now, there’s flexibility in how Burns can be used. There was some experimentation during training camp of using him as a net-front presence, but in the regular season he’s been in charge of the second unit. His shot, size, and experience add a ton to the group, but it is striking the way the top unit moves authoritatively with Gostisbehere at the helm and Martin Necas in an elevated role.
There are 49 defensemen who have played at least 15 minutes on the power play so far this year, and Gostisbehere ranks 10th in on-ice shots for per 60 and 9th in on-ice goals for per 60 out of those 49. The Canes’ power play is clicking at a solid 23.1% conversion rate, and there has been some visible meat left on the bone. Let’s see if this can continue to be a strength for this team as the year goes on.
Absolute Dominance at 5-on-5
While the power play was likely the primary motivation for re-adding Gostisbehere, it is his even-strength impact that has been most striking.
So far this season, 207 defensemen across the league have played at least 50 minutes at 5-on-5.
Of those 207, Gostisbehere ranks 1st in expected goals for percentage at an astonishing 76.89%, 4th in high-danger chances allowed per 60, 7th in high-danger chances generated per 60, 22nd in shots on goal for per 60, 5th in shots on goal against per 60, and 5th in individual expected goals for per 60.
The results could easily be better, too, given that the Canes are shooting just 7.69% with Ghost on the ice, compared to numbers over 9.4% for both Burns and Jaccob Slavin.
Taken as a whole, those numbers indicate that no defensemen in the league is excelling in every facet of the game to the degree that Gostisbehere is. The Canes are generating ridiculous amounts of offensive danger with him on the ice and surrendering virtually nothing of note on the other end.
There are a couple of obvious caveats here, the first being that the sample size is pretty small so far. To that point, no defensemen in the past decade has put up an October with an expected goals share over 74%, let alone where Gostisbehere is at nearly 77%.
The second is that the minutes are pretty sheltered so far, but softer competition is a luxury that the Hurricanes have always been able to afford their bottom four in the Jaccob Slavin era. Tony DeAngelo never took advantage of it to this degree, and even Dmitri Orlov and Jalen Chatfield weren’t this dominant as a bottom pairing last year, and they’ve proven to be more than adequate as a second unit this year.
Further, Ghost has fared very well in some tough individual matchups this year. In 5:36 of 5-on-5 TOI against Nikita Kucherov in the season opener, the Canes outshot Tampa 7-1 with both players on the ice. Similar numbers showed up in mutual minutes against Sidney Crosby in the Pittsburgh game, as well as against Nico Hischier and Dawson Mercer in the win over the Devils.
What It All Means Moving Forward
Gostisbehere signed a three-year pact that pays $3.2 million on a per-year basis this year. Even factoring in some regression, this looks to be by far the biggest steal of any deal signed on the open market NHL-wide last year.
The Canes have a reliable power play quarterback and a player who can absolutely tee off in a bottom pairing role and probably excel in a top-four role if need be. An injury to Orlov doesn’t totally decimate the defense the way an injury to Pesce or Skjei did, or would have, last season, either.
Down the road, the expectation is obvious that highly-touted Russian Alexander Nikishin will slide into the spot that Orlov will likely vacate when he departs in free agency this summer. Gostisbehere’s level combined with Slavin’s excellence means that the pressure on Nikishin to come in and immediately dominate is minimal. If he does meet those expectations, the Hurricanes will be paying only a bit over $10 million for an incredible one-two-three punch on the left side of the defense for the two years following this one.
The 2023 playoffs and post-deadline period were proof that Gostisbehere was a fit in this system and organization, and his longer term commitment to come back this season represents a masterstroke in roster building by first year general manager Eric Tulsky and totally mitigates the impact of the departures of Skjei and Pesce, possibly even flipping them into a positive.