Jesperi Kotkaniemi has turned his latest chance into a real lineup problem for the Hurricanes.
Since shifting back to center against the Philadelphia Flyers, Kotkaniemi has looked energized. On the five-game road trip that followed while the North Carolina State Fair was outside the Lenovo Center, he scored three goals and added an assist.
That leaves him with three goals and three assists for six points in 11 games this season. The only obvious blemish has been faceoffs, where he’s winning just 42%.
That’s the kind of “problem” every coaching staff would happily take. Carolina would much rather be sorting through too many useful forwards than scrambling because it doesn’t have enough. But the roster math is getting tricky, and Kotkaniemi’s play has made it harder to think about sending him back to the press box.
The wrinkle is that his best work has come at center, not on the wing. He started the season on the wing, then moved back down the middle after Jordan Staal tore his calf before the second game against the Philadelphia Flyers on Oct.
- Since then, Kotkaniemi has looked like a different player.
Over his last seven games, he has three goals and an assist, which works out to a roughly 48-point pace over the new 84-game schedule. He’s also plus-5, and he’s doing it while averaging 13:42 per night in a bottom-six role.
That’s what makes this stretch stand out. Kotkaniemi has already shown he can contribute in Carolina - he had a 43-point season with the Hurricanes - but consistency has always been the question.
Right now, he isn’t being asked to carry the offense. He’s being asked to be effective defensively and chip in when the chances come, and he’s handled both jobs well.
The deeper numbers back up the eye test. At five-on-five since moving to center, Kotkaniemi has a goals-for rate of 5.13 per 60 minutes and a goals-against rate of 0.73, according to Natural Stat Trick.
That gives him an 87.50% goals-for percentage. His expected numbers are more modest - 2.67 xGF/60 and 1.84 xGA/60 - but still strong, with a 59.17% expected goals-for percentage.
Compare that to his time as a winger, and the gap is clear. His xGF/60 as a winger was 2.40 and his xGA/60 was 1.45, producing a 62.31% xGF%.
The bigger difference shows up in the actual results: his goals-for rate and goals-against rate were both 4.20 as a winger, for a 50% goals-for percentage. The sample is small, but the Hurricanes have seen enough to know he simply looks more comfortable in the middle.
That creates the real headache coming soon. Carolina expects to get three injured players back in the next two to six weeks, and the obvious question is what happens when the roster is healthy again.
Kotkaniemi played only 43 games last season and didn’t get near the ice in the playoffs. Under normal circumstances, he’s the type who ends up in the press box.
Staal, of course, is not that kind of case. The reigning Conn Smythe winner and Carolina captain will go right back into the lineup when he’s healthy.
That leaves Mark Jankowski. He’s closer to returning than Staal, but there’s no requirement that he has to take Kotkaniemi’s spot.
Jankowski has spent plenty of time on the left wing, so one option would be to swap the two and keep Kotkaniemi at center while getting Jankowski back into the mix. That would also give Carolina another faceoff option lower in the lineup, which is useful given that the fourth line lacks that when it’s fully healthy.
Even that comes with a catch. Moving Jankowski and Kotkaniemi around would still shuffle the fourth line and push out one of the wingers.
Most of Carolina’s wingers have special-teams duties, and Kotkaniemi does not, so that complicates things further. It’s a workable idea, but not a clean one.
And that’s the bigger theme here: the Hurricanes do not have an obvious answer, just a good problem. The staff has a decision to make as the roster gets healthier, and it comes down to whether recent form should override established pedigree. Kotkaniemi’s play has made sure that question is very much alive.
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Flyers Suddenly Need Their Blue-Line Depth More Than Ever
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Oliver Bonk has been handling the heavy lifting in the spot Ristolainen usually occupies next to Travis Sanheim, and the Flyers have also had to piece together the rest of the rotation with Hunter McDonald, Simon Benoit and David Jiricek. For a player in the final year of his contract and still looking to get his season moving after one goal in four games, the timing is especially unfortunate, and it puts even more pressure on Philadelphias depth to hold up until the blue line gets healthier. [Read more 🡒]