No Crosby? No problem for Jake Guentzel in Carolina

Jake Guentzel has been off to a great start in Carolina since being acquired by the Hurricanes via trade from the Pittsbugh Penguins. Guentzel won two Stanley Cups with the Penguins during his time there and found himself on a line with Sidney Crosby. Many wondered how Guentzel would do without Crosby on his line and he has already proven that he doesn’t need the generational talent to help get on the scoresheet. Today on Daily Faceoff Live, Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk discuss Guentzel’s hot start in Carolina.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Tonight in the NHL, Jake Guentzel will make his return to face off against the Penguins. We just talked about the Hurricanes and they are still in the mix for the top spot and are 8-1-1 in their last 10 games. One of the reasons they’ve been playing so well? Their new additions of Guentzel and Kuznetsov. Kuznetsov has racked up five points and Guentzel has racked up 12 points in eight games. But when you dig a layer deeper, Guentzel is really having a big impact on this Carolina lineup.

Frank Seravalli: Huge impact. You look at the advanced stats presented by Meghan Chyaka since he made his debut. Just the overall team play and being north of points is one thing, but the way they are outscoring their opponents with Guentzel on the ice, 16 goals for and zero goals against. Shot attempts are at 178, slot shots at 69 and 10 high-danger chances. That is significantly turning the tables for the Canes against their opponents. I look at the type of player the archetype they got in Guentzel is exactly what they needed.

Frank Seravalli: The one thing that sets the Canes apart from other front offices in the league is they know who they want and they set their sights on getting him. Then it becomes a binary decision of, “Okay do we have this player”, yes, and if not, they leave it. We saw it last year with Timo Meier, it didn’t work but they didn’t just go to the next guy on the list and check down the list and take other players to make fit like they thought Meier would, which is what you see other teams do at the trade deadline. But maybe that player just isn’t a good fit for your team and instead of trickling down the list, you just stick with what you got like Carolina.

You can watch the full show here…