Michal Jordan's Fight for NHL Job Continues Beyond 2014-15 Breakout Year

Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Michal Jordan entered the 2014-15 season with five NHL games and 267 AHL games under his belt.

Yet the 24-year-old was recalled to the 'Canes on Nov. 25, mocked in a viral Michael Jordan comparison in his fourth appearance and, 34 games later, boasted the first six points of his NHL career.

Head coach Bill Peters was happy to keep seven or eight defensemen on the roster for most of the year, cycling different players through healthy scratch status each game to spread around experience and playing time in a lost season.

Size	6'1", 195 lbs
Age	24
Games Played	38
Goals	2
Assists	4
Plus/Minus Rating	-7
Hits	35
Blocked Shots	61
Corsi Percentage	51.2

Jordan benefited from the scheme, regularly playing over more established NHLers like John-Michael Liles, Brett Bellemore and Tim Gleason.

At times, Jordan flourished as a result of this treatment.

His two goals—both on the power play—resulted from thinking one step ahead and pinching deep into the offensive zone, leading to a pair of tap-in scores.

He grew in confidence in all three zones, and his 1.61 blocked shots per game (61 in 38 games) led all defensemen on the team's end-of-season roster. He took just two minor penalties in 606 minutes of total ice time, as well.

Kathy Kmonicek/Associated Press

Without a strong offseason and 2015 training camp performance in the months ahead, however, Jordan's 2014-15 NHL breakout season could land him right back in Charlotte—the Hurricanes' AHL affiliate—for the duration of 2015-16.

As the team builds renewed hope entering next autumn, it's almost a sure bet that Liles and Bellemore will jump well ahead of the still-raw Jordan.

Moreover, the 'Canes have a plethora of highly drafted blue-line prospects with more prestige than Jordan, the 105th selection in 2008: Haydn Fleury (No. 7 in 2014), Roland McKeown (No. 50 in 2014), Trevor Carrick (No. 115 in 2012 and coming off a 32-point AHL campaign) and even Ryan Murphy (No. 12 in 2011), who played one fewer NHL game than Jordan this past year.

Regardless of his recent performance, Jordan seems bound to enter September well outside the projected top six on the team depth chart. Those aren't promising odds for a player with a third-pairing ceiling.

James Guillory-USA TODAY Sports

It's also worth questioning just how noteworthy the Czech native's 2014-15 season actually was.

While his 51.2 Corsi rating looks solid at a glance, it ranked only 14th out of 21 'Canes with 200 or more minutes played and can largely be attributed to his favorable offensive zone start percentage of 59.7. 

He's not a physical presence either and experienced a fair number of rookie mistakes, including some poor weak-side coverage at various moments and being deked into an infinite abyss by Columbus rookie Marko Dano.

The 2014-15 season moved Jordan onto the NHL radar, but he has plenty of work to do yet to secure a long-term spot there.

The offseason ahead will likely prove pivotal for the future relevance of hockey's most unfortunately named player.

Unless otherwise noted, statistics courtesy of NHL.com and Stats.HockeyAnalysis.com.

Mark Jones has been a Carolina Hurricanes featured columnist for Bleacher Report since 2009. Visit his profile to read more or follow him on Twitter.