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Today, I look around the league and suggest a couple of Anaheim Ducks and New Jersey Devils to pick up, plus a stat toolbox on PDO and a feature on how to make effective trades. Enjoy!
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I can only imagine most of the Devils fans I know channeling their inner-Puddy this week. Also did you catch the Hockey Pron?
While we have some time before the Finals start on Wednesday let’s look at the Kings and Coyotes numbers in their respective Conference Finals, plus their performances put end-to-end. First the West:
LA vs PHO Fenwick (c) Hashtag Hockey
The Kings continued to tilt the ice in their favor, never allowing the Coyotes to as much as pull even with them in the SMS numbers. Perhaps for some of the Finals games I will try to get my hands on per-period stats or break them down per-game. Gamewide stats are interesting but they don’t really tell the story of the game, so with fewer and fewer games I’ll change the way I analyze the numbers.
LA vs PHO SMS (c) Hashtag Hockey
The Coyotes decided to turn up the heat in Game 5, but not until their backs were against the wall. In the first four games they served up a mediocre-but-steady diet of shots and missed in the mid-thirties, while the Kings had three games over sixty and only one game under fifty. I think about score effects often when I post these type of charts, but is at least a little remarkable how consistent the Yotes were in games 1-4.
LA vs PHO sh rate (c) Hashtag Hockey
Recently, I examined a new way of looking at Sh + MSh, and while that piece was on the player-level, since I had the data anyway I thought I’d look at teamwide Sh-Rates. If you haven’t read that article, the figures above are basically the proportion of Shots + Missed Shots that hit the net, or (Sh / Sh+MSh). Something I have noticed is that the numbers seem to vary together–in Game 2 we see a discrepancy of +.09 for the Kings, but every other game is within just a few percentage points.
NJ vs NYR fenwick (c) Hashtag Hockey
We see a different picture in the East, with the Devils managing to outshoot the Rangers in games 2 and 3 (winning one and losing one,) but in the other games the Rangers were throwing more pucks at the Devils–by design one would think.
NJD vs NYR SMS (c) Hashtag Hockey
NJ vs NYR sh rate (c) Hashtag Hockey
Here we see a Rangers team that did not pull the trigger much in Game 3 (just 22 Sh but only 4 MS) and was quite selective in Game 5 as well (35 Sh to 8 MS). The Devils won the last three games of the series while potting 4 goals on 16 shots in Game 4 (excluding the EN goal).
Now that we have a good sample of games played, I thought it might be cool to stack up each team’s games end to end to look at their respective runs through the tournament. Note that SMS are adjusted per 60 mins here.
LA vs OPP fenwick (c) Hashtag Hockey
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LA vs OPP sms 60 (c) Hashtag Hockey
While the Coyotes started to look like they wanted to make it a series after shutting out the Kings in Game 4 and taking a lead midway through Game 5, these numbers suggest the Kings manhandled Phoenix more consistently than the Canucks or Blues. Their Fenwick rate was consistently near-.600 throughout and they topped 60 SMS/60 twice, after not getting to that mark in any game since the start of the Playoffs.
NJ vs OPP fenwick (c) Hashtag Hockey
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NJ vs OPP sms 60 (c) Hashtag Hockey
The Devils have certainly played a different brand of hockey than the Kings–where Los Angeles has played 4 games out of 14 with a SMS/60 rate less than 40 (28.6%), New Jersey has played 10 of their 18 games under 40 SMS/60 (55.6%). You don’t have to read the tea leaves too much to wonder how the Devils will try to play the high-octane Kings…will they try to run with them or sit back and weather the storm?
Finally, let’s look at how the two goalies have stacked up. Their even-strength Sv% are near-identical, but Quick owns the Ov Sv% advantage, as Brodeur and the Devils have allowed 15 PPG on 77 Sh (.805) plus another 1 in 4 for Hedberg. Each netminder has notched 11 Quality Starts, but the Devils have played four more games than the Kings, which brings Brodeur’s QS% to just .611 and Quick’s to .786.
Brodeur vs Quick 2012 NHL PLayoffs (c) Hashtag Hockey
Of course, these stats are more descriptive than predictive, but hopefully they are enlightening. While I would guess that a lot of the talking heads will have the Kings, New Jersey fans can still dream of bringing Lord Stanley’s hardware back home…
It’s been a while since I put up more than a couple simple charts, so let’s dig in and look at the Elite Eight of 2012! Only one series has yet to be decided, so let’s start with the Caps/Rangers. This time, I have included Fenwick/60, or Sh+MSh adjusted for overtime games. This post will be long so I’ll put a table of contents at the top for easier navigation:
**If you need a refresher on the stats used here, check out the Glossary**
The teams have alternated wins in this series, leading to a Game Seven tomorrow night…they have flip-flopped so much we could call this the Romney Series (hey, you got politics in my hockey! you got hockey in my politics!!) Quoth Homer Simpson: “Okay Marge, its your child against my child. The winner will be showered with praise. The loser will be taunted and booed until my throat is sore!!” I couldn’t find a clip of that line so here’s another from the same episode
If the Rangers win, this series will probably be remembered by the Game 5 Joel Ward kerfuffle…which would be unfortunate because like any sports implosion, they usually find a scapegoat *coughBARTMAN* and just blame it on one guy instead of realizing all the events that led up to that flashpoint. After Game 1, which ended 3-1 Rangers, the teams played very evenly for four games, trading one-goal victories. Then, in game 5 and 6, New York seemed to turn on the afterburners like Maverick and Goose or Brian and Dominic, depending on what year you were born. Score effect seems to have played a huge factor in Gm 5, but Washington only mustered 24.2 SMS/60, and was outshot 68-32 in Fenwick, which shows they turtled in a big way. It is reasonable to expect that Game 7 will be more even like the early games in the series, but if Washington gets a lead, they might consider keeping their foot on the gas, as two blown leads in the last three games of a series seems like a pretty good way to get your coach fired. The League has announced that the conference finals will begin on Sunday, so don’t be surprised if the series winner drops the first game to the more rested Devils. Speak of the…Devils…(ugh,) Let’s move to the other series in the East…
I admit I feel a bit reedemed, as I wrote about Bryz in Round 1 and how lucky he was that Fleury shit the bed the way he did…though picking on the Flyers for having bad goaltending is like picking on Justin Bieber for his haircut. Just because it’s an easy joke doesn’t mean I’m not going to make it o_O
The Flyers came out strong in Game 1 and then sputtered out, particularly in Game 2 and Game 4. The Devils blocked a moderate amount of Philadelphia’s shots, but not enough to cover for the fact that the Bullies just didn’t let rip with enough pucks, especially if we consider that they probably had a good idea “Y U Heff 2 B Mad” wasn’t likely to strap the team on his universe-contemplating shoulders and carry them through. One would think that based on the way the Rangers and Capitals are playing, the plucky Devils will be underdogs in the East Finals, but maybe Broduer the Timeless one has got some magic left in those 40-year old bones.
Bill Simmons mentioned on the B.S. Report this week that Kings fans are sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop, because everyone who followed this team in the regular season remembers the ABYSMAL offense of the Kings for a good chunk of the season. I’ve got a first-hand view of things out here, and they seem to have convinced themselves that the addition of Jeff Carter was their saving grace, but as long as they keep winning, we don’t have to revisit the 30th-ranked G/Gm the team carried for about four months…but who am I kidding, I’m going to probably reach for Carter in next year’s fantasy draft. Besides, we all know Jon Quick is the real Savior-on-skates…these charts were posted earlier, but I thought I’d revisit them here. Note that since no game went to overtime, the Sh + MSh numbers are also the SMS/60 figures, so no point in being redundant redundant.
The West bracket has been a showcase of elite goaltending, and the Quick vs Smith matchup is very enticing to people like me who prefer defensive struggles to barnstorming Pennsylvania-style games. There is no love lost between these division rivals, and people seem to forget that it would not have taken much for the Kings to wind up with the #3 seed and the Yotes to get #8.
Mike Smith continues to play the part of the “Hot Goalie” and the Nashville Predators are bounced sooner than many predicted. If the Preds don’t sign Ryan Suter or Radulov decides to go back to Mother Russia, the Preds may not be in a position to come back as contenders next year. Stores of franchises turning themselves around are good for sports leagues, SEE: Lions, Detroit; Rays, Tampa, Tigers, also Detroit, but if they don’t get any hardware, they typically get lost in the history books.
We got a few very even games sandwiched between two lopsided games in Games 1 and 5. Look at the disparity in the last game. The Preds split their SOG pretty evenly across periods, 10-12-11, and unfortunately I do not have MS by period. If anyone knows where to find those numbers please let me know! I’m STILL not taking Mike Smith on my fantasy team next year, but you can’t deny he’s got a fair chance to bring that Conn Smythe trophy back to the desert.
Now that I have started adjusting for time, we can look across series and see how the teams compared in their shot output:
A couple of things surprise me–first, that six of the eight teams are basically between 35 and 40 S+MS/60, with Washington trailing the pack but just barely and Nashville leading the field by more than just a few shots. This is where adjusting for score effects would be beneficial. Per Behind the Net, this is the closest I could find, but I’ll keep looking.
Of course I saved the best for last! We knew there some top-notch goalies (and also Bryz) going into this round, but raise your hand if you predicted Rinne AND Elliott would have a lower Ov Sv% than Bryzgalov. Ok, put your hands down now, liars.
Smith and Quick, #1 vs #2. LAK vs STL was supposed to be a 10-goal series (that’s combined) but it didn’t really turn out that way. We could very well be in for 6 or 7 2-1 games, but on a per-game basis, anything can happen. That’s why they play the games! Brian Elliott–yikes.
So what do you think? Who do you think will make it out of the NYR-WAS series, and who will make it to the finals? Post a comment below and share your thoughts!
I wanted to get this up over the weekend but my monitor decided to have a stroke, which put me out of commission for a little while.
Philadelphia scored on better than 1-in-8 shots, but while everyone was busy comparing Marc-Andre Fleury to various cheeses and kitchen tools, Ilya Bryzgalov posted the lowest Ev Sv% of any East goalie, 0.882. The Flyers’ second round opponent features Marty Brodeur, who at age 67, posted the best Ev Sv% in the East at .956. It may be a few more weeks before he can go back to telling kids to get off his lawn.
From that timeless classic of our age, Basketball: “Soon it was commonplace for entire teams to change cities in search of greater profits. The Minneapolis Lakers moved to Los Angeles where there are no lakes. The Oilers moved to Tennessee where there is no oil. The Jazz moved to Salt Lake City where they don’t allow music.” Add to that, “and they moved hockey teams to places like Florida and Arizona, where there is no ice.”
