Western Confernece Final

DET CHI # G EG S% G EG SV% Game 1: 5 3.9 94.4 2 3.6 89.7 Game 2: 3 3.2 93.9 2 3.3 90.6 Game 3: 3 2.4 84.0 4 2.5 87.5 Game 4: 6 3.6 96.0 1 2.5 83.3 Game 5: 2 4.6 96.4 1 2.8 95.7 Series [4-1] 19 17.7 93.2 10 14.7 89.8

Game 1: Chicago hung in there until the end.
Game 2: I was expecting OT to go a little longer. It appears Chicago can beat Detroit, they just haven't accomplished that yet.
Game 3: Chicago isn't making this easy for themselves.

DET CHI Winner Even Strength GF 3.01 2.8 EGF 2.69 2.63 GA 2.57 2.16 EGA 2.31 2.44 SV% 88.9% 91.1% Power Play GF 11.24 9.22 EGF 10.59 6.72 GA 0.73 0.62 EGA 0.61 0.71 SV% 87.8% 90.8%

Detroit will look to score themselves out of problems, but Chicago has much better goaltending and this matchup could turn out to be Ducks Part II. Looks to be another close series.

Eastern Conference Final

PIT CAR # G EG S% G EG SV% Game 1: 3 3.0 90.9 2 2.2 90.0 Game 2: 7 3.6 82.6 4 2.3 83.3 Game 3: 6 4.6 94.1 2 3.4 89.1 Game 4: 4 2.0 97.1 1 3.4 85.0 Series [4-0] 20 13.2 92.0 9 11.3 87.1

Game 1: Well executed by Pittsburgh.
Game 2: For a moment there I thought Carolina would tie it up again.

PIT CAR Winner Even Strength GF 2.99 2.45 EGF 2.35 2.6 GA 2.53 2.37 EGA 2.38 2.55 SV% 89.4% 90.7% Power Play GF 7.41 6.91 EGF 7.89 7.14 GA 1.96 0.96 EGA 0.7 0.99 SV% 90.4% 90%

Can Carolina's defense hold off Pittsburgh's offense. They did it in Boston, why not again.

Eastern Conference Semi - Boston vs. Carolina

BOS CAR # G EG S% G EG SV% Game 1: 4 2.7 94.4 1 1.8 85.2 Game 2: 0 3.2 84.6 3 1.3 100 Game 3: 2 2.7 91.7 3 3.6 92.6 Game 4: 1 1.9 87.1 4 3.1 94.7 Game 5: 4 3.6 100 0 1.7 88.9 Game 6: 4 2.0 94.3 2 3.5 80.0 Game 7: 2 3.6 90.9 3 3.3 94.4 Series [3-4] 17 19.7 91.8 16 18.3 91.4

Game 1: Boston won this game in every area: goaltending, offense, defense. Tough game for Ward.
Game 2: Carolina won, but they were completely outplayed. Good game Ward.
Game 3: Carolina was actually able to outplay Boston for a change. Maybe I was wrong. After being shut down in the first couple games Carolina plays hard at home to win convincingly (albeit in OT)
Game 4: Man I feel like an idiot. From my vantage point it looks as though Boston isn't even trying anymore. They now have a large hill to climb and it's quite unlikely they will pull it off.
Game 5: Carolina still has 2 chances. Much better game by Boston.
Game 6: Watching the game I thought Boston was dominating, however, the numbers above tell a different story. Boston has shown over the last couple games why they got the most points in the east.
Game 7: Carolina proved they're at least as good as Boston, this should be a good conference finals...

BOS CAR Winner Even Strength GF 2.84 2.45 EGF 2.34 2.6 GA 1.95 2.37 EGA 2.4 2.55 SV% 91.9% 90.7% Power Play GF 10.12 6.97 EGF 8.1 8.27 GA 1.2 1.23 EGA 0.56 0.78 SV% 91.7% 90%

Has there ever been a more lopsided series? Boston has better scoring, defense, goaltending & special teams. I'll be curious how many people pick the Hurricanes to win. Just look at the season series (18 GF Boston, 6 GF Carolina)

Updated: [the comments below indicated more discussion might be necessary]

Boston

Offense:
I’ve felt all season that Boston has been outperforming all scoring expectations. Whether you look at the players they have or based on their expected scoring rates, Boston has either been one lucky team or proving day in and day out that expected scoring rates and analysis is worthless. I’d be the first to say that, I would rather Boston be a lucky team than a good team. If they’re a good team it means my research is wrong. That said, even with all the analysis I’ve done, goal differential is still essentially the most important indicator of a good team and Boston has that!

Defense:
This is Boston’s bread and butter. I know they have a great goalie, but really Chara really is the most important player to this team. They had the fewest goals against in the league this year and didn’t do too poorly last year.

Goaltending:
I liked Thomas the first season I saw him. I knew with his size and skill that he would be a successful goalie. However, I never expected he would be this successful. Personally I feel Thomas is a .915 goalie (Luongo is a 0.920 goalie for example). They theoretical limit for an NHL goaltender is about .920 (these are all shot quality neutral metrics) with a minimum around 0.880. 0.915 is excellent, but this season Thomas has outperformed his historical averages and came in around 0.930 (1.5% better than I’d expect), 1.5% might seem like a small amount, but it’s equivalent to about 30 goals against over the course of a season. However, just because he was lucky all season doesn’t mean his luck is going to run out tomorrow.

Carolina

Offense:
Carolina met expectation in terms of scoring. They actually have the worst scoring record of all remaining teams and they’re up against a team that has great goaltending and defense. Adding Eric Cole at the trade deadline was huge for this team, during the period he was on the team average goals for per game jumped from 2.6 to 3.7. That being said, Eric Cole didn’t seem to be an important player in the first round.

Defense:
I wouldn’t exactly call this one of Carolina’s strengths and they were lucky to have another bad offensive team to play against in the first round. Pitkanen is the only real name (although I’ve really come to like Gleason – first round pick). Corvo always was a great offensive defenseman for Ottawa, but not exactly defensively minded. Seidenberg is steady, but no all star. (as you can see I know very little about Carolina).

Goaltending:
I was never a fan of Ward in the playoff run on 2005-2006. What frustrated me was that the team in front of him was playing so well it didn’t matter too much how he played, he just had to be better than Martin Gerber. However, in 2005-2006 he was 22 now he’s 25, which for goalies is when they begin to peak. I still think of Ward as an average starting goalie, he’s not amazing (he has been lately). In the long run his numbers should hover around .900.

Few other notes:
Carolina had the lead for 82 minutes in the entire 7 game series against N.J. Sure wins are all that matters in the end, but winning in the final seconds of a hockey game doesn’t give me confidence in a team’s abilities to win hockey games (it isn’t something that is generally repeatable).

Conclusion:
Boston’s goaltending is certainly better than Carolina’s
Boston has better defense than Carolina (who would you rather have Chara or Pitkanen?)
Offensively I think the teams are reasonably equal.

Overall though, I have a hard time seeing Carolina live through this series.

Western Conference Semi - Detroit vs. Anaheim.

DET ANA # G EG S% G EG SV% Game 1: 3 3.5 88.2 2 1.7 91.4 Game 2: 3 4.5 89.2 4 3.7 93.3 Game 3: 1 4.4 93.5 2 3.1 97.7 Game 4: 6 3.6 87.5 3 2.4 86.1 Game 5: 4 3.3 90.0 1 1.0 90.9 Game 6: 1 3.2 93.1 2 2.9 96.9 Game 7: 4 3.6 90.0 3 3.0 88.9 Series [4-3] 22 26.1 90.4 17 17.8 92.3

Game 1: We all knew Detroit would be a offensive powerhouse in this series. Hiller just needs to play a little better. Unlike San Jose, Detroit knows they have to get the puck up to score on Hiller.
Game 2: That's one long game. Looks like Anaheim's strategy is to stay out of the box. The few penalties they had were considered non-calls by NBC.
Game 3: Hiller!
Game 4: Did you really think Detroit would only win 1 game. Don't worry Anaheim's stifling defense will be back.
Game 5: Now that's the Detroit we've been missing!
Game 6: Classic Ducks hockey...
Game 7: Luck wasn't on the Ducks this season. Great game 7 action.

DET ANA Winner Even Strength GF 3.01 2.49 EGF 2.69 2.59 GA 2.57 2.33 EGA 2.31 2.43 SV% 88.9% 90.4% Power Play GF 11.45 11.46 EGF 10.17 9.94 GA 0.36 0.99 EGA 0.51 0.54 SV% 87.8% 90.2%

Detroit gets another shot at the 2007 Conference Final match up where Anaheim defeated Detroit. However, the tables have turned slightly since then, Anaheim was in 2nd in the Conference and now they're in 8th. But they were able to beat the President's Trophy winners.

Osgood has a amazing first round, but Anaheim should be a handful for the Detroit Red Wings. They're goaltending will frustrate the Wings. Sounds like a fun series.

Eastern Conference Semi - Washington vs. Pittsburgh

WSH PIT # G EG S% G EG SV% Game 1: 3 2.6 91.7 2 2.4 88.5 Game 2: 4 2.7 91.7 3 3.6 85.2 Game 3: 2 2.1 91.2 3 3.4 90.5 Game 4: 3 1.8 84.8 5 3.3 83.3 Game 5: 3 2.3 88.9 4 3.6 87.0 Game 6: 5 1.7 87.9 4 3.3 70.6 Game 7: 2 1.9 80.0 6 3.0 89.5 Series [3-4] 22 15.1 88.1 27 22.6 85.4

Game 1: Close game, but Washington takes the first win.
Game 2: Ovechkin vs. Crosby - TIE, but Washington as a team won.
Game 3: Washington now has 6 playoff OT losses in a row! Pittsburgh pulled this one out of the fire, but they did manage to completely outplay Washington.
Game 4: Pittsburgh really took this one to them. And it's another chance for Washington tomorrow (I hate back-to-back in the playoffs).
Game 5: I always thought Pittsburgh would win this series (easy to say it now...)
Game 6: That was dominant Pittsburgh win, but they still couldn't keep the puck out of their own net.
Game 7: Amazing win by Pittsburgh. Two second round "upsets", two to go...

WSH PIT Winner Even Strength GF 2.77 2.99 EGF 2.63 2.35 GA 2.42 2.53 EGA 2.18 2.38 SV% 88.9% 89.4% Power Play GF 10.17 7.62 EGF 8.05 7.26 GA 1.43 1.39 EGA 1.07 0.82 SV% 88.8% 90.4%

Who doesn't love Ovechkin vs. Crosby! Should be a good series, and probably full of scoring (for those people who play pools). Also it looks like a close series (6-7 games?)

Western Conference Semi - Vancouver vs. Chicago

VAN CHI # G EG S% G EG SV% Game 1: 5 3.3 90.6 3 3.2 87.9 Game 2: 3 1.9 86.1 6 3.6 84.2 Game 3: 3 3.1 96.4 1 2.8 90.3 Game 4: 1 1.1 90.0 2 2.0 90.9 Game 5: 2 1.6 87.0 4 2.3 87.5 Game 6: 5 3.8 81.1 7 3.7 86.8 Series [2-4] 19 14.8 88.1 23 17.6 87.8

Game 1: A little disappointing with the Canucks 3rd period, but overall the Canucks showed that when they have to they can win a game.
Game 2: Chicago has been playing extremely well since the 3rd period of game 1. All the Canucks were playing poorly in this game.
Game 3: Many people thought the Canucks were in trouble - I guess not. Much better defensive game for the Canucks. Game 4 should be a much bigger challenge as Chicago wont give the Canucks a 3-1 lead easily.
Game 4: The reason the Canucks chances were so low was that they were leading for most of the game and decided to try and defend their way to a win. That may have been a mistake.
Game 5: Chicago simply out played the Canucks in every area. The Canucks just can't score.

Game 6: After the last couple games it was hard to imagine the Canucks pulling this off a series come back. It seemed like every player went down tonight. Hard to pick out a good one on the Canucks. But Chicago, just kept coming and played hard and were very fast (quick passes) all over the ice. Also, I believe this is Luongo's second 7 goals against in one night game in his entire NHL career, the last one occured on January 4, 2000 (the game before that he had 9 goals against). Not the best night to have your worst game...

VAN CHI Winner Even Strength GF 2.67 2.8 EGF 2.33 2.63 GA 2.2 2.16 EGA 2.34 2.44 SV% 90.6% 91.1% Power Play GF 7.75 7.96 EGF 9.16 6.97 GA 0.84 0.64 EGA 0.66 0.6 SV% 89.8% 90.8%

As you can see by the above table and prediction, this should be a very close series. Both teams have great goaltending and steady offense.

Broken Sticks

Kelly Hrudey made some interesting comments about broken sticks and penalty killing. Personally I've never seen a player go to the bench for a new stick (or replacement player as seen in the video below), however a compelling argument could be made for taking such action. Not sure at this point how aggressive player's could be at getting a new stick, but certainly players have to at least be thinking about this as an option. In both of the goals you will see below you will notice that without a stick the player is pretty much useless or even worse an impediment to the goalie's vision.



The next day I had a deja vu as I watched a Canucks penalty killers stick break. He tried to stop passes and block shots, but the whole time he was without a stick I couldn't help but remember what Hrudey had said and couldn't help but think: they're going to score.



Now, in terms of penalty killing, leaving your team 5 on 3 for 10-15 seconds to replace a stick, could be killer as it is so easy to score on a 5 on 3: ~24 goals/hour. So a 15 second 5 on 3 is equivalent to about 0.1 goals against (or about 0.075 extra goals over regular PP). Of course the question I cannot answer is how often teams score when their opponent has a broken stick.

Finally, it was never brought up, but why don't these players have unbreakable sticks just for killing penalties? It's not like these players need a stick that can shoot the puck really well