Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Paint by numbers

With the second season well underway, some trends have emerged.

Scoring is down from last year, despite the significant uptick during the regular season.  The first round games were far closer, with 28 of the 42 games played being won by a single goal, compared to 27 of 47 last year.  19 games this year went to overtime, with 2 being settled during the second overtime, as compared to last year resulting in 7 overtime finishes with 3 double overtime results.  Last year only saw 20 overtime games throughout the playoffs.

There have been 8 shutouts so far, and 9 in the first round last year.

However, in spite of the relative closeness, there have been two sweeps thus far, which did not occur at all last postseason.

Fights were down as expected, but more interestingly, extracurriculars were too, with a grand total of 5 misconducts, compared to 25 last year.  No one was taking a pound of flesh, despite a few dirty hits and goalie bumps.

Last year saw two upsets in the first round.  This year we saw three.

The two worst teams at faceoffs in the first round, St. Louis and Washington, both advanced.  St. Louis had the worst zone starts, and only won 42.3% of the faceoffs taken in the defensive zone, were outshot in all but one game, but Jake Allen stood on his head.

Sometimes, the bounces are in your favor.  That certainly was the case for the Blues.

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