It gets late early late in the NHL. Teams like Montreal and Edmonton can’t just shrug off bad starts because the holes those clubs have dug are big enough that it’ll be an uphill climb to overcome them. At the other end of the spectrum, Toronto has banked enough points already to give it an edge in the final standings.
With a non-trivial chunk of 2017-18 in the books, we’ve compiled some statistical trends worth watching with Canada’s seven NHL teams.
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Calgary Flames: Mike Smith’s save percentage
Mike Smith was a discount addition in net for the Calgary Flames, but so far the team could not be happier with his performance. His .928 save percentage through nine games is a serious step up from the team’s recent starters.
It’s also a 13-point improvement on Smith’s average from the past two seasons. There’s reason to think that at least some of that improvement might be sustainable, since there were several factors working against him during his time with the Coyotes. The lousy performance of Arizona’s goalies early on reinforces that.
Edmonton Oilers: Awesome shot metrics
The Oilers presently lead the NHL in 5-on-5 Corsi percentage. However, they’ve also spent a huge percentage of their time in those games surrendering goals and then playing catch-up, something we know can skew possession metrics. It’s also a really good way to lose hockey games, though that’s beside the immediate point.
In the 128 minutes of even-strength time that they’ve played with the game tied, Edmonton has a 52 per cent Corsi rating, a slight improvement on last season. If they can keep that up it should translate into improvement, once they figure out the whole getting outscored early thing.
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Montreal Canadiens: Miserable shooting percentage
In the ‘so bad it can’t possibly continue’ category are the Canadiens and their brutal 2-6-1 record. The club has been hit with a double whammy in that its all-world starting goalie has a sub-.900 save percentage while at the same time the shooters can’t put anything past the opposition.
Montreal has just 10 goals on 260 shots at even-strength, for a league-worst 3.9 shooting percentage. Last year they were more than twice as likely to score on any given shot; neither the Habs nor the Claude Julien-coached Bruins were anywhere near this bad.
There are lots of reasons to be negative about the Habs right now and many of them are justified, but the team is also caught in an extreme percentage slump that wouldn’t last even if they were the 1999 Atlanta Thrashers.
Ottawa Senators: Shot blocking
Guy Boucher is famously a defence-minded coach, and one of the ways that is presented is with this Ottawa team that’s good at keeping opposition shot attempts from reaching the net.
Last season, the Senators’ opponents took 4,062 shots at the Ottawa net at even-strength, with 2,047 of them making it through to their goalies. An average NHL team allowing that many shot attempts would have allowed an extra 128 actual shots over the course of the year. The Sens, though, were the third-best team in the league at preventing those shots from making it to the net.
This year, Ottawa ranks first in the NHL in that category. Less than half the shots directed at the team’s net reach the goaltender.
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Toronto Maple Leafs: Improved special teams
The Maple Leafs ended last season with one of the best power play/penalty kill combinations in all of hockey. They’re better in both disciplines this season.
Toronto scored 5.4 goals/hour on the power play in Mike Babcock’s first year behind the bench. That jumped to 8.1 last season, and in the early part of this year the team is averaging more than 10 goals/hour. It’s not just pucks going in the net, either; the Leafs are firing nearly 15 shots more per hour on net than they did last year.
It’s a similar story on the penalty kill. After surrendering 6.3 goals and 57 shots/hour while shorthanded last year, Toronto has lowered that number to 5.0 goals and 52 shots against.
Vancouver Canucks: Low-event hockey
All else being equal, blowouts in hockey tend to favour the more skilled team. The closer the score, the more room there is for things other than talent to decide the outcome. It’s one of the many reasons why Jacques Lemaire’s grinding Minnesota Wild went to the third round of the playoffs in just their third season in the league.
This year’s Canucks team doesn’t have an overabundance of skill, and coach Travis Green has pursued multiple strategies to keep the team as competitive as possible despite that deficiency. One of those strategies appears to be slowing the game down.
In an average hour at 5-on-5, a typical NHL team takes about 60 shots at the opposition’s net and surrenders about 60 on its own. In Vancouver, those numbers are 54 and 55 respectively, and the trend holds both at home and on the road. Not surprisingly, this has kept goals for and against the Canucks to a minimum.
Winnipeg Jets: Too many penalties
The Jets know they take too many penalties. It’s why they brought former referee Paul Devorski to training camp, with a specific focus on Winnipeg’s past issues following the rulebook. So it has to be a little disappointing that the team has fallen back into old habits.
Over its past four games, Winnipeg has had eight power play opportunities and been shorthanded 13 times. As a result, they’re once again spending more time on the penalty kill than they’d like:
In fact, after modest steps last season, the Jets are back to being in exactly the same spot as they were in 2015-16.
The numbers are so small (23 power plays for, 25 against) that this won’t necessarily continue. Given their history, though, there’s no reason to give the Jets the benefit of the doubt until their behavior actually changes.
