The top possession playoff teams since '08 and why Vegas is among the best

We shouldn’t be surprised by the Vegas Golden Knights anymore. In their first season they went to the Stanley Cup Final. They may have done the same in Year 2, if not for a phantom five-minute penalty and a furious comeback by the San Jose Sharks in Round 1 of the 2019 playoffs.

In 2020, Vegas finds itself back in the conference final and they’ve gotten here as a dominant possession team.

So we decided to look back and identify the best possession playoff teams since 2008, which is as far back as Natural Stat Trick tracks these numbers. To figure that out we pulled out four stat measurements: Corsi for percentage (CF%), expected goals for percentage (xGF%), high-danger chances for percentage (HDCF%) and shots for percentage (SF%). To make sure the sample sizes were great enough, teams had to have reached at least the conference finals to qualify. All of the numbers below are at 5-on-5 only, and it may surprise you to see which teams Vegas currently is most similar too.

Here we’ve captured the best playoff possession teams of the past 13 post-seasons, with their overall post-season league rank for each stat in parenthesis.

2008, Detroit: 60.38 CF% (1), 58.26 xGF% (1), 56.75 HDCF% (1), 60.26 SF% (1) (won the Cup)

The 2008 Detroit Red Wings remain the gold standard of puck possession playoff teams with a lineup that was loaded with Hall of Fame talent and they finished with a Stanley Cup win. Since 2008, no other team has reached at least the conference final and finished first overall in each of these statistical categories. The closest to repeating this feat may have been the 2015 Anaheim Ducks, who finished first in three of these categories, but were fourth-best when measuring Corsi. But that team also fell one win short of reaching the Stanley Cup Final.

2009, Detroit: 56.42 CF% (1), 53.06 xGF% (3), 49.08 HDCF% (10), 55 SF% (2)
The super-stacked Wings were dominant again in the 2009 playoffs, though didn’t quite take it to their opponents as much on high-danger chances. They repeated as Western Conference champions, but fell in the Cup final to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

2010, San Jose: 53.47 CF% (4), 54.16 xGF% (3), 57.14 HDCF% (3), 53.09 SF% (3)

This is one of the best teams the San Jose Sharks ever put forth and 2010 is the year the Cup perhaps got away from them. They were the top seed in the West and winners of the Presidents’ Trophy, but were swept in the conference final by the eventual champion Chicago Blackhawks. When the 2010 playoffs finished, San Jose ranked first in all of these stats among any of the final four teams.

2011, Vancouver: 53.43 CF% (4), 52.24 xGF% (5), 53.27 HDCF% (4), 52.12 SF% (5)

A dominant regular-season team translated to playoff success as well, but the Vancouver Canucks just couldn’t overcome the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup Final. Like San Jose the year before, this was one that got away from Vancouver. They weren’t weak anywhere.

2012, Los Angeles: 51.8 CF% (9), 54.85 xGF% (5), 56.52 HDCF% (5), 51.53 SF% (10) (won the Cup)

The eighth seed in the West, the Los Angeles Kings suddenly burst on the scene as an elite team in these playoffs, when Jonathan Quick was outstanding but the underlying numbers were also incredible. That signalled how this was less on a Cinderella run and more the start of something special. The Kings weren’t the highest-scoring team, but grounded you down and controlled the play better than most.

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2013, Chicago: 55.54 CF% (2), 55.74 xGF% (2), 61.24 HDCF% (3), 55.45 SF% (2) (won the Cup)

Chicago’s second Cup win may have been their most complete as they only lost seven games through the playoffs, three of which came in Round 2 against Detroit. They didn’t lead the playoffs in any of these stats, but were close to the top in every one of them — and no other conference finalist was better than the Hawks by any of these measures.

2014, Los Angeles: 53.78 CF% (4), 51.7 xGF% (6), 50.97 HDCF% (8), 53.88 SF% (3) (won the Cup)

The 2014 Kings were a lot like the 2012 version — controlled play considerably well, though didn’t score a ton. The only difference was that we weren’t as caught off guard this time. Los Angeles was third in the Pacific, but by now were known as an elite puck possession team that was hard to play against physically.

2015, Anaheim: 51.66 CF% (4), 54.66 xGF% (1), 57.14 HDCF% (1), 54.54 SF% (1)

This Ducks team was the closest to finishing first in all these stats and repeat what the ’08 Red Wings did, but fell just a bit short in the Corsi department. On this list there are five teams that finished first in each of these categories among the four conference finalists when the playoffs were over. Three of them won the Stanley Cup and the other two were eliminated in the conference finals: San Jose was swept in 2010 and these Ducks lost a nail-biting seven-game series to Chicago after leading 3-2 through the first five games.

2016, Pittsburgh: 51.63 CF% (7), 56.39 xGF% (1), 56.05 HDCF% (2), 55.39 SF% (1) (won the Cup)

These Penguins are the last team that made it to the conference finals and finished the playoffs ranking better in each of these stat categories than any other final four team. They also won the Stanley Cup after finishing second in the Metro Division.

2017, Nashville: 52.05 CF% (5), 51.47 xGF% (5), 51.36 HDCF% (6), 50.57 SF% (7)

Steady across the board, these Predators got into the playoffs as a wild card and then blew through the Blackhawks in four games and knocked off the St. Louis Blues and Ducks in six each. Fourteen different Preds scored at least two goals through this run to the final, which was ultimately ended in a series loss to Pittsburgh, a team that finished above 50 per cent in only one of these categories.

2018, Winnipeg: 53.27 CF% (2), 55.1 xGF% (1), 55.08 HDCF% (3), 53.43 SF% (1)

It really did look like this Winnipeg Jets team was nearly unstoppable until they got to the conference final. They really had everything: size, scoring, deep defence, excellent goaltending, sandpaper, solid coaching. You name it, Winnipeg was equipped with it. They even knocked off the previous year’s best playoff possession team in Round 2 which, in hindsight, may have taken more out of them than San Jose did from Vegas in their Round 2 matchup. The Jets even won Game 1 of the conference final against Vegas, which was an expansion team — and who was picking a Cinderella expansion team over this Winnipeg buzz saw? The Jets lost the next four games, though, and then Vegas got pummelled by the Washington Capitals in the Cup final.

2019, Carolina: 55.57 CF% (2), 52.16 xGF% (6), 50.0 HDCF% (8), 54.09 SF% (3)

The Carolina Hurricanes have for years been one of the better regular-season possession teams, but they never had enough goal scorers and goaltending was also usually a sore spot. It seemed like they were putting it together in 2019, but goaltending did end up sinking them in the conference final, where they were swept by Boston and allowed 17 goals in four games.

2020, Vegas: 59.44 CF% (1), 63.03 xGF% (1), 60.53 HDCF% (2), 60.99 SF% (1)

This all brings us to the current playoffs and when you look at Vegas’ possession and scoring opportunity stats next to the best playoff teams of the previous 12 years you might notice that their best comparable are the 2008 Red Wings.

That’s astounding.

And if you had to pick a second team the Golden Knights most resembled by the numbers, it’d be the 2013 Chicago Blackhawks. Both of those teams won the Stanley Cup and both were in their prime years as elite contenders.

Now, Vegas’ journey is still not finished and there’s time for them to decline to some degree by all these measures. But they rank first in each of these stat categories among all the conference finalists, and in the five times that has been accomplished since 2008, the team that did it won the Stanley Cup three times.

The ’08 Red Wings are the only team that finished the playoffs ranked first across the board in these measures and Vegas is nearly there — the only team that has a better HDCF% than the Golden Knights right now are the Edmonton Oilers at 60.76. (But since they were eliminated in qualifying, do they count as a playoff team?)

It’s not just that Vegas is leading in these stats — they’re crushing by a historical measure right now.

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In the past 13 playoffs, a conference finalist has finished above 60 per cent in any of these stats six times — the 2008 Red Wings finished above that mark in Corsi For percentage and shots For percentage and the 2013 Hawks finished above the mark in high-danger chances for percentage. Vegas accounts for the other three. The way they are carrying play in these playoffs so far is almost unprecedented.

Granted that the Dallas Stars will make it hard on Vegas to control shots and scoring chances as decisively as they have to this point, but these numbers signal a strong, relentless system, a deep roster and generally excellent execution. They’ve been getting solid goaltending behind it all from Robin Lehner, who has earned four shutouts in his past seven starts.

If there is a weakness here then perhaps it is on offence where the goals have dried up of late. Vegas has the lowest shooting percentage of any remaining team and they ranked 21st in regular-season shooting percentage at 5-on-5. They have just seven goals in their past five games, and again, Dallas is a stingy defensive team that’s tough to fight through. At the same time, backup Anton Khudobin is getting the starts these days, and that workload appears to be catching up to him a bit.

There’s a ways to go for Vegas to finish this thing and sustain the possession numbers they’ve enjoyed so far, and the competition is only going to get tougher now. They breezed past Chicago and held a huge lead on Vancouver before a fresh Thatcher Demko showed up. None of the remaining teams will be so easily handled over any stretch.

But, boy, are the makings there for a historic finish in the salary cap era. We can’t say this team has as many surefire Hall of Famers as the 2008 Red Wings, or even as talented as the 2013 Hawks. But ever since the Golden Knights started off in the NHL they’ve been a Stanley Cup contender, even if we haven’t always thought of them that way.

Mark Stone and Shea Theodore will be favourites to be on Team Canada for the next best-on-best tournament. Paul Stastny is one of the smarter centres in the league. Lehner was a Vezina finalist a year ago and looks like that again behind a strong team. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg for a team deep in talent that can play you any which way.

So while the more rested Tampa Bay Lightning may be the leading contender following their 8-2 win in Game 1 against the New York Islanders, by the numbers at least, the Golden Knights are performing at a historical rate.

They’ve caught no one by surprise this time in their chase for the Cup, but if they take it home in 2020 and maintain these dominating possession numbers? Maybe then we need to think about Vegas at an even higher level.

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