The Greatest Tournament in Team Sports starts tonight. Yes, it is the Stanley Cup playoffs getting
underway with three Western Conference tilts tonight. And that means it is time for the most astute
panel of experts you will read whose names end in “less” to bring you more…
more analysis, more insight, more prognosty-ish stuff! So, let’s get to it, starting with the
Western Conference…
(1) Chicago Blackhawks: 36-7-5, 77 points
(8) Minnesota Wild: 26-19-3, 55 points
Fearless: Why are we bothering here? Chicago is first in wins, first in points, first in goals allowed per game, first in goal differential per game, first in five-on-five goal ratio, first in winning percentage when scoring first, first in takeaways, first in one-goal wins, and most folks think first in coolest hockey jersey. But if there is one number to take away from this when thinking about the Blackhawks, it is this: “1.” Only once – one time – did a team beat the Blackhawks this season by three or more goals. It happened to be the Colorado Avalanche (go figure), the night the Blackhawks run of 24 games to start the season without a loss in regulation time ended. You want to beat this team, bring a lunch. It will not be easy.
Cheerless: Minnesota played the
Blackhawks pretty tough, cuz. A 3-2
Gimmick win (as Peerless likes to call it), a two-goal loss, and a one-goal
loss. Aw heck, that’s all I got.
Peerless: The easy comparison
here is to the 2010 first round matchup between the President’s Trophy winning
Washington Capitals and the eighth-place Montreal Canadiens. Montreal was given almost no chance to win,
much as Minnesota is given little chance this week. But there are some similarities between the
Wild and the Canadiens.
- Montreal was 25th in scoring offense in 2010 with a 2.56 goals-per-game average; Minnesota finished the 2013 season 22nd (2.46).
- Montreal was 11th in scoring defense (2.66); Minnesota was 16th (2.60)
- Montreal struggled during the regular season at 5-on-5 (0.90, 22nd), so did Minnesota (0.88, 24th)
- Montreal stumbled at the finish (3-4-3 in their last ten games), so did Minnesota (4-5-1)
In other words, the Wild have the Blackhawks right where they want
them. Yeah, right…
Blackhawks in five
(2) Anaheim Ducks: 30-12-6, 66 points
(7) Detroit Red Wings: 24-16-8, 56 points
Fearless: That these two teams are meeting in the first round is not necessarily a surprise, it is the seeding that looks out of place. Detroit has not finished with a lower points-won percentage (.583) since the 1998-1999 season when they went 43-32-7 (.567), and that was before the “Bettman Point” was introduced to break ties. Unlike most recent models of the Red Wings, the 2013 version struggles with offense (19th in scoring offense, 15th in power play conversion), despite finishing 10th in shots on goal and having the 10th best shots on goal differential. If there is a place – or more accurately, a time – in which the Wings have struggled, it is early on in games. They have been outscored, 36-33, in the first periods of games. They have goal differentials of plus-8 in each of the second and third periods of games, but slow starts can be magnified at this time of year.
Cheerless: Only San Jose and
Buffalo had more wins than Anaheim in the Gimmick. The flip side of that is that no team lost
fewer one-goal decisions in regulation time (two), and only four teams had better
winning percentages in one-goal games overall.
The Ducks can play tight games successfully. Part of that is being the fifth best team at
5-on-5 in the league. The wonder is
whether if having split their goaltending responsibility in the regular season
right down the middle – Jonas Hiller got 26 appearances with 1,498 minutes;
Viktor Fasth got 25 appearances with 1,429 minutes – they can settle on one guy
to lean on without breaking.
Peerless: This is one of the more intriguing series for its subplots…
Detroit being the hunter rather than the hunted, Bruce Boudreau trying to shake
off the label of being a playoff underachiever as an NHL head coach, the Ducks
big three of Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, and Bobby Ryan against the Red Wings’
dynamic duo of Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg. Both teams struggled before finishing on an
upswing. Anaheim lost four in a row
before finishing the season 3-1-0; Detroit lost six of eight contests before
winning their last four to close the season.
Both teams come into the post-season being stingy with goals allowed –
Anaheim with seven goals allowed in their last four games, Detroit with three
allowed in their last four. Both have
shown signs of life on offense – Anaheim averaging 3.00 goals per game in their
last four games, Detroit averaging 3.75 over their last four. Detroit looks a bit more like “Detroit” than
Anaheim looks like “Anaheim,” and that will be the difference.
Detroit in seven
(3) Vancouver Canucks: 26-15-7, 59 points
(6) San Jose Sharks: 25-16-7, 57 points
Fearless: After 28 games Vancouver was 13-9-6 and was only two points ahead of the then ninth-place San Jose Sharks. They closed strong, though, going 13-6-1 in their last 20 contests, that record fueled by an 8-1-0 record at home, losing only in their final home game to the Anaheim Ducks. They did it with goaltending and defense. In none of their 13 wins over that span did they allow more than two goals in any game. The concern might be the flip side of that. In their last 20 games the Canucks averaged only 2.40 goals per game (excluding Gimmick goals). Their power play struggled early on in that stretch (1-for-18 over the first eight games of their final 20-game block) before picking up late (10-for-38 in their final 12 games). Still, this is a team that has had some mysterious stretches of low offensive output.
Cheerless: As bad as the Canucks were on March 18th after 28
games, the Sharks were worse off. They
were 12-10-6 and only in ninth place in the West. They finished their season with a 13-6-1
record over their last 20 games, too.
They did it in a way similar to Vancouver – defense and goaltending. Antti Niemi recorded three shutouts in his
last 16 decisions has a 2.04 GAA and .926 save percentage since March 18th. All that hasn’t been hurt by having only 27.6
shots per 60 minutes, not exactly a heavy shots-on-goal workload. Good thing, because the Sharks don’t score a
lot – only 2.42 goals per game for the season, 24th in scoring
offense.
Peerless: This is the story of two teams that stumbled early, then
remembered who they were. This will be
Vancouver’s tenth trip to the playoffs in their last 12 seasons, and it will be
San Jose’s ninth straight trip and 16th in their last 19
seasons. But there are cracks, too. The Canucks went only 2-3-1 in their last six
games and scored only ten goals doing it.
The Sharks lost three of their last four contests and scored only nine
goals over those four games. Neither
edition of these teams represents a vintage version for their respective
franchises. Both have been experiencing
slides in terms of the progression of standings points per game earned over the
past few years. This suggests that for
both, windows might be closing. One of
these teams has to advance, but you do not get the feeling that either has a
long run in it. We’ll go with the more
settled goaltending.
San Jose in seven
(4) St. Louis Blues: 29-17-2, 60 points
(5) Los Angeles Kings: 27-16-5, 59 points
Fearless: Oddly enough, St. Louis’ season might have turned around with a 6-4 loss in Los Angeles back on March 5th. It was a rather gruesome affair in which the Kings came back from a 3-1 deficit, including a four-goal assault in the third period. After that game, captain David Backes said, “we’re in a bit of turmoil.” Well, the Blues certainly addressed that problem, going 18-8-2 after that game in Los Angeles. What is more, the Blues allowed only 48 goals over those last 28 games (1.71 per game) and held ten of their last 13 opponents to less than two goals per contest. Strange that two of ones they did not would be Columbus and Colorado.
Cheerless: Repeatin’ is
hard. That’s why no one has won two
Stanley Cups in a row since Detroit did it in 1997 and 1998. Even with as long a layoff to get rested that
the Kings had between winning the Cup last June and starting the season in
January, they stubbed their toe coming out of the start of the season. They were 3-5-2 after their first ten games
and didn’t get over .500 in points until Game 15. And it is not as if they have been a ball of
fire late, either. Los Angeles is 7-4-2
in April and have not scored more than three goals in regulation time since
April 6th. It’s probably a
good thing, then, that Jonathan Quick seems to be coming around. His overall numbers aren’t great – 19th
in goals against average (2.45) and 38th in save percentage (.902) –
but in his last seven appearances he is 5-1-1, 1.94, .927.
Peerless: This is the heavyweight match of the first round in either
conference. No one would want to play either of these teams, which makes it
fitting that they get one another. St.
Louis is the epitome of a “system” team, a creature of its head coach, Ken
Hitchcock. They will strangle a team to
death on defense. They just do not allow
very many chances (second fewest shots on goal per game allowed – 24.2). Los Angeles is very similar in effect (third
fewest shots on goal allowed per game), but they depend more on their
goaltender’s skill to allow them to express more aggressive behavior in the
offensive end of the ice. This series
will be brutal to watch, unless demolition derby happens to be your thing. In this one, we see Los Angeles as being this
year’s “Boston”…that’s not a good thing.
St. Louis in seven
And there you have it. When we get around to it...the Eastern Conference prognostos.
