What's the most important thing a team can do in the playoffs?

by Hawerchuk on May 12, 2010 9:00 AM EDT

Can you hazard a guess? How about outshoot the other team when the score is tied? Here's what happens when you do:

	Win%
By Game	59.7
By Series	70.6

And it helps to go big. Since the lockout, teams had a Fenwick ratio (ie - Corsi w/o blocked shots) of 55% or more when the game was tied won 26 series and lost just 5, which is an 84% winning percentage. The five who beat the odds?

Year	Winner	Loser	Round	Fenwick%	Outcome
2006	Buf	Ott	2	39.6	4-1
2006	Car	Edm	Finals	39.6	4-3
2008	Phi	Mon	2	39.9	4-1
2006	Edm	Det	1	40.7	4-2
2009	Ana	SJ	1	41.3	4-2

All of these wins required some pretty extreme goaltending, often from unexpected sources. So there are two paths to winning in the playoffs: outshoot your opponents when the game is on the line; or have your goaltender hit a performance peak and have the other team not make its shots. If I was building a team, I know which one I'd design for...

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Jesus look at EDM’s 06 run, dominant in the finals but they realistically never should have been there.

Is this just EV Fenwick or EV+PP+PK?

by R O on May 12, 2010 9:14 AM EDT reply actions

And look at CAR’s 06 run, dominated in the finals but they realistically never should have been there.

by sisu on May 12, 2010 9:30 AM EDT up reply actions

Yeah, I don’t know who it was that looked at Cup winners and found the Hurricanes to be categorically the weakest team to do so in the last 20 years or something.

by R O on May 12, 2010 9:45 AM EDT up reply actions

oh yeah, sorry, it’s EV+PP+PK

by Hawerchuk on May 12, 2010 11:13 AM EDT up reply actions

Didn’t Anaheim beat the Sharks last season?

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by Jibblescribbits on May 12, 2010 9:27 AM EDT reply actions

Fixed. I was wishcasting.

by Hawerchuk on May 12, 2010 11:14 AM EDT up reply actions

Does this include 2010? Did WSH really not have a 55% Fenwick ratio against MTL?

by imbroglioh on May 12, 2010 9:56 AM EDT reply actions

Apparently not. I wondered that myself so I took a look:

http://www.behindthenethockey.com/2010/4/30/1451313/first-round-corsi-percentages-by

This is Corsi, not Fenwick, but given the way the Habs blocked shots I doubt the Fenwick number is any better for WSH. It is surprising.

by sisu on May 12, 2010 10:22 AM EDT up reply actions

it is surprising. altho not all that surprising because there actually wasnt a lot of tied score time in the series. mtl score early in each of the last three games, the games where washington really poured on the shots. oh well.

by imbroglioh on May 13, 2010 11:28 AM EDT up reply actions

Yeah, that was heartbreaking as an Oiler fan. At that point we weren’t in a position to curse the hockey gods, but it was still heartbreaking. I remember the game they lost 5-1 (Game 2?), it was a drubbing on the scorebaord but the Oilers outplayed CAR cleanly the whole game, they just couldn’t catch a break. Rebounds all just bounced the wrong way by a smidge, scoring chances fell to the wrong guys, or to the right guys but on their backhand. The pucks were going to the net with malice, but they either hit Ward or just missed high or wide.

MacTavish didn’t help himself by deciding to pull Smyth and Horcoff off of PVP duty, adding a young Hemsky and then running them at Weight’s line. And Roloson’s injury was a blow, though the God’s hadn’t been smiling on him in that series anyways, and Markkanen played very well.

It’s a pissoff.

by Vic Ferrari on May 12, 2010 10:47 AM EDT reply actions

Game 2 was 5-0. I shouldn’t say this, but I was there. Walking around the club level, mixed drink in hand, wishing everyone in a Oilers jersey a safe trip home. (Typical response: “It’s not over, asshole!” “Sure, it’s not. Drive safe”)

I remember it as a pretty thorough whipping by the Canes, though. Looking it up, shots were EDM 25 CAR 26. EDM was 0-7 on the PP, CAR was 3-10.

by DoctorMyBrainHurts on May 12, 2010 4:44 PM EDT up reply actions

So there are two paths to winning in the playoffs: outshoot your opponents when the game is on the line; or have your goaltender hit a performance peak and have the other team not make its shots. If I was building a team, I know which one I’d design for…

Well I don’t think any NHL team designs their team to rely on their goalies to be at their absolute best to stand a chance, it’s just that in a 30 team league you’re going to have a lot of teams where that’s the only way they can win. Some of them do win, which is why you always ‘have a chance’, but everyone prefers to be the next Detroit rather than the next 2006 Oilers.

I’m sure plenty of us would try and design teams to win like Detroit/Chicago and end up with Montreal.

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by Bruce Peter on May 12, 2010 10:50 AM EDT reply actions

I think that the contracts given out to goaltenders contradict your claim here. If teams weren’t obsessed with goaltender talent, then they wouldn’t pay a 25% premium for wins from goaltenders relative to skaters. Detroit was willing to run with a mediocre/lower-paid goalie like Osgood and use the money elsewhere – virtually no other team does that.

by Hawerchuk on May 12, 2010 11:27 AM EDT up reply actions

Except, oddly enough, Montreal.

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by Bruce Peter on May 12, 2010 11:30 AM EDT up reply actions

My point is, I think every team would rather spend money on Lidstrom, Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen and Rafalski. But not every team can get players of that quality. They are in scarce demand. So they pay for the best goalie they can find as compensation. They’ve already given up on that pursuit, at least for the duration of the goalie’s contract. I think if you ask around the league’s GMs you’d find they would rather pay $6m for a #1 d-man than $6m for a #1 goalie. They do go and pay guys like Pavel Kubina, Michal Rozsival, Wade Redden, Sheldon Souray and Roman Hamrlik in excess of $5m per year. At some point, it’s between a guy like that or taking that big risk on a goalie like Turco or Huet.

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by Bruce Peter on May 12, 2010 11:33 AM EDT up reply actions

Scott Hannan makes $4.5M/season too. He’s a decent defenseman, probably the Avs best (other than those god-awful breakout passes), but in all reality he’s probably a 2nd pairing defenseman.

And if you want an example of how in demand defenseman are, look no further than the Avs. Ruslan Salei, Brett Clark and ancient Adam Foote all make $3M+/season. If I’m going to spend $3M on a player, I would rather take a chance on a goalie.

Of course you can luck into Anderson at $1.5M/year too. That’s always helpful.

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by Jibblescribbits on May 12, 2010 11:38 AM EDT up reply actions

It’s not quite that cut-and-dried. Save $3M a year on a goalie and you have $3M to spread elsewhere. It could show up at the bottom end of the roster, not the top. You don’t necessarily need to sign stars (see NSH)

by Hawerchuk on May 12, 2010 11:49 AM EDT up reply actions

And finish 7th and get knocked out in Round 1? :)

It is a fair point, but you can say that about all those deals. Certainly for Montreal, JAro Spacek at $3.8m, Hal Gill at $2.25m and Josh Gorges at $1.1m are way better value than Roman Hamrlik at $5.5m. And Jaro Halak at $4m or whatever he’s going to get should be better value than Hamrlik at that level as well.

You do need to sign stars to have a team near the top of the NHL and have a consistent chance to go deep, though. The easiest way to get them is through the draft (of those 5 Detroit players, only 1 has ever been a UFA), which involves a lot of organizational luck as well.

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by Bruce Peter on May 12, 2010 11:58 AM EDT up reply actions

Det is still paying UFA salaries, which are generally not value contracts.

NSH had a really efficient payroll in 07-08 too, which still didn’t translate…

by Hawerchuk on May 12, 2010 12:01 PM EDT up reply actions

They are paying them UFA salaries (with cap savings due to long term structure), but how they got such a collection was through the draft. In any given year, how many players of that quality can you acquire?

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by Bruce Peter on May 12, 2010 12:07 PM EDT up reply actions

Dunno. Lots?

UFAs are the most expensive way to buy wins. Once your guys are out of their entry-level contracts, you’re buying wins at roughly the same price as everyone else.

by Hawerchuk on May 12, 2010 12:55 PM EDT up reply actions

Heh, Bob Gainey seemed to think so last summer.

Again, I’m fully aware they pay full prices for these players once their entry level contracts expire. But they have first choice in signing these guys because they drafted them. That’s huge value. The player gets market value for his contract, but the team gets huge value for having found him via the draft.

A team that wants to be Detroit has to hope for the same kind of a) organizational luck to get these guys at whatever draft position, b) scouting talent to find quality, which I’m not convinced Detroit has a better ability to do given how many players Detroit picked ahead of all these guys themselves, and c) the ability to maximize such talent on your team.

If you have first crack to sign these guys, that puts you way ahead in a 30 team league. If you or I took over as GM of Florida tomorrow, even if we were astute GM’s, I think there’s a lot working against us in trying to become a top 6-8 team with a legit shot at winning the Cup in any given year.

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by Bruce Peter on May 12, 2010 1:03 PM EDT up reply actions

Datsyuk, for one, is clearly not being paid his UFA value. Some players do take hometown discounts.

by Tom Awad on May 12, 2010 2:09 PM EDT up reply actions

No one ever wants to be Detroit.

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by Jibblescribbits on May 12, 2010 11:33 AM EDT up reply actions

“Often from unexpected sources”

Ryan Miller, Cam Ward, Jonas Hiller, Dwayne Roloson (when he had 3 .920+ SV% years just prior to that year)… the only one that is really weird is Martin Biron.

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by Bruce Peter on May 12, 2010 10:58 AM EDT reply actions

Ward was 21 and hadn’t played well during the season (.882 SV%) I believe Miller was a rookie too. Hiller was the backup for most of the season. Roloson’s yet another guy who hit a “performance” peak with Lemaire as his coach. Biron actually didn’t play well, but they beat the Habs anyways.

Hiller is (likely) the only truly good goaltender in that group, and there’s still no good reason to expect him to post a .957 save percentage.

by Hawerchuk on May 12, 2010 11:22 AM EDT up reply actions

I’m sorry, but if you’re saying that Cam Ward, at 25, is less of a goalie than Jonas Hiller (who doesn’t have his 21-23 years bringing his overall numbers down because he wasn’t good enough to be in the league at all) than you’re a bit crazy. :)

Ward being so good so early was an outlier, no doubt about it, but everyone evaluating young goalies had the projections of him being good to great as fairly high coming out of junior.

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by Bruce Peter on May 12, 2010 11:36 AM EDT up reply actions

Sorry, didn’t mean to make it a Hiller vs. Ward debate there. They’re both quality. That was more my point. I was saying Ward is a truly good goalie as well. Miller is too, BTW. Both Miller and Ward have a bit of regression to the mean in their SV%‘s due to their workload, but they’re definitely top quality goalies.

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by Bruce Peter on May 12, 2010 11:43 AM EDT up reply actions

I’m still not convinced Ward is much better than league-average. The aging curve for goalies is pretty gentle, so we shouldn’t discount his early years.

But the key is what kind of goalie people thought they were at the time. And none of these guys were perceived to be difference-makers – after all, SJ was a massive favorite over Anaheim.

by Hawerchuk on May 12, 2010 11:45 AM EDT up reply actions

Fair enough on the expectations at the time, I suppose. Although 2006 the expectations and reality were further from the truth at any point because we didn’t have a reliable indicator of talent level from the year prior. And with a really low cap level and massive player turnover (plus rule changes), Carolina became Cup Champions in a year where teams were more even than probably at any point in NHL history. I’m not surprised that 3 of those series you point out happened that year. That was the year goaltending had the greatest chance of being the difference maker.

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by Bruce Peter on May 12, 2010 11:52 AM EDT up reply actions

BTW, that aging curve has to be considered, because I think most people agree it was a huge mistake on Carolina’s part to rely on Ward to be the #1 goalie in those years. They brought in John Grahame to back him up. The ability to bring in another league average goalie I think is very huge… Grahame just wasn’t that kind of goalie anymore (if he ever was, he was an odd one). You only have 2 options to turn to, 1 of them must count.

If Carolina had a viable 2nd option, Ward gets less starts and his overall numbers don’t have as much of a drag down effect on his total career to date. Patrick Roy only started about half his team’s games from 21-24. The Habs had a league average option in Hayward back then, and used it. When Roy hit age 24, they dropped Hayward and he started to win Vezinas and build his HOF resume. The drag down effect of those years isn’t as great in retrospect.

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by Bruce Peter on May 12, 2010 12:27 PM EDT up reply actions

Even excluding his first 2 seasons, Hiller 2008-2010 is still better than Ward 2008-2010, especially if we factor in the 2009 playoff run, but not by much. Granted, Hiller is 2 years older.

by Tom Awad on May 12, 2010 2:17 PM EDT up reply actions

When I looked at it, Ward is one of the goalies whose slope has trended up with age. But his first year, he was awful (ES 0.898, Overall 0.882), which skews his result. The last 2 years Ward has posted 0.926 and 0.924 at ES. He’s average to a little above average.

I’ve been meaning to do a post on the myth of Cam Ward. He’s a clutch goalie, don’t ya know. I’ll have to get work on it.

by DoctorMyBrainHurts on May 12, 2010 4:52 PM EDT up reply actions

This reminds me of a post the Contrarian Goaltender recently did on Marc-Andre Fleury, showing how his playoff performances before 2008 were abominable, and that his clutchiness was meaningless. Of course, the first commenter says he’d still want Fleury on his team because he’s “money”… sigh.

by Tom Awad on May 12, 2010 6:14 PM EDT up reply actions

I’m not arguing he’s ‘clutch’. I’m simply arguing he’s quite good.

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by Bruce Peter on May 13, 2010 12:13 AM EDT up reply actions

Fair enough. Ward is quite good, better than his stats because his team is horrible defensively, and worse than his contract, but that’s neither here nor there.

by Tom Awad on May 13, 2010 9:20 AM EDT up reply actions