Washington-Montreal Game-By-Game By the Numbers

Welcome to our next installment of “all Capitals, all the time.” Commenter TMS wondered if Washington did better over the course of the series but did poorly in game 7. If we look purely at shot location, it doesn’t look that way:

EXG refers to the expected number of goals based on where shots were taken; ACG is the actual number of goals scored.  I did not include blocked shots in the shot total – things would look even more lopsided if I did.

Washington got more chances in every single game, and had an average expected shooting percentage of 7.1% to 6.6% for Montreal.  If you haven't been over to the best Nordiques blogue on the internet, you should check it out, because it lists observed scoring chances for every Habs game.  Washington, of course, won the series there too:

Washington also recorded a scoring chance on 49.5% of its shots, while Montreal was at 47.9%.  So there goes the notion of Montreal having better scoring opportunities on average.  Washington also won the scoring chances in every single game:

But Gabe, you say, what about rebounds?  Surely Don Cherry was right that the Caps weren't getting a guy in front of the net!  Here are rebounds by game by how closely they followed the previous shot:

Washington won the series overall here too, but didn't win every game.  For what it's worth, they did win game seven on rebounds.

To sum it all up – in game 7, Washington:

– out-shot Montreal 52-27 at even-strength and on the power-play

– took shots from better locations than Montreal and expected – on average – to win 3.9-2.1

– out-chanced Montreal 27-14 at 5v5 and 5v4

– out-rebounded Montreal 9-2

There’s a reason why Jaroslav Halak was the first star in that game.