Before the playoffs, I read an article that said the team that would score the first goal would go on to win the entire series nearly 80% of the time. Now that three games in this series have been won by the team that scored first, the clever clever media are jumping all over the "all-important" first goal.
As usual with these half-baked stories, the analysis ends at the immediate past. The crux of any conclusion being that last week the team in the Boston Montreal series that scored first won.
Terribly scientific. 3 games sampled, what more could one ask for?
The first elephant in the room is that both these teams just played a whole season's worth of hockey during which they demonstrated many tendencies and displayed many habits and trends. One might think a glance at what happened in the season might be in order. But wouldn't that be good reporting?
Let's do that, shall we?
Boston and Montreal are both quality with the lead
This season Boston posted an outstanding 30-6-6 record when they had the lead. Top-notch defense and good chippy offense all season, you'd expect that to happen. But how about Montreal: 32-6-6, even better. Converting 44 first goals into 70 points in the regular season.
Boston did not roll over an die in the regular season
To go with their impressive record when scoring first, the Bruins also had a quality comeback record. 16-19-5 for the season. This was top 5 in the league by raw comeback wins and also by percentages. Only Washington with 23 comeback wins from 47 first goal deficits was better.
Montreal on the whole was not as good at coming back. Their record for 2010-11 was 12-24-2. The team didn't completely give up when scored on first, but they didn't do quite as well as the elite teams in the league. That is, if you consider the entire season.
As we know things over the season change significantly. 6 months is a long time and besides streaks and slumps, there can be significant changes in personnel. For the Habs, one of the big changes came at the end of December with Wisniewski coming in to replace Markov who had missed all but 7 games to that point. Gorges was also out, so Subban was placed with Hal Gill.
Round about that time, frustration was also mounting with Habs fans that if the team didn't score first, they'd be down and out (often being shutout, actually). It wasn't good. LIW posted this article that illustrated the issue.
Long story short. the Habs got better, they learned to come back. In fact from December 31st on (a 44-game span) the team went behind a total of 23 times. but instead of losing the vast majority, the Habs pulled out 9 wins and 2 OTLs from those first goal deficits (20 points in the standings).
This was a turning point in this regard, as one can see that prior to the turn of the year, the Habs record was 3-12-1 when allowing the first goal.
In fairness, we must see if the Bruins also turned the same trick. interestingly, they did. In their last 44 games, the Bruins actually allowed the first goal 21 times and posted 22 points (10-9-2) from those games.
Well so what?
The finding here is that while both the Bruins and Canadiens were formidable shut-down teams, it turns out that both teams were also pretty excellent comeback teams, particularly in the new year (or only in the New Year in the Habs case). The finding is something that plays out before our eyes. When the Canadiens were winning in Game 1, the Bruins weren't down and out and for a good stretch looked like the better team, fully capable of closing the gap and wining. Ditto for the result on Monday night, when the Habs came within inches of tying and taking the momentum from their superior second half of the game into a comeback bid overtime.
All that to say, it's not as simple as who scores first. It's not enough to score first. The first goal is but one goal, and unless backed up by another goal or shutout goaltending (which usually takes some pretty exceptional saves) then it is but one goal.
Boston won the other day because they scored 3 goals, not because they scored first. Montreal won in Boston because first Carey price, then some good luck made their 2 and 3 goals stand up.
Scoring first is important, but let's not make it more than it is. After all, we already have faceoffs for that.
I'll go further. The goal that seals the first comeback victory in this series will be more important that any first goal to date.
Showing posts with label lead. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lead. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
A Canadiens Win Possible:
Positives From The Statsbooks
Been reading around a bit on the playoffs. There have been a lot of keys to the Canadiens and Bruins victories floated around. One common theme I see coming up again and again is the fact the Canadiens must win a game in Boston to win.
Yesterday, I indulged in one of my other passions – football (soccer, that is). I watched one of the most amazing sporting contests I have seen in years – Chelsea vs. Liverpool in the Champion's League. Coming into the game, Liverpool were in a massive hole (think 8th seed coming in on a losing streak). They had to win at Stamford Bridge (no easy task), they also had to score 3 goals in doing it.
If you know a little bit about footie, you know that games with 3 goals are rare, games with 3 goals from a single team are rarer still.
Funny then that the commentator, right before starting on the game said he wanted to clear a few things up – with the facts. "The common thinking, he said, was that Liverpool must score early to have a chance at scaling the mountain". "Not so, he said, Liverpool can score those 3 whenever they want".
The parallel to the Canadiens is right there. The fact is the Canadiens need to win 4 games to get to the next round. The fact, given the home ice situation, is that the Habs must win at least once in Boston. Nowhere does it say when this win should occur.
I'll stand by this. The Canadiens cannot pin their hopes on a win in the first two games. They cannot let a failure to do so derail them. Getting to 1-1 or 2-2 in this series will be a moral boost, but the only important number is 4. Win 4, don't lose 4. Just the same, winning a game in the first two is no more an indicator of victory this year than it was last year.
Stats to encourage
When I was gathering information on this series, I came across a few interesting stats.
Powerplay
You might remember I touched on the Habs PP resurgence earlier this season. If you look at the rankings for the season, the Canadiens show the 13th best PP in the league at 19.2%. If you take away games 1-38, they actually had a 24% rate to approach their top rating of the past two years.
Boston for their part had a torrid start. At one point midway through the season, they had the best PP and PK, best GF and GA. No longer. I don't have intermediate stats, but that's enough to know they did worse over the past 4 months than the Canadiens did on the PP.
Leading/trailing
There aren't many statistical categories you can look at to pick up your spirits in Montreal. Record when leading after one period, though, is certainly one. The Habs are a mind-boggling 24-2-2 when they establish a first period lead (a rare enough event – 28 occurrences this season). It puts them at the head of the class.
Boston carried the lead into the second 6 more times than us, but only won 3 more. So the Habs are actually tighter at protecting a lead, if you can believe it. The slight hiccough is that Boston actually won 10 out of 19 games they were themselves trailing after 1. I'll ignore that...
1 goal games
Another stat I dug out to make us look competitive: 1 goal games. Montreal was involved in 39 games settled by 1 goal, Boston 38. Montreal put together a winning 20-8-11 record for 51 points. Boston didn't do quite as well, playing sub-500 hockey with 18 wins and 46 points.
Given the direct applications of one-goal records to playoff hockey, Montreal will be happy to be more proficient in tight situations.
Based on these random stats, it seems the keys to the Canadiens winning, among other things are to play tight, don't let the Bruins run away with; and if possible take a lead into the second. Nothing too groundbreaking there, but it'll do for now...
Yesterday, I indulged in one of my other passions – football (soccer, that is). I watched one of the most amazing sporting contests I have seen in years – Chelsea vs. Liverpool in the Champion's League. Coming into the game, Liverpool were in a massive hole (think 8th seed coming in on a losing streak). They had to win at Stamford Bridge (no easy task), they also had to score 3 goals in doing it.
If you know a little bit about footie, you know that games with 3 goals are rare, games with 3 goals from a single team are rarer still.
Funny then that the commentator, right before starting on the game said he wanted to clear a few things up – with the facts. "The common thinking, he said, was that Liverpool must score early to have a chance at scaling the mountain". "Not so, he said, Liverpool can score those 3 whenever they want".
The parallel to the Canadiens is right there. The fact is the Canadiens need to win 4 games to get to the next round. The fact, given the home ice situation, is that the Habs must win at least once in Boston. Nowhere does it say when this win should occur.
I'll stand by this. The Canadiens cannot pin their hopes on a win in the first two games. They cannot let a failure to do so derail them. Getting to 1-1 or 2-2 in this series will be a moral boost, but the only important number is 4. Win 4, don't lose 4. Just the same, winning a game in the first two is no more an indicator of victory this year than it was last year.
Stats to encourage
When I was gathering information on this series, I came across a few interesting stats.
Powerplay
You might remember I touched on the Habs PP resurgence earlier this season. If you look at the rankings for the season, the Canadiens show the 13th best PP in the league at 19.2%. If you take away games 1-38, they actually had a 24% rate to approach their top rating of the past two years.
Boston for their part had a torrid start. At one point midway through the season, they had the best PP and PK, best GF and GA. No longer. I don't have intermediate stats, but that's enough to know they did worse over the past 4 months than the Canadiens did on the PP.
Leading/trailing
There aren't many statistical categories you can look at to pick up your spirits in Montreal. Record when leading after one period, though, is certainly one. The Habs are a mind-boggling 24-2-2 when they establish a first period lead (a rare enough event – 28 occurrences this season). It puts them at the head of the class.
Boston carried the lead into the second 6 more times than us, but only won 3 more. So the Habs are actually tighter at protecting a lead, if you can believe it. The slight hiccough is that Boston actually won 10 out of 19 games they were themselves trailing after 1. I'll ignore that...
1 goal games
Another stat I dug out to make us look competitive: 1 goal games. Montreal was involved in 39 games settled by 1 goal, Boston 38. Montreal put together a winning 20-8-11 record for 51 points. Boston didn't do quite as well, playing sub-500 hockey with 18 wins and 46 points.
Given the direct applications of one-goal records to playoff hockey, Montreal will be happy to be more proficient in tight situations.
Based on these random stats, it seems the keys to the Canadiens winning, among other things are to play tight, don't let the Bruins run away with; and if possible take a lead into the second. Nothing too groundbreaking there, but it'll do for now...
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Beating The Bruins
Remembering What Habs Knew So Well
Last season, thanks to Montreal, the Bruins were a middling regular season club. Last year, thanks to the Canadiens, the Bruins were a first round eliminee. This year, the Bruins have another fate on their minds, and barring a collapse of Ottawaian proportions, they have already surpassed middling. But can the Habs remember a bit of the spellbinding trickery that won them 8 of 8 meetings with their most vicious rivals?
Boston has some astonishing numbers so far this year, so maybe their biggest weakness for the second half will be the law of averages. Take Blake Wheeler and David Krejci's shooting % for example (whose numbers have both started falling since I started researching this): over 20% is unsustainable for even the Ovechkins of the world. Reason says they can't go on shooting at over 20% forever. History tells us scoring streaks like theirs sometimes, but rarely last a whole season – only 2 players topped 20% last season: Mike Ribeiro (who lucked out a whole season at 25%) and Brad Boyes; the next guys were at 18%. Take their goaltenders, both have inordinately high save percentages at the moment. Are they the best tandem of all time, or have they saved their bad goals and sub .900 games for the end of the season?
A real weakness that Boston has is their comeback ability. Someone who wants to impress you will tell you that Boston has only trailed 13 times after the first period and 8 times they have come back from the deficit to win. But I also noticed that the Bruins have not once come back from a deficit at the second intermission. In 7 games (I admit that's impressive), they are 0-6-1.
It's hardly a game plan to say: let's score lots of goals and have a lead at the end of 2 (although it is genius Julien's plan). Yeah, no kidding. However, consider teams top teams like Detroit and San Jose come back after the second nearly 40% of the time. The Habs themselves have rescued 5 wins and an OTL from 14 deficits (0.357). It tells me that if you can get them down, you get get them out of their game, out of their comfort zone.
In a game strategy, I'd make sure that every battle you can win, you win. They are a team that has had things their own way and clearly don't like it when they don't. Score first, score early. Check Chara, expose the others. Take the game to them and don't let them bring it to you.
I saved this article from a week ago about a strategy for beating the Bruins. It was written after a couple of losses about a team that you would have thought from the tone was unbeatable:
It talks sense, even if it does over-exaggerate the risks of playing in Boston.
Lessons should be easy to come by for the Habs when it comes to beating this Bruins team. Each game last year speak to the same kind of stuff at that article and the fact the Bruins don't like to be out of the driver's seat:
Game 1, we pounded them early and they laid down to take the punishment
Game 2, we did it with defence; but also scored 2 before they could show up
Game 3, we gave them a complex by trading goals for 2 periods before burying them under 25 shots and 3 straight killer goals
Games 4, 5, 6 and 7 we scored first and never gave the Bruins a sniff of victory
Game 8 was the first the Bruins made a contest of it. We toyed with them and took it in a shootout
Over these 8 games, the Bruins never led the Habs. Not for a minute. And, with the exception of Game 5 in the playoffs, the Bruins never came back from a deficit to win against us last season – that was 12 victories for us out of 13 where we took a lead.
They are the team that needs a strategy, methinks. Probably something beyond the genius tactics of a man who twice got himself shipped out from a team who would make the playoffs:
And besides, is this year's Bruins team so different anyway?
Not on paper they aren't. Wins and stats-wise they are worlds apart. But really, let's see. Even Chuck Kobasew looked like a scorer once down there. Time and reality will make us better judges of this Boston hockey outfit.
We must acknowledge they have learned and improved somewhat – for they have beaten the Canadiens twice already, and got points in all three meetings. However, their embarrassing displays against us last season were unnatural. What's more, they are still a team with weaknesses (as per this pseudo-Bruins fan), such as unorthodox goaltending:
And average defence:
Add to that injuries to players like Bergeron, Kessel, Sturm and even Lucic, and they will have to be superhuman to repeat their 62 points from the next half season. The quiet Habs can catch this team as it settles back into Bruins 2008. Let's start tonight.
Boston has some astonishing numbers so far this year, so maybe their biggest weakness for the second half will be the law of averages. Take Blake Wheeler and David Krejci's shooting % for example (whose numbers have both started falling since I started researching this): over 20% is unsustainable for even the Ovechkins of the world. Reason says they can't go on shooting at over 20% forever. History tells us scoring streaks like theirs sometimes, but rarely last a whole season – only 2 players topped 20% last season: Mike Ribeiro (who lucked out a whole season at 25%) and Brad Boyes; the next guys were at 18%. Take their goaltenders, both have inordinately high save percentages at the moment. Are they the best tandem of all time, or have they saved their bad goals and sub .900 games for the end of the season?
A real weakness that Boston has is their comeback ability. Someone who wants to impress you will tell you that Boston has only trailed 13 times after the first period and 8 times they have come back from the deficit to win. But I also noticed that the Bruins have not once come back from a deficit at the second intermission. In 7 games (I admit that's impressive), they are 0-6-1.
It's hardly a game plan to say: let's score lots of goals and have a lead at the end of 2 (although it is genius Julien's plan). Yeah, no kidding. However, consider teams top teams like Detroit and San Jose come back after the second nearly 40% of the time. The Habs themselves have rescued 5 wins and an OTL from 14 deficits (0.357). It tells me that if you can get them down, you get get them out of their game, out of their comfort zone.
In a game strategy, I'd make sure that every battle you can win, you win. They are a team that has had things their own way and clearly don't like it when they don't. Score first, score early. Check Chara, expose the others. Take the game to them and don't let them bring it to you.
I saved this article from a week ago about a strategy for beating the Bruins. It was written after a couple of losses about a team that you would have thought from the tone was unbeatable:
"A dastardly plan that will frustrate and eventually defeat the high-powered Bruins attack, and leave their scoring machine in the shop for repairs. Granted, not every team has the talent or discipline or chutzpah to implement Operation Beat the Bruins but teams with enough scoring skills — or grit – to get a lead and a good enough goaltender could do it."
It talks sense, even if it does over-exaggerate the risks of playing in Boston.
Lessons should be easy to come by for the Habs when it comes to beating this Bruins team. Each game last year speak to the same kind of stuff at that article and the fact the Bruins don't like to be out of the driver's seat:
Game 1, we pounded them early and they laid down to take the punishment
Game 2, we did it with defence; but also scored 2 before they could show up
Game 3, we gave them a complex by trading goals for 2 periods before burying them under 25 shots and 3 straight killer goals
Games 4, 5, 6 and 7 we scored first and never gave the Bruins a sniff of victory
Game 8 was the first the Bruins made a contest of it. We toyed with them and took it in a shootout
Over these 8 games, the Bruins never led the Habs. Not for a minute. And, with the exception of Game 5 in the playoffs, the Bruins never came back from a deficit to win against us last season – that was 12 victories for us out of 13 where we took a lead.
They are the team that needs a strategy, methinks. Probably something beyond the genius tactics of a man who twice got himself shipped out from a team who would make the playoffs:
“I think for every team, every game, we talk about [scoring first] and getting an early lead and taking control of the game.”
– Claude Julien
And besides, is this year's Bruins team so different anyway?
Not on paper they aren't. Wins and stats-wise they are worlds apart. But really, let's see. Even Chuck Kobasew looked like a scorer once down there. Time and reality will make us better judges of this Boston hockey outfit.
We must acknowledge they have learned and improved somewhat – for they have beaten the Canadiens twice already, and got points in all three meetings. However, their embarrassing displays against us last season were unnatural. What's more, they are still a team with weaknesses (as per this pseudo-Bruins fan), such as unorthodox goaltending:
Another puzzling part of the picture is Boston's goaltending. Tim Thomas has a 2.08 GAA and .933 save percentage, which defy explanation. Thomas (and most Boston fans would agree) has atrocious positioning and lacks basic fundamentals. Yet, Like Dominic Hasek, he makes the save, no matter how ugly.
And average defence:
A puzzling aspect is Boston's defense, which has remained largely the same since last year. Zdeno Chara is still woefully incompetent with the puck in his own end, and Andrew Ference, Shane Hnidy, Matt Hunwick, Matt Lashoff, Mark Stuart, Dennis Wideman, and Aaron Ward round out what would otherwise be a group of very average defensemen.
Add to that injuries to players like Bergeron, Kessel, Sturm and even Lucic, and they will have to be superhuman to repeat their 62 points from the next half season. The quiet Habs can catch this team as it settles back into Bruins 2008. Let's start tonight.
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