Goal Differential Matters

[a4u2fear]

Working on some facts, in the very initial stages, but here are some alarming, but not necessarily surprising facts:

Over the last 6 years, 26 teams have entered the playoffs with goal differentials less than 10 goals, only 5 have won the first round series.

Also in the last 6 years, 8 teams have entered the playoffs with differentials less than 0, only 1 has gotten past the first round.

Bad news for Panthers and Capitals backers.

[a4u2fear]

Also worth mentioning, out of regular season wins, GF, GA, it had the highest correlation with playoff wins at 30%.

[odog11]

ESPN insider has a write up on goal differential, but concentraiting on the last 35 games. Based on that they worked out odds of winning each series. Here is what they came up with.

Chance of Los Angeles Kings winning series: 53 percent

Chance of Ottawa Senators winning series: 53 percent

Chance of Boston Bruins winning series: 59 percent

Chance of St. Louis Blues winning series: 90 percent

Chance of Phoenix Coyotes winning series: 87 percent
(special note here I checked and the Blackhawks horrible losing streak started right at the begining of their last 35, which skews this number if you are looking at recent play)

Chance of Nashville Predators winning series: 83 percent

Chance of New Jersey Devils winning series: 82 percent

Chance of Pittsburgh Penguins winning series: 71 percent

Most telling in my opinion is the Blues. No reason for Sharks to start playing that much better or for the blues to regress. Blues are my big first round series play and also on Nashville.

[a4u2fear]

Interesting, thanks odog

[odog11]

Here's another interesting one, though I think it places too much emphasis on past playoff numbers. I mean, we are talking about who is "hot", not who was hot or not in the past. Good to keep those past numbers in mind though.

Goalie heat index for playoffs:

1	Tim Thomas	BOS	.935	.920	1659	.927
2	Jaroslav Halak	STL	.923	.926	1211	.923
3	Braden Holtby	WSH	N/A	.922	192	.922
4	Craig Anderson	OTT	.933	.914	1917	.919
5	Jimmy Howard	DET	.919	.920	1496	.917
6	Mike Smith	PHX	.958	.930	2066	.917
7	Roberto Luongo	VAN	.917	.919	1577	.915
8	Corey Crawford	CHI	.924	.903	1507	.914
9	Ilya Bryzgalov	PHI	.917	.909	1554	.913
10	Martin Brodeur	NJD	.913	.908	1472	.911
11	Henrik Lundqvist	NYR	.909	.930	1753	.910
12	Marc-Andre Fleury	PIT	.910	.913	1768	.907
13	Jonathan Quick	LAK	.900	.929	1863	.907
14	Pekka Rinne	NSH	.908	.923	2153	.904
15	Jose Theodore*	FLA	.898	.917	1502	.902
16	Antti Niemi	SJS	.904	.915	1865	.901