We're at the 10 game point under Bannister and the record is excellent. 14 points in 10 games puts us in a 3 way tie for the #6 points percentage in the league since the coaching change. There are a couple wins vs bad teams in there (Chicago, Ottawa), but 5 of the wins have come against top 10 teams (Dallas, Dallas, Florida, Carolina, Vancouver). 1 of the losses was against a top 10 team (Colorado) with the other 2 losses coming against bubble teams who are currently 18th and 19th (Tampa and Pittsburgh). This has by no means been a soft stretch of the schedule and we got very good results.
We had a much weaker schedule through Berube's last 10 games. We went 3-7 in that stretch despite playing 5 teams currently in the bottom 10 (Arizona, Chicago, Chicago, Buffalo, Columbus) and played just 2 games against a top 10 opponent (Vegas).
Credit where credit is due. Bannister is off to a great start. He took a team that was 3-7 in their last 10 against a soft schedule and promptly led them to a 7-3 stretch against a tough schedule.
With that said, the numbers under the hood are not as great.
We're 20th or worse in possession and expected metrics at 5 on 5 through this stretch, although we are at least 16th in shot on goal percentage. We are getting outscored 20-19 at 5 on 5 and are outscoring the other team 9-6 in all other situations.
The goalies have been really good. Binner was .907 and Hofer was .893 under Berube. All told, the 2 goalies allowed 87 goals on 902 shots for a combined .904 SV% in all situations. Under Bannister, Binner is .894 and Hofer is .949. They have allowed 25 goals on 296 shots for a combined .916 SV% in all situations. That is a sizeable improvement and is absolutely a big contributor to the overall record. As is often the case with him, Binner's numbers are pulled down by a couple big goal against nights (5 on 23 vs Tampa and 5 on 20 vs Chicago) and his play in the other games is probably better than the numbers suggest. When you look at the games we have won, we are often getting excellent goaltending.
But I don't think the record is all goaltending. We're 2-2 in games where we allow 3+ goals and 1-1 when we allow 5+ goals.
The PP is a night and day difference. It was 8.4% under Berube and it is 19.2% under Bannister. That comes out to 5 PP goals in 10 games under Bannister vs 7 PP goals in 28 games under Berube. I would argue we can attribute 2-4 standings points to the PP over these 10 games. Our PP got us back into the game against Chicago. We were down 4-2 when we went on the PP early in the 3rd and then we allowed a shorty. I'd put that shorty about 90% on Binner considering it was a 1 on 2 where he inexplicably gave up his post when it was painfully clear Foligno was going to drive the net, but let's put it on the PP unit. Rather than packing it in, we scored a PP goal a couple minutes later then added a 2nd PP goal a couple minutes after that. In about 6 minutes of gameplay, our PP turned a 2-4 hole into a 4-5 hole and you could see a frustrated team get going. We scored less than 30 seconds after the PP goal to tie the game and then won it late. I have zero confidence that we come back to tie (and then win) that game without PP success. You can probably give the PP credit for 1 or 2 points in the 4-3 win against Dallas too. We scored on our lone PP of the game while we were down 2-0 and ended up winning that game in OT. I thought we were the better team that night, but who knows if we claw it back without that PP goal. That's 4 points that could have been 0 and almost certainly wouldn't have been more than 2 without PP success.
The PK has remained roughly the same. 78.5% under Berube and 80% under Bannister. We aren't scoriung shorties at quite the same rate, so the net PK under Berube was a few percentage points better (88.6% vs 85%).
Kyrou has come alive under Bannister. Don't know if it is luck, confidence, coincidence, usage, coaching, or a combination. But he has 10 points in 10 games (and is +6) under Bannister vs 17 points in 28 games (and a -9) under Berube. I personally think that Kyrou was playing better than his numbers showed under Berube and that pucks were going to start going in eventually. But I also think that we can't ignore that the pucks starting going in immediately following the coaching change. He had 4 goals and 8 points in Bannister's first 5 games, but has now been held off the score sheet recently (0 goals and 2 points in the last 5). There is no question that one of the organizational goals/directives for Bannister is to get Kyrou going and keep him going. We can debate who Kyrou is and how good he is forever, but this team is obviously going to win more games if he is an 80 point guy than if he is a 50 point guy.
The top line with Buch, Thomas and Kyrou has been a problem for other teams to deal with. They are outscoring teams 9-4 at 5 on 5 under Bannister and the possession numbers are all 55% or better. Thomas has 12 even strength points while Buch and Kyrou each have 8 even strength points in the 10 games since Bannister took over. Loading up this line has exposed the lack of scoring depth on the team, but there is a real argument that it gives you a top 10 line in the NHL.
Is this a .700 team under Bannister the rest of the way? Not unless the goalie tandem gives us top 5 goaltending. They might do that. My eyes say that the D zone coverage is improving and I've said since the summer that this tandem has the potential to be fantastic if things break right. I wouldn't bet on it, but I could see it.
More realistically, I think that the record will come back down to Earth. We've outperformed expectation metrics in these 10 games. However, I don't think that we have outperformed them by a massive margin and I think some of the middle 6 has more to give on the scoresheet. I won't be surprised if we see some genuine NHL contribution out of some of the organizational depth who are well versed in Bannister's system. And probably most importantly, I see that top line of Buch, Thomas, and Kyrou continuing to be a genuine problem for opponents.
I don't want to get too predictive in this post. My intent is not to argue for Bannister long term, or to argue that we shouldn't be tanking or anything like that. There is a lot of season left. But my point was to offer some recognition for the good work Bannister has done so far. I see a team that has improved by more than simply the goalies getting hot. I see a team that is competing much more consistently and keeping themselves 'in' games a hell of a lot more regularly than the first couple months of the year. Like a lot of guys on this roster, Bannister is auditioning for a job next year. He's off to a great start.