- Dec 10, 2012
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How many prior years have we had a quality 5v5 offense and poor pp and claim that was ok going into the playoffs as you don’t get many pp and then when we never score on the pp oh we need an upgrade? I may be delusional but I recall it being a running theme that a good pp in the playoffs is not needed until we get there and then it’s so obvious that is the thing we needs besides a hot goalie.
So against the Vegas, Colorado, St. Louis, Nashville, Tampa, Florida group this season, we're averaging 3.1 gf/g and 4.2 ga/g. I think the focus should be lowering the 4.2, not raising the 3.1 number. In the grand scheme of the league, averaging 3 ga/g is a lot more manageable than averaging 4.5 gf/g. It's a lot easier to do, it's far more common to see happen.
As for special teams in the playoffs, last year against Vegas we were 18.2% on the PP, Vegas was 13.3%. We went 2/11, they went 2/15. We got outscored 13-20. So we got outscored 11-18 at even strength. I would say that means that by and large, while the PP can be important, it doesn't make or break a series unless one team is comically better than the other. Like if they gave us as many PP's as Vegas got, and we were 50% on them while Vegas was the 13% they were, we still would have been outscored overall 18-20.