Tonight, the standings show that two very different teams are facing off in Sunrise.
On the visitor’s bench are the New York Rangers. They are 11-1-1 over their last 13 games, sitting first place in the Metropolitan Division at an overall record of 14-3-2. They are tied with the Montreal Canadiens for the best goal differential in the league at +24, and they have given up just 34 goals on the season, the fewest of any team in the league. At face value, that appears to be a statline becoming of a team that has made it to the Eastern Conference Finals three times in the last four seasons.
On the home bench are our Florida Panthers. 3-5-2 over their last 10 games, slumming it in 6th place of the Atlantic Division. Their goal differential is just +2, better than last year but still not great, and are near the middle of the league in terms of both goals for and against. Their 8-8-3 overall record inspires the kind of reaction it deserves: a tepid, ho-hum, “so what?”, “who cares?” kind of reaction. This too, at face value, is a statline becoming of a team that has become synonymous with mediocrity over the last two decades.
Reading the above two paragraphs seems to paint a picture of great contrast. In fact, it would seem that the only way these two teams could get any different would be if the Panthers were to go full Buffalo. But, what if I told you that the underlying numbers painted a much different picture, one of two more similar than different teams?
Seriously, there is not much dissimilar about these two teams when you dig into the details. The Panthers, for example, are putting up a 48.0 CF60 at 5v5, while the Rangers are putting up a 47.9. Both marks are among the worst 20 put up since the NHL started counting blocked and missed shots in 2005. Those marks are also the worst in franchise history for both teams too.
On the opposite side of the generation/suppression equation, both teams are putting up mediocre to horrible CA60 rates. The Panthers sit in the middle third of the league at 53.5, while the Rangers sit in the bottom third of the league at 56.2. That is the second worst performance by a Rangers team behind the 2006-07 edition that had a 56.7 on the season. The Panthers performance, on the other hand, currently sits as the median performance in franchise history.
On top of that, both teams are riding ridiculously high PDO. In fact, they are the #1 and #2 teams in the league in that respect. The Panthers PDO at 102.4 stands in stark contrast to the last few seasons, which have seen the Panthers well below the regression point of 100. This year, they are clearly well above, and had been even higher earlier in the season before crashing down toward 100 over the last 10 or so games. The Rangers, on the other hand, have a cartoonishly high PDO of 106.7.
So why are the results of these two teams so divergent? Could it be just that Henrik Lundqvist is that good? I’m not so sure.
I’m not saying Lundqvist is bad or junk. Quite contrary, I know King Henrik is great, he is without question in the top echelon of goaltenders over the last decade, if not the very best. Part of the Rangers success, naturally, is derived from his greatness. However, there is not as huge gap in goaltending here, as would normally be expected, because the Panthers have Roberto Luongo. Lundqvist does have an edge historically speaking over Luongo, and practically every other goaltender, be it AdjSv% (Lundqvist’s .929 to Luongo’s .926), AdjGSAA/60 (Lundqvist’s 0.280 to Luongo’s 0.190), or xGS (Lundqvist’s 178.4 to Luongo’s 96.9). However, all of Luongo’s numbers are either Top 5 (AdjSv% and xGS) or Top 10 (AdjGSAA/60) over the last decade. Lundqvist may be in a class of his own, but Luongo is near the top of the next tier.
This year is no exception. Both goaltenders are currently Top 5 in AdjSv% and AdjGSAA/60 (as of 11/16/15) among goaltenders with 300 minutes played, with Lundqvist ahead of Luongo on both fronts. They are supplying excellence as usual. Not surprisingly, this has contributed to the Panthers and Rangers being Top 2 in team save percentage, just as with their PDO.
Now, you may be asking, “Then what is wild different about these teams, ringworm?” First, that’s rude and uncalled for. Second, well, you see, the rub comes on the other side of the PDO equation.
The Rangers are shooting at an obscene 10.6%, which is tops in the league. That’s tied with the 2005-06 Dallas Stars for 5th highest shooting percentage available at War on Ice. In fact, the Rangers are the only team in the Top 12 that is not a 2005-06 or 2006-07 team. This is how insane the Rangers shooting percentage is. You have to go back to when the league was adjusting to new rules a decade ago to find comparable, full-season numbers. Yes, the Rangers current numbers are for just 19 games, but the point is that, as it stands now, this is not a sustainable outcome. Last year’s high mark was 8.8% from Dallas, in 2013-14 is was Anaheim with a 9.7, Toronto in the lockout shortened season at 10.0%, Tampa Bay in 2011-12 with a 9.7%, and Dallas again with a 8.7% shooting percentage in 2010-11. The Rangers are way out of the normal trading range over the last five seasons.
The Panthers, on the other hand, are shooting at a much more sustainable 8%. It is perfectly reasonable to expect a team to shoot at 8%. A good save percentage is around 92%, and with PDO regressing heavily to 100% over the long term, you would then expect your shooting percentage to settle somewhere around 8% as a result. So the reason the Panthers offense suffers is not because of the quality of their shooting. The Panthers are getting the proportion of goals you would expect to get. No, the issue is because, say it with me, the Panthers do not shoot enough. We’re not talking about a snake-bit team, we’re not talking about a team that struggles to score, per se. We’re talking about a team that is meeting quality expectations, and is instead falling short on quantity expectations.
So basically, in a nutshell, the reason one of these teams is leading a division, and the other is fighting a tight pack of teams for a playoff spot, is this: The Rangers are scoring on an unusually high portion of their few shot attempts, while the Panthers are scoring at a normal portion size and are hurt by their low shot attempt count.
As for what adjustments the Panthers would need to make to avoid catastrophe? That’s a much more complex topic, and that’s an article for another day.
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