By Chris Boersma

Hockey Numbers

Has there ever been a more lopsided series? Boston has better scoring, defense, goaltending & special teams. I’ll be curious to see how many people pick the Hurricanes to win. Just look at the season series (18 GF Boston, 6 GF Carolina)

Updated: [the comments below indicated more discussion might be necessary]

Offense:
I’ve felt all season Boston has outperformed all scoring expectations. Whether you look at the players they have or based on their expected scoring rates, Boston has either been one lucky team or proving day in and day out that expected scoring rates and analysis is worthless. I’d be the first to say I would rather Boston be a lucky team than a good team. If they’re a good team it means my research is wrong. That said, even with all the analysis I’ve done, goal differential is still essentially the most important indicator of a good team and Boston has that!

Defense:
This is Boston’s bread and butter. I know they have a great goalie, but really Chara really is the most important player to this team. They had the fewest goals against in the league this year and didn’t do too poorly last year.

Goaltending:
I liked Thomas the first season I saw him. I knew with his size and skill he would be a successful goalie. However, I never expected he would be this successful. Personally I feel Thomas is a .915 goalie (Luongo is a 0.920 goalie for example). They theoretical limit for an NHL goaltender is about .920 (these are all shot quality neutral metrics) with a minimum around 0.880. 0.915 is excellent, but this season Thomas has outperformed his historical averages and came in around 0.930 (1.5% better than I’d expect), 1.5% might seem like a small amount, but it’s equivalent to about 30 goals against over the course of a season. However, just because he was lucky all season doesn’t mean his luck is going to run out tomorrow.

Offense:
Carolina met expectation in terms of scoring. They actually have the worst scoring record of all remaining teams and they’re up against a team that has great goaltending and defense. Adding Eric Cole at the trade deadline was huge for this team. During the period he was on the team, average goals for per game jumped from 2.6 to 3.7. That being said, Eric Cole didn’t seem to be an important player in the first round.

Defense:
I wouldn’t exactly call this one of Carolina’s strengths and they were lucky to have another bad offensive team to play against in the first round. Pitkanen is the only real name (although I’ve really come to like Gleason – first round pick). Corvo always was a great offensive defenseman for Ottawa, but not exactly defensively minded. Seidenberg is steady, but no all star. (as you can see I know very little about Carolina).

Goaltending:
I was never a fan of Ward in the playoff run on 2005-2006. What frustrated me was that the team in front of him was playing so well it didn’t matter too much how he played, he just had to be better than Martin Gerber. However, in 2005-2006 he was 22 now he’s 25, which for goalies is when they begin to peak. I still think of Ward as an average starting goalie, he’s not amazing (he has been lately). In the long run his numbers should hover around .900.

Few other notes:
Carolina had the lead for 82 minutes in the entire 7 game series against N.J. Sure wins are all that matters in the end, but winning in the final seconds of a hockey game doesn’t give me confidence in a team’s abilities to win hockey games (it isn’t something that is generally repeatable).

Conclusion:
Boston’s goaltending is certainly better than Carolina’s
Boston has better defense than Carolina (who would you rather have Chara or Pitkanen?)Offensively I think the teams are reasonably equal.

Overall though, I have a hard time seeing Carolina live through this series.

Who doesn’t love Ovechkin vs. Crosby! Should be a good series, and probably full of scoring (for those people who play pools). Also it looks like a close series (6-7 games?)

PART II: By Alex

All I know about the Washington vs. Pittsburgh series is that both teams are in the United States.

That being said in dreadful deadpan, here’s something to consider. The last time (and I’m going from memory here) the players if the stature of Ovechkin and Crosby faced one another was when Bryan Trottier, Denis Potvin and Mike Bossy and the New York Islanders took on Wayne Gretzky, Jari Kurri and Paul Coffey and the Edmonton Oilers back in the 1980s.

Even then, it wasn’t a showdown like we’re about to witness between Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby. The supporting cast is phenomenal as well with Evgeni Malkin (although I don’t think Malkin is a supporting actor), Nik Backstrom, Alex Semin, Sergei Gonchar and Mike Green.

The battle of the titans is akin to if Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky met in the playoffs - which they never did.

If one doesn’t consider my Islanders/Oilers example to be appropriate, then I guess we have to go back to those battles between Gordie Howe and Maurice Richard. Although, Hull, Esposito and Beliveau all faced one another from time to time.

Regardless, the rivalry and showdown between Sid and Alex is exactly what the NHL needed at this time.