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Stop me if this sounds familiar: What a difference a game makes.
Pittsburgh got everything they needed in Game 6 (except for much of anything again from NHL poster boy Sidney Crosby). The Penguins were back to punishing the Wings, taking the body early, often and hard. Count your teeth before leaving the ice, boys. Marc-Andre Fleury miraculously regained his composure and more, highlighted by calmly stoning Dan Cleary on a breakaway with less than 90 seconds remaining in the contest. Checking line center Jordan Staal shut down the man formerly known as all-world center Pavel Datsyuk. All the Red Wings big guns were silent after their Game 5 binge, leaving Kris Draper and his negative GVT to opportunistically put home Detroit’s only tally, too little, too late. Secondary and tertiary scorers put the puck in the net for Pittsburgh, huzzah. Who needed Gino and Sid anyway?
Perhaps most indicative of their carrying the overall balance of the play, the Penguins were blocking shots left and right, as if ghosts of Jim Schoenfeld and Dikembe Mutumbo were on the ice. Highlights included Petr Sykora laying out and sacrificing his body in his cameo appearance and three butterfly-style game saves in a row by Rob Scuderi at the death, though only one block was credited by the official scorer.
After Game 3, it seemed like the Red Wings might be feeling the heavy toll of the physical play throughout the playoffs, as evidenced by their recording postseason lows of 17 hits and 19 less hits than delivered by their opponent (“net hits”), but Detroit rebounded with a solid 33 hits in Game 4 and a pummeling 42 hits in Game 5:
Detroit Red Wings – Hits and Hits taken, per game details
Opponent Result Hits Hits taken Net hits
CLB 4-1 W 37 26 +11
CLB 4-0 W 26 30 -4
CLB 4-1 W 30 38 -8
CLB 6-5 W 39 37 +2
ANA 3-2 W 36 24 +12
ANA 3-4 L 63 43 +20
ANA 1-2 L 29 23 +6
ANA 6-3 W 20 25 -5
ANA 4-1 W 35 18 +17
ANA 1-2 L 27 22 +5
ANA 4-3 W 23 22 +1
CHI 5-2 W 35 36 -1
CHI 3-2 W 37 37 +0
CHI 3-4 L 26 36 -10
CHI 6-1 W 24 28 -4
CHI 2-1 W 38 36 +2
PIT 3-1 W 43 39 +4
PIT 3-1 W 34 33 +1
PIT 2-4 L 17 36 -19
PIT 2-4 L 33 32 +1
PIT 5-0 W 42 35 +7
PIT 1-2 L 26 35 -9
Total 720 691 +43
Throughout their two game resurgence, though, the Red Wings took their licks as well, receiving 32 and 35 hits from the Penguins. In fact, Detroit has now been hit at least 32 times in 11 of their last 12 games. That’s got to take a toll.
Pittsburgh’s hits in Game 6 were particularly fierce and punishing, and for once, the Penguins focused on targeting the Red Wings’ skill players. In response to the Pen’s 35 hit assault, the Red Wings delivered an uninspired 26 hits; the -9 net hits was their 3rd lowest of the playoffs. The drop in net hits sounds like another portent of the Wings tiring, but in looking at the precedents in the table above, it may turn out to mean nothing for Game 7. True, the -19 net hits total from Game 3 against the Penguins presaged another Detroit loss in Game 4, but after posting -10 net hits in a Game 3 loss to Chicago, the Red Wings rebounded to crush the Blackhawks 6-1 in Game 4.
While declining levels of hits and net hits may signal an impending downtick in Detroit performance, an increasing percentage of shot attempts blocked (%AB) may indicate already leaden limbs:
Detroit Red Wings – Percentage of attempts on goal blocked by opponents during the playoffs
Opponent SOG AB MS AOG %AB Score
CLB 34 16 8 58 28% 4-1 W
CLB 39 20 17 76 26% 4-0 W
CLB 26 8 9 43 19% 4-1 W
CLB 41 13 11 65 20% 6-5 W
ANA 37 15 15 67 22% 3-2 W
ANA 62 21 27 110 19% 3-4 L
ANA 46 16 15 77 21% 1-2 L
ANA 40 14 17 71 20% 6-3 W
ANA 38 8 19 65 12% 4-1 W
ANA 39 13 13 65 20% 1-2 L
ANA 40 16 18 74 22% 4-3 W
CHI 33 20 11 64 31% 5-2 W
CHI 38 20 17 75 27% 3-2 W
CHI 30 15 6 51 29% 3-4 L
CHI 33 6 11 50 12% 6-1 W
CHI 46 12 9 67 18% 2-1 W
PIT 30 14 18 62 23% 3-1 W
PIT 26 10 9 45 22% 3-1 W
PIT 28 18 10 56 32% 2-4 L
PIT 39 15 15 69 22% 2-4 L
PIT 29 12 10 51 20% 5-0 W
PIT 26 20 17 63 27% 1-2 L
Average %AB in wins: 21.4%
Average %AB in losses: 24.3%
Take a look at the table, but hold that thought. Before discussing %AB, we need to reflect on conventional measures of shooting and save performance. To begin with, shots on goal (SOG) is a bit of a misleading statistic; it doesn’t count shots that miss the net (MS) or shots blocked by the defense (AB, often shown as “A/B”); the three together make up attempts on goal (AOG). Why aren’t MS and AB normally considered? Primarily because only SOG is used in calculating goalie save percentage, which is Saves/SOG equals 1 – (Goals/SOG). Missed shots and attempts blocked are ignored because they aren’t part of the goaltender’s skill in stopping shots.
The reverse of save percentage is shooting percentage, calculated as Goals/SOG. If you think about it, this percentage makes much less sense for shooters. While keeping the symmetry with goalie save percentage, it ignores attempts blocked by defenders and missed shots, which are very much within the shooter’s ability to influence. It’s an aside to the argument here, but a shooter’s skill should be measured by Goals/AOG, or Goals/(SOG+AB+MS).
Percentage of attempts blocked (%AB)–defined as AB/AOG or AB/(SOG+AB+MS)–can show both effort and intensity on the blocking team’s part and also fatigue on the shooting team’s part. Putting aside Detroit’s first round series with Columbus, where the Blue Jackets were clearly overwhelmed by a superior team regardless of the %AB levels, you can see %AB for Detroit slowly climb up through the next three series. %AB was very steady against Anaheim, at 19%-22% with the exception of one game at 12% that was an easy win for Detroit. Chicago brought great intensity to the first three games of the Conference Finals, blocking very high levels of 31%, 27% and 29% of Detroit attempts in Games 1-3. Game 1 was much more closely contested than the 3 goal difference would indicate, in part due to the percentage of attempts blocked; still, the Blackhawks only had a 2-1 series deficit to show for their three game blood-and-guts effort. The 12% block level of Game 4 heralded a crushing defeat for Chicago; as with Anaheim in Game 5, any tired or half-hearted effort against Detroit is bound to get you pulverized. The 12% and 18% levels shown by the Blackhawks in the final two games indicated a team that had shot its bolt in the first three games that couldn’t go back to the well again for the same level of intensity.
Pittsburgh has been able to maintain a consistently higher %AB against Detroit than their previous opponents. The 20% level in Game 5 mirrored the lowest level of intensity for the Penguins in the series, and they paid for it with a 5-0 dismantling. Medium levels of Pittsburgh intensity/Detroit fatigue, reflected by %AB levels of 22%-23%, have resulted in two Detroit wins and one Pittsburgh win. The highest levels of blocks, 27% and 32%, showing both exceptional effort and desperation by the Penguins and some level of fatigue for the Red Wings, have resulted in Pittsburgh wins.
To be clear: It’s not just the effect of the blocks themselves–which are worth on the order of 0.1 goals apiece–that are winning the games for the Penguins. Sure, the blocks will play a small part in helping to decide the game, but we are looking for %AB to be an indicator of overall intensity and fatigue.
If you’re able to quickly look at the box score between periods of Game 7–instead of either listening to Mike Milbury at intermission or going downstairs to heat up a microwave pizza–a 25%-30% level of Detroit attempts blocked would look very promising towards a Penguins win; anything in the ballpark of 20% attempts blocked would indicate that the Red Wings will likely be skating with Lord Stanley by the end of the night.
Timo Seppa is an author of Hockey Prospectus.
You can contact Timo by clicking here or click here to see Timo's other articles.
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