Bruins v. Blackhawks, final notes

Random notes from the Bruins Blackhawks series, and some final numbers from the Bruins postseason run.

1- Chicago had more shots than the Bruins in 5 of 6 games, outshooting the Bruins by an average of 6 shots a game. That said, using the unofficial collection of NBC’s scoring chances (the NHL does not keep this official stat), the Bruins had more scoring chances in 4 of the 5 games (Game 2 was Chicago’s, Game 5 was roughly even, Game 1, 3-4, 6 were in Boston’s favor as far as scoring chances go).

 

2- Zdeno Chara was on the ice for 10 of Chicago’s final 12 goals.

2a- In his last three games, Chara finished with a +/- of -6. In his lengthy career, Chara has only played three consecutive games with that ranking or lower twice.

 

3- If you are like me, you felt like the hockey Gods turned against Boston in this series. Specifically, I looked into some recent post history as far as teams hitting the post or the crossbar, and its effect on game outcomes.

3a – According to game play by play data, for the series the Bruins hit 6 posts/crossbars. Chicago hit the post twice.

3b – For the playoffs, the Bruins hit the post 24 times, their opponents 11. While I didn’t go through every NHL team’s history, I’m pretty confident in saying, based on the frequencies I saw, that this is a record for hit posts. Great.

3c – Unofficially (I lost track), Jaromir Jagr hit the pipe four times this postseason. More on him later.

3d – If this makes you think posts are simply correlated with being the better team, I’m not so sure. In their three previous rounds, Chicago hit the post 8 times, their opponents 9.

3e – For what its worth, each team hit the post 4 times in the Bruins Canucks finals from 2011, and in the overall 2011 postseason, the Bruins hit the pipe 12 times, compared to 10 for their opponents.

 

4- Jaromir Jagr scored 0 goals on 58 shots. In doing so, he set the NHL record for shots in a single postseason without scoring. Chicago’s Nick Leddy, with 31 shots, was next on the NHL’s list of players with the most shots who failed to score.

4a- In going through every NHL postseason to make sure that no player had eclipsed Jagr’s 58 shots with 0 goals, I kept track of each player who led the league in shots without a goal. In doing so, I found some interesting names:

Tomas Kaberle, 2011 (Bruins): 33 shots, 0 goals

Andrew Ference, 2004 (Calgary): 37 shots, 0 goals

Ray Bourque, 1989 (Bruins): 40 shots, 0 goals

Interestingly, Kaberle, Ference, and Bourque were all defensemen, so I guess it makes sense that most of their shots didn’t go in.

4b- Up until 2013, Jagr had 78 goals on 604 shots in his postseason career (12.9%). The probability of a shooter who converts 12.9% of his opportunities suddenly scoring 0 goals in 58 chances is roughly 3 in 10,000.

4c- One might argue it’s not fair to compare Jagr to prior NHL postseasons, because by playing a higher number of games as the Bruins did this year, Jagr naturally accumulated a higher number of shots. Fair enough.

That said, of all centers and forwards across the entire NHL in the 2013, not a single one registered 58 shots without scoring a goal.

Further, dating to the 2005 lockout, I looked at every season of all NHL forwards and centers, and there was not a single entry in which a player had 58 shots and no goals. So yes, this was a pretty historic effort from #68.

 

5 – If the old guy is guilty, so too is the young one. Bruins forward Tyler Seguin finished with 71 shots and 1 goal. In doing so, Seguin set an NHL postseason record for fewest goals on at least 70 shots.

5a – For his career, Seguin scores goals on 10.5% of his shots. The likelihood of a 10.5% goal scorer scoring 1 goal on 71 shots is about 3 in 1000.

Epilogue: What does this all mean? It’s time for the Bruins to improve their shot accuracy, and its time for me to go to bed.