by Jes

With James Mirtle (whose ass I am going to kick in online Scrabble) going on a bit of a stats-posting binge, I'll jump in with a few bits and bites of my own.

DOING IT THE HARD WAY
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Scoring points at even strength and short-handed is a LOT harder than scoring on the Power Play. There were 4 players with 20+ points that scored nary a single point on the man advantage. The winner? Bates Battaglia, the comeback kid who scored all 31 of his regular season points at even strength. Samuel Pahlsson, the defensive god, was second, and his buddy Rob Niedermayer was also an all-even-strength kind of guy with 16pts.

PLAYER           POINTS    EVEN-STRENGTH %
Bates Battaglia     31          100%
Samuel Pahlsson     26          100%
D. Afanasenkov      21          100%
Dan Hamhuis         20          100%

POWER PLAY SPECIALISTS
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Just who relies on the Power Play for their offence? Guys like these tend to rack up more points in the long run because they get the good ice time. I wouldn't count on Battaglia to do so well in 2008.

Not surprisingly, most of the top gunners are defensemen, as they hold back during even strength, and then get the chance to let loose with the man-advantage.

PLAYER          POINTS       PPP%
Rob Blake          34        76.5      
Sheldon Souray     64        75.0
Sergei Zubov       54        74.1
Tom Poti           44        72.1

Among forwards, greedy Michael Ryder, he of the 1-year contracts, was the most 'enhanced' forward, with 34 of his 58 points (58.6%) coming on the Power Play.

THE CRAIG LUDWIG AWARD
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Anton Volchenkov led the NHL with 273 blocked shots, 45 more than second place Jason Smith, who had 228. Niclas Havelid was a surprise third place with 225.

Among forwards, the winner was ... Blair Betts??!! with 98, good for 101st place overall.

A RETURN TO THE 84-GAME SEASON?
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If you saw a lot more of Sean Avery than you wanted to, blame the schedule maker and his trade to the Rangers. Avery led the NHL with 84 games played, 2 more than the 82 scheduled.

HERE'S A GIFT FOR YOU
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Jaromir Jagr, who hogs the puck as much as anyone to ever play the game, led the league with 126 giveaways. Jason Smith had the dubious honour of finishing second with 109. Now, I understand why Jagr would have a lot, but Smith? When your defensive stalwart is giving away pucks like that, you are in serious doo-doo.

ROD BRIND'AMOUR = FACE-OFF KING
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We all know Rod "the Bod" Brind'Amour is great on face-offs, and the stats bare out his mastery.

# of face-offs taken = 2047, almost 300 more than second place Mats Sundin
% of team face-offs taken = 43.6% (Second place was Sundin at 37.5%)
% of face-offs won = 59.2%, second only to Yanic Perreault, who was his usual deadly self with 62.8% (!) of draws won.

Labels: jes is bored, statistics