PHI v PIT: the underlying analytics that get missed (this is long)🙂↕️
my twitter feed and nhl playoff prediction feed has been full of people favoring the penguins. there’s a lot of talk about the legend of crosby, goalie comparisons, playoff experience gaps, et cetera. people point at the difference in special teams as a major factor. and yeah, i guess if you haven’t watched the flyers most of the season i can see why people just instinctively lean towards pittsburgh. but the fact that there are predictions saying this will be a clean PIT sweep is ridiculous. here is why this series will be unbalanced, but not in the way the majority has been talking about.
all situations stats, full season:
for 5v5:
the numbers in parentheses is their ranking across the whole league
a couple main points here:
obviously, their GF/GA is basically flip flopped. philly is stronger defensively, pitt is stronger offensively.
philly’s special teams are really bad, and pitt has an elite power play.
the SOG differentials also reflect their offense/defense play
5v5 is not much different
so right now you’re like, ok this is all very known and doesn’t seem to be helping your case about philly. well, let’s think about the background of these stats. these are the totals/averages of all 82 games this season. is the flyers team that played in january the same as the flyers team now? and similar with the penguins? absolutely not. i understand the importance of full season stats, but when you’re looking into round one predictions, you need to be more recent.
so here are those same statistics, but only for the last 20 games:
for 5v5:
significant differences here imo
pittburgh’s GA is atrocious.
philly’s GF is higher than their season average by a good margin. definitely aided by foerster and martone, as well as a more “pucks on net” mentality post break
pitt’s SOG for/against ratio is also really bad
penalty kill seems dead even now
pitt’s power play has slowed down a bit
in general, the heater the flyers have been on since the break really shows in these stats. their biggest concern, which was scoring, has been worked on a lot while also still maintaining strong defensive play. i think the most important stat comparison here is the GF/GA ranking, with PHI being 9th/5th and PIT being 1st/30th.
playoffs are not known to be high scoring because of the series format and the wear throughout the weeks. that PIT 1st ranking in goals for is not sustainable in any way, and the 30th rank in goals against is seriously going to bite them in the ass. PHI’s much stronger balance of being top 10 in both GF/GA means there’s more room for error within their recent system. and we all know that in a strong defensive focused game, they’re good at holding onto a lead. the flyers only have one regulation loss when leading after the first period. that’s not a stat to overlook.
another point that comes up is the flyers being OT/SO merchants.
PIT has 4 OTW, 3 SOW, 6 OTL, 10 SOL
PHI has 6 OTW, 10 SOW, 8 OTL, 4 SOL
overtime in the playoffs is 5v5, which any flyers fan would much rather take over 3v3. and i’m not really sure why going to overtime/shootout frequently is used as a knock. it means that 1) the regulation game is kept close, 2) heading to SO means there was strong defensive play to prevent a GWG from the other team. and being good at shootouts is widely associated with team youth, which i’ll get into later. anyways, point of this is that both PIT and PHI are overtime loser point merchants. although PIT has 7 more regulation wins, as we saw through those last 20 games stats, the penguins that were on a heater in january is not sustainable or representative of their team right now.
goalies!!!
in total, they’re tied LOL. but goalies are individuals! so i think the breakdown is more accurate
ersson’s percentage drags us down a lot which is clear
vladar has started the most games by a good margin (total games played with their current team, hence skinner’s numbers)
but again, here’s the more fun stats:
vladar and ersson have been fantastic after the break
ersson specifically, i think needs more rest to perform better, hence his better numbers now vs how bad he was back in january when he had to start more when vladar was injured
silovs and skinner are both just doing mid or slightly worse than season average since the break. silovs especially
there are no back to backs in the playoffs, at least for our series. this bodes well for our goalie pair. i think ersson might get a start or get subbed in at some point, but i have faith in him because he’ll have plenty of rest throughout. i would be seriously worried about goaltending if i were a pens fan, because these recent GA/G comparisons are not good. and that’s not even going into skinner’s playoff reputation.
top 9 point leaders comparison:
age. age age age. everyone is talking about playoff experience, what i’m saying is those penguins are fragile. crosby and malkin aren’t far removed from their injury breaks.
this head to head is also vastly misleading because our recent depth with foerster, martone, and even bump don’t show up since they joined so late.
and finally, vibes rant:
flyers have won their last three games. pittsburgh lost their last three games, all while sitting a majority of this starters. the streaks these teams are on going into the postseason could not feel more different. they’re both playing with house money, because no one had either of the PA teams in the playoffs, but it feels like philly has even more house money. only 3 players on our team have been to the playoffs as a flyer and everyone else is new. there’s a very youthful spark in philly, which can of course have its negatives (i think we’ll drop a game from dumb penalties where the PIT special teams eats us alive) but as a whole, it’s better to have that spark than not. and philly’s bounce back has been amazing all season. this pittsburgh team has never faced the flyers at this level (to be fair, not many teams have), and they’re going to get surprised.
and you know what? fuck everybody. flyers in five six. seven. whatever gets it done.
