December 30, 2009
Illegal Curve
Success and Even Strength Production

by Richard Pollock

Over the past few weeks, we have been breaking down the factors that correlate best with winning results. So far, we have analyzed such aspects as penalty minutes, face-off percentage, shots against, shots for and more; however, we have yet to analyze even strength production. Considering the majority of an NHL hockey game is played at five-on-five, you would guess that the correlation between even strength efficiency and points accumulated in the standings would be high.

Well, let’s take a look to determine if that's the case.

Here are the even strength ratio leaders from the first post-lockout season (2005-2006) through this past season (2008-09):

2005-        5-5    2006-        5-5    2007-        5-5    2008-        5-5
06    Team   F/A    07    Team   F/A    08    Team   F/A    09    Team   F/A
1     OTT    1.49   1	  DET	 1.47	1     DET    1.41   1     BOS	 1.42
2     DET    1.48   2	  BUF	 1.43	2     ANA    1.17   2	  NJD	 1.25
3     NYR    1.28   3	  OTT	 1.40	3     COL    1.16   3	  VAN	 1.21
4     DAL    1.21   4	  NSH	 1.28	4     PIT    1.14   4	  DET	 1.20
5     ANA    1.20   5	  CGY	 1.24	5     NYR    1.14   5	  CHI	 1.18
6     NSH    1.17   6	  NYI	 1.18	6     DAL    1.11   6	  PIT	 1.18
7     CGY    1.16   7	  ANA	 1.15	7     OTT    1.10   7	  CBJ	 1.16
8     SJS    1.13   8	  SJS	 1.12	8     CAR    1.09   8	  WSH	 1.10
9     FLA    1.10   9	  TOR	 1.11	9     BUF    1.09   9	  ANA	 1.09
10    COL    1.09   10	  ATL	 1.10	10    CGY    1.07   10	  SJS	 1.09
11    PHI    1.04   11	  NYR	 1.10	11    SJS    1.07   11	  FLA	 1.00  
12    CAR    1.02   12	  FLA	 1.09	12    WSH    1.06   12	  BUF	 1.05
13    BUF    1.01   13	  COL	 1.09	13    MTL    1.06   13	  CGY	 1.04
14    MTL    1.01   14	  DAL	 1.06	14    CHI    1.05   14	  EDM	 1.01
15    ATL    1.00   15	  MIN	 1.06	15    BOS    1.05   15	  PHI	 1.01
16    NJD    0.99   16	  PIT	 1.04	16    NJD    1.02   16	  CAR	 1.00
17    LAK    0.96   17	  STL	 1.03	17    NSH    1.01   17	  MTL	 0.96
18    VAN    0.95   18	  VAN	 1.00	18    VAN    1.00   18	  ATL	 0.95
19    BOS    0.94   19	  NJD	 0.95	19    MIN    0.97   19	  DAL	 0.94
20    WSH    0.92   20	  TBL	 0.89	20    FLA    0.97   20	  NSH	 0.94
21    MIN    0.91   21	  CAR	 0.86	21    TOR    0.96   21	  STL	 0.94
22    NYI    0.91   22	  CHI	 0.86	22    STL    0.94   22	  MIN	 0.91
23    EDM    0.90   23	  CBJ	 0.85	23    PHI    0.90   23	  NYR	 0.90
24    PHX    0.88   24	  WSH	 0.85	24    CBJ    0.90   24	  TBL	 0.89
25    TBL    0.88   25	  PHX	 0.78	25    PHX    0.89   25	  TOR	 0.89
26    CHI    0.84   26	  EDM	 0.77	26    NYI    0.89   26	  OTT	 0.88
27    TOR    0.84   27	  LAK	 0.77	27    EDM    0.86   27	  PHX	 0.84
28    PIT    0.83   28	  MTL	 0.75	28    LAK    0.81   28	  LAK	 0.82
29    CBJ    0.82   29	  BOS	 0.71	29    TBL    0.76   29	  COL	 0.75
30    STL    0.61   30	  PHI	 0.66	30    ATL    0.74   30	  NYI	 0.68

Above you see the season-by-season leaders, now here are the total leaders since the lockout:

Teams	5-5 F/A
DET	5.56
OTT	4.87
ANA	4.61
BUF	4.58
CGY	4.51
NYR	4.42
SJS	4.41
NSH	4.40
DAL	4.32
FLA	4.23
NJD	4.21
PIT	4.19
VAN	4.16
BOS	4.12
COL	4.09
CAR	3.97
CHI	3.93
WSH	3.93
MIN	3.85
TOR	3.80
ATL	3.79
MTL	3.78
CBJ	3.73
NYI	3.66
PHI	3.61
EDM	3.54
STL	3.52
TBL	3.42
PHX	3.39
LAK	3.36

Now let's take a look at the total points in the standings from 2005-2009:

Teams 	            Total Points in Standings since Lockout
Detroit	            464
San Jose	    431
New Jersey	    413
Buffalo	            404
Anaheim	            401
Dallas	            399
Nashville	    395
Ottawa	            395
Calgary	            391
Carolina	    389
New York Rangers    386
Vancouver	    385
Montreal	    380
Minnesota	    375
Pittsburgh	    364
Boston	            360
Colorado	    354
Philadelphia	    351
Florida	            349
Toronto 	    345
Washington	    342
Atlanta	            339
Edmonton	    339
Chicago	            328
Tampa Bay Lightning 322
Columbus	    319
New York Islanders  310
Phoenix	            310
St. Louis	    309
Los Angeles 	    307

With the naked eye, it looks as if there is quite a correlation between five-on-five ratio and points in the standings. Well, the naked eye is indeed correct. The correlation coefficient is a whopping 0.86. That is extremely significant and far ahead of any other correlation we have yet to see in the latest string of articles.

So, we can talk about a lot of factors, but without even strength production, it appears your favorite team is doomed to fail.

There have been four Stanley Cup winners since the lockout: Carolina, Anaheim, Detroit and Pittsburgh. First off, all four teams were in the top twelve in even strength ratio over the above four year period. In fact, aside from Carolina, the other three teams were in the top seven in the NHL in the seasons in which they won the Cup.

What about the Stanley Cup runner-ups since the lockout?

Aside from Edmonton (23rd in even strength ratio in 2005-06, the Stanley Cup runner-ups since the lockout have finished third (Ottawa in 2006-07), fourth (Pittsburgh in 2007-08) and fourth (Detroit in 2008-09) respectively.

Are there any exceptions to this rule?

There always are some exceptions aren’t there? The biggest exception we find is the Florida Panthers. Since the lockout the Panthers have finished ninth, twelfth, twentieth and eleventh in even-strength ratio. So, that places the Cats within the top sixteen in the NHL (for the purpose of this article we will assume the sixteen best teams make the playoffs—even though Conferences obviously leave some worthy teams out) on three occasions. Even so, the Panthers did not make the playoffs in any of those seasons. Why did that happen?

If we are looking to blame special teams that probably is not the place to start. In 2005/06, the Panthers finished 24th in terms of power play percentage and 14th in terms of penalty killing percentage. In 2006/07, Florida finished 13th on the power play and 16th on the penalty kill. In 2007/08, the Panthers finished 6th on the power play and 16th on the penalty kill. In 2008/09, they finished 24th on the power play and 9th in penalty killing. Considering that the Panthers only finished out of the top sixteen twice in the special teams department infers that this cannot be the main cause for the team’s lack of playoff appearances.

Sometimes, when a team has good statistics but fails to take the next step, it might be time to look at the goaltending. The Panthers, however, do not follow that trend. In 2005/06, the Panthers had Roberto Luongo in net, who posted a .914 save percentage that year. In 2006/07, the Panthers did have goaltending issues with the past-his-prime Eddie Belfour playing 58 games. In 2007/08 though, Florida received tremendous goaltending from Tomas Vokoun and Craig Anderson. In 2008/09, the story was the same as the season prior.

So what has been the Panthers’ problem? In fairly simple terms, the problem was scoring goals. The Panthers finished 21st in scoring in 2005/06, 11th in scoring in 2006/07, 20th in scoring in 2007/08 and 17th in scoring in 2008/09.

Aside from Florida, there were not that many significant exceptions—hence the 0.86 correlation coefficient.

We can talk all we want about power plays, penalty killing, discipline, etc. However, all you really have to do is look at the numbers. If you want sustained success in the NHL, you have to be a proficient team when it comes to even strength production.

Richard Pollock is Editor for the hockey website Illegal Curve.