The team's performance since the all-star break is something that has been broadly discussed and debated in the game threads over the last week.
The discussion made me curious to dig in to the numbers surrounding the team since the break, to see if there are any underlying stats that may help us understand what's going on.
Lets start with the forwards play at even strength:
A couple of key things stand out here:
1) The first line has been bad any way you slice it. Most people have been able to come to this conclusion from watching the games, and the stats prove it out. Not getting pucks to the net, in the red from a high danger chance perspective, poor shooing percentage with them on the ice, poor save percentage with them on the ice, and very little production. Just bad all around.
2) The second line's struggles may be more about bad luck. Tkachuk hasn't been putting up points but some of that may be bad luck. The second line is still dominating from a possession, shots, and high danger chance perspective. The only issue seems to be save percentage (for Tkachuk specifically) and shooting percentage with them on the ice.
3) The bottom six is top class. Once again probably something that we didn't need stats to validate but I think this just shows how good they've been. The Ryan line with Eat Bread, and Hathaway is just dominating and their 65% plus HDCF% is ridiculous. The Janko, Bennett, Hathaway line hasn't been quite as good as the 4th line but also are producing and driving play at a great pace.
Now the defense at even strength:
1) Giordano is Elite and should win the Norris. Duh
2) Rasmus Andersson has taken another step. I think most people have seen this as well, and the coaching staff has awarded him, but Rasmus continues to get better. Great by pretty much any metric during this stretch.
3) The top four has not received good goaltending For the most part our top 4 (Brodie, Hamonic, Gio, Hanifin) continue to dominate play from both a possession, and high danger chance perspective but they have received really poor goaltending when on the ice in this stretch. One thing to flag is that both Brodie and Giordano are giving up a disproportionate amount of high danger chances, to their overall shot attempts against, so not giving up a lot but when they do it looks like it may be a major breakdown (seems to correlate with what we've seen on the ice).
4) Kylington may not quite be ready for prime time. I still like the player a lot but he did struggle a but in this stretch and the team has struggled at limiting high danger chances with him on the ice.
And now lets look at what these individual player stats meant for the team overall.
Overall the team continues to drive possession, and they are dominating on the shot clock but they are having a tougher time converting possession into real quality scoring chances.
A lot of this likely has to do with the top line but it does seem to be trickling through the lineup (4th line excluded)
I guess the one positive for this team though is that it's rare that you'd see a team that is 25th in shooting percentage, 24th in save percentage, 24th on the PP, and 18th on the PK over a 17 game stretch actually end that stretch above .500.
Personally I don't think the shooting and save percentage struggles will last and hopefully they can get through this stretch because if the bottom 6 can continue their strong play, and if our top line can wake up again, then this team will be a tough out come playoff time.