[SuperMatt18]

I like advanced stats, and think they can show some insights and help analyze the performance of players within a team over a long sample size or over the course of a season, but the one thing I think advanced stats truly show is just how close the NHL actually is, and that in small sample sizes (which a 5/7 game series is) it's really a toss up.

For example over the last two seasons (152 games) the best team in CF% is 54.6% and the worst team is 46.2%. And over the course of 152 games that is a big difference but in a single game (or even 7 games) the difference is negligible.

On average there are 110 shot attempts per game - which means that if those two teams play each other the "best team" shot attempts are 59 shots and the worst team would have 51 shots. So that works out to 8 shot attempts over the course of a whole game. That probably translates to about 2 shots on goal more for the "best team" over the "worst team".

So in one game or even a sample of 5 games it's not going make a big difference, because goaltending/shooting percentage/special teams is going to drive a much larger variance in that single game.

Doesn't mean advanced stats are bad or useless, just means that like any statistic the variance in a small sample size is going be drastic. And really a 7 game series is a small sample size.