Really interesting information from Dom Luszczyszyn;
https://theathletic.com/author/dom-luszczyszyn/
Quote:
16. With yet another victory against Calgary Wednesday night, the Senators improved to 5-2-0 in the season series. They’ve had their number all season and have given Toronto and Montreal similar fits, going 10-7-0 against those three teams. They’re 1-12-3 against Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Vancouver (credit to Conor Hogan on Twitter for finding this), which brings up an interesting question about how important team style is when predicting which teams will win.
Edmonton and Winnipeg are two of the most rush-oriented teams in the league while Calgary and Montreal are two of the most forecheck-oriented teams according to data tracked by Sznajder (Toronto and Vancouver are closer to average). That matters and is probably the main reason a hard-working, but low-skilled Senators team can hold their own against one group, but not the other. The intra-division games have been very interesting in illuminating the importance of stylistic matchups with the Senators being a particularly extreme example. It’s difficult to figure out with the limitations of current data, but it definitely seems like something worth looking into.
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I'm not a Hartley fan but I much preferred when the Flames played a faster paced game. That's not going to happen under Sutter but I do think that a big issue with this team is they simply don't have the roster to play a dump and chase style.