Well it all comes down to this. 4 wins stand between the Devils and the Kings for the coveted Lord Stanley's Cup. There has been no hotter team in the playoffs than the Kings, but the Devils haven't been cold either. Let's take a look at the stats and see if they can shed a little light on who has the advantage in this championship series.
Regular Season-New Jersey finished 7th overall in the NHL for the regular season with a record of 48-28-6 while the Kings ended up 17th with a 40-27-15 record. So right away, we can see the Kings lost one fewer game than the Devils, but won 5 fewer as well. This comes from the ridiculous amount of overtime games Los Angeles played in, which they were actually tied for 3rd most in the league. To me, this says the Kings are used to playing in very tight, close, pressure packed games, so I'm giving them the edge in the mental toughness area.
I've already gone over how inefficient the offense functioned for the Kings in the regular season. They were 2nd to last in goals per game throughout the regular season with a rate of 2.29. The Devils were in the middle of the pack, literally, they were 15th in the league in goals per game at 2.63. So not a huge disparity, but the Devils were obviously better goal scorers over the course of the regular season. Goals against is a different story though. Again, I've gone over how good the Kings goaltending was this season, 2nd best in the league, 2.02 goals against per game. The Devils weren't bad by anyone's standards, 2.50 goals per game, good for 9th best in the NHL.
But to be perfectly honest, the regular season means nothing at this point. Yes it's nice to look back at statistics and hope they can tell you something, but really, it's the past few weeks that truly matter.
Post Season Stats-Unless you've been living under a rock somewhere, you know how good the Kings have been. They're 12-2 in the postseason so far, they're scoring 2.93 goals per game, and only allowing 1.93. The Devils are scoring 2.83 goals per game on average, so not much less than the Kings, but they're also allowing 2.33 goals per game. Yes Brodeur is a great goalie, but he's also 40 years old. The Kings goalie, Jonathan Quick is 26. While he may not have the experience, he's got age on his side. Father time is undefeated, and Quick has him in his corner.
Also, everyone knows that the Kings powerplay scoring percentage is atrocious, and the Devils is pretty good. But the Kings penalty kill has also been amazing, killing off 91.2 percent of penalties, and the Devils only kill off 74.2 percent. I think this favors the Kings. All three of the Kings earlier playoff opponents had a much better penalty kill unit than the Devils do. So I wouldn't be surprised if they Kings raise their powerplay goal count in this series and for the Devils to have their powerplay goal scoring dip.
The Kings are more rested, their younger, and they've been the hotter team. I just can't pick against those 3 things. They're peaking at the perfect time, and they aren't tired. I'm not suggesting the Devils are hot as well, but they've had to play 4 more games than the Kings to get to this point. That's 4 more games of taking hits, skating, practicing, and traveling that the Kings haven't had to endure. When it's all said and done, I'm predicting the Kings will win their first Stanley Cup in franchise history in 5 games. I know the popular pick is Kings in 6, but I don't think they'll lose twice in this series. If they show up like they did in Games 1 and 2 of their first 3 playoff series, and they should come back to LA with a 2 game lead, and be in familiar territory.
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The only statistic that matters now is which team wins four games first. Go Kings!
ReplyDeleteTrue that!!!
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