As the Stanley Cup playoffs wind down, Carol Schram looks at how this NHL post-season differs from others in recent years.
Winner, winner.
After outscoring the Florida Panthers 12-4 over two games to take a stranglehold on the Stanley Cup final, the Vegas Golden Knights are headed for the Sunshine State with sweeping on their minds.
As things stand, Vegas could become the first team in the salary-cap era to win four straight in the final. The NHL's quest for improved parity and tighter competition between its member teams began in earnest after four straight sweeps in the Stanley Cup final between 1995 and 1998.
One of the finalists that failed to record a win during that era was the Florida Panthers. They lost to the Colorado Avalanche in their only previous final appearance in 1996.
So the Panthers will continue to seek their first-ever win in the final when this year's series shifts to Sunrise for Game 3 on Thursday and Game 4 on Saturday.
Vegas, of course, is now in record-setting territory. The Golden Knights have just one previous appearance when they lost in five games to the Washington Capitals in 2018. After Monday's win, the franchise is just two wins away from the first championship in its six-year history.
Also, after his two-goal night on Monday, Jonathan Marchessault now holds the Vegas franchise record for goals in a post-season (12). And Jack Eichel's two-assist outing brings him level with Reilly Smith's franchise record for points in a playoff year (22).
We haven't seen a sweep in the final for more than a generation. But two lopsided wins for Vegas sound the alarm that the 2022-23 hockey season may suddenly end sooner than we think.
Here's a look at some of the more intriguing trends that have emerged in this year's playoffs as a whole.
Goals, Goals, Goals
To refresh your memory: the 2022-23 regular season concluded with 8,343 goals scored — the most in NHL history since we're now at 32 teams.
And offense is still on the upswing.
In 2021-22, when the Seattle Kraken debuted, a total of 8,252 goals were scored. That average of 6.29 goals per game ticked up to 6.36 this season — the most since 1993-94 (6.48).
In the 2022 playoffs, scoring increased a touch from the regular season to an average of 6.31 goals per game. That was the first time we saw an average of six goals a game since all the way back in 1994-95.
The current post-season is lagging slightly behind. But it's still well over six goals a game and could match last year when all is said and done, especially if the Golden Knights keep doing what they're doing.
After the nine-goal night at T-Mobile Arena on Monday, we're up to 531 goals in 85 playoff games this year, which works out to 6.25 goals per game.
As a reminder of just how crazy the '80s were: other than 1917-18, which was just one seven-game series, and 10 games in 1918-19, we've only seen more than seven goals a game five other times — all between 1981 and 1988, and peaking at 7.94 goals per game in 1981.
Advantageous Special Teams
In a similar vein, power-play efficiency in the regular season finished up at 21.3 percent. That was up from last season (20.6 percent), and this year is the best with the man advantage since 1985-86 (22.2 percent).
The Golden Knights went 2-for-4 on the power play on Monday night and are now 4-for-11 in the final. That's a success rate of 36.4 percent — nearly twice as good as their first three rounds of the playoffs when they were only 10-for-54 (18.5 percent).
Maybe Vegas learned something from its opponents over the course of the playoffs? The Winnipeg Jets went 5-for-12 in Round 1 against the Golden Knights (41.7 percent), the Edmonton Oilers were a ridiculous 18-for-39 through two rounds (46.2 percent), and the Dallas Stars were solid through three rounds at 16-for-52 (30.8 percent).
Interestingly, the Panthers were 12-for-43 through their first three rounds (27.9 percent) but are 0-for-7 so far against Vegas.
With those otherworldly conversion rates skewing the data, it's no surprise that playoff power-play efficiency this year is up to 24.3 percent. That's the highest rate since the first year of the New York Islanders' dynasty in 1980-81 (25.1 percent) when nine of Mike Bossy's 17 playoff goals came with the man advantage.
Only four players in the salary-cap era have even come close to that kind of power-play production in the playoffs. Brayden Point (2021), Patrice Bergeron (2019), Evgeni Malkin (2009) and Eric Staal (2006) each tallied seven power-play goals in one playoff year.
If he'd stuck around longer this spring, Leon Draisaitl might have been able to take a run at Bossy's benchmark. He had six power-play goals in just two rounds.
Never Say Die
In this year's playoffs, nearly half the games have featured a comeback of one goal or more — an extraordinary number that keeps fans on the edge of their seats no matter what their rooting interest is.
To be exact, this year's comeback rate is 41.2 percent over 85 games. But if a team gets down by more than one goal this season, it's in trouble. There have been only three two-goal comebacks and two from three goals or more in the entire playoffs.
Last year, we saw a total of 10 comebacks of two goals or more across 89 games and a 41.6-percent comeback rate altogether. We'd have to go back a decade to find a higher comeback rate — 49.1 percent in the 2012-13 playoffs.
These last two rounds have been particularly short on lead changes. We have seen just nine comebacks in the third period all playoffs, and that's low. We have to go all the way back to the Pittsburgh Penguins' win in 2008-09 to find another year where third-period comebacks were in the single digits (seven), although 37 of the 87 games in that post-season did feature a comeback of some type.