Penalties are way up, the NHLFlyers are a well-oiled machine and Nathan MacKinnon came ready to play. AndrewBerkshire explores that and more in his takeaways from the NHL's qualification round ⤵️
Now that the qualification round is completed, we’re ready for the puck to drop on Round 1 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. With that extra round of hockey priming us for what’s next, what exactly are we in for, and what did we learn?
For starters, the narrative that refs completely put the whistles away in the playoffs — something that I’ve been very guilty of spreading as well — is not exactly true. Over the past five seasons, power play opportunities have actually gone up slightly in four of the five years. I would assume the persistence of that idea despite the evidence to the contrary is likely because players are more desperate in the playoffs, and commit way more infractions.
If that huge increase in penalties carries forward into the first round, teams like the Vancouver Canucks and Calgary Flames who thrive on power play scoring should be given a better chance at winning their series than in a normal situation.With all those power plays, players coming back from a huge layoff in essentially pre-season conditions, you would expect goals to be way up as well, right? I know I did, and turns out I was dead wrong on that front.
Even crazier: of those 4.83 shots from the slot per 20 minutes at 5-on-5, 3.38 of them were off the rush. MacKinnon is flying, and he had more scoring chances off the rush than all but two players had scoring chances overall.Over the years the Boston Bruins have more than earned the benefit of the doubt, and that when the puck drops for real, they’re going to come to play. However, their performance in the round robin against other top seeds was troubling to say the least.
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