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Parity par for course in today's NHL

November 21, 2008 10:21 AM | Posted by   Marc Crawford  

Six weeks into the NHL regular season and we are beginning to see a familiar trend. Everybody is OK! Not great, mind you, but definitely OK.

Yes sir, parity has arrived and is living well in the fastest league on earth. There have been some early season disappointments, like Dallas and Ottawa, but most hockey insiders believe that those two teams will right their ships.

In the Western Conference, as of Nov. 18, there is no club that is less than two games under .500. In the East, just two teams are three games under .500, and if you look at the league as a whole, there are only six clubs that are less than a game under .500.

On the plus side, San Jose has enjoyed a spectacular start, but if you look at all the divisional records, all teams are close, real close. That means that with one good week your team could be right in the thick of the race in their division and maybe even at the top.

Why is this happening? Ah, that is an interesting question that perhaps I can shed some light on.

First you have to look at goaltending. Cliff Fletcher always said that the key to a great team is “the Goaler” and he is right. Let’s face it. There are only a handful of great goalies in the league: Luongo, Brodeur, Lundqvist and maybe Backstrom. These four lead the group and yes there are some very good young ones coming up. My point is if you have adequate goaltending in today’s NHL your team can be competitive.

All teams have average goaltending, that is to say, technically-sound netminders who can keep their team close, if not win. Also, most teams play within a strict defensive structure that eliminates mistakes and minimizes second chances. When you get this, it guarantees that games will be close and if you have just about every other element of your team game working, your team can win.

Second, where have all the scorers gone? Remember the days when the Boston Bruins had 11 guys who scored 20 or more goals? Nowadays if your team has more than five players with 20 goals then your team is above the norm. Ten is the new 20 in the NHL and most teams have less than half their players with that total.

Teams don’t blow out the opposition these days because the coaching and defensive structures in place on most teams don’t allow games to get out of hand. As well, teams do not have great offensive players rounding out their third and fourth lines. The result is a lot of tight-checking, close, low-scoring games.

I look at statistics a lot. On the offensive side the numbers I look for are goals for, power-play percentage and shots for. Defensively, I look at goals against, penalty-killing percentage and shots against. The average in the league is 2.90 goals for and 2.80 goals against. Power-play percentage is 17.3 on average and penalty-killing percentage is 81.7 on average. Shots for is 29.5 per game while average shots against is 30.2.

I believe that a good team is in the top third of these categories and in at least four of the six of them. San Jose is the only team that is in the top third of all six and that explains why they are off to such a great start. On the other side of the equation Florida is in the bottom of every category, so that explains their record.

Finally, look for teams that take care of the defensive side of the puck to be the ones that show the greatest improvement as we move forward. That’s should be good news for the LA Kings, who are at the top of the league in all defensive statistical areas.

In the end, we all should look forward to close games, with many of them going into overtime and shootouts. That all important third point has been awarded 68 times already this season, and it will no doubt end up putting some team into the playoffs.

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