Thinking with an Empty Net: Weekly Musings

 

Pavelec and Rest

• The Jets just finished their longest break in the season, and I’ve been talking opportunity cost with the forward and defence. It got me to reflecting on what a backup goalie means for a team.  Pavelec has played 39 games, and 6 times played in both games of a back-to-back (including the infamous drubbing by the Capitals March 21^st and 22^nd). His personal sv% is .877 in the second game of those back-to-backs compared to a .912 with 1 day of rest or more.
• Every team has a tight schedule, so let’s give some perspective. The Jets as a team have the 25^th best save % in the second game of back-to-backs. One day rest? 15^th. Two days rest? 15^th. (After that the numbers get wacky with many teams having only played a single game on 3 or more days of rest.)
• I haven’t gone through every team, but the Canucks lead the league in save percentage in back-to-back games. Can you guess how many times either Schneider or Luongo have played back-to-back? I suspect you got it – 0 times.
• We can’t hope the Pavelec/Montoya tandem would post the whopping .937 that the Canucks have in the second game of back-to-backs, but if we could imagine a pedestrian .905 for those games, the Jets would have given up 4 fewer goals in 6 games (16 down from 20). Given Pavelec’s 2-4-0 record in those second games, it seems like maybe the team just gave away points this year by not having a capable backup, or at least not using the one they have

Burmistrov

• Who noticed that the third line is awesome right now? Me too. Burmistrov is currently 7th in Jets forwards by ice time per game, and even strength ice time per game. He’s been a health scratch this year, and in pretty much all the trade rumours that surrounded the team at the deadline. The table below is presented as evidence that he’s really awesome and should be considered part of the core going forward. These are the corsi% with everyone he’s played 50 or more minutes with (okay, Ladd has played 49:58 with the young possession driver).

• 5 of 7 forward partners with 50+ shared minutes have better Corsi % with him than without him
• 5 of 7 defencemen have better corsi % when playing with Burmi than playing with out him.
• If visuals are easier, check this out
• To give you a sense of how these charts can look different, he’s no Taylor Hall, but thankfully, he’s not Jay McClement either.
• Most importantly for us, he’s the opposite of Olli Jokinen – making everyone a bit better rather than a bit worse.

What’s in a streak?

• The Oilers hired long time silver-fox Craig McTavish as their new GM. His verbal has already been good, and Oilers fans have to be cheering that he knows what shot differential is and what it indicates. He has already spoken that the 5 game losing streak the team went through wasn’t indicative of their skill level, but that they continued to be outshot in the 5 game win streak – showing that to be unsustainable as well.
• The Jets just went through a similar patch of 5 loses and 4 wins. Looking at the shot totals, the March 28^th loss to Pittsburgh was a poor outing – 43 shots against and just 20 for. So let’s exclude that game.
• In four straight loses, then, the Jets were outshot by just 4 lousy shots (126 to 122), and actually beat Carolina and Montreal on the shot clock. In the subsequent four straight wins, the Jets were only outshot by Philly, and returned an aggregate total of +11 (126 to 115). What does that tell us? That the team actually played a pretty even keel as far as the game plan goes. But let’s break it down one step further.
• While no team can win every game, it’s the Jets ability to completely disappear that frustrates me. In addition to the late March shaming by a great Pittsburgh team, the Jets wore the dunce cap through the 39-25 possession clinic put on the by the Islanders on Apr 2. Take that game out, and their remaining 3 loses over that period have a healthy +10 shot differential.
• Bonus points to anyone who remembered that the April 2^nd Islanders game was the second game of a back-to-back.