(Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images)
By Bob Haynes (@BobHaynesJr)
The Stanley Cup winner has already been identified by this point of the season and it’s now just a matter of time before they are crowned by commissioner Bettman handing the cup to the team’s captain.
How can you find out who won the Cup? After each team has played almost 70 games it should be blatantly obvious. Every team in contention has had hot and cold spells during the season so far. But one factor separates the really good teams from the not so good teams: goal differential. It’s the key statistic to see who will compete and who will be out in the first round if they qualify for the post-season.
Presently, there are four teams in each conference that are real contenders for the Cup.
These teams are the New York Rangers, Boston Bruins, Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers form the East and the St. Louis Blues, Vancouver Canucks, Detroit Red Wings and Nashville Predators out west. There are a few other teams on the plus side, but they are marginally in the black.
So why is this the most important team statistic? It’s the only statistic that shows overall team consistency over the long haul of the season. I’m aware that─over 70 games─outscoring your opponent by 20 goals or more doesn’t seem like much statistically, but it says a lot about the team during the travel and time zone changes to be ahead on the scoring.
Your team is consistent offensively and defensively. It shows that you are in the game, even when you are losing. It shows that your team has depth all around. During the long season, goal scoring slumps are going to occur, goalies will be tired and defense will break down. But teams on the plus side are the best prepared for playoff hockey.
Now the really bad part of the playoffs is that right now in each conference one of these dominant teams will be eliminated in the first round of the playoffs due to the third seed debacle. So this means that a weaker regular season team will get through to the 2nd round guaranteed. This is exactly why there should be a new playoff system where there is no automatic seed for the division winners.
How about this: A balanced schedule across the two conferences and the top eight point producing teams are seeded one through eight and play it out? No re-seeding after the first round.
Simply, they must set the tournament up and go play.
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