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The Pacific Division standings don’t make a whole lot of sense right now.
As I look at the standings, the L.A. Kings sit atop the Pacific Division, after missing the playoffs last season and seemingly doing little to address their issues. The Vegas Golden Knights, of all teams, are sitting in second. The Anaheim Ducks, expected to be a powerhouse, are barely a .500 team. At the bottom of the Pacific (and the entire NHL) is the Arizona Coyotes, who were supposed to be an improved team after some smart off-season moves.
The Canucks are part of the mess too. A week ago, the Canucks, a team most assumed would finish in the basement, were third in the Pacific. They’ve slipped since then, but they’re still doing far better than anyone anticipated.
The biggest surprise is the Edmonton Oilers. Connor McDavid and co. were hyped as a Stanley Cup contender heading into the season — Las Vegas bookmakers had them at 9-1 odds to win the Cup, second only to the Pittsburgh Penguins — but they’ve had a disastrous start. The Oilers lost four of their first five games and they’re dead last in the NHL in goals-per-game, shocking for a team led by McDavid.
The messy Pacific is good for the Canucks: with several supposedly good teams faltering, that opens the door for a bubble team like the Canucks to sneak into the playoffs. The bad news is, the mess is likely to get cleaned up quickly.
We can get a quick look at how a team has out-performed or under-performed this season by comparing their Expected Goals-For Percentage (xGF%), a statistic that takes into account shot quality, with their actual Goals-For Percentage (GF%).
The Canucks have massively out-performed their xGF%, both scoring more and allowing fewer goals than we would expect given the quality of shots they take and allow. The Oilers are at the other end of the spectrum. Given the quality of their shots, we would expect the Oilers to have around 38 goals at 5-on-5 this season; they have just 25.
That won’t last, for either the Canucks or the Oilers, as a big part of their separation in the standings is based on luck. One statistic for measuring that luck is PDO, a statistic that simply adds together 5-on-5 shooting percentage and save percentage. Since every shot on goal either goes in or is saved, league-wide PDO is 100%.
Whether a team is above or below that league-average of 100% is partially skill-based, but mostly luck. Over the course of the season, every team’s PDO regresses closer to 100%. Here’s an easy way to look at it: if your PDO is well-above 100%, you’ve been lucky; if it’s well-below 100%, you’ve been unlucky.
The Canucks have been a little bit lucky, posting a 101.4% PDO, the eighth highest in the NHL. The Oilers have been unlucky, with a 98.4% PDO, the seventh lowest in the NHL. As this evens out, expect the Oilers to start piling up goals, while the Canucks are likely to allow more and score fewer as the season progresses.
Stick-Taps and Glove-Drops
Sven Baertschi gets a tap of the stick for donating $500 for every goal he scores this season to HEROS, a charity that uses the game of hockey to teach life skills and empower marginalized youth.
I’m dropping the gloves with Family Guy for one of the laziest Canucks references I’ve ever seen on TV. The animated sitcom showed a group protesting outside the Griffin family’s house, when one protester peered in the window and asked them to “put on the Canucks game.” As with many Family Guy jokes, it was a complete non-sequitur, with no connection to anything else on the show. I prefer the Canucks references on How I Met Your Mother: specific and connected to a character, who name-dropped Roberto Luongo, Darcy Hordichuk, and Mason Raymond.
Big Numbers
.919 - The Canucks third round pick in the 2017 draft, Michael DiPietro, is making waves in the OHL this season. His .919 save percentage is third in the OHL and his solid performance for Team OHL in the Canada-Russia series this past week helped his case for making Team Canada’s World Junior roster.
57.52% - Heading into Tuesday’s game against the Los Angeles Kings, Derrick Pouliot led all Canucks defencemen in shot attempt (corsi) percentage at 57.52%. When he’s on the ice at 5-on-5, the Canucks get the majority of the shots, which isn’t bad for a Pittsburgh Penguins cast-off.
