Saturday March 28 - Vancouver Canucks vs. Dallas Stars - 7:00 p.m. - CBC, TSN1040
Vancouver Canucks: 43-27-4, 90 points, second in Pacific Division Dallas Stars: 36-29-10, 82 points, sixth in Central Division
For the third straight game, the Vancouver Canucks will be hosting an opponent that's fresh off a game in Edmonton the night before.
History doesn't tell us much about what to expect from the Canucks tonight. The situation worked out well when they came from behind to beat Winnipeg on Tuesday, but they sputtered against Colorado on Thursday.
To make matters even more confusing, the Stars, who went into Edmonton on Friday as the hottest team in the NHL, got shut out 4-0 by the Oilers—behind a 29-save performance by third-string goalie Richard Bachman that also served as his first win of the year.
Oh—Edmonton's roster was also full of call-ups after losing four players to injury earlier in the week.
I ended up doing Stats for the game and was hoping to gain some insight into how the Stars are rolling these days, but now I'm more confused than ever about what to expect tonight.
I'll default back to my core beliefs:
• Dallas is a fast team that has given the Canucks trouble this season, winning 6-3 on the road back in October and 2-0 at Rogers Arena in December.
• Willie has yet to earn his first win against his old team. The only other teams that Vancouver hasn't beaten at least once this year are Nashville and Tampa Bay. (They'll get one more crack at the Predators next Tuesday)
• The Stars' resurgence started a couple of games before Tyler Seguin returned to the lineup after the sprained knee that kept him out for 10 games. In the 10 games since his return, he's 4-4-8, while Dallas has gone 7-3-0. Captain Jamie Benn has been 4-6-10 over the same stretch.
• Speaking of Benn and Seguin, this will be the Canucks' first meeting with the bad boys since they made those disparaging remarks about Daniel and Henrik Sedin back in early February. I'm not sure if the Canucks need bulletin-board material, but I'd guess that the incident hasn't been forgotten among the twins' teammates.
• The Stars' recent surge had them dreaming of an outside crack at a playoff spot, but it ain't gonna happen. With just seven games remaining, Dallas is eight points behind Winnipeg for the second wild card, and would also have to leapfrog Calgary to grab that spot. SportsClubStats ranks their chances unchanged after Friday's loss, at a mere 0.2 percent.
Is there a chance that Dallas will come out flat tonight now that their playoff dream is dead and their amazing stretch of perfect play against Western Canadian teams has finally been snapped? Before their loss last night, Dallas hadn't lost in regulation to the Oilers, Flames or Canucks since dropping a 5-1 decision to Edmonton on Feb. 28, 2013 — a stretch of 17 games over three seasons.
• As for the Canucks, will we see another solid bounce-back effort from a team that hasn't lost two in a row in regulation since the All-Star Break? Or will we get another sub-par performance against a non-playoff team—one that has given them plenty of trouble over the last couple of seasons.
Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like Vancouver's going to get any help tonight in the form of lineup reinforcements like Zack Kassian or Brad Richardson.
Desjardins doesn't expect any line-up changes for tonight, said Richardson is closer, unsure if he'll travel tomorrow. #Canucks
— Vancouver Canucks (@VanCanucks) March 28, 2015Eddie Lack will once again start in net. Kari Lehtonen took the loss for Dallas last night, but shut out the Canucks last time he faced them, in December. He has started the Stars' last nine straight games, including one pair of back-to-backs.
Jhonas Enroth is just 1-5-0 since joining the Stars from Buffalo in mid-February.
I continue to struggle with my emotions when I watch the Flames play. Their loss to Minnesota last night helped the Canucks' playoff chances but decreased their own pretty considerably. Having played one more game than both Vancouver and L.A., the Flames are now three points behind the Canucks and one point back of the Kings.
I'd still rather see Calgary make the playoffs than Los Angeles, but priority No. 1 has to be making sure that the Canucks are in. We'll have to keep an eye on the Kings today—they now play Minnesota, tonight at 5:00 PT. The game's on Sportsnet.
To wrap today, my two cents on the discussion on faceoffs from yesterday's message board.
I was thrilled to see some of you pointing out a fact that always catches my eye: the differences in face-off success rates around the league are actually pretty small.
If you figure an average of about 60 faceoffs per game, St. Louis leads the league by winning 53.3 percent of its draws—around 32 per game. The last-place team is Buffalo, at 45.2 percent, so they win around 27 per game. On balance, the difference between best and worst is only about two draws per game.
Anecdotally, it seems like the Canucks' 28th-ranked performance in the circle is not impacting their success this season. In fact, as I've eyeballed the numbers through the year it seems like they're more likely to lose on the nights that they win the faceoff battle.
I haven't been able to find any stats that break down that data over the course of the season, but this chart lets us see how Henrik Sedin ranks against his fellow first-liners around the league.
Sorting by the players who have taken the most draws this year, only one other player in the top 20 is as poor as Henrik's 45.8 percent success rate—Ryan Nugent-Hopkins at 45.7.
Interestingly, the one place where Henrik does win exactly 50 percent of his draws is on the power play—probably when matched up against some fine defensive centres. Maybe he really does just need to bear down and focus more intently the rest of the time?
Henrik's 1407 faceoffs work out to about 19 draws a game. His overall success rate has him winning about 8.5 and losing about 10.5. If he won one more faceoff a game, he'd be at 50 percent.
Scrolling back through the past few seasons, these faceoff struggles are a new thing for Henrik. He was a solid 52.3 percent last year and 49.4 percent in both the lockout year and 2011-12. In the peak year of 2010-11, Henrik won 52 percent of his draws.
Broadly speaking, faceoffs drive possession, as the fancy-statters will tell you. But the differences in faceoff proficiency around the league really are pretty small.