The Pittsburgh Penguins will look for a California sweep when they visit San Jose tonight in their final game of the road trip.
Beating both of the Southern California teams was a pretty solid accomplishment and there is no reason they can’t find those same results in Northern California.
San Jose has been a good team for a while now but this year has seen some of their underlying numbers trending in the wrong direction. The 2014-15 version of San Jose is like the Left Shark while the 2013-14 version was more like the Right Shark.
All of these numbers are in decline from year’s past. This year sees the Sharks at their lowest possession and even-strength save percentage. Sometimes PDO can help out with that but even that is at a four year low for the Sharks. The result is a Sharks team in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2002-03. They are five points out of a playoff spot right now and would have to beat out the Los Angeles Kings, no easy task.
Joe Thornton may be 35 years old but he is still a possession monster and a guy that can make teams pay.
With Joe Thornton on the ice the Sharks have a CF% of 57.1%. Without Jumbo Joe it drops all the way to 48.3%.
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Congratulations are in order for WB/S goaltender Matt Murray who has set the all-time AHL shutout streak. The new record is now 304 minutes and 11 seconds.
Amazingly Murray was only a little over a minute away from his fifth consecutive shutout when Springfield’s Dana Tyrell finally beat Murray.
What does this streak ultimately mean? Could be nothing. The past record holder was Barry Brust:
This doesn’t mean Matt Murray can’t have a productive NHL career, just that the streak isn’t a sign that it will happen.
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Sidney Crosby and Chris Kunitz may have been one of the go to duos for the Penguins in recent memory but from a possession standpoint Kunitz and Malkin have actually been better both this season and in the larger sample size. Here are the CF% breakdowns during 5v5 with their time together in parentheses.
2014-15 season
Kunitz with Malkin (133:49) 62.5% Kunitz with Crosby (531:03) 58.4%
2009-present
Kunitz with Malkin (1198:22) 59.2% Kunitz with Crosby (3006:11) 55.6%
These numbers were pulled from the new Super WOWY generator created by David Johnson. You can find that tool at Puckalytics
It is a pretty fun tool to play around with. You can also look and see how players did against specific opponents.
For example:
Evgeni Malkin against Sean Coururier from 2009-present (81:08) sees Malkin with a CF% of 58.9%. Not exactly the “shutdown… numbers from Couturier which most would lead you to believe.
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