Alright, take two here. I had the post entirely completed prior but some lovely timing of submission and saw me lose the entirety of the blog previous. Such is life. Never trust technology and ALWAYS ALWAYS use a word processing program rather than trusting a dashboard of any sorts.
With that out of the way, so we begin.
The Kings have been playing some fantastic hockey since the Olympic break and have almost made us forget the difficulties of mid January. It was a time when the Kings could not score, could not win, and were not getting any luck of any kind.
However, there is such a thing as regression towards the mean.
January was about as low as the Kings could get honestly. After a record breaking start to the season they saw themselves nearly falling out of the top-eight for the first time in the season. Over the course of the season the extreme lows are going to be accompanied by extreme highs. Then there is everything in between. After hitting what was hopefully that low point we are starting to witness the inevitable. Finally…
While shooting percentages are most often overlooked, just due to how few pucks actually go in over the course of the game, they can be indicative of all that was listed above. Goals, wins, and flat out luck.
After reading some thought provoking opinions on twitter from our good friends over at Jewels from the Crown, I decided to dig into some game logs myself and see just how different the time from early January to early March has been.
Before we get too deep in the two samples I have taken, let’s establish some of the overall King statistics on the year.
I pulled overall team shooting percentages on the year from ExtraSkater.com, which is a great site if you want to look into game logs of advanced stats, normal stats, and a lot in between. I also compared those percentages with QuantHockey just to be sure that what was portrayed was accurate. Everything matched up perfectly.
Here are both the sites and stats:
The Kings come in overall at a 7.5% shooting percentage. That is good enough for bottom three in the NHL. Our company down there includes the Canucks, Sabres, Panthers, Hurricanes, Predators, and oddly enough the Rangers. Interestingly the Rangers are going through a similar upturn to the Kings, and their own regression to the mean is in progress.
Let’s start with the good. Here in this table, from most recent games down, are the shooting percentages, opponents, and goals over the last 10 games the Kings have played.
| EDM | 50s | 4g | 8.0% |
|---|---|---|---|
| WPG | 41s | 3g | 7.3% |
| MTL | 22s | 2g | 9.1% |
| CAR | 31s | 3g | 9.7% |
| CGY | 24s | 2g | 8.3% |
| COL | 28s | 6g | 21.4% |
| CBJ | 20s | 2g | 10.0% |
| CHI | 34s | 3g | 8.8% |
| PHI | 35s | 0g | 0.0% |
| PIT | 31s | 1g | 3.2% |
| Avg | 31.6 | 2.6 | 8.2% |
Take a look at those final averages and compare them to the season averages of the Kings. The 8.2 shooting percentage is higher by a slight margin to the 7.5 on the season. However, if you eliminate the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh games, which were honestly creeping more towards the January doldrums than where we are now, the team is shooting at 10% over the last eight games. The average of 2.6 goals per game over this sample is higher than the 2.3 on the season, and with the first two games tossed out you have a 3.2 goals per game. That goals per game number would stand at second in the league, tied with Anaheim.
Safe to say that right now the Kings are playing closer to average and beyond that the next set of games I am about to show you.
This sample was taken from January 1st, up until January 21st. I did not want to cherry pick mid January when the Kings were really hitting the downward spiral. That would be too easy. The Kings had some solid wins against good teams in this stretch. The St. Louis and Boston wins were nothing to scoff at. I digress, here is the sample size for those games.
| STL | 30s | 0g | 0.0% |
|---|---|---|---|
| VAN | 49s | 3g | 6.1% |
| MIN | 40s | 1g | 2.5% |
| BOS | 35s | 4g | 11.4% |
| DET | 45s | 1g | 2.2% |
| VAN | 23s | 1g | 5.0% |
| STL | 31s | 4g | 12.9% |
| DET | 32s | 2g | 6.3% |
| BOS | 23s | 2g | 8.7% |
| CBJ | 29s | 3g | 10.3% |
| Avg | 33.4 | 2.1 | 6.2% |
As you can see, that 6.2 shooting percentage is lower than average, the goals for are lower than average, but the shot attempts are up. So what was the difference? Maybe it was quality of competition you say? I will admit, it looks like there are some much better teams in the second sampling than the first. However, the average points of the teams in the first sample is about 73, the second group is 79. Plus the Kings had big victories over St. Louis and Boston, so this is more about the Kings playing their style of hockey than the opponents quality.
Interesting nonetheless. So what can we draw from these numbers?
Actually, you can draw very little from it in terms of tangible, “This right here is the reason we did worse!… If only it were that simple. The conclusions I can immediately draw from it is that the Kings simply were not getting the luck in January. They certainly were playing their game and trying to stick to it best they could. The team was just snake bit. Yes, there were deterring factors in the loss column, like poor penalty killing and turnovers, but offensively the team was hitting an extreme down period. One that, you could almost argue was expected given how well the team started.
Now we are seeing a more consistent upturn. Look at the charts briefly again. Notice how the percentages in the first sample are all fairly consistent. The team never drops below a 7.3% save for the final two games of the sample. In the January sample it is all over the place. The fluctuation is ridiculous, and it really just goes to show you that it is a sport of fine margins. One night may not be your night, while the next night might be. The one thing you can commend the Kings on though, and this has been a mantra of Sutter, is park and ride. Play your game in the moment, then forget it when it’s done with. The Kings have seemingly been playing the same game for two months, it’s just now that they are getting the averages to tilt back to normal.
As one of the boys from JFTC put it:
Shooting percentages regressing is a marvelous thing
— Andrew Lifland (@andrewlifland) March 7, 2014To credit our SB Nation friends, Robert from JFTC has been saying it in articles and twitter for some time that. The bounces haven’t been there.
Luck plays a big role in hockey. A lot of people are believers in the fact that you create your own luck. That’s true, and you can credit the Kings for sticking with their game because it has created plenty of luck before.
The major question now is, does the trend continue on this way for the rest of the season and into the playoffs?