Rangers By The Numbers Game 20 Preview: Rangers vs. Canadiens
The Habs make little sense and need to start regressing. Today. Mais cela devrait être amusant, non?
| Time | Sunday, 7:00 EST | TV | NHL-N |
| Season Series | 0-1 | Last Meeting | Habs 3-1, 10/25/14 |
| The Enemy | Eyes On The Prize | Scoring Leaders | R. Nash 13-7-20 |
Rangers | CATEGORY | Canadiens |
| 8-7-4 | SEASON RECORD | 16-5-1 |
| 20 | Points | 33 |
| 12th | Conference Position | 1st |
| Won 1 | Streak | Won 2 |
| 2.68 (15th) | Goals For Per 60 (GF60) | 2.59 (19th) |
| 2.84 (19th) | Goals Against Per 60 (GA60) | 2.36 (9th) |
| 16.1 (23rd) | Power Play % | 12.9 (26th) |
| 81.0 (17th) | Penalty Kill % | 84.0 (9th) |
| 48.0 (26th) | Faceoff Win % | 54.6 (1st) |
| 10.9 (18th) | PIM / GP | 11.0 (20th) |
| 30.9 (11th) | Shots For / GP | 27.8 (27th) |
| 30.4 (18th) | Shots Against / GP | 30.5 (19th) |
Rangers | Analytics | Canadiens |
| 49.2 (21st) | Score Adjusted Corsi | 48.1 (23rd) |
| 49.9 (19th) | Raw 5v5 Corsi | 49.7 (20th) |
| 2.52 (10th) | 5v5 Goals For / 60 | 2.54 (8th) |
| 2.45 (19th) | 5v5 Goals Against / 60 | 1.91 (6th) |
| +1 (15th) | 5v5 Goal +/- | +10 (6th) |
| 50.00 (18th) | 5v5 OZS % | 46.00 (26th) |
| 8.48 (10th) | 5v5 Shooting % | 8.84 (7th) |
| 91.70 (18th) | 5v5 Save % | 93.45 (6th) |
| 100.2 (13th) | PDO | 102.3 (4th) |
| M. Zuccarello 53.8% D. Moore 53.5% | 5v5 Raw Corsi Leaders (min 100 min) | N. Beulieu 54.8% P. Parenteau 54.3% |
| D. Girardi 46.8% T. Glass 47.0% | 5v5 Raw Corsi Anchors (min 100 min) | M. Malhotra 36.1% D. Weise 41.8% |
| R. Nash 3.59 L. Stempniak 2.29 | 5v5 Points / 60 Leaders (min 100 min) | D. Weise 2.61 M. Pacioretty 2.30 |
Montreal is a bit of an enigma.
I can't quite figure them out. They get quality contributions from a fairly strong top 6. But they aren't deep, and their shot suppression stinks. Hell, they didn't even dress a full 4th line against Boston on Saturday night, instead opting for 7 D. And they will likely do that againt tonight.
They have gotten depth scoring from Dale Weise, which makes no sense whatsoever. He and linemate Manny Malhotra are much worse than Tanner Glass in shot suppression this season. Yet Weise leads the team in 5v5 P/60.
INSANE Corsi anchor Manny Malhotra, who is their Tanner Glass but with Faceoff wins, continues to play nearly every night. He might be worse in shot suppression ability, and the shot attempt stats thus far this season show that. He provides faceoff wins at a very high rate, but this can't redeem an absolutely atrocious 36.1% 5v5 Corsi. That's 569th amongst players logging 100+ minutes. Let's put this in perspective.
Credit: stats.hockeyanalysis.com
Notice anything?
Hint: only 580 players have played that much 5v5 time and 8 of the 11 behind him play for the Buffalo Sabres.
And it isn't just Malhotra. The Habs win games despite being firmly entrenched on the wrong side of the shot attempt battle as a team. Their Score Adjusted CF%, a measure of Corsi weighted for current game conditions which is currently the stat that is most correlative to wins, is 48.1%. Good for 23rd in the NHL. That's worse than the Rangers, and, New York has been scuffling in their own zone and losing games because of a failure to suppress shots and exit it. Montreal has won 8 of their last 9, by contrast.
Montreal's special teams aren't particularly great either. Sure, their PK is 9th in the NHL right now. However, they aren't drawing any penalties themselves so their PP minus PK time is -10:49, which is 29th in the NHL and only ahead of Buffalo. Their powerplay hasn't been very productive on the season. They have some snipers, so I guess that team 5v5 shooting percentage isn't necessarily inflated beyond what it could stay at. But with reduced shot attempts, how are they winning?
Key to the Game: Solve Tokarski
Yes, solve the backup. Montreal boasts two excellent, and I mean excellent, goaltenders. The Rangers are likely to see the backup one tonight in Dustin Tokarski, who has been nothing short of sensational. Better than Price? Maybe, albeit in limited duty and while facing fewer S/60. Truly, the reason that Montreal is winning games is because they are getting great goaltending and just eeking out victories late with timely saves and timely 5v5 goals. They do appear to play "tighter" with Tokarski in net, giving up fewer events. Take a look at the Montreal goaltending performance to date, as compared to New York's.
The chart below shows 5v5 performance. The X axis shows regular save percentage (unadjusted). The Y axis shows Adjusted Save Percentage. An explanation of save percentage adjusting, which weights the shots by their probability level, can be found here. Color denotes S/60. Size of the bubble is TOI.
Credit: war-on-ice.com
This has probably been the main reason they have won tight scoring games. Solid all-situation goaltending, regardless of adjustment, while facing heavy pressure. Other than that, you have to point to a bit of luck that has kept them afloat at the top of the Eastern Conference, where they currently reside with 33 points. Things have just, kind of, fallen their way.
Montreal is due for a regression. Let's hope it starts tonight, at MSG, against a Ranger's team that has certainly left a bad taste in their mouth dating back to last postseason.
#Axelgraph Matchup
Created by: Axel Fant-Eldh
Expected Lines
RANGERS: Stemp is back, Fast sits...moar Glass
Chris Kreider - Derek Stepan - Martin St. Louis
Rick Nash - Derick Brassard - Mats Zuccarello
Carl Hagelin - Kevin Hayes - Anthony Duclair
Tanner Glass - Dominic Moore - Jesper Fast
Scratched: Lee Stempniak
Injured: Ryan McDonagh (shoulder)
CANADIENS
Max Pacioretty – David Desharnais – PA Parenteau
Alex Galchenyuk – Tomas Plekanec – Brendan Gallagher
Brandon Prust – Lars Eller – Jiri Sekac
Alexei Emelin – Sergei Gonchar
Scratched: Drayson Bowman, Nathan Beaulieu
Injured: Michael Bournival (shoulder)
Your Tanner Glass Moment of Zen:
It was not until the third game of his career that Tanner Glass was on the ice for a shot attempt for.
— Tanner Glass Facts (@T_Glass_Facts) November 22, 2014 Continuation from yesterday: A +3/-8 performance in his third career game INCREASED Tanner Glass' career CF% 17.6 points from 0% to 17.6%.
— Tanner Glass Facts (@T_Glass_Facts) November 23, 2014
Stats compiled from: nhl.com, puckon.net, war-on-ice.com, and stats.hockeyanalysis.com
