Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Some Stats: New Jersey’s penalty-killing is ridiculously good

Devils

Some Stats is a weekly feature that will run every Thursday on PHT. In Some Stats, we look at some stats.

Minus-2 – New Jersey’s plus/minus…while shorthanded. Nine power-play goals allowed, seven shorthanded goals scored. We’ve raved about the Devils’ PK before in Some Stats. It might not be the flashiest story, but consider this – the Leafs are minus-31 shorthanded.

7-1 – New Jersey’s record in the shootout. The Devils’ dominance in the breakaway competition has helped them to sixth place in the Eastern Conference, meaning they’d make the playoffs if they started today. It begs the question, should a team with the fifth fewest regulation/overtime wins (11) in the league be in a position to qualify for the postseason? Meanwhile, Washington has 16 R/OT victories and finds itself on the outside looking in.

43 – Number of players with more goals than Alex Ovechkin. Not to beat a dead horse, but 11 goals in 32 games? At the pace Ovechkin’s on, he’ll finish the season with 28 goals. A good total for most players; a disaster for a guy who once scored 65. Ovechkin has two goals in his last three games, so maybe there’s reason to believe he’s turning it around. Then again, remember when Ovechkin scoring two goals in three games wasn’t even close to worth talking about?

5:04 – Average shorthanded ice time for Ducks defenseman Francois Beauchemin. Put another way, Beauchemin is spending over 8% of the game killing Anaheim penalties. He must be doing a pretty good, too – the Ducks’ PK is 12th in the NHL (82.5%). By the way, Beauchemin’s a pending UFA on a non-playoff team. Aren’t the Flyers looking for a defenseman that can play big minutes?

19 – Goals for Marian Gaborik. Including four in his last two games. Is this getting enough attention? The Rangers’ sniper is only one goal behind league leaders Jonathan Toews and Steven Stamkos. Gaborik’s not playing with Brad Richards, if you thought that might be it. He’s on a line with sophomore Derek Stepan in the middle and the apologetic Artem Anisimov on the other wing. Gaborik finished with 22 goals last season. He’s currently on pace for 50.