Anybody who has ever watched a hockey game knows how critical special teams can be. The ability to convert on a power play—or conversely, to shut one down—at a critical moment can be the difference between winning and losing.
Entering the playoffs, where individual games take on greater importance, which NHL teams are the best on special teams? The league offers a host of statistics, but no single unified special teams rating. Additionally, the NHL calculates power-play and penalty-killing efficiency without weighing for short-handed goals, which can have a sizable impact.
What we've done here is imagined that each team were to both go on the man advantage and be shorthanded 100 times. Then we calculated their expected goal differential based on their performance in both situations this season to give a single number reflective of their special teams work.
Read on to see which 10 teams have been the best in the NHL in these disciplines.
Data courtesy of NHL.com and current through the start of action on April 4.
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Article written by Jonathan Willis
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April 4th, 2014 by Jonathan Willis Leave a reply »
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