Ask an expert to name the best team in the NHL, or to pick his Stanley Cup favourite, and the St. Louis Blues are a common choice. According to Oddschecker, the majority of bookmakers have the Blues behind only the Boston Bruins—a team with a much easier road in the playoffs—as a better bet to win the Stanley Cup.
What makes the Blues stand out from the NHL pack? The combination of new goalie Ryan Miller and a truly exceptional defence really don’t hurt, but it’s instructive to look at how well a no-name forward corps compares to the rest of the league.
We’ll look at two categories of five-on-five statistics: goals for and against, and unblocked shot attempts (“Fenwick”) for and against. The forwards are divided by five-on-five ice time, and their results are compared to players playing similar minutes leaguewide (“NHL Average”) and players on six extremely strong teams (Anaheim, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh and San Jose).
To make the numbers more readable, we’ve taken rate statistics and multiplied them by 82 games played and the median ice time in ea ...
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Article written by Jonathan Willis
Breaking Down the Forwards of the Powerhouse St. Louis Blues
March 28th, 2014 by Jonathan Willis Leave a reply »
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