Dallas Stars October in Review: Hockeymetrics (Part 2)

Friday, I posted part 1 of the Hockeymetric Series on where the Stars stand against the rest of the league in 5-on-4 and 4-on-5 TOI at the end of October. Today, we’ll take a look at where they stand in various Goals For and Goals Against metrics.

For the purposes of this exercise, I’ll be sorting the tables by GF/60 and GA/60. As I mentioned in my last Hockeymetrics post, I think GF/60 and GA/60 metrics do a better job of measuring a power play and penalty kill’s effectiveness than the current method of just taking Goals For and Goals Against and dividing them by the number of power play or penalty killing opportunities.

Statistics After the Jump:

First, we’ll look at the GF/60 stats for 5-on-5 play, which also include Shots For/60 and Shots Against/60. The column +-per60 is simply a Goal Differential (GF/60 – GA/60)

Second to the high scoring Caps in 5-on-5 GF/60? Yeah, you can’t really complain about that. For comparison sake, the Stars ended last season with a 2.6 GF/60 rating and a 2.7 GA/60 at 5-on-5 for a differential of -0.1. Behindthenet shows it at -0.2, but I imagine that’s due to rounding.

So essentially, they’ve turned a -0.2 goal differential into a +0.7. You certainly can’t complain about that.

Next, we’ll take a look at GA/60. This list is sorted from the highest GA/60 to the least. The Stars come in with the 14th fewest GA/60 in the NHL.

Again, last year, the Stars had a GA/60 of 2.7 during 5-on-5 play versus their current 2.4 GA/60 during 5-on-5 play. From a league-wide perspective, Detroit had a GA/60 of 2.5 during 5-on-5 play last season. This year, they’ve checked in with a 2.9.

Next, we’ll look at the GF/60 during 5-on-4 power play time.

Obviously, as well as the Stars have played on 5-on-5 this year, they’ve struggled a bit with the power play with the 22nd highest GF/60 rating in the NHL during 5-on-4 play of 5.3. Last season, the Stars had a 5.1 rating, good for 27th highest in the NHL.

Finally, a look at the 4-on-5 GA/60. As you can probably guess, these numbers won’t be pretty.

Now those statistics speaking for themselves, look who has the 2nd highest GA/60 rating for 5-on-4 play? That’s right, the Red Wings.

Last season, the Stars checked in with a 7.1 GA/60 mark in 4-on-5 shorthanded situations.

Overall Analysis

These stats pretty much confirm what we’ve already learned by watching the team play and comparing their point totals from October 2008 to October 2009. The team has improved in many areas.

Still, it’s not hard to see there’s problem spots in the special teams. Some areas, such as the penalty killing, you’d like to believe they’ll able to get sorted out because it’s been a calling card of this team for a long time, no matter whose been the coach.

The power play, however, is going to a little hit or miss, primarily because of the absence of a puck moving defenseman.