Consider the previous season, when clubs averaged 3.14 goals per game during the regular season and the playoffs.
However, the distribution of those goals changed, with power play goals accounting for a higher percentage of all goals scored (20.7%) to 23.1%. Power plays actually go up a little early in the first round, which adds to the drama in part.
Former Pittsburgh Penguins statistics analyst Cam Charron discovered that power plays rise by 17% in the first four games of the first two rounds of the playoffs while writing for The Athletic last year.
Just instinctually, you know this means that playoff power plays have a ton more leverage. Winning games in the playoffs is literally the whole point and winning games early in the series by its very nature increases your probability of winning the series as a whole.
So fixing the power play is a true non-negotiable for the Vancouver Canucks as they approach their first playoffs in four years, and their first home playoff games in nine years.
Thursday’s controversial goal by the Dallas Stars, scored not long after Jason Robertson wasn’t whistled for a high-sticking the puck, was a perfect example of what the Canucks haven’t been doing of late, Brock Boeser said Saturday after practice at Rogers Arena.
Robertson’s play meant his team recovered possession — not exactly a textbook retrieval, but a puck-retrieval nonetheless, Boeser pointed out.
And the sequence that followed was exactly what Vancouver needs more of: lots of slick passing back and forth, across the defensive box, which got the Canucks’ penalty killers moving and under pressure. Then the Stars got the puck to the net, where Roope Hintz banged it in from next to the crease.
