If it is Tuesday, then it must be time for statistical oddities. Basically god help us all with our five for this week. They will make your head spin. We have one from the Penguins and then we add four more. Let’s see if we can get some heads scratching.
The Penguins power play clicks at 31.2% in the first period folks…that’s good. As a matter of fact it is very good but that number drops down to 5.8% in the second period and 5% in the third period and beyond. This is a team that has Malkin and Crosby right? Give a quick hat tip to Sam Rosen from MSG last night but one thing I have to ask here is this. How in the wide wide world of sports do the Pittsburgh Penguins get “discouraged” on the man advantage with the talent they have? Does this team need a psychologist maybe? Yet they lead the conference with 38 points…go figure.
This one is also just as unbelievable. Remember how bad the Columbus Power Play was last year? Remember well because those days are long gone. The switch has been flipped. This year they lead the league at a 24.8% clip. Anton Stralman (WHO?) has all 4 of his goals via the man advantage. Rick Nash is a beast and converting as well with 4 goals and 6 assists in these situations. The Blue Jackets have 25 PPG’s overall. They did not get 25 PPG’s until March last season.
The crazy season of Ryan Miller continues. The numbers are insane and off the charts and honestly odd. The East Lansing, Michigan native is 15-4-2 with a 1.84 GAA and .937 save percentage. Now granted his career numbers are very good (2.60 GAA and .912 save percentage) but did anyone see this coming? We did a little bit but nothing like this. In 21 starts this year, Miller has only given up 3 or more goals FOUR times. That is it…just four. Basically the equivalent of a quality start in baseball. Miller’s quality ice start as I will call it percentage is over 80%. The last time anyone started out like this was Dominik Hasek in the 97-98 season with Buffalo. His QIS was at 84% thru 25 starts that year.
This one taken straight from the stats bureaus of the world and of course Mr. Leahy. Mike Rupp never scored more than 6 goals in a season and yet he potted 3 last night against the New York Rangers. This is not the first time Rupp has come out of nowhere and pulled off what seemed like an offensive improbability. Game 7 of the 2003 Stanley Cup Finals where Rupp had a goal, 2 assists and was a +3. It also was the last time he was a +3 as well. Rupp has 8 goals now on the season in just 28 games. Who knew?
Lastly, from the weird land of plus/minus is this one. Pavel Kubina, who is not exactly known for studious defense has seemed to grow up all of a sudden. He is a career -86 but yet in just 23 games this year, Kubina is a whopping +16. Hell his career high is a +9 I believe set in the 2003-04 cup year with Tampa Bay. Maybe it is the fact that he is playing with a bunch of Russians and is in relative anonymity in Atlanta. Whatever the case, something is working well down in Atlanta and more should pay attention.
Until next week….the oddities are running away but first a little video…….
Watching this and its still WEIRD!
