Oil Spill
In what could become a defining stretch of their season, Florida has found themselves unfortunate losers in their last three games, all at their home FLA Live Arena. The Cats had only lost 3 of their first 26 home games prior to this funk. 16 goals against in just 3 games is not easy to overcome. Florida’s goaltenders gave up at least four goals in every game of this losing streak despite never facing shots adding up to 3 xG (per NST). The offense tried valiantly to outscore their poor goaltending, but didn’t get lucky enough to come out on top.
Just how bad did the percentages burn the Panthers in the last week of games? From February 21st on, the Panthers scored 2.76 fewer goals than expected, while conceding a whopping 7.02 more goals than expected. The combined 9.78 goal differential below expected was the worst in the league for that week by a large margin.
In a tight race for the Atlantic Division crown, these three losses feel immensely consequential. But it’s difficult to extract pessimistic predictive indicators out of the results.
The Ides of Marchment
Get a load of this.
Let’s check in on our favorite third line’s 5v5 stats, now with 115:07 of time on ice.1
Goals: 17 for, 3 against, 85% (3rd in NHL)
Goal Rates: 8.87 GF/60 (1st in NHL); 1.56 GA/60 (32nd in NHL)
Corsi: 128 for, 73 against, 63.7% (4th in NHL)
Corsi Rates: 66.75 CF/60 (23rd in NHL); 38.07 CA/60 (3rd in NHL)
Fenwick: 95 for, 56 against, 62.9% (8th in NHL)
Expected Goals: 6.53 xGF, 3.36 xGA (66.03%)2, 7.2 xGF, 3.6 xGA (66.7%)3 [3rd in NHL]
Expected Goals Rate4: 3.75 xGF/60 (9th in NHL); 1.88 xGA/60 (17th in NHL)
There’s very few stats where this line doesn’t rank within the 90th percentile, whether it comes to defense or offense. Enjoy the ride!
Tippett and Rip It
Is Owen Tippett just unlucky, or has his shooting talent regressed significantly?
In all situations, Tippett is averaging 1.01 iXG per 60 minutes this year while on the Panthers. This not a bad mark by any means; It’s higher than teammates Carter Verhaeghe, Jonathan Huberdeau, and Anton Lundell, among others. But his .68 goals per 60 minutes is second worst amongst the team’s forwards, only ahead of Ryan Lomberg. Tippett’s .65 goals per 60 minutes 5v5 is also only ahead of Lomberg, though it is tied with Eetu Luostarinen at the same mark.5
Remember when he was supposed to possess the best shot in his draft class?
Tippett was sent down to the AHL last week and continued a good stretch of playmaking; he’s up to 6 assists in 5 AHL games. The caveat of the nice assist production; Tippett’s got 19 shots on goal in those 5 games and has yet to score. Just under 4 shots on goal per game makes him the most consistent shot contributor for the Charlotte Checkers on a per-game basis. He hasn’t scored yet. Tippett had 8 shots on goal in Springfield Saturday, still didn’t score.
Tippett shot 15.3% in the 2019-20 AHL season. He’s clearly generating opportunities, getting off shots, and getting them on net. Still, he’s not scoring. This doesn’t make sense. I’m inclined to believe it’s just as likely that the floodgates are about to open for him than that this is a true reflection of his shooting ability.
League ranks limited to 135 eligible lines with >100 minutes together via MoneyPuck
via Natural Stat Trick
via MoneyPuck
See 3.
See 3.