Quote:
Originally Posted by ForeverAlone
It's not about the goal differential, it's about when we scored the goals.
A decent powerplay would've gotten us into the playoffs.
So many games where we could've just ended other teams' hope for a comeback just by scoring one or two goal in the PP.
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Goal differential is a pretty good marker when you play so many one-goal games like the Habs do. Even if you don't know WHEN the goals were scored, a few extra goals on the plus-side will tilt enough games from losses to wins, precisely because so many of our games are so close. Our goal differential was +7 in 2010/11, -7 this year, and that net-14 difference was reflected pretty accurately in our final record.
So I'm less concerned about WHEN the goals are scored than I am about WHERE. Obviously there's the miserable PP. We're on the PP more than almost any other team, which is great. As you know, our 14.3% PP was good for only 43 PP goals. Last year's PP% was 19.7%, which would've given us 59 goals this year -- an extra 16 goals. There's our goal-differential shift from last year to this.
So yes, the obvious answer is to just improve our terrible PP and we'll be back to 90-something points. But that masks a deeper problem, which is that we need to improve our 5-on-5 offense and get some forward depth if we're going to advance in the playoffs. Our even-strength scoring was 18th in the league. Last year it was 23rd. I think we've fallen into this trap of blaming the PP for everything and forgetting how important even strength scoring is in the playoffs. Playoffs are more about forward depth and even-strength than the regular season. A good regular season record is nice, but we'll never get close to a Cup if all we have are special teams.