Game 29 By the Numbers: Jets at Avalanche

Hello! This series aims to summarize fancy and traditional statistical trends and oddities from the last game. Feel free to direct complaints about stats being the alpha and omega to @AntonStrawman.

It only takes a quick look at the shots counter to tell that something funky went on in this game, from NHL.com no less:

	COL Goals	COL Shots	WPG Shots	WPG Goals
1st	0	10	8	0
2nd	1	4	16	2
3rd	2	7	5	1
OT	0	5	4	0

What an appallingly low-event game except that 2nd period. Usually we see this kind of thing if one team has a major power play or something, but here is the even strength running Corsi +/- from Natural Stat Trick:

Between the 1-1 goal and the second intermission, Colorado were an appalling -15 if I'm eyeballing this right. You'll remember this was the part of the game where teams traded rushes for what felt like forever. Winnipeg produced chances off theirs. Colorado did not. I had a look down the 2nd period zone starts at even strength on war-on-ice and every single faceoff (neutral zone excluded) was in front of Calvin Pickard.

So how on Earth did the Avalanche win a game with such a disastrous span of hockey?

5v5 Corsi by Period

1st	COL +2
2nd	WPG +15
3rd	COL +1

This helps. The problem was very isolated. Except for the Fifteen Minutes of Terror, it was fairly even.

Who hit the net? (EV, includes 4v4)

	Attempts blocked	Missed shots	Shots on goal
COL	12	6	23
WPG	15	14	23

Winnipeg missed the cage a lot, 8 times in the 2nd period alone. The Avs dodged this bullet quite literally. The Jets just could not hit them.

The other thing that happened is that Colorado won the even strength battle 3-1. Pickard outplayed Pavelec. Not that it's particularly hard to outplay a goalie who lets in 3/23 but it kept Colorado within striking distance.

Finally, just for fun, let's look at individual player possession +/-, because this shows up on war on ice now and it's really nice to have.

Why yes, that is darling of the Corsiatti Nate Guenin with an extremely fine performance by the numbers. I thought so by watching too, but just to hammer home the point, here's a complete list of Avs skaters with a positive 5v5 Corsi differential in the second period. Keep in mind the entire team had 0% offensive zone starts.

• Nate Guenin

Odds and Ends

• Ouch for Zach Redmond, who was roughly +6/-17 in the Corsis. Yet he ended up a +1 in the plusminus. If you're a fan of process over results, don't be deceived by this one.
• Matt Duchene was worse but he also had a goal and an assist. He tied for the team lead among non-outliers in SOG (3, with O'Reilly). Little more of a wash there.
• Mark Scheifele led the way with 1G 2A. Duchene (1G 1A), Alex Tanguay (2A), and Michael Frolik (2A) also produced.
• I said early on in this one that Landeskog was on pace for roughly a million bajillion SOG. He ended with 7. He had 1 blocked and missed 0 times. He also had quite a few SoF in this one, to my surprise (Shots on Face). Some kind of fight eh?
  
• Your overall individual attempts leader, sadly, was Dustin Byfuglien (5 shots, 4 misses, 2 blocked).
• After Winnipeg goal 3, Borna Rendulic did not play another shift. Linemate Dennis Everberg did, despite them being recipient and passer on that play respectively. Interesting that it's Paul Carey who got sent down today.
• TOI Leaders: Byfuglien (29:58), Jacob Trouba (29:33), Erik Johnson (28:35).
  
• I totally missed that Ondrej Pavelec got called for tripping Matt Duchene. Lol. Take that Mr. .885 SV%!
• There is no clear Mr. Irrelevant today (zero impact on the events summary). Honorable mention: Cody McLeod (2 bullshit PiM, 4 hits, 2 takeaways), Borna Rendulic (6:27 TOI, 2 hits, 1 takeaway).