The Key to Making the Playoffs May Be How Awful the Pacific Division Is

The Pacific Division is flat out the worst on average. I took a full chart of five-on-five team stats from war-on-ice (a total of 138 different stats), averaged by division, and ranked them – 1 being the best, 4 being the worst. I then averaged the rankings and found that the Pacific Division to have an average ranking of 3.275 – far and away the worst division in the NHL.

Pacific teams average the largest number High Danger Scoring Chances For (HSCF), and the highest HSCF per 60 minutes. However, they also average the highest HSC Against, leaving their HSC ratio pretty poor. Pacific Division teams also draw more penalties than any other division, with an average of 27.6 penalties drawn, compared to the league average of 25.4.

The Kings were a bit streaky last season. They’d periodically get on sizable winning streaks, causing everyone to shout “WATCH OUT, the Kings are back!”, only to stumble back into mediocrity. I can see the Kings following a similar pattern this season, so I would expect this current run to halt at some point. But given the state of the rest of the division, the Kings seem like a safe bet to remain at or near the top of the Pacific for some time.

Given how the Coyotes finished last season, the general consensus was that they were supposed to be pretty awful again this year. So going 3-0-0 out of the gate was a bit of a surprise.

Then things got a little bit more normal with four straight losses. A few games later, they’re sitting on 11 points (tied with the Canucks, except with an extra game played), and an impressive five wins in regulation.

However, it appears that their record isn’t telling the whole story. The Coyotes have controlled possession to the tune of 46.4% at evens, fourth worst in the league. During their hot start, they were sporting an unearthly PDO, which has since began its descent – but now at 103, it’s safe to say that it still has some ways to go.

The Sharks were a bit of a wild card going into the season, having missed the playoffs in 2014-15 and generally looking like a shadow of their former selves. But, armed with a new head coach, and a new starting goalie (who had never been a starting goalie before), the Sharks got themselves off to a strong start, led by the aforementioned new starting goaltender.

At five-on-five, San Jose has a nice even CF% of 50%, with shooting and save percentages sitting a little above league averages.

San Jose seems to have sorted out some of their crap and could be in for a solid year. However, making the playoffs is the high bar for them right now; they certainly aren’t likely to be dominant. Logan Couture breaking his leg and requiring surgery isn’t going to help either.

Additionally, it remains to be seen just how consistent Martin Jones can be. Shortly after setting a franchise record shutout streak, he gave up four goals in back-to-back games.

Oh look, it’s our old friends, the Oilers, and they’ve gotten themselves yet another shiny new first overall pick. And what’s that, he’s a generational talent? That’s adorable.

Okay, seriously, Connor McDavid appears to be the real deal. After a very Oilers-y start to his career, he’s up to 10 points in 10 games. Furthermore, the Oilers actually have strong-ish goaltending for once. Even the defence has improved, partially by addition and partially by subtraction. Burying Nikita Nikitin in the minors and routinely scratching Andrew Ference goes a long way to improve overall defensive ability.

However, the Oilers are still the Oilers. They’re scoring a decent amount of goals, but letting in many more. For all of their incremental improvements, the results are looking awfully familiar. Their CorsiFor percentage of 45.9% is third last in the league, and their five-on-five save percentage of .909 is pretty close to the bottom as well. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

With their fancy new coaching and systems that are more reminiscent of hockey and less of insect flight patterns, the Oilers will start to put it together at some point this season. However, it’ll likely be too late to be any sort of playoff threat.

Calgary’s story is a sad one if you’re a Flames fan. If you’re not a Flames fan, though, it’s pretty hilarious.

Last year, the Flames were supposed to have no business making the playoffs, trudging through the season with outrageous shooting percentages, laughing in the face of fancy stats while they mounted a ridiculous amount of third-period comebacks. They made the playoffs. They reached the second round.

Then in the off-season, they ostensibly got better, bringing in stud defender Dougie Hamilton and top six forward Michael Frolik. Add to that the addition of a full season of 19-year old Sam Bennett and the maturing of star players Sean Monahan and Johnny Gaudreau, the Flames were actually expected to be good.

So naturally it follows that they’ve shit the bed pretty thoroughly.

They’re back where they feel comfortable: near the bottom of the Corsi heap, owning a CF% of 47.2, fifth worst in the league. Couple that with a league-worst five-on-five save percentage of .878 and a brutal shooting percentage of 5.2%, and it’s no wonder that they have a league-worst goal differential of -18 at evens. To top it off, their power play is middling and their penalty kill is pretty awful. And, uh-oh, their best goalie just sustained a lower body injury. It doesn’t look like this rough ride is stopping quite yet.

Sinking to the floor of the Pacific is the team that won the division title just one season ago. The Anaheim Ducks are inexplicably horrible this season, and I’m not at all broken up over it.

There is plenty of insistence for around the league that the Ducks are not as bad as their record indicates. True to that argument, they have a respectable possession ratio of 51.1% at even strength. Further to that, they have one of the league’s worst PDOs, at 95.8, thanks largely to their absolutely brutal 5-on-5 shooting percentage of 3%, easily the worst in the NHL.

Up until now, the Ducks have scored just nine goals in nine games. Even weirder, none of those goals have been scored by Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry or Ryan Kesler.

Of course, this cannot possibly continue. Eventually, Getzlaf and Perry are going to start finding the net, and they’ll probably start stringing some wins together. The question is, how far back will they be at that point?

Like pretty much every team in the Pacific, the Canucks have been plagued by losing streaks, dropping the first four games of a five-game home stand. However, they’ve managed to squeeze 11 points out of their first 9 games, which is enough to sit near the top of the division.

The Canucks are near the bottom of the league in possession, controlling just 47.7% of shot attempts at even strength. However, that number improves to 49.7% in close situations (+/- 1 goal in the first and second periods, tied in the third period), a more respectable ratio. Their FenwickFor percentage of 49.4% at evens, and 51.7% when the score is close, also looks better. It certainly helps that the Canucks have blocked a ton of shots so far. Their Shots For percentage is also close to even, at 49.8%.

The Canucks have been buoyed by goaltending thus far, as Ryan Miller is having a bit of a renaissance start to his season, with an even strength save percentage of .943. Whether or not that continues is a mystery, but it’s also likely they start getting more production out of their top line – Daniel and Henrik Sedin have just six and four points respectively in nine games.

I certainly wouldn’t expect Vancouver to be any sort of a powerhouse this season, but it does seem possible for them to continue on getting points at roughly the clip they are now. 11 points in 9 games works out to be about 100 points over the course of a season – right around where they were last season. That’s probably far too optimistic, but the context is a little different this year.

The real key is that, with the new playoff structure, there will be three Pacific teams in the playoffs no matter what.

Who those three are going to be is a very interesting question at this point. If I had to guess, I’d say that San Jose and Los Angeles have the best chances to finish 1 and 2, but after that things get messy. Edmonton and Arizona started off alright, but they really aren’t ready to push for the playoffs yet, and shouldn’t really be a threat. Meanwhile Calgary and Anaheim, which really should improve, may already be too far gone.

It might seem early, but very few teams make the playoffs if they’re that far back by Halloween. Last season, only one team with less than 10 points by October 31st went on to make the playoffs, and that was Winnipeg who had 9.

At this point, it seems like a no-brainer that both the wild card positions will be taken by Central Division teams, who are looking remarkably strong. In fact, it seems possible – or even likely – that as many as six Central teams finish above the third place Pacific team.

Lucky for us, the Canucks don’t have to beat out those Central teams. They don’t even have to be good – they simply have to be the fifth worst team in a terrible division.