Into The Weeds: Few teams play as many close games as these Dallas Stars. How do they do in that gamestate?
It's complicated.
Apologies for the lack of a recap for last night’s total dumpstering of the Canucks. It was just a little too late for my blood, although I did watch the fourth line, Miro Heiskanen, and Lian Bichsel body the entire Vancouver squad. I will be ready for whatever happens ahead of the deadline, and I intend to do more trade writing. For now, I want to take a break from all that and get down back to my roots with some homecooking today.
Before last night’s back alley beatdown, the Dallas Stars spent 79 percent of their time on ice in a tied gamestate. That’s seventh in the NHL. Some of the teams above them are very good, like Minnesota. Some of them are quite bad, like Chicago and New Jersey. Some of the teams that are rarely playing in tied situations are very good, like Colorado and Tampa Bay. Some of them are quite bad, like Calgary and Winnipeg. I would call it neutral information.
But here’s a fun stat. The Dallas Stars lead the league in goals-for percentage in tied situations. With 47 goals for, and 32 against, that’s a 59.49 percent goal share, ahead of Washington, Columbus, Pittsburgh, and Carolina.
There is an entire study to be done on what something like this means in the modern era. Early research in 2011 showed that a team’s future wins could be predicted less by a team’s points in the standings than their shot differential in a tied game state. But that kind of work, aside from being beyond my capacity, is for another time.
For today, I just want to know: within that 79 percent, how does Dallas perform? If the Stars intend to play close games now and in the future, what can we expect? Are they winning this gamestate because of deployment, shooting percentage, save percentage…what, exactly?
