Teams play all season for the home-ice advantage. Are they wasting their time?
Looking strictly at this year's first round, you'd be tempted to say yes, because teams that had the home-ice edge split the eight series -- with the higher-seeded teams winning all four series in the East and losing all four in the West. It's the first time since the current playoff format was adopted in 1994 that all four lower-seeded teams have won in the same conference -- and only the fourth time all four higher seeds in a conference have won.
Despite this year's 4-4 showing by higher-seeded teams, they still hold a 62-34 edge over lower-seeded teams in the opening round under the current format.
But it's the second round where the home-ice edge really shows up. In 11 years (44 series) under the current format, higher-seeded teams have won 33 times, a .750 winning percentage. Only in 1997, 2001 and 2003 have lower-seeded teams managed as much as a split of the four series.
In terms of winning games, home teams had their worst first-round showing in this century. Home clubs won 21 and lost 23 in the opening round, the first time that's happened in the 21st Century. In contrast, teams playing at home were 30-17 in the first round during the last Stanley Cup Playoffs in 2004.
Lucky Sevens -- Teams seeded seventh continued their success this year. At least one seventh-seeded team has beaten a second seed every year since 1996, and seventh seeds are 14-10 overall under the current format. But while Colorado Avalanche fans are excited about their team's upset of second-seeded Dallas in the opening round, here's some bad news: Seventh seeds are only 3-10 in the second round.
No blanks -- Goal-scoring in the first round was up more than 33 percent from 2004, from 4.4 per game to 5.9. Not surprisingly, there was a corresponding absence of shutouts. Only four times in the 44 opening-round games did a team fail to score -- the fewest shutouts since there were three in the opening round in 1996, and 10 fewer than the 14 first-round whitewashes in 2004.
Fast starts -- If they hope to beat the Ottawa Senators, the Buffalo Sabres would be well-advised to emulate the early success they had in the first round against Philadelphia. Not only did the Sabres score first in every game, they scored fast: Buffalo got the game-opening tally no later than 11:15 of the first period in all six games. In three of the games, the Sabres had a 1-0 lead after less than three minutes of play. For the series, the Sabres outscored Philadelphia 13-2 in the opening 20 minutes.
The Senators did score first in four of their five games against Tampa Bay, but they outscored the Lightning only 6-5 in the opening 20 minutes.
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The Rangers' Henrik Lundqvist committed the only delay of game penalty by a goaltender in the first round.
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Delayed in traffic -- Goaltenders were much better than skaters at avoiding the dreaded delay of game penalty in the opening round. There were 18 delay of game calls in the 44 first-round games, but just one (to the Rangers' Henrik Lundqvist) in Game 2 against New Jersey) was assessed against a goaltender. Defensemen took 10, while the other seven were assessed to forwards.
Four of the 18 (22.2 percent) resulted in power-play goals, including one during a two-man advantage (the overall power-play percentage was 19.1 percent). But that figure could have been higher: Teams had to kill off four 5-on-3s caused by delay of game calls, and the Colorado Avalanche won Game 5 against Dallas in overtime despite having to kill off a delay of game call 45 seconds into the extra period.
Double trouble -- The Detroit Red Wings rolled to the Presidents' Trophy partly by avoiding losing streaks. The Wings didn't lose back-to-back games from January 23-24 (both to Nashville) until the end of the season, winning all eight games following a loss. That streak fell apart in the first round of the playoffs against Edmonton -- the Oilers handed the Wings a pair of back-to-back losses, winning Games 2 and 3 to take a 2-1 lead in the series, then closing out the Wings by winning Games 5 and 6.
One reason for the Wings' struggles against Edmonton was the play of forward Pavel Datsyuk, who went without a goal while struggling with an injury. In 21 playoff games over the past three seasons, Datsyuk has no goals and only nine assists. His last playoff goal came in Game 7 of the 2002 Western Conference finals -- 26 games ago.
Big Deal A lot of people thought Edmonton GM Kevin Lowe paid a big price to acquire goaltender Dwayne Roloson from Minnesota at the trading deadline -- after all, Roloson can be a free agent this summer. Lowe probably isn't hearing many complaints these days after Roloson's spectacular play against Detroit. Roloson faced 238 shots in six games (39.5 per game), more than any other netminder in the opening round, and stopped 221 -- a .929 save percentage. Detroit's Manny Legace allowed 18 goals (only one more than Roloson) on 155 shots, a .884 percentage.
Short and sweet -- The New Jersey Devils were last in the NHL during the regular season with only three shorthanded goals. Maybe all they needed was a few more games against the New York Rangers. The Devils matched their regular-season total by scoring three shorthanded tallies in their four-game sweep of the Rangers.
The three shorthanded goals allowed by the Rangers equaled half of the number they allowed during the 82-game regular season.
