ST. PAUL, MN - APRIL 8: Mikko Koivu #9 of the Minnesota Wild scores the game winning overtime shootout goal against Tuukka Rask #40 of the Boston Bruins on April 8, 2014 at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota. (Photo by Bruce Kluckhohn/NHLI via Getty Images)
Although I haven't officially completed a survey on the topic, I think it's unanimous that Boston Bruins' fans are grateful that shootouts do not exist in playoff hockey. As a matter of fact, I think many fans would be more comfortable seeing Claude Julien pull Tuukka Rask from the net and hope that we could score on the man advantage.
If you are wondering if our shootouts are really that bad, you can stop wondering right now. Yes, they are that bad. If you look through most NHL team statistics this year, you will see the Bruins are typically at the top in every category you can think of. This is far from the case when it comes to shootout accuracy where we are almost at the bottom. If you take a second to look at shootout accuracy you will see that we are 27th of 30 teams when it comes to scoring goals via the shootout. As a team the Bruins have a success rate of 21.2%. So, who is the team with the best percentage? None other than the team trying to take the Presidents' Trophy from us, the St. Louis Blues. The Blues are setting the bar with a 48.8% success rate. For those who are mathematically challenged, that means that the Blues score on shootout attempts more than twice as often as the Bruins. Like I said earlier, good thing there aren't shootouts in the playoffs.
If you are wondering why all this talk about shootouts, it's because the Bruins lost to the Minnesota Wild tonight via the shootout. There are a couple of reasons why this loss hurt. The first reason is that the Bruins were leading with a little over one minute left when Minnesota tied it up. What made the tying goal hurt worse is that we just missed an open net goal which would have given us a two goal advantage. This gave me a mini-flashback of this year's Women's Olympic Ice Hockey gold medal game. For me and many people on twitter, the final kicker with the shootout was our lame attempts. While I can not recall all 33 of our shot attempts, it does seem like we are aiming at the goalie most of the time.
Besides the fact that playoff games are not decided by shootouts, there is also another shootout bonus which may benefit the Bruins. When it comes to determining who gets the better seed when teams have accumulated the same amount of points, the tiebreaker goes to the team with the most non-shootout wins. This could come in handy if the Bruins and Blues finish the regular season with the same amount of points and meet in the Stanley Cup. As it stands now the Bruins hold a 3 point advantage over the Blues with 3 games (6 potential points) left to play. Anaheim and Colorado are also within striking distance of the Presidents Trophy as they are also less than 6 points behind the Bruins with 3 games left to play.
Besides the fact that playoff games are not decided by shootouts, there is also another shootout bonus which may benefit the Bruins. When it comes to determining who gets the better seed when teams have accumulated the same amount of points, the tiebreaker goes to the team with the most non-shootout wins. This could come in handy if the Bruins and Blues finish the regular season with the same amount of points and meet in the Stanley Cup. As it stands now the Bruins hold a 3 point advantage over the Blues with 3 games (6 potential points) left to play. Anaheim and Colorado are also within striking distance of the Presidents Trophy as they are also less than 6 points behind the Bruins with 3 games left to play.
If you like what you've read here, share with your friends and follow @BOSsportschick on twitter.
RSS Feed
