Thought this was an interesting line of analysis. While it can’t tell the whole story in isolation, I do think it’s telling that Matthews and Marner in particular continue to tilt the ice favorably in the playoffs, but score far less while doing so relative to the regular season. Essentially playing at a similar expected advantage, but producing fewer points, theoretically in the pursuit of playing “playoff hockey.”
The result, also pulled from the article, is for example that the Leafs in the playoffs allow more than one goal fewer while Matthews plays than do the Oilers while McDavid plays… but they also score more than two goals fewer. The Leafs’ defense improves, but at such a cost of offense that it’s net negative.
Bringing in signings for qualities like “grit” and “sandpaper” only exacerbates the issue, because then you’re going to be leaning that much more on your top forwards to score. But the apparent approach to postseason play could be limiting their scoring in the name of tighter defense.
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Thought this was an interesting line of analysis. While it can’t tell the whole story in isolation, I do think it’s telling that Matthews and Marner in particular continue to tilt the ice favorably in the playoffs, but score far less while doing so relative to the regular season. Essentially playing at a similar expected advantage, but producing fewer points, theoretically in the pursuit of playing “playoff hockey.”
The result, also pulled from the article, is for example that the Leafs in the playoffs allow more than one goal fewer while Matthews plays than do the Oilers while McDavid plays… but they also score more than two goals fewer. The Leafs’ defense improves, but at such a cost of offense that it’s net negative.
Bringing in signings for qualities like “grit” and “sandpaper” only exacerbates the issue, because then you’re going to be leaning that much more on your top forwards to score. But the apparent approach to postseason play could be limiting their scoring in the name of tighter defense.