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Can the Blues beat the Blackhawks in 7 Game Series?



The Nashville Predators have led the Central Division for almost the entirety of the season. The St. Louis Blues and Chicago Blackhawks have been chasing the Preds and each other all season as well. So what if the Predators hold on and win to create a Blues vs Blackhawks first round series, who would win that series? Let's compare the 3 games played between the two teams this season.

The most recent meeting between the two hated rivals ended in a 4-2 Blackhawks victory. The two meetings before were a 3-2 Blues win and a 4-1 Blackhawks win. That puts the series at a 10-5 aggregate score in favor of the Blackhawks. This makes it seem like the Blackhawks absolutely dominate their rivals from St. Louis, but do they really dominate? If you look at the fancy stats, the Blues start to look a lot better than the score shows.

Looking at the Corsi charts for all three games reveals that the Blues have controlled the game every time this season.
Game 1 Game 2 Game 3
The Blues had the better Corsi in 7/9 periods against the Blackhawks, yet fall behind drastically in the goals column. "Why" is the question that everyone is asking, for obvious reasons. One of the potential reasons is the Power Play. St. Louis has the 2nd best PP in the NHL at 24% while Chicago is a mediocre 18.7% for 18th in the league. Those numbers are nullified however once you look at the opposing Penalty Kill in which Chicago leads the league at 88% and St. Louis falls to 18th at 80.5%. The leagues #2 PP vs. the #1 PK creates a fun and unique matchup, and apparently the defense is more important. There have been 16 Power Plays between the Blues and Blackhawks: 7 for Chicago, 9 for St. Louis. Against the Blackhawks, the Blues haven't scored a PPG while the Blackhawks have 3 for 43%PP. Power Plays are about seizing opportunity and the Blues aren't able to capitalize on those chances.

Ok, so let's remove the PPG that the Blackhawks obviously have the advantage in. The aggregate is still in Chicago's favor at 7-5. Take out the empty netter from the last game and now the aggregate is 6-5 Blackhawks, a lot less dominant than they originally were. So now that we're only looking at even strength goals, let's look at even strength Corsi.
G1EV G2EV G3EV
All of a sudden things are a lot more ... well, even. The Blues had the better Corsi in 5.5/9 periods to the Blackhawks 4.5/9 (I'm calling the 1st period of the 2nd game a tie), which is not as impressive as the 7/9 they had in all situations. If you're a fan of the Fenwick, the Blues still have a huge advantage, posting a better Fenwick in all situations and even strength in 6/9 periods.
all sit ev
(Please excuse the poor quality of my handmade Excel graphs)

The Fenwick and the Corsi stats are there, the Blues control the game more than the 'Hawks. The 'Hawks are taking advantage of their opportunities more than their rivals, it's that simple. The Great One said "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take," but if you miss 100% of the shots you do take while your opponent hits all of theirs, you're still going to lose.

Momentum is a huge part of sports and in hockey, goals create momentum regardless of even strength or power play. The Blackhawks take advantage of their PPs and create momentum which results in the enormous goal advantage against their rivals. Many Blues fans are playing the luck card saying the 'Hawks got all of the lucky bounces. Sorry guys, but the Blues are 4th in PDO, the mathematical equivalent of luck, with 101.26 while Chicago is down at 10th with 100.74, so St. Louis is technically the luckier team this season. (I can't find any team-to-team PDO stats, if anyone can direct me to those, please do.)

Many blues fans have been pointing to the absence of Kevin Shattenkirk and Jori Lehtera in the last game as a reason for the loss. While Shattenkirk is the PPP leader, he still, obviously, hasn't had a PPP against the 'Hawks. And Shattenkirk is one of the Blues' better defensemen who might have helped slow the 'Hawks scoring, but he's still -2 this season against them. Lehtera meanwhile has never grecorded a point against Chicago and sits at -1. In reality, the Blues have no one individual person to blame for their poor performance against Chicago. If the Blues want to beat their rival continue to do what they've been doing with one change: score on the Power Play. If the Blues matched Chicago's PP% of 43%, they would cut the aggregate to 10-9. That one goal difference is brought on by an empty netter.

So to answer the initial question, "Can the Blues beat the Blackhawks?" I'll say: YES.
If the Blues can get the puck in the net on the power play and stay healthy the Blues could finally advance to the second round and closer to their ever elusive first Stanley Cup.


(I must give some credit to Trevor Kraus who wrote his post that inspired me to look deeper at the stats and write this post)

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