Post
by Waffle » Tue Apr 24, 2012 2:50 pm
Do I detect a note of sarcasm there Puck? I hope I have read you correctly.
If you make a couple of mistakes more than your opponent, you may win. If you make a whole bunch more, your chances of winning are drastically less. How many mistakes did you see LA make?
The mistakes weren't just on plays that resulted in goals for LA. The mistakes took many forms: give aways or not clearing the zone attempts that resulted in more in your zone time and scoring chances for the other team (and thus less for your own and more work containing them); poor moving the puck decisions; poor line changes; dumb penalties; more yapping than playing; and so on.
Overall in the series according to the data at Canucks Army, the Canucks were outchanced 97 to 78. In game 5, with the Canucks presumably laying it all on the line to stave off elimination, they were outchanced 30 to 21 overall, 26 to 16 at even strength, and 15 to 6 with the score tied. Over the last 24 min of the game, they were outchanced 16 to 4.
if you believe that LA has a significantly superior team compared to the Canucks, these numbers will make sense although I would challenge any statistical basis for that belief. If you believe that they aren't, then you will wonder if there are other reasons for these numbers. I believe that mental fatigue played a significant role and that the Canucks were just mentally not playing well, ie, making mistakes. There were definitely other factors too, like Kessler's problems, and perhaps Bieska if the rumors are correct. I will concede that Keystone cops isn't the best descriptive phrase to use, but I couldn't think of a better one to convey the idea that the Canucks, as Salo said, made way too many mistakes.