Running Some Easy Numbers

One of my favorite stats to keep tabs on NHL teams to help determine who's better than who when teams have similar point totals or who's better or worse than their record may show is goal differential. Total goals scored - Total goals scored against = goal differential. It's sort of a plus/minus for teams rather than players.

Not surprisingly, the top three teams p0ints-wise are also tops in goal differential:

1. Ottawa + 19
2. Detroit +18
3. Carolina +16

And the bottom 3 are all within the bottom 3 of their respective conferences points-wise:

30. Atlanta -20
29. Edmonton -15
28. Tampa Bay -8

But here's the interesting numbers:

-The Northwest-leading Minnesota Wild have the 3rd most points in the league (18), but is merely 8th overall (+4) in G.D.
-Columbus and the New York Rangers have an NHL best 23 goals against so far, but Columbus is +13 in G.D., while the Rangers have scored an NHL-worst 23 goals leaving them with an even (0) G.D. Atlanta has the worst G.D., as posted above, but have scored 14 more goals on the season than the Rangers.
-Toronto must be playing some wild games considering they have matched Atlanta's terrible goals against number (57), but are only a -5 and tied for 5th in the Eastern standings. Toskala? Raycroft? McCabe? Bueller?
- While the Sharks lead the Pacific in the standings, they have a -1 goal differential. Oddly enough this is tied for best G.D. in their division (Los Angeles). That's right - no team in the Pacific has even matched the amount of goals they've given up yet. Funny, considering I heard someone on the NHL Network describe the Southeast division as the "Southleast" again. At least the Southeast has Carolina; who's the other non-traditional division got right now?

Home Vs. Road

Philadelphia - Undefeated at home (4-0), .500 on road (4-4)
NY Rangers - 6-2 at MSG, 1 point in 5 road games (0-4-1)
Tampa Bay - 5-1-1 at home, 0-6 on the road. Good enough for 13th place in the east. Ouch.

San Jose - 1-3 at home, 6-3-1 on the road. They must have a thing for the road whites.
Colorado - 6-1 at home, 2-4 on road.
Vancouver and Phoenix - both 1-6 at home. Phoenix I can understand, but Vancouver winning one out of seven games at home is crazy. I don't care who's not scoring for the Canucks (apparently everybody).

Big move by the B's

A TSN.ca article (with files from the Star Tribune of Minneapolis) dated 6/19 states that Manny Fernandez is "available at a price", but Wild GM Doug Risebrough "is not ready to give him away".

Adds Risebrough:

I don't necessarily believe that the circumstances are there to warrant me from doing anything other than maximizing the value."

Peter Kalus and a 4th rounder don't exactly seem like "maximum value" for Manny Fernandez (who only made $3.75mil last year).

Why would Risebrough have such a change of heart so quickly? I'd venture a guess that with the rise in the cap Risebrough was given the go-ahead to try and land a key free agent tomorrow.

Dumping $3.75 million (or whatever Fernandez will count for in '07-'08 cap room) might not seem like a ton, but for a small-market team like Minnesota it's enough room to land a quality 2nd-tier guy.

Big win for the Bruins. But not a loss for the Wild - especially if they are able to land the FA they want in the coming days. They still have Backstrom...