Claimed: Can Helsinki Take Down Davos?

[CowboyinAmerica 2,889]

 

Operation Threepeat, Still in Effect?

 

Last week, I took a look at what it would take for the Calgary Wranglers to take down the Toronto Legion. This week, I take a look at the first round matchup in the other conference: the Helsinki Titans and the Davos Dynamo.

 

At a glance, this would seem to be more obvious chance for an upset. The Titans are two-time reigning champions, after all, and they dispatched Davos in 5 games in the European conference finals just last year. But one year makes a big difference, especially for a Davos team that has been seeing tremendous growth. The Dynamo ended up finishing with 23 more points than the Titans this year, just 3 off the best record in the league, and Davos went 5-3 with one OT loss against Helsinki this year.

 

So will we see an upset? There are a few reasons why we could. Here’s what Helsinki needs to do to keep a run at the Threepeat (trademark: Toronto) alive.

 

Three Statistical Reasons Could Beat

 

1. Maybe 3-5 ain’t that bad: The story of Helsinki this season is a simple one: Beat the bad teams, and get killed against the good teams. Against the Vikings and Americans, the Titans went a crisp 16-0 this season, with only one of those games even going to OT. They outscored the Americans a ridiculous 31-2 during their eight game season series. Playing the top teams, though, proved a challenge – the Titans went 2-14 against the Meute and Reign, with their one win against Riga also coming in OT.

 

That could prove to be an issue for Helsinki if they make the European Conference finals – but that’s not the point of this article. Davos is a team that Helsinki seemingly matches up against, going 3-5 in 8 games and losing the goal differential by only 6 (23 to 17). While that still favors Davos, for sure, the series looks to be more of a toss up than, say, Helsinki drawing Riga in the first round. Anything can happen in a 7 game series.

 

2. The PK can’t be worse: In those eight games against Davos, Helsinki went on the penalty kill 34 times. That’s not great, but it’s certainly not as bad as this: The Titans gave up 9 power play goals over those chances, resulting in a staggering 74 percent penalty kill rate. That’s Helsinki’s second worst among all teams (they gave up 9 in 23 chances to Riga, an abysmal 60 percent rate). That’s also Davos’s second best power play rate among all opponents, behind their 28 percent rate against Toronto.

 

To be fair, Davos is a particularly strong team on the power play, averaging a 22 percent conversion rate over the season. But they’re not that strong. I would expect Davos’s power play to come back to earth and hover right around 20 percent for the series, which extrapolated out would mean about two fewer power play goals for the entire series. And if those goals were taken away in the right places, it would mean a huge change in momentum.

 

3. First line turnaround: In most cases, one would expect the first line to score the highest number of goals against a given opponent. That would make sense, after all, since the first line typically has the most talented members of the forward corps. That holds true for the most part for Helsinki – the first line either had the most goals scored or were one behind the second line in 8 out of 9 season series. The one outlier? Take a guess.

 

The Helsinki first line had an abysmal 3 goals in 8 games against Davos this season, far below the second line (6) or even the third line (7). A large portion of this can probably be attributed to simply not putting the puck on net, as Helsinki’s 187 total shots against Davos were the only total below 200 against an opposing team this season. While this could partially be contributed to a Davos blue line that has talented first line players Lee King Snatch and Guntis Petenis, I’m curious why the same didn’t apply to other teams with talented defenders like Quebec, Riga or Calgary. I bet this regresses to the mean as well and the Helsinki first line has more than 3 goals this series.

[Gudnason 607]

Cologne fans rejoice you weren't included with the trash that is NYA and STO

 

[boubabi 4,725]

E 

 

Z 

 

 

[Da Trifecta 1,896]

@CowboyinAmerica <3 bud

[STZ 5,358]

2 hours ago, punkhippie said:

Cologne fans rejoice you weren't included with the trash that is NYA and STO

 

 

When was the last time Cologne had a meaningful season?

[TheLastOlympian07 2,388]

RIP Helsinki you had a good run

[Da Trifecta 1,896]

5 minutes ago, TheLastOlympian07 said:

RIP Helsinki you had a good run

 

[hedgehog337 3,483]

4 minutes ago, KGR said:

 

 

FTFY

[Higgins 3,618]

get rezxked

[Da Trifecta 1,896]

55 minutes ago, hedgehog337 said:

 

FTFY

 

 

Edited September 18, 2017 by KGR

[hedgehog337 3,483]

11 minutes ago, KGR said:

 

 

 

You better watch out, otherwise  smiley will be related to your team vs Davos. 

[Da Trifecta 1,896]

11 minutes ago, hedgehog337 said:

 

You better watch out, otherwise  smiley will be related to your team vs Davos. 

 

So that is what Davos will do when we face them as well? Hmm.....thanks

[BOOM 8,745]

I do my talking on the ice......

[boubabi 4,725]

Ice and martini, yes

[Ahma 1,428]

no, they can not.

[scoop 3,426]

19 hours ago, CowboyinAmerica said:

The Helsinki first line had an abysmal 3 goals in 8 games against Davos this season, far below the second line (6) or even the third line (7).

I'm pretty sure that statistic you were looking at is goals by period, not by line.