(Ed. Note: Welcome to Stat Nerd Sunday, where we occasionally obsess over hockey numbers like a Dungeon Master obsessing over the level of his warrior elf. Here's Matt Barr, formerly of LCS: Guide To Hockey and Trolleytracks and now blogging hockey at Kertwang.me.)
The playoffs are in full swing, the regular season a rapidly fading memory, especially if you're the Boston Bruins.
Never fear, I remember the regular season. Possibly so you don't have to, especially if you're the Colorado Avalanche.
Now we have a full regular season's data from 2010-11 to bend, fold and mutilate. I don't just consider doing that my responsibility, but my pleasure. There's a whole playoff tournament and offseason to deep dive into the numbers, for now let's just sample and enjoy.
The Nashville Predators' Sergei Kostitsyn led the league with a 24.7 percent shooting percentage, the third-best season total in the last 15 years. The top 10 since then:
The league keeps track of giveaways (2010-11 season leader: Ilya Kovalchuk (104) and takeaways (2010-11 season leader: Joe Thornton, 114), but not giveaway/takeaway plus-minus. But I do!
The 2010-11 leaders in giveaway/takeaway plus-minus:
And trailers:
Cam Ward had a 2,000 save season, which doesn't happen that often. The 2,000-save seasons from the last 25 years:
Know what else doesn't happen often anymore? The 300 penalty minute seasons, like Zenon Konopka's this year. It was only the third such in the last 10 years.
Sidney Crosby's (1.61) lead over second-best Daniel Sedin (1.27) in points per game was Gretzkyan, or maybe Marioish, at 26.77%. It was only the second time since the merger in 1979 that someone other than Gretzky or Lemieux had led the second-place finisher in points per game by more than 20 percent.
Two sets of teammates, Daniel and Henrik Sedin and Martin St. Louis and Steven Stamkos, finished in the top five in scoring in 2010-11. That's the seventh time such a thing has happened since the merger.
Henrik Lundqvist's 11 shutouts were the second most since the lockout, and the second time he's hit double digits.
Finally, the Los Angeles Kings scored first in 50 of their games in 2010-11. That's happened six other times since the lockout.
