Crosby sixth in Pens scoring.

I was looking today for player stats from only this years Stanley Cup final. Surprisingly I had a tough time finding any solely for the Final. Below, are the stats I compiled with the help of espn.com. Yes, Crosby is tied for sixth in scoring on the Penguins. This alone leads me to believe that they do have a fair chance at winning. Game seven will be a big early career test for young Sid. After last year’s Cup disappointment, he really has to make himself noticeable on the huge stage of the deciding game of the Cup final. His usual linemates, Bill Guerin and Chris Kunitz have been next to invisible which hasn’t helped Crosby’s cause. Perhaps the biggest surprise standout for the Pens has been Maxime Talbot with two big goals and four points in the series.
I decided to put this series to my scoring rating system which I created originally for the 1972 Summit series. The system gives varying weights to scoring points depending on the period of the game and the score at the time. Of course a game winning goal in the third period or overtime is worth far more than a third insurance goal in the second period.

I went through each point obtained in the Finals and came up with these numbers.


We see that overall the order is quite similar to each team’s actual point leaders. Detroit’s top five scorers are identical except for Rafalski jumping over Franzen in the weighted point system. He scores higher on the strength of assisting on the winning goal in the second period of game one and the eventual game winner in game four. Tomas Holmstrom jumps up due to his two assists being on the winner and insurance goal in game two.

We also see that Sidney Crosby’s three points have actually all been fairly important and raise him from sixth to second on the Pens list. He assisted on the third period winner in game three and scored the winner in game four while also assisting on the insurance marker.
Sergei Gonchar’s two points have proved to be huge as well, scoring the game three winner after assisting on the equalizing score. Most of Evgeni Malkin’s seven points have been important, notching points on the tying and winning goal in game three and assisting Crosby’s winner in game four.




Comments

horchy said…
now that the pens have won, Talbot would move close to the top of nitzy's wieghted scoresheet. Talbot i think would gain 16 points with the first goal and ultimately the second goal being go-ahead goals in the second period. perhaps a goal in game 7 could also carry more weight than ones earlier in the series. all in all a real clutch performance by Talbot.
June 14, 2009 at 3:18 PM
Nitzy said…
Yes Horchy...we all know Talbot excelled in the Final...Jeeeeez (Horchy finished first to my second in our playoff pool thanks in large part to the efforts of Mr. Talbot). I was actually thinking that Game seven should carry more weight in my magical rating system. Talbot finished with the second highest rating on both teams, in what may be one of the more unexpected terrific performances in Finals history.
June 15, 2009 at 9:49 AM
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