Mr Jekyll, meet Mr Hyde

I threw a stat out into the open after the Montreal Canadiens 3-0 win over the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday night, but a stat in a vacuum is pretty meaningless.


That the Habs are now 33-3-3 when scoring three or more goals looks, on the face of it, very impressive. But is it really? Wouldn't most teams have a ridiculously strong record when scoring at least three goals, considering practically every goalie in the league allows fewer than three goals a game? I figured they would, their record just wouldn't be as strong as Montreal's.


But instead of assuming, I decided to check it out. What I found was that no team in the entire league depends nearly as much as the Canadiens on reaching that magical three-goal mark for results. Yes, the Habs record when scoring three times is among the best in the league, but their record when failing to reach that mark is also among the worst.


First, let's have a gander at the numbers (playoff teams as of Monday morning have an asterisk in front of them).

Best teams when scoring three or more goals

Team	Games Played	Record	Points Percentage
*New Jersey	38	34-3-1	0.907
*Phoenix	38	33-3-2	0.895
*Los Angeles	36	31-3-2	0.889
*Montreal	39	33-3-3	0.884
*San Jose	47	40-4-3	0.883
*Ottawa	40	33-4-3	0.863
*Chicago	51	41-5-5	0.853
Calgary	34	28-4-2	0.853
*Vancouver	52	43-7-2	0.846
*Nashville	44	36-6-2	0.841
*Buffalo	40	32-5-3	0.838
*Washington	63	48-6-9	0.833
*Colorado	47	37-6-4	0.830
*Pittsburgh	47	37-6-4	0.830
*Detroit	47	35-5-7	0.819
NYR	38	30-6-2	0.816
Carolina	40	29-5-6	0.800
*Boston	36	25-4-7	0.792
*Philadelphia	43	33-8-2	0.791
NYI	40	29-6-5	0.788
Anaheim	49	36-8-5	0.786
Minnesota	39	29-7-3	0.782
Florida	32	23-6-3	0.766
Dallas	45	30-7-8	0.756
St. Louis	39	28-8-3	0.756
Toronto	36	23-6-7	0.736
Tampa Bay	37	25-8-4	0.730
Atlanta	46	28-10-8	0.696
Columbus	43	23-12-8	0.628
Edmonton	33	16-12-5	0.561

Best teams when scoring two or fewer goals

Team	Games Played	Record	Points Percentage
*Phoenix	41	15-22-4	0.415
*Buffalo	38	11-20-7	0.382
*San Jose	31	8-16-7	0.371
*Los Angeles	42	13-24-5	0.369
*New Jersey	40	11-23-6	0.350
Calgary	45	12-26-7	0.344
St. Louis	39	10-23-6	0.333
*Nashville	36	10-22-4	0.333
*Chicago	27	8-17-2	0.333
Columbus	36	9-22-5	0.319
*Pittsburgh	31	8-20-3	0.306
*Boston	41	10-26-5	0.305
*Washington	15	3-9-3	0.300
*Detroit	32	6-19-7	0.297
*Ottawa	39	10-27-2	0.282
Florida	46	8-29-9	0.272
Atlanta	33	6-22-5	0.257
NYR	40	6-26-8	0.250
Tampa Bay	41	6-27-8	0.244
Minnesota	39	8-28-3	0.244
Dallas	34	5-23-6	0.235
*Philadelphia	36	6-26-4	0.222
Toronto	43	6-30-7	0.221
*Montreal	40	6-29-5	0.213
Edmonton	44	8-34-2	0.205
*Vancouver	26	4-20-2	0.192
*Colorado	30	4-23-3	0.183
NYI	38	4-29-5	0.171
Carolina	39	4-31-4	0.154
Anaheim	29	2-23-4	0.137

Biggest differential in points percentage

Team	Differential
*Montreal	0.671
*Vancouver	0.654
Anaheim	0.649
*Colorado	0.647
Carolina	0.646
NYI	0.617
*Ottawa	0.581
*Philadelphia	0.569
NYR	0.566
*New Jersey	0.557
Minnesota	0.538
*Washington	0.533
*Pittsburgh	0.524
*Detroit	0.522
Dallas	0.521
*Chicago	0.520
*Los Angeles	0.520
Toronto	0.515
*San Jose	0.512
Calgary	0.509
*Nashville	0.508
Florida	0.494
*Boston	0.487
Tampa Bay	0.486
*Phoenix	0.480
*Buffalo	0.456
Atlanta	0.439
St. Louis	0.423
Edmonton	0.356
Columbus	0.309

That's a whole lot of numbers, but the most important ones are really found in the "Games Played" column in each category, seeing as even Edmonton is better that .500 when scoring three or more goals. It's pretty impressive to see Phoenix tops in the league on one table and second on the other, but the Coyotes have played 41 games where they scored two or fewer goals. That is the main reason they are not running away with the Presidents' Trophy race right now. But the fact the Capitals have played 63 games where they've scored three or more goals is a huge number that explains their success, even if their points percentage in that situation is not much higher than the league average of 0.802.

As for the Canadiens, they've played essentially an equal number of both categories of games, and it's not a shock to see that when they're good they're very good, and when they're bad they can be downright awful. Phoenix, Los Angeles, New Jersey and Boston are the only other playoff teams to have played as many games with two or fewer goals as Montreal, except all four of those teams are in the top-12 in the league when it comes to results in that situation. The Canadiens are 24th.

This huge disparity doesn't augur well for the playoffs, where scoring generally dips as teams clamp down defensively and form game plans tailor made to shut down their opponents' strengths. The Canadiens power play continuing to struggle is another factor that may not play in their favour when it comes to scoring in the playoffs. However, the Canadiens extremely poor record when scoring two or fewer goals is a bit skewered by the two goalies they use, as Carey Price has a 3-19-2 record in those games while Jaroslav Halak is 3-10-3. Halak's points percentage is actually a respectable 0.281, which would be 16th on the list instead of 24th.

All this may be seen as a complete waste of time to some because scoring three goals would be enough for basically every team in the league to win the vast majority of their games. But no other team appears to absolutely need three goals as badly as the Canadiens, and with the way they are struggling to score right now, that's not good news going forward.