Playoff Tidbits



Some interesting playoff numbers, some expected and some unexpected.




  • Dany Heatley is an Assist Master? Known more as a goal scorer throughout his career, Heatley is a veritable playmaker in the post-season. His Points/Game is nearly identical in regular season and playoffs, he is pretty much 50/50 goals, assists is regular season. Over 50 career playoff games his Goal rate is just about cut in half but he collects an average of 0.72 Assists/Game. This ranks second among active players and 11th all-time, ahead of the likes of Peter Forsberg, Paul Coffey, Adam Oates and Doug Gilmour.




  • Ulf Nilsson, a better playmaker than Gretzky? Speaking of career Assists/Game in the post season, Wayne Gretzky of course is tops in NHL history with 1.25. He is well ahead of Mario Lemieux at 0.897 and Bobby Orr at 0.892. Amazingly, through the existence of the WHA Ulf Nilsson had more palyoff Assists/Game than the Great One. In three post seasons with Winnipeg, Nilsson collected 53 helpers in 42 games for an average of 1.262, just ahead of Gretzky.




  • Habs Goaltenders. Throughout their storied existance, Montreal have had twelve different goalies play at least 20 career playoff games for them. Collectively, Roy, Dryden and Plante have a won/loss mark of 209 and 102. In fact Gump Worsley's Canadiens playoff mark is 29 wins and 7 losses, a Win Pct of .805. Four Habs 'tenders have a sub .500 career record. Thanks to Bill Barilko, Gerry McNeil's record is 17-18, MVP Jose Theodore is at 11-15, Jaro Halak is 9-10 and Carey Price sits at 7-12. His Win Pct. of .368 is by far the franchise's worst. On a positive note for Price, his three career playoff shutouts is one more than Hall of Famer Bill Durnan in half as many games.




  • Ovie and Mario. With 22 career playoff goals in 31 games, Alex Ovechkin has 0.7097 Goals/Game. He is an eyelash behind Mario Lemieux for the all-time top rate. Lemieux scored 76 in 107 games for a rate of 0.7103.




  • Lidstrom and Draper. Niklas Lidstrom, with 250 is 16 games behind Chris Chelios for most playoff games ever. Teammate Kris Draper is somewhat surprisingly in 12th place all-time with 217 career games. Another cool number, Gordie Howe played the most playoff games in WHA history with 78, second place is a tie between Mark and Marty Howe with 75 games.


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