Consistency Is Key

Consistency is important in sports -- from one play, game, or season to the next.

In recent years, consistently great athletes (such as Martin Broduer, Tim Duncan, Derek Jeter or Peyton Manning) have kept their teams in championship contention season after season.

Teams that are good year-in and year-out obviously have a better chance to reach their ultimate goal -- winning a championship.

And unless they have a run like that of the Chicago Blackhawks, in which the NHL franchise made the playoffs for twenty-eight consecutive seasons without winning a single Stanley Cup title, this goal is usually realized.



As of this morning, the seventh of March, there were four teams in the National Hockey League with a goal differential between seventeen and twenty-two.

Three of these four teams -- the Colorado Avalanche, Los Angeles Kings, and New Jersey Devils -- have either 79 or 80 points in the standings, and are almost certainly playoff-bound.

However, the last of this bunch -- the Philadelphia Flyers -- have just 70 points. They are not only far (7 points) behind the Ottawa Senators, the team just ahead of them in the Eastern Conference standings, but they're currently fighting for position with five other teams (separated by 5 points) for seeds six through eight in the East.

The Flyers, Devils, Kings and Avalanche are equal by nearly every statistical measure. Sure, each of them has their weakness -- but overall these four teams are parallel to one another.

So what separates the Flyers from the pack? Why do they stand nine or ten points behind the others, playoff lives on the line?

Your answer, ladies and gentlemen, is consistent scoring.

The NHL average for scoring this season is 2.86 goals per game. As of today, the Flyers average of 3.05 is good for seventh in the league and first among the other three teams with a scoring margin in the plus-20 range.

But despite having one of the most prolific offenses in the league, the Flyers erratic scoring leaves them on the outside looking in when it comes to the Stanley Cup Finals picture.



Here's how the Flyers scoring breaks down this season:

• 15 games (23.8%) in which they've scored zero or one goal(s)
  
• 24 games (38.1%) with two or three goals
• 14 games (22.2%) with four or five goals
• 10 games (15.9%) with six-plus goals

Considering the Flyers' 3.05 goals per game average I mentioned above, as well as the 2.86 league-wide average, it's no surprise that the Broad Street Bullies have scored either two or three goals in the majority of their games.

But compared to the other twenty-nine teams in the NHL, the Flyers 38.1% in the 2-3 goal range is low. And as you would probably guess, this figure is the lowest when compared to the other three teams in this study -- the Devils, Kings and Avs.

Their scoring, on average, breaks down as follows:

• 17.7% of games with zero or one goal(s)
• 47.9% with two or three goals
• 29.7% with four or five goals
• 4.7% with six or more goals

Eternal optimists will rationalize the Flyers' 38.1% in the 2-3 goal range. They'll say that their numbers are better because of their potential to score a handful of goals on any given night, as evidenced by the ten games in which they've tallied six or more scores.

That's great and all -- but those percentage points have to go somewhere. While the Flyers surely have the ability to rack up lots of goals, they've also been held to less than two goals far more often than the others.

Until they start to get consistent production from their offense, the Flyers will remain on the bubble in the Eastern Conference.