Chirps from Center Ice

So I said after Tuesday’s win that I would look at the series between St. John’s and the Penguins to see where things stood as you peel back the onion in the stats on the teams.

In comparison to what I did after Game 2, here’s an updated look at things:

–> St. John’s leads the best of seven series 3-2.

–> Shots in the series are 148 for the Penguins to 136 for the IceCaps.

–> St. John’s leads in total goals, 11-10.

–> The Penguins are 2/18 on the power play (11.1%) while St. John’s is 3/16 (18.8%)

–> Thirteen different Penguins and thirteen different IceCaps have points in the series.

–> Three IceCaps have had multi point games. Brock Trotter did it twice. Three Penguins have had multi point games.

–> Brad Thiessen’s line in the series: 2-3, 336:18 minutes played*, 1.96 GAA and a 0.919 SV%.

–> Eddie Pasquale’s line in the series: 3-2, 341:22 minutes played, 1.76 GAA and a 0.932 SV%.

–> The series has gone into overtime in the last three games. Four times, if you count the Game 5 “double” overtime.

In looking at these facts, it obviously goes without saying that the teams are evenly matched. One thing that I want to point out though is that I don’t think that either team has played its best game of the series yet. I don’t think Game 1 for the IceCaps qualifies as their best game; they caught a jet lagged Penguins team coming off of an emotional victory against its biggest rival. I don’t think Game 2 qualifies for the Penguins either as their best game either.

You hope that St. John’s doesn’t have its best game tomorrow and that Wilkes-Barre does to force a Game 7. Anything goes in a Game 7.

Beat writer Jonathan Bombulie mined the following stat from today’s blog update:

Here’s an interesting stat. Because it’s kind of hard to get here, teams that visitSt. John’salways play back-to-back games. The Ice Caps hosted 19 such series this year. They went 2-0 five times, 0-2 four times and 1-1 10 times. The Penguins were one of the four teams to author a sweep, doing so Jan. 14-15.

Out of that update from Jonathan was the mention of Brian Strait practicing today and looking good in the short, 30-minute practice the Penguins had today in Newfoundland. Obviously Strait’s addition would be a huge help.

If anything pops up between now and when the Gameday post is set to drop here on the blog at 2 p.m. Friday, immediate reactions from me on the Twitter side first. Until then, Let’s Go Pens!

* – Scott Munroe played 4:25 of time in relief in Game 5 while Brad Thiessen was getting stitched up from an errant stick by teammate Simon Despres.