After 56 games it is clear that the New York Islanders have been one of the best teams in the NHL in terms of preventing goals. In fact their 5v5 goals-against rate (per-60) of 1.83 leads the NHL, while the Boston Bruins are the only other team below 2.00, at 1.91.
Is there a reasonable way to tell if the Islanders’ success preventing goals at 5v5 has been more driven by goaltending or by team-defense? We’ll look at one method today: comparing expected goals allowed to actual goals allowed, at 5v5.
We will break the following chart into five sections— five parts of the season— to help illustrate how expected goals against (blue) and actual goals against (red) compare to the league-average for goals allowed per-60 (green line).