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Here's someone finally doing the legwork on a stat once proposed by Tom Benjamin and something I'd been meaning to get around to eventually: quantifying the impact of players' injuries based on their salaries and time missed.

LW3H from Springing Malik explains the stat as he calculated it last season:

The concept again - multiply each game missed by a player by his 2008/09 cap charge, then take the aggregate of these figures for each team and divide by 82. This indicator of value lost to a team by injury/illness is called CHIP (Cap Hit of Injured Players).

Among other things, the stat tells us that the biggest injuries in terms of impact so far are those to Andrei Markov, Patrik Elias, Marian Hossa and Phil Kessel — four stars who have yet to play a game — and that Vancouver, Edmonton and Toronto have been hardest hit by injuries to this point.

Something like this is by no means a science, but I do think it offers a better idea of which teams are impacted by injuries than simply looking at man-games lost. Here's hoping our friend in the U.K. continues to compile the numbers.

Thanks to Cassie at Raw Charge for the heads up on this one.

This is something I was working on before vacation, a mini-study of how five of the NHL's best teams are allocating their cap space this year. The five I went with are all right up against the cap, and all experienced a ton of success last year: The Sharks, Red Wings, Bruins, Capitals and Penguins.

Part of the reason I wanted to do this was, in looking at how GM Doug Wilson had revamped San Jose's roster by cutting depth and adding a top end stud in Dany Heatley, it was really clear how top heavy he had elected to go. And that's becoming the norm under the cap these days:

In dealing with a 22-man roster, the top 11 players take home 82 per cent of these teams' salary dollars, with the bottom 11 players (the last seven forwards, three defencemen and the backup goaltender) making the remaining 18 per cent.

In other words, these teams' top 11 players average about $4.2-million apiece, whereas the players on the low end, filling out checking lines and minor roles, make an average of about $930,000.

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More photos » by JOSEPH KACZMAREK - AP

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Mr. Ray Emery. The troubled soul. And, along with Brian Boucher, the latest in a long line of Flyers netminders that has tried to take over the No. 1 job in Philadelphia and do away with the stigma that exists when it comes to that franchise's men in masks.

The Flyers have a 34-year Stanley Cup drought heading into this season, and the common refrain on that generally comes back to those between the pipes. Remember the Dominic Roussel era? How about Garth Snow, Roman Cechmanek, Robert Esche and, well... Brian Boucher?

There's something about goaltending that, when it's bad, it can hang on a franchise like an odour, weighing on fans and netminders alike. Pre-Luongo, for example, Vancouver was always pegged as a goalie graveyard (although some would argue a few of his predecessors were stiff upon arrival). In Ottawa, they seemingly haven't had a lot of luck at the position either, with Patrick Lalime's ugly turn in the 2004 postseason serving as just one reminder of failures past.

Anyway, it all made me wonder which franchises have really been home to the worst goaltenders in recent years and where exactly teams like Flyers, Sens and Canucks fit into the picture. So I made a chart.

Over the past 10 seasons, the average team save percentage has been about .904, with the top team (Minnesota) coming in well ahead of the pack at .916, followed by Florida and Anaheim at .911. Bringing up the rear are the Lightning with a god-awful .894.

Here's a look at the Wild, Lightning and Flyers (who slide in above the league average) graphed against that NHL average over this time period:

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Received a great email a little while back asking about some of the relatively unheralded statistical work going on in hockey:

Hi James:

I've been trying to read up on some of the new (at least new to me) metrics, because I'm fascinated by the work that people doing, making an effort to quantify, objectivize and regularize some of the data that are out there about the game. Some of the metrics seem relatively straightforward to understand — things like the scoring rates — EV, PP, SH. Some of the other metrics I've come across though, are a little less intuitive, like Corsi numbers, quality of competition/teammates and goals created.  There's also a lot of new faceoff-related metrics that I don't even know the names of.

I've just started dipping into Alan Ryder's work on the Globe Sports website, and there's some stuff out there that seems really interesting, methods by which people are attempting to apportion responsibility for team wins to players, to evaluate goaltenders according to shot quality and so on.

I'm sure I'm not the only long-time fan out there whose more than a little unfamiliar with these new stats, though I've long felt that the G/A/Pts and W/L/GAA was ridiculously uninformative.

It's a tall order, but I'm wondering whether you can basically give us something of the history of where this work began, if it's even possible to say — what some of the most important new metrics are and (ideally) what you perceive their limitations to be.

I know it's a huge topic — I've been doing some Google searches (and reading) just to get myself this far, and I feel like I've only dipped my toe in the enormous body of material that's out there, but I thought you might be able to shed some light on the topic for a league-wide audience.

— Ed S.

When it comes to hockey statistics, I think I'm off in the middle ground somewhere by my lonesome — too reliant on new-fangled metrics for the old school types and too simplistic for the truly ground-breaking stat-heads out there. As far as someone who works in the NHL media, however, I'm at the far, far extreme in terms incorporating things like what Gabriel Desjardins has built up at Behind The Net into what I write.

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More photos » by Jeff McIntosh - AP

The Hangover, Canadian edition.

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Dirk Hoag, stats wiz slash fantasy hockey mastermind, has taken it upon himself to draw up a look at how difficult the travel schedules are for all 30 NHL teams, and has discovered that, this coming season, Calgary's got the toughest road over 82 games. (Dallas and Phoenix are second and third, while the Isles and Caps have the easiest hauls.)

This year's schedule is remarkably condensed, with the regular season starting a week earlier and ending one day earlier than 2008-09 while having a 14-day Olympic break stuffed in the middle. Teams will likely be tired, especially those with a half dozen or more Olympians, and the Western Conference clubs (as always) get it worse than those in the East. 

The good news is they've shifted the balance a little bit:

As Dirk writes, "it looks like Mike Gillis was successful in lobbying the NHL for relief for his Vancouver Canucks." Perhaps to the benefit of the entire conference?

Here's a divisional breakdown:

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Well, it's mid-July so that means season in review season for me. I generally do some work for a few magazines and annuals around now, including the McKeen's Hockey Yearbook, and as part of that, I put together some stats-based cheat sheets with relevant information to refer back to.

Here's a good example: What follows is the rankings for all 30 teams in six key categories: points percentage, goals for per game, goals against per game, special teams (power play and penalty killing) and goaltending (save percentage).

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More photos » by Carlos Osorio - AP

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There's only one reason that an overwhelming majority of the pundits are picking the Red Wings to hoist the Stanley Cup about 12 hours from now, and it has nothing to do with Osgood's goaltending, Zetterberg's checking, Hossa's slump, Lidstrom's tender nethers or any or all of the above.

It has everything to do with where Game 7 will be played.

This has been a truly homer series, one of the most starkly divided best-of-sevens I can remember, and for that alone, it makes sense that Detroit finishes the job and wins its fifth Stanley Cup in 12 seasons.

The differences between the Wings' play at Joe Louis Arena compared to The Igloo, based on this admittedly small six-game sample size? Detroit's scored an average of two goals more per game at home, has a team save percentage a full 10 per cent better, has a power play effectiveness nearly double their road totals and a PK that has shutdown the Pens at a rate nearly 20-per-cent higher than what its managed in Pittsburgh.

Detroit has been on the power play more often at home, been shorthanded less, had 15 more hits per game and won nearly 56 per cent of its faceoffs.

As I've pointed out after both games in Detroit and in Pittsburgh, with two masterful coaches, the matchups have mattered in this series, and they should matter again tonight. The Pens simply need to generate better scoring opportunities, get more from their top line, play more disciplined and get a better performance from Marc-Andre Fleury. They need either Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin to be the best player in a game filled with future Hall of Famers.

Scoring first would help, too, as the winning team has done in all but Game 2. Detroit's 10-1 in these playoffs when they get the first goal and only 6-6 when they don't, while the Penguins have had better luck battling back, going 9-4 when scoring first and 7-4 when not.

But Detroit has also not lost a game when leading after the first (7-0) or second periods (12-0) and has allowed only 10 even-strength goals at home in 12 games. They're 11-1 at Joe Louis, with the only loss coming in triple overtime way back in Game 2 of the second round.

"We’ve just been way more comfortable on home ice in the playoffs," Wings coach Mike Babcock said. "We were a great road team in the regular season. And we haven’t been as good. I think we’re 4-6 on the road in the playoffs. We’ve been way better at home, way more comfortable, way quicker, way more assertive. We look forward to that again [tonight]. In saying all that, when you come out in this rink or come to the Joe, you’re comfortable. This is where we work. This is where we live. It’s our fans, it’s our city. And we’re proud to be from Michigan and have the opportunity we do in front of our fans."

Pittsburgh's in tough, but the good news is that it's all down to this — and, hey, anything could happen.

But my money's on The Wing Dynasty, continuing its reign.

More photos » by Carlos Osorio - AP

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One of the big differences now that the series shifts to Pittsburgh is the fact that Penguins coach Dan Bylsma gets last change, and a major advantage there is going to be getting Sidney Crosby away from some of the relentless checking he's faced. Expect the Pens captain to be double shifted and put on other lines in order to get him away from Zetterberg and Lidstrom, who he's matched up with the majorty of the first two games.

With so few penalties called, much of this series to this point has also been played at 5-on-5, which means line matching and head-to-head battles are all the more important. (Something that's bad news for the Penguins.)

Here's what Crosby's icetime breakdown looks like for Games 1 and 2 against the different Red Wings lines and pairings:

And the data behind those charts:

Crosby's averaged about 19 minutes of 5-on-5 ice time a game, well up from his regular-season average of about 15:30, and that hurts a player used to picking up about 40 per cent of his point production on the power play. The Red Wings are such a dominant even strength team (their 5-on-5 for/against ratio is nearly double the Pens in the postseason) that having so few penalties called plays into their game – even when you consider how lethal Detroit's power play was this season.

At least if there are penalties called you have a chance at getting more opportunities with a man advantage.

The Red Wings have been a top four team in every single postlockout season at outscoring their opposition at even strength, and have allowed only 10 even-strength goals in 11 home playoff games (when they've had last change). Even on the road in these playoffs, 45 per cent of the goals Detroit has allowed have come when they've been shorthanded. (On average, and depending on the season we're talking about, special teams goals only make up about 30 per cent of the goals scored in an NHL game. That's a lot of scoring considering power plays generally make up only around 12.5 per cent – seven or eight minutes – of your average game.)

Pittsburgh needs Crosby to break free, and my guess he only does that by (a) getting away from Lidstrom and Zetterberg and (b) getting some significant time on the power play.

The chances are decent he does both in Game 3.