Something Jeff Blashill said today got me curious. He said the Blackhawks had an 8-1 advantage in scoring chances before they allowed the goal late in the first period last night. In public data, Natural Stat Trick had the scoring chances at 5-4, Blackhawks, at five-on-five and 8-6, Blackhawks, overall in that period. Blashill said today of public stats, "I wouldn’t trust many of those other numbers. The numbers I trust the most by a country mile are the ones we do internally. So those are all our own numbers. Everybody’s got their own chance stuff. It’s not that I wouldn’t trust them, you can trust whatever you want. The ones that we do manually, basically, are by far throughout my coaching career are the ones we trust the most. You know when you should win games, when you should lose games. A big piece of it was our first period. We were out chancing them 8-1 and then they score the first goal. That kind of dictated the different change in chances." I decided to go back and watch the first period and track myself. Of course, it's somewhat subjective, but I decided on counting anything that could have potentially gone in as a scoring chance. I tried to be as objective a s possible. This is what I came up with. I counted six scoring chances at 5v5 for the Blackhawks before the Canadiens' goal. The goal was one and only 5v5 scoring chance for Montreal in the period. The Canadiens did have a scoring chance on the power play and another on the penalty kill. The Blackhawks had three scoring chances on the power play. So for the period, Blackhawks were 6-1 in scoring chances at 5v5, 3-1 on the power plays power plays and 0-1 on PKs. At all strengths, that puts the Blackhawks at 9-3 all period. I recorded each shot below. At 5v5 CHI 1, 18:43: Kane shot from lower right circle, tough angle and lower percentage shot but a chance. CHI 2, 18:18: Kantserov shot form high slot, catches goalie off guard CHI 3, 17:50: Del Mastro with time and space from left circle CHI 4, 17:27: Greenway high slot, goalie sees the whole way CHI 5, 15:38: Bedard scores goal from left circle CHI 6, 8:08: Greenway one-timer from right circle hits left post MTL 1, 2:31: Evans scores goal with shot across slot Power play MTL 1, 13:55: Slafkovský near net, hard shot right in Knight CHI 1, Bedard with shot off rush, just high (this CHI 2, 7:25: Kantserov with a close shot off the rush CHI 3, 7:07: Kantserov one-timer in high slot, hits Fowler high, creates rebound Penalty kill MTL 1, 6:37: Josh Anderson with 2v1 shorthanded chances, shoots into Knight I do think one piece of the puzzle that is always missing when talking about scoring chances is the grade of scoring chances. There are probably only four shots in that period that you would have expected to go in. Those are listed below. The other scoring chances having so many variables from who is shooting, how the puck comes off the stick, whether it's off a pass, the goalie's movement and sight line, etc. 1. Greenway's one timer that hits the post. It was a no-doubter if he doesn't hit the post. It had every component from one-timer, pass origination from center lane, goalie movement you'd want from a chance. 2. Evan's goal across the slot. No defender is in his path and has space to shoot on Knight. He scores that more often than not. 3. The two-on-one shorthanded chance. Montreal probably scores if Anderson puts that shot almost anywhere else. It wasn't the cleanest shot or rush, but it was one of the best chances for either team all period. 4. Bedard's goal. It's a goal because it's off of Bedard's stick. It's probably still a scoring chance if anyone takes that shot, but few players actually score that goal. Anyway, it was an interesting experiment for me. I do recommend people subscribe to @ShutdownLine's work because he tracks those stats plus so many more manually. I'm comfortable citing his data as a close equivalent to what the Blackhawks and other NHL teams are tracking.

Jeff Blashill has had a long talk with the players on the ice before practice.