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Five team stats you may find interesting

Patrik Berglund, Vladimir Tarasenko, Barret Jackman

St. Louis Blues’ Barret Jackman, center, is congratulated by teammates Patrik Berglund, left, of Sweden, and Vladimir Tarasenko, of Russia, after scoring during the second period of an NHL hockey game against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday, Jan. 4, 2014, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

AP

1. The St. Louis Blues have the best five-on-five scoring ratio in the NHL, at 1.6. Which is too bad for all the other teams, because the Blues also have a good power play (4th) and strong penalty killing (7th). It’s actually hard to find anything the Blues don’t do well, especially now that Brian Elliott is giving them some goaltending. (Though we still think Doug Armstrong should give Buffalo a call about Ryan Miller.)

2. The Nashville Predators have the NHL’s best team faceoff percentage, at 54.0%. The worst belongs to Calgary, at 45.6%. While there appears to be a correlation between faceoff percentage and winning (Los Angeles, San Jose, and Boston are all strong faceoff teams), the connection isn’t as strong as the focus it receives may suggest. The Blackhawks won the Cup last year with a 46.8% win rate in the playoffs. The Kings won it the year before at 49.7%.

3. The Islanders have won just six of the 12 games they’ve led after two periods. Three times they’ve lost the game outright. Winnipeg and Calgary are the only two other teams that have lost three times in regulation when leading after 40 minutes. We suppose this isn’t a huge surprise, as the Isles, Jets, and Flames aren’t very good. But neither is Florida, and that hasn’t stopped the Panthers from going 8-0-1 when leading after two periods. (The bad news is they’ve only led nine times after two periods.)

4. The Buffalo Sabres have just 11 first-period goals in the 42 games they’ve played. That’s eight fewer than Carolina, the 29th-ranked team in the category and 39 fewer than San Jose, which leads with 50. The Chicago Blackhawks’ second period has been the best of all, with 63 goals scored this season.

5. The Ottawa Senators have surrendered an NHL-high 35 power-play goals. Two factors have contributed to this. First, their penalty killing hasn’t been very good (21st, 80.1%). Second, they’ve put themselves shorthanded an NHL-high 176 times. In a related story, Ottawa’s penalty killing has gone an impressive 19-for-20 in its last six games, five of those being victories.