Despite troubling stats, Hawks remain confident

If you're looking to statistics for an indication about how the Blackhawks will fare in the playoffs, good luck.

Comparing this team's regular-season stats to those of the Hawks' Stanley Cup championship teams in 2010 and 2013, you will find a number of encouraging similarities plus a few disturbing differences.

Will those differences be too much to overcome or will the Hawks start playing more like they did to win hockey's most coveted prize?

Time will ultimately produce the answer, but in the meantime it's fair to take a closer look at how this season's Hawks stack up to the last two championship teams.

Just remember, stats should always be taken in context. Otherwise, the Los Angeles Kings - who led the NHL in puck-possession - would be preparing for a second straight Cup celebration instead of a summer without the playoffs.

As for the Hawks, let's start with the good.

They again finished first in the NHL in goals allowed (2.27), tied with the Montreal Canadiens, and posted another top five season goal differential (+34). The Stanley Cup teams also finished top five in goal differential, but were first in both 2010 (+59) and 2013 (+52).

This year's team also finished first in putting shots on goal (33.9) and second in total percentage of all shot attempts going toward the opposing net (53.6 percent) - a puck-possession stat commonly known as Corsi-For percentage.

The tale of special teams wasn't all that different in power play success rate, as all three iterations of the Blackhawks hovered near 17 percent.

The penalty kill success rates differed in that this year's mark of 83.4 percent rated a distant third compared to the Cup-winning teams. What's interesting about that is how quickly it plunged from a perch atop the NHL rankings in the final third of the season. The penalty kill operated at or below 80 percent success rate for the final stretch from March through the final game last weekend in Colorado.

Still, that's not the most striking difference from the title-winning teams. That distinction is seen in the per-game rates of goals scored and shots-on-goal allowed.

The Hawks led the league in goals per game in 2010 (3.20) and 2013 (3.03), but averaged just 2.68 per game this season. They played the final 21 games without Patrick Kane because of injury, but team scoring also lagged before he was injured.

Even more stunning is how many more shots they're allowing to get through to their goalies. The 2010 team allowed just 25.1 shots per game, first in the NHL, while the 2013 team only gave up 26.2 per game to finish fourth in the league rankings.

This year's team allowed 30.2 shots per game and ranked 22nd of 30 teams, which center Brad Richards tried to explain away after practice Monday. He said the NHL has changed to encourage more shots from bad angles to create rebounds, but that can't possibly account for such a drastic drop-off in defensive efficiency from a team that prides itself on shutting down teams.

More likely is the absence of former defenseman Nick Leddy, a speedy defenseman who toted the puck quite a bit and played almost every regular-season game the last two years. Leddy was traded under a salary-cap crunch, and the Hawks haven't filled his skates despite having nine defensemen to start the playoffs.

Losing Kane and his ability to possess the puck didn't help, and neither did midseason trades for veterans Antoine Vermette and Kimmo Timonen.

Still, heading into the series opener against the Nashville Predators on Wednesday, the Hawks are feeling confident they can make another run.

• Follow Brian's hockey reports on Twitter@BrianHedger.

How the key stats stack up

Here's a glance at how this season's Blackhawks team compares in key statistics to its most recent Stanley Cup championship teams:

2009-10 2012-13 2014-15

Goal differential/rank +59/1st +52/1st +34/5th

Shot attempts %/rank 56.5%/1st 54.1%/4th 53.6%/2nd

Goals per game/rank 3.20/3rd 3.03/2nd 2.68/17th

Goals allowed per game/rank 2.48/5th 2.02/1st 2.27/1st (tie)**

SOG per game/rank 35.1/1st 31.1/5th 33.9/1st

SOG allowed per game/rank 25.1/1st 26.2/4th 30.2/22nd

PP%/rank 17.7%/16th 16.7%/19th 17.6/20th

PK%/rank 85.3%/4th 87.7%/3rd 83.4/10th

20+ goal scorers 6 3* 4

15+ goal scorers 8 8* 6

10+ goal scorers 11 10* 10

*Projected number based on goals per game during lockout-shortened 48-game regular season

**The Blackhawks allowed 186 goals and Montreal allowed 184, but Montreal lost two more shootouts and the NHL adds a goal allowed for losing in a shootout.

Source: NHL/Blackhawks