CHL league-by-league stats: Liiga edges out SHL in the end

With the Group Stage now finished, ChampionsHockeyLeague.net's statistics expert Efraim Larsson takes another look at how the leagues compare and contrast with one another. Some things, such as the relative dominance of Finnish and Swedish clubs, are not shocking, but there are some surprises.

by Efraim Larsson

The group stage of the Champions Hockey League is finished and we have sorted out 16 of the 44 teams that are qualified for the playoffs.

A few weeks ago we summarized the statistics of how the 11 different leagues were doing against each other after four rounds. At that time the Swedish Hockey League and Finnish Liiga were the clear statistical leaders. You can read that article here.

After 132 games were played, six each for the 44 teams, not a single team managed to make its way through the group stage undefeated, although seven teams managed to win five out of six games in regulation time to collect 15 points (three from the SHL, two from the Austrian-based EBEL and two each from the Liiga and the Swiss NLA).

Sixteen teams have qualified for the playoffs and the Finnish Liiga brings the greatest number of the teams in the playoffs with seven. The other nine teams are from the SHL (4), NLA (2), EBEL (2) and Czech Extraliga (1). That means that 43.75% of the teams that qualified play in the Liiga, 25.00% in the SHL, 12.50% in the EBEL and NLA and 6.24% in the Czech Extraliga. The Liiga also has the highest percentage of teams that qualified: 7/8 = 87.50%, SHL and EBEL 4/8 and 2/4 = 50.00%, NLA 2/6 = 33.33% and Czech Extraliga 1/6 = 16.67%.

When looking at the clubs that finished first in their groups we can see that Liiga teams are among the best as well. Four teams are from the Liiga, three from the SHL, two from the EBEL and one each from the NLA and Czech Extraliga.

The most reliable element to compare the different leagues and their success would be to take a look at the points percentages (P-%) of the leagues. Just to compare the points taken won’t give us an accurate comparison since there aren’t the same number of teams from the different leagues participating in the tournament.

Points percentage indicates what percentage of the total amount of available points that each team or league takes. In the last article I compared winning percentages (W-%), which is slightly different in that you count the percentage of games that you win, whether it’s in regulation time, overtime or a shootout. But points percentage is the most accurate element to compare because if a team has a winning streak of 4-1-0-1 (W-OTW-OTL-L), that would mean 14 of 18 potential points; 77.78% in points and 83.33% in wins. If a team has a winning streak of 2-3-1-0 that would mean five of six wins and a winning percentage of 83.33% but only 10 of 18 potential points (55.55 pts %). Do you see where I’m going?

In the table below I’ve sorted the leagues by their points percentages and you can find that column bolded to the right.

League-by-league statistics after Group Stage

#	LEAGUE	CT	GP	GF	GA	GD	GFA	GAA	SO	GSO	W	OTW	SOW	OTL	SOL	L	P	P/TEAM	W-%	P-%
1	Liiga	FIN	48	155	99	56	3.23	2.06	8	2	27	2	5	0	4	10	99	12.38	70.83%	68.75%
2	SHL	SWE	48	177	97	80	3.69	2.02	6	2	28	3	2	0	3	12	97	12.13	68.75%	67.36%
3	EBEL	AUT	24	62	62	0	2.58	2.58	2	3	14	0	1	1	0	8	45	11.25	62.50%	62.50%
4	NLA	SUI	36	96	104	-8	2.67	2.89	2	7	14	2	2	5	0	13	55	9.17	50.00%	50.93%
5	Czech Extraliga	CZE	36	105	108	-3	2.92	3.00	2	1	12	0	3	2	3	16	47	7.83	41.67%	43.52%
6	Slovak Extraliga	SVK	6	14	16	-2	2.33	2.67	0	0	2	0	0	1	0	3	7	7.00	33.33%	38.89%
7	Get Ligaen	NOR	12	26	34	-8	2.17	2.83	1	0	3	0	1	0	1	7	12	6.00	33.33%	33.33%
8	DEL	GER	36	74	123	-49	2.06	3.42	1	6	6	2	1	0	3	24	27	4.50	25.00%	25.00%
9	Metal Ligaen	DEN	6	15	31	-16	2.50	5.17	0	0	1	0	0	0	1	4	4	4.00	16.67%	22.22%
10	EIHL	GBR	6	9	36	-27	1.50	6.00	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	5	3	3.00	16.67%	16.67%
11	Ligue Magnus	FRA	6	8	31	-23	1.33	5.17	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	6	0	0.00	0.00%	0.00%

CT = Country, GP = Games Played, GF = Goals For, GA = Goals Against, GD = Goal Difference, GFA = Goals-For Average, GAA = Goals-Against Average, SO = Shutouts, GSO = Games Shut Out, W = Wins, OTW = Overtime Wins, SOW = Shootout Wins, OTL = Overtime Losses, SOL = Shootout Losses, P = Points, P/TEAM = Points-per-Team Average, W-% = Winning Percentage, P-% = Points Percentage

The Liiga and SHL have taken by far the most points (99 and 97), but keep in mind that both leagues have eight teams each participating in the tournament. The Liiga made a rush in the final round to get past the SHL (thanks to JYP Jyväskylä beating HV71 Jönköping, Lukko Rauma beating Luleå Hockey, IFK Helsinki beating Skellefteå AIK and TPS Turku beating Linköping HC) and they are highest in both points- and winning percentage when we summarize the group stage. The SHL has the highest goals-for average (GFA) and the lowest goals-against average (GAA) in the tournament, despite the Liiga having eight shutouts compared to the SHL’s six.

One notable stat is the GFA of the NLA, 2.67 (fourth best), and this despite getting shut out seven times.

The league that impresses me most must be the Austrian-based EBEL, as despite having a small number of participating teams, two of their four entries qualified for the playoffs with a pretty low GFA (2.58, fifth best). Besides that, all four teams shared a group with one team from the SHL; the Vienna Capitals with Färjestad Karlstad [10 p], Villach SV with Frölunda Gothenburg [15 p], HC Bolzano with Linköping HC [14 p] and Red Bull Salzburg with HV71 [7 p]. Bolzano and Salzburg also had TPS [14 p] and JYP [13 p] in their groups, so we’re talking about impressive efforts there!

The league that I found most disappointing was the German DEL. Only 25.00% in both winning and points percentage isn’t anything to brag about, along with 123 goals against (most in the tournament), 3.42 GAA (fourth most) and being shut out six times. DEL teams scored 74 goals (in 36 games = 2.50 GFA); only the Nottingham Panthers from the British EIHL and Briançon Diables Rouges from the French Ligue Magnus had a lower average. Those 74 goals were scored on 1075 shots on goal for a total scoring efficiency of 6.88% - second-lowest in the tournament (Ligue Magnus had the worst at 6.11%).

The results of the two teams from the Norwegian Get Ligaen (Stavanger Oilers and Vålerenga Oslo) are interesting to look at. Together they took 12 points (a points percentage of 33.33%) and hold the fifth-best GAA (2.83). Below you can see that Stavanger was by far the better team of the two in this tournament:

TEAM	GP	W	OTW	SOW	OTL	SOL	L	GF	GA	GD	P	FG	NFG	SO	GSO
Stavanger Oilers	6	3	0	1	0	0	2	19	17	2	11	3	3	1	0
Vålerenga Oslo	6	0	0	0	0	1	5	7	17	-10	1	3	3	0	0

GP = Games Played, W = Wins, OTW = Overtime Wins, SOW = Shootout Wins, OTL = Overtime Losses, SOL = Shootout Losses, L = Losses, GF = Goals For, GA = Goals Against, GD = Goal Difference, P = Points, FG = First Goal scored in the game, NFG = Not First Goal, SO = Shutouts, GSO = Games Shut Out, W-% = Winning Percentage, P-% = Point Percentage

Stavanger took 91.67% of the points awarded to the Norwegian teams. That is by far the highest percentage of any team in the CHL that was not its league's lone representative. Vålerenga actually lost four games by one goal, which is quite noteworthy.

Did you know…

…that 80 out of 132 games (60.61%) ended up in a home win?
…that 15 games were decided by a shootout and 59 out of 155 penalty shots (38.06%) were goals?
…that the home team scored the first goal in 79 games (59.85%)?
…that the highest number of shots on goal taken in a single game was 82 (Villach – Genève)?
…that the highest number of shots taken in a single period by one team is 32 (Frölunda vs Briançon, 2nd period)?
…that the Stavanger Oilers had the highest scoring efficiency in a single game (5 goals on 18 shots = 27.78%)?
…that SaiPa Lappeenranta had the lowest scoring efficiency in a single game with at least 1 goal scored (1 goal on 51 shots = 1.96%)?