James Mirtle had an interesting post over at From The Rink today on which players have the biggest drop in points-per-game from the regular season to the playoffs. What I found most surprising was that neither of the Sedins made his list of the top 15 underperformers, given their reputation as playoff chokers.

I ran the numbers and found that both twins fall slightly below the .75 points-per-game regular-season average needed for consideration in Mirtle's list. Daniel has 462 points in 642 regular-season games for a .72 PPG average, while Henrik has 460 points in 646 regular-season games for a  .71 PPG average. However, they drop to 23 and 24 points respectively in 46 career playoff games, giving them .50 and .52 PPG averages in the playoffs. That's a difference of -.22 and -.19 PPG. Thus, Daniel would come in in a tie for 11th on this list and Henrik would come in in a tie for 15th.

Those numbers are also skewed upwards by their five and four points respectively in three games so far these playoffs. If data from these playoffs is excluded, Daniel’s playoff PPG is .42 and Henrik’s is .47, making the differences -.30 and -.24. That would slot Daniel in in a tie for seventh on Mirtle's list and put Henrik in 11th (12th if you add Daniel first).

Thus, until this season, the Sedins' reputation as playoff underperformers seems pretty deserved. They appear to be making an effort to change that reputation this year, though, and the Canucks will need a strong effort from them to go deep in the playoffs.