carpandean

Final charts posted. Truly an awesome (in the true sense of the word) season. Also, here's a look at the whole thing:

I posted this in the Islanders thread, but it fits here, too.

Sabres/Islanders, probability 1st/5th, 25.38% 2nd/1st, 8.22% 2nd/5th, 44.37% 2nd/6th, 22.03% I would bet that the Islanders would give us the 6th pick, but would not give us the 1st pick. Not sure what happens if they pick 5th. Top 5 are supposed to be a step above.

Everyone should think that we won't win the lottery, because it is far more likely that we don't than we do. I would like them to win, but expecting them to would be silly (unlike a few years ago when it would have been slightly better than a coin flip chance.) No need to call on the Buffalo always loses mentality here. Side note: the Sabres actually have a 25.38% chance of winning. NJs balls (1.5% chance) count as redraws, so the Sabres chance is 0.25/(1-0.015) = 0.2538. Side note 2: Sabres had the same number of ROWs this season as last in 34 more games. Only Florida had less last season and no other team has come close in a full season since they started tracking that stat a few years ago. That's 17% of games won without a shhotout.

Awesome.

Guy's a magician ...

It's a question of how you define your events. Two choices are: (1) Sabres win lottery or they do not, or (2) Sabres win lottery, Oilers win lottery, Panthers win lotttery, ..., 14th-worst team win lottery. In (1) the Sabres not winning is the most likely event, while in (2) the Sabres winning the lottery is.

"Objection." "Overruled." "Oh, no, no, no. No, I STRENUOUSLY object." "Oh. Well, if you strenuously object, then I should take some time to reconsider."

Toronto is a lot closer than they would be, having gone 9-4 in shootouts. Other teams that had strong records: St. Louis (9-3), San Jose (10-7), Pittsburgh (6-2), Montreal (6-3), LA (8-4), Columbus (5-2), Calgary (6-3) and Buffalo (7-4). Washington went 10-10, so they got a lot of points in the SO, but no more than a coin-flip amount given they were in so many. Anaheim (2-6), Philly (3-7), Nashville (2-8), Carolina (1-4) and, of course, NJ (0-11) were particularly bad. Nashville and NJ are on the outside, in part, because of that.

Detroit has had 5 SO wins and 8 SO losses, so their actual goal differential is only -8. Their record, when expressed as ROW/ROL/SO(W or L) is: 32-33-13 I know that SO's are part of the scoring system, so you can't completely ignore them. However, even the league acknowledges that they are different by tracking ROW. If I were trying to create a model to predict playoff performance, I would likely treat them as a tie or something much less than a normal win/loss. In fact, look at the current records as I describe them: Dark Green = In (locked), Light Green = In (not locked), Yellow = Out (Not Eliminated), Red = Eliminated NJ is out because they have been unimaginably terrible team in a meaningless (come playoff time) part of the game.

Sadly, Leino's price is per season, so in the long run, it would be cheaper to ice an Abrams.

M1 Abrams - $8.6 Million Challenger 2 - $7.0 Million Leopard 2 - $5.7 million Merkava - $6.0 Million Type 90 - $7.4 Million Tanks ain't cheap.

(Italics, underline and caps added for emphasis.) Are you f'ing kidding me?! That was about as blatant and straight-forward of a head shot as you get. They should print a screen capture, poster size, with the caption "Don't do this" and have every team in the league put one up in their locker room. Even with the playoffs game conversion rate, he should be out more than the phone hearing max.

My biggest problem was that they didn't even try to make him look like the same character. Original: New: At least give him some hair extensions and a clean shave for the first couple of episodes just so that there is some continuity. Also, the first actor pulled off cocky better than the new guy.

Best comment:

For the first time this season, I'll truly be rooting for them to win. There's nothing to lose now. ;)

Florida made a valiant run for last place, but the Sabres just weren't sucky enough early on and the Sabres matched them suck-for-suck down the stretch.

I think they're throwing "top two" signs.

They could, in theory, finish as low as 2nd in the lottery draft order, too. Most likely, though, they will be 4 or 5. It would take a pretty big move to get down to 3 or up to 6. They do play Florida tonight, so that could be a double win for the Sabres, if the Panthers were to win.

So, he played the puck with a broken stick? Dirty bastard! (Edit: it occurred to me that he didn't actually need to play the puck; simply continuing to play with a broken stick is a penalty.)

The separation that Boston and Buffalo are producing is just unreal. I may have to extend my range again in both directions!

6th-worst would only give the top team a 1.6% bump. Even 5th-best or 4th-best would just be a 2.2% or 3.0% bump.

Note: NJ is currently around the 10th/11th spot, so they would have a 2.1% or 1.5% chance of winning. In my case (1), which re-distributes their probability, that would give the top pick a 25.54% or 25.38% chance of winning. In my case (2), which basically gives the top team their probability, that would give the top pick a 27.10% or 26.50% chance of winning. Not a huge bump either way, but it's something.

Good question. Assuming that they miss the playoffs, I could see one of two things happening: 1) The remaining thirteen non-playoff teams would have their probabilities adjusted by (original probabilit)/(1-(NJ probability)), which alternatively could be done by simply re-picking if NJ were to win. 2) If NJ is picked, then nobody moves and the first overall pick stays with the 30th-place team. Either one would likely (barring a huge run in the last 9 games) help the Sabres, though obviously the latter would be significantly better if we were to finish last. I'm guessing it would be (1).