carpandean

Right, they're building on two records: 24 games to start a season without a regulation loss 30 games in a row without a regulation loss

Aw, shucks. :blush: Probably about right. They averaged 47 in the simulation and, again, that's biased high if you believe that they have a less than 50% chance of winning any game.

Good to hear.

I added the Playoffs chart, but as usual, the difference in games played limits its usefulness. The Rangers and Devils will determine the 8th-place points through at least 23GP and likely through more (it would take the Rangers losing 3 in-a-row and the Jets winning 2 in-a-row for the Jets to affect 8th-place through 24GP; no other team can.) Through 20GP, the Sabres were still 7 points behind 8th-place. Through 21GP, they will be either 5 or 6 behind (depending on the Rangers' next game), and through 22GP, they will be 4 or 5 behind (depending on the Rangers' next 2 games.) The game against the Devils will be huge for distance from the playoffs, as they will likely be the 8th-best team through 22GP (unless the Rangers lose both of their next two.) On another note, I wrote my own Monte Carlo simulator to add onto my charts spreadsheet. I downloaded the schedule, including the date/time, home team and away team. It simulates only remaining games and adds the results to the current points. To keep it simple (for now), I used a 50/50 split with a 20% chance (overall) of an OT/SO game. I did a quick 60,000 seasons and noticed a few things: 1) I estimated a 12% chance of making the playoffs, which is just slightly above what SportClubStats 50/50 shows (10.3%). 2) The average 8th place finish was just under 53 points. 3) They had a 22.5% chance of finishing dead last (in EC) and a 0.029% chance of finishing first (and that's biased high by the 50/50 split.)

The only thing that I can hope is that he was just totally gassed from being out there QB'ing the PP for 1:21 when it happened. I mean, the Sabres do skate 200ft a lot, so it's possible. :unsure:

Aw man, I'm going to miss the ol' handle bar.

Put an "A" on him ... because he's an a**hole, but he's our a**hole!!

And a -12. (In fairness, 8 of his points were on the PP.)

Top 10 Subjects for Jokes 1. Genocide 2. Infectious disease 3. Suicide Didn't have to go far down the list either. :doh:

You should add a category for the ###### that Colorado would laugh at (though, there would definitely be overlap with "the ###### I would actually consider" category.)

Nothing scientific, but an 18 GP (per team) moving average of % games going to OT/SO from the past two seasons: Last year, it was a little flatter, but there was definitely still an upward trend at down the stretch. However, two years ago, there was a large season-long trend. As such, I would suspect that the % going to OT/SO will rise over the remainder of the season.

Very true. I agree that TBP that goaltenders should be excluded, and would actually just (at least initially) focus on forwards. Ideally, the scoring system would include advanced analytics and would also adjust for injuries. However, I would surmise that any reasonable scoring system would net much of the benefit from expanding the current binary criteria.

Except that most GMs know this, too. They're not just taking a generic "first round pick" for a player. If the Sabres offer a first-round pick in trade right now, then it's going to be valued more highly than if Chicago does. The further along in the season they go, the bigger the difference in value will be (assuming they stay near the bottom and top, respectively.) The morning of the draft, a top-five draft pick couldn't be had four even five mid-to-upper first-round picks (most years, when there is actually "top five" talent.) Heck, many years, you couldn't get the #1 or #2 overall pick for the #3, 4 and 5 picks! If you can't tell, I've always hated when people (posters, reporters, etc.) talk about first-round picks as being all equal. A fourth-round pick is closer in value to a late first-round pick than a top-five pick is. One side note, though: the study has a binary success/failure criteria. This almost certainly undervalues high-end picks. For example, 6-10 and 11-15 may both have the same chance of success, but the successes in 6-10 may outperform the criteria by more when the are successes. Likewise, the 84% chance of a success in 1-5 is only a part of its value. If, for example, they were scored 0 for failures and 1-5 for successes, depending on performance (Stamkos being a 5; a third-liner just squeaking out two 45 point seasons being a 1), then #1-5 might have an 84% chance of making it and average (guessing) 3.7 when they do, while 6-10 and 11-15 might have a 42% chance of making it, but also average 2.8 and 2.4, respectively, when they do. Or something like that. Ah, if only I had some spare time ...

If the two camps of thinking that you saw were: (1) it's a flawed team that nobody, even Lindy, could get anything out of, or (2) it's a talented team being held back by Lindy; then there were at least three camps of thinking. I felt that it was a more talented team than we were seeing this season and often (see starts to previous two seasons) saw before, in part due to Lindy being the coach now, but not what I would call a talented team, in general. I don't think that it is well constructed, being a mix of what Darcy likes and what Darcy seems to think is now winning (he knows bigger and more physical and harder to play against are in now, but not how to incorporate that into a team), but not totally without talent. I think a different coach (not necessarily better, nor worse) could get more out of them. The biggest thing, though, was that I knew that as long as we had the pair (LR and DR) in place together, there would always be enough of an "it's the players; no, it's the coach; no, it's ..." argument that nothing would change. Now, one is gone, so we'll be able to better answer that question. I suspect that we'll find out that, though some of each, it was more Darcy than Lindy. However, I was at the point where I was willing to move on at coach in order to find out. I like Lindy and enjoyed having him as the Sabres coach for many years, but for the past few years, I didn't like DR/LR much, much more.

It does make you wonder how many deals that would have been at least fair and would have bettered the team that he has missed. Yeah, his strategy got him what he wanted in one trade, but what's the net result of continued application of the same policy? Also, Ted Black was on WGR and said something along the lines of "last year, the big issue was center depth, and now we have Hodgson, Grigorenko and Girgensons." Problem is that center depth wasn't pointed out last year; it was pointed out in the summer of 2007. Darcy failed to address it for five years. Of course, they would say that he didn't the resources, but how did he get those players? Drafting and trading prospects/picks. Resources did not limit him from making similar moves pre-TPegs. Plus, they're all so young that not one of them has actually proven that he is an NHL scoring-line center yet. Hodgson is the closest offensively, but has a long way to go defensively to count. We won't know if he actually addressed the problem until at least next season. That's six seasons of not fixing one of the biggest holes in the roster that a team can have.

That falls under their "Row combines multiple less frequent records" disclaimer. In other words, to save space, they will combine several rows that had few occurrences in their sample.

Yeah, at 1:15, you really see it. Ouch.

Jason Pominville is just slightly behind Pavel Datsyuk and Ryan Getzlaf in SHTOI/GP (picking the two biggest names that jumped out, but there are others.) He averages 2:09 per game and a whole lot of big name players (Kovalchuk, Giroux, Marleau, etc.) average between 1:50-2:00. Hodgson is below those players.

It got me a little when he said that Darcy came to his house after the practice and upon seeing him, Lindy simply said "I know." :cry:

For the whole season, no. However, last year in games 35-52 last year, they went 6-9-3.

This paints quite the mental picture. ;)

How low can we go? How low can we go?

I don't know. If it doesn't make Colorado significantly better, it might give you two kicks at the MacKinnon can. ;)

With Anaheim sitting at #2 in the league, I would just say "If we get another center ..." ;)

Yeah, I'm confused, too. Bylsma was Pittsburgh's AHL coach when he was hired.