Randall Flagg

First, here are our 8-most-used lines and their (score adjusted? edit - not score-adjusted) corsi percentages. Note that the lines we've stuck with more than double the time of any other have performed quite well. Then here are the expected goal numbers I referred to. 57% for Jack's line, 60 for Erod, and 84(!) for the Skinner show. Of course, that's purely because Jeff has had about thirty shots from in tight already. And as always...the sample sizes are so small that when you go to corsica's "line combos" nothing shows at first because the miniscule default "minimum TOI" slider, which sits at 50 minutes, has not been met yet by a single group of NHL players, so of course, take that into appropriate account (read - this team is not going to score 60%+ of the goals in its games this year)

I'm pretty excited to see Tre White and DeAndre Hopkins go up against each other, as I assume will happen. Hopkins is so amazing

@WildCard does it make you feel a little better that every non-Mittelstadt line has outstanding expected-goal splits? That's a fancy stat that likes us so far.

is "people" supposed to say "players?"

In general I agree, but in the NFL, that draft pick (especially with McBeane - I'm lovin Taron Johnson right now) will have a very decent chance at contributing next year, and McCoy has been trash except for 6 of his touches this weekend. As far as I can tell, running Murphy and Ivory will be the same THIS season as running McCoy and Ivory, as McCoy is not what he was even last year It'd be different if McCoy was sitting on 380 rushing yards this season, but he has less than half of the guys in the top 5.

Yes. Look at how many people happily became members of the goddamn Browns this offseason, after 1 win in the last 32 games and continuing to employ that coaching staff

This, however, is an argument that could be convincing, though I just don't remember enough details about comments he's made in this regard to be sure off the top of my head.

Brown-nosing the owners? I thought he just liked Trump. There's a fairly sizable chunk of the Swedish population that shares similar beliefs to Trump supporters in America, so is there anything that suggests he isn't just one of those? Either way, neither of those things constitutes proof of being an a$$hole IMO

Yeah, I'd be cool with them doing that. Prior to this week, McCoy wasn't any better than the rest.

That's pretty freakin awesome IKP.

- Even I'm holding off on making any judgments like that for at least another 7-10 games. I would encourage not arguing about whether players are, in a broad brush, good this year or not, and rather arguing about the particular game they've had last night, or something. - One could argue this would be a good idea, but I'd sooner keep lines 1,4 the same and try to find the right combos in the middle two to get them both running smoothly. - That is part of the previous bullet! His current line isn't my favorite combo and Casey and Tage are struggling a bit, so maybe Jeff could help them, or maybe that line gets tanked. - Not so much, but yesterday was his best game. I'm kinda sad how similar he looks so far compared to the games I saw in St. Louis last year versus the glimpses we saw in the preseason, but it's not unusual at his age - I think they'll fall apart sooner or later. The real question is what month Bogosian will be ready to supposedly improve on their play after his 3 games and practices in the last 10000 days

Why is Lehner an a$$hole? I can understand the negative impact that his horrible experience would have on a locker room, but I also can't connect that to him being an a$$hole..

We're going to win and lose games where we don't have 2+ goal leads for more than half of the game. In plenty of those games, we are going to outshoot our opponents, because we'll still be trying to win too, and not coasting out the clock. Those games won't be "better hockey" than the games we were outshot in after having such a nice lead that we can afford to kill the clock, even though I hate killing the clock. But it takes more than 3 games to have enough games like that to smooth out wonky shots for/against that are happening all around the league through 2 or 3 games.

It's a dangerous road. We need more threads here, not less. It's gotten so bad that on hfboards, when things happen like Reinhart signing his contract, they don't even make a new thread, you just have to crawl back through 27 pages of the Sam Reinhart thread to page 64 to see the discussion start. The same six threads are on the top of page, are a thousand pages long, and never change.

? He's had shutouts here too, no? I'm honestly stunned at how much this board has been clinging to single-game-results and drawing such large conclusions from them

The shift after Vegas's second goal was excellent. They also scored almost immediately after the first one, too, for that matter.

I'm almost positive that's the first backhand goal that Jack has gotten into the top half of the net. I'm also almost positive he's taken another inch or two off of his stick since last season.

I remember reading Pens fans saying that was a common occurrence when the trade happened. He's pretty good though, so it won't bug me as much as when it happens to Zemgus I'm honestly not sure how you didn't get that this was my general point from that entire discussion haha ie, not to worry about stats that don't look great, especially through 3 games. On Dahlin, I hope that he doesn't worry too much about his acne. He's still such a cutie. Hopefully Bogosian beats up anyone who makes fun of him for it.

I seem to recall a time when I was a wee lad, and there was a sense/feeling of an extra advantage when a western team had to travel across the country and play in Buffalo. Long travel and a good team were tough to beat at the same time. It'd be cool to see/feel that consistently again. I forgot it might be a thing.

For full disclosure, though, I still think we're a 70-75 point team, and that our possession numbers will wind up falling in the bottom 10 of the league, reflecting that. But I have no foundation on which to put that belief on, at least pertaining to what our players have done since the 17-18 season ended

I was already preparing how I was going to phrase a snarky remark concerning the important differences and nuances between the two.

"drawing conclusions" or making it a theme of GDTs this early on, whatever you call it, it's there so I'm gonna comment on it.

That it hasn't happened yet. A stat that is predictive by nature and has a well-defined range of maximum/useful-functionality, well, I'm going to wait for that range before drawing conclusions. And also the fact that score-adjusting the same stat, like you should anyway, gives us GOOD numbers in the meaningless sample size. And leaving the stat book and going to the hockey, I'm enjoying the good goaltending we've gotten through three games and observing that secondary depth-scoring that I anticipate being there (kids, Skinner) hasn't begun yet, and that since there are so many new and young pieces, our season is not going to be static, our play will develop as it goes on. So from this lens, fretting about shots through three games is something I'm going to poop on I KNOW IT WAS DRIVING ME NUTS BC THOSE SAME ONES TRASHED THE ROOM AND STORMED OUT AFTER ONE PERIOD AGAINST BOSTON

Selective memory, I was quite optimistic in the single post that comprised 50% of my offseason words. I was critical of moves I didn't like and praised moves I liked, as always And I'm neither optimistic nor pessimistic today, I'm just waiting to get a better read on this team and not letting my emotions swing wildly as periods go by

Wrong. The hosers skipped their morning skate before NYR.