That Aud Smell

Jeeeebus.

Good stuff - especially this. I know it's not a good comparison, but I sometimes call to mind some lessons you can learn from watching top flight soccer from England, Europe (they're distinguished for the purposes of footy in a way I don't fully understand). Anyway -- there are games between really good clubs when one team will out-possess the other team like a mother. But sorta by design. And then the team that is conceding possession will plan to counter-attack in waves when opportunities are presented.

You're right that Corsi and Fenwick are proxies. Eventually, or maybe even already, they will have a means of measuring actual time of possession. There's an app for smart phones that SDS put me onto many moons ago. We used it for a month or two for one of my kid's soccer teams. It was simple, if also somewhat labor intensive to use. You just clicked one side of the screen or the other every time one team touched the ball. Or something like that. There were also rules for how to count balls out of bounds, etc. It was just U14 soccer (at a pretty decent level), but the app gave very clear views on how the team was doing with regard to possession, passing, etc. I'm not sure why a similar protocol can't be applied to ice hockey. I know it would be tricky because the game is so fast and fluid, but I think it could be done.

if they improved at any point, it wasn't enough or for long enough to get them out of the basement of the league's basic possession stats.

It’s not just you, no.

How’re the 5v5 stats comparatively?

Um, yeah. That's often always how risk works.

So good.

Missed th​at one. I definitely take the view that the only people truly deceiving themselves with regard to racism are those who deny that they are. It's like a 12-step program, man.

holy jesus. i need to schedule a poop and print the page to read that.

^ How does Lamar Jackson project, then, in terms of upside? At the risk of being ray-cess: Cam Newton? Cam Newton Lite? I say that because Jackson looks like he'll be a big fella who can chuck it from the pocket, isn't terribly accurate maybe, and can run like a mofo.

What risks? Well, the risks associated with falling flat on your face when you take off the training wheels and try to run with the big dogs. It's a pretty simple risk/benefit analysis: Do we play it safe® so that maybe we squeak out 93 points and sneak into the playoffs, or do we work to play a style that the top teams play and risk being exposed as a talent-poor and/or insufficiently-professional team?

There's something to this, though. The idea that Bylsma's vision/system had a high(er) floor and low ceiling of wins, success. The idea that Housley's vision/system has a low(er) floor and higher ceiling of wins, success. Now, mind you: I'm not sure whether Housley is capable of delivering on anything. But that was the idea, I think. It's not unlike a Bills fan saying they want to move on from 8 or 9 win teams and Tyrod Taylor, and see the team take a shot at becoming a team capable of hanging 11 or 12 wins. There are more risks associated with the latter path -- but more upside as well.

Then, like, what's even the point of a coach?

In theory: Bylsma’s ceiling may have been ~90 points. A better, more modern system would have no such ceiling. That’s the theory anyway.

What is life, even.

Wut.

I dunno, man. It feels like a guilty pleasure. Anyway, I frickin love those bits. I remember being bummed when I ordered a few seasons on DVD, only to find the music video segments had been omitted.

Bylsma: Small ice. Training wheels. Grind them b1tches down. Housley: Big ice. Sink or swim. SKATE. Move.

Well, if the idea is to debate (maybe it isn’t here?), then marshaling facts to support your take is ... a thing people do. Eichel gave a nod to Phil’s being personable and how he works on relationship building, back in September. Then, after a slow start, Eichel began a long stretch of his best play as a pro. Doesn’t *seem* like a tune-out scenario for #15.

Glad you seen what I did there.

Years gone by, I was a little bit on edge during a family vacation to Disney (that place is fun, but it has a way of doing that to a person), and I was just re-collecting myself after successfully getting me and several kids to our fast pass lane right before our tickets expired (for whatever the new "it" ride was), and this guy and his teenage daughter sally in behind us, they were there in plenty of time and were as breezy as you like. The guy looked like a less jolly John Candy - but not nearly as tall. Anyway, they're there for 3 or 4 seconds, and I'm admonishing one of my kids for something (probably antagonizing another one of the kids), and with weirdly apt timing, the guy says to me: "Look, man. I *told* you ... shove it up your ass." I am *so* not a beefy or fight picking guy. But I was in a moment. I turned around on this guy with a look on my face that my then 3 year-old called "scary." The mix-up was pretty quickly resolved, and the guy was mildly apologetic -- mostly for using crass language in front of my little kids.

Sassafras Occam's Rayzor?

Floyd is way cool. I went to see that live concert movie (Pompeii? (sp?)) at the North Park. Sober. Still cool as hell. Guilty pleasure for me is re-watching Beavis and Butthead clown on music videos.

(I'm still hoping he's a solid 5/6/7 guy.)