IKnowPhysics

Face aids.

I would definitely take on Hossa and Sharp. A 60 point right wing and a 75 point left wing. Good veteran guys. Still productive, still competitive. Stick that in your McEichel and smoke it. That's the way to get these young centers to lead the team.

Virre Reino?

Haha http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_burn_centers_in_the_United_States

Agreed. There will likely be no way to prove that we're tanking. That's part of the genius of Murray, Black, and in a major way, Regier. Who doesn't do the Vanek trade if you're a Buffalo GM? Or the Miller trade. Or sell Pominville high. There goes the core. There go the wins. Here come the draft picks. Bringing McDavid in with the Otters to play is over the top hilarity circus show ######, but still not in the realm of league reprimand. They've got all of the plausible deniability they need. And the league changed the draft odds, just to ###### with us anyways.

Tavares and Hodgson, and many others, have identified skating as an area for significant improvement.

Exactly right. I hadn't really noticed this until I looked at Tatar and Nyquist, and said, well ######, they're breaking the NHLe numbers... why? They're earning and getting better minutes. Well, top picks also get better minutes...so let's look at them separately. I personally think he hasn't been given a square opportunity to play in favorable situations with favorable minutes. That would -and has- really limit his offensive output. That's why I haven't given up on him, and probably won't until I see more. That said, there might be reasons why coaches don't play him this way- maybe he hasn't earned his opportunities yet. You're right. Most top picks go to garbage teams. And that sets the statistical stage for what kinds of players these picks play with. But despite the Sabres only trailing by a few points, some of the analytics are looking historically bad for us right now, especially some of the points-related stats. For example, we're scoring 1.77 goals per game. The next lowest goals per game since 2005 over a season was about 2.30 (this doesn't count NJ in 2010-11 when they only scored 2.08, but finished 23rd in points, or Minnesota in 2011-12 when they finished with 2.02 at 24th). That's enormous- we're 23% lower in scoring than the lowest scoring teams that finished bottom five over the past 11 years. It's hard to say what's going to happen next year, because there's so many factors. Top picks go to bad teams and often play well. But no recent team has been this bad. Do we have the forwards to help the youngsters? Certainly not entirely, not yet. Will coaching usage help or hinder these kids? Maybe expectations of winning next season force Ted Nolan to play the veterans in the leading roles, diminishing the rookie stats, making it initially seem like the tank was all for ######. Maybe the rookies are so good, they actually carry the team with whatever veterans we get, and start to turn up the wins. This tank business is an enormous, enormous ###### crap shoot. It's unprecedented how all-in this team is for the draft, and either way this whole thing goes, it'll be studied by professional sports managers all over the world for quite a long time. And I'm excited about it. It's ###### like this that leaves the biggest question marks for me. Reinhart should be capable of scoring somewhere between 43-55 points. But that'd pretty much be leading this year's team. Can he be the leading scorer of an NHL team his first full year? ** What personnel does he need around him to do this? Veterans? Or another #1-2 overall rookie centerman in McEichel? **John Tavares did this in 2009. Joined the Islanders and lead them with 54 points. This was 22% above NHLe expectations. So that's encouraging. Sort of. The Islanders didn't lift themselves out of the bottom half of the league until this year. Other rookie players to lead their teams in points: Crosby, 60% above NHLe Kane, 21% above NHLe Hall was close (1 point behind), 19% above NHLe McDavid is right up there with Crosby and Kane, in terms of points per game in juniors. If anyone can do it this decade, he can. Eichel's playing somewhere between Drouin and Kane. It's possible Eichel could lead a team in points, but it doesn't seem likely, from what I'm seeing in the history books. It seems like it'd be a stretch for Reinhart to lead an NHL team in points.

Let's be a little careful. There's nothing here proving that you're wrong. These stats show that top prospects can, but don't always, exceed expectations. Possible real life reasons for this may include quality linemates, good usage, lots of powerplay time, lots of sheltered minutes, etc. Prospects at the very top appear to excel statistically more than what is predicted by NHL equivalency, because they seem to get better-than-average opportunities and thrive in them. If you took a top player, surrounded him with AHL talent, and made him play against NHLers, he wouldn't have a good opportunity to thrive and beat expectations. In fact, he'd probably struggle to meet expectations. The math we've done here only describes what happens when you plug rookies into an average rookie situation. It also happens to show that excellent rookies in excellent situations often, but not always, exceed normal expectation. If you get Reinhart and McDavid and Eichel all playing together in a top six or nine, you'll definitely need some skilled veteran support on and off the ice to keep them on track and competitive. That said, based on pure talent alone, you might be able to force these kids into a meat grinder of a situation without much help and still have them come out on top eventually, but it'll be slow going. See also: John Tavares. It could also be disastrous. See also: Nino Neidereiter. The stats don't pick apart and explain each player's situation, so it's tough to talk about how good the situation was for each player based solely on the numbers.

They don't list these folks on the Sabres personnel list on the website. According to dates from tweets and news articles, Braid was working with the team at least through 2014 training camp. Malloy was brought in "late October" 2014. I sort of hope both are with the team- Braid is highly regarded.

An 8th, a 2nd, a 5th overall, a top-10 1st, and probably a top-15 1st. Plus a top-45 2nd. For one player. Jesus. I think Edmonton takes that trade. I would've thought just about any three of those things and that 2nd rounder would do it.

His single-season points-per-game pace is the highest (of any league actually) since Crosby. Kane is next on the list after McDavid. Another little bit: All players with NHLe's above 38 points exceeded their expectations. The average was 33% above expectation. These players were Crosby, Kane, Backstrom, Tavares, MacKinnon, Stamkos. Reinhart, Bennett, Dal Colle, McDavid, Eichel, and Strome would all possibly fit this category.

Due to my laziness, there's technically a few minor errors in this, but the results are close.

Thanks. I took the "classic" NHLe and mulitplied by the average amount that the group of players have historically exceeded their NHLe. Example: Forwards picked in the top five exceed their NHLe on average about 12% (a factor of 1.12). First overall picks exceeded their NHLe on average about 53% (a factor of 1.53). So looking at McDavid again, who had 2.61PPG in the OHL (NHLe factor 0.29)... 2.61PPG x 0.29 x 82 NHL games = 62 points 62 points x 1.12 = 70ish points 62 points x 1.53 = 95ish points Using the boost from the new NHLe, it's possible that McDavid could score 70-95 points, depending on whether he plays like a "top five pick forward" or a "number one overall pick" historically has.

2nd overall from 2014 Sam Reinhart 1.8 PPG in OHL NHLe: 43 points in 82 NHL games. New NHLe: 48-55 points. Note that Ennis is leading the pace year towards 48 points.

[if someone more organized than me wants to pull these NHLe posts into a new thread, I'm fine with that.] I compiled all of the relevant NHLe data on the top five drafts of each year going back to 2005 (Crosby draft). Using the NHLe factors I posted above, I calculated the expected NHLe of every top five draft pick had for their first 30+ game NHL season. I compared this NHLe to their actual production in that first 30+ game season. Top five draft picks, regardless of position, on average, scored 19% more points in their first 30+ game NHL season than what NHLe predicted they would. Forwards scored on average 12% more. Defense scored 34% more. 1st overall picks scored a whopping 53% more. 2nd overall picks scored 28% more. 3rd overall picks scored 5% more.. 4th overall picks scored 22% more. 5th overall picks scored 1% less. The forward to most exceed expectations was Bobby Ryan (98% percent more points than NHLe). The defenseman to most exceed expectations has been Aaron Ekblad (114% percent more points than NHLe so far this season). Jack Johnson was the defenseman to least meet expectations (67% fewer points) in their first 30+ game season. Brayden Schenn was the forward to least meet expectations (41% fewer points) in their first 30+ game season. Nino Neiderreiter was so bad with the Islanders (1 point in 55 games), that I gave him a pass as an outlier and used the stats from his transition in Minnesota, where he beat expectations by 49%. It appears that, on average, NHLe underrates elite prospects. This is because NHLe normally averages every player that makes the jump from whichever league to the NHL, and it seems like elite players are getting more ice time, better usage, power play time, better linemates, etc, than the average prospect making the jump, which enhances elite prospects' point production. This new knowledge can be applied to the upcoming draft (using players in the CSS rankings): 1st overall Connor McDavid 2.61 PPG in OHL NHLe: 62 points in 82 NHL games. New NHLe: 70-95 points. 2nd overall Jack Eichel 1.70 PPG in NCAA NHLe: 57 points in 82 NHL games. New NHLe: 63-73 points. 3rd overall Noah Hanifin 0.59 PPG in NCAA NHLe: 20 points in 82 NHL games. New NHLe: 20-27 points. 4th overall Lawson Crouse 0.77 PPG in OHL NHLe: 18 points in 82 NHL games. New NHLe: 20-22 points. Remember that this kid is 6'4" 212lbs at age 17. 5th overall Dylan Strome 1.86 PPG in OHL NHLe: 44 points in 82 NHL games. New NHLe: 44-49 points.

You're probably right. Trying to predict what these top end players are capable of is really an extrapolation of the data, and is almost by definition unreliable. And there's so many real life factors that could pare that 50 percent boost down to 25, 15, 5 percent. Or in the case of a team that's facing a lot of statistical adversity, it could be lower, and player may not meet their NHLe. When I get a couple more minutes, I'll do a comprehensive look at top-two (or more) picks and whether they were able to meet the expectations calculated by this method.

Jesus, I'm slow tonight. Thanks. I'm always surprised too. It seems like such a simplistic, ham-handed technique. But it works pretty good, especially if the player you're looking at gets opportunities that resemble average minutes and average usage.

Mitch Marner has scored 90 points in 42 games so far for the Knights this season, which equates to roughly 51 points over 82 games. It'd be very surprising (like MacKinnon surprising) if he actually accomplished that, for lots of reasons (usage in the NHL, playing more than nine games and burning a year of ELC, developing his two way game), but it appears possible and his scoring has definitely accelerated in juniors. A couple more, for fun. These are some rarer cases where NHLe fails and guys make a big leap forward, thus proving themselves indispensable prospects to their clubs. The departure from the predicted value is caused not just by the players' development, but by the increase in minutes and the quality linemates they've earned, compared to an average rookie: From his work in Grand Rapids in the AHL, Tomas Tatar could've expected to reasonably score 26 points in his 73 games last season for Detroit. But he busted open in the NHL with 39 points last year. He's on pace for 37 goals and 60 points this season and he's currently the Red Wings' leading scorer. Maybe that's why Babcock doesn't want to move him. Similarly, Gustav Nyquist also lit up the A, and should've posted about 27 points in his 57 games with the Red Wings last year. Instead, he put up 48. Aaron Ekblad should have about 12 points in his 44 games, but he's put up 25 points. This demonstrates one of the things that's exciting about McDavid. Based on his 60 points in 23 games so far this season with Erie, you might expect he could post 62 points in the NHL using NHLe. BUT he could earn opportunities to play more than the average rookie, if he doesn't have gaping developmental holes in his game. He could be playing big minutes with great linemates and lots of powerplay time, which, like Tomas Tatar, could allow him to post 50% more points than NHLe predicts. Then you're having conversations about a possible 93-point rookie, in which his statistical colleagues are Malkin, Yzerman, Bossy, Niuewendyk, Trottier, Crosby, Hawerchuk, Ovechkin, etc. If Eichel were able to play right away and get on the great side of some great minutes, his NHLe could boost 50% from 58 points towards 87 points. But that could be asking a lot of his usage and playing opportunities. Nevertheless, it shows why Eichel could be considered a #1 overall in other years.

NHL point equivalency aims to predict the number of points that a player would score in the next 82 game NHL season. This is done by examining the historical stats of the many players that have made the leap from any given league (like the AHL, junior leagues, NCAA, SM-Liiga, etc) to the NHL the following year, then calculating a modifier/fudge/conversion/equivalency factor to the points per game the player scored in that previous league. Once the conversion factors are calculated (by some other nerd), they're pretty easy to use. For example: Sam Reinhart scored 132 points over his last 75 games with Kootenay. That's 1.76 points per game in juniors. Then you multiply by the NHLe factor for the Canadian Major Juniors (0,29) and the number of NHL games in a season (82). This gives you the number of points you might expect from the Reinhart over a full 82 game season. (132/75) x (0.29) x (82) = 41.8 points. Disclaimers: It obviously doesn't account for injuries (playing fewer NHL games), though you can calculate for fewer games than 82. It doesn't account for out-of-ordinary player usage (ie, Grigorenko playing only four minutes of 4th line per game or Nate MacKinnon playing immense minutes with top line linemates for COL his first year). It's designed for the average, solid usage of a rookie player. That said, not all, but most players I've calculated fall within about 10% of their values once they get to the NHL. Even rookies that come up play and short 10-40 game stints with the Sabres, it's worked out pretty well. At least before the recent Sabres stat-skewing tankfest. There's an added bonus: you can compare how "strong" a league is by comparing their equivalency factors- the bigger the factor, the stronger the league. So you can characterize leagues a little: the NCAA is a little tougher to score in than Canadian Juniors, but doesn't really compare to the "playing against men" leagues like RSL and Czech League. A player that scores 50 points in SEL is a much better player than one that scores 50 points in juniors in the same number of games. And since I'm typing this out anyways, let's do some math for funsies. Risto played in SM-Liiga, scoring 15 points in 52 games for TPS. He then came to Buffalo last year and scored only 4 points in 34 games. Was that backward development, or was it right on? His NHLe was 5 points. Pretty close to right on. Zadorov killed it last year in the OHL for the London Knights, scoring 30 points in 39 games from the blue line. NHLe says he should have 8 points in his 34 games this season with Buffalo. How many does he have? Eight! Nic Deslauriers scored 39 points in 60 games for the Manchester Monarchs of the AHL last season. His NHLe predicts he should have 13 points in 47 games with Buffalo. He currently has 12. Grigorenko had a tumultuous year last year to say the least, but he would eventually go back to the Quebec Remparts of the QMJHL and wreck it with 39 points in 23 games. According to NHLe, he was capable of posting about 6 points in his 12 games this season in Buffalo. He had a disappointing two points in those 12 games. Maybe it was poor usage or small sample size. And (due to math I won't explain, but it's not hard to figure out), if Grigorenko were really playing at the level that he showed in juniors and he was adjusting well to the "big man's" game, this method says we should expect about 38 points in his 34 games in Rochester. He only has 29 points there. It could be a symptom of the reason why he's spending more time there this year.

I'm pretty sure that's how you get MRSA.

Filthy wrist shots.

MLSE cracking down on jersey tossers. Possible $125 fines.

That's Dinosaur MacTavish thinking. "We have a team full of lazy wingers and no defense or goaltending. I've got an idea!" But I would literally jizz myself if Tim Murray convinced MacT to give away that pick for any two of anything that didn't include Reinhart or a 2015 or 2016 first. I mean: Myers and ______ = new pants. Grigorenko and ______ = pants shopping. Ennis and ______ = time to go to JC Penneys. Even trading away the wonder twins Risto and Zad, who I very much like, you likely get some combination of McDavid, Eichel, or Hannafin, and I get some chinos.