Ahh, yes. Today is the first of a two-day break that separates the six-and-a-half months of "regular season" from the inexplicably long two-month "postseason." I know hockey isn't the most popular topic around here, but the teams from Boston, Chicago, and St. Louis have each had rather notable years.
Let's start with Chicago because, well, saying anything nice about the Blackhawks churns my stomach. This is a young team improving rapidly, and they made the playoffs this year for the first time since 2002 (they haven't been any good, though, for a decade and a half). Chicago should make easy work of its first series with Calgary, though I make no predictions beyond that. Going forward, everything looks great for the next 5 years for the Hawks, who will be perennial contenders for the Cup - if they can resolve the issue of their aging goaltender. Bonus points: President Obama's favorite Chicago-style pizza comes from St. Louis' awesomely-named Pi, about a tenth of a mile from my apartment.
Another interesting development comes out of Boston, where the perrenially mediocre Bruins have had an astonishingly good season and have claimed the top spot in the East. I don't really know much about the B's except that they've got some solid goaltending, but their Goal Differential numbers have been outstanding, coming in at +80 for the year - more than 1.5 times that of any other team. I'd have to say that Boston is a narrow favorite as my top choice for the Cup, but competition is pretty tough this year. Winning the East is one thing, but getting by San Jose or Detroit in the finals would be another feat entirely.
Finally, the opportunity to dote on my St. Louis Blues. This Blues season is one of the most amazing I've ever seen in sports and is not getting enough attention in the news.
The Blues missed the playoffs in 1979 and 2006 - and not once in between. Their fall from grace was rapid, however. In 1999-2000 they boasted the league's best record. However, the lockout of 2004-2005 brought many rule changes, and the new salary cap decimated a team that had the league's third-highest payroll. When the new NHL debuted, the 2005-2006 Blues finished dead last in the league.
What has been so amazing as a fan, is that after the lockout, the team's management recognized that they couldn't contend, and did something completely unheard of in sports - they pretty much said they would write off the next few seasons and focus on building a top-caliber team for the future. 2008-09 was supposed to be one of those big resurgence years for us.
Hopes dimmed quickly, however, when #1 overall draft pick Erik Johnson was lost for the season, as was captain Eric Brewer. Future hall-of-famer Paul Kariya was lost for the season a month later, and star center Andy McDonald missed over two-thirds of the season. As if all that wasn't enough, goaltender Manny Legace was an all-star last year; today he's in the minors. All said and done, 41 games into the 82 game season the Blues had only 16 wins and were 15th of out 15 in the Western Conference.
In the second half of the season, however, the Blues went an NHL-best 25-9-7, capped by a 9-1-1 record in their last nine games. On Thursday St. Louis was in 9th place - outside of the playoff picture. After clinching a playoff berth by defeating #6 Columbus, the Blues poured salt in the wound by winning their season finale in Colorado, demoting Columbus to the #7 seed, meaning they would play Detroit (+51 goal differential) instead of Vancouver (+26).
I'm clearly going on too long, and breaking this up over several 5-minute periods has probably robbed me of any coherence, but I'll wrap it up. It's been a truly amazing season for a sports fan here. And finally, the NHL recently chose it's "goal of the year," an honor bestowed upon 22-year-old Blues forward TJ Oshie, a future superstar. It's not the most spectacular goal of the season, but watch as Oshie works his way around four different Canucks - all in the offensive zone - before making 2007 MVP nominee Robert Luongo look silly in net:
Showing posts with label Hockey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hockey. Show all posts
April 13, 2009
February 20, 2009
Alex Ovechkin at it again
Our-age phenom Alexander Ovechkin is quickly becoming the NHL's most exciting player.
If you're Bart, you'll remember this stunning goal. If you're not, watch it:
(It shouldn't be ignored either that he scores against the team coached by Wayne Gretzky)
Anyway, he's at it again with this jaw-dropper from the other night. The way he steals it is just as awesome as the goal itself, which he scores by shooting it to the goalie's right, his left. (Oh, and the defenseman that he makes look silly is no pushover, he's former #1 draft pick and 3-time all-star Roman Hamrlik)
And in honor of these two goals, ESPN's "Top 10 NHL goals while falling":
If you're Bart, you'll remember this stunning goal. If you're not, watch it:
(It shouldn't be ignored either that he scores against the team coached by Wayne Gretzky)
Anyway, he's at it again with this jaw-dropper from the other night. The way he steals it is just as awesome as the goal itself, which he scores by shooting it to the goalie's right, his left. (Oh, and the defenseman that he makes look silly is no pushover, he's former #1 draft pick and 3-time all-star Roman Hamrlik)
And in honor of these two goals, ESPN's "Top 10 NHL goals while falling":
January 06, 2009
Don't know if I should laugh or cry
As you probably know, when a hockey player scores three goals in a game, it's called a "hat trick."
Devout hockey fans are also familiar with the "Gordie Howe hat trick," named for (by far) the greatest pre-Gretzky player in NHL history. It consists of a goal, an assist, and a fight in one game.
Well, Wikipedia has taken it a whole other step further with what it calls the "Mario Lemieux hat trick." (For non-hockey-obsessives, various health issues kept Lemieux [Luh-myoo] from playing a full and lengthy career. Nonetheless, his averages are actually very similar to Gretzky's, and he's certainly in the top five of hockey players all time.)
In 1993 Lemieux received radiation treatment for cancer on the day of a game in which he went on to score a goal and an assist, thus the "Mario Lemieux hat trick." Wow.
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As a side note, another thing I found absolutely amazing was the unnamed (though referred to as the "quintella" or "Lemieux cycle") is a feat which will probably never be repeated in hockey history - on December 31, 1988, Lemieux scored a powerplay goal, shorthanded goal, even-strength goal, empty-net goal, and a penalty shot. This was the first of four five-goal games for Lemieux, which ties him with Gretzky for second all time, though the record holder, Joe Malone, played in the 1910s.
Finally, I'll just add that I watched a game where Lemieux scored five goals in a game once. It was March 26, 1996, and he was playing Wayne Gretzky and the St. Louis Blues. He would add two assists for a total of seven points in the Penguins 8-4 victory.
Devout hockey fans are also familiar with the "Gordie Howe hat trick," named for (by far) the greatest pre-Gretzky player in NHL history. It consists of a goal, an assist, and a fight in one game.
Well, Wikipedia has taken it a whole other step further with what it calls the "Mario Lemieux hat trick." (For non-hockey-obsessives, various health issues kept Lemieux [Luh-myoo] from playing a full and lengthy career. Nonetheless, his averages are actually very similar to Gretzky's, and he's certainly in the top five of hockey players all time.)
In 1993 Lemieux received radiation treatment for cancer on the day of a game in which he went on to score a goal and an assist, thus the "Mario Lemieux hat trick." Wow.
******************
As a side note, another thing I found absolutely amazing was the unnamed (though referred to as the "quintella" or "Lemieux cycle") is a feat which will probably never be repeated in hockey history - on December 31, 1988, Lemieux scored a powerplay goal, shorthanded goal, even-strength goal, empty-net goal, and a penalty shot. This was the first of four five-goal games for Lemieux, which ties him with Gretzky for second all time, though the record holder, Joe Malone, played in the 1910s.
Finally, I'll just add that I watched a game where Lemieux scored five goals in a game once. It was March 26, 1996, and he was playing Wayne Gretzky and the St. Louis Blues. He would add two assists for a total of seven points in the Penguins 8-4 victory.
December 24, 2008
Damn You Boston
So the Patriots beat the Rams in the Super Bowl a few years back. The Red Sox followed it up with a World Series victory over the Cardinals. No worry, I thought. At least the Bruins and the Celtics are terrible.
Well these days the Bruins are 2nd in the NHL in pts. They have scored more goals than any other team, and they've allowed fewer goals than any other team.
But as all Bostonians (?) know, the Bruins are the second best Boston team in session right now. The Celtics are 27-2 after winning their 19th consecutive game. (Who'd have thought the Patriots would be third, not to mention they're behind Miami via tiebreaker for the division lead!)
So I figured I'd do the work, and I found that the feat ties them with none other than the Los Angeles Lakers for 4th all time. The Celtics play the Lakers in their next game.
Upping the ante, the Lakers also hold the record for the most consecutive games won. In the 1971-72 season, the Chamberlain-led team won on November 5 and didn't lose until January 9, for a total of 33 games and good for a 50% longer streak than the second place team, 2007-08's Houston Rockets with 22. To beat the Lakers' record, the Celtics will have to win every game up through their home-and-home with Toronto on January 11 and 12.
Finally, their one-way magic number against the Nets (currently 2nd in their division) is 41 out of a total of 107 games. So if 38.3% of those games result in a Celtics win or a Nets loss, Boston wins the division. Wow.
Well these days the Bruins are 2nd in the NHL in pts. They have scored more goals than any other team, and they've allowed fewer goals than any other team.
But as all Bostonians (?) know, the Bruins are the second best Boston team in session right now. The Celtics are 27-2 after winning their 19th consecutive game. (Who'd have thought the Patriots would be third, not to mention they're behind Miami via tiebreaker for the division lead!)
So I figured I'd do the work, and I found that the feat ties them with none other than the Los Angeles Lakers for 4th all time. The Celtics play the Lakers in their next game.
Upping the ante, the Lakers also hold the record for the most consecutive games won. In the 1971-72 season, the Chamberlain-led team won on November 5 and didn't lose until January 9, for a total of 33 games and good for a 50% longer streak than the second place team, 2007-08's Houston Rockets with 22. To beat the Lakers' record, the Celtics will have to win every game up through their home-and-home with Toronto on January 11 and 12.
Finally, their one-way magic number against the Nets (currently 2nd in their division) is 41 out of a total of 107 games. So if 38.3% of those games result in a Celtics win or a Nets loss, Boston wins the division. Wow.
November 17, 2008
Win Differential and Overtime Losses
Sorry ladies, this probably won't be too interesting. Go read this instead.
I was checking on the NHL standings this morning. Now, the Blues weren't expected to have a great year, so when they started 4-1-0 everyone got excited. Now we're 6-8-2 and only 1 pt ahead of Florida for the worst record in the league.
Anyway, as I was looking at the standings I got curious about overtime losses and how frequently they occur.
Background: in the NHL tied games would go to a five minute overtime. If anyone scored, they instantly won the game. Otherwise, it ended in a tie. Since a win gets you 2 pts, a loss 0 pts, and a tie is worth 1 pt, essentially both teams would hedge their bets and more-or-less run out the clock so as to keep their hard-earned point. Among its many initiatives to make the game more interesting, the NHL now gives 2 pts to a team that wins in OT but 1 pt to a team that loses in OT to facilitate "trying" to win, and has also added a post-OT shootout so that no game can end in a tie.
So I was looking at the standings, wondering if anything made some teams more likely to rack up OTL's than others, and if I could find it without looking very hard for data. I thought it was reasonable that teams with about the same number of wins as losses would simply go to OT more often, and thus lose in OT more often. So I took all the data from the three years this rule has been in effect and regressed OTL against the absolute value of (W-L).
Nothing says it more clearly than this picture. There is no correlation. The p-value is 0.954. R-sq, the measure of how much of the variability in one variable is explained by the other, is 0.00003. So teams around .500 have the same number of OTLs as teams at the bottom or top of the standings.
Now here's where I got perplexed. Just for kicks I ran the same regression, just without the absolute value. So now the question is whether better teams have more OTLs or fewer OTLs.
Clearly, there is a strong relationship here. It turns out that the p-value is 0.04, though the r-sq is still only 0.05. The equation is OTL = 9.65 - 0.04*(W-L). So better teams have fewer OTLs.
Unfortunately, it took me until I was preparing this last graph to realize that of course they do! Because W means wins but L means regulation losses. Or put another way, "OTWs" are included in W.
So say every team played 100 games with 45 wins, 45 losses, and 10 going to OT. Half the teams go 7-3 for the year in OT and half the teams go 3-7. So half the teams have a record of 52-45-3 and half the teams have a record of 48-45-7.
So the two data points are {(7,3) and (3,7)}. In other words, even when I cooked the data to come out even it didn't, so my model can't be used.
So I screwed up and put a confounding variable in my model. Oh well. If I figure out an easy fix I'll update, but at this point I'm not scrapping the whole post.
I was checking on the NHL standings this morning. Now, the Blues weren't expected to have a great year, so when they started 4-1-0 everyone got excited. Now we're 6-8-2 and only 1 pt ahead of Florida for the worst record in the league.
Anyway, as I was looking at the standings I got curious about overtime losses and how frequently they occur.
Background: in the NHL tied games would go to a five minute overtime. If anyone scored, they instantly won the game. Otherwise, it ended in a tie. Since a win gets you 2 pts, a loss 0 pts, and a tie is worth 1 pt, essentially both teams would hedge their bets and more-or-less run out the clock so as to keep their hard-earned point. Among its many initiatives to make the game more interesting, the NHL now gives 2 pts to a team that wins in OT but 1 pt to a team that loses in OT to facilitate "trying" to win, and has also added a post-OT shootout so that no game can end in a tie.
So I was looking at the standings, wondering if anything made some teams more likely to rack up OTL's than others, and if I could find it without looking very hard for data. I thought it was reasonable that teams with about the same number of wins as losses would simply go to OT more often, and thus lose in OT more often. So I took all the data from the three years this rule has been in effect and regressed OTL against the absolute value of (W-L).
Nothing says it more clearly than this picture. There is no correlation. The p-value is 0.954. R-sq, the measure of how much of the variability in one variable is explained by the other, is 0.00003. So teams around .500 have the same number of OTLs as teams at the bottom or top of the standings.
Now here's where I got perplexed. Just for kicks I ran the same regression, just without the absolute value. So now the question is whether better teams have more OTLs or fewer OTLs.
Clearly, there is a strong relationship here. It turns out that the p-value is 0.04, though the r-sq is still only 0.05. The equation is OTL = 9.65 - 0.04*(W-L). So better teams have fewer OTLs.
Unfortunately, it took me until I was preparing this last graph to realize that of course they do! Because W means wins but L means regulation losses. Or put another way, "OTWs" are included in W.
So say every team played 100 games with 45 wins, 45 losses, and 10 going to OT. Half the teams go 7-3 for the year in OT and half the teams go 3-7. So half the teams have a record of 52-45-3 and half the teams have a record of 48-45-7.
So the two data points are {(7,3) and (3,7)}. In other words, even when I cooked the data to come out even it didn't, so my model can't be used.
So I screwed up and put a confounding variable in my model. Oh well. If I figure out an easy fix I'll update, but at this point I'm not scrapping the whole post.
October 25, 2008
Are You Kidding Me?!
OK, so this isn't her fault, but I can still be angry.
Last night Sarah Palin dropped a ceremonial first puck at an NHL game for the second time. After getting the usual treatment from the ever-unfriendly crowd in Philadelphia two weeks ago, this time she found herself in much friendlier St. Louis, where the Blues were hosting the Kings.
Unfortunately, as the Blues' all-star goaltender Manny Legace (pronounced legacy) stepped out onto the ice before the game, an official accidentally shifted the carpet laid out for Governor Palin and Legace fell, resulting in a minor hip injury.
Legace is out tonight, but the Blues are up 3-0 in the waning moments of the second period. He should be back for next Thursday's game against the poorly-named Carolina Hurricanes. Nevertheless, Sarah Palin continues to ruin everything she's associated with.
UPDATE: Five minutes into the third period, and just over four periods into his career (and on the way to a shutout in his first career start), Blues backup Ben Bishop has left the game with an injury. Fan-freakin'-tastic.
Last night Sarah Palin dropped a ceremonial first puck at an NHL game for the second time. After getting the usual treatment from the ever-unfriendly crowd in Philadelphia two weeks ago, this time she found herself in much friendlier St. Louis, where the Blues were hosting the Kings.
Unfortunately, as the Blues' all-star goaltender Manny Legace (pronounced legacy) stepped out onto the ice before the game, an official accidentally shifted the carpet laid out for Governor Palin and Legace fell, resulting in a minor hip injury.
Legace is out tonight, but the Blues are up 3-0 in the waning moments of the second period. He should be back for next Thursday's game against the poorly-named Carolina Hurricanes. Nevertheless, Sarah Palin continues to ruin everything she's associated with.
UPDATE: Five minutes into the third period, and just over four periods into his career (and on the way to a shutout in his first career start), Blues backup Ben Bishop has left the game with an injury. Fan-freakin'-tastic.
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