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NHL April 2015 |OT| Dustin Brown, Dustin Bro--

S

Socreges

Banned
zroid said:
Sort of. I think an 82 game sample does a very good job of creating granularity between good teams and bad teams (ie playoff teams and non-playoff teams), but not a particularly good job of establishing seeding within the playoffs. Not saying the system needs to change, but looking at the standings isn't in my view a good way to decide which playoff team is better than another playoff team.
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Agreed. I'm not sure that stats can give you any more confidence, though.

And was jk about the opinion stuff, of course.
 
D

dr.rocktopus

Banned
zroid said:
Sort of. I think an 82 game sample does a very good job of creating granularity between good teams and bad teams (ie playoff teams and non-playoff teams), but not a particularly good job of establishing seeding within the playoffs. Not saying the system needs to change, but looking at the standings isn't in my view a good way to decide which playoff team is better than another playoff team.

I say "imo" because statistics are one thing but integrating and applying is another. It's just my interpretation of the information we have.
Click to expand...

Even looking beyond the number size of the sample you need to account for biases as well. Number of games are not equal amongst all opponents, since you play in division the most, then conference teams then inter-conference. A true season-wide seeding system, like a Swiss tournament or an unbiased Round Robin would give accurate data, but that would be impractical with regards to scheduling and result shit tier teams versus other shit tier teams all the time and the Rangers and Ducks facing off every other night. Not exactly the best for business, or viewers in weaker markets.

IMO, what we have isn't exactly the fairest system, but it sure is entertaining and leads to the storylines that make sports great. Who would have thought the Sens vs. Pens would have been a big game three months ago?
 
P

Pikma

Banned
Dastardly Jerks said:
FUCK. GARBUTT WILL BE ON THE ICE TONIGHT.

HEALTHY SCRATCH ALL THE SUPERSTARS



Actually, the Ducks are in the Pacific.
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Calamari41 said:
I'm actually legitimately concerned about this game for this reason. Boudreau needs to at least severely limit the amount of time the top two lines are on the ice.
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tumblr_mjtgxkPNk61rdutw3o1_400.gif
 
Z

zroid

Banned
Socreges said:
Agreed. I'm not sure that stats can give you any more confidence, though.

And was jk about the opinion stuff, of course.
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Not much more, no. Just a bit, hah. Anything can happen in the 'yoffs.

dr.rocktopus said:
IMO, what we have isn't exactly the fairest system, but it sure is entertaining and leads to the storylines that make sports great. Who would have thought the Sens vs. Pens would have been a big game three months ago?
Click to expand...
absolutely. I follow all the big four leagues to varying degrees, and the NHL is for my money the most entertaining by some distance.
 
S

ShaneB

Member
Know we've had a playoff bracket before, but looks like we can step it up a bit and go official with what has been set up at NHL.com/bracket

Looks pretty neat. Just a heads up if people would like to do that!
 
D

Dastardly Jerks

Banned
OT2BiW8.jpg


Finally got a camera angle of Kopitar doing his best Quick impression.

Through the 5-hole and everything.

Calamari41 said:
We should determine who gets to hoist the Cup through a series of charts so packed with data points that you can't even discern one point from another
Click to expand...

What do we name the trophy for the player with the best Corsi?

Wait, I just answered my own question.

Pikma said:
tumblr_mjtgxkPNk61rdutw3o1_400.gif
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yBHmVED.jpg


I don't mean that to sound harsh, I just wanted to use that GIF
 
L

Lone_Prodigy

Member
The playoff races are crazy. Who would've thought the Pens and Islanders would be in danger of missing the playoffs a few weeks ago? Heck, go back a month or so and the only question in the East was whether Florida would catch Boston for the last spot.

Meanwhile in the West you've got the Sharks, Avs, and Stars out, and the Kings on the ropes. Kings have been hard to kill the past few years but at least the Canucks have clinched so I'm breathing easier.

The Rangers have separated themselves from the pack over the past couple weeks. They're healthy, deep, and experienced. Tampa has questions in net and a decimated blueline, and goal-starved Montreal is missing Pacioretty. Heck at this point Washington is looking pretty good.

The West is a lot closer but I don't see any real favourites. Minnesota has been the hottest team in the league since January and they're 4 points out of 3rd in their division. The Pacific is the weaker division but even then none of the teams there are pushovers.

Happy that the Canucks made it in after the disaster of last year. They also seem fresher and healthier, but will need Richardson and Kassian.
 
S

Socreges

Banned
Lone_Prodigy said:
The playoff races are crazy. Who would've thought the Pens and Islanders would be in danger of missing the playoffs a few weeks ago? Heck, go back a month or so and the only question in the East was whether Florida would catch Boston for the last spot.

Meanwhile in the West you've got the Sharks, Avs, and Stars out, and the Kings on the ropes. Kings have been hard to kill the past few years but at least the Canucks have clinched so I'm breathing easier.

The Rangers have separated themselves from the pack over the past couple weeks. They're healthy, deep, and experienced. Tampa has questions in net and a decimated blueline, and goal-starved Montreal is missing Pacioretty. Heck at this point Washington is looking pretty good.

The West is a lot closer but I don't see any real favourites. Minnesota has been the hottest team in the league since January and they're 4 points out of 3rd in their division. The Pacific is the weaker division but even then none of the teams there are pushovers.

Happy that the Canucks made it in after the disaster of last year. They also seem fresher and healthier, but will need Richardson and Kassian.
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I had ruled the Canucks out completely. And now I'll be devastated if they get bounced in the first round.

Flames would be a great matchup. The best possible. But the Canucks have struggled mightily against them, so it's not too comforting.
 
C

calder

Member
zroid said:
Sample proposals for Las Vegas team name / logos: http://espn.go.com/nhl/story/_/id/12551758/nhl-las-vegas-team-names

I like this one:

The Las Vegas Sin

mrvav5X.png
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That one actually kinda grew on me. It's certainly not the worst idea; it's original and the headline writers would be ecstatic for decades.

Pierre LeBrun's troll answer was the best though.


For you non-Insider plebs/rational human beings:

Vegas a stronger market than the conventional wisdom suggests

Carolina Hurricanes coach Bill Peters didn’t hesitate for moment. Asked whether he felt the NHL would work in Seattle (he spent three seasons in Spokane -- leading the Chiefs to the Memorial Cup in 2008), he gave it his full endorsement.

“Guaranteed home run,” Peters said when we chatted last week. “As long as you have good ownership. It’s a great sports town. I don’t know how they butchered the NBA, but look at the Mariners, the Seahawks and the corporate money support. It’s a slam dunk.”

And that’s the conventional wisdom. Of the two front-runners for NHL expansion, Seattle is seen as the lock, with only the lack of an arena slowing down the process. Las Vegas, on the other hand, is still in the "show me" portion of the process.

According to colleague Scott Burnside, Las Vegas has exceeded the 10,000 local season-ticket holders threshold, and has moved on to corporations and casinos for support.

That it took until late March to get to that point is up for debate as to whether that’s a positive, or a little slower than expected.

Which brings us to the ESPN Sports Poll, a survey of sports fans ages 12 and up that tracks a multitude of trends in the world of sports, including the largest fan bases and, for our purposes, the percent in each market who are avid NHL fans.

Among the largest fan bases, there are very few surprises. The Chicago Blackhawks have the largest among hockey franchises, at 8.5 million. That’s larger than teams like the Boston Celtics (8.3 million), Chicago Bears (8 million) and St. Louis Cardinals (7.8 million).

The NHL continued to make serious gains as a sport, with the New York Rangers and Los Angeles Kings adding a total of 2.1 million fans in 2014.

Percent polled who are avid NHL fans
Code: 
NHL markets	
Pittsburgh	29.7%
Boston	24.4%
Chicago	23.8%
Detroit	23.1%
Buffalo	19.5%
Saint Louis	16.2%
Minneapolis-St Paul	13.6%
Denver	13.0%
Philadelphia	12.9%
Tampa-St Petersburg	10.5%
New York City	10.2%
Los Angeles	9.7%
Phoenix	9.5%
Washington DC	9.1%
Columbus, OH	8.3%
Dallas-Ft Worth	8.2%
Raleigh-Durham	7.9%
San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose	7.9%
Nashville	7.1%
Miami-Ft Lauderdale	4.7%
All US NHL markets	12.9%
	
Other markets	
Portland, ME	21.6%
Providence-New Bedford	18.1%
Flint-Saginaw	16.9%
Hartford-New Haven	14.2%
Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo	14.0%
Las Vegas	11.8%
Norfolk-Portsmouth	9.0%
Portland, OR	5.9%
Seattle-Tacoma	5.7%
Orlando-Daytona Beach	5.4%
Houston	5.4%
Atlanta	4.5%
Kansas City	3.4%
Indianapolis	3.3%
San Antonio	2.8%
Source: ESPN Sports Poll

Where things get interesting is in the table that examines the percentage in each market who are avid NHL fans, as seen at right.

Here’s what jumped out there:

The Pittsburgh Penguins are dominant. In part because there’s not an NBA team in Pittsburgh, the Penguins have grabbed a stranglehold on the winter market there. At 29.7 percent, they have the highest percentage among NHL markets who identify themselves as avid NHL fans. The Penguins are one of four franchises that eclipse 20 percent, with Boston (24.4 percent), Chicago (23.8 percent) and Detroit (23.1 percent) the others.

Relocation candidates? The Miami-Fort Lauderdale market brings up the rear among fans who identify themselves as avid NHL fans in that city, at just 4.7 percent. That’s a hard way to do business, and that’s lower than non-NHL cities like Orlando (5.4 percent), Houston (5.4 percent) and just about on par with Atlanta, at 4.5 percent. The Hurricanes are for sale, and currently just 7.9 percent of the Raleigh-Durham market identifies itself as avid NHL fans. That could make finding a local buyer a challenge.

Las Vegas vs. Seattle. This might be the most fascinating data on the chart. With conventional wisdom usually that Seattle is plug-and-play ready among potential expansion teams, that market actually trails Las Vegas pretty significantly. Las Vegas is at 11.8 percent of fans who identify themselves as avid NHL fans. That’s double the total for Seattle-Tacoma, which comes in at 5.7 percent. Those numbers are consistent with the philosophy by some in Seattle that there is going to be work to be done to sell that market when expansion ultimately hits.

Ken Johnson, whose son Tyler is the rare hockey player to make the NHL from the state of Washington, is among those who doesn’t think it’s absolutely automatic that the market succeeds.

“Personally? I think it might be one of those markets that could do well at first because it would be something new,” Johnson said. “Seattle couldn’t keep their basketball team. It all depends on where they build the rink, what kind of rink they have and what kind of excitement they generate.”

The advantage Seattle has over Las Vegas is that it can draw fans from neighboring cities, especially if the arena is built somewhere near light rail.

“I think they would,” Johnson said. “If you’re here in Spokane, we’re all Mariners fans. We’re all Seahawks fans. Even though we’re four hours away, we feel like that’s our team.”

Johnson’s conclusion is that the team will have to sell itself, market itself and connect with the communities. He pointed out the way Lightning owner Jeffrey Vinik has connected with the people of Tampa Bay and has turned Lightning games into events. He thinks Seattle will have to be similar.

“If you can get those guys in the building and put on a show for them, they’ll come back,” Johnson said. “It would be a tough market but if they do it right, it’ll succeed.”

Three cities that were surprisingly high on the list of having a high percentage of die-hard hockey fans:

1. Portland, Maine. If Portland had an NHL team, it would rank right near the top of NHL cities in terms of people polled who identify themselves as avid fans. According to the survey, 21.6 percent of sports fans in Portland consider themselves avid NHL fans. That’s higher than Buffalo (19.5 percent), St. Louis (16.2 percent) and Minneapolis-St. Paul (13.6 percent).

2. Providence-New Bedford. Providence comes in at a very high 18.1 percent, topping current NHL cities like Denver (13 percent) and Philadelphia (12.9 percent). Providence is No. 3 in the AHL in attendance, averaging 8,202 per game (behind Hershey and Lake Erie). For what it's worth, Portland is at the bottom of the AHL in attendance, at 2,965.

3. Hartford-New Haven. Bring back the Whalers! According to this data, there appear to be enough die-hard hockey fans to support an NHL team. Hartford comes in at 14.2 percent of its market identifying as avid NHL fans. That’s higher than Tampa Bay (10.5 percent), New York (10.2 percent) and Phoenix (9.5 percent).
Click to expand...

Any poll that shows the Penguins as having a devoted fanbase is clearly flawed.
 
T

TheKaeptain

Banned
So pitts has 91K avid fans and NYC has like 800K.


I didn't know Pittsburgh was such a small city. Fresno has more people living in it.


Honestly the NHL is crazy if they put another team anywhere not in the Pacific Northwest. That whole area is sports crazy. Portland or Seattle would be the best places. The biggest problem with LV is that the population that lives there is poor.
 
L

Lone_Prodigy

Member
Socreges said:
I had ruled the Canucks out completely. And now I'll be devastated if they get bounced in the first round.

Flames would be a great matchup. The best possible. But the Canucks have struggled mightily against them, so it's not too comforting.
Click to expand...

Yeah a top 10 pick in this draft would've been nice but the fact they have been consistently decent all year meant that wasn't a possibility in February or so. If the choice was barely missing or a playoff run I'd rather have the latter.

I'm not too familiar with how the Flames play but if they're fast they will give the Canucks a lot of trouble.
 
T

TheKaeptain

Banned
Lone_Prodigy said:
Yeah a top 10 pick in this draft would've been nice but the fact they have been consistently decent all year meant that wasn't a possibility in February or so. If the choice was barely missing or a playoff run I'd rather have the latter.

I'm not too familiar with how the Flames play but if they're fast they will give the Canucks a lot of trouble.
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The Flames entire game is playing faster than the other team. It's insane how fast they move.
 
S

Smiley90

Stop shitting on my team. Start shitting on my finger.
TheKaeptain said:
So pitts has 91K avid fans and NYC has like 800K.


I didn't know Pittsburgh was such a small city. Fresno has more people living in it.


Honestly the NHL is crazy if they put another team anywhere not in the Pacific Northwest. That whole area is sports crazy. Portland or Seattle would be the best places. The biggest problem with LV is that the population that lives there is poor.
Click to expand...

the biggest problem with LV is that right from the start it'll be 90% season ticket holders that are hotels and casinos giving it out to suits and tourists. It'll be a TERRIBLE home market, basically every homegame will be filled with tourists from the visiting team I'm sure.

Give me a team in Seattle already for the Cascadia Rivalry. a 2h drive between rival teams? Amazing. Plus, Seattle and Vancouver have so little sports overlap with no basketball or football team in Vancouver and no hockey team in Seattle. Sounders vs. Whitecaps isn't exactly huge :lol
 
T

TheKaeptain

Banned
Smiley90 said:
the biggest problem with LV is that right from the start it'll be 90% season ticket holders that are hotels and casinos giving it out to suits and tourists. It'll be a TERRIBLE home market, basically every homegame will be filled with tourists from the visiting team I'm sure.

Give me a team in Seattle already for the Cascadia Rivalry. a 2h drive between rival teams? Amazing. Plus, Seattle and Vancouver have so little sports overlap with no basketball or football team in Vancouver and no hockey team in Seattle. Sounders vs. Whitecaps isn't exactly huge :lol
Click to expand...

Good point.
 
Z

zroid

Banned
Smiley90 said:
Give me a team in Seattle already for the Cascadia Rivalry. a 2h drive between rival teams? Amazing. Plus, Seattle and Vancouver have so little sports overlap with no basketball or football team in Vancouver and no hockey team in Seattle. Sounders vs. Whitecaps isn't exactly huge :lol
Click to expand...

It's pretty bananas when the Jays make their annual trip to Seattle though :p
 
C

Calamari41

41 > 38
TheKaeptain said:
So pitts has 91K avid fans and NYC has like 800K.


I didn't know Pittsburgh was such a small city. Fresno has more people living in it.


Honestly the NHL is crazy if they put another team anywhere not in the Pacific Northwest. That whole area is sports crazy. Portland or Seattle would be the best places. The biggest problem with LV is that the population that lives there is poor.
Click to expand...

Exactly, that's what people don't seem to get... also, a full third of Las Vegas' visitors come from California, the metropolitan areas of which are already serviced by three successful NHL teams.
 
M

Marvie_3

Banned
MetatronM said:
Unfortunately the Outlaws is the only one they can't really use. Both the old XFL team AND the current arena football league team are both named the Las Vegas Outlaws. :D
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Yeah but who cares about them?

Smiley90 said:
the biggest problem with LV is that right from the start it'll be 90% season ticket holders that are hotels and casinos giving it out to suits and tourists. It'll be a TERRIBLE home market, basically every homegame will be filled with tourists from the visiting team I'm sure.

Give me a team in Seattle already for the Cascadia Rivalry. a 2h drive between rival teams? Amazing. Plus, Seattle and Vancouver have so little sports overlap with no basketball or football team in Vancouver and no hockey team in Seattle. Sounders vs. Whitecaps isn't exactly huge :lol
Click to expand...

I mentioned that awhile back. If you have to rely on tourists/hand out tickets to bring people in, your franchise is DOA.
 
C

Curufinwe

Member
Coldnoodle said:
I forgot that the Sabres had the Islanders pick.

Imagine if they miss and the Islanders pick wins the lottery.

Buffalo #1 and #2.

iihWQLLqnH60r.png
Click to expand...

I prefer imagining they win their last two games, knock Pittsburgh out of the playoffs, then pick 3rd after the Flyers win the lottery.
 
S

SmackCrackleNPop

Member
Calamari41 said:
The Ducks are 33-10-4 against the Western Conference, and 4 of those losses were against the Sharks. They're 16-4-0 against the Central. The only Central team with a winning record against the Ducks are the Blackhawks, with a 2-1 record against us. The Ducks are 5-1-0 against the other two top 3 teams in the Central. 6-0 against their two current Wild Card spot holders.

The Pacific is not good this year, but the Ducks have done what they need to do in the conference to be considered A Good Team.
Click to expand...

Man, if the Sharks made it in...
 
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