carpandean

If the two camps of thinking that you saw were: (1) it's a flawed team that nobody, even Lindy, could get anything out of, or (2) it's a talented team being held back by Lindy; then there were at least three camps of thinking. I felt that it was a more talented team than we were seeing this season and often (see starts to previous two seasons) saw before, in part due to Lindy being the coach now, but not what I would call a talented team, in general. I don't think that it is well constructed, being a mix of what Darcy likes and what Darcy seems to think is now winning (he knows bigger and more physical and harder to play against are in now, but not how to incorporate that into a team), but not totally without talent. I think a different coach (not necessarily better, nor worse) could get more out of them. The biggest thing, though, was that I knew that as long as we had the pair (LR and DR) in place together, there would always be enough of an "it's the players; no, it's the coach; no, it's ..." argument that nothing would change. Now, one is gone, so we'll be able to better answer that question. I suspect that we'll find out that, though some of each, it was more Darcy than Lindy. However, I was at the point where I was willing to move on at coach in order to find out. I like Lindy and enjoyed having him as the Sabres coach for many years, but for the past few years, I didn't like DR/LR much, much more.

It does make you wonder how many deals that would have been at least fair and would have bettered the team that he has missed. Yeah, his strategy got him what he wanted in one trade, but what's the net result of continued application of the same policy? Also, Ted Black was on WGR and said something along the lines of "last year, the big issue was center depth, and now we have Hodgson, Grigorenko and Girgensons." Problem is that center depth wasn't pointed out last year; it was pointed out in the summer of 2007. Darcy failed to address it for five years. Of course, they would say that he didn't the resources, but how did he get those players? Drafting and trading prospects/picks. Resources did not limit him from making similar moves pre-TPegs. Plus, they're all so young that not one of them has actually proven that he is an NHL scoring-line center yet. Hodgson is the closest offensively, but has a long way to go defensively to count. We won't know if he actually addressed the problem until at least next season. That's six seasons of not fixing one of the biggest holes in the roster that a team can have.

That falls under their "Row combines multiple less frequent records" disclaimer. In other words, to save space, they will combine several rows that had few occurrences in their sample.

Yeah, at 1:15, you really see it. Ouch.

Jason Pominville is just slightly behind Pavel Datsyuk and Ryan Getzlaf in SHTOI/GP (picking the two biggest names that jumped out, but there are others.) He averages 2:09 per game and a whole lot of big name players (Kovalchuk, Giroux, Marleau, etc.) average between 1:50-2:00. Hodgson is below those players.

It got me a little when he said that Darcy came to his house after the practice and upon seeing him, Lindy simply said "I know." :cry:

For the whole season, no. However, last year in games 35-52 last year, they went 6-9-3.

This paints quite the mental picture. ;)

How low can we go? How low can we go?

I don't know. If it doesn't make Colorado significantly better, it might give you two kicks at the MacKinnon can. ;)

With Anaheim sitting at #2 in the league, I would just say "If we get another center ..." ;)

Yeah, I'm confused, too. Bylsma was Pittsburgh's AHL coach when he was hired.

For reference, in their final 32GP: 2010-11: 20-7-5 2011-12: 18-8-6 That would get the 58 point and 55 points this year, respectively. Really don't see it happening and pretty much hope that it doesn't (unless Darcy makes big moves between now and the deadline, and then they pull a Kings from last season ... but we all know that's not happening.) One key, though, is getting games to OT.

Their method is fairly simple: it is just Monte Carlo simulation. They randomly generate a score differential for each game each time they run a season (sample path.) Using 50/50, the probabilities are equal for the two teams with long-run historical averages determining the probabilities of each type of outcome. Something like (0.40, 0.06, 0.04, 0.04, 0.06, 0.40) for (RW, OTW, SOW, SOL, OTL, RL), with each of the RW/RL including chances of larger point differentials than 1 goal. Using weighted, they use the current records (in the sample path, too, not just initially, I believe) of the two teams and a slight bump for home ice advantage to generate the probability distributions of point differential instead. Again, probably based on sort of loose historical (statistical) analysis of differential given those factors. They run millions of such paths and then estimate the probabilities of each position as (# paths in a given spot) / (total paths). The reason that they get "100% chance" of finishing first when going 32-0 is that they never had a sample path occur (or too few occurred given their level of rounding) with both a 32-0 finish and one of the other teams finishing, say, 29-3 or better. Each is so unlikely that it is not surprising that they never (very rarely) occurred together.

It takes more than touching. A defensive player has to carry or pass the puck back into his own zone in order for offsides to be ignored. Any deflection off of a defensive player caused by an action from an offensive player does not result in offsides being waived off.

http://youtu.be/YDXf_2Ct54o From TSN article on game: "The league already verified that it should have been an offside," Nashville coach Barry Trotz said shortly after the game. "The explanation from the crew here was that we passed it back. We didn't pass it back. That's why they didn't blow the whistle. The league's already talked to us about it. There's no fix. It's just one of those things. Everybody has a bad day."

To me, it's the word "definition" that seems misapplied. It may be an example of insanity, but as you say, it's far from a typical one; certainly not a defining one. If it were simply "It's insane to do the same thing over and over again, expecting different results," then that would make more sense.

Only because of the # games that the Sabres have played. Through 14GP, the Sabres had 11 points, which was 5 behind the Senators who had 16 points (8th best through 14GP.) In the worst case scenario, through 16GP, the Sabres' 13 points would be 6 behind the 8th-best Lightning's 19 points. There are some scenarios through 16 GP where they would have gained ground in those two games, but that would take a lot of looking into who plays who in there games-in-hand to figure out exactly.

Just to add to the possible TOI explanation: Year PPTOI SHTOI ESTOI Total (per game) 09-10 0.59 2.91 13.27 16.77 10-11 0.64 2.41 13.02 16.06 11-12 2.37 1.17 16.00 19.53 That's a huge shift in usage. Over 1.5 minutes/game shifted from SH to PP, plus over 2.5 additional minutes on ES. His faceoffs also jumped from just over 1000 to almost 1450 (winning % still well above 50%), also suggesting a different role. Not saying that you're wrong, but there's definitely a strong alternative to the "contract year" argument.

I agree. It's never good for the league when good players go down.

I hear that he's pretty good with a long spear on foot.

Especially bad now that Ehrhoff and Sulzer are now (often) an NHL pairing, not just an international competition one.

I like consistency in my charts from year-to-year. Basically, by shortening the schedule, the league said that everyone is tied through 34GP. So, that's what I did with my charts. It will be a fun year to look back at in, say, 2016.

Doesn't the new CBA allow teams to retain some of the cap hit when trading a player? Wouldn't that allow for the same thing if, say, the Islanders were to trade a high salary player, but keep a big chunk of the cap hit?

Brad Boyes circa March 5, 2012: 4 GP w/ Sabres, 2 Goals, 2 Assists, +4