rakish

The Arizona game, in AZ. The Sabres build a 5-1 lead, almost let it slip away. LARSSON7.88 POMINVILLE7.54 EICHEL7.23 OKPOSO6.99 POULIOT6.88 KANE6.79 MCCABE6.69 NOLAN6.47 O'REILLY6.27 SCANDELLA6.20 Lehner 5.82 RISTOLAINEN5.73 TENNYSON5.63 MOULSON5.56 ANTIPIN5.26 FALK4.56 GIRGENSONS3.63 GRIFFITH3.29 REINHART3.23

Nah, Montreal is currently the best team in hockey, if my subtracting is correct, Carolina is 2nd, Edmonton 3rd. There is very little relationship between shots and winning. Just watched the highlights, Carolina's defense gave Colorado great chances. The second goal I guess you can put on Ward, but their style is a goaltender graveyard. The first goal the defenseman (Fleury) stands right next to the goals scorer, terrible defense. Second goal on the goaltender. Third the defenseman pinches, leaving a forward to fall down on a 3-2 to create 3-1, nicely execulted by Aves. Fourth, Slavin is walked, the defense doesn't clean up the rebound Fifth, VanReimsdyk doesn't cover his man. So that 4 goals on bad, and really bad defense. Disagree?

I felt like commenting on an article in canucks army regarding Ben Hutton, so I walked through Vancouver's season so far. The coach's plan was to get the Sedins, Vanek, Hutton and Stetcher against the opponent's weakest players. They lost a few games, and Vancouver changed tactics, now Hutton plays top pair with Tanev, and won a few games. Buffalo seemed to approach the season with the same strategy, but with Reinhart in the Sedin's role, and it hasn't worked for the Sabres either. I never ended up commenting on the Hutton article.

Game 12 was home against the Sharks, they lost 3-2 on a late goal. KANE8.78 POMINVILLE8.67 EICHEL8.52 RISTOLAINEN8.01 SCANDELLA7.73 MCCABE7.16 TENNYSON7.14 GRIFFITH6.94 Lehner 6.66 NOLAN6.46 LARSSON6.30 O'REILLY6.15 BAILEY6.09 POULIOT5.76 OKPOSO5.72 GIRGENSONS4.80 REINHART4.74 REDMOND4.28 ANTIPIN2.97

Housley mostly dresses Antipin at home where he can control whom he plays against. Let's wait until he can play road games before hiring long term.

PA, did you notice Ottawa scored 2 empty netters to tie last night?

Can your third line make 18 million dollars and have any hope of being under the cap?

The Columbus game, it was a road game. After a tight early battle, Columbus scored a few in the second to put the game away. RISTOLAINEN7.27 SCANDELLA7.26 BAILEY6.94 KANE6.35 EICHEL6.17 OKPOSO5.67 GIRGENSONS5.27 REINHART5.22 JOHNSON4.97 POMINVILLE4.80 TENNYSON4.64 ANTIPIN4.38 POULIOT4.09 LARSSON4.03 NOLAN3.95 O'REILLY3.88 MCCABE3.63 REDMOND3.37 GRIFFITH2.97

Fasching had a really great year as an 18 year old.

The Detroit game. It was a home game, the only goal was Pouliot bouncing in a wrap-around. EICHEL7.75 O'REILLY7.29 RISTOLAINEN7.20 OKPOSO7.19 KANE7.16 SCANDELLA7.14 POULIOT6.97 POMINVILLE6.76 Lehner 6.14 MCCABE5.90 TENNYSON5.81 LARSSON5.50 REINHART4.46 NOLAN4.42 BAILEY4.32 FEDUN4.03 ANTIPIN3.92 GRIFFITH2.99 MOULSON2.87

Boston. A road game, Buffalo scored 3 late to tie, then won in overtime. BAILEY10.88 EICHEL10.81 KANE10.76 RISTOLAINEN8.82 SCANDELLA8.73 FEDUN8.67 ANTIPIN8.34 Lehner 8.21 POMINVILLE7.93 O'REILLY7.75 POULIOT7.62 OKPOSO7.58 MCCABE7.51 MOULSON7.46 REINHART7.22 TENNYSON6.89 LARSSON6.12 GRIFFITH5.48 NOLAN5.46

This was the rather ugly 4-2 home loss to Vancouver. OKPOSO9.19 GRIFFITH8.90 REINHART8.73 BEAULIEU8.64 POULIOT8.40 BAILEY8.26 TENNYSON7.97 SCANDELLA7.94 O'REILLY7.78 EICHEL7.45 JOHNSON7.43 RISTOLAINEN7.29 KANE6.53 POMINVILLE6.50 ANTIPIN6.42 NOLAN5.60 LARSSON5.49 MCCABE5.38 MOULSON4.01

Could certainly, my first thought is that it wouldn't be better. This one only uses forwards, so my example below relates to the reverse chart that Taro wanted to see of defensemen. There are some defensemen who play a lot (Shattenkirk is an example) but at the same time they try to keep him from the tough competition. A lot of people consider Shattenkirk a top line defenseman because of minutes played, but I think him as a second or third pair defenseman because he mostly plays against lower lines. I'm sure there are forwards who play a lot, but only because their defense is good. I don't know off hand. So in separating forwards, it might help to add 5-5 minutes, but it might make them more homogeneous. It's hard now deciding if the numbers are right ( The NJ game looks all wrong, the Girgensons Vegas game he gets almost 0, how'd that happen? ), adding even a little more complexity would make debugging even more difficult.

right, so pay attention to which team is home, because when home, Housley gets to match lines, on the road, the opponent.

40 games

Vegas game, which was on the road. POULIOT9.92 BAILEY9.80 LARSSON8.51 EICHEL8.46 KANE8.41 MCCABE8.40 GORGES8.36 REINHART8.31 POMINVILLE8.30 RISTOLAINEN8.25 O'REILLY8.20 SCANDELLA8.12 BEAULIEU8.11 JOHNSON7.94 OKPOSO7.77 TENNYSON7.57 MOULSON5.87 NOLAN5.58 GIRGENSONS0.89

It's not only about the 3 balanced lines Dudacek, it's about having a 4th line that can play offensive players. Josephson is fast enough to play their second line, which give Reinhart the opportunity to play against their 4th line. Game 6 against Anaheim EICHEL8.13 SCANDELLA8.06 POMINVILLE7.90 KANE7.84 BEAULIEU7.82 RISTOLAINEN7.78 REINHART7.76 O'REILLY7.68 GIRGENSONS7.13 TENNYSON6.90 JOHNSON6.73 BAILEY5.60 POULIOT5.14 LARSSON5.01 JOSEFSON4.78 NOLAN4.63 GORGES4.35 MCCABE4.34 MOULSON4.23 I didn't upload Vegas yet, and I'm almost done for the night, but I think you guys know where I'm going with this. I wanted to get his out before the next home game. I recognize the flaws in the thought process, not sure it's a solvable issue. I removed Taro's opposite list, I can see how it would be confusing, if you really care, I think Taro copied it in his content below

My strategy, Swamp, is this. I'm defining the opponents offensive capability by measuring how much PP time they get. It will get some anomalies, Moulson gets more PP time than his 'line he plays on' suggests, but I think overall, it captures what I trying to show. What I'm trying to show is my theory that what is considered the 4th line (Josephson and Nolan) are playing better offensive players than Reinhart's line. I have found in the past some coaches try to do this to give players (Reinhart here, Lupal in Toronto when I looked at that a few years back, O'Reilly in Colorado a few years back). I think it's a strategy that can work if Reinhart's line is able to put the puck in the net. Game 5 was the loss to LA. KANE9.28 MOULSON8.45 EICHEL8.33 POMINVILLE8.18 O'REILLY7.81 GIRGENSONS7.61 SCANDELLA7.56 GORGES6.97 RISTOLAINEN6.86 Lehner 6.60 TENNYSON6.17 MCCABE6.01 BEAULIEU5.46 REINHART5.40 LARSSON4.29 GRIFFITH3.89 NOLAN2.45 POULIOT2.33 JOSEFSON1.96

Game 4 was the Sharks in San Jose, so we're back to the other team dictating lines. Reinhart plays with Larsson and Pouliot, and they get to play against the 4th line. KANE7.39 RISTOLAINEN7.33 O'REILLY7.28 OKPOSO7.19 SCANDELLA7.09 NOLAN5.90 JOSEFSON5.78 POMINVILLE5.55 EICHEL5.55 Lehner 5.53 GRIFFITH5.30 GIRGENSONS4.80 GORGES4.73 MCCABE4.66 BEAULIEU4.33 TENNYSON4.08 POULIOT3.66 REINHART3.59 LARSSON3.53

Game 3 was the ugly home game against New Jersey. I didn't follow the lines at all, I just watched (rakii draft pick) Jesper Bratt skate through the defense. A lot of this makes no sense here. Reinhart really played against NJ's power play players? Somehow Eichel didn't see any of them? Not confident about the information being produced. REINHART9.27 BEAULIEU9.15 GRIFFITH8.90 POULIOT8.57 RISTOLAINEN8.42 GIRGENSONS8.22 LARSSON7.86 OKPOSO7.35 JOHNSON7.32 O'REILLY7.29 Lehner 6.92 TENNYSON6.75 MCCABE6.63 ANTIPIN6.29 SCANDELLA6.19 KANE6.14 JOSEFSON6.13 MOULSON6.11 POMINVILLE5.95 EICHEL5.95 Definitely. It's a metric. I'm trying to guess at your first line by PP minutes. I could guess using time on ice instead, or numbers (everyone over 90 is on the first line). I don't think it's terrible, but it aint perfect. As I said upstream, it's easier than it looks. Most of my work lately was for a Fortune 500 company, I can't use their data in my portfolio, so I need to have an ongoing site that I can show work.

The prehistory of this thread comes from me and Taro talking about the line matching during the preseason. It's hard to pay attention watching online, so I had to look at how Housley is matching lines using the NHL's html reports. Normally I would sit on this for a while, because it's difficult to tell if the numbers are right, but this is interesting for me, so I'm going to go ahead and post, and if I decide the numbers are wrong, there's worse things in life than being wrong on the internet. I will cut and paste the first couple games from the New Lineup thread, which was successful, I think, in getting readers to understand what the metric is exactly when I talk about matching lines. What I'm keeping track of is the average power play time of opponent forwards, which is easier to calculate than you might think. This is the Montreal game, it's home, so Housley gets to match lines. POULIOT 10.74 O'REILLY 10.17 OKPOSO 9.97 BEAULIEU8.38 SCANDELLA7.96 TENNYSON7.81 RISTOLAINEN7.31 Lehner 7.12 NOLAN6.66 JOSEFSON6.65 LARSSON6.64 KANE6.14 EICHEL5.83 POMINVILLE5.71 ANTIPIN4.98 MCCABE4.97 REINHART4.80 GRIFFITH4.38 GIRGENSONS4.23 So my theory is, I've talked about this a couple times now, is that Housley's strategy is to get the O'Reilly line against the other team's top line, the 4th line against the 2nd line, Eichel against the 3rd line, and Reinhart against the 4th line. These numbers above bear (bare? beer?) this out. Game 2 was against the Islanders. It's a road game, so it's the Islanders given the opportunity to match lines. Johnson must have a penalty, but there are still two Beaulieus, my guess is they changed goaltenders, so the middle Beaulieu is still Lehner.. So for game 2, Reinhart sees the tough competition, because that's more what the Islanders want. GIRGENSONS9.61 O'REILLY9.28 RISTOLAINEN9.00 GRIFFITH8.79 BEAULIEU8.51 REINHART8.37 OKPOSO8.20 LARSSON8.11 MCCABE7.95 JOHNSON7.55 Lehner 7.54 KANE7.44 EICHEL7.31 POMINVILLE7.17 ANTIPIN6.76 SCANDELLA6.75 POULIOT6.04 TENNYSON6.01 JOSEFSON5.59 MOULSON5.52

average power play time of your opponent forwards. Therefore, if you are on the ice with Crosby (who might get 6 minutes/game), Malkin (who might get 4 minutes/game), Rust (who might get 1 min/game), your opponent forward power play time would be 11 for that moment. Dudacek and MattPie have it right I think

game 2 against the islanders, and please remember I'm writing code, so I might once again be wrong.. This is an away game, so notice how Reinhart gets a much tougher matchup GIRGENSONS9.61 O'REILLY9.28 RISTOLAINEN9.00 GRIFFITH8.79 BEAULIEU8.51 REINHART8.37 OKPOSO8.20 LARSSON8.11 MCCABE7.95 JOHNSON7.55 BEAULIEU7.54 KANE7.44 EICHEL7.31 POMINVILLE7.17 ANTIPIN6.76 SCANDELLA6.75 POULIOT6.04 TENNYSON6.01 JOSEFSON5.59 MOULSON5.52 the metric, eleven, is the amount of average power play time your opponent EDIT FORWARDS gets. game 3 against NJ has really bizarre numbers, so I'm going to look at this some before I waste a bunch of paper posting this

sorry about that, I wasn't wrong, so I deleted the previous post. I had a bug in the software. This is how the first game was in 5-5. I use the amount of power play time your opponents get as the metric. So you'll see here in game 1 vs Montreal, the fourth line got hard minutes as a method of giving Reinhart easy minutes (the reason Beaulieu is listed twice is once is the goaltender(it's a long story) I'm not sure which is which, though the goaltender probably sits toward the middle of the list) POULIOT 10.74 O'REILLY 10.17 OKPOSO 9.97 BEAULIEU8.38 SCANDELLA7.96 TENNYSON7.81 RISTOLAINEN7.31 BEAULIEU7.12 NOLAN6.66 JOSEFSON6.65 LARSSON6.64 KANE6.14 EICHEL5.83 POMINVILLE5.71 ANTIPIN4.98 MCCABE4.97 REINHART4.80 GRIFFITH4.38 GIRGENSONS4.23

WC said Lehner didn't practice today