Round 3 Predictions

We’re a little late to the party for round three due to my vacation to the bustling community of Louis Head, Nova Scotia. Okay, I’ve only spent the last 10 hours there.* But Louis Head showed me enough in those 600 minutes to give me serious retirement plans. A private beach with a home cooked meal of lobster and seafood chowder will do that to a guy. As gay as this sounds, I felt like I was living in a home you see in one of those chick flicks like the Notebook or Dear John.

*The other 86 hours have been spent in Halifax.

The first game of the Eastern Final has already occurred. As unbelievable as this may sound to some people, I was picking Tampa Bay all along despite their game one win. They remind me of the 2006 Oilers actually – a great even strength possession team who got boned by not having NHL-calibre goaltending for three quarters of the year until Zeus Roloson showed up. Only thing more awesome about T-bay than Edmonton in ‘06 is my boy Eric Brewer being a part of it all. What a stud.

Before I get into the round three picks I have to issue a small disclaimer. My paper that had each team’s even strength fenwick number written down is in Regina. Thus, I am making my picks from memory. I know Tampa is my pick for the Eastern Final because I remember being shocked to discover them having the second best fenwick number in the east behind Pittsburgh. But I can’t remember who had the better number out of the two western teams left. I think it was Van city but I’m not certain. Thus, I’m invoking a one-time only freedom pick because my hate for the Canucks transcends anything since the Flamers run before the lockout.

Watching Vancouver this playoffs makes me think how worked up I would get if the Leafs made a run one of these years since I had a mostly limited hate for Vancouver prior to a few years ago. Luckily, it’s the Leafs which means this is a moot point because they suck.*

*Here’s something that warms my heart. Since the expansion era in 1972, the Leafs are 1 of only seven teams to never win or make a cup final. The other seven – Atlanta, C-Bus, Minny, Nashville, Phoenix, and San Jose – weren’t around until the 1990’s. Bravo Toronto. You have a hell of a franchise.

The following are round two results from our prediction thread. Cumulative score from the first and second round are in brackets.

Matthew Barnaby: 2-2 (9-3)
Damien Cox: 3-1 (9-3)
MD: 3-1 (8-4)
Durf: 3-1 (7-5)
LeBrun: 1-3 (7-5)
Brophy/Spector: 1-3 (6-6)

Here are the round 3 picks:

Barnaby: Canucks, Lightning
Cox: Canucks, Lightning*
MD: Canucks, Lightning
Durf: Sharks, Lightning
LeBrun: Sharks, Lightning
Brophy/Spector: Canucks, Lightning

*I couldn’t find Damien Cox’s actual prediction in the west final but he did write an article about the Sharks being underdogs. Thus, I took the liberty of choosing the Canucks for him. And yes I’m aware that doing this is the only way I can gain any ground on him this round.

A Lesson About Zonestarts

The Vancouver Canucks have always been a bunch of douches. The reasons aren’t limited to one. Their retarded looking jerseys have always seemed like they were designed by a 4 year old; the west coast express era was particularly unlikable because of one Todd Bertuzzi; their idiotic fans boo the opposing team instead of cheer for their own bunch of losers; they once employed Brian Burke as their G.M.; I don’t think I need to say much more but I’ll end with one last word, “LOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUU.”

But for all of the Canucks’ douchey history, 2011’s team takes the cake. The dink quotient of this squad is almost off the charts. Kevin Bieksa, Alex Burrows, Ryan Kesler, and Raffi Torres are a murderer’s row of jackasses. Then you’ve got goobers like Max Lapierre and Rick Rypien playing fourth line roles as first class chumps. Not to be outdone, Mike Gillis and his abacus complains about the biased refereeing of the Chicago-Vancouver series while his players are taking better dives than Alexander Despatie. It’s all sickening and I haven’t even mentioned the Sedin sisters yet.

Unfortunately, Vancouver has managed to make the third round against the San Jose-Detroit series winner and look poised for a potential Stanley Cup berth. No matter what happens, it’s got to be considered another successful season in the pacific.

A big reason for Vancouver’s success over the last few years is the play of Daniel and Henrik. The media has pointed to them emerging as bonafide superstars over the last few seasons. While possibly true, I feel a lot of those accolades wouldn’t have come if not for the emergence of a few of their other players, namely Manny Malhotra and the aforementioned clean-up hitter for the murderer’s row of jackasses, Ryan Kesler.

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I think anyone who has played hockey can agree that it’s a lot easier to score points when you’re starting in the opponents’ zone off the draw. It’s like coming up to bat with a runner on second. Scoring isn’t a given but it’s a whole lot easier to pad that RBI total when someone’s done a good chunk of the work for you already and gotten you into a scoring position.

Gabriel Desjardins’s zonestart statistic measures how often a player is on the ice for a faceoff in the defensive zone versus the offensive zone. Since coaches have total control – icing situations excepted – over who they send over the boards for a faceoff, zonestart assesses how coaches run their bench. It is a great tool for evaluating the circumstances players are put into – coming to the plate with the bases empty or with runners in scoring position as an analogy.

Zonestart is presented by a percentage. For example, if a player has a 50% zonestart, he has taken an equal number of draws in both the offensive and defensive zones over the course of the season. One look at the Vancouver Canucks’ zonestart rates and we can see how fortunate of a situation Alain Vigneault has created for the Sedins. This is for Canuck forwards who have played a minimum of 40 games in 2011:

Daniel Sedin – 74.5%
Henrik Sedin – 71.4%
Alex Burrows – 70.5%
Mason Raymond – 55.6%
Ryan Kesler – 50.0%
Jeff Tambellini – 49.4%
Mikael Samuelsson – 49.1%
Maxim Lapierre – 46.4%
Chris Higgins – 46.3%
Tanner Glass – 39.1%
Jannik Hansen – 34.3%
Raffi Torres – 29.6%
Manny Malhotra – 25.0%

This is just an insane split. If you assume Daniel Sedin has been on the ice for 300 faceoffs throughout the season, 223 of them have taken place in the offensive zone. On the other hand, poor Manny Malhotra has been taking 225 defensive zone draws if you assume he’s also been on for 300 total draws.

The 2010 season (Henrik’s Hart trophy year), while not as severe, tells a similar story. The Sedins had a zonestart hovering around 60% that year while Ryan Kesler was starting in the defensive zone 55% of the time.

How does this compare to other premier players in the league? Well check out the zonestarts for the following players in 2011:

Alexander Ovechkin – 51.6%
Sidney Crosby – 47.0%
Steven Stamkos – 49.8%
Joe Thornton – 51.8%
Pavel Datsyuk – 47.7%
Henrik Zetterberg – 47.6%
Jonathan Toews – 62.1%
Rick Nash – 57.1%

As you can see, the Sedins play in very favourable circumstances compared to the rest of the league’s elite. While most coaches use their best players evenly between offensive and defensive zone opportunities, Vigneault lets the Sedins start their shift almost exclusively in the offensive zone.

Not surprisingly, the sisters led all players in the NHL in zonestart by a very wide margin in 2011. After Burrows, the next highest was Patrick Kane who had a 68% zonestart. The next player of note on the list after Kane is Marian Gaborik at 63%.

Compared to the rest of the league in 2010, Daniel was 12th overall in with Henrik finishing just outside of the top 30.

Next time you watch the Canucks, notice how often the Sedins come on for an offensive faceoff. It’s startling. And honestly, Vigneault is playing the sisters to their strength. The Sedins are probably the best two-man cycling team in the NHL. When the sisters start the cycle, they usually don’t get knocked off the puck. Starting them in the offensive zone gives them a very good chance to start their dangerous cycle that often times results in a scoring chance.

So the question begs, how much are the Sedins affected by their inflated zonestarts? Over 300 faceoffs, the difference between a 75% and 50% zonestart is 75 more draws in the offensive zone over the course of a season. Make no mistake, that does matter. How much? Well, it’s impossible to quantify but I’d be willing to bet it’s somewhere between 5 and 7 points a season.

If my estimates are in the ballpark, that means the Sedins’ point totals are inflated compared to a Sidney Crosby or Joe Thornton who have much more balanced zonestarts. Are the Sedins still great hockey players? Absolutely. Are they in the top 10 league-wide? I’m not so sure. Consider this: when they were receiving more even zonestarts in 2009 and 2008 (slightly above 50%), their point totals hovered around a point per game. Their two year run among the league’s top scorers has coincided with a two year run of getting some of the best zonestarts in the league. Go figure. Context is a wonderful thing.

Playoff Picks - Reaction

AKA - The one where I am an idiot.

After taking 24 hours to absorb the disappointment of myself and Durf's failure in our first round of predictions, I decided to take a look and see if the series I ended up being wrong about were ones where the statistics indicated the potential for very close series (the answer to this was not really).

Looking at our records in the 4 series that went to 7 games, I noticed that our combined record in those series was 1-7 (MD: 1-3, Durf: 0-4), which seems very unlucky. The moral of the story is - of course - that a seven game series is a bit of a crap-shoot. Had the two game 7 overtimes gone the other way, Durf would have had the best record of anyone.

I also noticed one more thing when reviewing. My pick for the Tampa/Pittsburgh series was not correct based on the statistics. Tampa was 20.5%PP and 83.8%PK (Total 104.3%), Pittsburgh 15.8%PP and 86.1%PK (Total 101.9%), meaning that my pick for that series was actually Tampa, and my record was 5-3.

This brings the standings to:

Matthew Barnaby: 7-1
Damien Cox: 6-2
Scott Cullen: 5-3
Mike Brophy/Mark Spector: 5-3

Pierre Lebrun: 5-3

MD: 5-3
Durf: 4-4

So in the end, my prediction abilities look slightly better, my basic math skills slightly worse, and I still have to try to sleep at night knowing I did worse than Damien Cox.

Enjoy the second round everyone.

Playoff Picks -- Round 2

Back here is our faceoff against various NHL “experts” in predicting the first round playoff matchups.

Who knows what kind of zany methodology the “experts” came up with – but it was probably a mish-mash of compete level, most active sticks, and proven playoff performers.

We kept it a little simpler and limited it to one stat of our choosing. I chose even strength fenwick. MD chose pp + pk percentage. We didn't choose wisely.

Here are the first round results:

Pierre Lebrun: 5-3

Matthew Barnaby: 7-1

Damien Cox: 6-2

Scott Cullen: 5-3

Mike Brophy/Mark Spector: 5-3

Durf: 4-4

MD: 4-4

The lesson as always…….. active sticks trump everything.

At the risk of embarrassing ourselves for a second time, here are our round 2 picks. Again, these are based only on who had the better pre-determined stat, nothing else.

Durf: Canucks, Sharks, Lightning, Flyers

MD: Canucks, Wings, Lightning, Flyers

And now, the experts:

Lebrun: Canucks, Wings, Caps, Flyers

Barnaby: Canucks, Sharks, Caps, Flyers

Cox: Canucks, Sharks, Caps, Bruins

Brophy/Spector: Canucks, Wings, Caps, Flyers

I searched for about 10 minutes for Cullen’s 2nd round picks but couldn’t find them. If anyone does, let me know and I’ll post them.

At Least He’s Not Doing Colour Alongside Mark Lee

After Patrice Bergeron takes a goaltender interference penalty to negate a Boston powerplay during the first period of Habs-Bruins game 6, Glenn Healy offers this gem:

“This is huge too because Boston now has to kill off this 5 on 3 without their best faceoff man.”

1 second of dead air.

2 seconds of dead air.

3 seconds of dead air.

Bob Cole, “but the Bruins won’t have to kill one off here as it’s 4 on 4.”

And CBC wonders why TSN has overtaken them when it comes to NHL coverage.

This Must Be How Bollywood Fans Felt After Slumdog Millionaire Won Best Picture

I don’t understand Scott Cullen’s work sometimes. His player rankings seem as arbitrary as Skate Canada. He’s pretty long winded which is only good if you’re trying to hit a word count or get click-throughs for the ad beside your column. He also tends to forget that visual highlight packs and/or boxscores are readily accessible thanks to the internet which is the only explanation I can think of for why someone would write something as redundant as this.

But I’m not here to criticize. I give credit where it’s due. Cullen has written about the volatility of shooting percentage before, something we fervently believe in and promote here. And today he did this, -- link, a fair and well-researched post-mortem on the Edmonton Oilers but more importantly, an analysis based on tangible things like shot differential while limiting the use of empty terms like big body presence and tenacity.

Not only that, but he promotes the website, www.behindthenet.ca, that stats guys like us find indispensible. See, all that balderdash of PDO, Fenwick, points per 60, and zonestarts can be found here and is a creation of Gabriel Desjardins who is 49 years old, obese, wears bifocals, lives only on a diet of cheetos, resides in his mother’s basement, and has never watched a hockey game before in his life. No really, he doesn’t even know what icing is he’s such a nerd.

When he’s not looking at a spreadsheet to try and figure out the formula for how many beach babes Drew Doughty drills per month*, Desjardins has a master’s degree from Cal Berkley in electrical engineering and is an analytics consultant in the professional sports industry – I presume in sports that are… you know… progressive in stat based analysis like baseball and soccer. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, among other publications.

*right now the working formula is his corsi number/Savardian spinorammas per 60 minutes * compete level – truculence quotient. It works out to 11.

Sorry for the deviation. Back to Cullen now.

All this that Cullen’s doing is a very good thing. We can logically deduce he has been exposed to the work of Desjardins and sees the merit in it. Which means finally…… FINALLY…. we perhaps have an ally in the mainstream media who can reach the masses when it comes to faulty narratives and the mind-numbing stupidity that usually comes from those like Don Cherry*.

*If you're going to click on any link from this post, click on the last one. Honestly, when is Don Cherry going to retire? Even he must get tired of his own schtick. Ron MacLean is a better man than I am for not taking that old man out behind the shed and shooting him.

Playoff Performers And Shooting Percentage

Every year, the playoffs create heroes and goats that build and shatter player reputations. Fans and media hold the highest regard for players who toil on middle lines during the regular season but suddenly become indispensable in the second season – both in goal scoring and compete level*. Think of John Druce, Fernando Pisani, and Max Talbot. Early candidates this year include Janick Hansen, Darren Helm, and Jason Chimera. It’s the same song and dance every year. All these guys are third line plugs until the playoffs. Then in one magical spring they became hockey gods. Both fans and media can’t bestow the ultimate compliments any player can receive fast enough – “big game player”, “playoff performer”, “clutch”.

*If I hear Pierre Maguire mention the phrase “compete level” one more time, I’m going to suffocate a small child. What does that even mean – that some players try much harder than others? Ignoring that quantifying someone’s “compete level” is impossible and based entirely on assumption, I’ll still take Alexei Kovalev over Mathieu Darche, thank you very much.

One thing we talk a little about on this blog is unsustainable percentages. Any player can look like Mike Bossy over a short amount of time* and shooting percentage is a great way to see whether or not their hot streak is an illusion or not. For example, the average NHL player shoots about 9%. Players with above average shots shoot a little higher – maybe 11-13% -- bad ones a little lower.

Over a five or ten game stretch, shooting percentages are very fickle. However, over the course of half a season or more, things start to even up and guys will tread towards their career average. In the end, it all boils down to basic common sense. What’s a bigger reflection of Fernando Pisani’s shooting ability, his 24 game playoff stretch where he shot 29% or his 450+ regular season games where he averages 12.5%?

Looking at it that way, it’s not shocking that each and every one of the examples from prior years – Pisani, Durce, and Talbot – couldn’t turn a 25-game hot streak into something sustainable. I mean, if Pisani has some kind of talent to score goals in big games, why did he revert right back to ho-hum mediocrity for the rest of his career? Guess playing in games to qualify for the playoffs aren’t important enough for these guys. I mean, if Jordan Eberle cared about every game like he cares about World Junior finals, the Oilers could have actually made the playoffs this year. Selfish prick.

*The media will often chalk up a goal scoring streak to confidence, playing loose, and having fun out there. If a player goes 20 games without scoring however, it’s because they’re gripping the stick too tightly, pressing too much, or whatever other nonsense someone can convince their copy editor to publish. God I love sports journalism.

On the flip side are the stars. Naturally, those who get you to the playoffs are the ones who are supposed to lead you through them. So when the likes of Joe Thornton delivers less than what is expected of him based on the regular season, the dreaded “can’t elevate his game in the playoffs,” axiom gets tossed around like a playboy at an army camp.

Last year, poor Alexander Semin was raked through the coals after Washington’s first round knockout at the hands of Montreal. Semin scored 40 goals during the regular season but couldn’t muster a single one against the Habs as the first seeded Capitals fell in seven games. Looking at his individual shot rates though, Semin was more effective player during the playoffs. In seven games against Montreal, Semin fired an unbelievable amount of shots – 44 on Canadien goaltenders. During his 40 goal regular season he averaged a little under 4 per game. But as bad luck would have it, he just couldn’t find the back of the net. Stuff happens*.

*This year, Semin has shook off all the anti-clutch that plagued him and scored the overtime winner in game one against the Rangers. Not counting those games against Montreal last year, he’s a 12% shooter in the playoffs.

This year I fear Marian Gaborik is headed for the same fate as Semin. Pierre Maguire has already started the whispers. That Marian Gaborik has to get going. That in his last 10 playoff games he hasn’t scored. That he’s got to find a way to be effective in the playoffs. That he needs to elevate his game because he’s not good enough for the Rangers right now. Yadda yadda yadda.

Enough Pierre, you nerdy oompa-loompa. Gaborik will be fine. He might not score this series but it’s not because he can’t find a way to elevate his game in the playoffs. He somehow found a way to lead Minnesota to the conference final in 2003 and scored 9 goals in 18 games then (on 18% shooting). He hasn’t forgotten how to score. Sometimes, the percentages just aren’t your friends. If you wait around long enough though, they’ll turn and make you look like Fernando Pisani.

Speaking of ol’ Pies, Chicago could use some of that playoff shooting magic to dig themselves out of their hole right about now. I guess the games still don’t matter enough for him to raise his compete level yet. Give it time. I'm sure it'll come.

Playoff Picks -- Round 1

For stats guys like us at the Importance of Being Truculent, the playoffs are especially irksome times. It is the playoffs when the games become magnified and the intangible qualities that we hate so much here – experience, youthful enthusiasm, heart, clutch goaltending, and big game players – become an even bigger crutch for the media.

With all that in mind, we decided to start a little challenge amongst ourselves. While TSN dissects the first round matchups from every angle and considers the intricacies of each and every team, we are going to pick each playoff matchup based on one stat.

Pierre Maguire might think the Capitals will win because of desire, big body presences, and gumption. I will pick the Capitals solely because their even strength fenwick number is superior to that of the New York Rangers.* And while Damien Cox picks the Bruins because they’re tougher and play with more emotion than the Canadiens, MD is picking the Habs because their powerplay % + penalty kill % is better than Beantown’s.

*A million apologies to my old man for picking against his Broadway Blueshirts. I’m rooting for them. I really am.

I want to say off the top that this little exercise will prove next to nothing. However, I hope people will see that the next time Pierre Lebrun picks the Canucks because they are built for the playoffs, a veteran group, and elevate their games in big moments, he probably just means they’re better and should cite a superior shot differential without going into a million different meaningless and empty reasons.

Nothing else is really needed. Playoff savvy has nothing to do with winning Stanley cups. Talent does.

On to the picks:

Expert Picks

Pierre Lebrun: Caps, Sabres, Bruins, Penguins, Canucks, Sharks, Red Wings, Ducks.

Matthew Barnaby: Caps, Sabres, Bruins, Lightning, Canucks, Sharks, Red Wings, Predators.

Damien Cox: Caps, Sabres, Bruins, Lightning, Canucks, Sharks, Red Wings, Ducks.

Scott Cullen: Caps, Sabres, Bruins, Penguins, Canucks, Sharks, Red Wings, Ducks.

Mike Brophy/Mark Spector: Rangers, Flyers, Bruins, Lightning, Canucks, Sharks, Coyotes, Predators.

Our Picks

Durf: Caps, Sabres, Habs, Penguins, Blackhawks*, Sharks, Red Wings, Predators.

MD: Caps, Sabres, Habs, Penguins, Canucks, Sharks, Red Wings, Ducks.

*I was wrong about something. All year I was touting the Canucks as my Stanley Cup pick which tortured me because I loathed them. But after looking into the numbers, they’re a terrific team, but not head and shoulders above everyone. Their shot rates are good but not better than Chicago’s and barely better than Detroit’s. Plus, their numbers are inflated somewhat by playing in the league’s worst division. l think there’s a very reasonable chance Chicago knocks them out in round one and it won’t be because Bobby Lou is a choker or the Hawks had more experience like the media would tell you.

So there we have it. I’ll update this at the start of every round and it will be a running competition of interest for us for the next two months.

Things That Tire Me Out

1. TSN recapping the hockey scores at the end of every evening and relating it directly to the Leafs’ playoff push while completely ignoring that there are 5 other Canadian teams in the league, of which 3 are either fighting for the President’s trophy, a division title, or an 8th place playoff seed of their own that is much more realistic to attain than the Leafs snagging 8th in the east.*

Take tonight, after the highlight of the night, Kate Beirness starts her COTU soliloquay, “well, the Leafs win tonight but not much has changed in the east, they’re still well back of a playoff spot.”

Hey Kate, a much more important game was happening at the Molson Centre. Montreal lost to Buffalo, while coupled with Boston's win, pushed them 3 points out of 1st place in the northeast. But hey, let’s not even mention that game even though YOUR FREAKING STATION CARRIED THE BROADCAST. Also, why is it even worth mentioning Toronto’s playoff chances when the difference between 8th place Buffalo and 6th place Montreal is almost the exact same difference separating Buffalo and the 10th place Leafs.

*That might be the longest sentence I’ve ever written.

2. The Toronto Raptors continuing to get front line basketball coverage when a playoff spot is as likely as a radioactive-free Japan. If Senators highlights get bumped before a Flyers-Hurricanes game, why do Raptors highlights lead off the basketball block?

This has been a pet peeve of mine forever with TSN. I bet not even 10,000 people west of Sudbury care about the Raptors, yet we have to sit through pre and post-game stories and highlight packages starting at 9:05, right after the Canadian and eastern hockey teams, and before the late games.

3. Political attack ads. Look, I know there are benefits to discrediting your opponent. But come on, Stephen Harper. Don’t tell me why I shouldn’t vote for Michael Ignatieff. Tell me why I should vote for you.

I’m not a parent, but if I were and my child tried to explain knocking up his 15-year old girlfriend by saying, “well at least I don’t smoke pot like your other son,” I’d roundhouse kick him in the spleen.

It's sad when I learn more about what another party's leader believes in than the party's leader who's paying for the ad.

The Polish Prince

I suppose I’ve never disclosed which writers I look up to. Hockey writers like Allan Mitchell, Gabe Desjardins, and Tyler Dellow* are my first three searches in the morning. They are who I learned balderdash like PDO, Fenwick, and zone starts from.

*Dellow is the Toronto lawyer who broke the Colin Campbell email story. I started reading him several years before and it turned into a source of personal pride when he got his break. I guess that’s how Kings of Leon fans felt before Your Sex Is On Fire.

My absolute favourite, however, is a fella by the name of Joe Posnanski. Unlike Mitchell, Desjardins and Dellow, Posnanski is paid to write full-time. Also unlike Mitchell, Desjardins, and Dellow, I’ve never seen him write about hockey. No doubt he’s talented though, Sports Illustrated is his employer and he has the rare ability to write captivating prose alongside a string of statistics. It’s quite the remarkable feat – believe me. Most stats-based guys are drier than a fig.

Posnanski writes about baseball first and foremost and uses glorious terms like WAR, DIPS, and OPS+. If you are unfamiliar with a lot of advanced baseball statistics and want to learn something today that may make you change the way you look at the game, check out his recent blog post here.

I wanted to highlight one thing from it primarily. A lot of people believe in the concept of clutch. I don’t and that’s okay if you feel differently. I’m not trying step on toes. I’m merely trying to create an outlet to communicate my point of view because I feel it’s a bit of a radical one compared to most.

Anyhow, in precisely one paragraph, Posnanski dispels more logic about the clutch debate than I could in 100:

“The baseball community has long celebrated players for their ability to lift their game when the chips are down, when the moment is bleak, when the game is on the line. And the sabermetric community has for a while now scoffed at the notion that players CAN consistently lift their games in the clutch moments. The baseball community builds its case on waves of emotion and selective memory. The sabermetric community builds its case on the fact that so far nothing has been found in the numbers to suggest that players, no matter how good, no matter how celebrated for their heroics, are capable of predictably and reliably being better in the biggest moments.”

God bless you, Joe. Keep fighting the good fight.

A Conspiracy Theory That Gives Me An Excuse To Vent About Hab Fans

A few nights ago, Zdeno Chara and a rink partition teamed up to nearly decapitate Max Pacioretty. My opinion – if it counts for anything – holds it was a routine hockey play that took place in an unfortunate spot on the ice. Patches is a good young player who was trying to use one of his weapons, speed. Chara is a seasoned veteran who was trying to use his body to his advantage as he so often does.

Putting myself in Chara’s shoes, I’m not sure how you can make the split-second decision to guide someone into the partition at that speed. It’s just one of those plays where everything went wrong to no one’s fault.

That said, I think a small suspension was justified. If you break someone’s vertebrae on an interference call, there should probably be some extra punishment attached to that. I used to be against gauging the suspension length by the severity of the injury but I’ve turned on that. Chara’s play, while clean, was illegal and the direct cause of a ghastly injury. That warrants some extra punishment if you ask me.
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Now that I’ve disclosed my opinion on the play, I can discuss what really irritated me about this play, Hab fans and their resulting tantrum. It wasn't so much Hab fans I know – moreso the ones who live in Montreal who reportedly called into radio shows the next morning with cries of boycotting the NHL.

My hate for Canadiens fans supersedes that of any other fan base in the NHL. Five out of 11,000 reasons for this are:

• They treat their city like a G20 protest after winning one playoff round.
• They boo the American anthem. Stay classy.
• Their fans are merciless pricks to their players. They showed Pat Roy the door, they booed Carey Price incessantly, and the way they treated Patrice Briesbois was deplorable.
• They sing that stupid ole song which isn’t even French. It’s Spanish you dinks. More Cegep is necessary.
• I have an inherent dislike for the province of Quebec primarily due to their politics.*

*Why do I feel this way? Well to make a list using various synonyms of the word “hate”, I loathe the Bloc Quebecois, I detest the disproportionate funding Quebec receives from the federal government, and I abhor the province’s people who encourage this by voting as they do. If I woke up tomorrow and found out Quebec separated, I’d dance a jig. I don’t put a lot of stock in culture and would happily waive adieu from Parliament Hill as they could assume a third of our national debt to make up for those equalization payments.

Anyhow, as if Hab fans aren’t mental enough, this Pacioretty story broke.* Not only have the fanatics lost their marbles over this thing, but so too has the eclectic.

*Pun intended.

First off, the Quebec Ministry of Justice has encouraged the Montreal police to investigate the incident. Apparently they're suffering from a grade-3 concussion too. The only hockey play I’ve ever recalled a criminal investigation of was the Todd Bertuzzi-Steve Moore situation. It is simply asinine to say these are related in any way. I hate being a conspiracy theorist, but there is no way Pernell Karl Subban would be investigated if he did the exact same thing to Tyler Seguin as Chara did to Patches. This reeks of a few higher-ups in the ministry letting their fandom get in the way of their job.

Not to be outdone, Air Canada has threatened to pull sponsorship from the NHL because the league didn’t suspend Chara. Huh???? The arrogance of Air Canada to blackmail an organization the size of the NHL is startling. Using corporate dollars to influence league-decision making is wrong on every level and makes me irate as a fan of the NHL.

I seethed further when Air Canada’s CEO Calin Roviescu sure seemed like a Hab fan according to his bio. First off, before heading Air Canada, he spent over 20 years in Montreal practicing law. The guy also spent the bulk of the 1970s attaining degrees from McGill and the University of Montreal. Google couldn’t tell me where he spent his childhood but a French name leads me to believe that unless he’s from St. Brieux, Saskatchewan, his formative years were also in Quebec.

But that’s not even the smoking gun of my theory This is. Mr. Roviescu was at the game Patches nearly died. I presume he was using his pair of season tickets to watch his favourite hockey team, le bleu, blanc, et rouge.

Following Air Canada's stand, VIA Rail has also threatened to pull sponsorship from the NHL. Anyone want to guess where they’re HQ’d? I’ll give you a hint, it’s not Toronto.

This kind of stuff makes me sick. Say what you want about Gary Bettman*, but he actually made the right call this time around. He won’t be bullied by corporate fanboys who are trying to turn his league into their string puppet show.

*And I’ll say plenty, because I really dislike the man.

“If they decide they need to do other things with their sponsorship dollars, that's their prerogative, just like it's the prerogative of our clubs that fly on Air Canada to make other arrangements if they don't think Air Canada is giving them the appropriate level of service,” Bettman is quoted as saying.

It’s nice to see a little Keyser Soze in him. Suppose Coke tried to pull their sponsorship from the NHL after Dustin Byufglien got injured or Telus threatened to stop sponsoring the Oilers unless Darryl Katz fires Steve Tambellini.

The NHL's reputation, already with a few black eyes at the senior administrative level, would be even worse. Thankfully, most corporations are above that. Now if only La Belle province would take off their diapers and let senior (hockey) executives direct the game....

This Needs to Stop

A reoccurring theme in recent Oilers broadcast came up yet again last night. Kevin Quinn and Louie DeBrusk talking about one of the great things about playing Steve MacIntyre is that it allow Tom Renney to give guys that are playing well some extra ice time.

Let that sink in for a second.

Is it just me or is this monumentally stupid?

If I wanted to sit here all day, I could probably come up with about 437 things that are wrong about this concept. In the interest of brevity, I will list only 3.

1. Every NHL coach gives guys that are playing well some extra ice time. Even coaches that don't have a useless goon to bench.

2. Having a real NHL player instead of Steve MacIntyre would give you 12 forwards who could potentially have a good game rather than 11.

3. There is not one single great thing about having Steve MacIntyre in the lineup.

I know Quinn and DeBrusk are paid by the team to convince fans that the Oilers are not as awful as they may seem, but this is colossally stupid and needs to stop. Immediately.

The Leafs And Playoffs

I really do enjoy this recent tear the Leafs have went on. All this talk about Dion Phaneuf’s leadership bringing the team together, Phil Kessel having his confidence back, and the trades creating a new locker room atmosphere has me positively optimistic about Brian Burke falling into the same trap as Kevin Lowe in 2007.

You see, the Oilers were awful that year. They toiled near the bottom of the standings before inexplicably going on an insane run in March and April to finish just out of the playoffs. See, Edmonton’s decision makers had no idea what a PDO number was and got tricked into thinking their team was better than they were.*

*It`s not only Edmonton who has been tricked, it`s a long and dirty list believe you me. Joe Sacco can thank his Jack Adams award finalist and inevitable firing on PDO.

Quick backgrounder on a PDO number for those who don`t know. A PDO number is simply even strength shooting percentage + even strength save percentage. League average is 1.000. The theory* goes that every team will regress to the mean (1000) over a period of time. While there is a cushion from about .993 to 1.007 that can be considered reasonable, a team below .993 is thought to be getting abnormally unlucky while a team over 1.007 is getting fortunate and cannot sustain their rate.

*Frankly, I don`t think it`s much of a theory anymore. It`s been proven time and again to be on the mark as a reliable predictor of long-term results. Only in extreme cases – the 1980’s Oilers – have teams been able to maintain a high PDO year over year.

Think it sounds like hogwash? Well let’s do a case study. Last year, Colorado was the league's feel good story. In 2009-2010, the Avs surprised everyone by squeaking into the playoffs on the back of a league best 1016 PDO (926 es save percentage, 9.0 shooting percentage). People with IQ's over their hourly wage knew it wasn't sustainable going into 2011 and predicted the Avs to struggle. The hockey media talked about balderdash like chemistry and youthful enthusiasm being the catalyst for an improvement in this year.

Currently, Colorado sits comfortably at 14th in the west with a PDO of exactly 1000.

At Christmas, Dallas had the league’s best PDO while New Jersey was far and away the worst. Twenty-five games later and it looks like things have started to correct themselves. Dallas was overachieving, New Jersey underachieving. They’ve both regressed to the mean.

What does that have to do with the Leafs? Well, the gods are smiling on Toronto just like the COTU thought it was meant to be. Prior to the game against Chicago on Saturday, the Leafs were 6-0-3 in their last 9 games and there were more than a few whispers about playoffs.

To put it bluntly, that run was luck-fuelled:

Team ES Shots: 197
Team ES Goals: 16
Team ES Shooting Percentage: 8.12
Opponents ES Shots: 235
Opponents ES Goals: 14
Team ES Save Percentage: .940
Team PDO: 1022

The Leafs were getting flat out murdered by shot rates over that run (Fenwick percentage of .449) and while their own conversion percentage on shots was normal, if not a tad low, James Reimer was Dominik Hasek on the clear.

Here’s where it all comes full circle from the beginning and why I hope the Leafs keep riding the percentages like Edmonton did in 2007. Kevin Lowe thought his team’s late season run was skill moreso than luck and it set the rebuild back 3 years. I hope Burke does the same. I hope he sees the late season run, the near playoff berth, and feels pressure from the fans to go for it next year by signing a couple of free agents when it’s probably in their best interests to stand pat.*


*As much as it hurts, there are some good things happening in Toronto. While I sort of undermined him above, James Reimer looks to be the real deal with an even strength save percentage of 931. Kulemin also looks like a player as does Nazem Kadri, who is almost hitting that magic 1.0 ppg threshold in his first year at the AHL.

The big club’s recent success is mostly smoke and mirrors at the moment. They really aren’t very good. For the time being, that doesn’t seem like it will change. If it somehow does though, this blog becomes a lot less interesting.

Is The East Really THAT Bad?

During the early Hockey Night in Canada game last night, as the Chicago Blackhawks were completely outclassing the Toronto Maple Leafs, Play-by-play man Jim Hughson, dropped a fairly interesting statistic on air. Teams from the Western Conference are 56 games above .500 when playing against teams from the Eastern Conference. While this was interesting, and did confirm my gut feeling that top to bottom, teams in the West are just better than teams from the East, I thought it would be interesting to see just how meaningful this number actually was.

NHL.com has this information available, so a quick dump into excel and I was able to quickly confirm that even after yesterdays games, the West is still 56 games above .500 versus the East, posting a record of 131-75-31, good for 293 points out of a possible 474, which is a 61.8% points percentage. When matched up against other Western opponents, West teams are 373-293-80, 826 points from a possible 1492, good for a 55.4% points percentage. Quickly looking the other way the East is 7 games above .500 versus the West (you have to love the NHL's absurd point system), with a record of 106-99-32, 244 of 474 points, and a 51.5% points percentage. Within the East, teams are 372-287-85, giving 829 points and a 55.7% point percentage. This difference is good for about 30 points, or one extra win per team in the West relative to teams in the East.

Here is all the data pulled together:

When framed in that manner, it may seem that the difference is not that significant. Of the 237 inter-conference games, only 15 of them (6.4%) would have to have gone the other way for the leagues to be seen as even on this means of comparison. The question becomes, what is the probability of the West teams winning at the high rate that they do, assuming the conferences are actually even? Phrased another way, can the discrepancy be explained by luck?

Fortunately, math allows us to easily answer this question; however, the convoluted point system does complicate this a little bit. Both methods I tried suggest that the West is in fact significantly stronger this year. To summarize, the chances of the West getting 293 (or more) of 474 points assuming the conferences were equal strong (they should average .558 point percentage) works out to 0.46%. The chances of the west winning 131 (or more) games out of the 237, (assuming equal strength, they should win 119) is larger at 5.6%. Even still, we can say with some confidence that the Western Conference is stronger than the East this year.

Kovalev vs. Hemsky

Alex Kovalev is a good hockey player. Probably not so much anymore. He is 38 after all. But in his prime, Kovalev was a sublime talent who was a pretty prolific scorer.

That’s what makes Eric Duhatschek’s article so puzzling. Duhatschek basically dumps on Ales Hemsky by calling him too much like Kovalev.

“In some ways, Hemsky at 27, seems to be heading down the same career path as Kovalev - a player with talent to burn and capable of dazzling on the ice…. But the problem with Hemsky is the one that dogged Kovalev all these years - inconsistency, and when the droughts come, they can be deep and long because their confidence is so fragile.”

So let me get this straight. Ales Hemsky is too much like Alex Kovalev? A guy with over 1,000 career points and currently 72nd all-time. How high is Duhatschek setting the bar here? I really hope Steve Tambellini didn’t think to himself last June, “boy that Taylor Hall guy looks pretty good but he reminds me too much of Mike Gartner.”

For what it’s worth, Hemsky is a lot better than the eastern media gives him credit for. Just tonight, I heard Darren Dreger say he’s a terrific secondary scorer. I’ve read and seen other opinions that can be paraphrased down to he’s a good player but he will never be the best player on a good team.

He’s ninth in the NHL this year in even strength points per 60, ahead of names like St. Louis, Richards, and Kopitar. He draws the toughest matchups night in and night out. Although not this season, he’s been a historically good powerplay player.

I’ll concede he’s not Sidney Crosby but his career is tracking eerily similar to Kovalev’s by points per game. Duhatschek somehow thinks that’s a negative thing. I want to know what more we can reasonably ask?

Bad Statistics

There is an article in the January 31st issue of Sports Illustrated on the emergence of Ryan Kesler as a premier player in the NHL (read it here). If that is really true or not could likely be the subject of another entry, although his 18% shooting percentage is sure making him look more offensive than he really is. It the article contained one line that I found particularly irksome. It is a statistic that is thrown around quite frequently and one that has never seemed all that meaningful to me.

“As Kesler goes, so go the Canucks. Through Sunday, Vancouver (29-10-9, tops in the West), which has lost only three games in regulation since Dec. 5, is 24-1-5 when Kesler gets a point.”

You see this kind of number thrown out all the time. A certain team’s record is much better when a certain player scores as opposed to when they don't. The point seems to be that player x is particularly key to their team’s success. Looking at the numbers, it turns out saying this about basically any player will make you correct.

Since the article was about Kesler, I decided to look at the Vancouver Canucks. I logged who scored in all of their games through their February 7th win over the Ottawa Senators. I looked at the point percentage for each player in the games they scored, versus the team's overall point percentage. As expected, the team has a better record nearly regardless of who scores. Of the 27 players that have scored for the Canucks, the team’s record was better for all but 3 players. The outsiders: Peter Schaffer (16gp), Sergei Shirokov (2gp), and Keith Ballard (53gp, but only 4 points).

Here are the full results:

In hindsight this is beyond obvious. First, any game where Vancouver is shut out gets automatically eliminated Second, in it’s easy to understand goals are more plentiful in games won than lost. Teams don’t often lose when they score 3 or more goals. Teams almost always lose when they score less than that.

It also turns out that Kesler doesn't even have the most impressive results when looking at these numbers. That honour goes to Mason Raymond, with the Canucks going 17-1-0 in games where he scores. Instead, it suggests that the stat is completely meaningless.

I also think this does a disservice to a player like Daniel Sedin. He has scored at least one point in 81.5% of his team’s games. This kind of consistent performance is much more beneficial to the team over the course of the entire season.

I would conclude that that trying to directly correlate any individual stat to any team win is probably a bad idea. The next time you see a stat like this quoted, it should definitely be taken with a grain of salt.

At Least They Didn't Get Him For Pronger

After about 30 seconds I finally managed to scrape myself off of my office floor when I got wind of the Leafs trading for Joff Lupul.

My first thought was Dave Nonis must have slipped moonshine in Burkie's coffee this morning. Then I saw this on tsn.ca:

"Maple Leafs president and general manager Brian Burke told a press conference that the deal for Lupul had been about three weeks in the making, and that he had tried to acquire the forward while he was still with Philadelphia up until the end of the 2008-09 season."

That's right, Joff Lupul - he of the same cap hit as Ales Hemsky - has been sought by Brian Burke for a long time. Burke and Richard Peddie must have been hitting 9:00 a.m. happy hour together for the last 2 years.

There is no way a sober man gives another GM a call and says, "hey, whaddya want for Joffrey Lupul. Our pro scouts really like him."

I remember watching Lupul for a year in Edmonton. If there was such a thing as a truculence quotient, Joff's rating would be worse than his career plus/minus number (-46 for those wondering).

Have fun Leaf fans. Jake Gardiner better turn into something special.

Who Cares About Being Right When Damien Cox Can Write?

Whether it be on The Reporters, HNIC’s Satellite Hotstove, or even in his own column for the Toronto Star, Damien Cox has proven time and time again how pathetic his NHL knowledge is outside of Ontario.

This was most obvious after writing the following last spring:

“The Oilers are also in salary cap purgatory with difficult-to-move, cap-clogging contracts owned by Shawn Horcoff (four more years, $23 million), Dustin Penner (two years, $8.5 million), Sheldon Souray (two-years, $9 million) and Tom Gilbert (four-years, $17 million). As well, Edmonton has forward Ales Hemsky, less than a point-a-game player over his career, on the books for $9.5 million over the next two years, plus 37-year-old goalie Nikolai Khabibulin's contract which calls for the veteran to be paid $11.25 million over the next three years. That's six problematic contracts eating up more than 50 per cent of the cap, and not a true star in the group."

Cox is partly right. Horcoff, Souray, and especially Khabiboulin will be problematic going forward. I won’t get into it here but Hemsky, Penner, and Gilbert are all value at their current pacts. In any event, this isn’t baseball. Going 3 for 6 doesn’t quite make Cox the Barry Bonds of sports journalism. Not to mention that nine months later, the Oilers are 13 million under the cap this season. Just think, that’s two and a half more Phil Kessels!* Salary cap purgatory indeed.

*That would be perennial 40-goal scorer, dynamic offensive sniper, and the league’s bestest all-star ever Phil Kessel. The Oilers still have enough room to buy themselves 100 more goals and 270 goals against!

Cox outdid himself this weekend though. Still basking in the glory of chosen boy James Reimer’s first career shutout, he penned this:

Sigh, I don’t think anyone could have written an article that better encapsulates what we want this blog to be about. Here we go, line by line. Cox’s words in bold.

Next, interesting to see the Edmonton Oilers have slipped into dead last again.

Interesting to see the Toronto Maple Leafs have vaulted from second to fifth last during the second straight year they don’t have their first round pick. That’s….. errrr….. progress I suppose.

Guess they've got their sights set on Gabriel Landeskog, likely the top pick in the June entry draft.

Sure, that’d be cool. Any one of Landeskog, Larsson, or Couturier is a defensible pick to me. But again, tell me who the Leafs are looking at picking in the draft this year, Matthew Puempel?

But let's make a date for Jan., 2014. Only then, really, will we have any real evidence on whether the Oilers are doing their rebuild correctly or whether Brian Burke has done a better job with different ideas in Toronto. Like the Kessel trade, you're just going to have to wait and let this play out.

Cox’s arbitrary cutoff humours me – pontificating as if he’s the authority on this kind of thing. Not that there is any set date where we can start judging this kind of stuff, but let’s look at the situations of both teams at the end of this season for fun.*

The Leafs have $37 million committed to 12 players in 2011-2012. Key free agents include Tyler Bozak, Clarke Macarthur, Tomas Kaberle, and Luke Schenn. Say 3 of those guys resign – that number becomes $45-$50 million to 15 players. To ice a full roster, they would still have to sign seven players with about $10-15 million of cap remaining. Between $1.5-$2.0 million per player.

The Oilers have $41 million committed to 16 players in 2011-2010. Key free agents include Andrew Cogliano and Ladislav Smid. With both of those guys resigning they’ll be under $45 million for 18 players. To ice a full roster, the Oilers would still have to sign 4 players with about $15-20 million of cap remaining. Between $3.75-$5.0 million per player.

This seems to identify Edmonton as having more cap flexibility going forward. And the more I think about it, I wonder why Tambellini seems against the idea to compete next year. $20 million can buy 4 pretty good hockey players.

Also, Burke’s “different ideas” must classify as giving up two lottery picks for a temperamental and lazy offensive player who gives up as much defensively as he contributes in the opposing team’s zone. That or to building a team through “pugnacity, testosterone, truculence, and belligerence.” The latter being as conducive to winning hockey games as my Call of Duty skills are to winning a Victoria Cross.

*I find doing a direct comparison of Tambellini vs. Burke’s GM skills is like watching a drag race between a Pinto and a Neon. One may win, but it really is a waste of everyone’s time.

In Edmonton, I see Taylor Hall with a good chance to be a 35-40 goal scorer in the NHL….

In Toronto, I see no forward – rookie or not – worth two farts of Taylor Hall’s potential.

In fact, I’d say he’s already better than Phil Kessel. Consider:

Hall
GFON: 30
GAON: 39
+/- per 60: -.068
CorsiOn: 0.23
CorsiOff: -12.67
Sh%On: 8.9
Sv%On: 903

Kessel
GFON: 23
GAON: 45
+/- per 60: -1.65
CorsiOn: -3.89
CorsiOff: 0.36
Sh%On: 5.9
Sv%On: 900

The Toronto Maple Leafs give up a goal and a half per 60 minutes of even strength hockey Phil Kessel plays. Also, their team records a positive shot differential as soon as Kessel rides the pine. Looks like Ron Wilson is a smarter man than we thought all along.

Conversely, Edmonton gets killed when Taylor Hall isn’t on the ice and saws the opposition off when he’s on it. Yeah, Kessel’s getting boned by the percentages but I think this is a pretty logical argument in favour of Hall being better.

…a couple of exciting prospect in Jordan Eberle and Magnus Paajarvi and then a bunch of holes

Cox is being a tard if he doesn’t’ think Eberle or Paajarvi would fill holes on the Leafs’ top 9 right now.

The Oilers’ holes are no more pronounced than COTU.

… that need to be filled by a team that is rated the second least attractive club to be part of in the NHL in a recent survey by NHL players.

The following are results of said player poll Damien Cox is alluding to on the question of least desirable franchises to play for:

1) New York Islanders
2) Edmonton Oilers
3) Buffalo Sabres
4) Atlanta Thrashers
5) Toronto Maple Leafs

See the bolded number 5 there Damo? Yeah, you’re a buffoon – gotta love the market assassination by a Toronto writer who is too ignorant to admit the shortcomings of playing in COTU. Not that ignorance is a trait people from Toronto are known for or anything……

Want to know my theory? Players want to join teams not because of climate reasons, media pressure, arena they have to play in 41 times a year, taxation levels, or anything like that. Players would rather play for teams that regularly WIN. I know, I know, what a novel concept.

I’m sure Cox has been to Detroit before. It’s probably the biggest hellhole in the world. Yet for some reason, they don’t have any problems keeping and attracting free agents. As a city, Calgary isn’t much different than Edmonton except that their hockey team makes the playoffs every five years or so. Long Island is a 45 minute drive from New York, a franchise that is always a front runner when it comes to player recruitment. Yet the players hate playing in the Big Apple’s suburbs.

Outside of Buffalo, every team on that list has been a perennial loser over the past 3-5 years. But no, the eastern media thinks the weather is too cold in central Alberta for anyone to want to play there.* I mean, Georgia is frigid this time of year too.

*Note: Cox didn’t say this explicitly in his article but it’s been a theme of the Eastern media for a while now.

The Oilers may indeed be on course for a championship……

Well I wouldn’t go that far, they do have Steve Tambellini for a General Manager. A guy whose previous franchise (Vancouver) passed over him twice to become GM. It hurts to say this but it’s probably the best decision they ever made. Mike Gillis has done an incredible job so far.

But are the Oilers closer to a championship than Toronto? Absolutely, I’m as sure as Phil Kessel needs rogaine.

….but there's tons of work to do….

We actually agree on something.

…and right now, they're significantly worse than the Leafs,

sig•nif•i•cant (s g-n f -k nt)
adjective.
-Fairly large in amount or quantity

At the risk of overstating things, I’d like to again point out that the Toronto Maple Leafs currently sit 25 out of 30 teams in the National Hockey League. They are not significantly better than anyone.

Correct uses of the conjugated word “significant” in a sentence:

The Detroit Red Wings are significantly better than the Edmonton Oilers.

The Reporters is a significantly better show without Damien Cox.

My life will not get significantly better when I quit hearing stories about waffles, “heart” as a hockey skill, Tomas Kaberle’s No Trade Clause, and James Reimer being Jesus until he plays 50 games in the NHL.

who have a similarly youthful team with more kids (Keith Aulie, Nazem Kadri, Brad Ross, Jerry D'Amigo etc) possibly on the way.

To put it mildly, I disdain HF boards like Silvio Burlisconi does celibacy. But its parent body, Hockey’s Future does some decent work on organizational prospect rankings. Here are their latest rankings of the teams in question from November of 2012:

3) Edmonton Oilers
12) Toronto Maple Leafs

In terms of the prospects Cox names, Aulie and Kadri will probably have decent careers. However, Jerry D’Amigo is scoring at the rate of Phil Cornet in the AHL. For those of you who don’t know who Phil Cornet is, he’s not even rated among the Oilers’ top 20 prospects on HF.

Brad Ross on the other hand doesn’t have a point per game in the WHL his first post-draft year on a stacked Portland Winter Hawks team. Not a great sign.

He is on pace for his second straight 200 penalty minute season though. OOOOOOOHHHH YEEEEAAAAAHHHH, he sounds truculent all right. Burkie sure did hit another one out of the park.

Edmonton has high hopes for Curtis Hamilton, Tyler Pitlick and Anton Lander, among others.

All three guys mentioned are better prospects than Brad Ross. They are scoring at a rate far superior to him when you take into account league equivalencies.

I’d argue they’re all more promising than D’Amigo at this point too but that’s pretty subjective until we see them in the AHL. That’s a tough league and a lot of guys can’t make the adjustment from junior.

It's impossible to forecast right now which team has the better kids, although Hall is certainly the top blue-chipper in either organization.

You’re right, it is impossible but I’ve just spent the last 1,000 words analyzing why Edmonton’s are better – including why Taylor Hall is doing awesome for an 18 year old rookie. Eberle too.

You blabbered on about Jerry D’Amigo and significance.

That said, the gulf that some would have you believe exists between the rebuilding approach of the Oilers and the Leafs is theoretical, at best.

This article is theoretical, at best.

As it stands now, the Oilers are in much better shape. Of course, Tambellini will screw it all up this when he signs Michael Nylander this summer. His wife will be forced to approve this time when the choice is Edmonton or Minsk.

The St. Louis Blues have gone about their business in the same way as the Oilers, including picking defenceman Erik Johnson first overall in '06, and right now their rebuilding efforts are barely ahead of Toronto's.

Sigh, do I have to prove you wrong a second time?

If you go by Cox’s definition of the word, the Blues are significantly better than Canada’s Team. They’re averaging 1.08 points per game. Toronto averages 0.94. If point levels remain consistent over the season, the Blues will finish with 88 points compared to 77 for the Leafs.

Not to mention the Blues have similar cap room going forward plus blue-chippers like T.J. Oshie, Patrick Berglund, Alex Pietrangelo, and Erik Johnson currently skating for them. Also, they’ve got Vlad Tarasenko and Jayden Schwartz who haven’t turned pro yet.

The Leafs have Luke Schenn, Nazem Kadri, Phil Kessel, and……. Nikolai Kulemin? Jerry D’Amigo?*

I would say “barely ahead” should mean “extensively” or “considerably.” But let’s not get bogged down in semantics when we can just make generalized attacks on things we know little about, eh Damien?

*Update: And I just see the Leafs traded for Joff Lupul. BAHAHAHAHAHA. Although that Gardiner guy they got too is supposed to be a decent prospect.

Twit's and Twitterz

I’ll be honest, pro athletes, outside of their incredible talent at the games in which they play, impress me very little. Sure, there are some exceptions to the rule – Ken Dryden, Magic Johnson, and Derek Jeter – to name a few. But by and large, when athletes try to transition into day to day life, they seem to be very inadequate at it. I am impressed by smarts and these just aren’t very intelligent people.* Nowhere is this more evident than twitter. Oh the sweet access of social media.

*One just needs to watch any Sportsnet Oilers’ game and listen to Louie DeBrusk do colour with Nick Kypreos as the intermission panellist.

Take the Jay Cutler situation from a few weeks ago. I’ll defer on the whole should he or should he not have come back into the game after spraining his MCL. Instead, I want to look at a few tweets from NFL players that became public knowledge.

“FOX HAVENT SHOWED ANY TRAINERS LOOK AT CUTLER,UMMM” – Derrick Brooks

“Folks i never question a players injury but i do question a players heart. Truth” – Deion Sanders

“If I’m on Chicago team jay cutler has to wait till me and the team shower get dressed and leave before he comes in the locker room! #FACT” – Darnell Dockett

“I never questioned Cutler injury! But I know in a NFC championship game and I’m the QB? I’m gonna deal with the pain or whatever to win!” – Darnell Docket
Sweet Jesus, what a mess.

First of all, God bless my grammar teachers. They obviously had a much more difficult challenge than I ever imagined. Second of all, are these guys serious? Like I know it’s cool to be hip by saying “boi” and “u” in place of conventional words, but I think these guys are literally trying their hardest to make a sensible English sentence.

Derrick Brooks has apparently never conjugated a verb. Not to mention whoever ends their sentences, oral or written, with “UMMM” strikes me as someone less complex than a Black Eyed Peas song.

Deion Sanders thinks all words ending in “s” must be spelled like his last name. And as far as I know, blurting one-word declaratives only validates he’s an idiot, not that his statement is correct. Imagine how smart I would sound if I wrote like this:

The Maple Leafs suck. AWESOME. Brian Burke is a failure of a hockey executive. EXCELLENT. Damien Cox is an ignoramus. ABSOLUTELY.

It sounds like a Ninja Turtles episode. COWABUNGA, Prime Time.

But by far the worst is Darnell Dockett, he of the Arizona team. Double Ds tries to string together two thoughts that just make my head hurt. Like Deion, he’s never heard of an apostrophe, although Dockett just ignores the possessive altogether. Also like Deion, he spouts some insane declarative, “FACT”, as if it means anything.

Now I know what Dockett is ultimately trying to say. But are you kidding me? This is a guy who supposedly was academically eligible while at Florida State University. And it’s not like he was an engineering or physics major where he never had to write a paper. Did anyone give this guy a tutor? More likely some loose Seminole groupie coughed out a three page report on Freud after Dockett took her home from a frat party.

Ugh, presumably NFL players should be smarter than most professional athletes. Unlike the MLB and NHL, most of these guys have taken at least three years of college. But look at these sentences again. Is this really supposed to be a reflection of the regular 4-year undergraduate in an American university? Maybe Waiting For Superman has a point.

A quick search of Dockett’s twitter exploits show this isn’t an isolated incident. I present the following tweets from the first page of his twitter account:

“Aye fellas would yall Perfer a girl with a Nice body or cute face and why!”

“Yooooooo so this gucci mane tatto is real!! I thought it was a fake! Woooooooooooow!”

“Ok fellas if ur girl have to have one these witch would it be Thighs, BUTT, BOOBS, HIPS, EYES, LIPS, FEET or SWAGG! And why”

“This is funny as hell! I'm getting my old changed and I'm entertained cuz these responses have me LOL!”

I rest my case.

Maybe I’m just a grammar nerd but this is infuriating. Can twitter create a Wonderlic Test* so that idiots like Dockett are prohibited from posting? This may actually make me want to join twitter. Cull the herd of meatheads before letting the rest of the cows out of the pen. I also feel this is how a democracy should work; make voters prove they’re actually aware of what’s going on before they cast a vote. But I digress.

*Something like spot 3 errors in the following sentence: “its cold out side and me and my brother’s our boosting are carz.”

I’ll write my conclusion in twitterese:

All athleetee’s r well @ sports. But only sum can right good. There 4, only sum shuld use twittr. ROFL. Sew plz boiz n girlz, b carefull what u reed. Dont pic up bad habit’s. If ppl right like this when I get old, I will loose all hope 4 human ity. : ) LOL :-

Kypreos 1 - Sanity 0

I am not really a fan of the NHL's All Star Game. Having said that, I think the league did a pretty good job of drumming up some interest in this years contest, rolling out a new format, with two captains going through a draft to pick theirteams. This process would obviously leave one guy getting picked last, which when you are drafting from 36 of the best hockey players in the world, probably isn't a big deal. Plus to ease the pain, the last pick would get a car and $20,000 for a charity of their choice. Overall this seems like a no-lose situation.

That is until the captains had the audacity to pick the greatest player, who plays for the greatest franchise in the history of team sports, last. This caused distension from the biggest Leaf fans in Canada – people employed by supposedly unbiased national sports networks. The worst offender was without doubt, Sportsnet's Nick Kypreos. You can read, and watch, his thoughts here (Warning, This link may cause a rational person symptoms which include, but are not limited: confusion, annoyance, anger, befuddlement, and depression. The writers of the blog take no responsibility for these or any other health issues that may arise.)

Personally my favourite part of the article is this:
I know some say no big deal, and to that I say you're right if the last player was Jeff Skinner from the Carolina Hurricanes or Paul Stastny from the Colorado Avalanche, but because it was a Leaf I say you're wrong.

You can not be serious.

First of all, both of these guys have more points, and a better plus/minus than Mr. Kessel. Which is almost definitely what captains Eric Staal and Nik Lidstrom were working of off. Of course we are not the biggest fans of these stats so we can dig a little deeper. Skinner greatly outperform Kessel in terms of RelCorsi (4.7 to -1.9). While Stastny comes in a little lower at -2.2. Skinner and Stastny are both being carried by very high PDOs 1027 and 1021 respective, while Kessel is getting killed by his 959. Looking a little deeper, there probably isn't a ton to choose between these players.

However, Kypreos was not saying it was a big deal because Kessel is better than guys picked before him. He said it was a big deal because Kessel is a Leaf. He goes on to imply that there was some sort of conspiracy between the players drafting to force Kessel down the draft board (this comes up more in the video clip as well). This is, of course, completely insane. Kypreos criticizes Ryan Kesler for not picking his USA Olympic teammate. He suggests Ovechkin was taking extra pleasure in taking pictures of the last person left sitting being a Leaf. The fact that he thinks that other players possibly got together on this is beyond stupid. It's insane!

Overall, I think the coverage this “incident” received is embarrassing for all journalists, especially Kypreos and Sportsnet. This was a fun event, designed for the fans. I think most people that watched, and players that were involved seem to genuinely have some fun with the event. Then Kypreos and Sportsnet ran with this angle, which was at the intellectual level you'd expect to get from a drunk in a Wendel Clark jersey at 2 am. I wish I could say I expected better, but at this point, I really can't.

The Useless Hockey Player

Steve MacIntyre is on pace to play a career high number of games this season. At 14 already and just over half way through the season, it is fairly likely that he get in to 25-30 games this year (previous high, 22). Though at 3:55 of ice time per night, he will be on the ice for about the same amount of time this season that Tom Gilbert will play in around 4 games. In spite of this, you don't have to look too hard to find people proclaiming the necessity and value of having Steve MacIntyre on your hockey club. Jim Matheson's article here shows Tom Renney, a man paid money to coach hockey, talking about the virtues of having the 250lb goon in the line.

“Moving forward, he’s going to play more and he’ll make his contribution in other ways outside of the obvious,” said Renney.

“Ways outside the obvious” might be the understatement of the year. The implication, of course, is that with MacIntyre in the lineup, the rest of the team will be free of worry of other teams goons beating them up, giving them space to play the game. This sentiment, in my opinion, is completely insane. In order to actually deter anyone from taking runs at stars like Hall, Eberle, and Hemsky, you probably at least need to occasionally step on the ice. It would be even better if you were able to skate well enough to actually catch up to a guy you want to go after.

That's not to say that MacIntyre does nothing out there. He is an average of an alarming 5.5 penalties per 60 minutes of ice time. The next highest on the Oilers is Linus Omark at 1.8. MacIntyre leads the league in this category (when considering only players that have got in to at least 10 games this year). Not only that, he is getting absolutely dominated in the shots department. A Relative Corsi of -20.2 is just ugly. The only reason he is getting scored against more often is a PDO of 1.017, and the fact that he just doesn't play very much. In his 3:55 seconds of ice time, the Oilers get absolutely dominated.

Yet Tom Renney insists on continuing to put him in the lineup. 14 times and counting. You only get to dress 20 skaters a night, and carry 23 players on your roster. Spending one of those on a guy that makes no positive contribution to the team winning is completely ridiculous. The Oilers have the leagues worst penalty kill, and second worst power play. They are 1-6 in the shootout. For what it is worth, they are also 2nd last in faceoff win percentage. If you are going to dress a player that can only play about 4 minutes at even strength, why can't they at least be able to contribute as a specialist to something that might actually help win games. Liam Reddox could have been up earlier to help the penalty kill; Linus Omark could have been in the lineup for the shootout, and maybe the power play.

Steve MacIntyre is not the reason the Edmonton Oilers are in second last place in the entire league. However, his existence on the roster is just one more reason for Oiler fans to question if the people running the team have the ability to ever substantially improve the team beyond this level. There was a time when the Oilers talked of “The Detroit Model” of team building, which they seem to have taken to mean they need to employ a lot of front office staff. They don't seem to realize that one key thing that Detroit does is not dress a completely useless hockey player. The Oilers have done this 14 times already this year, and if the head coach has any say in it, they will be dressing one even more often down the stretch. Seems like a recipe for success to me!

I Can’t Believe My First Entry About A Guy Named “Pierre” Is Lebrun

Actual transcript from an ESPN SportsNation fan chat with ESPN, CBC, and Sportsnet analyst Pierre Lebrun:

Phil (Pittsburgh)
If hockey ever gets to the level of statistical analysis that is done in baseball, what is the one stat that you would want to see measured (or isn't measured now)?

Pierre LeBrun
I don't want more stats (5:01 PM)

As God as my witness, this blog ceases the second I hear Pierre Lebrun mention the following things:

Corsi
Even strength save percentage
PDO number
Shooting percentage while mentioning treading to the mean
Fenwick
Penalty kill save percentage
Points per 60
Zonestart
Quality of competition the stat, not some flimsy anecdotal narrative

Heck, I’d even be okay with some passing mention of how Ryan Kesler’s grit or leadership matters as much as his favourite slurpee flavour. Alas, I don’t have high hopes.

As for Phil in Pittsburgh, the Israelites wandering around the wilderness for 40 years weren't this lost. I truly hope you one day find your Moses.

Tom Brady: More Clutch Than A 6-Speed

Don Banks writes his weekly thoughts on the NFL at si.com every Monday. Today was a real doozy because his title, “clutch quarterbacks, playoff re-seeding, more snaps” touched on one of my favourite topics – identifying who the true “big game” quarterbacks are at the NFL level. Shockingly, (or not if you read mainstream football writers with any regularity) Banks’ model of analysis to decide this was wins and losses. What is highly sophisticated and infallible to him stinks of simplicity and laziness to me.

Banks goes on to write glowingly about Ben Roethlisberger,* Jay Cutler, and Aaron Rodgers while lamenting that Joe Flacco and Matt Ryan might have been playing in games that were, “too big for them,” and “games like this weekend separate the great quarterbacks from the merely good.”

*Banks also mentions hall of fame and Ben Roethlisberger in the same sentence. Now I think Ben Roethlisberger is a fine quarterback, but simply isn’t hall of fame calibre by any measure except wins.  When I think of quarterbacks my team is scared to play, the rape barely cracks the top 10. I fear Pittsburgh’s running game more than Big Ben and I certainly fear Pittsburgh’s defence more than Big Ben. There’s already a lot of opposition to the hall being overrepresented with quarterbacks and running backs, Roethlisberger’s induction will only fuel that fire.  

Reading the few paragraphs Banks put together, he forgets to mention one glaring bum-chin sized omission who, using Banks’ logic, must also have went from “great” to “good” because he lost this weekend. That would be the decade’s golden boy of clutch of course – Ugh Brady.* Yes, Ugh’s team lost on Sunday to extend their Super Bowl-less reign to a 7^th year. But while Banks and most of the football media gives Brady another free pass, Peyton Manning still wallows in his media reputation of postseason choker after losing last week to sexy Rexy Ryan’s New York Jets. Funny how that works. Especially considering Manning’s Colts have won the Super Bowl more recently than New England.

*Ugg is of course the Australian shoe brand Tom Brady endorses. “Ugh” is what I think when I see Tom Brady’s hairstyle. I feel the nickname is a perfect synergy. But as a sidenote, isn’t Tom Brady promoting Uggs a little bit like Rosie O’ Donnell endorsing a Chainsaw? I mean, I’m sure there are a few husky women in B.C. who can slice a northern pine lickety-split but I’ll bet 98% of Husqvarna’s customers still have a y chromosome. 

But I would be remiss if I didn’t offer some context here. You see, Ugh started his career with enough postseason success to make Joe Montana blush, a 9-0 record and three Super Bowls in four years. From coast to coast he was lauded as a big game quarterback, unflappable, a riser to the occasion, a winner, and that magical sporting super-trait, clutch. Yes, no matter how far back the Patriots were in those first 9 playoff games, no matter how dire any situation looked, no matter how putrid the offence was early on, Pats fans had hope because they had the most clutch and biggest game quarterback in the league. He led game winning drives and won Super Bowl MVPs. Even if Manning was better during the regular season, Brady was always better when it mattered according to the media. And those are the two traits GM’s want over everything else, they told us, being a winner and being clutch. Brady had those in spades like no one else supposedly.

Funny how his big gaming clutchness disappeared in his prime at 27 while a real, tangible trait like arm strength stays intact until about 35.

In his last 10 postseason games, the big game winner, Mr. Clutch, has a 5-5 record. Conveniently the media reconciles with that ugly little nugget by ignoring it.  Good luck ignoring this though. Here are big game Brady’s cumulative numbers over that 5-5 spell:

234/378 61.9% 2456 yds 19tds/13ints

I’m too lazy to figure out Brady’s quarterback rating over that time but I do know he only went over 100 three times in an individual game during that ten game span. Wait, this goes contrary to everything the omniscient media has ever told me about Tom Brady. I thought big game quarterbacks like him were supposed to elevate their games another level when playing in the playoffs and backs against the wall?

Here’s something sweet. Brady’s career passer rating over the entire postseason, 3 Super Bowl seasons included, is 85.4. Brady’s career regular season passer rating is 95.2. Geeze, maybe we’ve been wrong all along. Maybe Ugh is the dreaded anti-clutch like Greg Norman, Marian Hossa, Wilt Chamberlain, and gulp, Peyton Manning. Manning by the way has an 88.4 playoff passer rating. WHASSUPWITAT? Peyton Manning > Tom Brady by playoff passer rating!!!!!!! I feel like the whole world is lying to me.     

All this brings me to my fundamental point that:

a)      clutch doesn’t exist; but more importantly

b)      FOOTBALL IS A TEAM GAME.

Twenty-four players play equally important roles during the same number of snaps. That means defences, offensive lineman, and running backs all contribute to the winning and losing of a football game. It’s not just about the quarterback. Who knew?

Saying someone is a “big game quarterback” and then immediately quoting his record as a post-season starter (hi Ben Roethlisberger – because Pittsburgh’s defence has never been very good) is as forward-thinking as appointing Jared Loughner to Secretary of State. 

Here’s some interesting numbers for Banks and all those other “Wins is the only stat that matters” journalist hacks. The New England Patriots’ points allowed per game in the post season:

Super Bowl Seasons (9 Postseason Games) – 17.2

When Tom Brady Stopped Being Clutch (Next 10 Playoff Games) – 21.5

Wow, seems like once the Pats lost key defensive players like Ty Law, Lawyer Milloy, and Willie McGinest, Brady started to become less clutch. Now it’s been a while since I’ve taken philosophy 100, but can a logical deduction follow that it might, just might be possible, that having a good defence can make create an illusion of clutch quarterbacking? Or am I the only one who recognizes that Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, and ANY great quarterback can only influence half of a football game, much the same way a pitcher only has control over how many runs the other team scores?

Actually I’ve heard Ben Roethlisberger is so clutch that he compels his defence to be dominant through pathologic mind waves.* Somewhere along the way Big Ben must have stolen all of Brady’s big-gameness genetic. Sexy Rexy’s feet are probably quaking in his boots. Nothing is more powerful than the mythical.

*That’s probably how he tries to pick up women too. Monster Truck Wheels.

My 30 Thoughts: Brought To You By The COTU

I want to preface this post by saying Elliotte Friedman seems like a quality guy who means well. I actually like him quite a bit in most of his work. He doesn’t come across as a smug bozo like Damien Cox. He doesn’t seem to think he’s a pompous know-it-all like Steve Simmons. No, I genuinely believe Friedman works hard, is an intelligent guy, attempts to write with reason, and is open-minded enough to accept new ideas, alternative opinions, and gives them strong due consideration if warranted.

With all that said, Friedman is collecting a cheque from my tax dollars - not that there’s anything wrong with that.[i] But if my tax dollars are being spent on a national commentator who works for a publicly-funded media outlet, I’d like see, you know…. some national commentary. That’s not too much to ask is it?  All I want is a little balance.   

Of course, balance doesn’t seem to rank high on CBC or Friedman’s agenda. Here is the last edition of his 30 Thoughts.  Usually, the anecdotes run the gamut of semi-informative to fairly interesting and all things considered, are a solid weekly feature. Where I take exception is Friedman’s blatant Toronto boner. The one I’ve linked to isn’t as guilty, but a quick check of the archives is a lot more revealing.

Since October 4, Friedman’s 30 Thoughts break down thusly by team:

Edmonton Oilers – 13

Calgary Flames – 15

Vancouver Canucks – 21  

Toronto Maple Leafs – 36[ii]

As Dr. Evil at one point said, “riiiigggghhhtttt.” Western Canada only gets 13 more mentions than the COTU combined.[iii]

The scary thing is that the Leafs have nothing even interesting to write about this year. Nazem Kadri is a plug, Ron Wilson and Brian Burke aren’t getting fired, the team is destined to finish in 10-15th in the east this year, and far and away most comforting to me, they don’t have their first round pick again.[iv]

      I shudder to think what will happen when journalists actually have a semi-exciting storyline to write about regarding the Leafs.[v] What if they had the best record in the league, fired their GM mid-season, or even had the first overall pick and another bonafide Calder candidate skating for them this season?[vi]  It’s a rhetorical question but I’ll answer it anyway: The coverage would have more hype than Michael Jackson’s resurrection and comeback CD.

     

      If anything like this happens to the Leafs in the next couple of years, you can bet the hyperbole becomes thicker than Brian Burke’s hair product. I predict the following storylines if the Toronto has something similar happen to them as any of western Canada’s teams this year:·       

• NEW GM IS THE BEST HIRE EVER. LEAFS ARE CUP CONTENDORS TOMORROW EVEN WITH 0-37-3 RECORD!!!!!!!!
  
  I can see Friedman’s intro now:  “He read Principia Mathematica at 8. Received a triple degree from MIT in subatomic physics, kinetic engineering, and Latin by 19. He’s the rumored architect of the Abu Dhabi skyline and the certain architect of a future championship NHL team.”[vii]
  

• LEAFS SIT IN FIRST OVERALL WITH A 20-4-2 RECORD. MIGHT AS WELL GIVE THEM A BYE TO THE FINALS. WE’VE GOT A DYNASTY ON OUR HANDS BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  
  This would be an outright disaster if it ever happened. We would hear story after story about how the Leaf’s fanbase has thirsted for this since ’67, how good it is for the NHL that the league’s pre-eminent team is first overall

• THE LEAFS NUMBER ONE OVERALL PICK IS A GENERATIONAL TALENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  
  Of course buddy will be tracking like Patrik Stefan in his rookie year and by the time he hits game 75 he’ll be making snide comments to the press about how he there wouldn’t be so much pressure in Anaheim while wearing an I Heart California t-shirt.

Now I realize the theme of this post has morphed into overhype instead of overexposure post. But I have clinged to the following equation for a long time that is very applicable in this situation.

Overexposure = Public Overhype = Resulting Media Overhype

Remember Team Canada at the World Junior’s this year? They were supposed to be a lunch bucket, blue collar team with no superstars but more heart than usual.[ix] But then Brayden Schenn started to score a little bit and the media started claiming “Team Canada has a superstar.” That was good enough for your average Don Cherry hockey fan[x] who latched onto Schenn-mania. Now the media hype is never ending. His trade to the Saskatoon Blades made national news. The kid all of a sudden is viewed as a can’t miss prospect. Etc. etc.

Of course, this formula works most hilariously with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Good grief, I remember working in Toronto when Robbie Earl[xi] somehow managed two points in his NHL debut. One quick look at his AHL stats should have signaled he was a mediocre player to anyone with a half-functioning brain. Yet TSN ran a story about him the next day and the Robbie Earl cult was born. Pretty soon, Robbie Earl the hockey player became “Robbie Earl, discoverer of  the polio vaccination, Nobel Prize Laureate, and the Blue and White’s SAVIOUR,” all over Toronto.

I’m getting worked up here. I need a valium.

Breathe…

And again…

Whew…..

Okay granted, TSN and Elliotte Friedman have nothing to do with one another.[xii]  But they are both part of the national media and have an obvious affixation with the Maple Leafs.

Even when they’re on-ice performance is among the worst in the league, there’s always something to write about.

---

[i] Similarly, that’s my primary income source. Aside from pushing drugs for a Mexican cartel in Tijuana that is. Yee-haw.

[ii] For those interested parties, Ottawa has 23. Montreal has 28.

[iii] COTU = Centre of the universe = Toronto. You’ll see a lot of that acronym here.

[iv] I love how Ron Wilson defended this trade before Seguin’s first NHL game. “Phil Kessel is a 40 goal scorer. How many goals does Seguin have?” Here’s a history lesson Ron, the last ten 2^nd overall picks have the following surnames: Hedman, Doughty, VanRiemsdyk, Staal (Jordan), Ryan, Malkin, Staal (Eric), Lehtonen, Spezza, Heatley. I would say half are CERTAINLY better than The Thrill, three could go either way, and two are worse (Lehtonen, VanRiemsdyk). In any event, I think my point remains. Ron Wilson is a dummy.  

[v] Whoops, I forgot. I love waffles. They are so exciting and awesome!!!!!! What terrific fans Toronto has!!!!!!!

[vi] Is it my own western bias that I think the 3 most exciting storylines for Canadian teams this year are all based left of Manitoba?

[vii] Coincidentally, this happened when Brian Burke was hired too. Who knew Toronto journalists weren’t prophetic.

[viii] Kind of like how the Yankees have to be contenders for baseball. It’s an argument that’s always lacked intelligence to me.

[ix] Whatever on God’s green earth that means. That’s the kind of in-depth analysis that we love here.

[x] Is the guy who believes toughness and heart wins hockey games. Is also usually the guy who yells “shooooooot” on the powerplay.

[xi] Yes the perennial Hart candidate Robbie Earl.

[xii] More about TSN’s awesomeness in later posts.