The 2016 holidays are over, but I'm always hunting for a good bargain. If you have lazy relatives, you probably have a few extra virtual dollars sitting on an impersonal bank Gift Card.
So if you don't want to be one of those people who let billions of gift card dollars go unused, the savvy marketers at the NHL are here to help. As of today, there are approximately 3600 NHL-developed-and-endorsed products "on sale" at NHL.com. I've painstakingly gone through all of them to find you the Best Deals (all prices USD, since that's all the NHL cares about).
Read more
David Staples is a writer at the Edmonton Journal...no no wait come back!!! Stick with me...
He recently wrote his latest screed on apparent league MVP Kris Russell: "Why there's such furious disagreement on the merits of Kris Russell..." where he summarizes some of the different writings on Russell. There's no reason for me to try and rebut Staples' argument - others who are smarter than me, and better writers/educators have done that before, and this time is no different. ...
Read more
In Part 1, I looked at the NYR first 10 games, from a 5v5 perspective. Now let's check out the PP (5v4) and PK (4v5) results. To my eyes, both the PP and the PK are completely transformed from last season - but unfortunately there's not a lot to analyze without getting more granular microdata and video.
Read more
Based on Watching the Games™, it seems like the Rangers are playing better than last season. While the 2015/16 team started 6-2-1-1 in its first ten games, I think the conventional wisdom was that the team was being outplayed, but riding a hot start from the normally slow-starting Lundqvist. The 2016/16 team has started out 7-3, and I'd bet the CW is the opposite - this is a strong team mostly outplaying the opposition, and the skaters performance is overcoming a slow start by Lundqvist.
Read more
Rogers Place, the new home of perennial-[lottery]-winners Edmonton Oilers, issued a press release [!!!!] for its latest specialty food item, the Bobby Nick's Burger. Named for Oilers Entertainment [sic] Group CEO and Vice Chairman Bob Nicholson, the burger is...well let's go to the press release.
Read more
NHL Awards are dumb - in large part because most of them are voted on by the Professional Hockey Writers Association. The addition of many "bloggers" to the PHWA has improved the quality of the membership's decision-making, but those newer, more open-minded members, are still outnumbered by the many, terrible writers who have a vote...
Read more
A month ago, I took a look at how Patrick Kane's season stacked up compared to his peers - specifically the other Top 20 scoring forwards at that time. I generally focused on offensive possession metrics (corsi, shots, and expected goals) because Kane has led the NHL in points scoring from the start, and I wanted to see if there was some way to really see if Kane was having the "outstanding" season people those points suggested. At the time, I saw that Kane was individually producing a lot of offensive attempts, and was getting favorable shooting percentages while on the ice. I also saw that his possession rates were in the middle of the pack, and that he was routinely at the bottom of the list in relative rates. Not only was he not outperforming his teammates compared to his Top 20 scoring peers - he was actually under-performing compared to his team itself.
Time for an update...
Read more
Keith Yandle is considered a power play star, but early in the 2015/16 season, the Rangers rarely gave him "first unit" time. Well that's changed as the season wound down, so I wanted to see what impact he might have had...
Read more
Anyone following the NYR season knows that the NYR are having a terrible defensive season, by #fancystats metrics, at least. As of today, the NYR are 20th in Score-Adjusted 5v5 CorsiFor% in the entire league. I think it's pretty well accepted now that good puck possession teams are better bets for playoff success.
I've also spent a fair amount of time marveling at the NYR's defensemen's possession results specifically, and, as I've tweeted before, they are bad, bad, and not good. So I thought it would be fun to see how the NYR defensemen's current Score-Adjusted 5v5 CorsiFor% measured up to other playoff teams in the BtN era...
Read more
I took a quick look at some of Patrick Kane's 2015/16 season stats as compared to his previous career here. I thought that was enough of my time wasted, and then I saw this...
Read more