Archive for the ‘Observation’ Category

LIVE BLOG: Minnesota Wild versus the Calgary Flames

Posted by Justin Bourne under Forced Watching, Live Blogs, Observation on Feb 11, 2013

Minnesota Wild v Calgary Flames

First off, just so fans of the Flames and the Wild know, I’m going to take this seriously. That said, I am live-blogging a Flames/Wild game in the middle of February, so not that seriously.

Here’s why this is happening: everyday on the Backhand Shelf Podcast, Jake Goldsbie and I pick a “lock” winner. We scan the schedule and say “the Kings are going to beat Columbus” (I think I literally lost on that once this year). You get one point for correctly calling a favourite to win, which should be easy but hockey is a gambling nightmare, and two for picking an underdog. At the end of the week, whoever wins gets to assign the other guy to cover a game he normally wouldn’t watch (what we would call a “generally not-that-interesting game). In this case, Goldsbie didn’t just want me to write about Flames/Wild, he wanted a live blog.

The truth? I wasn’t that bummed about his pick. I find both teams fairly interesting. Uh oh. Puck drop. Let’s get this going! Excuse any spelling/grammar errors – this will be pretty stream-of-consciousness.

16:52: Do live-blogs go up or down? Seriously. Do I post above this or below after? Oh this is off to a terrible start.

16:05: Those white Minnesota Wild jerseys are 63,345,425,000 times better than their red Christmas tree sweaters. The Flames, on the other, need a total makeover. Or just their thirds. Yeah, their thirds would work just fine.

Random: how much of a jersey golden age was it that everyone – Isles, Oil, Flames etc – look so much better in the old digs? The late 90s, early 2000s were a mess.

 13:30: We’re calling him Who-dler, not Hud-ler? Really? I’ve been doing it wrong, apparently.

13:00:

 

I like that idea, Pat. I will, definitely at intermission.

12:08: “Fan right or Fan wrong” is a feature that Sportsnet (or whoever) needs to absolutely bury. “Should you murder your seat-mate at intermission? Text 98787 to vote!” Read the rest of this entry »

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Note-worthy: tracking time-on-ice around the NHL

Posted by Justin Bourne under Noteworthy, Observation on Feb 04, 2013

How hard to you have to shoot that the kick-back on your stick makes it flex forward?

For my money, time-on-ice is one of the best indicators of a player’s worth. A few teams lack talent so they over-play a mediocre player, but for the most part, the league leaders in TOI (by position) are simply the best in the league. Their coaches watch every second of every practice and game and have a much better idea than we do about which players are most important to their success, and we can see that reflected in player usage stats.

I was digging through the numbers today and found a handful of things I found to be note-worthy, and thought you might too.

Ilya Kovalchuk is playing an absurd amount

Far be it for me to tell an NHL coach how to use his extremely well-paid extremely talented star, but Peter DeBoer is playing the bananas off Ilya Kovalchuk. Alexander Semin is getting the second-most minutes-per-game for forwards in the NHL, logging time on the powerplay, penalty-kill and of course even-strength, for an average of 22:11 a night. It’s around that number that we start to see some other top forwards show up, with names like Iginla, Tavares and Ovechkin all within a minute of him.

Wayyy, way off in the distance is Kovalchuk, who’s playing an average of 26 minutes and 23 seconds a night, over four minutes more than the 2nd place Semin. He’s 10th overall, which is hugely rare for a forward. Four minutes over the next closest forward. That blows my mind. Read the rest of this entry »

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Two dangerous hits, two very different outcomes; your average night in the NHL

Posted by Justin Bourne under Insight, Observation on Jan 30, 2013

Players in hockey at all levels get hit, shoved, and pushed from behind frequently. When you’re chasing a puck and a player into the corner, it’s not remotely uncommon to give a guy a shove in the back, which assuming the players is aware of your presence, barely phases him. It’s a fight for body position, and they continue to battle like nothing happened.

Occasionally, a player isn’t aware the contact is coming and they go into the boards head-first, and we get to talking suspension. In other cases, a player is in too awkward a position to get their hands up to stop themselves from hitting the boards, or they get hit with more force than they expect, and they get smooshed into the dasher in some precarious position. It’s obviously very dangerous, and it happened to Patrick Kaleta last night courtesy Mike Brown: Read the rest of this entry »

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It seems the Sharks aren’t fading into the sunset anytime soon

Posted by Justin Bourne under Observation on Jan 28, 2013

Going into the shortened 2013 NHL season, I predicted that the San Jose Sharks would finish 6th in the Western Conference, but I barely believed it. For some reason I felt like I might have been giving them too much credit.

Their two biggest stars, Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau aren’t old, but they both have a ton of NHL mileage on them, currently having combined for 2,204 NHL games played. I tend to think of the game as faster now than it ever was, and while they can both get around at a good clip, I’ve never considered either to be among the fastest in the league (though some have). I thought their production would start slowing down this year, and as they go, their team goes.

Combine that with the fact that I think Antti Niemi is fine but not great, they have a good d-corps and a couple other name forwards and yeah – playoff team, early elimination, nothing more.

Well, you won’t believe this, but my prediction may not have been perfect. They’re on a tear, and clearly more legit than I recognized during the lockout.

The San Jose Sharks are leading the Pacific Division with a perfect 5-0-0 record, and only trail the also-undefeated Chicago Blackhawks by two points in the Western Conference. Those “two big stars” are 1-2 in NHL scoring, both having 13 points after only five games. Patrick Marleau is first in goals by four, leading names like Gaborik, Hossa and Parise by putting up nine. He’s only the second player in history to start an NHL season with four straight multi-goal games, along with Cy Denneny who accomplished the feat in 1917-18. Thornton’s ten assists lead the league as well, and their liney Joe Pavelski is T-4 in the league with 10 points. Logan Couture (8 points in 5 games), Dan Boyle (6 points in 5 games), and Martin Havlat (4 points in 5 games) are off to decent starts too.

The team has obviously been killer at producing, as evidenced by the fact that they’re second in goals-per-game with a whopping 4.60 (to Tampa Bay, who is putting up 4.80), but it hasn’t just been quality at the one end of the ice.

The Sharks are currently allowing the lowest goals-against-per-game in the NHL, allowing only 1.6 goals per contest. That leaves them with the league’s biggest goal differential (+15), four better than the second closest teams, Chicago and Tampa Bay. Whether you want to credit Niemi or team defense, their starting goalie has posted great numbers early on, sporting a record of 4-0-0 with a .933 save percentage and 2.01 goals-against.

They’ve simply owned in every area of the game so far including even strength, where they have the league’s best goals for/against ratio. And on special teams (while it can’t stay this good), they’re first in the NHL with a 37.5% conversion rate on the powerplay. Hell, they’ve scored 11 first period goals in five games (most in the league) – 13 NHL clubs don’t have more than that on the season so far.

I’m still of the mind that the San Jose Sharks window is closing, but after an early glance this year, it appears way, way more open then I thought – we may just wanna keep them in the Cup conversation for a couple more years. It seems like the d-corp of Boyle, Burns, Murray, Stuart and Vlasic might have just propped that window open, and Thornton and Marleau seem intent on dragging the rest of the Sharks through.

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Phil Kessel, or How the variance demons blur good execution

Posted by Cam Charron under Analysis, Observation on Jan 28, 2013

The problem with record-keeping in sports is that the records have the nasty habit of tracking the results of plays, and not the process. If I’m a baseball player, I could hit a hard line drive right at the shortstop and make an out, and in my next at bat dribble a ground ball between the first and second baseman. The second plate appearance counts on my record as a “success” but I got much better contact on my first attempt. It was a much better display of my ability to hit a ball hard, but if I don’t get on base, it’s like the at bat never happened.

I may remember the good feeling of a hard-hit ball until the next game, but after a while it will wash off along with the dirt, grime and sweat accrued during a day at the ball field. I never played hockey competitively, but I get the feeling a well-executed slapshot or tip play feels similar. For a moment, you know you connected, and the hours of practice paid off, and the next moment, the goaltender’s glove is right in the way of the puck.

We can respect, as outsiders to the National Hockey League, that each play won’t necessarily benefit the team that executed the best. We’ve seen a set play off the face-off thwarted by a hot goaltender, a stretch pass skip off a desperate defenceman’s stick, or the puck-carrier held up just slightly at the blue line, forcing a promising three-on-one to an offside call. Between every face-off, if there was not a goal scored, a week later it’s almost as if the invisible plays that led to the potential for scoring chances fade even further into obscurity.

Read the rest of this entry »

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‘Tis a shame we only get 48 games: this year’s rookie class is stacked

Posted by Justin Bourne under Observation, Previews on Jan 16, 2013

Damien Brunner hugs linemate Zetterberg while wearing his "team leading scorer" helmet

A cold, hard reality for hockey fans is that every single NHL team has prospects. I’m sorry to drop that on you like that. They may not all be A-grade, but somewhere in their farm system is a kid they drafted and have big hopes for, and for the large majority of the teams, it’s someone they drafted high. It allows fans to look at their struggling team and say “But we have Granlund on the way!“, “Once Kadri is ready...” and “Scheifele will save us.” We call it “prospect porn,” or “rosterbation,” or as Jake Goldsbie just came up with, “auto-eroster asphixiation” (sorry, that was too funny to not include). Anyway, the point is, ALL teams have prospects, but not all are created equal.

This year is a particularly bright and shiny one for those hard-mined pieces of gold to become polished, ready-to-wear jewelry, so I figured we’d take a look at some of the Calder contenders heading into the 2013 NHL season.

ATLANTIC

New York Islanders: Ryan Strome

I think it’s unlikely that he makes the Islanders, but he’s tearing up the OHL right now, with 62 points in 32 games. If he does make the squad and is given the right opportunity…who knows what he could do.

New York Rangers: Chris Kreider

He jumped into playoffs with the Rangers last season and tallied seven points (five goals), and has high expectations on him as a big-bodied dude who was a point-a-game college player. His AHL stats this season, however, have been concerning – 33 games, only 12 points.

NORTHEAST

Ottawa Senators: Jakob Silfverberg

22 years old, over a point-per-game in the Swedish Elite League last year, and is threatening a point-per-game in the AHL this year.

Boston Bruins: Dougie Hamilton

A 6’5″ defenseman with 113 points in his last 82 OHL games is kinnnnda noteworthy. And since the Leafs traded the pick to the Bruins, he’s bound to tear it up. Read the rest of this entry »

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Hockey fans show frustration over lockout with what appears to be reverse boycotts

Posted by Justin Bourne under News, Observation on Jan 14, 2013

Which is to say that hockey fans did not boycott a damn thing when NHL practices started up yesterday and today. Instead, they came out in droves. All the boycott suggestions – and there were plenty of them – were pretty hilarious in retrospect. And the fact that I once thought, even for a second, that attendance would be badly hurt by the lockout is too.

Here’s how John Gonzalez described the situation in Philly yesterday:

It was madness. People stood shoulder to shoulder, their hockey sweaters bleeding into each other to form a seamless orange and black tableau that ringed the rink. That was more than an hour before the Flyers took the ice.

On an otherwise sleepy, foggy, Sunday morning, countless fans filled the Skate Zone to watch the Flyers open training camp. One of the employees at the front desk said the parking lots in the front, side and back of the building were full by 9:30 a.m. Several longtime beat reporters swore it was the biggest turnout they’d ever seen. Read the rest of this entry »

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