Here Come the Playoffs!!!

J.P. has a rather excellent method for you to use to help predict the outcome of the various playoff series you'll be seeing over the coming weeks. But I wanted to give you a little extra "insider information". So take a look at Eastern Conference Standings as they would have looked under the NHL's old points system (i.e. 2 points for a win, 1 for a tie, no shootouts or points for losing, because there are no points for losing in the playoffs, or shootouts, but you knew that already).


If anyone was wondering, yes, I'm rooting for Ottawa.

Now That Everyone Has Caught Up, This Blog Is Probably Not Relevant Anymore, Unless You Like Absurdly Long Entry Titles

There are few things I like better than feeling smug and superior. So it brings me great pleasure to direct you over to this post by Caps Nut (who, incidentally, is doing the Lord's work when it comes to arguing against fighting in the NHL). In it, he discusses the various ramifications of the NHL's current system of awarding standings points. He discusses point inflation, record inflation, and the diminishing significance of the above-.500 record. For some reason, it all sounds vaguely familiar. Almost as though someone else I know was talking about the same thing all the way back in January... Oh wait, here it is. Also, here. (EDITOR'S NOTE: Smug superiority intended solely for comedic effect.)

Given that the topic is suddenly relevant again, I decided to revisit the revised standings I put together back in January. Like I did then, I've taken a look at each Eastern Conference team's record, and adjusted it by taking away shootout wins (converted to ties) and overtime losses (converted to regulation losses). The results this time around are even more dramatic, no doubt owing to the larger sample size. Check it out (in newfangled Google Spreadsheet form!).



The real standings have seven teams within six points of each other fighting for the final two playoff spots, whereas the adjusted standings have six teams within seven points duking it out. Seems like that race is tighter than it would have been. However, as Caps Nut so wisely pointed out, the difference in points is a much bigger gap when the teams you're chasing can earn points without ever winning a game.

So, thanks to Gary Bettman, instead of the defending Stanley Cup champs trying to hold off the upstart Thrashers in the Southeast division, you've got the Hurricanes languishing in 11th place and in danger of missing the playoffs altogether. Instead of a down-to-the-wire race for the Northeast Division crown (as well as the top spot overall) between Buffalo and Ottawa, you've got the Sabres running away with it. Instead of the stupid f'ing Panthers, one of the hottest teams in the league, making a valiant run at the final playoff spot, you've got them virtually eliminated and coasting through meaningless games like last night.

But at least the New York Rangers get to sneak into the playoffs. Hockey fans everywhere are rejoicing over that one. Yup, this whole shootout thing makes everything waaaay more exciting.

$0.02

(Special disclaimer: This is a post about fighting in the NHL. For excellent coverage of the issue, and perhaps some perspective, go here, here, here and/or here. Also, this post is shamefully long, so you should probably go get some coffee and find a comfortable seat.)

AP writer Ira Podell has a column up on Yahoo! Sports taking a look at the "current" issue of fighting in hockey, and I think it's a pretty interesting read. Not because it covers any new ground, really. For the most part it is a rehash of all the various arguments for and against fighting in the NHL. The thing that caught my eye, though, was a quote from NHL disciplinarian Colin Campbell regarding the Todd Fedoruk incident:

"The last time Philadelphia was in there ... the same player came out of the penalty box and went right for Jagr and hit him real hard on probably a borderline charge or a major for charging," Campbell said. "I think it's incumbent on the Rangers to protect their players in ways they can."

No, Colin, you nitwit, it is incumbent on you, and the NHL as a whole, to protect the players in any way you can. If it was, as you say, a borderline charge or a major for charging,why didn't the on-ice officials in your employ call a penalty? And if it was an offense so grievous as to require another player to punch him in the face, shouldn't it also be grievous enough to deserve some sort of suspension? Colin Campbell, in another article, has pointed to the lower number of suspensions this year as an indication that the game is getting cleaner.

While there have been other ugly moments this season, Campbell says supplemental discipline has dropped "tremendously" since the lockout.

Campbell handed out 31 supplemental suspensions in 2003-04 (not counting automatic suspensions), which dropped to 21 last season.

Amazingly, despite all the headline bad behaviour this season, only nine supplemental suspensions have been handed down this season.

I've got news for you, Colin. Improvement would be if you had issued more suspensions this year than last. Given the current state of the game and its current level of popularity in the United States, you should be putting more pressure on the players to clean up their acts, not less.

Or, let's consider for a moment that perhaps Fedoruk's hit on Jagr wasn't an illegal charge. If it was a legal hit, it was a legal hit, and everyone needs to get over it and move on. I hate Jaromir Jagr just as much as the next person, but I feel pretty confident that he can take a hit, and if he can't, then why should Todd Fedoruk be punished for it in the form of a concussive blow from the right hand of Colton Orr? In sports like football and basketball, if a team is bigger, stronger and/or more physical than your own team, you don't get to start bashing people's faces in to level the playing field. You either find a way around the oppositions physical play, whether it be toughening up and being just as physical, or you find a way around it with speed and skill. (Please note that, in this case, "physical play" and "fisticuffs" are two distinctly different things.)

Imagine, if you will, that you are watching a football game (Half of you have just stopped reading. Please come back!) in which Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher comes off the outside and levels Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning with a bone-crunching hit from the blind side. Manning is one of the NFL's biggest stars, and arguably the most important player on the Colts' roster. Now, imagine if one of the offensive linemen, on the next play, were to completely eschew his run-blocking duties and instead made a beeline straight for Urlacher and started throwing punches. Sounds absurd, right? In the NHL, it would not only be unsurprising, if would actually be expected.

And therein lies the problem. We can talk and talk (or write and write, as it were) about banning fighting or increasing the penalty for it or finding some sort of compromise, but nothing will work until the overall mentality of the players (and the idiots in charge (and the fans (and the on-ice officials who are, for the most part, grossly incompetent, thus necessitating the self-policing by the players in the first place))) changes. One of the chief arguments for keeping fighting is that, without it, there would be more cheap shots and dangerous stick infractions. How about instead, the players have enough respect for each other that they simply don't specifically try to badly injure each other? Is that too much to ask? Shouldn't simple sportsmanship, rather than a goon's fists, be enough of a deterrent?

Apparently not. The culture of incidental, gratuitous violence is so ingrained in the NHL at this point that it may be impossible to ever fully extricate it. I'm guilty of it myself, having started this here blog in the joyous delirium that followed the Great Brawl of Atlanta. This in spite of the fact that I am a rather big proponent of phasing fighting out of the league, as any right thinking person should be. That is what the league is working against, and given the people currently in charge, I'm not especially optimistic about the prospects of improvement. Although, to be fair, Gary Bettman has never seen a hockey tradition he wasn't happy to piss all over. So maybe there's hope yet.

The Ugliest Thing You'll See All Day

Unless your team is the Buffalo Sabres.




















Discuss.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: I have absolutely no reason to believe this is anything other than a Photoshop mockup of what a new Caps jersey could look like. I just put it here because I was bored.)

The One Where I Find Out That Statistics Completely Disprove What I Was Trying to Say In the First Place

You may remember (because it was less than a week ago) when I spent a lot of time ranting about how the shootout/overtime loss rule was skewing the way people perceive their teams. I argued that, by awarding teams points for losing, the NHL was artificially inflating teams' records to make it seem as though they were better than they actually are. I also made the argument that the supposed parity in the league was merely a function of mediocre teams staying in the playoff race by being awarded points for losing games.

Lucky for you, I wasn't satisfied with just spouting my completely uninformed opinion. So I did what any self-respecting person with way too much time on his hands would do: I went through the Eastern Conference standings and recalculated every team's record as though there was no such thing as a shootout and without giving them a point for losing in the five-minute OT. Needless to say, the results surprised me. (Standings are through January 11, 2007. You can click on the graphic to get a better view.)


As you can see, the standings would actually be even more tightly bunched in the Old NHL. In the real standings, the difference between second and 14th (i.e. second to last) is fifteen points, with the 14th place team (Florida) just five points out of a playoff spot. But under the old rules, the gap from 2nd to 14th would be even smaller, twelve points, and the Panthers would be just four points out of the playoffs. You'll also notice that, with the Thrashers and Rangers being the exceptions, most teams would be in roughly the same spot in the standings or higher in the Old NHL, further disproving my hypothesis that the NHL's Points-For-Losses program makes fans feel better about their tem than they ought to. In fact, it actually caused me to be more down on the Caps than they deserved. (Not surprisingly, the Caps are getting screwed by the new rules more than any other team. Note that they are the only team that is in playoff position under the old rules but not under the new ones. I choose to look at this as a league-wide anti-Capitals conspiracy.)

The moral of the story, kids, (aside from "The NHL hates the Caps") is that most of what I say on here is probably nonsense. Try not to be too surprised by that. (Although my point about the .500 mark having lost its meaning is still a valid one, as only six of the thirteen teams with "above .500 records" have accomplished the feat without the aid of the NHL's silly rules.)

The Most Meaningless Statistic In Hockey

The Capitals, if you hadn't noticed, recently completed the first half of their season with a win over the Montreal Canadiens to give them a 17-17-7 record. Many people have said that it is quite an accomplishment to see this team finish the first half of the year with an even .500 record. What those people fail to realize is the utter meaninglessness of the term ".500" in the New NHL. Take a look at the standings and you'll see that, for all games completed through January 5th, there are 21 NHL teams with "above .500" records, while there are only eight who are "below .500".

By comparison, the NFL's recently completed season saw a total of 12 teams above five hundred and twelve teams below (with eight teams finishing even). The MLB's 2006 season had fourteen above and sixteen below, and the NBA to date has fourteen teams above and fifteen below (with one team even).

Can someone explain to me how it is that having twenty-one teams with supposedly above five hundred records is supposed to be good for the sport? I get that it creates the illusion of parity so that just about any fan can look at his or her tema and think "Hey, we're still right there in it!" but I think most fans are smart enough to look at the standings and realize that Gary Bettman is trying to pull the wool over their eyes. I get that complaining about the overtime loss rule is nothing new or original, but with the owner of the team saying "We are halfway through the season and we are a 500 team" as a way of encouraging fan support, we are all deluding ourselves a little bit. Say what you will about the shootout, the fact is that this team has lost 24 times so far this year.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: This whole thing has a much more negative edge than I intended. I'm not trying to take anything away from what the Caps have accomplished. I assure you I am still wearing rose colored glasses and drinking plenty of Kool Aid. All I really wanted to do was rant about how stupid Gary Bettman's "New" NHL is.)