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I tune in late, turn on my TV, see it’s 1-0 Calgary and hear “Another turnover for the Oilers defence…”

So, Dion Phaneuf is being helped greatly by the return of Roman Hamrlik according to Dion Phaneuf. Strange - the Canadian media has informed me that Phaneuf is one of the best defencemen in the league; I wouldn’t think he’d need the much travelled Roman Hamrlik to help him out.

2-0 Calgary. I should have kept working. This is just torturous. Three guys going for the puck, Roli behind the net playing it. This has all the makings of a shit show of epic proportions.

That said, as of the 10:30 mark of the first, a significant chunk of the game has been in Calgary’s end. There are, to my eye, a lot of Oilers who can’t buy a break at the moment. There’s a larger point here as well - I’m generally one to say during a lengthy hot streak that a team isn’t really that good (even if it’s the Oilers). The same is true of a bad streak. The Oilers aren’t really this bad but it sure is awful to watch at the moment.

Young Laco just looks completely out of it at the moment. Even on the plays where nothing bad happens, he’s still doing weird things. Just now, he’s standing up a play where there’s an Oiler fighting for the puck with a Flame and two Flames and one Oiler behind him and Laco just kind of hangs out there in no man’s land. He’s not taking a risk and helping out or backing off to prevent anything bad from happening if the puck pops loose, he’s just standing in a stupid spot.

I don’t know how Sportsnet works or if the same people work in Edmonton and Calgary but I feel like I might as well be listening to the radio, given to the lack of connection between what they’re saying and what they’re showing. We see one replay of the supposed Smyth interference and no replay of the Smyth roughing penalty while Garrett blathers on about it. Topnotch job. None of these people are talented enough to work at a national level.

“The Oilers special teams are just fine, the real issue has been even strength. 70 goals for, 73 goals against coming into tonight.” How incompetent do you have to be to say this, especially after you’ve just discussed their 26th ranked PP?

Lowetide points out that my Laco description could also apply to Tom Poti circa 2002. I somehow feel a bit let down by Laco after everything I’d heard. If only they’d said “He’s like Tom Poti…but he’s not allergic to everything!”, I might feel more properly calibrated to just what he gives us.

All in all, not a bad period for the Oilers. I thought that they outchanced the Flames, at least in the portion that I saw. Coming back on the Flames is always a tough uphill slog though. For all the Kiprusucking coming from the booth, I thought he looked a little shaky. He’s been rough lately. That goes for Edmonton’s guy as well unfortunately but there really isn’t much other hope to hang onto at the moment.

John Garrett: “I played with some pretty bad defencemen in my day…” Retired Canucks defencemen all across the country are muttering “I played with some pretty fucking bad goalies too.”

3-0 Calgary. Well, this one is pretty much over. I thought it was pretty obvious that that goal was tipped, I think, whether it was Langkow or Staios. Still a bit unclear. Doesn’t really matter.

3-1 Calgary. Oilers pop a PP goal off the Hemsky pass from the sideboards. Hemsky has switched sides on the PP, he was over on the right side of the ice there.

4-1 Calgary. I’m not sure what the hell Marty Reasoner thought he was doing there. He gives up on the play and stays high, realizes the problem and desperately runs down low, too late. Matt Greene victimized yet again on the play as a bonus.

I honestly cannot recall a time in the Craig MacTavish era when the Oilers have given up as many great chances in the slot as they have in the past month. Roloson just made a good stop off another fantastic chance for the Flames. It’s an epidemic right now and it’s a mystery to me as to why.

Yet another Flames penalty…another chance for the Oilers to make things interesting. The PP has been the lone bright light so far tonight - they’ve put together numerous great chances. Hemsky is absolutely dancing.

You can see the difference between the Flames play in their own end and the Oilers play in their own end at the moment. Calgary just buries guys going for rebounds in front. The Oilers seem stunned to see them there as they’re safely tucked out of the play.

2006 has pretty much sucked from an Oilers point of view since June 5.

Holy christ…Dan Hejda loses the puck at the blueline, turns and falls over and Calgary bails him out only by buggering up the rush.

I think I just heard the Oilers fans in attendance doing the old cheer when your goalie stops an easy one.

So the Flames lead 4-1 heading into the third. Edmonton played last night. There is no chance whatsoever that the Oilers come back in this one. I gave up on last night’s game though so I might as well watch the end of this. I hope to god that the Oilers at least just look to fight or something in the third. I’d just like to see any sign of life whatsoever.

The IOF guys are generally pretty steady as is Lowetide. Even the calm Oilers fans are sick of seeing this nonsense. I don’t want Lowe to make a move out of desperation but this is pretty tough stuff to watch.

I didn’t even realize that MAB wasn’t dressed tonight. It’s just nuts that MAB has had more healthy scratches this year than Greene or Smid. As glaring as MAB’s errors are, Smid and Greene just get burned again and again.

Smid just mucks up a shot and then misses a chance for a good clear shot by not being in position and the puck leaves the zone. The Oilers could use about three weeks off at the moment to try and sort some things out in practice - instead, it’s three games in four nights starting Tuesday.

A good lazy penalty from Joffrey Lupul. People should be hissing at him when he walks the streets of Edmonton.

The power play has looked appreciably better than usual tonight and Ryan Smyth makes it 4-2 off a nice pass from Jarret Stoll. 1:10 left in the PP as the Oilers try to make this a close loss.

Why the Oilers wouldn’t take their timeout following the 4-2 goal to rest the #1 PP unit and try to put them back out is a mystery. You’re down two goals with 10 minutes left, you’ve got some elite PP guys and you don’t take the timeout to try and get another shot with your best?

Millions sure loves that “malfunction in the junction” line.

Another abomination for the Oilers. Happy New Year. Thank god we’ve got the dregs of the Southeast Division rolling into town on Tuesday. I assume that these words will come back to haunt me.

The Oilers are playing California’s weak link tonight. They’d better bloody well win this game - I have a good feeling. I think they’re primed to go on a streak where they start scoring some goals. Smyth is back in tonight, which means my interpretation of MacT’s comments about how they always rush him back too early was spot on. We’ll see but all signs point to this being the night that Laco is a healthy scratch. No thread at BoA or IOF (Dennis is out seal hunting or kissing a cod or something; Grabia is just slacking), so I’ll run one here.

Darcy Tucker, who’s about to go UFA, for Raffi Torres and a draft pick? Right. Mike Brophy, Proud Member of the Toronto Media.

Laco dresssed but he’s playing with Matt Greene tonight. Quickly, the Oilers get contained in their own end and the Matt Greene Festival of Penalties appears.

No Smyth so far - it looks like he’s going to play 4th line ES minutes and maybe some PP time.

Stoll working hard down low, sets up Pisani on the PK. The emergence of Stoll since Smyth got injured has been amazing. 10 games is nothing in the grand scheme of things but he’s getting results like a guy who’s making his level of money should now.

Ryan Smyth can’t control the puck to save his life. I’m no doctor but bringing him back early? Bad idea.

A seven minute PP? Oilers better score at least two here. It’ll be interesting to see, from a coaching perspective, how MacT attacks this one. The intermisssion at 3:11 is a blessing here.

Bergeron is just killing me here. Would it kill him to dish the puck off when he’s got someone pressing him at the point on the PP instead of burying the futile shot into the shinpad of the opposing player?

Shaggy with the slapshot bungled by Garon and it’s a tie game. Nice to have Hemsky back - laser pass through the box to Shaggy. Reminiscent of Hemsky’s beloved backdoor to Spacek play.

Two more PP goals for the Oilers. Hemsky is up to a pair of points on the evening and Horcoff - who isn’t good enough to centre Joffrey Lupul - sets up Stoll for a nice one.

They are apparently debating whether Smyth tipped Shaggy’s shot on the second Oiler goal. If he ends up with the hatty tonight, the legend of Ryan Smyth will grow a little more.

5-4 Kings. The Oilers have looked wildly disorganized in their own end. This looks like a last shot wins affair though - Edmonton is still getting a lot of chances. Not a particularly entertaining game though, all the goals notwithstanding.

Ferraro picks up on MacT getting the Horcoff/Hemsky/Sykora line out against the Kings fourth line. Lowetide commented in the comments that the whole side of the mountain is letting go now - I still think that they’re going to get back in this one.

Smith looks like he’s struggled with Kopitar tonight. There’ve been a couple of occasions where Kopitar has gotten an edge on him going wide.

That’s probably the nail in the coffin. More sloppy d-zone play from the Oilers. A Kings win tonight and they’re just five points out…

PP to the Oilers; here’s the game. I’m going to have to go and take a look some time at how shots for/against change when teams are protecting a lead. Earl Sleek has argued on this very site that teams will sit back - LA sure looks to be doing that this period.

I like the shot of a concerned Billy Moores and Craig MacTavish shouting instructions to the PP unit. Meanwhile, an oblivious Craig Simpson thinks about his hair.

Two pretty amazing quotes in the Edmonton Sun today, courtesy of what I can only assume was a MacT recovering from a truth serum laced turkey:

“He [Ladislav Smid] has not had any protection in terms of matchups and ice time. For a 20 year old that’s saying something about him. But at the same time you have to understand that it’s pretty rigorous for him right now and he needs a little bit of a break.”

Huh. Obviously, the coaching staff isn’t going to bury a 20 year old rookie defenceman in the press but this about as close as they’ve ever come to doing so. I found this one even more amazing though:

“He’s [Ryan Smyth] dealt with so many injuries and I think at times we’ve made mistakes getting him back too soon.”

This is probably code for “Smyth is playing tomorrow” but still, an amazingly accurate assessment for an organization that is so notorious for playing guys who are all banged up that I’ve often wondered if Kevin Lowe picks an entirely different meaning out of that famous story about walking past the Islanders dressing room after they won the Cup than everyone else does. My theory is that Lowe saw all those guys who were all beat up and battered and concluded not that you had to be willing to pay that kind of price to win but that you in fact needed to play while actually suffering from injuries if you wanted to win. It’s about all that would explain some of the decisions to dress guys over the years.

I wrote this while watching the TSN broadcast of Vancouver and Calgary. Between the second and third period, James Duthie and Darren Dreger were asking Mike Keenan about Roberto Luongo’s contract. Keenan comes back with his mealy mouthed answer about how Roberto Luongo had yet to play in a playoff game. He also says that he offered Luongo $30MM for 5 years and snidely notes that Luongo only got $27.5MM for 4 years from Vancouver. Now, time will tell but is that fifth year really only worth $2.5MM? Seems pretty unlikely to me. If I was Roberto Luongo, I’d have bet that it was worth more.

Even worse, neither Dreger nor Duthie had the guts to ask Keenan if maybe, just maybe, the reason Luongo has yet to be in the playoffs has nothing to do with his own play and everything to do with the team in front of him. Vancouver is a pretty weak looking team this year and they’re first in one of the league’s good divisions. Florida couldn’t make the playoffs in the bad conference with him - does that fall on his shoulders or Keenan’s?

Courtesy of Tangotiger and the Book Blog, here’s a link to Andy Dolphin’s NHL ratings. I like what he’s doing here. More support for the “The East Sucks” view as well: Dolphin has 8 of the top 9 teams coming from the Western Conference. I’ll have to poke around in his methodology - he and Jeff Sagarin clearly disagree on the strength of the various divisions - Dolphin has the NW as being the best division in the league (I lean that way myself) and Sagarin has them third. I’m inclined to lean towards Dolphin as being correct.

The Onion has its NHL preview up. My favourite quote:

“I still can’t believe they skate the entire time,” said Phoenix resident Brent Quigley. “I’ve never managed to actually see more than a couple games back when they used to show them, and I’ve never been to one, because it’s a pretty long drive to Los Angeles.”

Fantastic. I’m eagerly awaiting this story’s appearance on Kukla’s Korner.

As part of my ongoing effort to throw up some of the tons of information in my computer, I’ve added individual ES stats through game 472. It’s sorted by ESP/60, with a minimum of 200 minutes played. It should be fairly accurate - at the end of the year, I’m going to go through and tidy up the loose ends. People like the Regehrs kind of muck it up a little bit - two “R. Regehr”’s playing for Calgary? Thanks. If there are multiple players with an abbreviated name (”R. Regehr”, “J. Williams”, “V. Kozlov” and “A. Picard”, for example), my low tech spreadsheet counts the points too many times, so keep that in mind. Obviously, for 98% of guys, it’s no problem whatsoever.

Of note: I’m pleased to conclude that I was on the right side of history in the great Crosby/Ovechkin debate. I thought it was a good idea to invade Iraq but it’s nice to know that I’m right about the stuff that matters. People on the Ovechkin side have to be feeling a little silly at the moment. Ovechkin is having a good year, his ES scoring is up…Crosby is just playing on a different level. Ovechkin is scoring 2.96 ESP/60, up from last year’s 2.68. Crosby is scoring 4.95 ESP/60, up from last years 2.84 ESP/60. Sidney Crosby gets more ESP/60 than Chicago, St. Louis and Phoenix score PPG/60. Amazing.

He’s not just putting up great scoring numbers either - when Sid is on the ice, Pittsburgh scores 5.10 ESG/60 and they allow 1.85 ESG/60 - that’s the second best figure of any player who has at least 200 minutes of ESTOI. When Crosby isn’t on the ice, Pittsburgh is…how do I put this…fucking horrible looking. When they’re playing well. They score 1.83 ESG/60 and allow 2.88 ESG/60.

Crosby has been in on 97% of the ES goals that the Pens have scored with him on the ice as well - a ridiculous, ridiculous number. He’s unbelievable.

He’s 16th in PPP/60 amongst guys who’ve played at least 60 minutes of PP time which is very respectable - no one with his minutes is above him and I suspect that he pretty much is the Penguins PP.

I have a hard time seeing any argument that Crosby isn’t the best skater in the league right now and by a sizeable margin. Is there a shittier hockey town that’s been blessed with more amazing talent than Pittsburgh? The Penguins have had Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr and now Sidney Crosby. Evgeni Malkin looks like he’s going to be wicked good too. If the NHL lets this collection of players move to Kansas City or some such nonsense, they deserve to go down the toilet. They should move the Islanders to Kansas and send Pittsburgh to Long Island.

Some interesting things with the Oilers in there as well. The Raffi/Stoll/Pisani line looks to me like they’re going to stick together as a trio and they’re performing at a pretty solid level. They’re all over the +1.0 ESGD/60 barrier, which is a pretty respectable place to be at, especially because I think they’ve seen some tougher competition of late. Pisani’s scoring is down slightly and Stoll is up slightly - it pretty much washes out. Raffi Torres, on the other hand, is putting up ridiculous numbers at ES - he’s a shade under 3.0 ESP/60 as of this stats update and I suspect he’s up over 3.0 ESP/60 now. Heady stuff - that’s an elite level of ES point production, if he were to put it up over the course of an entire season. He’s probably the Oiler most due for a ridiculous slump though. The play of this line for the past month has a been a huge bright spot for the Oilers and something that bodes well going forward - Torres and Stoll were two wildcards going into this year and their development between now and the playoffs is going to have a huge impact on whether Edmonton has the guns to make a run at repeating last year.

JF Jacques and MA Pouliot don’t really have enough minutes to make it worth commenting on them but I note that Jacques has played a hair under 90 minutes of ES time, the Oilers have scored no goals with him on the ice and they’ve allowed 7. Anyone know when Ethan Moreau is coming back? Soon? Please? Please. It’s time for some of these young guys (Pouliot is no hot shit either) to get squeezed out the bottome end of the roster.

Shawn Horcoff is struggling but if Raffi Torres is due to not pick up points for a while, Horcoff is due to start having everything he even looks at go in the net. Horcoff is playing the tough minutes again and his EV- number is down so far this year; he was 3.52 EV-/60 last year and he’s down to 3.02 EV-/60 this year, a chunk of which obviously belongs to Roli. The offence has just gone ridiculously AWOL though - last year with Horcoff on the ice, the Oilers scored 3.41 ESG/60 and Horcoff piled up 2.44 ESP/60. This year, Horcoff is struggling at 0.86 ESP/60 and the Oilers are scoring just 2.30 ESG/60 when he’s on the ice. Even if you think that last year was an anomolous offensive year for him, I still think you’d reasonably expect him to be at least 1.0 ESP/60 above where he is. He’s had at least three ESP waved off, which has to be some sort of record. Notably, last year, he was in on 72% of the Oilers ES goals scored when he was on the ice; this year, he’s at 38%. That’s just an unsustainably low rate. I’m not inclined to chalk this up to Horcoff reverting to form because forwards just don’t have such low percentages of goals that they’re in on. Of the 248 forwards who’ve been on the ice for at least 10 ES goals for this year, only three of them have been in on a lower percentage of the goals than Horcoff. The question is whether this is because he’s not good enough, last year was a fluke or he’s had lousy luck thus far.

If I had to be bet on whether Horcoff is even and back up to at least 1.8 ESP/60 for the rest of the year, I’d be inclined to bet he is. NHL forwards of his calibre just don’t score like he is for an entire season. It’s going to happen for him. Once it starts going in, he should be a plus.

Vic has touched on the Staios/Smid thing but it’s striking everytime I see it. With Smid on the ice, the Oilers are -0.96 ESG/60. With Staios on the ice, they’re -0.13 ESG/60. Considering that Staios has had Smid chained to him for much of the year, it’s difficult to comprehend how Staios manages to be so much better than Smid. One would think that with a reasonable partner, Staios would be solidly in the black.

Reasoner’s getting torched but it’s tough to blame him. He’s had some ridiculous linemates, gets saddled with the kids a fair bit and is currently carrying the forward version of Laco around with him. (Because I’m fair: Joffrey Lupul played a very nice game in Dallas the other night and even created a chance by hitting someone on the forecheck. I still hate him. With Raffi off my shit list, I need a new whipping boy. Lupul is it.) Reasoner’s line is kind of the place that MacT sends guys who don’t have a place at the moment - I’m inclined to go easy on Marty.

Look at Lupul’s ES shot rate: 8.92. Last year it was 13.69. I’m sure that the Oilers coaches are more worried about this than I am but how can he get so many ES shots playing largely with nobodies last year and struggle this year so much despite playing with better players? Is anyone asking this question? I mean, I read Brownlee’s asinine piece wherein he argued that Lupul was struggling because he didn’t have a centre (last year at ES: Todd Marchant, IIRC) but I’m at a bit of a loss. I’m hesitant to buy the “not ready for Edmonton” line but you wonder.

I’ve thrown up the PP numbers as well. Not to give too much credit to Shawn Horcoff but he’s having yet another solid PP season. Considering the variety of guys he’s played with on the PP and the fact that he’s not just feeding off Hemsky or anything - he’s proving yet again that he’s a legitimately good PP forward. For all the bitching and moaning about how he’s not the centre that Edmonton needs, the Oilers use him pretty uniquely - few guys with his track record get used as sparingly on the PP as he does.

Watching TSN tonight, they had a poll on who should be the leader for the Jack Adams at the moment. Guy Carbonneau was their leader. It’s a ridiculous choice - I’m sure that this will irritate Canadiens fans but they’re simply not that good. If Sheldon Souray and Saku Koivu are both true talent 8.0 PPP/60 players, I’m Doug MacLean. They aren’t. Sad for Habs fans, but true.

Two of the Senators big three have got it going on the PP now; it’s a shame that their PK seems to have fallen apart for goaltending related reasons. James Duthie picked them as a darkhorse tonight - it’s a pretty solid call, I think. I know I keep saying this but they’ve been afflicted with horrific slumps from some part of their team all year long. At some point everything is going to click there and the teams for whom it’s clicked so far are going to hit a bump in the road.

The Sedins are ticking along on the PP but Naslund is in the tank. Dennis asked in the comments during an Oilers-Canucks game when Naslund retired. I’ve been watching the Flames final collapse into their proper home tonight and Glenn Healy showed a great clip of Naslund just dragging his ass back up the ice. There’s nothing in the papers about this but you really have to wonder if he’s injured.

Adam Foote still sucks on the PP. He’s still playing big minutes although it looks like his PP TOI is falling since Ken Hitchcock took over.

Oh, and Ed Jovanovski? 2.97 PPP/60. Expensive suck.

Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings was whining about Wikipedia going in the toilet the other day. Personally, I think it’s better than ever - I was looking for some information on Marty Murray and learned this bit of information:

The topic of Marty Murray once started a bar brawl in Melita, Manitoba. It involved an elderly man whom took offense to a Saskatchewan teen from the nearby town of Carnduff. The fight broke out as the Saskatchewan resident repeatedly trashed talked Marty Murray’s playing style, as well as his future and past hockey experiences. The result of the brawl was the old man getting whupped by the “typical” tough as nails Saskatchewan resident. The group of Saskatchewan residents were all then kicked out of the bar for the night, but felt it was worth it as they seen an 18 year old Sasky defeat a 50+ year old Manitoban.

Sadly, that’s the most interesting piece of information there is relating to Marty Murray.

The New York Times wrote a story a few days ago about the rise of numbers in hockey. As a proponent of the use of numbers in hockey, I’m thrilled. As someone who is simultaneously a proponent of the rational use of said numbers and information, I’m appalled. Why am I appalled? Well, they cited two different sites that have been using the NHL’s enhanced data to crank out information:

Among other data, R.T.S.S. provided the missing link in offensive statistical measure: ice time. Although the league has made little use of the stat other than to extol the stamina of a few 30-minute-a-game defensemen, several Web sites, most notably hockey-recap.com and hockeyrodent.com, have begun using the data to derive production assessments for scorers, revealing which players crank out the most offense per minute of ice time.

Now, some of this might come off as sour grapes, since I’m in many ways marketing the same material as these people and, maybe I’d like some attention from the New York Times as too, but my complaints are valid, I think. Gary Cohen of hockey-recap.com, who deserves credit for cramming an awful lot of information onto his site, kind of sucks as far as analysis goes, something that the New York Times missed. Without a hint of “Hey, does this make any sense?”, the Times ran the following pieces of information:

At hockey-recap.com, the points-per-minute statistic is called offensive production. The stat is important, said Gary Cohen, the site’s creator and proprietor, “because it gives us a fair statistical analysis of a player as opposed to raw points.”

…

“The leading scorers are generally at the top,” Cohen said, “but those who have missed time due to injury will be able to rank higher since they are not penalized for missing time.”

I haven’t really kicked Cohen publicly for his analysis because I didn’t really think that statistical analysis was what his site was aiming at and because, following some gentle chastisement from Mirtle, I’ve been trying to avoid just kicking the really obvious stupidity. That said, if Cohen puts this forward as analysis, I feel obliged to point out two obvious flaws. First - as he doesn’t separate the game into it’s three states, his stat is a pointless waste of time. You want to know what will kill your production/minute? Killing penalties. You want to know who doesn’t spend time killing penalties? Sidney Crosby (0:26 nightly), Maxim Afinogenov (0:05), Marc Savard (0:10), Teemu Selanne (0:04), Alexander Radulov (0:00), Alexei Yashin (0:46), Alexander Ovechkin (0:08), Jason Blake (0:29), Daniel Briere (0:21) and Jason Spezza (0:12). How did I happen to choose those players? They’re 1-10 on Cohen’s list of leaders in “best production.”

This stuff is all old hat really, at least for a lot of the hockey numbers group that follows the Oilers. I’m pretty sure it’s been discussed as far back as 2002-03. There’s no real rocket science too it - it’s just blindingly obvious. I can understand why Cohen presents his information the way he does - it’s really a fucking pain in the ass to pull the various strands of information apart - but it’s pretty much useless.

His quote about not penalizing those who’ve missed injuries is a good point in support of rate stats as opposed to counting stats but again, this is old hat. SOme of us have long argued that the NHL should go that way - indeed, virtually all of the information I present here is in that format.

As for the Hockey Rodent…well, there’s a series of Rodent posts I’ve been meaning to point out for a long, long time. I check out the site from time to time - the guy is an interesting writer. He’s got a fair sized whack of stats on his site although he’s another one who doesn’t seem to differentiate between PP time and PK time. Anyway, last summer he ran a three part series on Kevin Weekes which irrated me for a number of reasons. It starts here and then has links at the end of each part to the other parts.

Anyway, he was arguing that Kevin Weekes is a lousy backup. He first wanted to set up some grounds for an argument though, so he ran a simulation. His simulation involved a team that always averaged 3.00 GPG over the course of a season. That team had two goalies: Steady Eddie and Harry Hiccup. Steady Eddie allowed 3 goals in every game. Harry Hiccup allowed 2 goals in four out of every five games and 7 goals in the fifth. Their GAA are always identical. In order to increase the realism, he used a goals for profile that was based on actual NHL data for teams averaging around 3 goals per game - he wanted some realism in whether his teams scored 0, 1, 2, 3 etc. goals.

Now, he refused to provide the numbers that he actually used, which I found a bit irritating. Quite simply, I don’t think you should put forward an argument based on a simulation and then refuse to provide the basis of your simulation. Then again, the internets isn’t academia and that’s far from the largest problem I had with his argument.

So he provides his results. Again with the numbers altered so as to protect his research effort: for those scoring at home, we’re now supposed to be evaluating fictional results based on fictional inputs. This is about the point I gave up, although I should doubt that I’m not at all sold on his premise even without the fake numbers, as it would appear to suggest that Kevin Weekes isn’t affected by randomness.

I’m not really quite sure what to make of all this to be quite honest. I’d love to know how the New York Times came up with this story and chose those particular sites to mention. There are tons of better analytical sites out there - Earl Sleek does great stuff from time to time, Fenwick does good stuff, the IOF guys…there are good analytical hockey sites. For whatever reason, the ones that the Times chose to highlight aren’t particularly good, in my opinion. There really ought to be a threshold to clear here and if you’re peddling stats that don’t even bother to separate the game into its three component parts, it’s really not worth taking your stuff seriously. I’m surprised that the Times seized on it.

A note for the commenters here: one of the other commenters phoned me up out of the blue today and offered to take me to a Maple Leaf game. This is greatly encouraged commenter behaviour. While attending, I learned the following:

1. Jody Vance looks like a bobblehead. Also, I can’t be 100% certain but she was wearing a tie and it appeared that she wasn’t wearing a shirt. Bizarre. Terribly disillusioning.

2. Carlo Colaicovo is terrible. He’s awful. For so many years, we were told that he was going to be so good. He sucks. He couldn’t play for the Oilers right now.

3. Tomas Kaberle on the other hand…wow. Fantastic offensive defenceman. Mats Sundin is a fantastic player as well. Criminally underrated, although he does seem to like hanging out high in the defensive zone. It’s a lot easier to get those odd man rushes and breaks when you’re hanging out at the blue line instead of the crease. Also, I read this somewhere but it’s worth passing on: if he ever has a son, he should be required to name him Dean.

4. I don’t know if Minnesota does this all the time but they were basically just looking for the long pass all night long, which they then try to, at the very least, touch to negate the icing. Maybe they just do it against the Leafs, who knows. Interesting stuff.

5. The commenter noticed this, but it’s worth passing along. Minnesota runs an interesting little play off the faceoff in the offensive zone on the PP. They were lining up two wingers against the boards. The play basically seems to be that the one winger ties up the opposition player while the other player is free to take the puck and have a shot with no one close to him or to kick it back to the point and run interference. It’s definitely something to watch for and complain to the refs about before it happens.

6. I have never cheered for a Leafs goal like I did for the winning one tonight. Then I felt shame. A great deal of shame. Given the state of the NW standings though, sacrifices have to be made.

Really, the shirt required a picture. It’s a lousy cell phone pic, but I think it gets the idea across. Either she was wearing a skin coloured shirt or she wasn’t wearing a shirt. In any event, a tie wasn’t called for.

The rink story is back in the Journal today. I’m a pretty close follower of the Oilers and yet, when I read statements like this:

A scheme has been floated for several months to move the Oilers to a state-of-the-art arena and entertainment complex in the heart of the city, and Mandel agreed Thursday that the days of Rexall Place as Edmonton’s main hockey venue may be numbered.

I wonder - who exactly is floating this arena plan? It seems like a key piece of information but I don’t recall the Oilers making all that many public statements about it - they certainly haven’t publicly put forward a plan. I find it exceedingly odd that it hasn’t been made clear where this plan comes from. This isn’t a rumour like Pronger/Chorley - billion dollar development schemes don’t just start on speculation but for some reason, no one has their name tagged to this one.

Andy’s made his position on public funding for an Oilers rink pretty well known. Like a lot of the better sports bloggers, Andy is, I think, influenced to a certain extent by the work of guys like Andrew Zimbalist, whose been vocal in criticizing the arguments advanced by professional sports teams in terms of their economic impact and why they’re entitled to government support. I think it’s fair to say that the consensus view amongst your enlightened sports fans these days is that the impact of professional sports teams and new stadia on the local economy is negligible.

Fair enough. I don’t know that return on investment ever has been the sole criteria by which public expenditures are evaluated though. I think sports teams are, in large part, responsible for the debate being centred on this point by making their own claims that don’t stand up but that doesn’t mean that the people in charge of evaluating these projects need to focus on their specious claims when deciding whether or not to offer funding. There should be room for a debate about whether it makes sense for the community on grounds other than it making sense. The one negative I see in the debunking of the idea that there are significant economic benefits for the community in this is that the debate seems to have become solely centred around the issue of economic benefits.

On a certain level, the argument that hockey teams shouldn’t need funding for arenas because they can afford to build themselves is absurd, unless the government makes the simultaneous decision to stop funding things that can’t support themselves like, say for example, the Edmonton Folk Festival. I mean, Alberta apparently spends $20MM annually on the arts. Presumably they spend this money because not enough people in Alberta give a shit about the arts to support the events that take place. Why should Alberta’s hockey teams be subject to whatever support they can find in the marketplace while other events, which can’t find that support in the marketplace, get a helping hand from government? The demonstrably more popular choice of entertainment gets punished. How does that make sense?

If I lived in Alberta and was offered the choice of a) the Flames and Oilers each having $10MM in additional revenue, with certain guarantees as to it’s use or b) the Flames and Oilers each getting whatever they could get from the market and $20MM being pissed away on guys playing the flute or some such nonsense, I know what I’d choose. If the options were presented like that as opposed to being presented as “Should we give money to millionaire hockey players and billionaire owners?”, I’m pretty sure I know what most Albertans would choose as well. My point here is pretty simple: so long as governments are willing to hand out free money for things that don’t fall within the purview of the essential services we’ve agreed governments need to provide, certain entities shouldn’t be disqualified because they’re too popular. If the responsibilities of government extend to supporting the entertainment choices of Canadians, there shouldn’t be means testing.

I can certainly sympathize with people like Matt Fenwick, who I read as espousing the viewpoint that government shouldn’t be supporting anyone’s personal choices of entertainment, regardless of the profitability of that particular brand of entertainment. That’s a principled approach. The current approach of governments is in no way principled because a) it’s clear that governments are willing to fund entertainment unless b) said entertainment is popular.

If, like most Canadian governments apparently do, you accept that the role of government extends to subsidizing entertainment, the governments of Alberta, Edmonton and Calgary should give serious consideration to providing the Flames and Oilers with funds for a new arena. I’d like to see them approach this question by asking what they need to extract from these teams in order to satisfy themselves that they produce benefits for the community. Obviously, the Flames and Oilers owners would expect to increase their profits if they’re going to put up a new rink. The most obvious thing to be extracted from them for a government commitment are guarantees that they aren’t going to move the team. That shouldn’t be enough though. What they should really be looking for are incentives and guarantees as to the quality of the product on the ice.

This seems to me to be easy enough to do. All you want to do is shift the equation so that when the Oilers or Flames are considering one move or another, the calculus is such that the rewards for success are greater, reducing the risk of the move. How would you do this? Tie the contribution that they get to the success that the team experiences on the ice. This is something that hasn’t really been done in North American team sports, to the best of my knowledge. It’s generally just the writing of a cheque that takes place. Wouldn’t dedicating money to increasing the awards for success make the most sense in terms of a contribution? It creates a more favourable environment for the team to invest in, as the rewards for success are greater. It’s not just a giveaway - the payment is tied towards putting a successful product on the ice.

I see this as a pretty obvious solution - it acknowledges that the economic development angle is overrated, recognizes the foolishness of only supporting entertainment that people don’t care about and ties the size of the incentive to the team’s ability to produce results. Fenwick’s “no subsidy” position is certainly more principled than this but I think that this is a better acknowledgment of the actual realities of the situation with governments handing out money. There’s money being spent by governments every day on things far less popular and equally non-essential - the Oilers and Flames would be stupid not to chase that money.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t loathe pro sports owners for doing this or that I don’t want the Oilers books to become public record as they beg for the money but I’m not against giving it. Plus, as indicated above, I don’t live in Alberta, so I’m pretty much the ultimate free rider here.

Wayne Gretzky just sucks at this point of his life. He commented on the Fitzpatrick campaign the other day. Here’s what Gretz had to say:

I think from his point of view, it’s great. From what the All-Star Game is about, it’s 100 percent wrong. I’m not trying to be controversial. Maybe he deserves to be in the game. I can’t stand here and tell you that he doesn’t deserve to be in the game because I’ve never seen him play. But if he thinks he deserves to be in the All-Star Game, then good for him, he should go. If he doesn’t believe he should be in the All-Star Game, he should stand up and say, ‘You know what, there’s other guys that deserve to be there.’ That’s kind of what my take on it is.

What do I find most amazing about this? He’s never seen Fitzpatrick play. He’s an NHL coach, presumably a fan of the game and he’s never seen him play? How has he managed to pull that off? I mean, I understand that Fitzpatrick wouldn’t be the player he’d be focusing on, but to say “I’ve never seen him play”…that just reflects poorly on Gretzky. Or explains something about the Coyotes. One of the two.

As for the integrity of the All-Star game…spare me. Nobody cares. If Gretzky wants to talk about things that are 100% wrong, he should focus on guys like Roenick making a million bucks and open disrespecting the team. I can’t believe Gretzky even has time to worry about this, to be quite honest. If I was the coach of a team as bad as Phoenix, I wouldn’t be tied up following ASG voting on the internet.

It’s also probably worth noting that it’s not like Gretzky is a note metritocrat (may not be a word) or anything. His team’s staff is littered with F.O.G. If it’d been a player on the Coyotes getting the benefit of this, I’m sure he’d have no coment on the matter. It’s terrible and embarassing. For all the things that Gretzky has been a-ok with (McNall, Bruce) it’s just unseemly for him to be picking on this movement.

I went and checked and today marks a year of writing this site for me. It’s been a tremendously fun year for me - obviously, the Oilers going to the Stanley Cup finals was a blast. I’ve had the chance to get to know (either over the internets, or the odd one whom I’ve met) a lot of smart, funny hockey fans - guys like Andy, Matt and sacamano, James Mirtle, Mike, Chris and Dave, Pat, the Hot Oil girls and many others. I’ve seen some people I’ve known from message boards for a few years start up their own sites and publish great stuff as well - Lowetide and the IOF guys. These sites have changed the way in which I follow hockey and I think I’m a more intelligent hockey fan because of it.

I’ve had the chance to do some cool stuff as a result of this site too - I got to write for a larger platform on CBC.ca and my highlighting of the difference Roloson made for the Oilers appeared in the Globe and Mail immediately before MAB broke him, I’ve had some attention from NBCsports.com courtesy of Eric McErlain - all sorts of fun stuff that I never expected when I started writing this and hardly anyone was reading it.

Thanks to everyone who reads this or who pops into the comments and offers something. When I started this as basically something to do because I was bored in third year law school, I never expected that I’d have nearly as many people reading it as I do. It’s been fun.

I’ve finally got around to updating some of the statistics for this year. I’ll be tossing some more up over the Christmas break but I wanted to get started on throwing it up there now. Much of the stuff I was doing last year is back. I’ve got some spreadsheets tracking a pile of the individual stuff as well, including a lot of stuff that isn’t available on NHL.com. This stuff will be added over the weekend.

The Oilers PP is still worse than garbage when it comes to generating shots - they’re about 12 PP shots/60 away from the midway point in the league. It’d be nice to have some stats on zone time on the PP here - I really think that they’ve just spent a ton of time in their own end on the PP this year and have struggled moving the puck up ice. Their performance has been so bad though and their personnel are so much better (according to their track records) that you have to think it’ll get on track at some point. Probably best to fire Craig Simpson just to be safe but other than that, I’m not that worried about the PP.

If you want proof of the aphorism that your goaltender is your best penalty killer, you need to look no further than the top three teams in PKGD/60, who all rank in the top three in PKSV% as well. You have to think that this is somewhat less than sustainable but Roloson, along with a few others I can think of, has posted some big PKSV% in the past. It’s a dangerous way to live to be sure, and I expect the Oilers PK to get worse but the fact that they don’t give up many shots on the PK is promising moving forward. They’re off last year’s pace a bit, when they were fantastic at preventing shots against the PP but still quite respectable. Notable to me that Philly is in ninth. I’ve got a theory that speed is significantly less important on special teams than it is at even strength, as the game becomes more like basketball with a lengthy shot clock. Success is less about beating someone with speed and more about beating them with clever positioning. For all the talk that Philly is old and slow, their PK continues to endure.

Calgary’s due for a bit of an ES hit I think; their ES save percentage is the best in the league by a mile. I know Dennis was all over Roloson the other day and he’s struggled a bit but the Oil still look pretty good save percentage wise - solidly in the top 10.

The conferences shake out pretty clearly according to the Poisson points. The East is pretty wild at the moment - BOS and PHI are clearly off the pace, while everyone else is in it. In the West, you’ve got ANA and SJ, following by a big drop, then NSH, DET, DAL, COL, CGY and EDM then VAN, CBJ, MIN, CHI and LA and then a final clump of losers made up of Phoenix and St. Louis. At the time I did this, 7 teams in the West were better than +10 in GD as opposed to a single team in the East being in that position. I’ve noticed that Sagarin has clearly had the West as the best conference this year; I think at the very least, there appear to be more teams that can kick a little ass out west.

The whole Jim Balsillie thing is more than a little strange. The NHL has a chance to bring in a billionaire owner who would give the current Pens owners a huge return on their investment and they can’t arrive at an agreement? The NHL has never had problems selling teams before to guys who were likely to move the team: the guy who bought the Nordiques and Peter Karmanos were able to buy teams. I’m sure that they’ve sold teams to less financially stable groups than Balsillie as well - EIG stands out here. What makes Balsillie so special that the league needs to have conditions allowing them to take control of the team in certain circumstances?

The only reasonable answer that I can think of is that there’s some concern over where Balsillie might move the team if the arena deal in Pittsburgh doesn’t pan out. If you look at the NBA and NFL, you see that American sports leagues haven’t been particularly successful in preventing teams from being moved against the league’s wishes. In this case, it’s widely speculated that if Balsillie were to move the team, he’d be looking to move the team into Southern Ontario. At the very least, that would be cause for serious concern for the Buffalo Sabres and Toronto Maple Leafs. One imagines that those teams would prefer to fight the battle with Balsillie before he’s bought the team as opposed to after he’s bought the team, when their position might be significantly weaker. Anyone else have any guesses as to why the NHL felt the need to impose conditions?

I was on the Oilers official site today and I noticed that they’re now in the business of linking to blog posts - they’ve linked to the Morley Scott piece I was on about the other day. I’m eagerly waiting for them to link to my post about what was running through Lupul’s mind during MOreau’s fight against ANA last year. It’ll be up soon, I’d imagine - keep an eye on the official site.

Speaking of Lupul, Dennis was bang on today about him. I assume that we’ll see his post linked on the front page of edmontonoilers.com sometime soon - if I can suggest a quote for them to use to draw attention, it’s this one:

There are still a lot of stories to write on the ‘07 Oilers and some of them wouldn’t even have to be puff pieces. That’s probably not allowed in Oilerville mind you but Brownlee would’ve been better off writing a piece about how much JFJ misses his dog back in Quebec rather than raising the pen to defend a highly paid local who just isn’t doing the job.

I’d give my left nut to cover the Oilers or any NHL team for that matter and at the end of the day I’d still have one testicle left.

That’d still be probably one more than Brownlee currently posseses.

I mean, you just don’t get much more right than that. So, Marc Ciampa, do the right thing and provide visitors to edmontonoilers.com with links to some of the other high quality Oiler commentary available on the internets.

Gary Bettman is apparently meeting with Todd Bertuzzi, Steve Moore and the Vancouver Canucks about settling the action Moore commenced against the Canucks. Nobody is saying this, but the only reason I can see that they’re meeting with him is that they’re checking to find out how big of a cheque the NHL is willing to cut to have this go away. There’s no reason to meet with Bettman unless they’re looking for the NHL to throw in some money. It’s probably in Bertuzzi’s interest to find out how badly the NHL wants this to go away, even though I don’t think that they were named in the action and I have a hard time seeing just how they’d be liable. If the NHL is willing to pay to not have this be the trial of the century in Canada, it’s money that Bertuzzi doesn’t have to come up with. It’s the only explanation for the meeting that makes sense that I can think of.

Further to yesterday’s discussion about home ice advantage and the conferences, as well as the discussion this year about how it’s like two different leagues, I figured I’d slap together a data table with some pertinent information.

As always, I’ll explain the bloody thing. I’ve split the games since 1984-85 into four different classes: inter-conference games hosted by the East, inter-confrence games hoested by the West, intra-conference games hosted by the West and intra-conference games hosted by the East.

Within each classification, I’ve provided three pieces of information. The first is goals per game. The second is the home ice advantage, which is just the home goal differential divided by the number of games. The final column is the advantage, which is home ice advantage divided by goals per game. It should go without saying, but if the average home team wins by 1.0 gpg in a league where there are 100 goals scored per game, home ice advantage is less significant than if they win by .5 gpg on average in a league with 5 gpg. The bigger the number in the third column for each classification, the greater the home ice advantage.

I think that this probably lends some credence to Chris Boersma’s comments about the lack of statistical significance in the home ice advantage so far this year. If you look, you’ll note that the size of the home ice advantage has flipped back and forth between the two conferences over the past 20 years.

Incidentally, the ratio of the difference between the GPG in the two conferences and the league wide GPG is the third largest it’s been since 1984-85. As many have noted, the difference between the conferences this year really is quite wide.

Since Matt stole my idea about the difference in home ice advantage between the Western Conference and Eastern Conference, I’m left with a much shorter post on the topic.

Like Matt says, there’s a huge difference this year between the Western Conference and Eastern Conference when it comes to home ice advantage. Western home teams are +117, while Eastern home teams are only +19. Matt figured that the Western home dominance was a fluke - I’m not so sure. Last year, the West was +219 at home, the East +161. In 2003-04, the West was +196, the East +98. In 2002-03, the West was +261 at home, the East +56. In 2001-02, the West was +269, the East +64.

I find that amazing - compared to the last four years, this year doesn’t seem particularly anomolous. Like Matt, I’ve got no real idea as to why this is - I assume that it’s something to do with travel but I can’t say for sure. In any event, it’s pretty interesting stuff and something of which I wasn’t aware. Like Matt, I know Tom Benjamin has written about this stuff before, suggesting that the Canucks are hurt by their travel schedule. While I don’t doubt that’s true, one would think that they’re helped a bit by the home ice advantage which is apparently bigger in the West.

I was heading into work on the subway yesterday, reading Metro News, one of the free rags that they hand out at subway entrances that helps to distract you from the fact that half the people on the train figured that they’d ride yesterday’s shower for another day and the guy behind you seems to be letting his hands roam. Anyway, in a hilarious editorial mishap, there was a story about Phil Kessel’s surgery for testicular cancer. Opposite that story, on the same page, was a story about the CFL going back to their old footballs. The headline? This is a paraphrase, but it was something like “NBA Not The Only Ones Getting Replacement Balls.” Hilariously awkward.

Steven Brunt had an interesting comment in an interview with John Buccigross. Talking about what hockey book needs to be written, Brunt said:

I’d love to read a real hockey Ball Four. [Phil Esposito’s] book was close, but I thought that, in the end, he pulled a lot of his punches. The ’80s Edmonton Oilers are ripe for that kind of treatment.

The 80’s Edmonton Oilers ARE ripe for the Ball Four treatment. Everybody who’s spent any time in Edmonton has heard all sorts of stories about them and surely Gretzky didn’t spend all of his downtime thinking about ways that he could be an even more boring interview. So why, with jaded and cynical media men like Morley Scott covering the team for years has such a book never been written?

Alannah Downie of Kukla’s Korner may have cracked the mystery, if Morley Scott speaks for the Edmonton media (and I think he does).

Well, I do what the team wishes. What they release is what I use and that’s just the way it is. Nobody’s trying to stir the pot here, we’re just trying to bring the folks some hockey.

Wow. I mean, I always thought this was pretty much the way things worked - you just never expect someone to say it.