Wednesday, January 11, 2006

 

If you ignore the Sales-Job tone of the thing...

...there's lots of interesting numbers in this NHL.com article.

Comments:

That Phaneuf item is beautiful. You guys got the next Bubba Beck on the blueline! Party on!
 


The one I like best is the Late-Game Dramatics.

This has to be a result of penalties being called during the last 5 mins giving more powerplays to end the game.

I actually don't mind that.
 


I'm really impressed with Phaneuf. The kid is SOLID. He's not quite spectacular at any one thing, but he's very good at most of them. He's no Orr or Coffey at skating end to end, but he does it better than most. He's not a massive physical powerhouse like Chara, Pronger or Regher, yet he's very strong, stable and intimidating, especially noticable because of his age. And he doesn't have the dangerous, Bourque/Leetch-like offensive skills perfected.... yet. He's on his way, though, hopefully.

His lack of fucking-up is what really impresses me. Every team needs at least a couple d-men who are rock steady 99% of the time. That may be what pushes Calgary & Edmonton ahead of (or keeps them up with) Vancouver and Colorado, with the likes of Smith, Pronger for the Oil, and at least half of the Flames blueline.

He's on his way to joining the likes of Chara, Lidstrom, Pronger, Blake as the #1 d-man every team needs and only half the teams actually get.
 


I'm not being grumpy for the sake of it, but the other way of looking at a couple of those numbers is this:

There's been 636 games this season (before last night). So the 48% increase in Late Game Dramatics is the difference between 6.3% of games and 9.3% of games.

Same with the Lead Change stats: before, it happened in 36.2% of games; now, in 48.7% of games.

The numbers are what they are: I think it's just wise to keep the big picture in mind where Joe Colourguy is saying how such-and-such "never" happened before, and now it's "likely", etc..
 


Yep, you're right. The changes are not nearly as dramatic as they are advertised.

It's the Pierre McGuire Syndrome - everthing is BIG, HUGE, RADICAL, SENSATIONAL.

I guess my point was only that I don't mind the fact that, compared with previous years, what is considered a penalty in the last five minutes is more similar to what is considered a penalty in the first 55 minutes.

Which is not nearly the same as saying that I necessarily like what is considered a penalty in the first 55 minutes.
 

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