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2015-2016 NHL Thread

Nik the Trik said:
Easy to forget now that Seguin has become the player he is but Boston got a pretty darn good player in Eriksson in that deal.

He's having a bit of a rebound period this year but the last 3 years he put up 44G 69A 113P in 190GP.  Although he did have three straight 70 point seasons before that.
 
L K said:
He's having a bit of a rebound period this year but the last 3 years he put up 44G 69A 113P in 190GP.  Although he did have three straight 70 point seasons before that.

Sure, but that three year stretch included battling some pretty bad concussion issues. Healthy he's pretty good
 
Something that I haven't seen mentioned until today: Justin Faulk leads all defencemen in goals with 11. He's on pace to score 30 goals.

Even more interesting? All 11 of his goals have come on the powerplay. A powerplay that ranks 3rd last in the entire league. He has 11 of the 14 goals Carolina has scored with the man advantage.
 
Frank E said:
So this John Klingberg seems to be the real deal.

http://www.nhl.com/ice/player.htm?id=8475906

He's right on the heels of Karlsson with 27 points in 26 games, and has far less PP time than Karlsson.

A moment ago I was wondering what we could get Rielly for on a long-term deal and remembered that he signed a long-term extension recently so I looked it up to use as a comparable. 7-years, cap hit of $4.25mil. Oh boy that's a steal.
 
So Arizona is coming back down to earth, unfortunately, but the Oilers have won their last 4, and Calgary their last 3.

NHL%20Standings%20Dec%2010%202015_zpsdo8gpwsh.png
 
Jaromir Jagr ties Marcel Dionne for fourth spot on the NHL's All-time list with goal number 731.

Jagr is a mere 10 goals behind third place Brett Hull.  In second and first place on the All-time list are Howe & Gretzky.

He's also fourth in points behind Howe, Messier, and Gretzky.

Way to go, Jaromir!

Source:  NHL.com,  CBCSports
 
bustaheims said:
Every team with double digit ROWs except the Leafs. If it wasn't for the shootout, the Leafs would be in 30th.

This is still the case, the Leafs at 7, next closest are Buffalo, Anaheim, and Vancouver with 10 a piece.

Edmonton won their 5th in a row last night, and Carolina beat Anaheim 5-1 to push the Leafs down to 27th place.

Man, Anaheim...
 
Frank E said:
Man, Anaheim...

I hope you excuse the rant Frank but I wanted to write a bit about Anaheim and how "surprising they've been this year and you've given me a good jump-off point".

For most of the season we've gone along with how shocking it was that Anaheim was bad and I've generally agreed with it. After all, we saw Anaheim go deep into the playoffs last year and lots of people in the media predicted them to be good this year. I, sort of without thinking, parroted that and chose Anaheim as my prediction to finish second in the west.

The problem is, I didn't really base that on anything other than Anaheim looking pretty good in the handful of playoff games I saw last year. Did the stats bear it out? Here's how the Ducks last year ranked in various traditioal categories:

GF: 11th
GA: 11th
PP: 28th
PK: 15th
Goal differential: 16th(+10)

Digging into traditional numbers, it's really hard to see what everyone was so excited about. Their top scorer, Getzlaf, had 70 points. Next came Corey Perry with 55. Then Ryan Kesler with 47. So their top three scorers had 172 points. By contrast the Maple Leafs top three scorers had 166.

Their starting goalie, whose name I probably couldn't have told you at gunpoint, had a .914 SV%. None of their defensemen received even a fifth place vote for the Norris.

Did they make any big additions in the off-season? Not really. They lost Matt Beleskey and Francois Beauchemin and added Kevin Bieksa and Carl Hagelin which seems like, at best, a push. Were they a young team? Sort of. Did they have superstar prospects in the wings? Your Nick Ritchie mileage may vary.

So it must have been the new stats, right? The ones I resisted for so long and that do a much better job of explaining the game?

If so then I, and my admittedly entry-level understanding of these things can't figure it out. Their CF% ranked 17th(which was right in line with other metrics of the sort). Their PDO was 100.4 which, the way I understand it, means they weren't especially lucky or unlucky. Their shooting percentage was unremarkable, they were 13th in GF%. Their team save percentage ranked 20th.

They were, however, 9th in face-off percentage. Which is either meaningful or not, I can't keep track.

So how were they world beaters last year? How did they win the conference, finish 4 points off of the President's trophy and take the Blackhawks to 7 games in the conference finals?

This wasn't Calgary last year or Colorado from a few years ago. Smart people didn't look at them and say their house was built on sand. A lot of smart people, here and elsewhere, looked at them and said "They're going to be one of the elite teams in the league". And I bought it, in part because I don't watch Western Conference hockey much and in part because, well, I'm an idiot who listens to what the experts say. 

I don't know, maybe this is just more old man "back in my day" nostalgia or residual bitterness about how I don't like how the cap has changed the league but what does it even mean any more to be a good hockey team? Is parity so enveloping that a team that's just not notably terrible in any one area is as good a team as any in the league? Is that really enjoyable?

Anyways, that's my morning rant.
 
As another aside, wow is the Pacific division unimpressive this year.

LA at 39 points and then a bunch of teams that are going to make the playoffs because of this stupid new format and teams at the bottom of the standings.

Vancouver (20th), San Jose (21), Arizona (22), Edmonton (23), Anaheim (24), Calgary (25)

Right now Vancouver would play a home playoff series as the 20th best team in the league.
 
Random observations as I looked at the points column earlier today. And I understand that points aren't the only way to compare players....but anyways...

JVR and  Kessel have the same amount of points.  Bozak is 1 behind them.

Colborne and Kadri have the same amount of points.

Stempniak is having a great year so far points wise. Still behind Steen though!

He has missed a few games but Tyler Johnson is struggling.  I hope he can get it back together.

The Sedin's and Jagr are just machines. 
 
L K said:
LA at 39 points and then a bunch of teams that are going to make the playoffs because of this stupid new format and teams at the bottom of the standings.

The new playoff format hasn't really caused any cluster!#^@$'s yet, but yeah it's really setting up for one now.

As things stand right now in the West, Arizona (on pace for 82 points) and Vancouver (on pace for 79 points) would face each other in the 1st round while 4 100-point teams would match-up against each other (CHI-STL and LA-MIN).

So that means that a .500 or less team is guaranteed entry into the 2nd round of the playoffs while 2 100-point teams are guaranteed to be eliminated in the first round.
 
Nik the Trik said:
Frank E said:
Man, Anaheim...

I hope you excuse the rant Frank but I wanted to write a bit about Anaheim and how "surprising they've been this year and you've given me a good jump-off point".

For most of the season we've gone along with how shocking it was that Anaheim was bad and I've generally agreed with it. After all, we saw Anaheim go deep into the playoffs last year and lots of people in the media predicted them to be good this year. I, sort of without thinking, parroted that and chose Anaheim as my prediction to finish second in the west.

The problem is, I didn't really base that on anything other than Anaheim looking pretty good in the handful of playoff games I saw last year. Did the stats bear it out? Here's how the Ducks last year ranked in various traditioal categories:

GF: 11th
GA: 11th
PP: 28th
PK: 15th
Goal differential: 16th(+10)

Digging into traditional numbers, it's really hard to see what everyone was so excited about. Their top scorer, Getzlaf, had 70 points. Next came Corey Perry with 55. Then Ryan Kesler with 47. So their top three scorers had 172 points. By contrast the Maple Leafs top three scorers had 166.

Their starting goalie, whose name I probably couldn't have told you at gunpoint, had a .914 SV%. None of their defensemen received even a fifth place vote for the Norris.

Did they make any big additions in the off-season? Not really. They lost Matt Beleskey and Francois Beauchemin and added Kevin Bieksa and Carl Hagelin which seems like, at best, a push. Were they a young team? Sort of. Did they have superstar prospects in the wings? Your Nick Ritchie mileage may vary.

So it must have been the new stats, right? The ones I resisted for so long and that do a much better job of explaining the game?

If so then I, and my admittedly entry-level understanding of these things can't figure it out. Their CF% ranked 17th(which was right in line with other metrics of the sort). Their PDO was 100.4 which, the way I understand it, means they weren't especially lucky or unlucky. Their shooting percentage was unremarkable, they were 13th in GF%. Their team save percentage ranked 20th.

They were, however, 9th in face-off percentage. Which is either meaningful or not, I can't keep track.

So how were they world beaters last year? How did they win the conference, finish 4 points off of the President's trophy and take the Blackhawks to 7 games in the conference finals?

This wasn't Calgary last year or Colorado from a few years ago. Smart people didn't look at them and say their house was built on sand. A lot of smart people, here and elsewhere, looked at them and said "They're going to be one of the elite teams in the league". And I bought it, in part because I don't watch Western Conference hockey much and in part because, well, I'm an idiot who listens to what the experts say. 

I don't know, maybe this is just more old man "back in my day" nostalgia or residual bitterness about how I don't like how the cap has changed the league but what does it even mean any more to be a good hockey team? Is parity so enveloping that a team that's just not notably terrible in any one area is as good a team as any in the league? Is that really enjoyable?

Anyways, that's my morning rant.

I think they were a good team whose overall record probably made them appear better than they were.  They seem to be sort of the polar opposite to the first-half Blue Jays of this past season who were having poor luck.  Last year Anaheim had:

-an all-time NHL record with 33 wins in one-goal games (33-1-7);
-played 23 OT/shootout games in 2014-15 and led the NHL with 16 OT/shootout wins (16-2-5)
-had the NHL?s top intra-conference record with a 34-11-5 mark vs. Western Conference opponents;
-were 16-5-0 vs. the Central Division; and
-were 18-6-5 vs. the Pacific

I think it's the one-goal game and OT/SO records that really stands out as being a run of fortunate luck for them.
 
Carey Price won the Lou Marsh which is nice as it'll give announcers something to praise him for during games.
 
The Flames are now 8-1 in overtime this season. They only have 14 wins total. Last season I remember they had a crazy amount of one-goal/OT/SO wins as well.
 
There's a lot of very good players this season having very poor years (by their standards). One who I haven't seen brought up anywhere until today is Jonathan Toews. On pace to score just 43 points this season.
 
CarltonTheBear said:
There's a lot of very good players this season having very poor years (by their standards). One who I haven't seen brought up anywhere until today is Jonathan Toews. On pace to score just 43 points this season.

I don't care how much flak I get for this, but I've always found him to be overrated.  That World Juniors shootout must be one of the most overrated accomplishments in hockey history.

In terms of other Canadian captains, what in the world is going on with Crosby and the Penguins?
 

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