Two Days of Results and the Record You Need Now
by Quisp on Mar 14, 2010 11:19 PM PDT
in Standings
Email
PrintThe Good: (Saturday) Hawks lose, Sharks half-lose; (Sunday) Hawks half-lose, Stars lose, Blues lose, Sharks lose, Flames lose.
The Bad: (Saturday) Wings win, Yotes win, Canucks win, Blues win; (Sunday) Kings lose, Preds win, Avs win, Yotes win, Wild wins, Ducks win, Canucks win.
Which means...
As has been the case for awhile, 4 points separate 3rd from 6th. Nashville, Calgary and Detroit are now clustered together with 2 points separating them. St. Louis, Minnesota, Dallas and Anaheim are the long-shot cluster, and the odds are getting longer every day for Dallas and Anaheim; St. Louis and Minnesota are trending up, and would have to continue to do so for the next 14-15 games if they want to pass Nashville, Calgary or Detroit in the fight for 7 and 8.
Here are the standings* (if you haven't seen my version of standings before, scroll to the bottom for the explanation):
- San Jose Sharks 40 (1) +11
- Chicago Blackhawks 42 (2) +9
- Vancouver Canucks 49 (3) +2
- Phoenix Coyotes 49 (4) +2
- Los Angeles Kings 51 (5) --
- Colorado Avalanche 52 (6) -1
- Nashville Predators 57 (7) -6
- Detroit Red Wings 58 (8) -7
- Calgary Flames 59 (9) -8
- St. Louis Blues 63 (10) -12
- Minnesota Wild 64 (11) -13
- Dallas Stars 65 (12) -15
- Anaheim Ducks 66 (13) -15
- Columbus Blue Jackets 73 (14) -22
- Edmonton Oilers 87 (15) -36
And here's the record each team needs from here on, to get to the assumed (by me) magical point total of 95:
- San Jose Sharks 0-13-1
- Chicago Blackhawks 0-12-1
- Phoenix Coyotes 3-10-0
- Vancouver Canucks 3-10-0
- Los Angeles Kings 5-9-0
- Colorado Avalanche 5-8-1
- Nashville Predators 7-6-0
- Detroit Red Wings 8-5-1
- Calgary Flames 9-5-0
- St. Louis Blues 11-3-0
- Minnesota Wild 11-2-1
- Dallas Stars 12-2-0
- Anaheim Ducks 12-1-1
Columbus Blue JacketsEdmonton Oilers
*standings in points-blown explained: two points "awarded" for every loss, one point for every OTL/SOL. Lowest point total is best. Number in parentheses is the official standings (via ESPN). Last number (+/-) is number of points (in my system) ahead or behind Los Angeles. Because it's a Kings-centric universe.
10 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
you can't lose to teams that are chasing you
this was a big loss, not only because it’s nashville, but because clearly they cause matchup problems against us and we’ll have a hard time against them. I hope we make the playoffs
I hope we get to 105 points.
I don’t think it was a big loss, really. It was a loss. There are going to be a few over the next fourteen games. Nashville is fighting for their playoff lives. The odds of us seeing them in the playoffs is close to zero. The only way that would happen is if we finish 4th and 5th. And that would require one of Phoenix or Vancouver to stumble, which they are showing no signs of doing, especially Phoenix. No, I think the Kings will be 4th or 5th, and Phoenix or Colorado will be who we draw.
Looking beyond that (because I have nothing better to do):
even if the Preds were to upset Chicago or San Jose (or Vancouver), which would be hilarious, they would be at the bottom of the bracket, playing (probably) one of Chicago or San Jose (the one that didn’t lose).
The only way the Kings would play Nashville in the second round is if Nashville and Detroit both won (assuming they are two of the 6-8 teams). Then it would be the surviving one of VAN/SJS/COL playing DET, and NAS playing us. There’s at least one other variation on that theme, but it boils down to the same unlikelihood.
The Kings are very likely to play Phoenix or Colorado. If they slip, they’ll end up with VAN/SJS/CHI, and of those three, I would prefer to avoid Vancouver.
Wait till this year.
Would you have the same opinion if...
the refs had made the correct call and disallowed the Pred’s goalie interference goal?
The game would have ended tied in regulation and then we get either a win or an OT loss…
I’m with Quisp. I’m not particularly worried about the Preds. I’m more worried about SJ, Chi and Van…
If the Kings were truly slumping, I'd be worried
But they’re not, really. They were on a hot streak before the Olympic break. Now they’re on a ‘meh’ streak. They’re winning some, they’re losing some. Meh. All successful teams have ‘meh’ streaks at some point.
I’m not going to stress over it. I’m going to focus on getting some work done since the next game isn’t until Thursday.
Here, here
I don’t think the Kings are slumping either. There hasn’t been a significant drop off in their play, so I’m not worried in the least bit.
True
All of the losses have been close, and one includes clearly getting jobbed by the refs. And a couple of the wins have been blowouts.
Back when I was reading a lot of Bill James, he once noted that in baseball, dominant teams tend not to have good records in 1-run games, because when they win, they generally win big and when they lose, they don’t lose by much.
That's interesting. It reminds me of something (I forget who, but I'll find the link) said about randomness in hockey games
Either behindthenet or Inside the Rink, I think. Anyway, the observation was that when you compare basketball to hockey, in basketball the game is long enough (given the nature of the game) such that a better team will win more frequently compared to a better hockey team. The idea is, the longer the game, the more likely the better team will win; obviously the “length” of a game in time is adjusted to account for some quantification of the nature of each sport; but I seem to recall that, in order to make the outcome of a basketball game as affected by randomness as the outcome of a hockey game is, the basketball game would have to be about 11 minutes long. (everything I just said is from memory, so — big grain of salt for you.)
Close games obviously have a greater potential to be affected by randomness than blow-outs.
In any case, I usually don’t worry about a loss per se, but I will worry about how they lose.
Wait till this year.
Huh. Now *that's* an interesting one
Is it because the amount of effort/time involved in creating a scoring play is so much greater in hockey than in basketball, and therefore hockey has fewer scoring cycles compared to basketball? If you compare it to boardgame design, it would be like hockey is a game with 5 turns, while basketball is a game with 20 turns?
Interesting.
Bill James made his point to refute a piece of traditional wisdom in baseball, that a good team will win 1-run (i.e., close) games because they’re “clutch” or they “know how to win.” Instead, he looked at the game-by-game records for some dominant teams and saw that they actually had mediocre records in 1-run games, but they tended to slaughter their opponents in games that they won. The conclusion that he drew was that good teams proved they were good by scoring a lot more runs than the other team, and when they lost, they were good enough to make it close.
That just came to my mind when looking at the Kings’ record over the last couple of weeks, because I wouldn’t be surprised if it holds for other sports, too. If you set aside the empty-net goals (which are a peculiarity of hockey), the losses have all been very close. But a couple of the wins have been blowouts (5-1 v Dallas, 6-0 v Columbus). So although their overall result has been mediocre, the Kings at least showed one sign of being a quality team.
I will look for the post I'm (probably badly) paraphrasing
and also, I think I will run this by the behindthenet guy, the Bill James observation.
Wait till this year.
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Certain photos copyright © 2012 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
