The Playoff Threshold in the West

A Shot Mentality
Posted by crownedroyal on November 3, 2011-

"We need that 5-on-5 scoring. We’ve talked about that over the past three years, that it has to be significantly better… I think it starts with our shot attitude, mentality. We’re 27th in the league today. Pucks to the net, I think we’re averaging just a touch above 27 per game, and that has to be the start of it. Get more pucks to the net and better traffic."
- Terry Murray 11.02.2011

Currently, the Kings are 21st in the league in 5 on 5 goals scored with 16 in 11 games.
The Kings are 19th in the league in shots per game at 28.8.
The Kings winning percentage when they outshoot their opponents is .200%.
The Kings winning percentage when being outshot is .833%.

This could just be a rare string of coincidences, but the more the trend of losing when outshooting opponents continues, the more I think it’s more than that.

The shots in the Colorado game were 32-16 in favor of the Kings. I believe that’s almost double. That margin suggests that the Kings dominated the Avs. Sure the team played a decent game, but dominated? I don’t think so.

What I do remember about the Kings’ performance is a lot of shots from outside and no real presence in the high scoring area. Why is that?

My theory is that if you shoot the puck every time you get in the offensive zone, there is no possible way to setup a play and find someone in the scoring zone.

Shot Mentality Shot Down Forever – Why Terry Murray Must Go
November 7, 2011 By Bobby Scribe-

We call the area in green the "Scoring Chance Zone" (SCZ for short).

You are already familiar with Terry Murray’s shot mentality approach. "Get the puck, shoot." Don’t have a lane? SHOOT! That’s it. The Kings’ offensive system is built around this system and you see it, in large part, during the LA Kings’ cycles when the team gets the puck to the point and fires away versus what good offensive teams do, which is to actually maintain possession and try to get the puck to the SCZ. Terry Murray is however of the impression the more shots you try to get to the net, the more pucks will get there and the more goals the Kings will score. Unfortunately, so many of the LA Kings shots get blocked (to nobody’s surprise but Murray’s) because they come from the point, outside the SCZ and those that do get through are often easily stopped.

This is not rocket science. I would have been shocked if I saw anything else. This is not only common sense, it is the new NHL. All the good teams know this. All the good teams focus their offensive system on getting pucks to the SCZ and getting shots within the zone…all good teams except the LA Kings. What does Terry Murray want? More shots on goal. There is no focus on scoring chances. Murray is blind to it. It’s not even relevant to his offensive system. What do the LA Kings need? More scoring chances. More pucks within the SCZ.

But it was probably just a coincidence, since that was all fairly obvious. All I’m saying is, I think I could have a bigger beef with Bobby than Bobby did with Rich. But there are only so many things to write about, and many recurring themes.

from lady bing consideration this season….

Argueing on the internet has no purpose.
It’s like winning a race in the special olympics, even when you win, your still retarded.

On another note, @ work (it’s good to be the boss) I filtered through the remainder of the season and came up with several weighted games.
Will post them when I get in tomorrow morning, see if anyone sees it another way.

So, if you still feel your stance was warranted after you read this, publish it on your site and respond. Or, un-ban me so I can fairly respond to your insult. If you want to make public attacks, you should make it in a forum where dialogue, and response, is possible. Let your conscience be your guide. If that doesn’t work, then let my conscience be your guide.

Blogs comment on other blogs all the time. That’s what blogs do. You wrote a post on your blog, commenting on a post of another blogger on another blog. I wrote a post on my blog commenting that your comment made no sense to me, and that the assertion that Hammond was taking material from you seemed kind of crazy.

It stands to reason that the place for you to respond is on your blog.

As far as you being banned, I wish i could remember what you did. Although reading your writing again is starting to bring it all back for me.

Points of Similarity and Why Quisp is Intellectually Dishonest

Quisp, the latest poobah of Jewels From The Crown, had some comments about my two most recent articles that looked at the Kings’ playoff picture going forward. I feel he took a mean-hearted swipe at me and was unfairly critical and cruel in doing so.

Quisp felt he needed to debunk the opening of my article (http://lakingsnews.com/2012/01/28/a-real-look-at-the-standings-dont-tell-hammond/) where I said, "Never mind how pissed I am that Hammond butchered a perfectly fine idea for a full article by using incomplete stats in a superficial subject-skim, a full 11 days after my original article posted here at S&S. He has a right to publish whatever he wants, and who is to say he actually saw my article (Playoffs?…) complete with all he posted and more, especially the chart of teams’ games left. It’s not an issue; I’m over it. Actually, I have no idea why you would even bring it up; it doesn’t concern me in the least."

Why Quisp felt the blogging world needed his input, only Quisp knows. Or maybe he doesn’t, compulsions are often mysterious to everyone, including their hosts. I had to go there to read his most recent pap, and get the following quotes under the title of "Bonus inter-blog editorial content":

Quisp said, "Given the blogger’s outrage, I was interested to check out the blogger’s original post to see if it bore any similarity to Rich’s post."

Quisp then shows an incomplete copy of my original post. My post was pretty long,

:)

Incidentally, I put the “11 days after” bit in bold for a reason, which you will see in a moment.

so I am not necessarily upset by Quisp using bracketed ellipses to indicate missing content. However, when that missing content contained the most glaring similarities, and when Quisp goes on to say no such similarities exist, then I do have a problem. That is called intellectual dishonesty, and for myself, it is actually one of the harshest things I can say about someone.

I didn’t omit “the most glaring similarities.” Follow the link, and read the full post. I omitted the part that could best be summarized as “and blah blah blah.”

Also, I didn’t say “no such similarities exist.” I said “I don’t see how the two posts are related.” I still don’t.

When you make a mistake, that’s one thing. We all do that, and of course it is forgivable if recognized and acknowledged. However, when a person begins to make a negative case and then intentionally misleads his audience, that is entirely different. That is intellectual dishonesty.

I didn’t “begin to make a negative case.” I said, “I don’t see how the two are related.” Does anyone see a connection, other than both posts are about the Kings and getting into the playoffs?

After Quisp exhibits only portions of my articles, he summarizes my original article from January 16 and Hammond’s article of January 26 in this way:

"Shorter Surly/Scribe: The Kings have a lot of road games. They can’t afford losing streaks."
“Shorter Hammond: 95 points might be enough to make the playoffs.”
“I don’t actually see how the two posts are related. My advice would be to take your medication in the morning and do your blogging in the afternoon."

Anyone who is so-inclined should read the post in question and see if they can come up with a better summary than mine. I stand by mine.

Again, I feel this is unfair and intentionally slanted in contradiction of the actual substance of the articles, as I can easily show.

http://lakingsinsider.com/2012/01/26/who-has-the-toughest-road-in-the-west/

http://lakingsnews.com/2012/01/16/whats-that-playoffs-dont-talk-about-playoffs-you-kidding-me-playoffs/

Hammond’s article of January 26 is entitled "Who has the toughest road in the West"; the focus of the article is entirely on playoffs, as shown by the opening sentence saying "…the playoff race is tight…" My article of January 16 is entitled "What’s That? Playoffs? Don’t Talk About-Playoffs? You Kidding Me? Playoffs?" To any honest person, it would seem irrefutable that both articles focus on the playoff picture for the Kings. Quisp refutes this similarity.

No, I don’t. Both posts are written in English, and appear on the internet. I don’t refute those similarities either. But wait:

Dumbshit. You’re posting a link to the wrong article. You compared your work (on 1/16) to Hammond’s work “a full 11 days later” (on 1/27). That’s the Hammond post on the playoff threshold, quoted by me in this post on this site (and in fact, it’s the subject of this post — not to mention the title). You said ELEVEN DAYS in your post, but now you’re whipping out an entirely different Hammond post, written the day before. Which no one ever brought up, and which I never read. You only think you brought it up, but since you miscounted and said “eleven” instead of “ten” — and didn’t bother to provide a link to the Hammond article in question in your original story, nor to reference any specifics of it in any way, you only managed to confuse the shit out of everyone.

More specifically, that playoff picture is impacted by the remaining schedule for the Kings, and for the other conference teams.

Let me get this straight. Both posts are similar in that not only do they both discuss a hockey team named the Kings, and whether or not the Kings will make the playoffs, but both posts endeavor to look at the potential of making the playoffs by considering the fact that the Kings have to play these things called “games” which, in both cases, appear on a kind of calendar called a “schedule.”

Never mind. I wrote that before I figured out you were referencing the wrong article.

That would be "schedule" as in home games and road games. The idea that home and road games have a distinction, and that such distinction will impact the playoff race, is discussed in both articles. To any honest person, this would seem irrefutable. Quisp refutes this similarity.

Yes, I refute the similarity between the Hammond article you referenced and your article. Because you referenced the wrong article.

To discuss the playoff race, an author would have to discuss the current standings. Both articles do this. I did it as of a certain date. Hammond did it as of a different date, since his article was published 10 days later. Perhaps the different numbers confused Quisp, but both articles outlined the then-current standings. Again, Quisp refutes the irrefutable.

What’s funny is that you’re trying to make me look stupid by suggesting that I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between an analysis of a schedule made on 1/16 and another one made on 1/26. When the problem actually is that you can’t count.

I hesitate to omit even a single comma from Player-X’s email. Here’s the rest of it.

Both articles describe the current placement of the Kings in those standings. Both articles remove certain teams from the playoff race, for the sake of discussion, by granting them playoff status now as a done deal. Hammond certifies Detroit, Vancouver, San Jose, St. Louis and Nashville as playoff teams. I certify only Vancouver and San Jose (Detroit should have been in there too but I hate those guys). Hammond says there are two spots left for 6 teams plus Anaheim with an outside chance to make it a 7-team race for 2 spots. My article says it is a 9-team race for 6 spots. This is describing the bubble, and both articles do it. Again, perhaps the difference in numbers confuses Quisp, but it is irrefutable that both articles narrow the field, talking about which teams are in actual competition for available spots. Yet Quisp refutes this similarity.

Regarding the breakdown of home and road games, a comparative breakdown of the individual schedules among all Conference teams would be required to satisfy the actual point of the article itself. In both articles, this is done, which would seem irrefutable to any honest person. Quisp refutes this similarity.

Further, the schedule breakdown would best be made understandable and clear if done so graphically. Both articles contain a list of teams followed by their individual count of home and road games remaining. Both articles also discuss the current points held by each team; Hammond gives the total points each team has, I make it Kings-centric by saying whether teams are a certain number of points ahead of, or a certain number of points behind the Kings. Obviously, the lists, or what I also called "graphs" in my second article, are similar. The fact here is honestly irrefutable, yet again Quisp refutes such a fact.

Hammond’s article is short; mine is long. This would therefore make my article possess content that is missing from Hammond’s article, and that would qualify as dissimilarity. However, when nearly all of what Hammond wrote was already covered very similarly in what I wrote ten days earlier, the dissimilarity is outweighed by the similarities.

In the second article, my being “upset” that Hammond wrote a similar article is poked fun at. I mock myself, by acting like it meant nothing right after I complained about it. This none-too-subtle nuance is either missed by Quisp, or he chooses to ignore it for better effect.

No, you just seemed to be going out of your way to suggest that Hammond was ripping you off, and then claimed some “ironic distance” from that by saying, in effect, “just kidding.” You’re trying to have your cake and eat it too.

Since Quisp posted only portions of the articles, and intentionally left out the most telling content such as the graphs/lists, I think it would be equally likely that he also intended to overlook the humor of my perspective when he described my "outrage."

Perhaps Quisp’s anal tendencies regarding statistics was upset by an error I made, and this prompted him to lash out. I said the Kings had garnered 55 points of 98 possible for a .5612. I should have said the Kings had 58 of a possible 100 for a percentage of .580. I must have mistaken Minnesota’s point total at one point incorrectly as I transcribed from the standings. Quisp correctly pointed this out.

This error does not impact the race as I described it in any way, however, because I computed the home and road winning percentages correctly, and these percentages were used to project the year-end standings. In other words, I made a simple mistake, and it is embarrassing. Mine was an honest mistake; I do not refute that.

Personally I would be much more embarrassed if I could be shown to have been intellectually dishonest, to have intentionally slanted what I showed in order to make a point, and if all this behavior were in support of a personal slam against a novice blogger. Quisp apparently has no such compunction.

No. It just didn’t occur to me that the Hammond article you referenced was not the one you meant to reference.

Quisp not only describes the error, but generously offers medical advice when he tells me "meds in the morning, blog in the afternoon" or words to that effect. This is a first-class type of guy, seeing me in need of advice and rushing to my aid.

At this point, I would suggest you add to your regimen proof-reading in the evening.

As well, my interpretation of Quisp’s criticism of me is that he felt I had unfairly broken down the substance of an article, and that I was unfairly critical of the substance and perspective of that article. No honest person could now overlook the irony of Quisp being the one who is guilty of having done exactly that.

Player-X

Has anyone checked with Sutter recently to figure out whether or not this is baseball?

Rich has to put up with a lot, but this is a new angle. What on earth…

Here is my list of weighted games.
Teams ahead of us in the as of the All Star break I gave a factor of 2
Teams that are behind us, but in the same conference I gave 1.5 (kick in the teeth, down the ladder)
Weighted factor of 2 Games
Game 52 @ Blues
Game 62 Blackhawks
Game 63 @ Preditors
Game 64 @ Wild
Game 66 @ Preditors
Game 69 @ Red Wings
Game 72 Preditors
Game 73 Sharks
Game 74 Blues
Game 76 @ Canucks
Game 79 @ Wild
Game 81 Sharks
Game 82 @ Sharks

Weighted factor 1.5
Game 57 @ Stars
Game 58 Coyotes
Game 60 @ Coyotes
Game 61 @ Avalanche
Game 65 Ducks
Game 71 @ Ducks

Does anybody even know if Hammond even knows who Quisp, or player-X are? lol

It would be a riot if someone asked his position in all this and he raised 1 eyebrow and said “Who?”.

I’d imagine he does. I’m sure he does research like any other writer.