Eyes On The Prize: FanPosts

Predicting the playoffs, part 3: The SONA Index

2013-06-12T20:10:42Z

Hello again everyone,

Recently I’ve put up a few fanposts about the relationships between puck possession and save percentage on playoff success. Using some statistical tools, we could see that there was a weak but significant link between regular season Fenwick Close and playoff performance, and could generate a regression formula to predict an ‘expected’ number of playoff wins based on RS Fenwick Close.

We then saw that the relative over/underperformance of each team’s goaltender explained a pretty significant amount of the discrepancy between Fenwick-expected wins and actual playoff wins, reinforcing the notion that goaltending carries a whole lot of weight during the postseason. However, there was still a great deal of variability left to explain that neither puck possession or goalie stats could explain.

Well, the wait is over. The holy grail of hockey prediction - the One Stat that Matters - may have been found.

Some background: back in 2011, Megalodon from Battle of Cali put up a highly scientific and serious post about a new metric for use in advanced hockey analytics: the SONA index. This metric, the ‘Sex Offenders Near Arena’ statistic, initially showed a high degree of predictive power by revealing that the team with the single highest SONA statistic in 2011 was named the Predators. Impressively, later that spring the SONA index successfully identified 5 of the top 6 teams during the regular season, outperforming many more established metrics such as goal differential and Fenwick Close. Unfortunately, while the SONA index showed phenomenal predictive power at determining who made the playoffs, it was unfortunately not so good at predicting actual playoff success. (Sound familiar? Wink) A new set of SONA predictions were made for the 2013 playoffs, but unfortunately they appear to have born little fruit as well. So, I decided to tackle the SONA index to see if any adjustments could be made, or to see if it might have more subtle predictive powers that have not yet been revealed.

The first thing I looked at was whether SONA could historically explain the set of recent playoff data I’ve been working with (the last 5 full playoff seasons). I used a slightly modified methodology from Megalodon’s original formula: rather than looking at registered sex offenders in the area immediately surrounding the arena, I considered the number of identified sex offenders within the city limits to eliminate the problem of arenas by the water (and get rid of the mer-vert confounding factor). Sex offenders were identified using the website Family Watchdog, and all searches were conducted by entering the zip code of the home arena and considering each sex offender that appeared in the initial results map. Unfortunately, only American teams were considered, due to the difficulty of determining this metric for Canadian cities. In order to normalize to population, and also add in another element of hilarity, I divided each city’s sex offender number by the number of minors in that city according to the 2012 US Census, which should give us a good ‘sex offender ratio’. These numbers were then multiplied by 1000 to form the ‘Adjusted SONA Statistic’ (A.S.S.).

I checked out the Adjusted SONA Statistic of each American team to make the playoffs since the 2007-08 season and compared it to 1) their total number of playoff wins, and 2) their playoff wins relative to Fenwick expectations (see this previous article for methodology there). Unfortunately, not much came out of that:

Clearly, Adjusted SONA is not a good statistic for predicting playoff success, nor playoff over/underachieving. Undeterred, I tried a number of different approaches but all of them turned up empty.

However, as I was about to give up on SONA as a metric for playoff prediction, a thought struck me: maybe sexual predation loses value in the playoffs because of something fundamentally different about postseason hockey: frustration. It might be that the collective predatory influence of playoff cities’ sex offenders is not adequately leveraged if teams have been recently successful in the playoffs, for instance. With that in mind, I considered a new metric: the Cup-Adjusted SONA Statistic.

This metric is the following:

[number of sex offenders in the immediate area surrounding arena] x [years team has gone without winning a Stanley Cup] / [number of minors living in city according to US Census].

I generated Cup-Adjusted SONA Statistics for the same data set of teams, and then separated each individual playoff appearance into Low, Medium, or High levels of hockey-related sexual frustration. Low was defined as a CASS of 50 or lower, Medium from 50 to 250, and High for 250 or greater. I then looked at number of playoff games won and playoff success relative to Fenwick Expectations for these three groups, and here is what came out:

Success! It appears as though we have a Goldilocks formula for postseason victory: your city cannot have too much nor too little Cup-Adjusted Predation; the middle group is just right. Groups with ‘the right amount’ (scoring between 50 and 250 on the CASS Index) not only won more playoff games, but also outperformed their expectations based on regular season puck possession. Interestingly, both the teams with low and high CASS index scores had trouble performing during the playoffs relative to the expectations placed upon them. I wonder what that could mean.

Finally, in order to visualize the CASS effect in a different way, I considered relative likelihood of low, medium, or high-frustration teams to perform well or poorly under playoff pressure:

Speaks for itself, doesn’t it.

Finally, as positive proof that the CASS index is for real, I offer you the top three hockey-related sexually frustrated teams of the past half-decade:

3) The Buffalo Sabers. Buffalo recently made a jump to the top of the 2013 SONA rankings, so it should be no surprise that they make this list. Plus, let’s be honest- basically everything about the Sabers confirms a top-3 spot.

2) The Washington Capitals. A surprise entry this high on the list, Washington nonetheless displays several important characteristics of a high-ranking CASS team- an excruciating run of playoff disappointments, an abundance of sexual predators in local government, and Alex Semin.

1) Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the CASS Champion of recent history: The Saint Louis Blue ____s. I’ll leave it to you to fill in the blank.

Hello again everyone,

Well, the wait is over. The holy grail of hockey prediction - the One Stat that Matters - may have been found.

Clearly, Adjusted SONA is not a good statistic for predicting playoff success, nor playoff over/underachieving. Undeterred, I tried a number of different approaches but all of them turned up empty.

This metric is the following:

[number of sex offenders in the immediate area surrounding arena] x [years team has gone without winning a Stanley Cup] / [number of minors living in city according to US Census].

Finally, in order to visualize the CASS effect in a different way, I considered relative likelihood of low, medium, or high-frustration teams to perform well or poorly under playoff pressure:

Speaks for itself, doesn’t it.

Finally, as positive proof that the CASS index is for real, I offer you the top three hockey-related sexually frustrated teams of the past half-decade:

1) Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the CASS Champion of recent history: The Saint Louis Blue ____s. I’ll leave it to you to fill in the blank.

June 9th, 1993: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

2013-06-09T17:55:38Z

Happy 20th Anniversary!

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the Montreal Canadiens’ last Stanley Cup championship. Waiting 20 years for a championship might seem like a strange milestone to celebrate, but you have to understand where you have been to know where you are going.

This anniversary is a good opportunity to reflect on one of the most exciting runs in the club’s glorious history. For those of you who are too young to recall the early ‘90s, hopefully we can fill you in on what it feels like to watch your team win a Stanley Cup (more on that later…)

Many Habs fans of a certain vintage can trace their fandom back to Patrick Roy. The ’93 playoffs were arguably Patrick Roy’s greatest performance. His Conn Smythe trophy winning effort was the stuff of legend not only because of the gaudy stats (10 straight OT wins, .929 SV%, etc., etc.), but also due to the unique flair he brought to the crease… just ask Tomas Sandstrom.

As good as St. Patrick was that year, he hardly did it alone. As per the cliché, Montreal’s best players were their best players in the playoffs: Vinny Damphousse and Kirk Muller led the team in scoring (Corsi Rel not available…) and Eric Desjardins was stellar throughout the run and will forever be remembered for his hat trick in game 2 of the SCF.

To give you some context I was 13 years old in 1993 and at the absolute peak of my on-going hockey obsession. I felt a particular connection to this Habs team as well. I’m from Fredericton, New Brunswick which was then the home of Montreal’s AHL affiliate. I’d seen guys like Gilbert Dionne, Paul DiPietro, and Oleg Petrov graduate to the Show. I felt a sense of ownership about those guys, and it was a thrill seeing them with the big club and doing well.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream? (Puck < puck)

via 3.bp.blogspot.com

Clearly, I have many vivid memories of the ’93 playoffs. But the reason I’m writing this is because there is one memory that eludes me… That would be the night of June 9th. I didn’t see game 5 of the Finals. I didn’t see the Habs win the Cup. I was at a goddamn play.

My Mom, grandmother and I were on a family trip to Toronto. We stayed with my aunt and uncle, who are massive Habs fans, and with them I lived and breathed that final: banners, face paint, singing, the whole nine yards. My Mom said we didn’t drive halfway across the country only to watch hockey, she wanted us to get the most out of the trip. One of her plans to ensure I received an adequately cultural experience involved booking us tickets to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Stratford Festival. The tickets were purchased long in advance… unfortunately, they were booked for June 9th. This was tantamount to a horrible punishment for an unknown offence. How could the world have been that unfair?

I begged to stay and watch the game, but obviously lost that fight. Good money was invested in those tickets and it would be a "wonderful experience". I had no choice. To add to the cruelty, the production ended up being an avant-garde, modernist interpretation of Shakespeare’s classic… male nudity, giant lavender pillows, bizarre mauve backdrops… I was in hell. All I could do to maintain my sanity was hope to the hockey gods that Wayne Gretzky could keep the Habs at bay for one night so that I could witness Les Boys, my boys, win.

With a sense of dread I turned on the radio in the car on the ride back to Toronto. Sadly, the Great One let me down. The Habs had in fact secured the Cup without me. My Mom said, "isn’t that great! They won!" I slowly looked over with the angst that only a 13 year old robbed of his greatest moment could invoke… there were no words that would capture how I felt. All I could muster was, "Yeah, great."

Taking Back the Memory

I eventually forgave my Mom (after much counselling we were able to reconcile in 2004…), she didn’t intentionally inflict this damage on me. But, I knew that I had missed a defining moment in Habs history, and it still hurts a little bit to this day. At that time I never would have guessed that twenty years later I would still be waiting to watch my Habs hoist the Cup. I can only hope that our wait will soon be over.

So, I put it to you EOTP. What are your memories of the 1993 run to the Cup? How did you celebrate on June 9th, 1993? I need your help with some strategic amnesia. I need to finally purge those memories of naked dudes speaking in iambic pentameter; and replace them with your recollections of the Habs last Stanley Cup celebrations. I need to recapture June 9th, 1993.

Happy 20th Anniversary!

A Midsummer Night’s Dream? (Puck < puck)

via 3.bp.blogspot.com

Taking Back the Memory

Predicting the playoffs - Part 2: Does goaltending matter?

2013-06-09T16:29:03Z

Last week, I put up a post that looked at the relationship between regular season puck possession metrics (as measured by Fenwick Close) and postseason success. (If you haven’t seen that post, read it first, otherwise this one won’t make any sense.) For anyone rooting for the predictive powers of Fenwick Close, the results were pretty underwhelming. While cup winners did show signs of better puck possession than non-cup winners, Fenwick Close was completely unable to distinguish between those who exited in the first, second, third, and fourth rounds of the playoffs. Additionally, while having a good regular season Fenwick seemed necessary to win the cup, it showed virtually no evidence of being predictive of winning the cup in any sense, as shown by this graph:

Using linear regression, we were able to generate a formula for ‘expected playoff wins’ based on regular season Fenwick, which turned out to be approximately [ PW = 5 + (RS Fenwick – 50.0)/3 ]; in other words, a team with regular season Fenwick of 50.0 could expect to win on average 5 playoff games, and each increase of 3 regular season Fenwick percentage points predicted one additional playoff win, on average. This regression equation had very poor predictive power, presumably because there are a great many things that can affect playoff success (goaltending, injuries, small number of games, etc etc). However, that doesn’t mean we should throw the equation away. What this equation allows us to do is to compare expected playoff wins based on RS Fenwick to actual playoff wins (based on reality), and then see what variables can best explain the difference between the two. In essence, we can use this difference to see what factors are spoiling our RS Fenwick/playoff wins relationship.

Using this approach, I looked at the most obvious thing I could think of that might explain why some teams go deep and others go home: goaltender save percentage. Looking at the same set of teams I looked at in my last post (all teams to make the playoffs since ’07-08, not including the current season), I looked at the regular season save percentage of each team’s starting goaltender and compared them to two things: 1) their number of playoff wins (of the team, not of the goalie), and 2) the difference between their number of playoff wins and their expected number of playoff wins based on RS Fenwick: positive numbers indicate they outperformed expectations, negative numbers meaning underperformed. Finally, I separated teams into three categories: underperforming (meaning, won three more playoff games fewer than expectations), overperforming (three or more games more than expectations) or equal, to see if regular season save percentage could explain any of these differences. Here is what the data show:

The data here show pretty convincingly that starting goaltender regular season save percentage does not really have any bearing on playoff success whatsoever. In the graph on the left, the regression line relating RS SV% and playoff wins is about as flat as Manitoba (Although unlike Manitoba, the graph contains lots of playoff teams). In the middle, we see that RS SV% does not explain any significant amount of difference between Fenwick expected versus actual playoff wins either. On the right, we can see that separating teams based on under, equal or over performance shows a hint of a trend in the right direction, but not significantly so.

That’s fine, though. We all know that playoff goaltending is what matters, right?

Now we’re talking. In the graph on the left, we can see a nice upward slope between playoff wins and playoff save percentage that certainly supports the notion that goaltending in the playoffs is important. (Note: the red dots indicate teams where the goalie with the most playoff starts in that year was someone other than their regular season starting goalie. I contemplated excluding those points, but they didn’t seem to have too much influence on the averages.) The R-squared values for both playoff wins and playoff wins relative to Fenwick expectations are now more meaningful: playoff save percentage explains 12 percent of the variance in playoff wins among all teams, and 15 percent of the variance in playoff wins relative to expected wins based on RS Fenwick. Grouping teams based on relative performance confirms this notion by showing a significant difference in playoff save % by one-way Analysis of Variance. This should hardly be a surprise, really, since goaltender save percentage in the playoffs will have a real, very direct bearing on playoff outcomes that regular season goaltending (or puck possession) will not. Speaking of hardly a surprise- check out Marc-André Fleury hanging out all by himself over there. Yup.

However, there is something interesting here worth considering further. We see here that Playoff Save % was just about equally good at predicting raw playoff wins or playoff over/underperformance. That’s good; it would be a bit surprising to see one be significantly correlated and not the other. However, we also saw earlier that regular season save% is not really predictive of playoff performance at all, whether in raw or relative-to-Fenwick terms. Obviously some goalies get hot and others get cold in the postseason, but generally the relationship between regular season and playoff sv% within goalies isn’t so weak:

There are two possible explanations for this. The first is that, although regular season and playoff save% are somewhat correlated, goalie performance during the regular season really has no bearing on the playoffs- we do not gain any explanatory power by considering regular season stats. (After all, the regression line between RS SV% and playoff wins was perfectly flat.) The second possibility is more intriguing: perhaps, playoff save% is not even what matters most: it’s the difference between regular season and postseason save percentage that has the biggest impact come playoff time. In other words, strictly in terms of predicted playoff performance: is it better to have a goalie who saves .935 in the regular season and then stays consistent in the playoffs, or one who usually saves .905 and then makes a big jump up to .930 when it counts?

To look at these possibilities, I considered all teams where the same goaltender started the majority of games in both the regular season and the playoffs (excluding 7 or so teams, many of which were the Washington Capitals) and graphed the difference between their playoff and regular season Sv% compared to playoff wins and relative-to-Fenwick-expected wins. I also separated all goaltenders into three categories, similar to before: underperforming (15 or more percentage points worse in the playoffs than in the regular season), overperforming (15 or more points better) and equal performance, to look for categorical differences between groups.

Here’s what we get:

Looks like we have our answer. The difference in RS vs. Playoff save percentage had a steeper relationship with playoff wins and with wins relative to Fenwick expectations than Playoff save percentage alone. Additionally, the r-squared values were about the same, indicating the same amount of ‘tightness’ between both relationships. Finally, separating teams by relative goalie performance shows a very nice difference in playoff performance relative to Fenwick expectations between the underachievers and the overachievers.

As another way to illustrate this, I separated all teams into two groups of three categories each: whether their goalie under, over, or equally performed to their RS Sv% in the playoffs, and whether the team under, over, or equally performed in the playoffs relative to their Fenwick-predicted wins. This graph shows a convincing shift that should be a surprise to no one, but still looks cool:

How do you like them apples?

So, what can we conclude here? Well, playoff goaltending is obviously important. But we knew that. However, playoff overachieving may be equally or more important, as least as far as the goalie is concerned. I won’t speculate too much as to reasons why this might be, and leave it for the discussion. Overall, I don’t think these graphs show anything terribly surprising, but I think they’ll still prompt some good arguments on the relative merit of puck possession vs. goaltending vs. luck when it’s all on the line. Enjoy.

That’s fine, though. We all know that playoff goaltending is what matters, right?

Here’s what we get:

How do you like them apples?

Trading Amnesty Candidates

2013-06-08T17:17:14Z

I'm a life long Habs fan and have followed this site for some time now. So I thought I'd give my creative arm chair GM work a try.

With the recent post about trading up in the draft and the even more recent posts giving some examples of potential amnesty candidates, I wondered if it's possible to tie the two together. Every team is allotted two buy outs, but I'm sure there are a number of teams that just simply can't afford to pay players big money not to play.

So I thought this might be a good strategy for Montreal to use there financial advantage to help other teams out and get something out of it too.

I'll put my potential deal down here and would love to know what you think of it and also see if anyone else can come up with some interesting ideas that might be able to marry together trading up in the draft and the amnesty buy out.

My target would be Florida.

MTL sends: Kaberle, Price, DD, Weber and either our 1st round pick or one of our second round picks

FLA sends: Markstrom, Campbell, Their 1st round pick, and the negotiating rights to Weiss

Florida can buy out Kaberle for much cheaper then Campbell, they get a goaltender who could maybe use a change of sceneary, they get DD to make up for Weiss and also get a decent young D-Man in Weber who is still under team control. The Pick we send them can be conditional on whether MTL signs Weiss or not. All the players they get help them now and our already signed or still under team control.

Montreal buys out Campbell. Hopefully can sign Weiss. Get a really good goaltender if not a future great one. Get the second overall pick. And also give themselves some more cap flexibility.

Of course to me it makes perfect sense but I'd love to hear what you think.

I'm a life long Habs fan and have followed this site for some time now. So I thought I'd give my creative arm chair GM work a try.

So I thought this might be a good strategy for Montreal to use there financial advantage to help other teams out and get something out of it too.

My target would be Florida.

MTL sends: Kaberle, Price, DD, Weber and either our 1st round pick or one of our second round picks

FLA sends: Markstrom, Campbell, Their 1st round pick, and the negotiating rights to Weiss

Montreal buys out Campbell. Hopefully can sign Weiss. Get a really good goaltender if not a future great one. Get the second overall pick. And also give themselves some more cap flexibility.

Of course to me it makes perfect sense but I'd love to hear what you think.

Predicting the playoffs: does Fenwick matter?

2013-06-04T14:33:33Z

First of all, hi everyone- I’ve been a lurker at EOTP for some time now, but only just recently made an account. Looking forward to lots of great discussions with everyone about both serious and silly things alike.

Recently, we’ve had the distinct misfortune as Habs fans of seeing a very promising team go down quickly in the postseason. Had we squeaked into the playoffs as a seventh or eighth seed with middling possession stats, a first-round departure would have been somewhat more expected. Yet, during the regular season we put up great numbers by more than a few measures. While many in the mainstream media attributed our resurgence as having to do with Team Toughness a la Brandon Prust, others knew better. We put up great possession numbers. We had great FancyStats. We were a Good Fenwick Team, and THAT was why we were playing well. (For a primer on Fenwick and other things, see the glossary). As Chris Boyle’s fantastic circular infographic showed pretty clearly, putting up Fenwick Close numbers is vital for making the postseason, and unlike previous years (2008, 2009, 2010) we actually had the possession numbers to justify a top seed in the playoffs. However, while Chris’s graph beautifully shows the difference between non-playoff teams and playoff teams, it isn’t quite as good at showing what happens once you make the playoffs.

I was curious to see to what extent having a good regular season Fenwick actually helps you once you reach the playoffs; in other words, whether there is a statistically significant relationship between RS Fenwick and playoff wins. I think it’s quite reasonable to start with a hypothesis that good regular season Fenwick numbers will predict playoff success. Of course, there are exceptions (Habs in 2010; San Jose in what feels like every year). It would be naïve to expect a strong, tightly predictive relationship between any metric from the regular season and postseason performance- injuries, reffing, coaching adjustments, ‘streakiness’ and just plain old luck have a disproportionate amount of influence in the playoffs (or, for that matter, any small sample of regular season games). But given how good Fenwick was at differentiating between playoff-bound teams and those heading to the golf course early, I thought that regular season Fenwick Close would show some ability to predict deep cup runs as well as early 1st round busts. So I ran a few quick calculations to see just how much predictive value we should place into our beloved fancy stats.

A quick primer on thinking about numbers in general- any time you look at the relationship between two variables, there are two main things you care about- the slope and the inherent variance. In this case, if we want to look at the relationship between RS Fenwick and playoff wins, there are four outcomes one could anticipate:

1) Fenwick predicts playoff wins, with low variance. This would indicate that a. good possession teams are more likely to go deep in the playoffs, and b. that they will reliably do so.

2) Fenwick predicts playoff wins, with high variance. This would indicate that a. good possession teams are more likely to go deep, but that this relationship is not reliable- i.e. there are many other confounding factors involved.

3) RS Fenwick either barely or does not predict playoff wins, with low variance. This would indicate that prior evidence of good puck possession is not important once the playoffs begin, with a relatively high degree of certainty. However, this is unlikely to ever occur in real life, because it would require that the distribution of Fenwick between all of the playoff teams in a given data set to be very small- and this is not what we see when analyzing real data.

4) RS Fenwick barely or does not predict playoff wins, with high variance. If this happens, all we can say is ‘there is no evidence supporting Regular Season Fenwick as a predictor of playoff performance’, but without much certainty. This is the likely alternative to outcome number 2.

My initial hypothesis was that the data would support outcome 2: that regular season Fenwick would predict postseason success, but that the relationship would be very noisy.

Using the numbers available on nhl.com and behindthenet.ca, I considered each team to make the playoffs since the ’07-08 season (not including the current one) and compared their Fenwick Close during the regular season to their number of playoff wins. As a comparison marker, I also looked at their goal differential during the regular season compared to their playoff wins. Since it appears that one full regular season is about the length of time it takes for goals to have the same or better evaluative power as shot-based metrics, this seems like an interesting comparison to make. I took two statistical approaches: the first was to divide all of the teams by which round of the playoffs they exited (1st, 2nd, conference finals, SC finals, or SC champions) for each year and use a one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) test to see if regular season Fenwick Close (or goal differential) could significantly explain any of the variability seen in postseason outcome; the second was to compare regular season Fenwick and Goal Differential to the total number of postseason games won by Linear Regression, and look at r2 values as an indicator of how much postseason variance each regular season statistic could explain. Finally, I looked at the best-fit linear regression equations to see how many ‘expected playoff victories’ you get for each one point in RS Fenwick percentage above 0.50, and for each goal during the regular season over zero goal differential. Here is what the numbers show:

So what’s going on here? We can see in graphs 1a and 1b that there is an upward trend in both RS Fenwick Close and RS goal differential the farther a team advances in the playoffs. However, Fenwick only seemed to matter when differentiating those who won the Cup compared to everyone else; it was pretty much useless at differentiating between those who exited in the first three rounds. Regular season goal differential, on the other hand, increased a bit more smoothly and showed more variation between those who exited early and those who went the distance. The ANOVA test showed this statistically: running a one-way ANOVA on the Fenwick Close data showed that the chance of this distribution arising by chance is approximately 18%, whereas for the goal differential data this probability is only 6%, or very close to the p = .05 threshold set by most academics for statistical significance*. Graphs 1c and 1d show the same data, but separated by number of playoff wins instead of by playoff round exit. Linear regression shows that regular season Fenwick Close data explains 4.4% of the variance in playoff wins. Goal differential, on the other hand, explained 10% of the variance. Neither of these are very high predictive values, by regression standards. However, we can conclude that by these measures, the relationship between RS goal differential and playoff wins is about twice as ‘tight’ as the relationship between RS Fenwick Close and playoff wins.

Finally, let’s look at those two regression equations at the bottom. These equations do not indicate the variability within the relationship (you need to look at r2 for that), but they will tell you the slope of the relationship. First off, for Fenwick Close, the equation says:

-If you are an exactly even Fenwick team during the regular season (50.0), you will win approximately 5 playoff games on average.

-For every additional three regular season Fenwick points (i.e. 53.0 vs. 50.0), you can expect to win one additional playoff game**.

That is a very, very weak slope. This equation means that if Fenwick has any bearing on playoff outcome, then in order to have an ‘expected average win total’ of 8 or more, i.e. to expect making the conference finals, before luck, injuries and other random factors are accounted for, you would need a regular season Fenwick Close of 59.0 at the minimum, which is pretty rarified air (Detroit in 2008 territory). In fact, according to this relationship, the 2008 Red Wings are the only team in the last five years that would be expected to make the conference finals based on regular season Fenwick alone.

Now let’s compare this to the equation we get for goal differential:

-If you are an exactly even goal differential team during the regular season (+/- 0.0 goals/game), you can expect to win approximately 3 playoff games on average.

-For every additional +11 to your regular season goal differential, you can expect to win one additional playoff game.

This slope is also weak, but not as bad as it was for Fenwick. Looking at the same measure as before (how many teams in the last 5 years could be expected to make the conference finals based on goal differential alone, before accounting for luck and injuries), we get 8 teams: Detroit 2008, Boston and San Jose 2009, Washington and Chicago 2010, Vancouver 2011, Boston and Pittsburgh 2012.

So based on these numbers, Outcome 2 that we hypothesized earlier (Fenwick predicts playoff wins, but with high variance) doesn’t look so great- the data suggest more of an Outcome 4 situation (Fenwick barely or does not predict playoff wins at all, with high variance). We see a weak slope (three Fenwick points above 50 gets you only one additional playoff win), and a very high variance (r2 = .044). Interestingly, goal differential not only gave a slightly stronger slope, but also had less variance.

In order to consider the data from an alternate viewpoint, I converted each team’s raw Fenwick and goal differential numbers into ranks: that is, for each season, each of the 16 teams that made the playoffs were ranked from 1 to 16 for Fenwick Close and also from 1 to 16 for goal differential. I then ran the same tests as above, only using their season ranks instead of their raw numbers. My thinking here was that maybe once you make the playoffs, it might not matter what your absolute numbers during the regular season were, only how close you were to being the best (or worst). I also figured this might help manage some of the outliers present in the data set. Using this approach does not allow you to generate a meaningful regression line, but what you can do is compare the variance between this approach and the previous one to see if we learn anything***. Here is what came out:

First of all, note that ‘success’ here now decreases down the Y-axis instead of up (since ranking number 1 in Fenwick is better than ranking number 16), which is why the correlations initially appear to be in the opposite direction. But we can quickly see that using the regular season ranks instead of raw values does not help Fenwick’s case, it actually hurts it. In graph 2a, we can see a tiny downward trend near the cup finalists, but other than that, Fenwick ranks are essentially distributed randomly between exits at each round of the playoffs (the ANOVA calculates a 63% chance that this distribution could have occurred randomly). In contrast, the goal differential ranks predict playoff exit more nicely- the odds of this distribution happening by chance are approximately 3%. In graphs 2c and 2d, we see Fenwick and Goal Differential rank during the regular season compared to number of playoff wins, and get the same picture. While goal differential rank can predict the same amount of variance as do the raw values for goal differential (r2 = .10, or 10%), the Fenwick ranks can only explain 1 percent of the variance. The predictive value there is completely useless. We cannot generate a meaningful regression line from these data (because they are ranked), but visually looking at the slopes will show pretty clearly that once again, RS goal differential had a more meaningful slope than RS Fenwick Close.

So what does this mean? Well, the results certainly confirm the notion that playoff success is highly variable and quite random, compared to either regular season Fenwick or goal differential. However, although I had anticipated a lot of random noise in the data, I had not anticipated that the underlying slopes would be so weak (or in Fenwick’s case, mathematically pretty close to zero). This suggests (does not prove, but does suggest) that regular season puck possession is not only being overshadowed by other factors in the playoffs (which we have long suspected) but it may not even matter much at all.

An alternate view might be to say that no, possession-based statistics like Fenwick are still just as valuable as we thought, and the (very small) slope of the Fenwick-Playoff Wins relationship still indicates that puck possession is a valuable metric for evaluating team play- but playoffs are just so random that the ‘three Fenwick points for one playoff win’ relationship is the best we’re gonna get. The playoffs are a whole new season, and anything can happen. The recent article by Arik Parnass, and especially Ellen Etchingham’s article that he refers to, capture this view beautifully. As Ellen mentions, the hockey season (and that of other sports as well) is in many ways designed to ultimately reward a string of luck that may well be unsustainable but just has to happen at the exact right time. This would help explain why Fenwick was so good at predicting whether any given team will make the playoffs, but then immediately becomes crappy as soon as you get into best-of-sevens****. At the moment I’m leaning towards this view. But it’ll require some thought, and hopefully some more number crunching. Anyway, here’s to hoping that this prompts some good discussion.

-- Many thanks to Andrew and Arik for thoughts.

* P-values tend to be misunderstood in this sort of context. Consider it this way: if you were to run a computer program that simulated a very large number of NHL seasons and then repeatedly picked 80-team samples of playoff outcomes (as we have done here), you would expect to see the same outcome as we got (1-p)% of the time. So, if something is significant with p = .03, you would expect to get the same conclusion in 97% of all repeated simulations of the same outcome. In this particular case, we would expect to get the same outcome for the Fenwick data only 82% of the time (which is not statistically significant) and the same outcome for the goal differential data 94% of the time (which is almost significant, if you set your cutoff at 95% as most academics do.)

** ‘Expect’, of course, is used here in a probabilistic sense and not by any means in a deterministic one. It’s like flipping ten coins and saying ‘we expect five heads’, since we know a priori that the probability of any individual coin coming up as heads is 50%. Here, we can say the following: if the slope of the Fenwick/Playoff Wins relationship that we have observed is in fact true, then each 3 Fenwick points over 50 will yield one additional expected win. Note here that ‘the unpredictable nature of the playoffs’ should not change the slope of this relationship, since each team’s regular season Fenwick is known a priori when the playoffs start. Unless, of course, there is something fundamentally different about the way hockey is played in the playoffs than in the regular season (which is opening a significant can of worms indeed).

*** Those with training in statistics will notice that I’ve done two cringe-worthy things here, which are 1) to run an ANOVA on ranked data, and 2) to use r2 as a correlation coefficient for this same data set. Strictly speaking, a better way to look at this relationship would be to use a Kruskal-Wallis test instead of the ANOVA, and to use a nonparametric Spearman R statistic to look at the correlation. But for the purposes of this article, and to be able to more easily compare what we see here to the untransformed data, I’m cheating a little bit. Wherever you are, I ask for humble forgiveness.

**** I have to say- it’s a bit ironic that in this current shortened season, which seemed especially vulnerable to fundamentally weak but ‘lucky’ teams riding percentages and making unsustainable runs, three of the four remaining conference finalists were the three top regular season Fenwick teams. (This has not happened before in the data set I’ve analyzed, but almost did in 2011, when San Jose, Tampa Bay, and Vancouver were all conference finalists and top-four Fenwick finishers. However, none of them won in the end, due to the Stanley Cup sadly going un-awarded that year.)

1) Fenwick predicts playoff wins, with low variance. This would indicate that a. good possession teams are more likely to go deep in the playoffs, and b. that they will reliably do so.

My initial hypothesis was that the data would support outcome 2: that regular season Fenwick would predict postseason success, but that the relationship would be very noisy.

-If you are an exactly even Fenwick team during the regular season (50.0), you will win approximately 5 playoff games on average.

-For every additional three regular season Fenwick points (i.e. 53.0 vs. 50.0), you can expect to win one additional playoff game**.

Now let’s compare this to the equation we get for goal differential:

-If you are an exactly even goal differential team during the regular season (+/- 0.0 goals/game), you can expect to win approximately 3 playoff games on average.

-For every additional +11 to your regular season goal differential, you can expect to win one additional playoff game.

-- Many thanks to Andrew and Arik for thoughts.

Karma is a B*tch

2013-05-14T15:26:00Z

Less than a week ago I came across an article in the Toronto Sun stating that the best part of round one of the NHL Playoffs was the utter humiliation of the Habs. After last night's Epic Meltdown (according to TSN), all I can say is, isn’t karma a b*tch?

The Habs may have had the ugliest series of the first round, rife with flaring tempers, injuries and sloppy play, and though they were blown out twice by the Senators by a score of 6-1, at least they didn’t make history. The Leafs, on the other hand, became the first team in NHL Playoff history to blow a 3 goal lead in the third period of a game 7. Not only did they scramble and fall and allow the Bruins to tie up the game with less than 30 seconds remaining in the 3rd period, but they continued to flounder in OT. In all fairness, I’m not sure any player could keep a level head knowing they came within 9 minutes of winning their first playoff series since 2004 only to lose it in the dying seconds, and clearly the Leafs couldn’t keep it together. The Bruins came out in extra time oozing with confidence and within 6 minutes Bergeron was celebrating the goal that propelled them into round two. I give a ton of credit to Julien who played the dying minutes with four forwards on the ice. The man knows how to coach in the off season. The Leafs, on the other hand, didn’t know where to turn leaving Reimer to fend for himself behind Chara who stood strong in his crease. It was a devastating and humiliating finish.

Thanks, but I’ll take the Habs' meltdown any day, because at least Habs fans were skeptical about their chances. Toronto fans were planning the parade in the third period and watched it unfathomably slip away. I guess it had been so long since the Leafs made the playoffs that writer Mike Strobel, who penned the abovementioned article, forgot that the hockey gods keep a close eye on the playoffs.

Raphael Diaz

2013-05-08T14:32:43Z

Is it just me, or does it seem like Raphael Diaz is always around when something stupid seems to happen. The suicide pass to Lars Eller, him chasing the puck behind the net instead of covering in front, then in overtime, the puck shot off of him and into the net. All these blunders are playoffs alone.

In my opinion, Diaz is a weak defender with limited defensive abilities and it seems that all his assets come offensively and specifically on the powerplay, much like a Yannick Weber or a Marc-Andre Bergeron. I might be the only one, but I see little positives for Raphael Diaz and getting him back while losing Alexei Emelin is almost a double blow to the Canadiens. Diaz has shown little improvement throughout 2 years in the NHL on the defensive end. He coughs up the puck on passes, has weak shots, and seems to just lose the puck from his stick. Maybe he's just unlucky, but a bad player is also an unlucky player, and everything that can happen, seems to happen to Raphael Diaz.

Before game 3, I jokingly told my friend "I'd rather see Tomas Kaberle". Well, I think at this point, he's a better option than Diaz. Kaberle has more experience than Diaz, and at this stage of his career, he may not be the powerplay quarterback that Markov is or Kaberle ever was, but I think he can be as efficient as Diaz and defensive, even with only 10 games played, I'd rather see Kaberle than Diaz. Or anyone else. Hell, is Davis Drewiske good for anything? Or how about rookie Nathan Beaulieu? Or Greg Pateryn?

I beg of Marc Bergevin to not resign Diaz at season's end. Go out and get someone like a Mark Streit, who's not a liability on defense. Losing Emelin and getting back Diaz was the biggest double blow to Montreal I can remember in recent history.

My Playoff Ritual...What's yours?

2013-05-02T18:46:32Z

I grow a gnarly beard once they clinch the playoffs and don't comb or cut my hair (my wife hates it)

On game day i start with 45 minute cardio workout (usually an hour before game time sometimes i try to convince my wife for a quickie, i mostly fail) this calms me down so i don't get enraged or break the remote. I have a case of beer cans with my frosted habs beer mug, my personalized jersey, hab slippers and habs fur blanket. I have my tablet on tsn for other hockey updates and cell phone to heckle my buddies (sens fan buddies in this case).

My beer can only gets cracked exactly on puck drop.

Nothing special but we all have our quirks!

P.S my wife is a lovely good humored person, she just really hates playoff time because i get crazy :)

I grow a gnarly beard once they clinch the playoffs and don't comb or cut my hair (my wife hates it)

My beer can only gets cracked exactly on puck drop.

Nothing special but we all have our quirks!

P.S my wife is a lovely good humored person, she just really hates playoff time because i get crazy :)

Its Only Weird if it Doesn't Work

2013-05-02T18:24:52Z

via www.allaboutthehabs.ca

So we're talking superstitions are we? For myself I can't say it's anything drastic or out of the ordinary outside of the fact I follow it....for every....single....playoff....game....ever. Now during the regular season I rotate through my jersey collection depending on who the Habs are playing: Markov jersey for away games, Robinson jersey( for the rivalry games(except the leafs) and Gionta jersey for everything else + Leafs games.

But for the playoffs it is a completely different story and this tradition for me started in 2010 during that amazing run to the conference finals on the back of Jaroslav Halak and Mike Cammalleri's epic performances. And the one constant I had was just a simple Maurice "Rocket" Richard shersey (Shirt+Jersey)...it was given to me as a gift from a friend who had travelled to the Bell Centre to see the Habs clinch their playoff berth on the last day of the season and I wore it with pride during that wild ride of a postseason.

Moving onto now though I wear it under any Habs jersey I have during major games(br00nz, st00pidheads etc) and obviously during the playoffs. Flashing back to 2011 and games 7 vs the Bruins: Habs are losing late and it's do or die time, I realize I haven't been wearing my lucky shirt and upon putting said shirt on the Habs get a powerplay and P.K. Subban does this

PK Subban game tying goal Game 7 vs Boston 2011/4/27 (via xHabs77)

Now if that doesn't fuel superstition I have no idea what will....but going into tonight's game against the Ottawa Senators(aka d00cheheads) The Rocket is with me...Right beneath my Brian Gionta jersey...two captains of the best franchise in hockey are going to bring me and this team the luck to win tonight. If Gionta should fail to win the game then Robinson or Markov can take over...but rest assured whatever jersey brings in the wins will not be getting washed until the Habs lose.

So tonight GO HABS GO and remember everyone superstitions are only weird if they don't work

via www.allaboutthehabs.ca

PK Subban game tying goal Game 7 vs Boston 2011/4/27 (via xHabs77)

So tonight GO HABS GO and remember everyone superstitions are only weird if they don't work

BRUINS COMMENTATOR EDWARDS APOLOGIZES FOR COOKE REMARKS

2013-04-21T04:56:51Z

view TSN.CA Story

Boston Bruins play-by-play commentator Jack Edwards issued an apology for comments that he made regarding Pittsburgh Penguins forward Matt Cooke during the broadcast of the Bruins 3-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday.

Edwards, who works for NESN, compared Cooke to one of the most notorious criminals in American history.

"When the Pittsburgh writers nominated Matt Cooke for the Masterton award for dedication and perseverance to hockey, the justification being that Cooke had changed his ways after basically assassinating Marc Savard," Edwards said on NESN. "Nominating Cooke for the Masterton is about the equivalent of nominating Sirhan Sirhan as the prisoner of the year. "

Sirhan was convicted of assassinating U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 and is serving life in prison.

Following the game, Edwards posted an apology message on his twitter account.

"I am sorry for insulting Matt Cooke, the Pittsburgh Penguins, the National Hockey League, and anyone else upset by my Cooke comments," Edwards said in series of three tweets. "I made a mistake. My fault all the way. This is my apology. Bad week, bad emotional reaction by me. Not fun to make a mistake. I made a mistake. I am sorry for it. I can move forward if you can."

Cooke escaped suspension for a blind-side hit on Savard in March of 2010, which led the NHL to change the rules on the same type of hit in the following year. Savard suffered a concussion on the play and would not return to action until the post-season.

Cooke was selected as the 2012 Masterton Trophy nominee for the NHL player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey by the Pittsburgh chapter of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association.

view TSN.CA Story

Edwards, who works for NESN, compared Cooke to one of the most notorious criminals in American history.

Sirhan was convicted of assassinating U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 and is serving life in prison.

Following the game, Edwards posted an apology message on his twitter account.

Anyone interested in free ticket for tomorrow vs. Capitals?

2013-04-19T21:16:02Z

My dad couldn't make it up from Orlando, so I have an extra ticket for the game Saturday night. I'd rather give it away to an EoTP buddy than sell it outside the Bell Center.

Not great seats. High up in the upper bowl, but it's yours if you're willing to tolerate sitting next to me and my eight year daughter for the game. Just a single ticket.

We will probably want to go into the game pretty early so we can walk around a bit and I can get her that Patches shirt she wants, so I would just want to meet up outside the Bell Center enough time in advance in order to be able to do that.

Anyone that wants it can reply here in this thread and Andrew offered to send me your email address so we can communicate that way.

My dad couldn't make it up from Orlando, so I have an extra ticket for the game Saturday night. I'd rather give it away to an EoTP buddy than sell it outside the Bell Center.

Not great seats. High up in the upper bowl, but it's yours if you're willing to tolerate sitting next to me and my eight year daughter for the game. Just a single ticket.

Anyone that wants it can reply here in this thread and Andrew offered to send me your email address so we can communicate that way.

Old Canadiens cards available in the PPP trivia contest

2013-04-10T19:18:08Z

Hi all,

Over at PPP, we're running a fundraiser to try to help The Active Stick and Sarah Connors in their charitable efforts. For $5 ($2.50 donation to each of them), people will take part in a 2-week trivia challenge. Everyone gets to choose a prize from the list, but the winners get to choose first.

In the prize pile are a bunch of old Canadiens. This is who they are:

OK - the last four aren't Habs, but you get the idea...

Full listing will be at PPP as soon as it posts and the original contest is here. There is a very nice '72-73 Laperriere that is en route to me and I haven't scanned yet. We can also do requests, though it all depends what resides in my various shoeboxes.

This is more of a fun lot than a "get me rich" lot, but the Cournoyer and Lafleur are both worth more than your original donation, as is the Howe and some of the others over on the site. Please come have a look and help out.

it'll be fun. :)

Thanks,

1967ers

Hi all,

In the prize pile are a bunch of old Canadiens. This is who they are:

OK - the last four aren't Habs, but you get the idea...

it'll be fun. :)

Thanks,

1967ers

In Flanders Fields and My Left Arm

2013-04-03T02:43:40Z

I love the Montreal Canadiens. They are just a sports franchise, I know that, but they mean so much more to me than just shots on goal and championships. I read a lot about the men who played for Montreal, the men who helped build a dynasty. I think a great deal about the discrimination of the early days between les anglais and the French populous. Not a day goes by I don't think about my hero, Maurice Richard and his battles, his faults and his importance to Quebec and all of Canada.

I also love poetry, love the rush of reading or writing a really good poem, finding the perfect words to capture the perfect scene. John Mcrae's 1915 poem, In Flanders Fields, is a lovely and sad piece capturing feelings of loss, of the ruin of war and ending in the tightest description of legacy I can imagine. The same phrase that has hung in the Habs locker room since 1940:

To you from failing hands we throw the torch; be yours to hold it high.

As a father, as a man in the middle of life, I also think a lot about legacy. What I will mean to my children, what they will mean to their children, what we will all mean to the world. Not an unnatural thought, but a powerful one.

So, combining my love for the Canadiens, the joy I find in poetry like Mcrae's and the importance of legacy, I got myself a new tattoo. My fifth tattoo and easily my favorite. Not just because it is new, but because it is the closest to who I am and what matters to me.

Be yours to hold it high, kids. Always hold it high.

via greanier.com

To you from failing hands we throw the torch; be yours to hold it high.

Be yours to hold it high, kids. Always hold it high.

via greanier.com

Game Recap: Habs vs Bruins...now with 150% more gifs!

2013-03-28T22:11:11Z

Now here at EOTP Andrew and Co. have game recaps in both English and French(And you should read them both because it's the best way to avoid moral bankruptcy). However anyone who frequents the game threads knows I enjoy posting gifs and funny pictures to get my point across. So I've laid out a challenge for myself...recap last nights brilliant comeback against the Bruins in nothing but gifs and pictures. This is my best attempt at doing so...enjoy!

1st Period

Fast start for the Habs who were peppering Rask with shots and it looks a bit like this

Then the newly named Mr. Dangerous(Thanks Jack Edwards!) Tomas Plekanec dished to the surging Michael Ryder who put away a goal against his former club

Tuuka seems sad bro.

Andrei Markov seemed to unleash his inner goon last night and attempted to make David Krejci eat a fist or twelve

However Travis Moen(who I'm told does in fact actually play hockey still) took matters into his own hands and dropped the gloves with Gregory Campbell

Below is an accurate representation of the fight

Not much else to report after that sadly

Second period....Oh how I loathe the second period

However PK Subban and Alex Galchenyuk made it super awesome with some slick passing and a slap shot that may as well have been a homing missile for the back of the Bruins nets

However in a scramble Dougie Hamilton would manage to pick up a goal for the Bruins right after

Then PK made my jaw(and i'm sure everyone elses) drop to the floor with a move that is borderline Datsyukian

However the rest of the 2nd period can only be described as such...

Giving up goals to Brad Marchand

Then Patrice Bergeron....

And to cap it all off...Nathan Horton

So naturally going into the 3rd Habs fans were despondent that Jesus Price had been crucified by the poor play of our D

But alas the Hockey Bible had a passage for this

"And lo to begin the Third Period St. Peter shall come and rescue Les Glorieux from the evil of the Wicked TD Garden"-Ribinsoin 6:5

And there he was St Peter de Tricolore

Knight Ryder would strike again less than 4 minutes in to bring the Habs within 1 goal and everyone was like

However dudebro Tyler Seguin would put the Bruins up by 2 goals again and everyone was all like

However the Habs would not die...led by Calder candidate Brendan(not Brandon you NBC twits) The Habs would claw back into it

According to the Bruins fans we had help from the refs and a few others apparently

Accurate representation of supposed help pictured below

Then Bruin Aaron Johnson took a delay of game penalty with less than 2 minutes left in the game...the stage was set and Le General Andrei Markov stepped up and knocked in the tying goal off Zdeno Chara's stick with 8.2 seconds remaining

Overtime was calling and naturally the Habs made it even more stressful when Alexei Emelin took a hooking penalty

It was on to the shootout and every Habs fan loves the shootout right!.....right?

5 rounds came and went without much ado...St Peter denied the Bruins like they were atheist heathens at heavens gate and it came to the Little Ball of Hab...Brendan Gallagher

AND HE FUCKING SCORED

Habs fans were like:

Tuuka Rask was mad bro

So was Claude Julien

Marchand and the Bruins played Wheel of Excuses afterwards

But Bryz has a message for them

Oh....then the Bruins got trolled by apparent Idiot Savant Jay Feaster and lost out on Jarome Iginla

So ends my game recap of last nights Habs vs Bruins...hopefully the gifs and images show up and work otherwise this kinda backfires!

And as always

1st Period

Fast start for the Habs who were peppering Rask with shots and it looks a bit like this

Then the newly named Mr. Dangerous(Thanks Jack Edwards!) Tomas Plekanec dished to the surging Michael Ryder who put away a goal against his former club

Tuuka seems sad bro.

Andrei Markov seemed to unleash his inner goon last night and attempted to make David Krejci eat a fist or twelve

However Travis Moen(who I'm told does in fact actually play hockey still) took matters into his own hands and dropped the gloves with Gregory Campbell

Below is an accurate representation of the fight

Not much else to report after that sadly

Second period....Oh how I loathe the second period

However PK Subban and Alex Galchenyuk made it super awesome with some slick passing and a slap shot that may as well have been a homing missile for the back of the Bruins nets

However in a scramble Dougie Hamilton would manage to pick up a goal for the Bruins right after

Then PK made my jaw(and i'm sure everyone elses) drop to the floor with a move that is borderline Datsyukian

However the rest of the 2nd period can only be described as such...

Giving up goals to Brad Marchand

Then Patrice Bergeron....

And to cap it all off...Nathan Horton

So naturally going into the 3rd Habs fans were despondent that Jesus Price had been crucified by the poor play of our D

But alas the Hockey Bible had a passage for this

"And lo to begin the Third Period St. Peter shall come and rescue Les Glorieux from the evil of the Wicked TD Garden"-Ribinsoin 6:5

And there he was St Peter de Tricolore

Knight Ryder would strike again less than 4 minutes in to bring the Habs within 1 goal and everyone was like

However dudebro Tyler Seguin would put the Bruins up by 2 goals again and everyone was all like

However the Habs would not die...led by Calder candidate Brendan(not Brandon you NBC twits) The Habs would claw back into it

According to the Bruins fans we had help from the refs and a few others apparently

Accurate representation of supposed help pictured below

Overtime was calling and naturally the Habs made it even more stressful when Alexei Emelin took a hooking penalty

It was on to the shootout and every Habs fan loves the shootout right!.....right?

5 rounds came and went without much ado...St Peter denied the Bruins like they were atheist heathens at heavens gate and it came to the Little Ball of Hab...Brendan Gallagher

AND HE FUCKING SCORED

Habs fans were like:

Tuuka Rask was mad bro

So was Claude Julien

Marchand and the Bruins played Wheel of Excuses afterwards

But Bryz has a message for them

Oh....then the Bruins got trolled by apparent Idiot Savant Jay Feaster and lost out on Jarome Iginla

So ends my game recap of last nights Habs vs Bruins...hopefully the gifs and images show up and work otherwise this kinda backfires!

And as always

The Canadiens Defense Corps in 2 years

2013-03-19T00:25:06Z

I would like to get some opinions on our defensive depth and where you would rank our current young defensemen or where you think they will be in the next 2 years.

Here is a list of our defense:

1. Nathan Beaulieu	CHL	8.0	C
2. Jarred Tinordi	Pro	7.5	C
3. Dalton Thrower	CHL	7.0	C
4. Morgan Ellis	Pro	7.0	C
5. Darren Dietz	CHL	7.0	C
6. Greg Pateryn	Pro	6.5	C
7. Magnus Nygren	Europe	6.5	C
8. Josiah Didier	NCAA	6.5	C
9. Colin Sullivan	NCAA	6.5	C
10. Mac Bennett	NCAA	6.5	C
11. Joe Stejskal	Pro	5.5	C

You can add in guys like Frederic St.Denis, Antoine Corbin if you like.

In 2 years I would put Jarred Tinordi as a 5th/6th d-man with the big club, Nathan Beaulieu could also make the team next year but I would see him as getting some call-ups here and there but spending most of the year in Hamilton. For Morgan Ellis, I see him making the Habs roster as a 6th defensemen depending on how he develops over the summer. If Ellis has a good camp i wouldn't be surprised to see him playing in Montreal. I think Dalton Thrower will play another year in junior, and Darren Dietz will be a top 4 d-man with Hamilton. For Magnus Nygren judging from his fantastic ongoing season in the SEL I would like to see him develop in Hamilton for the next 2 years but I believe he has signed in Sweden for another year or so? regardless he looks promising so far. I don't know to much about Colin Sullivan so i think he will be playing another year in the NCAA as well as Didier. Greg Pateryn will likely fight hard for a spot with the Habs but ultimatley i see Tinordi taking that position barring any drastic moves in the summer that could open another spot. I would like to see Mac Bennett play in Hamilton as he can develop his defensive game better there then in College hockey. Joe Stejskal looks like a depth guy I believe he has decent potential to be a depth defensemen in the NHL but at this point he will likely be with Hamilton.

What do you guys think?

I would like to get some opinions on our defensive depth and where you would rank our current young defensemen or where you think they will be in the next 2 years.

Here is a list of our defense:

1. Nathan Beaulieu	CHL	8.0	C
2. Jarred Tinordi	Pro	7.5	C
3. Dalton Thrower	CHL	7.0	C
4. Morgan Ellis	Pro	7.0	C
5. Darren Dietz	CHL	7.0	C
6. Greg Pateryn	Pro	6.5	C
7. Magnus Nygren	Europe	6.5	C
8. Josiah Didier	NCAA	6.5	C
9. Colin Sullivan	NCAA	6.5	C
10. Mac Bennett	NCAA	6.5	C
11. Joe Stejskal	Pro	5.5	C

You can add in guys like Frederic St.Denis, Antoine Corbin if you like.

What do you guys think?

Poll

Which Habs defense prospects do you see playing regularly with the big club in the next 2-3 years.

Jarred Tinordi

85 votes

Nathan Beaulieu

38 votes

Morgan Ellis

1 votes

Greg Pateryn

1 votes

Darren Dietz

2 votes

Dalton Thrower

1 votes

Magnus Nygren

2 votes

130 votes | Poll has closed