As always, let me know if you spot something amis. For example, why did Crosby get a point last night when the Pens didn't play? Well they NHL has credited him with a second assist from Saturday's game in Montreal, which just showed up today. Voila. Back to my trial.
Welcome back Mr. Crosby! Though the result is meaning I now draft 11th on Sunday, oh well that week was worth it. Now if only we can get some other sick-bay types like Markov to get back into the same sort of form...
I'm about to start a two day trial so I think it unlikely that I will be able to get nightly stats out (or start to get caught up on Challenge Cup or Omnivore stats) but this should get us through the weekend. Please let me know if you think I have made an error with respect to your stats (or someone else's) and we can try and work it out. Please let me know if you spot something that might impact WD draft order ASAP. Thanks again to Bob for posting the line-ups on the blog - can't tell you how huge a time-saver that is.
Talk to you on Sunday - trade lines are always open, unless you want Sid :-)
Well WD1 is upon us all...stats are more or less caught up, wd1 drops are due but these waiver drafts can be deceptive! One makes a wish, a pick and the evil Jinn (above) rather than nice Genies come to wreak havoc on your team...
Ok, one quick correction on Chris's totals (had the wrong name for one of his TGs but I think it is corrected now). This should get us to the point of any Waiver Wire bids for this week.
I will see if I can get up to date stats done before the weekend is out. Thanks again for everyone's patience and a big thanks to Bob for posting all the line-ups to the blog and to Brian for doing the "unofficial" stats to date (and for his promise to double check my work).
A big congrats to Brian who has not always had the best week but has been consistently solid enough to give him a very healthy 25pt lead on the pack as we move towards the Waiver Draft. Very impressive.
Ok, busy morning so I'm not caught up yet but I still have a chance to finish off the day in style. Here are the stats as of Week 6 and we are getting some separation as a few teams are poised to cross the 200pt mark while the Edge and the defending champions are sitting at the bottom. Nice week by the Fishies, BTW.
As always, please let me know if you notice any discrepencies between my numbers and the numbers you may have.
Only one mistake that I quickly caught with Corey's stats from Week 3, posted below, I had him playing Chara and Meszaros for both points and +/-. Now they are correctly only for +/-. Collin gets hammered on his +/- call in Week 4 (Lydman goes -4 for a loss of 8pts, ouch!).
I also previously posted Rob with 3 TGs in Week 4 but that is now corrected.
More weeks to come, to be sure, but hopefully we are getting caught up quickly. In any event, let me know if you spot any other errors.
Big shout out to Corey for helping to identify an error with my goalie formula. I think I have it corrected now. As a result, we are stalled at Week 2 but I hope to keep plugging away at the stats moving forward. Please let me know if anyone sees any other mistakes or potential mistakes.
Ok, now we are cooking with gas. Here are week two stats. Haven't checked to see if anyone else has noticed any errors with my week one stats but I did notice that I had Dan playing two goalies in week one - that has now been corrected.
Back to the salt mines here but will try and get a couple more weeks out by the end of the day.
I believe I have found away around a huge, and annoying, techincal issue with the Yahoo site and now have begun to churn the butter. Let me know if you see any errors along the way.
I can't fully convey how crazy busy I have been of late but know that I am as eager as everyone for stats to get out and get out soon. Now that I have this big issue resolved it is simply a question of inputting line-ups (which I am working on doing now - as it is far more enjoyable than what they pay me to do). Hopefully we should be caught up in very short order.
Again, please check your mileage - no body should know your stats better than you so please double check ASAP so we can correct my errors or (shudder) errors in the spreadsheet right away. Thanks again everyone for your patience.
I get it, everybody hates the trap, it's boring, and kills the fun in the game. But Philly's response to seeing the Bolts passively lineup in the neutral zone was far worse - they simply stayed in their own zone and refused to move the puck up the ice. The trap is as old as hockey, it's not illegal, and even the highest scoring teams use it on occasion, so the decision by the Flyers to try and embarrass the Bolts into attacking by making a boring defensive scheme even more boring - the hockey equivalent of pouting like a four year old, justifiably causes concern.
Just the Flyers being the typically dickish Flyers I guess.
The 'solution' is two-fold;
1. After 10 sec of dicking around in their own zone call a delay of game on the Flyers. Teams with the puck don't get to dictate the defense the other team uses. A second violation earns a bench minor on top of the delay of game.
2. If you really want the trap to disappear invent an 'illegal defense' penalty. But good luck with that. The NBA has experimented with illegal zone defenses to mixed and controversial results, and however you feel about the trap, it is nothing new or outrageous to retreat into the neutral and defense zones when you don't have the puck.
- Ovechkin's numbers have been in modest decline the last two years, but I'd argue he's a much more complete player now. As a rookie he could fly the zone and cherrypick whenever he wanted because they weren't competitive if he didn't. Now the team is a Cup favourite and Ovie is playing all 200ft of the rink. Bad for his stats, but better for his Cup chances.
- Tim Connolly is hurt again. Moving on.
- Uh oh, Mike Green is back on IR this time with a knee injury. I said previously that he needed a healthy year to guarantee another contract with the Caps, and I'm betting now he won't get one. I also don't think he'll finish the season as a Great White FP.
- Some pundits are getting down on the Mike Richards experience in LA, pointing to his lack of goal production as a sign of the apocalypse. The truth is you just need to look at Kopitar's numbers to see the benefit a back alley knife fighter like Richards brings. By checking the other teams top unit Kopitar now gets butter minutes against softer opposition, and the result is more production from Kopitar, especially at home where the home team gets last change. Richards is the Kesler to Kopitar's Hank Sedin.
- Who would make a better FP, Kopitar or Getzlaf?
- Kane or Giroux?
- I was sceptical that it could happen, but Ollie Jokinen as the Flames heavy lifting 2nd line center is working out. It's the first line center job (Morisson hurt/sucking, Stajan sucking, Backland hurt) that has been an utter disaster.
- I asked Kent Wilson (uber Flames blogger) three questions on last weeks Lowetide radio program;
1. How is the Flames 'slow motion' rebuild working out vs the Oilers 'scorched Earth rebuild'? 2. What do the underlying advanced stats say about Jokinen as the 2nd line center? 3. How has John Wisebrod influenced Feaster in the aquisitions if Byron, Horak, and Butler?
His answers; 1. He doesn't think the Flames are rebuilding yet (I disagree) 2. Jokinen's stats indicate his new role is working out well. 3. Doesn't know.
Go to Oilers Nation Radio and check out the Kent Wilson segment (segment #5) for Nov 5th for the full discussion.
- I think Feaster has already started the rebuild for several reasons;
1. The Regehr/Kotalik trade that brought back Butler and Byron gives the Flames two young pieces and a tonne of capspace, but it is not the type of trade you make when you are 'going for it'.
2. Feaster hired John Wisebrod away from the Bruins. Bringing in fresh eyes to oversee scouting and talent procurement was a definite necessity. The Flames have had a HORRIBLE farm and talent development system (from Kobasew in 2001 to Tim Erizon in 2010, Phaneuf is the only potential All-star, and Backland the only first rounder actually on the team), and all rebuilds start with the farm.
3.Feaster's first draft was a polar opposite to Darryl Sutter's. Can you see Sutter drafting an undersized Swiss scoring forward in the first round? How about Sutter selecting a pint sized (5'6") scoring machine like Gaudreau in the 4th? Never would have happened. Sutter liked coke-machine shaped (Pelech, Nemisz, Chucko) kids with scar tissue on their knuckles, and was allergic to taking guys who might actually be top line forwards (Backland being the exception - but lets be honest, how well has he actually turned out?)
4. Hagman on waivers, rather than Pierre Luc Letourneau-Leblond. Why? Because Hagman clears more capspace than PL3.
5. The Kyle Turris chase.
So as I said, the 'rebuild/retool' is already on.
- I think Feaster could take runs at everyone from Parise to Weber as the year goes on, but I actually think he'll find a way to end up with Spezza.
- Iginla will not be traded. He loves it in Calgary and mgt loves him, and he has a NMC. As much as the fans may want to think Iggy 'deserves a chance elsewhere', it isn't going to happen (it's also a backhanded way of saying 'I'd prefer to have some high draft picks'). He may never win a Cup, but I think he'll die with his boots on as a Flame.
- The Tim Erixon fiasco could turn out to be one of those rare deals that blow up completely....in our favour. Erixon is a real nice package defenseman in that he has size, speed, and both offensive and defensive ability. He reminded me of Wade Redden when I saw him play for Sweden (the Senator's verison of WR, not the AHL version). But he punked the Flames by stalling on a deal, and then asking to be moved at the last minute. Fine. F%#$ you Tim Erixon, but fine. In the trade to the Rangers Calgary got 2 2nd rnd picks, and Roman Horak. At the time of the deal I said 'two 2nds for a late first isn't a bad deal on paper, but Roman Who'?. Turns out that the 2 2nd rnd picks are Markus Granlund (another skill scoring forward - NICE!) and Tyler Wortherspoon (a project defensive defenseman, but late in the 2nd round is exactly when you should draft them *cough* Matt Pelech *cough*). But it's Horak who's already proved he may make the trade lopsided. Ticketed for the AHL to play with former linemate Ryan Howse (they were in Chilliwack together) Horak was no doubt a player already heavily scouted by the Flames. Now he's made the team (did not see that coming, I thought Byron might be closer), while Erixon finds himself out of the regular lineup in New York. Horak looked like a mercy pick up for the Abbottsford Flames to me at the time, but he's already better than Matt Stajan.
- Of the remaining big ticket signings in Nashville, I think Suter stays and they deal Weber. I also think the haul for Weber will be substantial, and may include a much needed scoring forward.
- The Bluejackets are just a mess. Whatever pain Flames fans feel at the moment, spare a thought for the lowly Jackets. They are currently trapped in that special region of hell where Freddy Brathwaite is your goaltender and Theo Fleury has to score 2pts every night by himself for the team to win. If the GM and coach are gassed, look for Nash to ask out.
- Says here the Bolts don't go past the first round without finding a #1 goalie younger than Gump Worsley to rely on.
- The injury to Enstrom's collar-bone pretty much seals all the hopes of making the playoffs that Winnipeg fans might have had into a ferro-concrete box, and then buries that box deep below the Earth's mantle.
Edmonton: Hall, Eberle, The Nuge, Paajarvi, Dubnyk
Islanders: Tavares, Okposo, Strome, De Haan, Montoya
Despite not having two first overall picks, I think the Av's have the best group of the three.
- If Jagr had played the last three seasons in the NHL he'd have well over 700 goals now. Watching him split the Toronto D in full flight to score on a breakaway was like stepping into a time machine, except the uniform was all wrong and there wasn't a mullet.
Not one, but two 'fear my wingspan' snipes to the top shelf. Pure concentrated Boneronium.
Special analysis of the Wolves courtesy of the Nexus.
The Wolves are in a close battle vs the Bladerunners in week 1 of their Head to Head matchup (Wolves 15, Bladerunners 17.86 thru Thur). But are they really that good?
The Nexus contacted some in the know candidates and asked "What do you think of the Wolves?"
* Don Cherry - "A Frenchie is their best player. Ya, I love em"
* Darrell Dexter - 'We love the Wolves - they are our biggest contributor!"
* Alpaca Spokesperson - "Baaaaaaadddddd"
* Sherlock, Bladerunners spokesperson - "The Wolves? Are They that team from Newfoundland? Sorry, we don't know a lot about them"
I was hoping to start putting out the "Official Stats" as of this morning but the past week of working with the spreadsheet has finally exposed why I have been stymied in my efforts to replace the annoyingly unreliable CBSsportsline source with the far more reliable Yahoo.com.
I won't bore you with a long history of my spreadsheet but suffice it to say that a few years ago EPSN and the NHL sites moved from being able to copy and paste the entire list of players (and pts, pim and +/-, and the goalie equivilants) to only being able to do this for 15-25 players at a time. This change made the difference between a single copy and paste to 25+ copies and paste. Big change so I looked for an alternative. For some reason I wasn't able to get Yahoo to work for me so I went with CBSsportsline, and it worked quite well, most of the time, but would frequently be delayed - sometimes for days at a time - whenever American holidays (or Super Bowl Coverage) clearly preoccupied the good people at the CBSsportsline IT department. Frustration was frequent so I committed to doing what was needed to get Yahoo to work.
Last week I found out why Yahoo had been causing me such grief - the selfish bastards at Yahoo it want to so I can't do exactly what I have wanted to do all along.
Yahoo enters the player names into the first column of stats with a "space" before the name. That little addition is enough to trip up the Vlookup function that I have been using all these years on my spreadsheet. Now it doesn't do it all the time (not sure why that is) but does it enough that I will need to manually take a space away from each name (or at least each name that we need - approximately 216 names each calculations plus any +/- players). So much for saving me time :-( Once done, the problem is fixed but it probably makes the daily stats less likely, though I should be able to get the weekly stats done once we are all set up and ready to go.
Long story short - I'm working on it and I appologize for the delay.
