LATEST STORIES FROM MUDCRUTCH79 HOCKEY
The Red Wings model entails more than just lots of guys
September 13, 2009 by
Mudcrutch79 Hockey
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I’ve got a ton of different posts in the hopper that I’m going to try to pump out in the next few days. This one came about because of Pat LaForge’s comments in the Journal the other day, whining that the Oilers lost a bunch of money last year. There are a million [...]
Oh, what tangled webs we weave
September 09, 2009 by
Mudcrutch79 Hockey
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Lisa: Remember, it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Homer (internal monologue): What does that mean? Better say something or they’ll think you’re stupid.
Homer: Takes one to know one.
Homer (internal monologue)...
Hope Springs Eternal
September 08, 2009 by
Mudcrutch79 Hockey
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From Pat Hickey in the Montreal Gazette:
[Georges] Laraque has two years remaining on a contract that pays him $1.5 million a season.
He was generally a disappointment last season, but he could be a valuable part of the team this season if (a) he stays healthy and (b) he gets over...
Your 2009-10 Oilers
September 07, 2009 by
Mudcrutch79 Hockey
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I’ve picked up a copy of Fever Pitch (I’d heard the book was great but the taste of the Jimmy Fallon movie was too much for me to get over for quite some time). It is, indeed, as good as promised, although it’s hard to feel much sympathy for Nick Hornsby when he writes:
I [...]
Just Visiting
September 03, 2009 by
Mudcrutch79 Hockey
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I’ve got an absolutely dynamite tax policy post that I’m just waiting for the seemingly inevitable federal election to unleash but I was amused by this excerpt from an interview that Michael Ignatieff did with the New Yorker on the New York Times’ hockey blog, which...
In which we find a more absurd senatorial CV line than “SNL Cast, 1975-1995″
August 27, 2009 by
Mudcrutch79 Hockey
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I’m a big fan of the MacLeans’ blogs, notwithstanding their terrifying commentariat and the fact that Aaron Wherry knows he’s making dishonest arguments and doesn’t care or is the stupidest person in the country. Senator Jacques Demers drew his own post today...
The myth of the slow start
August 24, 2009 by
Mudcrutch79 Hockey
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One of the constant media lines surrounding the Oilers during 2008-09 seemed to be that they suffered from slow starts, not getting into games until they were down a goal or two. This quote, from Tom Gilbert, is pretty typical:
“Slow starts plagued us a little bit throughout...
2003-04 OHL Scoring Amongst 2004 NHL Draftees
August 23, 2009 by
Mudcrutch79 Hockey
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Further to my post below, I went and put together a chart of OHL forwards who were drafted in 2004, provided that 2004 was their first year of eligiblity.
It’s pretty obvious how weird Schremp’s year was. He was the second OHL forward drafted that year. Every player who...
PP Scoring Amongst Juniors
August 23, 2009 by
Mudcrutch79 Hockey
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Sometime in the next month or so, Rob Schremp’s time as an Edmonton Oiler is likely to come to an end. I have no particular feeling about that - while I’ve never really been a fan of the guy, I like the Oilers, so if he turned into Brett Hull, that would have been [...]
The “Winning 31 Games” of “Insane Athlete Comments”
August 14, 2009 by
Mudcrutch79 Hockey
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I’ve made fun of Joffrey Lupul and Todd Bertuzzi in the past for some comments that indicate something less than perfect self-awareness. Denny McLain makes them look like post-therapy Metallica.
H/T: The excellent Craig Calcaterra.
Dowbiggin and integrity
August 12, 2009 by
Mudcrutch79 Hockey
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From Bruce Dowbiggin:
Blogs get Kaned: The question of whether independent bloggers should have equal status with mainstream media is a hot topic in the industry. But the alleged Patrick Kane robbery and battery of a cabby was not exactly a shining moment for the integrity of bloggers...
Fall of the Wings? Nah.
August 09, 2009 by
Mudcrutch79 Hockey
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I don’t like the Red Wings. The deification of Steve Yzerman late in his career just irritated me. I was thrilled that his last shift in the NHL featured a weak hook to Ales Hemsky’s waist as Hemsky blew by him on his way to the series winning goal. The Hockeytown schtick [...]
Koivu and WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
August 07, 2009 by
Mudcrutch79 Hockey
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Gabe Desjardins has a fine WOWY analysis up at Puck Prospectus, looking at Saku Koivu’s fifteen years with the Habs (en francais, mes amis Albertan). Gabe concludes that Koivu was worth about 2.5 wins/82 games for the Habs during that time and (if I still know how to read French...
Prairie hockey and song
August 06, 2009 by
Mudcrutch79 Hockey
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I was watching the Les Dales Hawerchuk video for Dale Hawerchuk today (above - the credits are thirty seconds long and stupid, but the chorus is pretty catchy - “Car je ne suis plus Sylvain Seguin / moi je suis Dale Hawerchuk”). Part of what I like about it is that...
It’s going to be a confusing year to read Flames’ stories
August 05, 2009 by
Mudcrutch79 Hockey
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From NHL.com:
“We went from first in the League (in goals-against during the 2005-06 season) to 23rd (in 2008-09),” Darryl Sutter said, “and were, quite honestly, fortunate to be a playoff team.”
The GM has been at it with a vengeance this summer in an effort...
The mighty have fallen
August 04, 2009 by
Mudcrutch79 Hockey
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I’m fiddling around with some shooting percentage stuff in the post-lockout era, looking at the big gainers and droppers compared to career norms. Erik Cole’s a weird one in that he makes the list in both 2007-08 and 2008-09. He came into the 2007-08 season having scored...
It’s not collusion
July 30, 2009 by
Mudcrutch79 Hockey
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The always cautious James Mirtle picks up on Bruce Garrioch’s collusion story and adds the following:
“NHL teams know that [players will panic] and for the most part agents think NHL headquarters instructed teams to get as many players as possible to free-agent market to...
Sheltering MAB
July 29, 2009 by
Mudcrutch79 Hockey
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Just a quick chart here, looking at how coaches used their defencemen for faceoffs.
What I did was look at each team’s defencemen who were on the ice for at least 500 draws and pull the defenceman with the highest ratio of defensive to offensive draws, relative to the team,...
Faceoffs, defencemen and Corsi
July 28, 2009 by
Mudcrutch79 Hockey
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There was a post at The Puck Stops Here that was excerpted in a thread at Hockey’s Future that I thought warranted a bit of comment, as it touched on mc79hockey fave Dan Heyda. I’m going to excerpt a rather large part of it but go read the whole thing:
It is clear that when [...]
Rights and remedies
July 27, 2009 by
Mudcrutch79 Hockey
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If you don’t read The Agitator, you really should. Radley Balko, the guy who writes the site did some amazing stuff for a fellow by the name of Cory Maye who was sent to death row after being convicted of shooting a cop and, while I don’t agree with some of the more doctrinaire [...]
Yet another angle on Khabibulin
July 25, 2009 by
Mudcrutch79 Hockey
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I recently read a great book by a guy named Dan Gardner, a writer with the Ottawa Citizen, called Risk: Why We Fear Things We Shouldn’t - and Put Ourselves in Greater Danger. I think of him as being sort of a less-pop, more substantive Malcolm Gladwell type - I’m not a...
July 24, 2009 by
Mudcrutch79 Hockey
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Clearly, Cosh and I subscribe to the same Twitter feeds:
Twitter is a site that allows one to publish a feed or stream of text messages — each no more than 140 characters in length — and to subscribe to similar feeds published by individuals, institutions and various species of...
Storm Davis and Nikolai Khabibulin
July 23, 2009 by
Mudcrutch79 Hockey
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The above video really has nothing to do with the content of the post, but I followed a link to a Weezer cover from Oilogosphere alumnus Andy Grabia the other day, realized I’d already heard the song and liked it and now knew the song’s title. I’m turning thirty...
The New New Thing: Pouliot Replaces Brodziak?
July 21, 2009 by
Mudcrutch79 Hockey
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I was surprised to see that I hadn’t posted this yet: a list of ES offensive and defensive zone faceoffs for the various Oilers in 2008-09. Tip of the hat to Vic and www.timeonice.com. I don’t usually think about narrow hockey issues in the summer but, in my various travels...
Stortini and Corsi
July 18, 2009 by
Mudcrutch79 Hockey
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The post below has kind of turned into a dispute about the merits of Zach Stortini. Stortini has been a long running subject of debate around the sphere - there’s a Oilers fan sect that seems to love the fact that he runs around, will fight anyone and that he gives a good effort. [...]
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