LATEST STORIES FROM THE PUCK STOPS HERE
How Much Power Does The Anschutz Group Have In The NHL?
September 17, 2008 by
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It is well known that some NHL owners are in Gary Bettman's inner circle and wield significant power on the NHL's decisions, while others (such as the New York Rangers) are on the outs with the commissioner of the NHL. Probably the owner who wields the most power in the league...
Moving Day
September 17, 2008 by
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I am pleased to announce that I will blogging in the future as part of the newly expanded Kukla's Korner. My blog at Kukla's Korner can be found here. I want to thank everyone for having come to this site in the past and extend an invitation for you to join me in my new adventures...
When The NHL Encourages Players To Jump To The KHL
September 15, 2008 by
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One of the main stories this summer has been the development of the KHL as a major hockey league. There have been fights over players between the NHL and the KHL. The most prominent one is that of Alexander Radulov who might be interested in jumping back to the NHL. While the NHL has...
NHLPA Sues Over Pensions
September 12, 2008 by
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One of the longstanding fights between the NHL and NHLPA has been over pensions. This has been a constant battle throughout the NHLPA history. In the Alan Eagleson days of the NHLPA, most gains made by the union were in terms of pension benefits which Eagleson himself skimmed money...
Radulov Wants Back To The NHL
September 11, 2008 by
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The NHL and the upstart KHL are fighting over players international rights. Since there is no player transfer agreement teams have been able to sign players under contract in the other league with legal uncertainty surrounding the future of those players. One of the big KHL signings...
Progress With The KHL
September 07, 2008 by
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One of the major hockey stories this summer has been the battle between the NHL and the KHL. Since there is no player transfer agreement, both leagues have claimed players have been signed by each other that were already under contract with the other league. Earlier this summer, both...
KHL Disputes As Many Transfers As Possible
September 04, 2008 by
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One strategy of the KHL to retain as much Russian talent as possible is to dispute the contract status of as many Russian players as possible who are transferring to the NHL. Even if a player does not have a clear contract for next season, when they sign with an NHL team, his contract...
McCabe Trade Showcases Leaf Problems
September 03, 2008 by
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The long awaited Toronto Maple Leaf trade of Bryan McCabe was announced yesterday. McCabe and a 2010 4th round draft pick were traded to the Florida Panthers for Mike Van Ryn. McCabe is a pretty good hockey player. He made the second team all star in 2004. He is a very good offensive...
The Case Of Brandon Sugden
September 02, 2008 by
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Throughout its history, the NHL has tried to control its players and their hockey possibilities. This goes back at least as far as the original six days when teams could hold player's rights essentially in perpetuity, unless they traded them. On several occasions, players were...
The Meszaros Offer Sheet
August 29, 2008 by
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Yesterday Adam Proteau of The Hockey News reported that Andrej Meszaros has agreed to an offer sheet with an undisclosed NHL team. Meszaros is an Ottawa Senator defenceman who has been unable to come to terms with the Sens this summer. He is a restricted free agent. So far, we have...
Ted Saskin Testifies For The NHL
August 27, 2008 by
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Much of the history of the NHLPA is a history of NHLPA bosses who enjoyed too close a relationship with the NHL bosses and thus compromised the integrity of the Player's Association. Alan Eagleson and John Ziegler were essentially golfing buddies who would agree upon future NHL...
Why You Can't Build Through Free Agency
August 23, 2008 by
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In late June, I gave an All Star Team of players who were slated to be unrestricted free agents. Of the 23 players on the team, 20 have signed with teams in the NHL. Jaromir Jagr signed in the KHL and Joe Sakic and Mats Sundin seem likely to take sabbaticals for the first part of the...
Gathering 5 on 5 Data From The NHL
August 21, 2008 by
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I am attempting a rather large sabermetrics and hockey project where I attempt a novel method top look at +/- ratings. In order to do this, I need to know the amount of icetime players have with and against each other in 5 on 5 situations. Parsing this information from NHL boxscores...
My Top 50 Player List
August 18, 2008 by
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Since The Hockey News Top 50 player list is out, here is my top 50 player list. I am posting it in the same format I did last year. I will list all the players, but only include comments on the top 10 players and on any players who made my list but were excluded from The Hockey News...
Hockey News Top 50
August 17, 2008 by
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The Hockey News annual top 50 players list has been released and can be found here. These are my comments on each player in the rankings.
1. Sidney Crosby (1st last year). The question of whether to rank Crosby or Ovechkin first is one that leads to debate. Ovechkin stayed healthy...
Proposed New Method To Look At +/- Ratings
August 15, 2008 by
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I have looked at the hockey sabermetrics problem of adjusting +/- ratings this summer. I have shown two methods to do this. One as a rate stat and one as a counting stat. It is clear that there is a lot of information in +/- ratings, but the interpretation of getting it out in a meaningful...
On/Off Ice Adjusted Goals Against Average
August 14, 2008 by
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In this summer's sabermetrics and hockey posts, I have been looking at the problem of on and off ice adjusted +/- ratings as set out by Gabriel Desjardins of behindthenet.ca. In order to show that the on/off ice adjustment is an improvement, I have looked at the effect of this...
Isles Hire A Coach They Can Fire
August 13, 2008 by
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It's an often stated line that "Coaches are hired to be fired". While this is often true, there are some meaningful exceptions (for example Jacques Lemaire and Barry Trotz have been the only coaches in the histories of their franchises), several coaches are replaced each...
On/Off Ice Adjusted Goals For Average
August 12, 2008 by
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In order to look at the biases of the sabermetric problem of adjusting +/- ratings using the on/off ice method, I thought I would apply it to a simpler problem. That of goals for average (GFA) (namely how many goals are scored per 60 minutes a player plays in 5 on 5 situations). As...
US Olympic Team
August 11, 2008 by
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Yesterday, I posted a hypothetical 2008 Canadian Olympic Hockey Team. Today, I will do the same for the Americans. This is the team of players who I would chose to represent USA if there was an Olympic hockey tournament right now:
Goaltenders
Rick DiPietro New York Islanders
Ryan...
Canadian Olympic Team
August 10, 2008 by
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The Beijing Summer Olympics are underway. I thought I would make up a Canadian Olympic hockey team. These are the players I would put on a team if they played today. This is not a prediction for the 2010 Olympics where we imagine players are two year older than they are now and maybe...
Individual Goals For Average
August 09, 2008 by
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We can calculate individual goals against averages and we can also calculate individual goals for averages. When a player is on the ice in a 5 on 5 situation and his team scores he gets credited with a goal for (even if he doesn't score or assist on it). This is another sabermetric...
Individual Goals Against Averages
August 07, 2008 by
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I have written several sabermetrics and hockey posts this summer about adjusting +/- ratings. This is a useful method to rank NHL players. It is not an entirely simple or solved problem, but it is one that will likely lead to some sabermetric advances in the future.
If we want to...
The +/- Challenge Of Anaheim's Checking Line
August 06, 2008 by
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In my recent sabermetrics and hockey posts about on/off ice adjusted +/- ratings one group of players that keep coming up with unique stats is the Anaheim Duck checking line of Sami Pahlsson, Rob Niedermayer and Travis Moen. All three of them rank as one in the ten worst quality of...
Measuring Quality Of Teammates
August 05, 2008 by
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One issue to address in the sabermetrics and hockey problem of adjusting +/- ratings is the quality of teammates a player has. Since players will play different roles on their teams, different players will share ice time with different quality of linemates. Some players will play with...
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