Posts Tagged ‘Lies damned lies and statistics’

Doogie2K
May 16th, 2010
10:29AM UTC

SNN Predicts: 2010 Conference Finals

The Fairy Godmother's been busy, I see...

After a second round for the ages, all of us have a little egg on our faces, though some more than others…Matt.

Doogie Hoop Matt Gerard Result
4-2 4-1 4-2 4-2 4-3
4-3 4-2 4-2 4-1 4-3
4-2 4-3 4-1 4-3 4-1
4-2 4-2 4-3 4-1 4-2
1-3 3-1 0-4 2-2 W-L
10 7 15 10 GO
6-6 9-3 4-8 6-6 W-L
28 20 31 28 GO

Actually, to be perfectly fair, Matt’s picks were identical to those of one Robert McKenzie, so it’s a bit unexpected to see things blow up that badly. Also, given how Boston-Philly turned out, I actually don’t feel totally bad. I mean, if at any point the Bruins had pulled their heads out of their asses and stolen a game, it’s much more even down the stretch. As it is, Hoop has essentially won by default, Matt has been mathematically eliminated, and Gerard and I are playing for second prize. Still, as a lapsed Canadiens fan, I can’t complain about the outcome too terribly much, except to say that I’d rather have seen the 33rd installment of Habs-Bruins, and third in a row, simply as an expression of sheer cosmic will that these two teams face each other all the fucking time.

Who will win the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny out West (or as many cynics have called it, “The real Stanley Cup Final”)? Who will win the skirt-tearing slap fight of Cinderella teams out East? Answers to these questions, and many more, after the jump.

Your Stanley Cup finalists are Philadelphia and Chicago. Series starts Saturday. Go Hawks.

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Doogie2K
Apr 29th, 2010
6:43PM UTC

SNN Predicts: 2010 Conference Semifinals

It's not nice to fool Mother Nature. Or the hockey gods.

That didn’t quite go according to plan, I don’t think.

Doogie Hoop Matt Gerard Result
4-1 4-1 4-1 4-2 4-3
4-3 4-2 4-2 4-2 4-1
4-2 4-2 4-1 4-3 4-2
4-1 4-1 4-2 4-3 4-2
4-0 4-2 4-2 4-2 4-2
4-3 4-2 4-2 4-0 4-2
4-3 4-1 4-2 4-3 4-2
4-2 4-1 4-3 4-2 4-3
5-3 6-2 4-4 4-4 W-L
18 13 16 18 GO

To be fair, though, I think most of the hockey world bet against Montreal, and for pretty solid reasons. Philly…man, I don’t know what the three of us were thinking. There were way too many signs there for us to ignore. Throw in a little homerism (Matt), and a couple of gutsy picks (Gerard), and you wind up with a 4-4 record pretty quickly. The winner of round one, though, as both most correct and most accurate picker, is Hoop, with six correct series and “only” 13 games off. (See this comment for an explanation of the latter.)

Apologies for the minor lateness (it’s now 2-0 3-0 3-1 Sharks midway through the first period of Game 1); in my defence, the power kind of died around here for a little bit today due to a freak spring snowstorm. Also, I didn’t expect the game to start at 5:30 local time on a weeknight. Matt and Gerard will add their explanations/justifications later, but I’m liking the variety in this round. Time to separate the men from the boys. Or the lucky from the not. Whatever.

History Has Been Made. Too bad the commercials have been thoroughly diluted by parodies of variable quality and questionable decisions on which plays to showcase.

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Doogie2K
Apr 28th, 2010
10:45AM UTC

Hitmen Game Eve

I've been neglecting this a wee bit, haven't I?

1998 CF 2005 CSF 2007 CSF 2009 CF
4-1 4-3 4-2 4-0

 

2 3 6 4 6 4
4 2 3 3 1 1

So yeah. I didn’t actually post anything on the conference final this time around, partially due to illness, and partially due to finals. My bad. I’ll make up for it a little here before looking at the stats and figures for the Ed Chynoweth Cup Final (silent “E” in Chynoweth, apparently) between Calgary and Tri-City.

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Doogie2K
Apr 14th, 2010
4:00PM UTC

SNN Predicts: 2010 Conference Quarterfinals

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a really stupid idea.

Welcome to the third annual SNN Predicts series of articles (fourth overall, if you count the 2004 version done on the forums, lost to the mists of time but notable for the fact that I went 0-4 in series involving the Flames), in which we act like we know what we’re talking about and make our (mostly) blindingly obvious predictions, with a shocking amount of success, considering some mainstream reporters usually wind up under .500 by the time the Stanley Cup is finally awarded somewhere around Canada Day. Round One in the East seems like a cake walk, which is why someone is going to pull off the shocking upset, and Round One in the West seems much more open, which is why every team you’d expect to win will. It’s the way of the world. Countdown to the first article pronouncing Vancouver “Canada’s team,” and urging Canadians to root them to our first Stanley Cup since 1993? Let’s say T minus ten days.

Matt and Gerard were comically late getting their entries to me, so this goes up mere minutes before the start of the playoffs. But it’s on time! Improvement from last year! After the jump, let’s see some predictions…

Not really much to say about tonight’s game that hasn’t been said already. The Caps’ stars left their gameplan in a bin, and all tried to do it all themselves. The Habs block a million shots, Halak stops the other million, and it’s 2-1 for the bleu, blanc, et rouge over the red, white, and blue.

Conference semis start tomorrow. We’re on the clock, gentlemen.

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Ender
Apr 13th, 2010
6:55PM UTC

For anyone who's keeping score

A look back at the great goaltending debate of 2009

The Oilers had a lot of things go wrong this year and as much as people like to bring up the cap I’m not convinced that it limited them this year and given that they’re planning to rebuild I’m not sure it limits them next year. However, at the beginning of the season a list was published of the best goalies of the last 3 seasons who were free agents, and what they were signed at. Let’s take a look again.

  1. Martin Biron: 77 wins, .914 SV% (10th) – 1 year, 1.4 million per season
  2. Ty Conklin: 46 wins, .911 SV% (18th) – 2 years, 1.3 million per season
  3. Nikolai Khabibulin: 73 wins, .909 SV% (23rd) – 4 years,  3.75 million per season
  4. Dwayne Roloson: 70 wins, .909 SV% (25th) – 2 years, 2.5 million per season
  5. Mathieu Garon: 47 wins, .908 SV% (26th) – 2 years, 1.2 million per season
  6. Manny Fernandez: 40 wins, .907 SV% (27th) – unsigned
  7. Martin Gerber: 55 wins, .907 SV% (28th) – signed in the KHL
  8. Jason Labarbera: 25 wins, .907 SV% (29th) – 2 years, 1.0 million per season
  9. Manny Legace: 63 wins, .905 SV% (32nd) - 1 year, 0.5 million per season
  10. Olaf Kolzig: 49 wins, .902 SV% (36th) – unsigned
  11. Antero Niittymaki: 36 wins, .902 SV% (37th) – 1 year, .6 million per season
  12. Brent Johnson: 25 wins, .900 SV% (39th) – 1 year, .525 million per season
  13. Joey MacDonald: 17 wins, .900 SV% (40th) – unsigned
  14. Fredrik Norrena: 35 wins, .899 SV% (43rd) – signed in the SEL
  15. Curtis Sanford: 19 wins, .896 SV% (46th) – 1 year, .6 million per season
  16. Andrew Raycroft: 51 wins, .891 SV% (48th) – 1 year, .5 million per season
  17. Curtis Joseph: 26 wins, .889 SV% (49th) – unsigned

(Courtesy Copper ‘N Blue)

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