02-04-2013, 12:17 PM
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#528
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Lifetime Suspension
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: The Void between Darkness and Light
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Erick Estrada
I never said there was no chance they can't turn it around. All I'm saying is there is plenty of evidence that points to them doing what they have done every season for the past few years which simply hasn't been good enough.
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Quote:
A few years ago, I was chatting with a GM about a team that started the NHL season very nicely.
"I believe in the 10-game rule," he snorted. "You don't get a true sense of a team in the first 10 games. I don't put too much into a hot or cold start."
Well, he's modified that stance -- slightly.
"With the three-point games, teams can't win the Stanley Cup in the first 10 games of the season," he said. "But they sure can lose it that quickly."
Spent a few hours on Sunday looking up the post-lockout standings, picking the date of Nov. 1 for each year. During those six seasons, the difference between eighth place and last place in each conference ranged from four to eight points. That early, it's difficult to create an incredible amount of separation.
Twenty teams who were not in the top eight on Nov. 1 recovered to make the playoffs. That's an average of almost 3.5 per season. (Just to clarify, the "Top 8" includes any team with the same point total as the eighth-place team. I wasn't going into tiebreakers so early in the season.)
Doesn't seem so bad, right? Depends. The safety net shreds for anyone falling too far behind. Of those 20 teams, guess how many of them were more than three points out?
Two. That's it.
The Buffalo Sabres were four points in arrears on Nov. 1, 2011. But that's absolutely cozy compared to the Calgary Flames, who were seven back on Nov. 1, 2007. Those recoveries are impressive, considering 27 other clubs failed to make the playoffs in the past six seasons when falling four points behind by that date.
So, that's something to keep an eye on. If your team is two wins out of the playoffs at the beginning of November, the three-point games give it a seven per cent chance of recovery.
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http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/opin...dmanoct17.html
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