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edslunch · 12-06-2014, 08:51 AM

My gripe with PDO is the notion that everything must regress to the mean. Meaning if you played a long enough season every team should end up at 100%. And presumably every team then would be tied in the standings, every team would have an equal chance of winning the Cup.

That's patently ridiculous. Some goalies are elite, some aren't. Some players are more skilled scorers than others. Some teams have more talent, some teams have better systems, some teams have more injuries, etc., etc. Let's not assume the league is a bell curve.

Still, though, over time we can build up a pretty good idea of the normal range. If a team is putting up numbers that are unprecedented in NHL history then it's a fair bet they are over their heads. So while the idea that the Flames must drop back to 100 is BS, they are certainly outliers and may not be able to sustain it.

In short, I don't think the PDO crowd is necessarily wrong, but they undermine any credibility by a) being too absolute about it, without considering other factors and b) expressing themselves very poorly.

12-06-2014, 08:51 AM	#14
edslunch Franchise Player Join Date: Apr 2009 Exp:	My gripe with PDO is the notion that everything must regress to the mean. Meaning if you played a long enough season every team should end up at 100%. And presumably every team then would be tied in the standings, every team would have an equal chance of winning the Cup. That's patently ridiculous. Some goalies are elite, some aren't. Some players are more skilled scorers than others. Some teams have more talent, some teams have better systems, some teams have more injuries, etc., etc. Let's not assume the league is a bell curve. Still, though, over time we can build up a pretty good idea of the normal range. If a team is putting up numbers that are unprecedented in NHL history then it's a fair bet they are over their heads. So while the idea that the Flames must drop back to 100 is BS, they are certainly outliers and may not be able to sustain it. In short, I don't think the PDO crowd is necessarily wrong, but they undermine any credibility by a) being too absolute about it, without considering other factors and b) expressing themselves very poorly. Last edited by edslunch; 12-06-2014 at 08:54 AM.