Quote:
Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague
Maybe, but this early in the season, the current top 10 teams in the league aren't the ten best teams in the league - Winnipeg and Minnesota, while good teams, aren't likely top 10 teams, and the Ducks, Hawks and Bolts pretty clearly are. So suggesting that those three would qualify as "Flames should win vs" teams simply based on standings position seems wrong.
Hell, Vancouver's tied for 10th in points, and the only reason for that is because they got 3 of 4 vs the Flames the first week.
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I hate this reasoning. If your record indicates that you're a top 10 team, then you are one until you aren't. Consequently, if you were supposed to be a top 10 team, but aren't performing like one, then you aren't. Simple. It's easy to determine who's doing well and who isn't: look at the damn standings.
I'm not saying it will end up that way, but there is zero reason to assume that teams who have a lot of points won't continue to perform to that level the entire year. We don't know what will happen. That's why they still play the games, otherwise the preview magazines in September would always be right. And there's always teams like the Wild who make a change and go on a ridiculous pace, but often that's an outlier and previous performance is the best indicator of future performance.
Who saw the Flames and Ducks being so god-awful early on? Not me, but it doesn't mean they should be deserving of being in the conversation of a top-10 team. On the flip-side, I happen to feel that the Ducks and Hawks were not going to have as much success this year, and I also felt that the Wild and Jets were going to be very, very good. Just because you don't agree with that doesn't mean you're right.
It's a league with a lot of parity. The separation between teams is razor thin. There are probably 3 really awful teams, 3 really exceptional teams, and a whole bunch of teams in the middle who's success is determined by things going well or things going poorly, with little to no reason as to why it works for some and doesn't work for others.
I can't say this enough: analytics are not a predictor of success in the standings. They are simply a tool to see how you're playing the game outside of the boxscore.