[OOT] October 15th, 2013 (12 games)

[BigTuna]

Originally Posted by Cali Flames Fan

BTW...when did Toronto get so good? I thought they were going to have a tough time to make the playoffs again this year because of all those advanced stats?

Advanced stats are a joke. They claimed the loss of Macarthur and Grabovski would hurt so much, yet both took smaller roles last year than ever and the Leafs made the playoffs. When they were top 6 players, the Leafs were a bottom 5 team.

Advanced stats seem to ignore goaltending as well.

[BigTuna]

Originally Posted by strombad

It's unsustainable. For how long we are not sure, it might be a few weeks, a few months, a few seasons even, but if one thing is certain, it's that corsi tells us it's unsustainable.

The Leafs high shooting percentage has been ongoing for 3 years. They have a lot of snipers.

[strombad]

Originally Posted by BigTuna

The Leafs high shooting percentage has been ongoing for 3 years. They have a lot of snipers.

Sorry, green text.
I was just trashing advanced stats fanboys, not the Leafs.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by BigTuna

The Leafs high shooting percentage has been ongoing for 3 years. They have a lot of snipers.

It's also the run and gun style. The odd man rush is a high scoring percentage play. The Leafs are a team that gives up and creates a lot of odd man rushes. They score a lot of their goals by having 2-3 make a pass and then shoot. Put a few quality snipers with passing chemistry in that situation, they are going to score on a high percentage of completed opportunities.

People say the same thing about Glencross, about his scoring percentage being unsustainable. His game is to shovel in pucks from close proximity to the net. Also a naturally high percentage scoring play.

Contrast those stats with a defenceman, who has roughly half the shooting percentage of a forward:

http://www.sportingcharts.com/articl...n-the-nhl.aspx

[nik-]

Originally Posted by troutman

10,594 fans in Glendale to see Sens.

It's alright though, I mean there was

a Cardinals Game
a Suns game
a Diamondbacks game
ownership issues preventing people from investing their time in the team

... oh

[opendoor]

All the hubris around the Leafs vis a vis the statistics arguments is going to be pretty funny when their numbers inevitably correct themselves. We saw it last year when after their hot start they won only 11 of their final 25 games and unless they pick up their play we'll see it again.

Call me crazy but I don't see their goalies maintaining a PK SV% of .940 all year, nor do I think we'll see their PP continue at nearly 35%. Their start reminds me of the 09-10 Flames' start where they shot at 16% and had a 40% PP over the first 10-15 games.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by troutman

10,594 fans in Glendale to see Sens.

Tuesday night game against an Eastern Conference, Canadian team, with likely minimal local support. That's pretty good for the first year of trying to (re)build their fan base.

The last time the Sens were in Phoenix, the attendance was 8,061. It was also a Tuesday night game (January 24, 2012). The time before that was 8,642 for a Saturday night game (December 5, 2009).


If they can increase their attendance against every team the way they did against the Sens, I'm sure the new owners will be happy.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by opendoor

All the hubris around the Leafs vis a vis the statistics arguments is going to be pretty funny when their numbers inevitably correct themselves. We saw it last year when after their hot start they won only 11 of their final 25 games and unless they pick up their play we'll see it again.

Call me crazy but I don't see their goalies maintaining a PK SV% of .940 all year, nor do I think we'll see their PP continue at nearly 35%. Their start reminds me of the 09-10 Flames' start where they shot at 16% and had a 40% PP over the first 10-15 games.

That last game should be all you need to know.

Yeah, they won. They were severely outplayed in all parts of the ice.

Soon, they will begin to drop like a stone.

Reminds me also of that year San Jose went something like 12-1 or 15-2 to start the season, then won 3 of their next 18. (these are all approximations, obviously).

[theinfinitejar]

Originally Posted by 19Yzerman19

Because the league just suspended Edler 3 games for the same thing.

Hits aren't anything alike.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

That last game should be all you need to know.

Yeah, they won. They were severely outplayed in all parts of the ice.

Soon, they will begin to drop like a stone.

Reminds me also of that year San Jose went something like 12-1 or 15-2 to start the season, then won 3 of their next 18. (these are all approximations, obviously).

It's also possible that their play will pick up to match their record rather than their record dropping down to meet their play. Poor possession numbers over 7 games don't mean a whole lot so I'm not confident predicting which way they'll go. I just get a kick out of people who are talking like Toronto has reinvented hockey because of a hot start last year and a hot start this year.

Their percentages will return to a more reasonable range one way or another. Either they'll maintain their offensive and defensive numbers by putting up a better shot differential or their goal differential will drop down closer to where their shot differential is. That doesn't mean they have to be in lockstep with one another, but decades of hockey have shown that they're intimately related.

They can be a high shooting percentage team and/or they can get great goaltending, but there are limits to both over the long term. No one thinks that Varlamov will maintain his .965 sv% over the entire season or that Hertl will maintain his 33% shooting percentage all year, so I'm not sure why the idea that the Leafs likely won't maintain their percentages over 82 games is met with such derision.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by opendoor

It's also possible that their play will pick up to match their record rather than their record dropping down to meet their play. Poor possession numbers over 7 games don't mean a whole lot so I'm not confident predicting which way they'll go. I just get a kick out of people who are talking like Toronto has reinvented hockey because of a hot start last year and a hot start this year.

Their percentages will return to a more reasonable range one way or another. Either they'll maintain their offensive and defensive numbers by putting up a better shot differential or their goal differential will drop down closer to where their shot differential is. That doesn't mean they have to be in lockstep with one another, but decades of hockey have shown that they're intimately related.

They can be a high shooting percentage team and/or they can get great goaltending, but there are limits to both over the long term. No one thinks that Varlamov will maintain his .965 sv% over the entire season or that Hertl will maintain his 33% shooting percentage all year, so I'm not sure why the idea that the Leafs likely won't maintain their percentages over 82 games is met with such derision.

Maybe you've got some data on this either way, but I would venture to guess that even if they increase their shot output, the main cause of decline in wins etc will be a decline in 5-5 sv%, where they are currently 10th in the league, around .930. Like Calgary, they are seeing a disproportionate amount of shots against per game, but so far the save percentage is high. in the case of the Flames, that will invariably drop as the quality of goaltending isn't as high as in Toronto, but I question whether Bernier can do much to prevent a similar free fall.

Last year, they finished 15th in the league with a .918 sv% 5-5. I'm going to assume that .910-920 is an average 5-5 sv%, which suggests a regression for the Leafs from where they are at now ( .930).

Combined with a likely decline in powerplay effectiveness, top 5 in both 5-4 shots and goals for per game, the Leafs appear to me to eventually slow down to the middle third of the league, where the rest of their team stats sit. In the East, this might put them as a top 3 divisional team, but overall, puts them as a middling club.

Currently they sit in the bottom 5 for shots for 5-5 in the league, and their peers in that area tell a tale. While they might be reducing scoring chances with tight defensive play 5-5, eventually the lack of manufactured shooting opportunities will catch up with them, as it has early with the rangers, flyers, oilers, sabres, and devils, the teams surrounding them in the bottom third of the league.

I don't know when they will drop, but I do know that in early season statistics, outliers don't generally stay that way for the rest of the season, either positively or negatively.

I haven't watched enough games to decide whether they are phoney defensively or phoney in the offensive zone, but, watching that Oilers/Leafs game, I walked away with the distinct impression that they were phoney.

[BigTuna]

Originally Posted by opendoor

All the hubris around the Leafs vis a vis the statistics arguments is going to be pretty funny when their numbers inevitably correct themselves. We saw it last year when after their hot start they won only 11 of their final 25 games and unless they pick up their play we'll see it again.

Call me crazy but I don't see their goalies maintaining a PK SV% of .940 all year, nor do I think we'll see their PP continue at nearly 35%. Their start reminds me of the 09-10 Flames' start where they shot at 16% and had a 40% PP over the first 10-15 games.

Not that high, but they do have two of the best goalies from last season in terms of save %. They are in a really great position in between the pipes.

And the Leafs can play much better than they have.

[KootenayFlamesFan]

Originally Posted by BigTuna

Not that high, but they do have two of the best goalies from last season in terms of save %. They are in a really great position in between the pipes.

The point remains.........a 940% is night and day versus a 920%.

The powerplay % will come down as well.

And the Leafs can play much better than they have.

Yes, every team in the NHL can say that. They can also play much worse.