[News] Vancouver fires Desjardins

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Originally Posted by Firebot

And yes, the Avalanche are significantly worse than the pre-McDavid Oilers. the Oilers worst ever non-lockout point total in the past 25 years of no good is 62 points. The Avalanche are a full 14 points lower on the no good pole than the worst no good the Oilers ever came up with.

And how you can conclude that the strength of their division/conference has no bearing on that is bewildering to me. You are saying the stats say the Avalanche are worse. But if the stats are skewed by quality of competition than that makes it a questionable assumption.

[bigrangy]

The Avs were comfortably worse than the grease ever were this season and may actually have been the worst non-expansion team that wasn't deliberately tanking.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher

And how you can conclude that the strength of their division/conference has no bearing on that is bewildering to me. You are saying the stats say the Avalanche are worse. But if the stats are skewed by quality of competition than that makes it a questionable assumption.

Run the numbers. By any standard, the Avalanche this year are one of the worst teams in recent NHL history.

The team played 30 games against Central Division opponents, and were 8-21-1 in those games. They played 20 games against Pacific opponents, and were 2-16-2.

Suppose you go back and put them in the Pacific instead, so they play 10 extra games in our division. Suppose you cherrypick the schedule so that you remove 10 of the games they actually lost to Central Division opponents – knowing which 10 to choose, which of course is impossible in reality. Suppose (which is also pretty much impossible) that they actually win all 10 of the added games against the Pacific opponents. They still finish the season with only 68 points. In the actual season that was played, the 29th-place team got 69. And that is the maximum possible change in standings that could result from a different strength of schedule. It still doesn't get them out of 30th, unless it also results in Vancouver losing more games.

The Avs were godawful. They had a losing record against every division, and it wasn't even close. Strength of schedule is precisely zero percent of the reason they finished dead last.

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

Run the numbers. By any standard, the Avalanche this year are one of the worst teams in recent NHL history.

The team played 30 games against Central Division opponents, and were 8-21-1 in those games. They played 20 games against Pacific opponents, and were 2-16-2.

Suppose you go back and put them in the Pacific instead, so they play 10 extra games in our division. Suppose you cherrypick the schedule so that you remove 10 of the games they actually lost to Central Division opponents – knowing which 10 to choose, which of course is impossible in reality. Suppose (which is also pretty much impossible) that they actually win all 10 of the added games against the Pacific opponents. They still finish the season with only 68 points. In the actual season that was played, the 29th-place team got 69. And that is the maximum possible change in standings that could result from a different strength of schedule. It still doesn't get them out of 30th, unless it also results in Vancouver losing more games.

The Avs were godawful. They had a losing record against every division, and it wasn't even close. Strength of schedule is precisely zero percent of the reason they finished dead last.

I understand all that. My argument was not solely about division though. The entire Western Conference is stronger right now then it was a few years back. Two of the worst teams in the West from last year (CGY and EDM) are in the playoffs. So arguably the West is massively better just from that unless two playoff teams were worsened as much as CGY/EDM improved. The strength of the divisions/conferences is not static. It changes year to year. Apparently I'm the only person who buys into that idea.

ANA - similarly good to last year (=)
SJ - similarly good to last year (=)
LA - slightly worse than last year (-)
DAL - substantially worse than last year (--)
CGY - substantially better than last year (++)
EDM - substantially better than last year (++)
VAN - pretty much the same (=)
ARI - slightly better than last year (+)
CHI - similarly good to last year (=)
MIN - slightly better than last year (+)
STL - slightly worse than last year (-)
WPG - slightly better than last year (+)
NSH - similarly good to last year (=)

So excluding COL you will see that the West overall got better this year to the tune of +++. This in turn caused the worst team in the west to look way worse. Is this logic not sound? Does the overall improvement of the Western Conference not have a direct impact on how high the worst team in that conference will place in the standings? For all we know EDM of a few years ago might've had 40 points in this current version of the West if you switch them with COL

COL is the only super weak team in the west this year. In previous years there were multiple horrible teams including teams that were flat out tanking for McDavid/Eichel/Matthews. No one is intentionally tanking this year for this below avg draft.

[burn_this_city]

Dim Jim sounded like a complete goof during his presser today. It's my job to go over the team personnel and stuff.. Who says and stuff?

[dustygoon]

But Benning still has a job. All is ok.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher

I understand all that. My argument was not solely about division though. The entire Western Conference is stronger right now then it was a few years back.

The West sucked most of this season. The playoff race got the most out of many teams (us included), but theoretically, we only needed 88 points to make the playoffs. That's terrible.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Dim Jim sounded like a complete goof during his presser today. It's my job to go over the team personnel and stuff.. Who says and stuff?

[activeStick]

Looking forward to Willie D being the next former Canuck coach to find success elsewhere and then listening to Canuck fans whine about it on the internet including CP!

[The Original FFIV]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Dim Jim sounded like a complete goof during his presser today. It's my job to go over the team personnel and stuff.. Who says and stuff?

Stuff...like...you know...should be a JB press conference drinking game.

I feel bad for the guy. No polish whatsoever, needs to take a public speaking class. He definitely knows the scouting side (apart from questionable Virtanen pick - which may have been influenced by owner) but going with rookie pres, gm and coach didn't work out for Nucks.

[The Original FFIV]

Originally Posted by activeStick

Looking forward to Willie D being the next former Canuck coach to find success elsewhere and then listening to Canuck fans whine about it on the internet including CP!

Only if his new team trades for megna and chaput. Then he will be Jack Adams worthy.

[The Original FFIV]

Originally Posted by socalwingfan

Friedman was speculating Hitchcock back to Dallas this AM, can't see him going anywhere near Vancouver

Hitch has said he'd like the opportunity to coach in western Canada. That being said, might not be the best fit given the young players they are trying to develop. Goldobin would give him fits. Next coach has to to in there and break up the twins, hitch has the balls to do so but can he nurture the kids?

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher

I understand all that. My argument was not solely about division though. The entire Western Conference is stronger right now then it was a few years back.

No, it isn't. This year, the Western Conference was significantly weaker than the East, as measured by the standings from inter-conference games. Ignoring loser points, Eastern teams won 233 games against Western opponents; Western teams won 215 games against Eastern opponents. Even if you exclude Colorado's inter-conference games, the West still won fewer than the East – 203 to 213. In some recent seasons, the ratio ran as high as 5 to 4 in favour of the West. No longer.

The Avs played 32 games against Eastern opponents and 50 in the West. If they had played in the Eastern Conference this season, they would have had 54 in the East and 28 against the West. If they had the same winning percentage against each conference, that would have given them 55 points. Their truly putrid record against the Pacific Division would have mattered less, but they would still be comfortably last overall.

No matter how much lipstick you put on it, it's still a pig.