Wednesday Caps Clips
by EmilyB on Sep 8, 2010 6:33 AM EDT
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- The blue-and-gold Tre Kronor longship docked at Kettler Capitals Iceplex on Tuesday morning, returning the Caps' Viking centermen to North America for the 2010-2011 season. Welcome back Nicklas Backstrom, Marcus Johansson, and Anton Gustafsson. [@WashCaps, CapsSnaps (pics), OFB (pics)]
- The Swedes joined several other vets and hopefuls on the ice, including Semyon Varlamov, Mike Knuble, Tomas Fleischmann, Matt Bradley, Jeff Schultz, John Erskine, Boyd Gordon, and D.J. King, plus an off-ice Jason Chimera with his son. Mike Vogel caught up with a few of the vets to find out how they spent their summers. [Caps365]
- Speaking of Chimmer, he gets the "30 in 30" treatment. [Red Line Station]
- Katie Carrera chatted with some of the prospects. AnGus needs to have a good camp. Really, really needs. Really. [Caps Insider]
- And Corey Masisak has all your travel details. In case you ever need to get from somewhere near the border between Slovakia and the Czech Republic to Dulles in a hurry, flying out of Vienna is your best bet. [Masisak]
- Flash, David Steckel (oh hai there Stecks! We must have just missed seeing you on the ice...) and Slapshot took a field trip to Avalon Elementary. Aw. [Caps in the Community]
- The Capitals are ramping up their youth hockey outreach. Huzzah. [Vogs]
- So. How good is your power play? [Behind the Net]
- And just how good is John Carlson? Keeping in mind that every peak has its valley. [Peerless]
- Oh, Alex. A snowboarding sheep? Never, ever change. [RMNB]
- Getting to know Stingrays/Bears goalie prospect Jared DeMichiel. [Stack the Pads]
- The season previews and predictions are starting to roll in. [The Hockey News]
- Debating the Hart - and the panelists are finding it hard to make a case for anyone but the usual suspects. [THN]
- It's not difficult to make a case for the tops of the projected scoring leaderboards. [TSN]
- It takes all kinds - and your hockey friends are no different. [Jumping the Glass]
- The sweater countdown continues. Onward to 40-49. [Rock the Red]
- Vote Weagle! Or vote Big Brown Bear With Very Large Claws And Eleven Calder Cups. Your call. [Icethetics]
- A Caps-focused look at the 'Canes. [KOL]
- "Hockey Diaries: The Almost Season: 09-10 Wash Capitals' season" debuts on XM 204 and NHL.com from XM's studio in DC this Friday at 7 Eastern. If only. [mediachameleon]
- Speaking of "Hockey Diaries," here are some prescient words from Knuble (look for similar cliches coming soon to a practice rink near you.) [mediachameleon]
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Nitpick on the John Carlson link: “how just good?”
Fantasy Teams: Baby Got Backstrom (Ladies of Twitter) and All's Fehr in the Crease (Six Beers Too Many)
Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. ;-)
You perhaps knew me better as "Your Nation's Capital." Same great commentary, now with 100% more transparency!
BTW EmilyB, since it happened over the summer when I was less than around the Rink, I never congratulated you on your “promotion” to official contributor. CONGRATS!
"Do you see my fist? It was fists like these that built quaint Canadian cities out of the harsh Canadian wilderness, etc. etc."
by SeattleCapsFan on Sep 8, 2010 12:56 PM EDT up reply actions
Thank you, SeattleCapsFan. It is a privilege and an honor to contribute to the best blog about the best team in hockey. With, of course, the wittiest and best-looking commentariat in all of pro sports. Cheers to a great season for all of us, players and fans alike.
You perhaps knew me better as "Your Nation's Capital." Same great commentary, now with 100% more transparency!
We are pretty good looking, aren’t we :)
"Do you see my fist? It was fists like these that built quaint Canadian cities out of the harsh Canadian wilderness, etc. etc."
by SeattleCapsFan on Sep 8, 2010 1:36 PM EDT up reply actions
Anyone think the CHL isn’t receiving money from EA to use their amateur players’ likenesses in a video game? Yeah, didn’t think so.
"#DCU is like senior prom. A bunch of people standing around waiting for a 17-year old to score."
CHL is a “professional” league, right? I know the NCAA gets money from their games.
Money don't make my world go round...i'm reaching out to a higher ground
Ron and Fez 11 to 3
by YvonLabresMoustache on Sep 8, 2010 7:48 AM EDT up reply actions
In the Buzzing the Net piece in the sidebar “There is really no financial benefit to the Canadian Hockey League or our teams or players,” and that it’s more for the marketing/exposure of the league.
"#DCU is like senior prom. A bunch of people standing around waiting for a 17-year old to score."
That’s what I initially thought (the marketing thing), because there are a LOT of people out there who have no idea about Junior hockey and how good it can be a lot of the time.
Money don't make my world go round...i'm reaching out to a higher ground
Ron and Fez 11 to 3
by YvonLabresMoustache on Sep 8, 2010 7:56 AM EDT up reply actions
From that sidebar, this:
According to Dubas, any standard junior contract contains a clause which allows the use of a player’s name and likeness by the teams who sign them. So unlike their NHL brethren, the players have no leverage when it comes to negotiating their deals with their individual leagues – OHL, WHL and QMJHL – having the final say on contracts.
“If you had that (name and likeness) clause negated I would doubt a contract would be approved; that would be the league trying to protect itself,” said Dubas. “There’s no union either where a player can elect to opt out of licensing agreements like there are for NHL players or Major League Baseball players.”
They’re a little better than the NCAA, to where at least they give their guys a small stipend, but making money off a likeness that a player has no control of (and sees no money from) just seems wrong to me.
Money don't make my world go round...i'm reaching out to a higher ground
Ron and Fez 11 to 3
by YvonLabresMoustache on Sep 8, 2010 8:50 AM EDT up reply actions
It’s just a condition of the contract, something the players give up to be seen in the best junior leagues in the world, playing against top competition, en route to trying to make a career in the game of hockey. If they don’t want to be a part of that, they can ply their trade elsewhere.
Japers' Rink: Hockey blogging from the most powerful city in the world
Like where? Europe? The AHL? Both of those don’t seem like viable options for 16-20 year olds.
Money don't make my world go round...i'm reaching out to a higher ground
Ron and Fez 11 to 3
by YvonLabresMoustache on Sep 8, 2010 9:10 AM EDT up reply actions
Exactly.
Money don't make my world go round...i'm reaching out to a higher ground
Ron and Fez 11 to 3
by YvonLabresMoustache on Sep 8, 2010 10:05 AM EDT up reply actions
Can we get confirmation on Chimera’s kid’s name? Post makes me think he named his kid Beast. Beast! Would love to know how he got away with that name.
Nice pics in the caps snaps. I am ashamed to say that I can’t tell AnGus and MarJo apart just based on their faces.
And trying to figure out who’s shooting based on the back of a jersey with no name and no number…my fan credentials are tarnished.
Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
Mackan’s hair is black and AnGus is blonde. You can tell by their eyebrows.
by DrinkingPartner on Sep 8, 2010 9:37 AM EDT up reply actions
It’ll be a lot easier to tell once AnGus gets dinged during camp and has to miss time.
"#DCU is like senior prom. A bunch of people standing around waiting for a 17-year old to score."
Or you could tell by the guy that is in a Caps jersey and the guy that is in a Stingrays jersey.
Lockout talk makes me want to go out and choke an old lady - Elliotte Friedman
BtN on the PP
Interesting article. The one quibble I have on his methodology is that he assumes equal talent distribution, which I feel sure is not a valid assumption.
Nonetheless, his underlying point, that PP success rates on a year-to-year basis are significantly affected by luck, passes the sniff test with me.
It does help explain why a unit that clicked at 1-for-4 all year could suddenly go 1-for-33.
Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
I agree with you. Even talent distribution (both in terms of on-ice skill and coaching) is a ludicrous assumption. Uneven talent distribution is a basic reality of the game and on some level the very point. He, like so many other stat people, hide his qualitative beliefs and conclusions behind a wall of math in order to make it seem more valid. Specifically I refer to this:
Washington’s PP is definitely not eight goals better than Detroit’s given the same opponents. The key thing to keep in mind is that even what appears to be the best PP in the entire league might not be much above average.
He passingly mentions some of the qualitative things that would in fact make WAS’ PP more potent than DET’s, specifically change in personnel. But he just can’t believe that the Caps are really that much better so from that starting assumption he engages in his mathematic analysis to justify what he already believes.
Lockout talk makes me want to go out and choke an old lady - Elliotte Friedman
Detroit has some really good players. 2.5% (8 goals over 300 chances) is a big difference between two teams whose PPs are generally really good. Is the Caps’ PP this much better than the rest? I don’t think so.
by red army line on Sep 8, 2010 2:38 PM EDT up reply actions
Ok, but that’s all informed by qualitative assumptions, not objective statistical analysis.
Lockout talk makes me want to go out and choke an old lady - Elliotte Friedman
Meh, there’s lots of turnover, so I guess I agree with you. It was kind of pointless. There aren’t any 3-goal PP-esque units anymore.
by red army line on Sep 8, 2010 3:51 PM EDT up reply actions
Even talent distribution (both in terms of on-ice skill and coaching) is a ludicrous assumption.
It’s a null-hypothesis; that’s a routine test to see how likely a set of results are if there’s no difference between the two things being compared. If you use that as your data and run a simulation, you get a standard deviation of 2.01%. So based on pure luck alone, we’d observe a distribution with a 2.01% standard deviation from the mean.
Since the empirical data has a standard deviation of 2.57%, we take away that 62% of the variation in PP results is luck and 38% is underlying talent/coaching/cohesion/allotherfactors. This is an estimate, since we only have access to the one set of actual data; if we could see all the parallel universes in which the NHL plays, we’d have estimate.
Using his estimation of effectiveness, he concludes that there’s a pretty good chance that the Caps’ PP is better than Detroit’s. Factor in that Detroit played in the toughest division in the league and in the Western Conference (both are fair things to factor in) and the probability drops some. I find it hard to disagree with the conclusions he’s drawing after a closer reading.
"Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful" George E.P. Box
by Knee high to a duck on Sep 8, 2010 5:35 PM EDT up reply actions
Very good point, but I still don’t like it. This looks exactly what I was taught not to do in Stats: find your conclusion and then support it with numbers. There are so many moving parts that he partially acknowledges but he puts all the faith in his math.
It’s possible that Hossa and Samuelsson were worth one extra win on the PP alone, but Washington’s PP is definitely not eight goals better than Detroit’s given the same opponents. The key thing to keep in mind is that even what appears to be the best PP in the entire league might not be much above average.
Two points from this block quote. First, how the fuck do you know how much Hossa/Samuelsson are worth? He acknowledges it has an impact, but still uses “definitely” in this conclusive sense that WAS’ PP was not 8 goals better than DET’s. How do you know? That’s just him justifying his underlying assumption. Schedule no doubt had a role, but if you look at the ranking of PK units last season, it’s not clear that the Western PK units were all that much better (I guess the response is that they weren’t statistically better because they also faced tougher PP units).
Second, just because you aren’t much above average doesn’t mean it’s not significant. The easiest example is FO. 55% is incredibly high, but not much higher than the average. Sometimes a small difference above the average is very important. So, yeah, the Caps may be just a little bit better than average on the PP, but that still might be enough to be significantly better than anyone else.
Lockout talk makes me want to go out and choke an old lady - Elliotte Friedman
He doesn’t know that they’re worth it, he’d be using a rough estimate: are Hossa and Samuelsson worth 6 goals (rough goal differential that equates to a win in the standings) on the PP over having their roster spots taken by replacement level players (forcing guys from the next line onto the PP). It’s unlikely, but possible. That’s “hand-wavy”, but it’s the general benchmark.
His regression to the mean is a competition-agnostic analysis. If you accept the point that the teams in the West have generally stronger PKs (I think that’s somewhat reasonable, given that they’re generally better overall teams), then we’d expect to see Detroit get a bump if they played the Caps’ competition or the Caps to stumble a bit if they played Detroit’s competition. However, he doesn’t know for certain that it’s not 8 goals worth of difference between the two units (although that’s a lot). He just thinks it’s unlikely, but there’s really no way to test it conclusively. Definitely isn’t his best choice of words there.
If the standard deviation is tight (as it is in FO%), then small differences are going to be very significant. Your last paragraph is correct and I think that’s part of what Desjardins is driving at there, even if it’s poorly worded again.
"Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful" George E.P. Box
by Knee high to a duck on Sep 8, 2010 6:18 PM EDT up reply actions
Got a laugh out of the JtG piece.
I have a friend who is definitely Ms. Transplant. It’s quite annoying, and rather embarrassing as well. She knows Ryan Miller, and has mentioned Vanek’s name, but other than that its just a whole bunch of jibberish while robed in her Steckel jersey.
You gotta run to a window and say: "Hey, these floors are dirty as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!"
Missing however is Mr. Original Caps Fan. First you’re excited to find him at a party because he’s just as obsessed about the Caps as you are. Quickly however the conversation becomes awkward as he starts his antiGreen and antiSchultz rant and how wussy the players and how the present Caps can’t compare to the glory days when the team had the likes of Langway, Hunter, and Stevens. To salvage the conversation you bring up Ovi. Everyone in Capsland likes to talk Ovi.
"I’m very happy to hear the news," Ovechkin said when he heard about Backstrom's longterm contract--"because he’s one of the top centers in the world, one of my best friends and we want to play together for a long time. He’s a guy who wants to stay in one place and be comfortable and win, just like me. We talk all the time about playing together, and we talked after the playoffs about how we can win in Washington."
by capsyoungguns on Sep 8, 2010 11:08 AM EDT up reply actions
Yet, here am I, practically an original Caps fan but, while I certainly enjoyed the exploits of Caps’ teams and Caps’ players in the past, I am more into the current edition of the Caps. I’ll admit I was so busy raising kids and into kids activities that I hadn’t paid as attention to professional sports in general and now that they’re grown, I’m back into sports. I must admit I feel somewhat parental towards the current “young guns” as they are about the age of my first born.
Rocking the Red since 1975
Are they really? Man, that’s so crazy. I had no idea.
If wishes were horses, we'd all be eating steak.
by Hang a Laingtern on Your Problems on Sep 8, 2010 10:56 PM EDT up reply actions
Caps Academy
I haven’t had time to click through the videos, but I love the idea of including the Caps Academy on the official team website. Its a great way to continue and expand the fan base. There are still a lot of “new” and potential fans in the area, so giving them an easy way to bone up on the basics of the game can only help.
I’ve always thought that the reason a lot of sports fans “hate” hockey is because they don’t understand it. Its a lot easier to downplay and dismiss something unfamiliar than it is to educate yourself on it.
Friends of mine that are in the sports talk industry are certainly guilty of this. They can analyze and discuss basketball, football, baseball etc, but hockey isn’t something they’re comfortable with because they never played it and didn’t grow up watching it.
Because now I can justify browsing and commenting during the work day with the argument that I am promoting my business.
The problem with the TSN scoring list is that they didn’t take into consideration Ovi’s two 10-game suspensions.
Which way should they cut?
Atta dinnin stick a who!
by Gould Old Days on Sep 8, 2010 10:47 AM EDT up reply actions
Oh, nevermind. joke.
Atta dinnin stick a who!
by Gould Old Days on Sep 8, 2010 10:50 AM EDT up reply actions
Most of the team on ice this morning
Nick Backstrom talking to one of Arlington’s finest:
#NeedsMoreBradley
officer: “hey backs, we do the same job. you shoot pucks and i shoot punks…get it?”
backs: “um yeah…[in swedish: they gave this guy a gun?]”
Just trying to capture the spirit of the thing...
by dcsportsfan1 on Sep 8, 2010 12:18 PM EDT up reply actions
Arlington cops shooting people? The most dangerous part of their job is avoiding the paper cuts from their numerous parking tickets.
Lockout talk makes me want to go out and choke an old lady - Elliotte Friedman
by Rob Parker on Sep 8, 2010 2:16 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
They taze people now and then.
In most police departments, the most dangerous part of the job is avoiding diabetes from inhaling donuts, though the Arlington cops I know are overwhelmingly rather fit.
I am a hockey fan first, and a Caps fan second.
Photographic evidence above notwithstanding…
"Hockey is my life, wine is my passion." -- Igor Larionov
by Scott in Shaw on Sep 8, 2010 5:13 PM EDT up reply actions
Backs: …but.. but… I though it was only required in Arizona.
What doesnt kill you makes you stronger.
by BetterOffWith28 on Sep 8, 2010 2:21 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Just got an e-mail that my tickets have been shipped! Woo hoo! Early this year.
"It's always good to have vikings."
Proud member of the Oxford dictionary police.
Mine came yesterday.
I was unreasonably excited.
I am a hockey fan first, and a Caps fan second.
by iwearstripes on Sep 8, 2010 12:29 PM EDT up reply actions
DJ King just looks like a guy who likes to scrap.
From CapsSnaps 9/3/10
http://www.capssnaps.com/2010/09/offseason-player-workouts-93/img_0585/
http://www.capssnaps.com/2010/09/offseason-player-workouts-93/img_0699/
I am a hockey fan first, and a Caps fan second.
He looks like he’s missing a chromosome in that first picture.
I look to the future because that's where I'm going to spend the rest of my life.
I thought it too, but then remembered Brads doent swell, he bleeds…
What doesnt kill you makes you stronger.
by BetterOffWith28 on Sep 8, 2010 2:23 PM EDT up reply actions
'''
Awww… here’s how the official Sochi 2014 Facebook page envisions Alex’s sheep, giving its first interview (intervewe?)
You perhaps knew me better as "Your Nation's Capital." Same great commentary, now with 100% more transparency!
I want one
Watching the O’s try to use strategy is like watching Mike Green trying to figure out the difference between "your" and "you’re"--Terpgrrl
Donation info for SAVES FOR KIDS 2010!! Make a difference.
The sheep is more accommodating to reporters than Ovechkin.
Signed,
The Canadian Media
If you've read this far...seek help.
If anyone’s lurking, feel free to lurk over at today’s Question of the Day…
If anyone needs me, I'll be at Kettler.
YES!!! Great news from Agent Steinz:
Best news D.C. sports fans have heard all week. Comcast SportsNet, the local rights-holder for both the Wizards and the Caps, will produce all its regular-season games for both teams in HD this season. That means 80 games for the Wizards in the regular season, and 72 for the Caps.
(The remainder of the games will appear on exclusive national television broadcasts, and will also be produced in HD.)
Watching the O’s try to use strategy is like watching Mike Green trying to figure out the difference between "your" and "you’re"--Terpgrrl
Donation info for SAVES FOR KIDS 2010!! Make a difference.
Of Course it's BB making this statement, why would GMGM talk about Bruce's boy?
Changing my signature to “waiting for the trade deadline”…
"Not another @$#! Game 7"
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Southeast Standings
| GP | W | L | OTL | PT | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Florida
|
50 | 24 | 15 | 11 | 59 |
|
Washington
|
51 | 27 | 20 | 4 | 58 |
|
Winnipeg
|
53 | 24 | 23 | 6 | 54 |
|
Tampa Bay
|
50 | 22 | 23 | 5 | 49 |
|
Carolina
|
53 | 19 | 25 | 9 | 47 |
(updated 2.4.2012 at 6:07 PM EST)
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