Monday Caps Clips: Broadway Bust; Sharks @ Caps Game Day

Left out of the article was Chimera saying “You wanna crown ’em (the Rangers)? Then crown their ass!”

Bet that wasn’t awkward.

Also… that gets picked up by a non-local guy, but goes unmentioned (unless I’m missing it) by the locals. Curious.

Chimera’s a fiery mf’er.

Also, how does one “slam” a bag?

…and then his dad came into the locker room and shriveled the reporter with a hard look.

What everyone forgets is that outside of Carolina and the Caps (for the most part), every team in that division has been criminally mismanaged. Florida hasn’t made the playoffs since 2000. The Ning went through the Koules/Barrie Era. Atlanta is the poster child for horribly run franchises.

Never in a million hockey periods will they seperate NYR and Philly

Jeff Halpern is awesome. What a bargain.

Not following. Please explain what I’m seeing.

Very interesting. Just wondering, what are Mike Green’s (SSS) numbers?

bummer about AO.

I used to laugh at Vinny LeCavalier’s contract, but I’m thinking I’ll be casting it envious glances soon.

For awhile now I’ve been wondering how much of a disadvantage players are at when they start their shifts predominantly outside the offensive zone.

That would be interesting to look at, indeed. However, that’s not what is actually being shown by the zone start percentages. If you count neutral zone draws and on-the-fly changes there probably aren’t more than 5 players in the entire league that start the majority of their shifts in the OZ (which would mean the entire league “starts their shifts predominantly outside the OZ”).

I’m also not sold on the methodology:

For the purposes of better sample size I used data from Behind The Net from last season, only using players who had played 40 or more games. This yielded 566 players to draw data from. In order to avoid negative numbers, I took the absolute value of every player’s Relative Corsi, as well as the absolute value of every player’s offensive zone starts that differed from 50 [ABS]. From there I divided the resulting Relative Corsi number for each player by the resulting deviation from 50% offensive zone starts for each player.

What’s the conceptual logic there? What’s the justification for simply dividing Corsi Rel by deviation from 50% OZ starts? Models are important in statistical analysis, otherwise you’re just playing with numbers. I don’t really see a rigorous model here. The methodology also results in 120 players being thrown out as “outliers” (and I’m almost positive that’s not the proper use of the term “outlier”), which is 20% of the data set. Does that concern anyone else (or did people not read the link…)?

Corsi Rel is also infirm with team effects, it’s not even a truly individual number, so adjusting one player’s zone starts without adjusting for his teammates seems like an incomplete analysis. Pure Corsi is more controlled at the individual level. Saying 1% changes Corsi Rel by 2.3 doesn’t tell you whether it’s all on the player while he’s on ice (though presumably that’s where the change is), or whether it’s impacted by the off-ice portion of Corsi Rel.

I should have written: I put the Caps chances at winning 15 games from here on out, based on remaining sched plus how they have played at home and on the road, at 17.40%. Buy or sell?

Not sure how anyone can think that a team that’s won three of its last ten games and has won exactly two games in the past month when they’ve allowed a goal-against (and one of those was a 2-1 win) is going to finish out the season winning 56% of its games.

I have no idea what to make of 17.4%, but I think we’re pretty comfortably south of 50% at this point.

17.4%? I’m buying that number as long as Green and Backstrom don’t come back.

Without centers this team relies even more heavily on a D-man like Green to get the puck out of the zone.

If they continue their habit of getting outchanced and outshot – what was the chance count yesterday, by the way? – then I’d take the under on that 17.4%.

I guess the question is whether they play better, worse or the same? I think they’ll play a bit better as desperation kicks in. Better enough? I doubt it.

I’m mostly resigned to them not making the playoffs this year.

The issue I’ve been mulling is this: do I WANT them to make the playoffs this year? In other words, will it be better in the long run for them to take a hard look at the roster and decide to tear it down and reboot? If they make the playoffs, I’m pretty certain that they polish the turd and decide to try for another year of more of the same.

You sure it’s Chimmer being mad at losing, not being mad at him putting forth effort, but some others lacking in that department?

So what if someone told you that they were already getting the puck luck?

I think they’re attempting to become the first team to win a Stanley Cup without ever winning a road game.

The more depressing thought is that the thoughts of “it’s okay, we still have talent coming in, we still have guys learning” were apparently wrong and they should’ve gone all-in at some point. That may be the last time the Caps are favorites because it looks like we’re back to the Murray years, playoff participants hoping for a lucky hot streak.

And apparently, he’s supposed to show up here today. Oh boy.

Too bad I forgot to wear any Caps stuff.

In layman’s terms – "They can’t be this bad this long, can they? Things have to turnaround."

Statistically, they have been good, esp when it comes to Sv% and Sh% at 5v5. If this team gets hit with even the slightest regression to the mean on that, it will get even uglier.

The problem is in puck possession, which is less likely to “regress.”

In layman’s terms – "They can’t be this bad this long, can they? Things have to turnaround."

Just wait for today’s Nooner!

With no Green and Baxter, apparently they are. Sigh

What is the “on track?” When should we expect to see him in games?

Athletes really aren’t like the rest of us. I had mesh put in a few years back for a hernia and I wan’t allowed to lift more than 15 lbs for 6 weeks, I couldn’t imagine skating in full pads after less than 4.

Unfortunately, the Caps have only won 1 game in the last 4 weeks where they didn’t shut the other team out. We’re relying too much on Vokoun…

Who knows. Corey Perry won it with a hot month last year. Plenty of hockey left.

yeah, it’s tough to say what hunter really meant by that and whether it was truly his reasoning. but then again, i’m way past the point of giving hunter the benefit of the doubt.

Here’s what I wrote about it in Neil’s FanPost:

In fairness to Hunter, this is second-hand from an understandably disappointed player. Maybe that’s all Hunter he said. Maybe that’s Knuble’s synopsis of what he remembers being said to him, or maybe the points that stood out the most to a similarly old school player (think Knuble countered with his on-ice scoring chance conversion rate being unsustainably low?). Who knows.

Knuble has stunk by most metrics, traditional, advanced and otherwise. There’s every reason to believe his staff is well aware of all of these. Yes, I’d probably have gotten a stiffy if he’d said, "Dale came to me and said, ‘your Corsi Rel Team sucks,’" but Knuble relating why he was scratched and mentioning plus-minus doesn’t get me too worked up.

Details coming soon

Were there any pertinant details left out?

One of my favorite names.

Holzapfel was my favorite hall at Maryland, and I think it’s German for “Crabapple”

/grabs popcorn

/prepares to throw it at TV uneaten

Oh joy.

That’s actually been a pretty good basketball lig the last few years, at least in the tournament.

But I like what NBCSN is doing as a brand. They’re getting the scraps that the big networks can afford to let fall off the table. I don’t know if they can hoist MLB from ESPN (who has basically become the 24/7/365 football and basketball network), but if they can? That will be a gigantic coup.