NHL analysis

New Power Rankings are up.

1. Detroit Red Wings (0.803, 0 change)
The Wings remain untouchable in my Power Rankings, due mostly to their ridiculously low shots allowed per game.  They certainly do their best to make things easy on Dominic Hasek.

2. Anaheim Ducks (0.710, 0)
The Ducks got good news – the return of JS Giguere, Chris Pronger and Francois Beauchemain – and bad news – the loss of captain Scott Niedermayer – in the same week.  The good and bad seems to have mostly balanced out, though the Ducks lost their dominance in the West as they struggled through their injuries.

3. San Jose Sharks (0.687, 0)
Evgeni Nabokov continues to play well but lose games.  The Sharks have stayed with their rotation, as neither Toskala nor Nabokov has played more than a single game in a row all year long.  They will be fielding calls for one or both of their netminders for the next month, but have yet to make a decision on which one is their man going forward.

4. Buffalo Sabres (0.582, 0)
The Sabres haven’t dropped in the standings but that won’t last if the Sabres don’t turn their slide around.  Word out of Buffalo is that Martin Biron will get the start Tuesday night, and possibly Thursday as well, to give Ryan Miller the chance to refocus.

5. New Jersey Devils (0.569, +2)
So much for the theory Martin Brodeur’s success hinged on a dominant defence corps.

6. Ottawa Senators (0.567, 0)
The loss to Montreal was a bitter pill to swallow, as the Senators are mounting a steady climb with the Habs the next team to climb over.  Jason Spezza’s return was little more than a whisper.

7. Dallas Stars (0.557, -2)
Mike Modano is inching closer to a return.  He can’t return fast enough for the Stars.

8. Carolina Hurricanes (0.550, +1)
The Hurricanes are on pace to finish a full 10 points below Atlanta in the standings, but my Predicted Final Standings show the Canes taking the Division title.  Even with all their injuries, the Canes have remained competitive.  Their moves leading up to the trade deadline will say much about the chances this team has this year.

9. Vancouver Canucks (0.548, +2)
Roberto Luongo continues to play inspired hockey.  If Markus Nasland can start to score (the Canucks have to be interested in grabbing Forsberg) this team will be a lock to make the playoffs.

10. Nashville Predators (0.544, 0)
The Predators deserve a better spot in the Power Rankings, missing out because they give up too many shots.  With Vokoun and Mason behind them, that hardly seems to matter.

11. Tampa Bay Lightning (0.526, -3)
Do they have enough to squeak into the playoffs again?  Unlikely.

12. Toronto Maple Leafs (0.515, 0)
When Raycroft plays his best, this team is almost unbeatable.  If only he could do so regularly.

13. Colorado Avalanche (0.482, 0)
Can they find a better solution than Jose Theodore?  Can they find a solution to the elephant sized problem that is Theodore’s salary and poor play?

14. Florida Panthers (0.468, +1)
Ed Belfour is playing better than anyone gave him credit for when he signed last summer.  Despite Florida’s stronger play of late, it is unlikely they have the depth to beat out the teams around – and above – them in the standings.

15. New York Rangers (0.464, +3)
I expected Henrik Lundqvist to suffer a sophomore slump and be the problem in New York this year.  His play has been stellar, but the team around him has not been.  The Rangers are still one of the better teams fighting for the last few playoff spots, however.

16. Montreal Canadians (0.455, -2)
A recent win over the surging Senators was huge for the struggling Habs.  If they can string together a few more, they might help to solidify their playoff spot, which has been less and less solid for the last few weeks.

17. Atlanta Thrashers (0.450, -1)
My Power Rankings have been predicting a slide in Atlanta for months.  What do the Thrashers need more: defensive help or a top centerman?

18. Calgary Flames (0.434, -1)
They didn’t pay too high of a price, but Craig Conray may not have been the answer.  I would however expect at least a slight upsurge out of Conroy, which can only help the Flames short term.

19. Minnesota Wild (0.434, 0)
Anyone remember the Wild’s amazing start to the season?

20. Pittsburgh Penguins (0.410, +7)
Wow, what a surge!  Behind the inspired play of Mark Recchi the Penguins are making a serious push for the playoffs.

21. Edmonton Oilers (0.401, 0)
Petr Nedved has disappeared.  Petr Sykora disappeared a long time ago.  Helps explain why the Oilers are reportedly so interested in Darcy Tucker.

22. New York Islanders (0.386, 0)
Good enough to make the race interesting, but look for the Islanders to miss the playoffs again.

23. Boston Bruins (0.375, -3)
It has become clear that the tandem of Tim Thomas and Hannu Toivonen is simply not enough to get this team into the playoffs.  Who will the Bruins target for the trade deadline?

24. Chicago Blackhawks (0.367, +2)
I really feel bad for the city of Chicago.  Its fans and its players deserve better than the ownership seems willing to give.  It’ll be another long summer in Chicago.

25. Phoenix Coyotes (0.361, -2)
How much can the Coyotes squeeze in exchange for Shane Doan, Ladislav Nagy, Curtis Joseph and their other veteran assets?  Look for Doan, at least, to be traded as soon as the Coyotes find the right offer.

26. Washington Capitals (0.359, -2)
Do the Capitals look to trade Richard Zednik before the deadline?  He could bring a decent return from a team not willing to spend what it takes to grab Forsberg.

27. Los Angeles Kings (0.357, -2)
The future looks bright for this team.  But not the short-term future.  Sean Burke?

28. Columbus Blue Jackets (0.345, 0)
Who gets traded before the deadline?

29. St. Louis Blues (0.336, 0)
What can the Blues get for Eric Brewer?

30. Philadelphia Flyers (0.223, 0)
What can the Flyers get for Forsberg?

It’s wonderful how few teams are definitely out of the playoff picture, but for those few that are out, it’s tough to find much to say beyond speculating over who will be left when March rolls around.

I’m back in town now and have updated the different stats. New Power Rankings will be going up tomorrow.

In case you haven’t checked out the Over/Underachievers list recently, here are a few highlights:

Detroit Red Wings (+33.0): Though I doubt the Wings can finish quite as high as the expected final points predicts, their strength here shows how weak their schedule is compared to many other teams.  Even with the resurgence of Chicago and, to a lesser extent, St. Louis and Columbus, the Red Wings are among the teams most benefited from the current schedule set up.

Chicago Blackhawks (+22.5): I’ve been watching the Hawks very closely because my stats have consistently expected more of them.

Ottawa Senators (-12.6): Among the best teams in the league over the past 10 games.  Can you imagine what would happen if Ray Emery got hurt again?

Atlanta Thrashers (-18.8): This will be, barring catastrophic injuries, the year Atlanta makes the playoffs, but they’ve still been playing over their heads this year.

Buffalo Sabres (-8.9): This team is good, but their division is too tough for them to have maintained their early pace.  Still easily the favourite from the East, though.

Power Rankings for January 16, 2007 are up.

Power Rankings are a combination of winning percentage, schedule difficulty, offensive and defensive statistics (shots and goals for and allowed per game) and opponent offensive and defensive stats. Each team is listed with its Power Rank and the change from its ranking last week. There is significant movement this week, in part because last week’s rankings did not include offensive and defensive statistics.

1. Detroit Red Wings (.795, +3): Best ratio of offensive to defensive stats by far. Dominic Hasek had another shutout. Now that Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg are rolling, this team will compete for yet another President’s Trophy.

2. Anaheim Ducks (.760, 0): The injuries to Chris Pronger and JS Giguere have hardly been noticed in the long run. Teemu Selanee is perhaps the best pure goal scorer in the league today.

3. San Jose Sharks (.667, -2): Joe Thornton leads the league in power play assists (32) and points (36). Boston got who in return for this guy?

4. Buffalo Sabres (.607, -1): Showing signs of struggling under the weight of injuries. Last year’s playoffs showed that this team, though very deep, is just as vulnerable to the injury bug as anyone else. They are not any deeper than they were a year ago, and may need to make a few moves before the deadline rolls around.

5. Dallas Stars (.560, +2): Rolling along despite a slew of injuries. Until I see success in the playoffs, I really have nothing to say about this team.

6. New Jersey Devils (.558, 0): I had high hopes for this team in last year’s playoffs, but their complete deflation against the eventual Cup champion Hurricanes showed that a complete lack of secondary scoring leaves even Martin Brodeur too much of a workload to get far in the playoffs.

7. Ottawa Senators (.544, +4): Jason who? The loss of Spezza and Mike Fischer seems to have provided the glue this team needed to come together.

8. Tampa Bay Lightning (.544, +14): Marc Denis has not provided the steady goaltending this team expected and needed. The Lightning have one of the best shots and goals for / against ratio in the league, yet they are struggling to maintain a playoff spot.

9. Carolina Hurricanes (.542, +1): Cam Ward has been better than I expected him through the first half, which has provided the Hurricanes the stability every team needs. What they do when their glut of injured defencemen get healthy will determine the future of this franchise not only this season, but for the next several years as well.

10. Nashville Predators (.534, -5): Here is a team that suffers from the inclusion of offensive and defensive stats. The Preds have the luxury of two of the best goaltenders in this year’s NHL, and so they win consistently despite regularly giving up more shots than they take.

11. Vancouver Canucks (.524, -2): Not enough offence? Giving up too many shots? Luongo still prefers the Canucks to his old team.

12. Toronto Maple Leafs (.499, +5): They tend to lose the nail biters while winning big. That helps them in the Power Rankings but won’t help them win important games.

13. Colorado Avalanche (.491, +5): Goaltending needs to be better.

14. NY Rangers (.470, +2): One of the best inconsistent teams in the league. Not a bad combination, but not a very good one, either.

15. Florida Panthers (.451, +11): Rumours are starting that Oli Jokinen wants out of town. If Jokinen and Bertuzzi depart over the summer, who will the Panthers have left to build around?

16. Montreal Canadiens (.448, -8): Great special teams but mostly, the Habs live and die by Christobel Huet. Someone needs to take the pressure off of Saku Koivu. Samsonov and Kovalev, we are looking in your direction.

17. Calgary Flames (.443, -2): Better than expected without captain Iginla. Is Kipper the single best bargain in the league at $3.33 million?

18. Atlanta Thrashers (.440, -6): This is a good team, but they are helped considerably by their weak division. Any playoff experience they can get this year will help them become a real contender for the future.

19. Minnesota Wild (.426, +1): Horrendous road record will doom this club, though they have a shot at making the playoffs if Marian Gaborik maintains his current pace.

20. Boston Bruins (.412, -7): Tim Thomas still isn’t the answer. Who’d they get for Joe Thornton?

21. Edmonton Oilers (.386, -2): Getting exactly what they expected from Roloson, more than expected from the blueline (though they’d undoubtedly like some help in that area) and not enough from all those forewards they spent so much time locking up last summer.

22. NY Islanders (.384, -1): Ted Nolan’s team has come back down to earth despite Rick DiPietro continuing to play pretty well.

23. Phoenix Coyotes (.376, +1): Steadily improving, but the playoffs are a long way ahead. What will be left of this franchise after this season?

24. Washington Capitals (.372, -10): Olaf Kolzig is good, but not good enough to get this team into the playoffs.

25. Los Angeles Kings (.371, +2): I hope Rob Blake is doing a good job teaching the kids, because he’ll be retired before this team is a contender again.

26. Chicago Blackhawks (.371, -1): This team is going to be frighteningly good in a few years. Will ownership do the same?

27. Pittsburgh Penguins (.368, -4): How patient will this franchise be with their young core? If the Pens can add a legitimate top pair defenceman, it could almost instantly turn this team into a legitimate playoff threat. But the price of such a blueliner would be very, very high.

28. Columbus Blue Jackets (.317, 0): This team can only get better, but it won’t happen fast enough to make a difference this year.

29. St. Louis Blues (.292, 0): Season’s over already. What will they get for Bill Guerin and Keith Tkachuk?

30. Philadelphia Flyers (.218, 0): No one wants the players the Flyers want to dump, and the Flyers don’t want to part with Pitkanen, Richards or Carter. Is Simon Gagne tradeable so soon after signing his big contract?

I thought now would be a good time to plug my own site, so here goes.

Every night it seems the analysts on TSN, Sporstnet and more talk about current standings, yet they rarely mention games in hand.  Before last night’s loss to the Hurricanes, the Leafs were “in 8th place,” holding down the last playoff spot.  Today if you check NHL.com’s standings page you will see they sit in 10th.

The problem of course is that both yesterday and today the Leafs had several games in hand over most of the teams around them.  For them to remain in 8th place not only did they have to win but they need teams like the Boston Bruins to lose as many as four straight games!

My Pace For Final Standings are much better for an accurate view of how teams are doing because they are more interested in winning percentage than flat points, which are very misleading in close races.  The Leafs right now are on pace to finish well outside the playoffs, despite having only one point less than 8th place Washington.

The Expected Final Standings go a step further and consider remaining schedule difficulty.  Depending on how far you trust my statistics and Power Rankings, upon which this is based, you may consider this more or less accurate.

I update these lists daily, so check back here for more accurate daily standings than point-based rankings, which are at best misleading.

Just for anyone wondering: the Stats pages have not been updated in several days. I’ve got my new computer but I haven’t finished moving everything over to it. Until I’m sure it’s all working properly, I’m keeping my stats up to date on my laptop. That’s fine for the daily game predictions but uploading the stats is much more trouble than its worth, unfortunately. I hope to have this resolved for good shortly. Thanks for your patience.

Final December Prediction Totals: 118-for-210; 56.2%

Here are the first picks of the new year:

Away                        Home

——————————-

Phoenix (.216)           Washington (.433)
Colorado (.441)          Nashville (.549)
Atlanta (.525)          Ottawa (.408)
NY Islanders (.474)     Buffalo (.582)
Boston (.429)          Toronto (.376)
For January I have gone back to using Power Rankings without including offensive and defensive statistics for my game predictions.  I am working on incorporating an adjusted version of my offensive and defensive statistics that include opponent defensive strength in calculating offensive stats, and vice versa.  When I complete that I will likely implement it back into my predictions, likely for February.  I felt that the addition of the offensive and defensive stats were misleading, giving a significant advantage to teams that took plenty of shots, regardless of their winning percentage.  Taking 35+ shots per game doesn’t help if 34 of those shots are from shallow angles or without traffic in front of the net.

I’ve posted updates to the Power Rankings as well as the expected standings and other tables. They look different and I apologize for the quality. This is a rush job as my main computer is still out of commission. I’ve ordered all the parts for my new computer and should be back up and running by early next week. In the meantime, here are some highlights from this week’s power rankings:

Top Five: Detroit, Anaheim, San Jose, Buffalo, Dallas; and Bottom Five: Pittsburgh, Columbus, Philadelphia, Phoenix, St. Louis (no change from last week): The top five and bottom five teams remained entirely unchanged since last week, suggesting that while the middle pack of teams remain very much in a tight race, the best and the worst teams are settling down. Without a significant winning or losing streak, it will be difficult for any of these teams to move much in my power rankings. This is true because every single stat used to determine the power rankings are cumulative. Every game has less impact than the one preceding it because every game is a smaller percentage of total games played than the one before.

6. Toronto Maple Leafs (+5): Three straight wins, a bucket of goals and a power play working at over 40% in that time. The Leafs have a very good chance to build a long winning streak in the next week or so with no really difficult opponents on the horizon. They’ll need all the points they can get however, as despite vaulting back into a playoff spot, most of the teams around and below them have one or more games in hand.

10. Ottawa Senators (+3): Still having trouble with consistency, but Sens fans have to be happy that Jason Spezza at least is finding the net regularly. If Wade Redden can get healthy and play up to his potential, this team should get rolling.

11. New York Rangers (-3): When they were winning, they were giving up far too many shots. Now they’ve got the flu bug going through the dressing room and they’ve struggled mightily.

14. New Jersey Devils (-5): Still giving up more shots than they should, although the Devils are very good at limiting the quality, if not quantity of chances. With Martin Brodeur, that is often good enough.

24. Minnesota Wild (-2): I expected the Wild to cool off after their hot start but not this much. Manny Fernandez aught to be better than this. So should the Wild.