Unser Chat » That roster didnt have any

The National Hockey League’s scheduling process strikes me as a laborious task. The people responsible for creating the thirty team schedules have to take into account things like venue availability, travel burden, associated costs of travel, and competitive balance, all while trying to squeeze 1,230 games into a seven-month window. One of the things I’ve always found most interesting is how the league attempts to mitigate the number of back-to-back situations (not so eloquently referred to as “schedule losses” in NHL and NBA circles), a considerable slice of the league’s larger fight with competitive balance. To the league’s credit, Dirk Hoag’s work suggests that the league does try to schedule a comparable number of back-to-back situations for every franchise. Now, the eyeball test has long been damning of team performance on the second-half of back-to-backs, and I think that’s largely why the league has really made a concerted effort to balance the number of schedule losses around the league. The data substantiates what the eyeball test has told us for so long – teams on no rest struggle considerably relative to league norms, considerably so when those back-to-backs come on the road. Seven years of available data substantiates what the eyeball test has told us for so long – teams on no rest struggle considerably relative to league norms. Below, I have compiled Score-Adjusted Fenwick%, 5-on-5 Goal%, and Regulation/OT Win% for teams in back-to-back situations. They are slotted next to your league-average rates, to illustrate the drop-off between the two. (Score-Adjusted Fenwick% is a measure of 5-on-5 unblocked shot attempts, weighted for score, comparing results to league averages based on game score.) The Value of Rest Score-Adjusted Fenwick% Goal% Regulation/OT Win% Back-to-Back Home 51.0% 51.0% 53.0% All Home 52.0% 52.0% 56.0% Back-to-Back Road 47.0% 46.0% 41.0% All Road 48.0% 49.0% 44.0% So, teams without rest against teams with rest of ranging length are going to underperform – we see a three percentage drop-off in regulation/overtime win percentage for both home and road teams, which really is the smoking gun. It’s also hard to miss that possession and goal metrics slide in both states, too. Home teams drop a full percentage point on both fronts. Road teams drop a percentage point in possession rates, and three percentage points in goal rates. But, back-to-back situations – or “schedule losses” -- aren’t the only instance where a team is disadvantaged. The theory isn’t just that teams devoid of rest are at a disadvantage. It’s that teams disproportionately rested to the opposition are at a disadvantage, in which back-to-back situations are only a small part of a large sample. Let’s change gears and turn to rest differentials. We can pull data for how teams perform with three days favorable rest, two days favorable rest, one day favorable rest, and so forth. If our theory holds true, performance – be it by possession rates, goal rates, or win rates – should deteriorate as rest becomes less advantageous, and travel becomes more frequent. Over the same seven years of data, here’s how home teams performed over various rest differentials. Home Team Rest Advantage 2007-2014 Rest Advantage Score-Adjusted Fenwick% Goal% Regulation/OT Win% 3 or more day deficit 50.9% 48.3% 52.3% 2-day deficit 51.1% 50.6% 54.9% 1-day deficit 51.6% 51.9% 54.2% Even 51.3% 52.0% 55.3% One-day advantage 52.1% 53.4% 58.9% Two-day advantage 52.6% 54.0% 58.3% 3 or more day advantage 51.9% 51.7% 51.6% I think this graph is about as telling as it gets. As you increase a home team’s rest advantage, their possession rates, goal rates, and win rates all spike. The inverse, of course, is true for road teams – as they see rest become more unfavourable, possession rates decline, goal rates decline, and win rates decline. Again, this gets very much back to what our eyes tell us – that teams who have rest advantages generally play a better hockey game, and teams that are fatigued generally play a worse hockey game. More importantly, it signifies that not all games are created equal. A home team with a two-game rest disadvantage is only expected to control 51.09% of the play, 50.58% of the 5-on-5 goals, and win 54.87% of the games. A home team with a two-game rest advantage should be held to significantly higher standards: on average, they should control 52.64% of play, score 54.04% of the goals, and win 58.25% of the hockey games. It seems certain to me that the league would be privy to this sort of data and reluctant to put teams into positions where they are regularly at a rest disadvantage, but it’s still an important topic that should be considered when forecasting future outcomes. Rightfully, analysts spend a lot of time talking up the importance of home-ice advantage – the data bears this advantage out. However, this data suggests that rest is another critical, albeit less appreciated, factor for teams and associated performance. Cheap Puma Shoes . -- Valentin Zykov scored in overtime as the Baie-Comeau Drakkar rallied to a 3-2 victory over the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada on Sunday in Quebec Major Junior Hockey League playoff action. Cheap Puma Shoes From China . Ferrer was unable to find his rhythm in losing 6-4, 6-2 to Teymuraz Gabashvili in his opening match while Nadal struggled past fellow Spanish player Albert Ramos 7-6 (2), 6-4. Nadal eventually overcame his 103rd-ranked opponent to reach the third round, rebounding from a surprise loss to Ferrer in the Monte Carlo Masters quarterfinals. http://www.cheappuma.us/ . Patty Mills scored 15 points, Tim Duncan had 10 points and 11 rebounds in limited minutes, and San Antonio trailed for only 11 seconds late in the first quarter of a 103-90 victory over Portland on Wednesday night. Cheap Puma Shoes Online . The Missouri Tigers Defensive End and SEC Defensive player of the year is eligible for the upcoming NFL draft in May. Cheap Puma Shoes Sale . -- Wide receiver Sidney Rice should be fully recovered from a torn knee ligament by the time the Seattle Seahawks start defence of their Super Bowl title, general manager John Schneider said Wednesday.It really didnt come as a surprise that the Florida Panthers fired head coach Kevin Dineen Friday, but its not like a change in the coaching staff is going to magically cure what ails this team. Any time a team fails to meet expectations, coaches end up on the chopping block, but that leads to the question: why would there have been expectations put upon the Florida Panthers for the 2013-2014 season? Go back to the 2011-2012 season, when the Panthers won the Southeast Division, with 94 points in 82 games, despite recording 32 regulation and overtime wins, a total that tied non-playoff teams Buffalo, Carolina (who finished last in the Southeast Division) and Colorado for 20th in the league. The Panthers also had a minus-24 goal differential, so anything beyond the point total in the standings suggested they were not really a playoff-calibre team. Consider them a prime example of a team not being what its record is. Then the Panthers proceeded to lose in double-overtime of Game Seven (after losing in overtime in Game Six) in the first round of the playoffs against the eventual Eastern-Conference-Champion New Jersey Devils, making it easy to sell the idea that the Panthers were "this close" to competing with the top teams in the league. It needs to be noted, however, that the Panthers overachieved in 2011-2012, to even generate mediocre results disguised as playoff-worthy. Florida needed to spend a lot of money in the summer of the 2011 season just to get above the salary floor and, as a result, cobbled together a make-shift roster, handing out some contracts that had surprisingly long-term implications. Sure, Florida signed Tomas Fleischmann (four years, $18-million), and he scored a career-high 61 points in 2011-2012, and has generally been a productive scorer since. C Marcel Goc (three years, $5.19-million) has been okay and G Jose Theodore (two years, $3-million) was a low-risk move, but the Panthers also inked RW Scottie Upshall (four years, $14-million), D Ed Jovanovski (four years, $16.5-million) and LW Sean Bergenheim (four years, $11-million), none of whom has provided a decent return on investment. (Injuries have admittedly played a part in their lack of production.) The Panthers also dipped into GM Dale Tallons past and traded for some former Chicago Blackhawks: D Brian Campbell, RW Kris Versteeg and RW Tomas Kopecky. That roster didnt have any business harbouring playoff expectations yet, with Dineen taking over for Peter DeBoer behind the bench, the Panthers defied the odds and reached the postseason, thanks in large part to Fleischmann, Versteeg and Stephen Weiss, their top line that combined for 70 goals and 172 points. Campbell added 53 points while playing nearly 27 minutes per game. That quartet made up the entire list of Florida Panthers to record more than 33 points that season, so there wasnt a lot coming from the supporting cast. The 2013 season brought much worse results, particularly when injuries limited Weiss and Versteeg to a total of 27 games and the goaltending went from decent, ranking 11th with a .914 save percentage, to a league-worrst .dddddddddddd.887 save percentage in the lockout-shortened 2013 season. Those injuries, and subpar goaltending, over a small-sample season may have been what led Tallon to still harbour expectations for this team coming into the 2013-2014 season. Or maybe its because there is a new owner calling the shots that the Panthers couldnt simply see the 2013-2014 season as one for development of their young talent. After all, the Panthers have added some promising young players including LW Jonathan Huberdeau, C Aleksander Barkov and C Nick Bjugstad, who are all playing significant minutes. D Erik Gudbranson, the third overall pick in 2010, and D Dmitry Kulikov, the 14th pick in 2009 are still works in progress, but young enough to be part of what the Panthers are trying to build. G Jacob Markstrom is supposed to be the goaltender of the future, even if the 23-year-old has struggled this year. Forwards Vincent Trocheck and Drew Shore and defencemen Alex Petrovic and Colby Robak have been in the AHL, playing for new head coach Peter Horacheck. Trocheck, who has 11 points in 11 games as a first-year pro and nearly made the Panthers out of training camp, could get his opportunity soon. In the summer of 2013, the Panthers didnt spend big money, but brought in a lot of veterans on low-money deals. Defencemen Tom Gilbert has been a bargain as a top-four defenceman while Matt Gilroy and checking forward Jesse Winchester have been decent. Veteran forwards Brad Boyes and Scott Gomez along with blueliner Ryan Whitney have not been effective and goaltender Tim Thomas hasnt been able to stay healthy in his attempt to return to action after a year off. As a result, the Panthers have the leagues 28th-ranked goal differential (minus-1.36 per game), ahead of only the Edmonton Oilers and Buffalo Sabres. Unfortunately, the goaltending hasnt gotten any better this season, ranking 28th with an .885 save percentage, and no team can win with goaltending of that calibre, let alone a team that isnt scoring at the other end of the ice and the Panthers rank 29th in 5-on-5 shooting percentage when the score is close. The good news, according to the probabilities of advanced stats, is that the Panthers arent likely to maintain such terrible shooting and save percentages all season, so they are due to get some better results; a little "puck luck" as it were. Of course, being better than their current 3-9-4 record doesnt mean all that much. When those young players start to control play more consistently and the Panthers start getting adequate goaltending, they may turn the corner, but thats going to require patience and the expectations placed on this team dont necessarily allow for patience. Trouble is, when a general manager makes moves that appear to reveal a lack of patience, its fair to start wondering if the next one on the chopping block will be the GM. Scott Cullen can be reached at Scott.Cullen@bellmedia.ca and followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tsnscottcullen. For more, check out TSN Fantasy on Facebook. Cheap Jerseys China NFL Jerseys China NFL Jerseys Wholesale Discount Basketball Jerseys Cheap NHL Jerseys Authentic Cheap Baseball Jerseys Free Shipping Cheapest College Jerseys Sale Cheap Football Jerseys China Nike NFL Jerseys Canada Wholesale NHL Jerseys From China MLB Jerseys Outlet Canada Wholesale NBA Jerseys Canada Store Cheap Soccer Jerseys China Cheap Authentic Jerseys Canada ' ' '