mikey's Thread of Penguin Randomness

[Morkle]

Unless he’s traded, I don’t think he will see the playoffs again.

[faftorial]

Gonna be real sad if this is what the end of Sid’s career looks like

Highs come with the lows in life.

[DigitalGypsy66]

The Pens had a points streak against Columbus going back to 2019. That ended last night.

[King Colby]

Emphatically

[mikey]

Simpler times...times of hope.

https://web.archive.org/web/20070716102 ... sburgh.htm

There are three minor leaguers that I don't recognize (Jensen, Ardelan, D'Aversa).

We lost Andre Roy on re-entry waivers and therefore got stuck with half his cap hit...

[MR25]

I only recognize D'Aversa's name from NHL 08, as they had him as a top 2 or top 4 in WBS that year

Also funny that they have Biz listed as a D man

[Rx6687]

Unless he’s traded, I don’t think he will see the playoffs again.

Sid is a rare exception, as 37 is a slightly different number for him than it is for most guys. My point is, if he chooses to play three or four more years, he will still be a point per game player barring injury - and this franchise could do a fast rebuild with him still being a key piece. The thing is, this would require them to trade off all their other movable assets at the deadline, and there's a chance the rebuild would not work. I think it would be even sadder for him if his friends are traded away and the rebuild fails and the team STILL sucks. So I'm kind of torn about this. Ultimately, I want what Sid wants in this regard - but we all know he would love one more run with this core. And that just ain't happening, unfortunately.

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

I know stats aren't everything, especially advanced stats which can be a bit abstract and debatable if they even provide value, but on moneypuck we're apparently 8th in expected goal differential (which is good) but but dead last in terms of actual goal differential above expected: https://moneypuck.com/teams.htm. We're #1 in expected goals for (woah, nice) but also #32 in expected goals against (lol) which means our offense is great and our defense is terrible

a big reason why the actual vs expected goal differential is off for us seems to be goaltending, where Ned and Jarry are 6th and 14th worst in the league, respectively, in terms of goals saved above expected: https://moneypuck.com/goalies.htm

this is a little bit of a cope for me, admittedly, but I think this indicates that our defense is horrid, our goaltending isn't much better, but also we're getting a little unlucky


in a perfect world we fire Sully and bring in a coach who can install some semblance of a defense and trade Ned to give Blomqvist more time. though at this point if we already haven't fired Sully it seems like we'll be stuck with him until the heat death of the universe

[mikey]

I'd buy that we're the worst team defensively more or less...but I'm surprised that we'd be #1 in offense generation. That doesn't seem right, there must be something goofy there...I wonder if it's how many deflections we're aiming for in the mid-slot. There's a clear effort there.

That might skew things a bit. Not that deflections aren't valuable, but I wonder if the models can account for deflections being a part of the offense, as opposed to just a rare event...

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

Oddly it’s hard to find how a deflection is recorded both for moneypuck’s model and just in general with advanced stats. It seems like they’re generally regarded as a shot attempt but it’s hard to know for certain. That said, it is almost certainly factored in assuming a player actually makes contact with the puck

This is really the only thing I could find on it: https://scholarworks.calstate.edu/downloads/fx719s10q

I will say that in general it’s extraordinarily difficult to model hockey with numbers. I’d say it’s by far the hardest of the four American team sports with baseball and basketball being the easiest and football and then hockey being the hardest, in order. Too many momentary variables


like, deflections and rebounds are one thing but how can a model account for “traffic” in front of a net like in the case of a net front player that’s screening the goalie? Not that it happens all the time but that’s a near impossible to quantify variable

[mikey]

Public models probably do an extraordinarily "basic" job of accounting for important things. Proprietary models probably have more real eyes on it to improve the product...

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

yeah agreed, especially those used for betting

I kind of wish there was a public model that used a combo of quantitative and qualitative analysis. Qualitative analysis is kind of difficult because there's so many moving parts in a game (it's not like PFF with the NFL where every play has a discreet start and end) but I always liked the idea of the world famous "mikey's adjusted plus-minus" stat. I'm surprised no public site has tried to do something like that

[mikey]

The tricky part is understanding the game. That's one of the key differences I've seen between public stuff and proprietary pieces that teams buy and betting services use (probably, I've never pursued the betting side really)...it's just real game knowledge, real player evaluation, etc.

Public model doesn't have to abide by anything...there's nothing on the line. So you can render any conclusion you want with nonsense like Corsi or save percentage or whatever else and it doesn't matter. They're not even willing to eat a clothes hanger...

[Ad@m]

So…. Will Jarry give up a goal on the first shot tonight?

[MR25]

Better question is how many is Guentzel scoring

[Ad@m]

HT

[mikey]

Brayden Point returns tonight...

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

this feels like a game we should lost 10-0 but now me saying that means that we'll only lose 4-3


...but now me saying that means we'll lose 7-1

[mikey]

That's most of the bases...

[King Colby]

5-2 win

[King Colby]

I think today is the day. 2 off days at home with vacancy in Boston.

[meecrofilm]

It ain't happening.

[MR25]

I'm going to assume Sullivan is not burdened by internal expectations, whereas the Bruins were expecting to be top of the Atlantic (even though they have very little outside of Marchand and Pastrnak)

[King Colby]

Is he unburdened by what has been?

[meecrofilm]

Yeah, that's **** IMO. There are a lot of mediocre teams in the east. The expectation should be to make the playoffs. Which if we could hold a lead and play any semblance of D, we'd be in a wildcard position. As it stands, with all our games played, we could easily find ourselves at the bottom of the east soon. Which if you're trying to tank, cool, pay me 5 mil a year for the team to suck. Or hire a cheaper coach and get the same results. None of it makes any sense.