Can we be like the Penguins???
by Keith Quinn on Apr 6, 2010 11:59 PM EDT
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PrintI was remembering how Pittsburgh developed over the past few years (even the cup years), and recalled how inconsistent (and sometimes awful) they were through much of the year. In each of those years though, they went on some nice runs in March/April (just like our guys are doing now) and really started to gel as a team. Here is a look at the Pens records in March and April from the '03/'04 season through last year. Included is their season record and points, their record in March/April, the percentage of the team's wins achieved in March/April, total points from those months, the percentage of the teams total yearly games played in March/April, and the percentage of their yearly points achieved in those months. Then, a comparison to this years Isles team.
Hopefully, this is the start of a similar trend!
March/April Statistics
Penguins Season Record Record % of wins Points % tot games %Pts
2003-4 23-47-8-4 58 (ties) 10-4-3 43% 23 21% 40%
2005-6 22-46-14 58 (OT/SO L) 8-12-3 36% 19 28% 33%
2006-7 47-24-11 105 14-4-2 28% 30 24% 29%
2007-8 47-27-8 102 11-5-1 23% 23 21% 23%
2008-9 45-28-9 99 14-2-3 31% 31 23% 31%
Isles
2009-10 so far 34-35-10 78 9-6-2 26% 20 22% 26%
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I'd rather be like the Devils... but different!
I think you’re on to something with the development of young players. I think (and hope) Snow is trying to grow an organization rather than a group of players.
If you took a snapshot of the organization when Garth was given autonomy (adios comittee) I think we’re trending towards a structure with a group of replacable parts and one common philosopy.
So I hope they grow like the Devils have, where they can call up kids to play certain roles and there may be talent gaps, but everybody is on the same page, and they can go through periods with multiple injuries without dropping off the face of the earth.
The one difference will be the style of hockey. Now that Gordon is getting some buy-in, and he seems to have evolved (with soem better assistants), this thing could really start to flow. They are playing better nuetral zone, transition hockey… they are playing more physical and they are playing more confident. If this continues to work towards being more offensively productive, we, as fans, are going to have a lot of fun for a long time.
Well… that’s what I hope for anyway.
NHL 500... Let the Less Filling vs Tastes Great debate begin!
You know, that may be right on
I like the non-Crosby-dependent Penguins comparison in terms of their spring spurts during their growing years. But minus a Crosby and Malkin, the Isles model will be different, maybe more Devil-like, maybe better.
It’s so hard to picture all of this with so many outstanding variables (e.g. will this team ever be in a position to worry about the cap instead of the floor?) but by not having superstars the Isles should be able to have less of their payroll tied up in two or three players. More room for interchangeable parts.
Lighthouse Hockey: What's wrong with lotteries? I've been in lots of lotteries.
Yes
I didn’t mean so much style/superstar wise, but mostly progression/growth wise. I don’t think that JT, KO, JB = Malkin, Crosby, Staal…We will have to work much harder for our wins.
Looking over at Point Blank tonight, so many people were ANGRY that we won and it was a bit disheartening to see. How could you be angry about not getting a high pick if it is actually possible that some of our other picks are beginning to pan out? Bergie (1st) Schremp (1st) Comeau (2nd). And if these guys are working out well by working hard, we can be a Devils/Buffalo/Vancouver style team. Which I will gladly take!
I gotcha — and I didn’t mean to imply you were saying we have Malksby. JP just got me thinking about a “sustainable model,” for lack of a better term.
I don’t understand anger after an Isles win. I have fun with the lottery “race,” but there are just no guarantees … no guarantees. You get a star, maybe he’s great but one-dimensional and he eats up your payroll while being a defensively disinterested Ilya. Or maybe he gets hurt. Or maybe what you have is better.
Regardless, the Isles already have three top-10 picks and they’re about to add one more. I’ll let the chips fall where they may. Detroit is an impossible standard, but they haven’t had a decent 1st in ages. I’m preaching to the choir, though.
Lighthouse Hockey: What's wrong with lotteries? I've been in lots of lotteries.
the one player who stands head and shoulders is Hall
and we were never going to compete with Edmonton for pole position for the #1. As long as we finish in the top five, we still have a shot. We really need two more quality starters, not one. We will see.
I don't understand the anger either
I mean, maybe I’m more sentimental than your average hockey fan, but I’m so proud of the progress I’ve seen over the course of the season and I can’t wait to see them continue to grow next Cctober.
The anger we feel is because we are winning meaningless games, which gets us a lower pick. At this point in the season, when you are eliminated from postseason, the only thing that matters is getting the highest pick you can. Playing the spoiler doesn’t mean shit if you are still playing golf in 2 weeks. And don’t tell me about momentum going into next year – whether you finish the season winning 10 in a row or losing 10 in a row, the season is over and next year is next year. it’s completely different and doesn’t mean anything going forward.
We went from having what was going to be the third pick to the seventh. That puts us out of the portion of the lottery that lets us get the first pick, and it makes it harder to trade up to get a higher pick (since you have to add more), and harder to trade down (since you wont get as much back for your lower pick). It also pretty much rules out getting one of the top 5 players. Is a top 10 pick good? Yeah, but it’s not the same. You start getting into players who are good, but not the stand-out players. You start getting into project players who have potential but not consistency, or some other character flaw that keeps them from reaching their potential.
Sorry, i don’t want another Kvasha or Jokkinen or some other enigma. I don’t want to hear that our pick “has great potential” and then hear myself say “who the f**k is Mike Rupp and why did we just waste a first round pick on a guy noone knows?” If you’re going to be in the bottom of the division for a good portion of the season, and you know you are going to be a lottery team again, losing out on the lottery with a few late season wins is just another kick in the nuts.
Is the difference between #3 or #4 and #7 in this draft really that great? Can anyone even bet 50/50 odds on that? The Isles’ chances of getting Hall/Seguin were pretty much sealed by mid-season thanks to the Oilers and Leafs’ fantastic play. It’s not like the Islanders have charged up to 18th place overall here.
And the examples…I mean Olli Jokinen was a third overall pick! For all the hype, the draft provides few guarantees. There’s always a top 1 or 2 and then a bunch who the scouts debate at this age, whose rankings change by the quarter. Cam Fowler was #3 a few months ago and considered “depends on what a team wants” next to Hall/Seguin by CSS ranking, now he’s #5. Next December he could be higher or lower, ‘cause we just don’t know.
Could be my outlook on life, and maybe if I knew we were being stuck with Luke Schenn instead of Drew Doughty I could conjure some real frustration, but at this point it’s hard for me to find anger about unknowns.
Lighthouse Hockey: What's wrong with lotteries? I've been in lots of lotteries.
Well, seems like Fowler will drop to #3 now, and with some better conditioning he looks like he’ll be the prototypical “new” NHL defenseman.
Cидни Kросби: Александр Oвечкин, он твой папа теперь
Capitals Coming: for Capitals fans who can bear reading something less intelligent than a story at Japers' Rink
by red army line on Apr 9, 2010 2:02 PM EDT up reply actions
although EJ McGuire pointedly says that Gudbranson better fits the mold of the modern defenseman
Fowler is more like Green, Gudbranson like Phaneuf.
Heh, I know what you mean by the profile, but that’s a funny comparison of current NHLers. At least I know I’d trade Phaneuf for Green every day of the week and twice on Sundays.
Lighthouse Hockey: What's wrong with lotteries? I've been in lots of lotteries.
I think what they mean by those comparisons
is that Fowler is more of an offensive force from the blueline as Green is and like Green may be a bit challenged in his own end. Gudbranson is a more fiery, physical take no prisoners guy. He strikes me as more of a team leader than Fowler. My hunch is that if he can become a bit more disciplined and not take unnecessary penalties, he could be what this team needs more than Fowler.
I followed, and it makes sense. The “NHL comparables” are just always tricky when out of context. (For example, Seguin ~ Yzerman.)
Lighthouse Hockey: What's wrong with lotteries? I've been in lots of lotteries.
yeah
are they referring to his style of play or leadereship qualities? or is it just because Stevie is his favorite player?!
It’s like Duchene and Sakic last year. “But he is an AVS FAN, he is Sakic reincarnate!”
Lighthouse Hockey: What's wrong with lotteries? I've been in lots of lotteries.
Yeah, those are always confusing. You sort of have to make a comparison to a big-name player, since those are the guys people know about and can relate to, but almost all the time the better comparison is with a guy who flies under the radar.
At least what I heard about Fowler: Fast, good puck mover, good skater. Like Green, I guess.
Cидни Kросби: Александр Oвечкин, он твой папа теперь
Capitals Coming: for Capitals fans who can bear reading something less intelligent than a story at Japers' Rink
by red army line on Apr 10, 2010 8:37 AM EDT up reply actions
Yeah, and to be clear, I think the comparisons make sense: Pick a player who pretty much everyone knows (or should know) his skill set and profile, etc. It’s just when fans rip it out of context and start to go, “But he’s the next Mike Green!!!1”
Lighthouse Hockey: What's wrong with lotteries? I've been in lots of lotteries.
He also says he’s the prototypical physical NHL D. You know, the kind of guy that is dying off. Look at the best young D. Green, Keith, Doughty. None of them are huge hitters. They all skate like the wind and are great with the puck. Fowler dropping so much really pisses me off. He was a huge part of USA winning the WJC. Guarantee if he had that kind of performance for Team Canada he’d be hyped as the obvious best D and would be in with Hall and Seguin. McGuire’s rankings are kind of a joke to me.
A pretty girl is like a violent crime.
“Olli Jokinen was a third overall pick! "
and Alexander Daigle was a projected 40-50 goal scorer picked 1st overall…i think he’s trying his 12th comeback with the Macon Whoopie.
like i said – for the most part, the top 5 are locks. below that you start getting into the guys who can be great, but have ‘something’ keeping them from fulfilling that potential.
milbury took a chance on kvasha & jokkinen based on that potential, and i for one am tired of picking up enigmas, hoping they pan out. so far Snow has avoided this (thank god).
below that you start getting into the guys who can be great, but have ‘something’ keeping them from fulfilling that potential.
That “something” could be as simple as being young.
A lot of people passed on Bossy, and there wasnt “something” that stopped him from being great. :)
Let Us Go, Islanders! (Ever notice how strange that sounds without the contraction?)
by TheMetalChick on Apr 14, 2010 12:45 PM EDT up reply actions
if i’m not mistaken, the knock on Bossy was his size/people thought he was too frail.
i’m not really referring to that – i’m more referring to guys who the scouting reports clearly list as “could be really good if he mentally commits to the game full-time”. it’s the MENTAL stuff that causes the enigma guys to be picked high, because someone thinks that their coach can light a fire under his ass and get him to be his full potential, when that only works for short periods of time. it’s THOSE players i don’t want.
if a guy has talent, and more importantly, a good/great work ethic, but the only thing keeping him back is size/weight, then i’m fine with that player – they’re 18, they can add weight, and can possibly grow another inch or two. you can’t really ever make up for the mental laziness.
Connolly is a better comparison
He has a wealth of talent but will he have chronic injury problems? Hip problems at his age don’t bode well, but, we’ll see.
that’s a tough comparison to make – injuries crop up during a player’s career. most of the time it just happens. you can never predict that a player will get injured, nor how long the player will be out, nor if they will come back to the same level.
however, if you knew about prior injury history for a draftee, then maybe yes, you have a valid point. even more so for re-injuries and such. sometimes an injured draftee can heal and have a great career, other times your team signs him to a 15 year deal.
i’d still take a player with a past injury who has heart and soul than an enigma.
not that tough
He was gone almost the entire season with a hip injury, It does make a team worry that he will be fragile and injury-prone—precisely what everyone was worried about with Bossy. And the concerns about Bossy weren’t completely unjustified. His career WAS shortened by injuries. He played in just over half as many games as Gretzky. Had he played in the same number and scored at the same pace, he would have had over 1100 goals. He was like a meteor and he just doesn’t get enough credit. If the Isles see Connolly having that kind of career and Columbus doesn’t take him…by all means they should draft him.
I agree Bossy doesn't get credit
He has to be one of the top guys when you consider just goals per game with 573 in 752 games(.762 goals/game). Only Mario with 690 in 915 games(.754 ) and Richard with 544 in 978(.554) are in the top 30 all time with less than 1000 games.
In fairness if Mario didn’t comeback to help put people in the seats he would have been better. He had 77 goals in his last 170 games(.453). so before that (.811)
by Rickfansince76 on Apr 16, 2010 11:16 AM EDT up reply actions
There is only one player who is hands down a better pick than the others for the Isles
and no amount of tanking at the end of the season was going to get us anywhere near Edmonton to have pole position for Taylor Hall. Not sure I agree with Dom that our chance at Seguin was sealed by midseason—even in the limited sense of being in pole position to get him. We had something of a shot prior to the win over Ottawa. But that doesn’t matter as I am not convinced he was the player we need anyway.
I would like us to be in the #3 slot so that we can have our choice of defensemen, but not at the price of tanking. There is more to building a champion than adding high value picks to the organization. Florida and Tampa may be helping their draft order at our expense by tanking now, but at what expense? You can’t just add talent. You have to establish a culture that does not accept losing.
The fact is
That this team in the past hasn’t kept their players long enough to develop more than we didn’t have the horses. Jokkinen and Kvasha weren’t even our draft picks. They were other peoples shit that we got by being impatient. Many of these wins were against high quality competition that was jockeying for playoff spots or better playoff position. They may have been meaningless in the sense that we were eliminated, but they certainly mattered to the opponents and for our team to step up and show some character may go a long way in their development. I don’t want a bunch of humps who give up and die on any team I watch or play for. Those are the shittiest teammates to have and more than likely the same ones that in five years will be contract holdouts, whiners and locker room cancers. Sorry about your nuts, but I’ll take actual improvement over potential ___________ any day.
Without even looking...
Wasn’t the big difference for Pens Goaltending? I mean Crosby had a 100+ Point season his rookie year. But their goalies were awful till Fluery finally stepped up.
The Dream is over, time to jump on the bandwagon, Lets Go SoundTigers! What is a SoundTiger anyway?
That's part of it...
but can you win with Eddie Olczyk (or Glen Hanlon) behind the bench? This is going to be the question for Chuck and Garth next year. I think we’ve now seen two nice stretches of Scott Gordon hockey. He has given the Isles some wiggle room to offer a short extension after two less than stellar seasons (standings wise). I think the most of the fan base is now on board, and with a good start next year he’ll have the rest (me included) fully behind him.
What better time to hire your wife’s palaties(sp?) instructor to coach the team… stay tuned.
NHL 500... Let the Less Filling vs Tastes Great debate begin!
He seems to step up in
the second half of the season, and in the playoffs…although save% is not much different, so maybe their deadline acquisitions or abitlity to play team D improve…Lifetime numbers though are not that great…DiPietroesque
GP W L OT MIN GA SO GAA SV%
NHL totals 235 111 85 24 13367 640 15 2.87 907
Playoffs 49 31 18 — 2985 122 3 2.45 .916
Pre all-star break 187 Starts 2.96 .904
Post all star 100 2.58 .911
I'd like to see us like the Sabres or Devils
The Devils have been very cosistent for the last 15 years…and they have changed their game. Remember when they could shut down a team and give up 15 or less shots consistentlt. Now they score with a lot of talented guys, Elias, Parise, Zajac. Plus they always go ahead and make a trade at the deadline, many time make a coaching change also.
Sabres- have had a couple of different solid goalies , Hasak, Biron, and now Miller. They have many good solid forwards, no 1 star. They have solid D many years, some size and some puck movers. They get good return on players they pick, and also pick up guys who did not work out for their first team (Connolly). They do not spend a fortune.
The Sabres and Devils have also had a stable philosophy over the last 15 years on how the team should be organized. However, the Sabres haven’t pulled the trigger on coaching changes like the Devils have. I see the Islanders using a similar rebuilding model to that of the L.A. Kings, but over the long haul, both teams have good models to emulate. I’ve watched a lot of Sabres games over the past decade of so that I’ve lived in Upstate New York, and I will say that the team does play an exciting brand of hockey. But with the Devils having a good system of interchangeable parts, I would say that the Isles could use ideas from both teams.
Lighthouse
If we are also talking about a drama filled last minute save to keep the team where it is, with a final resolution of a new arena, I am all for it.
Heh true
…even if we have to use K.C. as the pawn, again.
Lighthouse Hockey: What's wrong with lotteries? I've been in lots of lotteries.
I think the model you should go for is LAK or CHI (well, until the latter started overloading on contracts). They didn’t have the benefit of drafting an absolute stud (which PIT got twice, WSH once) but still have nice young teams that attracted valuable players like Ryan Smyth, Marian Hossa, etc.
Cидни Kросби: Александр Oвечкин, он твой папа теперь
Capitals Coming: for Capitals fans no more intelligent than myself
Those probably work, although Kane and Toews were still a mighty fine dose of luck.
I like the Kings comparison, but the Hawks sat on great picks and poor decisions for years, then got the benefit of spending to the cap. By rights, they should have been a better team well before Toews and Kane fell into their laps.
Lighthouse Hockey: What's wrong with lotteries? I've been in lots of lotteries.
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1979-80
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May 24, 1980: Tonelli to Nystrom. At long last, the steady build of the New York Islanders from expansion doormat to surprise semifinalist to annual contender reaches the promised land: Buoyed by a late season trade for Butch Goring that gave the team the depth up the middle GM Bill Torrey had been seeking, the Islanders knock off the Philadelphia Flyers in six games.
The victory justified the faith in coach Al Arbour who guided them from their second season to their first Stanley Cup seven seasons later. The Islanders would not be the first expansion team to win the Stanley Cup, but they would be the only one capable of a dynasty.
1980-81
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May 21, 1981: This time it was much easier. After falling to "only" 91 points in the 1979-80 season, the Islanders returned to their division title tradition, piling up 110 points -- a whole 13 points over second-place Philadelphia.
Between the quarterfinals (where they beat the upstart Oilers in six games) and the finals, the Islanders reeled off eight consecutive wins -- with a four-game sweep of archrival Rangers in between. As they defeated the Minnesota North Stars in five games for their second Cup, their goal difference in the final was a combined +10.
1981-82
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May 16, 1982: Another year, another landslide title. The Islanders won the Patrick Division by a whopping 26 points over the second-place Rangers, and were seven points clear of their nearest competition for the President's Trophy, the still-not-quite-ripe Edmonton Oilers.
A first-round scare against the Pittsburgh Penguins turned in the Isles' favor thanks to John Tonelli's heroics, and a true dynasty was on its way: Past the Rangers in six games, then an eight-game sweep of the Quebec Nordiques and Vancouver Canucks to run away with the Stanley Cup.
1982-83
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May 17, 1983: Not so fast, whipper-snappers. The Edmonton Oilers' steadily rising challenge for league supremacy took them all the way to the finals for the first time, where the New York Islanders summarily dispatched them in a four-game sweep. For the Islanders, the Dynasty was secured. For the Oilers, it was a powerful lesson in where talent ends and the demands of playoff hockey begin.
Four years, four Cups, 16 consecutive playoff series wins (a record that would grow to 19 until the rematch with the Oilers the following year). Mike Bossy scored 60 goals yet again, and Wayne Gretzky became acquainted with Billy Smith's crease.
