Howdy all. During the regular season, Dom tirelessly compiled the "Power Rankings" published by various sports publications to see what the rest of North America thought of our little hockey club. As far as we could tell, however, the majority of these power rankings were nothing more than opinion polls (THN being a notable exception), similar to the Coaches and AP polls that make up the majority of the college football rankings. I'm not too impressed with what other people think about who's best, and came up with a way to rank teams based solely on who they played against. And thus, I finally found a way to contribute in my own little way to this site.

The power rankings formula that I came up with is actually quite basic and straightforward, and was intended to compare teams based on a limited number of data points (for example, 10 or 20 games per team). As the season wound down, it became apparent that that power rankings would greatly mirror the overall points standings, since there was a full season of data to draw from (and thus perhaps warranting a change to the formula for next year, but that's another topic for another time).

For now, however, as was suggested to me by various peoples throughout the year, I decided to go back to calculate the power rankings by month, to see how our team fared through both the good months and the bad. Since the playoffs, draft, and start of free agency are now behind us, now seems as good a time as any to slap this together, so here goes....

A quick disclaimer first: I have no clue what I'm doing here. Not as far as the power rankings go... I meant as far as editing together something for a FanPost. So this is going to look a little sparse. I'll just add a comment or two here and there, as this will be long enough as is. OK, on with it:

October Power Rankings

Note Edmonton having only one more standings point than the Devils, and yet were doubling their power rankings points. They scored a victory or two against higher ranked opponents, while the Devs only beat bottom feeders. This table likely will also bring a tear or two to Dom's eyes, as his "other" team was best in the league early on. Next month? Not so much (sorry, buddy!)...

November Power Rankings

Your more traditional power houses start rising to the top. Meanwhile, the Isles' swoon begins, and it shows.

December Power Rankings

The Canucks decide to start playing hockey. The Isles rebound a bit, and most importantly, everyone can finally laugh at the Devils, at least for the time being (just teasing, visitors from In Lou We Trust.... it's just so bizarre to see them atop the inverse standings).

January Power Rankings

The Isles really were just plodding along at this point, but Captain Jack was about to turn this ship around, despite the mounting injuries...

February Power Rankings

To be honest with you, I thought they'd be a bit higher this month. But as you can see, there were a handful of teams with worse records who still finished above. I guess the quality of competition for that particular month wasn't so great. Although they beat the Caps and Pens, those teams didn't have their best months, so it lessened those otherwise quality wins when looking exclusively at this month.

March Power Rankings

The Blackhawks had two less standings points than the Isles, but finished ten spots above them. Just goes to show you that the Western Conference was pretty badass this year.

April Power Rankings

Not much to glean from the very last games of the year, except that when you're giving out one-day tryouts for d-men, you're likely going to finish near the bottom.

OK, so that's about it. I don't know if there's really much to learn from this little exercise. It's more something to keep you occupied for a little while during the non-news-item days of summer. Peruse at your leisure.