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Last night's lottery came up gold for New Jersey, so if you want to chew on draft things, nhl.com has three mock drafts (purely for entertainment purposes, I assure you). I've got a few other things on my mind though:
Going into their final two games, the Islanders had lost 564 man-games to injury with another 18 guaranteed from players who had been ruled out for the year. AHL teams don't keep official lists, but the Connecticut Post's unofficial tally had the Sound Tigers at 355 man-games lost with 15 more ensured in the last three games.
That's over 950 man-games lost between the teams. That's kind of like losing an entire roster for 47 games, and that's also part of the reason why Bridgeport has used 61 players this year. Only four AHL teams in the past 15 years have used more.
"We've got 14 (NHL-)contract defensemen, and at this point we have five healthy," Snow said last week.
That's from the CP's Michael Fornabaio's end-of-season wrap. It's such a good piece I just figured it'd be worth quoting and pointing you there. (Fornabaio also has a run-down of organization-wide contract status + years left in this updated blog post ... and a bunch of post-season quotes from BST players in this post.)
Meanwhile, sorry to combine topics on you here, but we've had a lot of posts the last few days and are due plenty more. So below are our final power rankings, complete with some more explanation from Mike (ICanSeeForIslesAndIsles). I'm pretty sure only a couple of our usual media outlets will have updated rankings for the final week of the season, so I'm forgoing the usual pretty table and satire and just posting their quotes below.
Islanders are 25th, a jump from 27th last week. Their final quote:
The Isles, likewise, have lots to look forward to next year. Here's to Jack Capuano for making the most of a bad, sometimes ugly situation.
Islanders are 25th, same as last week. Their final quote:
If Al Montoya can help shore up the Islanders' goaltending needs, the defence should be improved next season with the presumed return of Mark Streit and, eventually, Andrew MacDonald. With a promising group of young forwards, there is reason for optimism on the Island, especially if the offseason brings savvy additions to better fill out the lineup.
For the record, the Islanders finished 27th overall -- and our power ranking has them the same -- so let it be said that the second half they put up doesn't just have (most of) us thinking of brighter days.
Real Power Rankings
Now on to Mike's rankings, which he'll continue through the playoffs. (Remember, it's based on who's played -- and beaten -- whom.) Mike's final thoughts:
For what it's worth, it comes as no surprise to me that the power rankings closely match the overall standings based on the traditional standings points. The point of the power ranking system is to objectively compare teams when there aren't a lot of data points to go on. But by the end of an NHL season, there's over a thousand games played and every team has played all of the other 29 teams at least once.
That being said, as suggested by someone in the comments recently, I'll go back in a few days and try to break down where the Isles finished in the rankings per month, even if it's only something to keep me busy as we start the offseason. I'll continue to track the power rankings through the playoffs, to see what happens. Of particular interest will be what happens to the non-playoff teams. It's conceivable to jump up a bit, if a playoff team who you beat more often than not in the regular season, all of a sudden catches fire and goes on a long playoff run.
Above Ottawa and so close to Florida here. So close:
W | L | OTL | Pts | Played | Pct | Game | PWR | ||
1 | Vancouver | 54 | 19 | 9 | 117 | 82 | 0.713 | 0.3829 | 2105 |
2 | San Jose | 48 | 25 | 9 | 105 | 82 | 0.640 | 0.3598 | 1979 |
3 | Washington | 48 | 23 | 11 | 107 | 82 | 0.652 | 0.3561 | 1950 |
4 | Philadelphia | 47 | 23 | 12 | 106 | 82 | 0.646 | 0.3510 | 1928 |
5 | Pittsburgh | 49 | 25 | 8 | 106 | 82 | 0.646 | 0.3472 | 1907 |
6 | Detroit | 47 | 25 | 10 | 104 | 82 | 0.634 | 0.3461 | 1905 |
7 | Tampa Bay | 46 | 25 | 11 | 103 | 82 | 0.628 | 0.3430 | 1883 |
8 | Boston | 46 | 25 | 11 | 103 | 82 | 0.628 | 0.3413 | 1869 |
9 | Anaheim | 47 | 30 | 5 | 99 | 82 | 0.604 | 0.3378 | 1856 |
10 | Phoenix | 43 | 26 | 13 | 99 | 82 | 0.604 | 0.3361 | 1846 |
11 | Nashville | 44 | 27 | 11 | 99 | 82 | 0.604 | 0.3339 | 1839 |
12 | Chicago | 44 | 29 | 9 | 97 | 82 | 0.591 | 0.3312 | 1822 |
13 | Los Angeles | 46 | 30 | 6 | 98 | 82 | 0.598 | 0.3310 | 1818 |
14 | Montreal | 44 | 30 | 8 | 96 | 82 | 0.585 | 0.3256 | 1780 |
15 | Dallas | 42 | 29 | 11 | 95 | 82 | 0.579 | 0.3185 | 1758 |
16 | Buffalo | 43 | 29 | 10 | 96 | 82 | 0.585 | 0.3198 | 1756 |
17 | NY Rangers | 44 | 33 | 5 | 93 | 82 | 0.567 | 0.3163 | 1730 |
18 | Calgary | 41 | 29 | 12 | 94 | 82 | 0.573 | 0.3047 | 1679 |
19 | St. Louis | 38 | 33 | 11 | 87 | 82 | 0.530 | 0.2959 | 1631 |
20 | Carolina | 40 | 31 | 11 | 91 | 82 | 0.555 | 0.2943 | 1621 |
21 | Minnesota | 39 | 35 | 8 | 86 | 82 | 0.524 | 0.2867 | 1573 |
22 | Toronto | 37 | 34 | 11 | 85 | 82 | 0.518 | 0.2839 | 1557 |
23 | Columbus | 34 | 35 | 13 | 81 | 82 | 0.494 | 0.2752 | 1516 |
24 | New Jersey | 38 | 39 | 5 | 81 | 82 | 0.494 | 0.2728 | 1497 |
25 | Atlanta | 34 | 36 | 12 | 80 | 82 | 0.488 | 0.2704 | 1487 |
26 | Florida | 30 | 40 | 12 | 72 | 82 | 0.439 | 0.2474 | 1358 |
27 | NY Islanders | 30 | 39 | 13 | 73 | 82 | 0.445 | 0.2473 | 1356 |
28 | Ottawa | 32 | 40 | 10 | 74 | 82 | 0.451 | 0.2434 | 1341 |
29 | Colorado | 30 | 44 | 8 | 68 | 82 | 0.415 | 0.2275 | 1254 |
30 | Edmonton | 25 | 45 | 12 | 62 | 82 | 0.378 | 0.2065 | 1138 |
Wow, Edmonton. Just wow.
Anyway, a thanks here to Mike for keeping up with this all season long, sending them my way with Frans-like reliability, and adding power ranking context both in these posts and in our playoff series polls.