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950 Man-Games: An organizational story. Plus: Final power rankings

By Dominik Updated
Blake Comeau -- a rare healthy Islander -- celebrates a successful COZO.
Blake Comeau -- a rare healthy Islander -- celebrates a successful COZO.

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.

ESPN's Final Power Ranking

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.

TSN's Final Power Ranking

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.