/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/10071049/164097017.0.jpg)
It's always better doing these NHL power ranking roundups when the Islanders are on a good run of play (that is, until the referees rip a win away from them and hand it on a silver platter to the opponent). And it seems that the major publications are ready to jump on the bandwagon, should the Isles somehow ride this little wave they've got going.
Before the polls and rankings and alternate five-point standings, a few links:
- Did we mention media bandwagon? Puck Daddy spotlights the Isles...
- This was discussed last night, but Newsday has that backbreaking winner going off Streit's foot.
- Cheer up after last night's loss: Grabner might be ready for Thursday.
- March brackets: Steve Mason vs. Rick DiPietro/Garth Snow.
- Speaking of which, the Times features DiPietro's effect on Bridgeport.
- Notre Dame (Anders Lee, Robbie Russo) will play in the CCHA semifinal against An Ohio State Saturday in Detroit. Denver U. (Scott Mayfield) will have to wait for Sunday to see if they get an at-large bid to the NCAA regionals, but their chances are good.
- The greatest Niagara IceDog of all time? Ryan Strome: “He has such an all-around game. He’s such a play maker and such a goal scorer. He seems to want to be on the ice for every shift at the end of the game. He doesn’t get tired. He makes plays under duress and that’s what elite guys do.” Really good read, with thoughts from Strome as his OHL time winds down.
-
D.C. Isles Fans: Interested in meeting up at 51st Street to watch Thursday's Isles vs. Montreal game? Let CC know your interest here.
And now, your punditry:
Weekly Round-Up of Opinion Polls*
Site | Ranking | Prior | Comments |
CBS | 18 | 23 | The Isles are just two points out of a playoff spot but it's hard to consider them a true threat when they're 29th in the league in goals against per game with 3.25. |
THN | --- | 19 | No rankings this week. |
ESPN | 19 | 24 | OK, is this a real playoff push or just a spasm of inspired play designed to tease long-suffering Isles fans? The Isles have gone 5-1-1 to close to within two points of eighth place in the East. |
TSN | 21 | 22 | 5-1-2 in their last eight games, the Islanders are also 8-4-1 on the road this season, the best mark of any team outside the playoffs at the moment. |
Fox Sports | 21 | 24 | The Isles have a two-game winning streak for the second time this month, are 5-1-2 over their last eight and have inched above .500. The last portion of this run has come minus winger Michael Grabner (shoulder). |
NHL Numbers | 19 | 19 | No Comments on this page. |
Average | 19.6 | 21.8 | Will you just pull a "Chicago 2011" already?! |
* Well, actually, only the first six lines are apparently opinion polls. Our good friend Keith Quinn showed me a link to the seventh, from the NHL Numbers site. They recently started their own objective power rankings formula. They don't tell us exactly how they come up with it, and their site states that the intention of their calculations is to predict where each team will finish the season. But predicting where a team will end up is good enough for me. Ever since Sportsnet stopped doing their rankings, we were running a bit light, so I'm throwing NHL Numbers' rankings for the rest of the year. Click on their name to go to their site and see what they say about their little baby.
Certainly, despite the fact that the Isles beat teams they absolutely were supposed to beat (and while neither victory was impressive), their average placement has risen. The comments are generally cautiously optimistic, which is better than what we usually get, I suppose.
LHH Power Rankings
On to the weekly calculations done by our in-house staff of one. The final column shows the overall NHL rank, which doesn't mean a whole lot this year since the two conferences don't play each other.
Overall | ||||||||
EAST | W | L | OTL | Pts | Win Pct | PWR | Rank | |
1 | Pittsburgh | 22 | 8 | 0 | 44 | 0.733 | 2074 | 3 |
2 | Boston | 19 | 5 | 3 | 41 | 0.759 | 2065 | 4 |
3 | Montreal | 19 | 5 | 4 | 42 | 0.750 | 2036 | 5 |
4 | Ottawa | 15 | 8 | 6 | 36 | 0.621 | 1776 | 9 |
5 | Toronto | 15 | 12 | 2 | 32 | 0.552 | 1588 | 15 |
6 | Carolina | 15 | 11 | 2 | 32 | 0.571 | 1559 | 16 |
7 | New Jersey | 13 | 10 | 6 | 32 | 0.552 | 1542 | 17 |
8 | Winnipeg | 15 | 12 | 2 | 32 | 0.552 | 1532 | 18 |
9 | NY Islanders | 13 | 12 | 3 | 29 | 0.518 | 1501 | 21 |
10 | NY Rangers | 14 | 12 | 2 | 30 | 0.536 | 1461 | 24 |
11 | Buffalo | 10 | 15 | 4 | 24 | 0.414 | 1236 | 26 |
12 | Philadelphia | 13 | 16 | 1 | 27 | 0.450 | 1234 | 27 |
13 | Tampa Bay | 13 | 15 | 1 | 27 | 0.466 | 1211 | 28 |
14 | Washington | 12 | 15 | 1 | 25 | 0.446 | 1137 | 29 |
15 | Florida | 7 | 16 | 6 | 20 | 0.345 | 963 | 30 |
Overall | ||||||||
WEST | W | L | OTL | Pts | Win Pct | PWR | Rank | |
1 | Chicago | 24 | 2 | 3 | 51 | 0.879 | 2601 | 1 |
2 | Anaheim | 21 | 3 | 4 | 46 | 0.821 | 2477 | 2 |
3 | St. Louis | 16 | 10 | 2 | 34 | 0.607 | 1841 | 6 |
4 | Los Angeles | 16 | 10 | 2 | 34 | 0.607 | 1797 | 7 |
5 | Vancouver | 13 | 9 | 6 | 32 | 0.571 | 1795 | 8 |
6 | Minnesota | 16 | 10 | 2 | 34 | 0.607 | 1769 | 10 |
7 | Detroit | 14 | 10 | 5 | 33 | 0.569 | 1746 | 11 |
8 | Dallas | 13 | 12 | 3 | 29 | 0.518 | 1622 | 12 |
9 | San Jose | 12 | 10 | 6 | 30 | 0.536 | 1607 | 13 |
10 | Phoenix | 13 | 12 | 4 | 30 | 0.517 | 1595 | 14 |
11 | Edmonton | 11 | 11 | 6 | 28 | 0.500 | 1520 | 19 |
12 | Nashville | 11 | 12 | 6 | 28 | 0.483 | 1518 | 20 |
13 | Columbus | 11 | 12 | 6 | 28 | 0.483 | 1495 | 22 |
14 | Calgary | 11 | 12 | 4 | 26 | 0.481 | 1473 | 23 |
15 | Colorado | 10 | 14 | 4 | 24 | 0.429 | 1333 | 25 |
The Isles are right where they've been the past month or so. While beating the Panthers is better than losing to them, that win still doesn't move the Isles much. The Tampa game doesn't do much more.
OK, the editing window has already slowed to a crawl, and I haven't even handed this to Dom yet so he could insert a few links. Time to wrap things up with our little side project.
Alternate Reality Standings
The following rewards each type of win and loss differently, depending on how long it takes to win or lose. A regulation win is 5 points, OT win 4 points, and so on down to a regulation loss being zero. Yes, I know that the teams would behave differently if the points were handed out this way. This is just a little experiment. (Actual Place is the place the team is in the actual NHL standings, not counting the automatic top-three spot for first-place teams).
(Number of points) | (5) | (4) | (3) | (2) | (1) | (0) | Actual | ||
EAST | RW | OTW | SOW | SOL | OTL | RL | Pts | Place | |
1 | Pittsburgh | 19 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 105 | 1 |
2 | Montreal | 15 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 95 | 2 |
3 | Boston | 15 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 92 | 3 |
4 | Ottawa | 11 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 8 | 78 | 4 |
5 | Carolina | 14 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 77 | T5 |
6 | Toronto | 13 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 12 | 77 | T5 |
7 | Winnipeg | 11 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 12 | 74 | T5 |
8 | New Jersey | 10 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 10 | 70 | T5 |
9 | Tampa Bay | 12 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 15 | 66 | T11 |
10 | NY Rangers | 9 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 12 | 66 | 9 |
11 | Philadelphia | 11 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 16 | 64 | T11 |
12 | NY Islanders | 9 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 12 | 62 | 10 |
13 | Washington | 10 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 15 | 59 | 13 |
14 | Buffalo | 7 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 15 | 50 | 14 |
15 | Florida | 6 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 16 | 40 | 15 |
(Number of points) | (5) | (4) | (3) | (2) | (1) | (0) | Actual | ||
WEST | RW | OTW | SOW | SOL | OTL | RL | Pts | Place | |
1 | Chicago | 16 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 114 | 1 |
2 | Anaheim | 15 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 101 | 2 |
3 | Los Angeles | 15 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 10 | 81 | T3 |
4 | Minnesota | 11 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 10 | 75 | T3 |
5 | St. Louis | 10 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 10 | 75 | T3 |
6 | Detroit | 11 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 10 | 72 | 6 |
7 | Vancouver | 9 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 9 | 69 | 7 |
8 | Dallas | 10 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 12 | 65 | 10 |
9 | Phoenix | 9 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 12 | 65 | T8 |
10 | Calgary | 10 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 12 | 61 | 14 |
11 | San Jose | 8 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 10 | 61 | T8 |
12 | Nashville | 6 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 12 | 59 | T11 |
13 | Edmonton | 7 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 11 | 57 | T11 |
14 | Columbus | 5 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 12 | 54 | T11 |
15 | Colorado | 7 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 14 | 51 | 15 |
As stated last week, the alternate method hurts the Isles because a good number of their wins come after 60 minutes. But they'd still be only 8 points (a regulation win and a shootout win) from 8th.
OK enough for now. Time to go back to my new project: A spreadsheet that will accurately count the number of times the refs Avery our team over in a game.