NHL Power Rankings + Isles Bits, 3/6/13: Second Verse, Same as the First

Before we get into the weekly power rankings, a few bits in advance of tonight's big Battle of New York:

• Newsday on the Isles mindset for tonight
  
• The official site on Colin McDonald's marching orders to be a physical player to get a shot with the big club.
• Yes, the Rangers took a "huge flier" on ancient Roman Hamrlik. Thankfully though, Marc Staal is expected to make a full recovery.
  
• Bridgeport lost to Manchester in OT, Nino Niederreiter and Mike Halmo scoring, Brock Nelson picking up helpers, Rick DiPietro stopping 24. [official | Soundin Off | Post]
• Interesting quote from Anders Nilsson on a DP puck-handling miscue in his first game: "The team was showing him too much respect."
• On why Micheal Haley is hard to grab in a fight.
• FIG Picks for tonight: Leave them here. Standings are updated.
• In the D.C. area? Meet some fellow LHHers to watch tonight's game.

So it's been two weeks since we've done one of these things, as I was on a vacation. Back then, I noted that many people couldn't make heads or tails of our favorite little hockey club, as the Isles were leading a Jeckyll-and-Hyde existence.

Let's see if others' views on our team have changed...

Summary of Opinion Polls

Well, it's nearly the same. Less than one position worse, on average. (Sportsnet.ca, by the way, seems to have ceased publishing a power rankings survey, so we're down to five opinion polls). Their notes leaned more towards the negative, but more in frustration rather than the beating-the-dead-horse option of bashing the club.

More on this in a minute. On to this site's cold hard calculations.

LHH Power Rankings

And the Islanders are right where they were two weeks ago. 9th in the East, and 22nd overall (vs. 21st two weeks ago). So in other words, no matter who you ask or which computer you use to plug in the data, the Islanders are consistently inconsistent. And as Forrest would say.... That's all I've got to say about that.

(See? I can be brief! No promises for future posts, though.)

And on to my little experiment, where regulation wins are rewarded more than OT wins, which in turn are rewarded more than shootout wins, and with shootout losses rating higher than OT losses, and OTLs rated higher than regulation losses.

NHL Standings from an Alternate Universe

Well at least we see a little more variance here, although not in the Islanders' favor. But that's what happens when many of your victories require more than 60 minutes.

The Punchline

Last season, the Isles finished at NHL - .482. The years before that, it was .445, .482, and .372. This year, they are currently at .478, but only one game under .500. Still, you would think that a team that said goodbye to the Rolstons and Eatons of this world and said hello to the... well anybody else, really... would have at least a marginally improved record. Their place in the standings has improved, as some other teams have fallen, but that's no excuse for a worse record. You may or may not have been looking towards the playoffs this year, and yes, the team still has half a truncated season to go, but if the team continues as they are, you would think changes would be required in the offseason.

But that's another discussion for another day. And by another day, I mean every day in the latest LHH comments section. See you guys there! :-)