A Possible New Home for the Coyotes?

After another successful European sojourn to begin the NHL season, I find myself wondering if this is the solution to the League's problem of what to do with the Coyotes -

 
After all, why should Habs fans be the only ones who get to burn cars when their team loses?

Can the Leafs be this Season's Coyotes?

To be a Leafs fan, it seems, is to vacillate between wild-eyed optimism and despondent pessimism, sometimes several times in the same sixty minutes. As this coming season approaches, the pulse of Leaf Nation seems to be favour the former sentiment - some even dare to hope that this year's squad will be the ones to end the Leafs' half-decade-long playoff drought.

If the Leafs manage to wheeze their way into the 8th spot they will have exceeded most impartial observers' expectations, but dare we hope for even more? Is it possible the Leafs could challenge for their Division or even the Conference title? Could the Leafs be this year's Phoenix Coyotes?

[Shortly after beginning this story it came to my attention that Editor in Leaf had already written a very comprehensive and similarly-themed series on the subject that is definitely worth a look. I decided to write this article anyway as I took a slightly different approach.]

I feel the comparison is more reasonable than it might initially appear to be - both this year's Leafs and last year's Coyotes entered the season as underdogs in a tough division and neither could boast high-powered offenses or star-studded lineups. As with so much in life, the statistics light the path that the Leafs will have to follow if they are going to emerge as this year's Cinderella story:

The Call of the North?

"NHLers love the idea of playing in Toronto".

We've all heard some variant of this said at some point, and many of us have probably uttered it ourselves. Intuitevely, this statement makes sense. The Leafs are the wealthiest, most storied franchise in the league (that's right, f%$* you Montreal) with a fanbase that exibits a level of devotion usually reserved for religious extremists. Toronto has all the amenities a guy pulling down a six- or seven-figure salary could want - luxury condos in the city and cottages in Muskoka, world-class dining, high-end fashion and jewelry for the wife/girlfriend in Yorkville and even a Ferrari dealership on Avenue Rd. It's hard to imagine any player deciding they'd rather play in an armpit like Detriot or New Jersey or in a market like Nashville or Atlanta where most residents can't even spell 'hockey', let alone care enough to go see a game.

Although Lord knows that I would salivate at the prospect of suiting up for the Blue and White, is it reasonable to expect the players in league really feel the same way? Let's consider some of the cons:

Player Spotlight: Alexander Semin

He was snakebit in last year’s playoff series against the hated Canadiens and he fights like Donkey Kong, but ‘the other Alex’ in Washington should be far more than an afterthought for fantasy GMs this year.

Alex Semin may be the most underrated player to go in your fantasy draft this year if the Yahoo! And Hockey News fantasy rankings are to be believed. Both lists have Semin ranked outside of the top 25, despite netting 40 goals and 84 points in 73 games last year – good for an overall ranking of 4th on the 2009-10 season according the the Y! rankings. So what’s changed? Semin is still with Washington, is in another contract year, is coming off his healthiest season in his career and still possesses a shot teammates have described as better than Ovechkin’s.  You can bank on Semin putting in 80 points and (assuming your league measures this stat) and taking close to 300 shots to boot.

One Thing Burke Got Right

As the offseason enters its twilight, Leaf fans are bracing for what may be another difficult season.  It looks like the 2010-11 Leafs will be icing a squad comprised of roughly four defensemen for every forward and goal production will once again fall on the shoulders of a select few.  This would be a fine arrangement for Toronto FC – one wonders if Brian Burke is confused about which MLSE team he is managing – but a hockey team usually requires more than one top-end forward if they hope to contend for a playoff spot.

But there is one bright spot in the Leafs strategy in this blogger’s opinion.  The acquisition of Jussi Rynnas is the latest example of an approach to developing a goaltending corps that I heartily support.  Rynnas is the third unsigned, undrafted goaltender that the Leafs have picked up in the past year (Gustavsson and Scrivens being the others).  Add fourth-round pick James Reimer to this list and I think we’re looking at an unheralded victory for the much-beleaguered Leafs GM.  Leaf fans should be applauding Burke on his strategy for a number of reasons:

 1) They were all ‘free’. I won’t belabour the Leafs’ well-documented lack of high draft picks and lack of depth at forward. What I will say is that a team in the Leafs’ position does well to pick up any promising player without having to give up anything in return.

 2) None of them are Vesa Toskala. Though I would sleep better at night if someone could produce a photograph of Rynnas and Toskala at the same event, just to make sure.

 3) Goaltending is a crap shoot.  When it comes to young goalies, nothing can be considered a ‘sure thing’.  Of course, many of the goalies taken in the top rounds live up to their billing - Luongo (4th overall), Brodeur (20th overall) and possibly even Fleury (1st overall) are good examples.  However, many more starters seemed to come out of nowhere, like Hiller (undrafted), Nabokov (219th overall), Lundqvist (205th overall), Miller (138th) and Kiprusoff (116th).  Add to that the fact that a lot of top-rated goalies are a bust - Rick DiPietro (1st), Brent Krahn (9th) and Peter Hamerlik (84th) were all selected before Henrik Lundqvist in 2000.  Actually, King Henrik wasn’t even the first SWEDISH goaltender selected, that honour went to Mikael Tellqvist (70th).  You never know which goalie will make the leap to stardom, but like in craps, you have a better chance of winning the more times you get to throw the dice.

 4) Francois Allaire.  The Leafs' goaltending coach arguably developed the modern style of goaltending while guiding two goalies (Roy and Giguere) to Stanley Cups. If anyone can help a young goalie maximize his potential, it’s this guy - give him enough chances to work some magic and I’m expecting at least one result worthy of David Blaine.

 5) Francois Allaire is not Vesa Toskala.

 So while the current Leafs squad might not be contending for Cup anytime soon, Burke did assemble a group that might just produce a goalie capable of taking us there.

Alexander the Great-est?

Wendel Clark led the NHL in sheer awesomeness every year he played. And even most years that he didn’t play. We can all agree on that, and if you don’t – go move to Edmonton. But my point is that you can’t prove I’m wrong because awesomeness is something that can’t be weighed or measured on any scale (in Wendel’s case maybe by moustache quality). But what about statistics that can be?

Now I don’t want to bore anyone with an economics lesson, but we all know that money doesn’t have the same value over time – John Rockefeller had a personal wealth of about a billion dollars when he died in 1937, but that was at a time when $1,000 would have bought you one of the Muskoka Five’s cottages. In today’s money, Rockefeller would have $660 billion – more than the Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan could mismanage in several lifetimes.

So as we can see, comparing the wealth of billionaires from different eras requires that their wealth be adjusted to reflect the changing value of money over time. So I ask you: why should hockey stats be any different? Of course it’s easier to just say that Wayne Gretzky has the most goals in history and leave it at that - few will argue with you if you say he was the greatest goal scorer of all time anyway. But consider the changes to the game that have occurred since the NHL was formed in 1917.

In the early years snipers faced goalies who weren’t allowed to fall to the ice to stop a puck, and if they got hurt (and they didn’t wear masks after all) forwards might find themselves trying to score on a defenseman in pads, or as happened famously with Lester Patrick, on the other team’s coach. More recent examples include the transition from the all-offense-all-the-time style of play and primitive goaltending techniques of the ‘80s to the Michelin Man goalie equipment and *shudder* neutral zone trap of the ‘90s to the composite sticks and offense-minded rule changes of the 2000s. So should a goal scored in the ‘80s really count for the same as a goal scored against the ’94 Devils?

We at BCP say no. And to try to account for these differences, we selected six snipers from different eras – Rocket Richard, Gordie Howe, Phil Esposito, Wayne Gretzky, Brett Hull and Alexander Ovechkin. Each player (except Ovie) is a Hall of Famer and averaged around 0.5 goals per game over a reasonably long career. To reflect the era in which each of these goal-scorers played, we adjusted their average goals per game total to according to the average number of goals scored in an NHL game over the course of their career. As a result, players who played in high-scoring eras had their score adjusted downward and players who played in comparatively low-scoring eras had their score boosted. These scores were expressed as the percentage of total goals in an average game that each player would have accounted for.

Using Gordie Howe as an example; Mr. Hockey got 801 goals in 1767 NHL games, which is an average of 0.45 goals per game. In the years Howe played (1946-71 and 1979/80) there was an average of 5.95 goals scored in an NHL game. That means Gordie Howe accounted for about 7.6% of the average total number of goals scored in every game that he played.

So without further delay, here are our results;

Click the chart for a full-sized image.

Not surprisingly, Ovechkin came out on top as a result of being in the peak of his career and enjoying the benefit of playing in a more low-scoring era. But among players whose careers are over, the Golden Brett edged out the Rocket to take the title as the greatest goal scorer of any era. We also compared the first five years of Ovechkin’s career with Hull’s and found that Ovie came out with a slight edge – 11.7% vs. 11.5% - which puts him on pace to become the greatest goal scorer of any era by our measure. That leaves us with a final depressing thought – does the title of the greatest goal scorer of any era really come down to a Cold War standoff between a Russian and an Canadian-traitor-turned-American? Sidney Crosby, time to up your game – your country needs you.

Worst. Collapse. Ever?

The comparisons to the 1942 Red Wings were inevitable as Boston managed to complete their ESPN poll-winning collapse, losing to the Flyers in seven games. As a result, the B's will now have to suffer the indignity of being the only NHL team to cough up not only a 3-0 lead in the series, but also a 3-0 lead in the deciding game.

But how bad was the Bruins collapse? On the face of it - horrible. They will have to keep the windows of the TD Banknorth Garden open until at least mid-September in order to air out the stench of the Bruins' failure. But taken as the sum of its parts, there's been worse in the wide world of sports. In fact, there has been worse in the same decade. I present for your consideration two incidents that should be able to provide some solace to the B's and their fans:

Blowing a 3-0 Series Lead - 2004 American League Championship Series

Boston Red Sox fans were preparing for an 86th consecutive year of playoff disappointment heading into Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS. The night before, Sox fans had watched in horror as the New York Yankees, their hated rival, thumped the hapless BoSox 19-8 to take a seemingly insurmountable 3-0 series lead - a deficit no team in MLB history had ever been able to overcome. The Yankees were up 4-3 in the bottom of the ninth inning, just three outs away from yet another trip to the World Series. Improbably, the best closer in baseball, Mariano Rivera, gave up a run to tie the score and send the game into extra innings. Finally, in the 12th inning, Boston DH David Ortiz hit his famous walk-off home run, giving Boston a faint hope. Ortiz repeated his heroics in Game 5, batting in another walk-off run in extra innings to win a close-fought game. With the series heading back to New York for Game 6, The Yanks' vaunted offense fizzled with Sox starter Curt Schilling, pitching on a sutured ankle, allowing only one run in seven innings on the way to helping the Sox knot the series at 3-3. Finally, in Game 7, an inspired Red Sox team leapt out to a huge lead early on, eventually winning the game 10-3, thus completing the most storied comeback in MLB history and crowning the Yankees with the humiliating distinction of being the only team in MLB history to ever lose a series after building a 3-0 lead - to the Red Sox no less. To this day, mention of the '04 ALCS inspires near-transcendental level of joy in the hearts Sox fans and elicits vitriolic defensiveness from Yankees fans in order to hide their soul-crushing shame...if anyone associated with the Yankees had a soul. Which of course they do not.

Blowing a 3-0 Lead in a Deciding Game - 2005 UEFA Champions League Final

In the '05 Champions League final, a favoured Italian AC Milan squad, fuelled by spectacular performances from star players Hernan Crespo and Andriy Shevchenko, was leading English club Liverpool FC by a score of 3-0 at halftime. Like the Bruins, AC Milan managed to squander their three goal lead, only in more spectacular fashion - Liverpool scored three times in only six minutes, tying the game only fifteen minutes into the second half, ultimately winning the game in penalty kicks when three of AC Milan's five shooters failed to score. To fully appreciate the staggering magnitude of AC Milan's choke, you need to remember that this is soccer we're talking about ('football' if you're a visor-wearing European). A three goal lead in soccer is like a six goal lead in hockey - the Canadian Olympic curling team could plausibly defend a three goal lead for the last half of a soccer game. Finally, unlike in hockey, over 80% of penalty shots taken in professional soccer result in a goal. AC Milan missed THREE TIMES in five attempts to complete their epic collapse. The math speaks for itself (OK Flyers fans I'll do it for you - that's only a 40% conversion rate).

So there there Bruins fans. It could have been worse: you could have blown a 3-0 series lead to Habs instead of the Flyers. Or you could have blown a six-goal lead instead of a three-goal lead in Game 7. But if you still feel sad, do yourselves a favour and go watch Ortiz's Game 4 walk-off homer a few times on YouTube. Feel better now?

PIMP Rankings

First off, allow me to explain what I mean by ‘PIMP’. This is not a chronicle of the frat-party escapades of the Philadelphia Flyers or the goings-on in the back of Pat Kane’s limousine. Rather, this is a bit of a joke at the expense of a friend who is a fantasy hockey addict worthy of A&E’s Intervention. When pressed to justify his high opinion of a player that is a statistical underperformer, the friend in question will invariably attempt to settle the issue by proclaiming that the player in question “is a PIMP”.

Being a PIMP appears to depend solely on a player’s reputation and not his actual fantasy value. A PIMP may be talented, but his past performance, popularity with the fans, flashy play or other intangible qualities results in him acquiring a reputation that far exceeds his performance on the scoresheet.

A PIMP’s high reputation-to-actual quality ratio renders them unjustifiably expensive to trade for in keeper leagues and likely to be drafted far too early in one-year leagues. Better let someone else pick them up and deal with the frustration – it’s hard to win with a team of PIMPs.

The top five PIMPs according to the BCP Vice Squad are:

5) Roberto Luongo - Roberto Luongo is a talented goaltender, possibly even the most talented in the game. However, his fantasy performance doesn’t merit the exalted status he enjoys in most fantasy leagues. In the past three seasons Bobby Lu was never ranked higher than 4^th among ‘tenders on the Y! rankings and never led the league in wins, GAA or SV%. Luongo is still a great option in net, but he isn’t so much better than the other options available that it justifies the premium he is likely to command.

4) Jarome Iginla - Everyone but Pat Quinn seems to love Iggy. He scores, he fights, he set up Crosby’s gold medal-winning goal and he seems like a friendly guy. That’s the problem. The sad reality is that Iginla has been a fantasy disappointment lately – Yahoo! projected him at 9^th at the beginning of the last two seasons, but he finished ranked only 18^th in 2008-09 and 41^st in 2009-10. Unless Calgary gets Iggy a decent centre to line up beside, his stats are likely to continue to decline along with the Flames’ fortunes next season, but his reputation seems to be bulletproof.

3) Vincent Lecavalier - Vinny has had a rough couple of seasons – his role as the face of the franchise is being usurped by Steven Stamkos and he has been unable to duplicate his incredible play in 2006-07. Lecavalier tallied just 70 points this past season, and his performance in 2008-09 was horrid – he got only 67 points and missed the top 50 in the Y! rankings. Despite this worrying trend, Lecavalier is still regarded by many as a top fantasy player. He may yet return to form, but given the abundance of skilled centremen in the NHL there isn’t much to justify ranking Vinny among the elite fantasy players in the league.

2) Rick Nash - Nash is a big winger, a big talent and a big name in the NHL. Unfortunately for Nash’s fantasy owners, he doesn’t live up to his supersized reputation. Nash has never scored even 80 points, and his fantasy performance has only declined over time – over the last three seasons Nash’s Y! ranking fell steadily from 17^th to 25^th to 43^rd. None of this is likely to stop many fantasy owners from selecting Nash in the earliest rounds of most fantasy drafts before less flashy players like Mikko Koivu, Derek Roy and Paul Stastny, all of whom posted more points than Nash last season. Opt for substance when drafting – the spectacular end-to-end goals won’t be much consolation when Nash goes on one of his trademark pointless streaks.

1) Dion Phaneuf - Phaneuf does a lot of things fans love in a D-man – he’s got a great shot and he dishes out kidney-rupturing hits. Phaneuf was a Calder nominee in his rookie year, and he had a decent couple of seasons after that. However, the future captain of the Maple Leafs has never lived up to his lofty reputation in the fantasy game since. Phaneuf has still managed to post respectable goal totals, but he was soundly outperformed by a new guard of elite defensemen like Duncan Keith and Drew Doughty. Nonetheless, being the face of the most prominent franchise in the game has its perks (Elisha Cuthbert comes to mind) and an inflated fantasy value is one of them.