Everything Else

Once More Unto The Breach – The Committed Indian's Season Preview: Seeing It From A DC 9 At Night

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Moving along in our look around the Central, it’s time we get to everyone’s new favorite darling (mine as well. I think it’s the jerseys), the Dallas Stars. They’ve gotten so much attention that now everyone hates them, so think of them as last year’s Avalanche. Except they’ll probably be a better possession team than last year’s, or this year’s, Avs, though probably won’t come close to that point total.

Forwards: Clearly, this is where the big splash came for the Stars, trading Alex Chiasson for Jason Spezza (essentially) while signing Ales Hemsky,. While everyone focuses the 1-2 of Seguin-Spezza, to me the real story is that it slots The Ginger Ninja Cody Eakin, who I just love to an irrational degree, onto the 3rd line which is what he really is. A checking line of Roussel-Eakin-Garbutt/Sceviour is going to be one of the most annoying around. If Peverley can return, and that’s obviously a huge if, it gets better. The Stars are one move away from having just about as good of a top 9 as there is in this division. And that one move could be as simple as calling up Brett Ritchie at some point.

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Tuning Up: Habs 3 – Hawks 1

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Have to clean up the stuff from last night’s game, so let’s do that.

-The first thing that was obvious is that last night’s bottom pairing of Michal Rozsival and Kyle Cumiskey absolutely drowned against what was basically Montreal’s bottom six and a bunch of Hamilton Bulldogs. No Gallagher, Galchenyuk, Desharnais, Patches, Plekanec, and yet whoever was out against this pairing had their way. Look, I know Rozsival will never look fast, and especially in training camp, but it was hard to not be alarmed. Yes, the games he does play, which won’t be all of them obviously, will be weighted with easy zone starts and opposition. But that doesn’t make me feel better right now, especially with the strong chance that Leddy isn’t going to be around to push the play the other way and save him.

They keep telling me Cumiskey is the surprise of camp, and I see that he can skate pretty well, but he’s playground recess in his own end. His gap to Drayson Bowman was simply awful while Rozie was getting beat to the front of the net, and had it been better maybe that pass is never made. Maybe they’re pumping Cumiskey to soften the blow of any Leddy trade, and he plays the same side unlike Rundblad. But based on what I’ve seen this preseason, that’s not an answer to any question I’m asking.

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Once More Unto The Breach – The Committed Indian's Season Preview: Jenkem Collectors

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Like any healthy person, you can only spend so much time looking inward. Eventually you get sick of everything in there, and it’s a good thing to take that distaste for the world and aim it at others (I think?). So with that in mind, it’s time to stop poring over our internal questions and look at the other teams in the Central. And while I could never hope to come close to replicating what Andrew Cieslak does about the Blues over at HockeeNight.com, I’ll do my best.

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Roster-Palooza

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The Hawks cut down their roster to 28 today, sending various scraps to Rockford, along with two of their security guards in Cody Bass and Pierre-Cedric-Luc-Zinedine-Stephane-Thierry Labrie off to pasture as well. The Hawks have five more cuts to get to 23, if they can even end up carrying 23 depending on how they solve this cap problem that Stan has backed himself into. Because I’m totally sure the offers he’s hearing as we get closer to the regular season are getting better all the time.

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Score Effects Pt. 2: Making a Comeback

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I have previously broken down the ways a leading team played in a Score Effects situation last season. We are now ready to look at the ways teams played when trailing 2 or more goals in a game. The theory of Score Effects tells us that teams get more aggressive offensively when trailing by 2 or more goals in the first and second period and even when down by one in the third period. The theory also posits that most teams go into a defensive shell in this situation or at the very least take less chances on offense thereby decreasing their shot output.

In order to determine how the trailing team plays, shot rates including Shots For, Corsi For and Fenwick For are helpful. When a team was down 2 or more goals, these rates can be compared to the same rates for each team at Score Close. A comparison of a trailing team’s sh% (Shooting Percentage) when down 2 and at Score Close is also useful.