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Mediocrity Gets You Pears – Lightning vs Hawks Preview, Pregame Thread, Dog Grooming

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Greased_Lightning vs oldschool

Game Time: 7:30PM Central
TV/Radio: CSN, WGN-AM 720
Guilty As Charged, But Dammit It Ain’t Right: Raw Charge

As far as matchups in the first half of November are concerned, they don’t get much more exciting than this on paper. Both the Hawks and the Lightning have legitimate hopes of emerging from their respective conferences in late May while playing an electrifying (GET IT) style of up tempo hockey. Tonight will be Tampa’s lone appearance in the United Center this season, which adds to the uniqueness of the matchup. Meanwhile a national TV audience gets the Sabres and Blues over on NBCSN, so nicely done by the NHL once again.

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NHL Teams & Analytics: The Devil Is In The Details

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The more I work with microstats and tracking the formation habits of teams, the more I get into discussions with people who say “there’s no way teams actually do that” or something very similar. Many of the people telling me this are very smart hockey people from all areas of the sport, not just the stats circles I run in and it makes me increasingly wonder about the processes currently used in hockey. It makes me question whether I am working off of the same information as the people who are closer to the game.

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NHL Teams & Analytics: The Devil Is In The Details

By 1070 0

The more I work with microstats and tracking the formation habits of teams, the more I get into discussions with people who say “there’s no way teams actually do that” or something very similar. Many of the people telling me this are very smart hockey people from all areas of the sport, not just the stats circles I run in and it makes me increasingly wonder about the processes currently used in hockey. It makes me question whether I am working off of the same information as the people who are closer to the game.

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High On The Hog: McNeill Makes With The Boom

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The Rockford IceHogs have been on fire to start the 2014-15 AHL season. Win or lose, this is going to be a fun team to watch. Heading West on I-90, it’s mostly win for the Hogs.

Rockford has won a franchise-record eight straight and is 10-2-0-1 in a baker’s dozen of games. The IceHogs are on top of the Midwest Division and hold the second spot in the AHL’s Western Conference standings. Mark McNeill’s goal explosion has been a big part of the current surge.

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Sharks At Blackhawks – Preview/Pre-Game Thread/Circle Pit

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shark @ AltLogo_medium

Game Time: 6:00PM
TV/Radio: WGN for both
Rudderless: Fear The Fin, Battle Of California

You ever have one of those problems that you can’t quite figure out a solution to? Maybe you’ve tried everything – duct tape, WD-40, cursing, prayers – but nothing seems to work out. That’s kind of where the Sharks are at this point. This is a team that should have beaten the Kings last year in the playoffs. It’s a team that’s annually considered cup contenders (on paper at least). It’s a team that seems to have all the pieces. And it’s a team that seems to be running out of options.

After years of maintaining a team that couldn’t quite put together the final piece, GM Doug Wilson had enough blowing a 3 game lead to the Kings (and a 3 goal lead in game 7) and decided that things needed to change in San Jose. But maybe that was just a lot of smoke because things look pretty much the same. The only big addition for the Sharks was adding the NHL version of Fezzik in John Scott. He’s likeable. He’s strong. He’s slow as hell and not all that bright. Dan Boyle walked but that’s nothing huge. The only real major change made by the Sharks? Stripping Jumbo Joe of his C and deciding that no one else on the team really deserves it that much more. Good move?

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Life After Death

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If we took out a certain few minute span at the end of the second period, this would have been a pretty terrific game. Sadly, that apparently is not an option in the NHL. It’s too bad really. That whole giving up 3 goals in a short time span thing, particularly the 2 right at the end of the period probably earned the team a good screaming at from Quenneville and deservedly so. On the bright side, the Blackhawks did score an even strength goal on home ice so we can put that talking point to rest for a while.

  • Heaven Marian Saad to Brandon Hossa… no wait, that’s not right. Marian Hossa to Brandon Saad for a goal. That was beautiful work. It was just magical to watch. Hopefully Saad is soaking in every bit of knowledge he can from Hossa, because even if he never becomes the goal scorer that Hossa is, he could learn a lot about using the tools he has to be a terrific hockey player. Another bright spot was the third defensive pairing. Trevor van Riemsdyk continues to show that he’s capable of making smart decisions more often than poor ones and be trusted to slot in on any of the pairings when the blender calls for it. For the past week, David Rundblad has actually looked like the player we actually thought he might be instead of a guy scared to make a mistake and spend the rest of the season in the press box.
  • Purgatory The Blackhawks had 53 even strength shot attempts (Corsi) to the Capitals 27. Outshooting an opponent to the tune of 26 shot attempts really should end up with a better result. Chicago’s On Ice Sh% was 2.94% for the game. The Capitals On Ice Sh% was 14.29%. They had lost 5 games prior to this with some pretty rotten luck so I suppose they were due for a bit of a course correction. The even strength shooting percentage for Chicago is still pretty low compared to what they usually do as a team, so there’s no reason to panic, but it sure isn’t very fun.
  • Hell The Capitals scored three goals in the last 5 minutes of the 2nd period. One came after Brent Seabrook made a poor decision and got beat on a pinch that Burakovsky then buried top shelf. The next one came from the same line but this time it was Marcus Johansson making all the noise. Mere moments later, Joel Ward continued his torrid goal scoring pace on the young season giving the Caps the lead they would leave the building with at the end of the night.
  • Life After Death The start of the 3rd period was a little slower than we’ve come to expect when the Blackhawks are trailing in a game. About halfway through the period, Chicago decided it should put the gas pedal through the floor and the Score Effects started in earnest. They controlled 79.17% of the play while trailing in the game so the failed comeback certainly wasn’t for a lack of trying. Too little too late in this case. It’s also interesting to note that both Jeremy Morin and Peter Regin were glued to the bench for the last 10 or 11 minutes of the third period despite being +8 and +9 in Corsi +/- in only 8.1 and 7.7 minutes of even strength ice time respectively.
  • War-On-Ice
  • Event Summary