Richards Back: Trib
Winter Classic Guide:BR
Honored throughout the game: DH
What Gretzky once said: ESPNNY
Route:SI
As we feared, the odd travel schedule left the Hawks somewhat off their game. It wasn’t the prettiest or cleanest game from either side. Luckily, that side is way worse than this one, and the Hawks didn’t need to pull out the glossy stuff to pretty easily see this out. God I love it when the Avs suck.
Let’s not waste any time…
As we feared, the odd travel schedule left the Hawks somewhat off their game. It wasn’t the prettiest or cleanest game from either side. Luckily, that side is way worse than this one, and the Hawks didn’t need to pull out the glossy stuff to pretty easily see this out. God I love it when the Avs suck.
Let’s not waste any time…
So Ryan Stimson, a contributor to InLouWeTrust.com, along with our friend Jen LC has been tracking passing stats for the Hawks this year. This stuff is pretty interesting. We ran this in the Indian last night, but I wanted to share it here as well. Follow him on Twitter @RK_Stimson. It’s pretty dizzying. So buckle up.
Much of the analytics community focuses on shot-based metrics as a proxy for puck possession in order to get an idea of which teams and players drive play. However, the two most popular metrics for this analysis, Corsi (all shooting attempts) and Fenwick (all unblocked shooting attempts), merely tell us what happened, but give no depth into how these players drive play for their teams. I endeavored to find out how teams create offense from passes.
Box Score
Event Summary
War On Ice
The first period of this game was pretty great, right? It was just about everything you’d want from a rivalry* game. It was two teams going back and forth, trading chances, and somehow the Hawks ended up a goal. The second was actually a boring period where all the animosity and anger left.. until the Blues scored. Then in the third, the Hawks acted like a cat with a mouse. They toyed with it enough to border on torture and then finally put it away. The Blues, as good as they might be (they aren’t really), still seem a step behind from an elite team.
Before and after the game last night, Darryl Sutter called the Hawks the best team in the league. Before it sounded a little strange, especially as Sutter was saying it because of different stats people should look at and Sutter always strikes people as someone who can’t add (but of course, the Kings are one of the more advanced metric team in the league and Sutter’s a big part of that). It also sounded strange to those of us who watch the Hawks every game, who get in a little deep with picking apart cracks we see because there’s just not much else to do.
