Martin Brodeur: Sit Down, Man

As many of you likely know, career New Jersey Devil Martin Brodeur has already joined the pantheon of great goaltenders in NHL history. He first made his debut in the 1991-92 season, playing 4 games while going 2-1-0 (0 is ties, remember this was long before the Bettman point was introduced) and by 1995-96 became the uncontested starter in the Devils crease after backstopping the team to a sweep of Detroit in the Stanley Cup Finals the season prior. Through his career, Brodeur would visit the Finals four more times, most recently and forgettably in 2011-12, and would come out with the big prize twice, in 1999-2000 against Dallas and 2002-03 against Anaheim.

Martin Brodeur owns records mostly due to his inhuman body of work. During the peak of his career between '95-96 through 2009-10, a span of 14 seasons, he logged time in 985 games which comes out to an average workload of 70.36 games per season. If you take out the two seasons he played fewer than 70 games (67 in '96-97 and 31 in '08-09) in that span, his average leaps up to 73.92 games per season. Long story short, that is absolutely insane.

Love Is A Battlefield, and So Is The Metropolitan

Remember back in October and early November when the Metropolitan Division was kind of like that carton of eggs you bought at the store, brought home, and realised that just about all of the eggs were busted open already? We all had a good, hearty laugh (or cry, depends on where you live I guess) over it early on, but it appears that we are finally starting to make an omelet.

While the Atlantic Division was chugging along to start the season, their neighbors in the Metro were struggling to even stay relevant. If we look at the standings on December 1, the second place Washington Capitals, with 30 points, would not even qualify for a Wild Card spot in the Atlantic. Whether the Atlantic is starting to falter or the Metropolitan is starting to catch up, things are starting to get interesting out in the East.

An Open Letter to NHL Broadcasters

Dear NHL Television or Radio Personality,

I appreciate your service in bringing professional hockey to fans across North America and around the world. Your knowledge and insight is a valuable source of commentary to the consumption of the sport. That said, could you please please PLEASE stop with all the incessant Olympic talk.

Yes, The Anaheim Ducks Are THAT Good

For those of you unfamiliar, NHL.com has a weekly column called “Super 16”. It’s a piece written by Corey Masisak every Friday that takes a pulse on 16 different teams and ranks them in whichever order he believes they are trending. It has been labeled “Power Rankings” in the past but they changed the format and the name coincidentally when they decided to start using fancy stats. At the end of the day it’s just an arbitrary list but it makes for an interesting read if you like hearing where NHL staff writers see the league heading week to week.

I was perusing last week’s rankings and I was a little struck by what he said about Anaheim, most notably this: “Anaheim has the highest PDO (shooting percentage plus save percentage) at even strength in the League. There's a very good chance that number (103.7) will regress. The Ducks are also well behind the Blackhawks and Blues in goal differential, meaning they are winning more close games but that's not typically a sustainable ‘skill’ in larger sample sizes.”

It’s really cute to see the journalists on NHL.com jumping on the advanced stats wagon. Sure, I did as well in the past year and I probably don’t use all the numbers correctly, but I do this for fun and not for a paycheque. When I read those sentences, I just get the feeling that Masisak is putting a lot of big words on the page without fully understanding how to use the information he’s giving us.

My question is: Why can’t we just accept that the Anaheim Ducks are legitimately good?

Let's All Get Excited About the Winnipeg Jets!

As you may have heard, the Winnipeg Jets recently fired head coach Claude Noel, the first bench boss of the revamped franchise. In 177 games with the club, Noel lead the team to an 80-79-18 record which adds up to a .503 points percentage and no playoff appearances. I’m sure you can imagine that this wouldn’t make the grade for many organisations and, with little turnover as far as the roster goes since the move from Atlanta, a change was bound to be made.

Is Toronto's Luck Starting to Run Out?

One thing I love about sports, and part of the reason you watch whether you realise it or not, is seeing a team defy all odds. It’s why you pull for the underdog during the Superbowl, or you cheer on any team playing the Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees, or pop in your “Mighty Ducks” VHS tapes every once in a while. If every game went to the best team on paper then there would be no point in playing, would there?

But while this is an easy attitude to have during any isolated event, the statistics tend to catch up over a big enough sample size. Every sports team in the history of forever has preached the “just focus on every play/shift/possession at a time” but those, good or bad, add up as a season progresses and more often than not we can start to weed out the pretenders from the contenders given a decently-sized body of work.

Live Blog: WJC Gold Medal Round, Sweden v Finland

00:00 - Arbitrary Prediction: Sweden 1, Finland 3

00:00 - Sweden skates right to left, Oscar Dansk in net. Finland skates left to right, Juuse Saros in net

Live Blog: WJC Bronze Medal Round, Russia v Canada

00:00 - Arbitrary Prediction: Russia 3 Canada 4

00:00 - Russia moves right to left, Andrei Vasilevski in net. Canada moves left to right, Zachary Fucale in net.

Live Blog: WJC Semifinals, Canada v Finland

00:00 - Arbitrary Prediction Canada 3, Finland 2 (Overtime)

00:00 - Canada goes left to right, Zachary Fucale in net. Finland goes right to left, Jusse Saros in net

Live Blog: WJC Semifinals, Russia v Sweden

00:00 - Arbitrary Prediction: Sweden 5, Russia 2

00:00 - Sweden moves right to left, Oscar Dansk in net. Russia moves left to right, Andrei Vasilevski