Re: The Official NHL Playoffs Thread
 

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Been watching this team from day 1. 14 years to be able to say this...
STANLEY CUP CHAMPION ANAHEIM DUCKS


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How could you possibly have lived with a 14 year wait between cups... [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

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Ducks were the best team in the playoffs, and probably the best in the league this year. They should be damn good next year, too.

I guess I was rooting for them, because it's kinda fun that the Sens never win the Cup [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: The Official NHL Playoffs Thread
 

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Someone explain how Gigure didn't win MVP this time? I mean he lost 4 games to the Devils and he won it and he only lost one game this time and he doesn't win it?[/bitterness]

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Because they didn't need him to win the cup. He played ok, but when the defense just dominates the other team you don't need a spectacular goalie to win. Neidermayer deserved that trophy. On a sidenote, other than the Ducks/Sens fans did anyone else think these playoffs were some of the worst in a long time? One game 7 the whole tournament, Only 6 out of 15 series that went over 5 games.

Re: The Official NHL Playoffs Thread
 

Yep Yads. Only worse playoffs I can remember in my time of watching hockey was 1995 - and that's when my team won the Cup.

Re: The Official NHL Playoffs Thread
 

Giguere was robbed, I mean absolutely [censored] robbed of the Conn Smythe. I love Rob Niedemeyer, but he had an absolutely medocre playoffs, and at times he was downright awful, to the point that many were questioning if he was hiding an injury during the Detroit series.

Alfredsson should turn in his C. I dont care how many goals he scored, his commitment to backchecking and playing defense is atrocious and shameful for someone who is supposed to be the team leader. I wouldnt want him on my team.

Congrats, Duck fans. Your team clearly was commited to the task.

Anyone who doesnt think that the Ducks were the far better team just beacause they didnt blowout the Sens every game doesnt understand the Ducks style of play or just how talented they really are. There's not one player on the Sens that I would straight up trade for Ryan Getzlaf.

There were three teams that were clearly better than the rest, the Ducks, Detroit, and San Jose. With a few lucky bounces the Wings or Sharks could have just as easily won this thing.

As for it being absurd that the Western Conference is far superior than the Eastern Conference, well sorry its true. The person who said only NJ, Buffalo and the Sens would have made the playoffs in the west was spot on. Let me put it another way. If you composed a hypothetical league made up of the eight teams from each conference that made the playoffs,and they played say at least 50 game season so as to reduce luck or variance, and all the matchups were east versus west only, the west would absolutely crush the east. They would win at least 65% of the games.

I dont post much on 2+2, but the hockey threads are some of the few I do enjoy, which is somewhat ironic seeing that the sporting events forum seems to have an exceptionally high ratio of dikheads in it. All the hockey posters seem very knowledgable, respectful of each other, and seem to have a real passion for the game, which we all know is the greatest game on earth. [censored] a bunch of crappy NBC ratings . Who gives a [censored] about that, anyway?

Enjoy the offseason everyone.

Re: The Official NHL Playoffs Thread
 

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Giguere was robbed, I mean absolutely [censored] robbed of the Conn Smythe. I love Rob Niedemeyer , but he had an absolutely medocre playoffs, and at times he was downright awful, to the point that many were questioning if he was hiding an injury during the Detroit series.


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Giguere was not robbed of the Conn Smythe, Scott Niedemeyer dominated the playoffs, at times he was all over the rink, without him the Ducks would not have even made it to the finals. Not sure whats up with the Rob Niedemeyer hate.

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There's not one player on the Sens that I would straight up trade for Ryan Getzlaf.


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based on what? one playoff series?? good think you are not a NHL GM.

Re: The Official NHL Playoffs Thread
 

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Home ice plays a much more important role in the NHL than other sports.

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I completely disagree.

Re: The Official NHL Playoffs Thread
 

pokerspite,

I think you make some good points and that's a very good post. However, there are some absurd claims as well:

Any NHL GM is trading Heatley for Getzlaf if money were not a concern. Let's be serious. Both Heatley and Redden have been hiding injuries, apparently - and Jason Spezza just has no heart. How you can kill Alfredsson for his non-backchecking (which honestly I didn't notice - but he scored a ton of goals this post-season) and not these three guys, I'm not sure. Jason Spezza has no heart - I felt that in 2003 and I definitely feel that way now.

The West has serious balance of power issues - the East lacks some of the awful, awful teams that the West does, so it makes the West seem better than it is. I think 65% is far too high a percentage - while teams like Dallas, Minnesota, and Calgary are better than the Rangers, Tampa, and the Islanders, I don't think they're that much better. The East does lack a truly dominant defensive team though - the Devils don't count 'cause they don't have an offense. I'd put it closer to 60%, and even then I'm not sure.

I think the Senators would've had a far better matchup against the Wings or Sharks. Anaheim's checking line and top defenseman is just too much for a one-line team to overcome.

Re: The Official NHL Playoffs Thread
 

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Home ice plays a much more important role in the NHL than other sports.

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I completely disagree.

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Re: The Official NHL Playoffs Thread
 

Going to see the cup tonight. Will take pictures. Let me know if you want to see them.

Re: The Official NHL Playoffs Thread
 

On another note... I've got 58 pages of 25 posts per of this thread. That in itself is a signal that the playoffs are way, way too long.

Re: The Official NHL Playoffs Thread
 

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Going to see the cup tonight. Will take pictures. Let me know if you want to see them.

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I want to see. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: The Official NHL Playoffs Thread
 

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The West has serious balance of power issues - the East lacks some of the awful, awful teams that the West does, so it makes the West seem better than it is.

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Are you fkking kidding? The top teams in the West are MILES above the best in the East, and overall. Look at the East vs. West regular season results over the last couple years.

Re: The Official NHL Playoffs Thread
 

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Home ice plays a much more important role in the NHL than other sports.

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I completely disagree.

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Maybe I'm just unaware of how NBA teams can alter their courts.

Re: The Official NHL Playoffs Thread
 

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Home ice plays a much more important role in the NHL than other sports.

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I completely disagree.

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Maybe I'm just unaware of how NBA teams can alter their courts.

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You don't think the history of both games gives you enough of a sample to say results > theory?

Re: The Official NHL Playoffs Thread
 

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Home ice plays a much more important role in the NHL than other sports.

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I completely disagree.

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Are you seriously arguing that a team being able to make the last change for the duration of a game will not significantly improve its chances at winning?

Re: The Official NHL Playoffs Thread
 

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Home ice plays a much more important role in the NHL than other sports.

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I completely disagree.

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Are you seriously arguing that a team being able to make the last change for the duration of a game will not significantly improve its chances at winning?

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yes.

someone had the numbers for home field/court/ice advantage - hockey is certainly not #1 among the 4 major sports, and I believe ranked 3rd.

Re: The Official NHL Playoffs Thread
 

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Home ice plays a much more important role in the NHL than other sports.

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I completely disagree.

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Are you seriously arguing that a team being able to make the last change for the duration of a game will not significantly improve its chances at winning?

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yes.

someone had the numbers for home field/court/ice advantage - hockey is certainly not #1 among the 4 major sports, and I believe ranked 3rd.

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Did you not see what I posted? The numbers fluctuate EVERY year. I looked at baseball and basketball, both of the graphs looked like a complete joke. The graphs end up looking like this (baseball): http://www.geocities.com/cyrilmorong...eRoadGraph.gif

Re: The Official NHL Playoffs Thread
 

no, i think i still had you on ignore then.

then cut it off at 1980 - why are we even concerned about 1920? cut it off when the modern schedule was introduced - or when plane flight instead of train rides became standard.

at 1980 the graph begins to normalize.

Re: The Official NHL Playoffs Thread
 

Because the "history of both games gives you enough of a sample"

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Also, earlier I posted that the correlation between home court and winning isn't very strong at all in the case of basketball over the past couple of years. I really don't feel like looking for more stats.... all of them appear to be the same. I'm guessing you've seen the 'playoff home-ice isn't that great' statistics also. If 3 of the major sports are random, I rather give the the edge to the sport that actually has benefits to the home team.

Re: The Official NHL Playoffs Thread
 

How is this calculated? Is this just straight up won or loss vs home or away?

If so it should be really obvious that the methodology is completely flawed. In particular, unbalanced schedules are going to put things way out of whack (ie: suppose the Red Wings played a bunch of last place teams on the road this year, and won all those games. It looks like he home team gained no advantage. But the reality is that the Wings are so much better than the Flyers or Coyotes that home field advantange is not nearly big enough to make any difference.)

You need to compare teams of even strength.

Or, you'd need to rank teams according to something like the Elo rating system and then compare expected outcomes to actual outcomes and see if the actual outcomes diverge according to home or away status.

And you'd have to watch for and eliminate other sources of noise. In particular teams who play back-to-back games in the NHL are at a huge disadvantage in the second game if the other team is fresh.

There are so many other variables that go in to determining who wins and who loses that it's going to be difficult to isolate homefield advantage. Injuries, streaks, player moves, travel schedules (traveling early vs traveling the night before). It might not even be possible to assign a value to home field advatage.

Re: The Official NHL Playoffs Thread
 

Cry Me a River:

I assume these things would all normalize over the course of several years.

Without a doubt in the playoffs the home team has a greater advantage in the NBA than in the NHL. This is probably because of the severely decreased variance of the NBA.

Re: The Official NHL Playoffs Thread
 

....which is why the advantage is to sports with inherent home-field advantage and not "crowd atmosphere like omg." Getting last change isn't suuuuuper powerful, but it's still more than the other sports.

Re: The Official NHL Playoffs Thread
 

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Giguere was robbed, I mean absolutely [censored] robbed of the Conn Smythe. I love Rob Niedemeyer , but he had an absolutely medocre playoffs, and at times he was downright awful, to the point that many were questioning if he was hiding an injury during the Detroit series.


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Giguere was not robbed of the Conn Smythe, Scott Niedemeyer dominated the playoffs, at times he was all over the rink, without him the Ducks would not have even made it to the finals. Not sure whats up with the Rob Niedemeyer hate.

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There's not one player on the Sens that I would straight up trade for Ryan Getzlaf.


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based on what? one playoff series?? good think you are not a NHL GM.

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I meant Scott Not Rob . Sorry for the error. Scott had a very mediocre playoffs by his standards and at times was really bad in his own end. he won the award on reputation. It happens. I think he was probably the forth or fifth best player for the ducks. I would put J.S., Pronger, Getzlaf, and maybe Mcdonald ahead of him. Giguere played great throughout whole playoffs, and without him the ducks dont get past the wings.

As far as Getzlaf, I'm basing it on everything it takes to win a hockey game, especially a playoff game. The most dominant skater in this years playoffs was Joe Thornton. Getzlaf, as his offensive game develops more, has the ability to be that dominant. The kid is already very good and has a huge upside.

When I apply for that next vacant NHL G.M. job, I'm guessing I won't be able to use you as a reference.

Re: The Official NHL Playoffs Thread
 

I see Getzlaf as a very good power forward, but I don't see his career coming that close to Joe Thornton, who's won a Hart Trophy. It is scary that he just turned 22, though.

I see Getzlaf developing into a 30-40 goal scorer, one of the better power forwards in the league to be sure - but Thornton, I don't see it.