Thanks for the article! A question I’ve had for awhile… is the ice at AAC ranked among the worst in the league, or is it just average-normally bad because it’s shared/covered by a BB floor??? Lots of fans will say it’s the heat, the crowd etc… to me that just means AAC mgmt is too cheap to invest in better AC dehumidifiers! (These are the same guys who replaced the seats with smaller seats!!!)
Lots of hockey teams share their stadiums. My guess is that Dallas has a cheaper ammonia refrigeration than others, because yea, the AAC seems unusually bad.
Is Lundkvist being insulated because of his play or in fear of what his play could be? I know we're beating a dead horse with this but it seems like he gets fewer and fewer minutes per game while not really having a net negative impact.
Both. DeBoer doesn't trust him, and won't ever at this point. However, Lundkvist is also not a blue chip talent either. (Keep in mind, I would personally still play him) So in addition to DeBoer's usage, it's hard for Lundkvist to separate himself since his skills can't take over a shift. (Lundkvist is more of a capitalizer than a puck mover IMO)
Thanks for the answer and the shoutout! I agree with this part wholeheartedly, "That doesn’t mean it’ll be an easy out. It just means I don’t usually take seriously a contender that wasn’t expected to contend before the season started." I vaguely remember back when FiveThirtyEight used to do sports (RIP) they had an article showing pre-season rankings for college basketball (I think? might have been football) were more predictive than in-season rankings/seeding for March Madness. Obviously sample size and varying schedule strength make results a little more random thank the NHL, but still interesting. I don't know if that's ever been looked at for hockey, but I would guess that pre-season odds do have some predictive power as a "prior".
You mention that Oettinger didn't get back above .906, but, check out Otter's SV% and GAA over the last month. #1 in both categories vs all other starters. That's what you want to see going into the playoffs.
Curious how this changes what I said (?). You're talking about the weather (last month) and I'm assessing the climate (a season's worth). I'm not saying Oettinger's body of work is a sign that he'll "regress" once it's the postseason. Just that his season on the whole is a valid reason for some to be skeptical that everything has suddenly clicked overnight. Hopefully that's the case. For now, I think Oettinger wasn't near as bad as his early season struggles showcased, but I'm not sure he's as good as his late push would indicate either.
Fair enough. I was thinking a month was enough to get a feel for recent performance. But I understand that it may not be with how all over the place he has been this season. Just for laughs, I went back and pulled the same data for each month period to see what it looked like. Ouch. He really did have some absolutely horrendous play during parts of this season. At least he started and finished strong (shruggy shoulders). Sorry about the formatting.
Oct - Nov - Top 10 - .926 2.26
Nov - Dec - Second Worst - .870 4.00
Dec - Jan - Injured (Didn't start at least 4 games)
Thanks for the article! A question I’ve had for awhile… is the ice at AAC ranked among the worst in the league, or is it just average-normally bad because it’s shared/covered by a BB floor??? Lots of fans will say it’s the heat, the crowd etc… to me that just means AAC mgmt is too cheap to invest in better AC dehumidifiers! (These are the same guys who replaced the seats with smaller seats!!!)
Lots of hockey teams share their stadiums. My guess is that Dallas has a cheaper ammonia refrigeration than others, because yea, the AAC seems unusually bad.
Is Lundkvist being insulated because of his play or in fear of what his play could be? I know we're beating a dead horse with this but it seems like he gets fewer and fewer minutes per game while not really having a net negative impact.
Both. DeBoer doesn't trust him, and won't ever at this point. However, Lundkvist is also not a blue chip talent either. (Keep in mind, I would personally still play him) So in addition to DeBoer's usage, it's hard for Lundkvist to separate himself since his skills can't take over a shift. (Lundkvist is more of a capitalizer than a puck mover IMO)
Thanks for the answer and the shoutout! I agree with this part wholeheartedly, "That doesn’t mean it’ll be an easy out. It just means I don’t usually take seriously a contender that wasn’t expected to contend before the season started." I vaguely remember back when FiveThirtyEight used to do sports (RIP) they had an article showing pre-season rankings for college basketball (I think? might have been football) were more predictive than in-season rankings/seeding for March Madness. Obviously sample size and varying schedule strength make results a little more random thank the NHL, but still interesting. I don't know if that's ever been looked at for hockey, but I would guess that pre-season odds do have some predictive power as a "prior".
You mention that Oettinger didn't get back above .906, but, check out Otter's SV% and GAA over the last month. #1 in both categories vs all other starters. That's what you want to see going into the playoffs.
https://www.nhl.com/stats/goalies?reportType=game&dateFrom=2024-03-18&dateTo=2024-04-18&gameType=2&filter=gamesStarted,gte,7&sort=savePct&page=0&pageSize=50
Curious how this changes what I said (?). You're talking about the weather (last month) and I'm assessing the climate (a season's worth). I'm not saying Oettinger's body of work is a sign that he'll "regress" once it's the postseason. Just that his season on the whole is a valid reason for some to be skeptical that everything has suddenly clicked overnight. Hopefully that's the case. For now, I think Oettinger wasn't near as bad as his early season struggles showcased, but I'm not sure he's as good as his late push would indicate either.
Fair enough. I was thinking a month was enough to get a feel for recent performance. But I understand that it may not be with how all over the place he has been this season. Just for laughs, I went back and pulled the same data for each month period to see what it looked like. Ouch. He really did have some absolutely horrendous play during parts of this season. At least he started and finished strong (shruggy shoulders). Sorry about the formatting.
Oct - Nov - Top 10 - .926 2.26
Nov - Dec - Second Worst - .870 4.00
Dec - Jan - Injured (Didn't start at least 4 games)
Jan - Feb - Bottom Third - .901 3.09
Feb - Mar - Second Worst - .862 3.44
Mar - Apr - #1 - .941 1.54
And by some accident, Tanev joined the Stars just around when Oettinger started to play better...