Comments for Holding Court: Cracking the Boston Conundrum at http://hockey.dobbersports.com , comment 1 to 3 out of 3 comments http://hockey.dobbersports.com Wed, 22 May 2013 07:54:42 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://hockey.dobbersports.com/index.php/columnistsarticles-mainmenu-77/917-holding-court/5003-holding-court-cracking-the-boston-conundrum#comment-23026 @Ryan Ma This is Rick - posting under my forum name. I really appreciate the careful analysis, and the points you raise are excellent. I looked at goals since that was more absolute than points - a goal is a goal but (like you said) points can vary. In other words, there can be no points unless there are goals, so I focused on goals as kind of a lowest common denominator. But looking at points versus points would've been a better "apples to apples" comparison for purposes of logic. - RizzeeDizzee Fri, 26 Oct 2012 16:32:31 +0100 http://hockey.dobbersports.com/index.php/columnistsarticles-mainmenu-77/917-holding-court/5003-holding-court-cracking-the-boston-conundrum#comment-23025 Great read Rick! I'm a huge numbers guy and you presented your fact and figures in a great and easy to read manner. One thing I would suggest is you that looked at analyzing a team through goals. [i]"Prior to last season, here were the total goals scored by the Bruins as a team in the years under Claude Julien – 246 (2010-11), 206 (2009-10), 274 (2008-09), 212 (2007-08). If you average out these five years you get 241.4 goals per season, making it more likely than not that the Bruins will score fewer goals this coming season."[/i] Because you are arguing 70 points as the over/under, might have been a better idea to look at overall team [b]points[/b] rather than goals scored. Which was 686, 657, 544, 735 and 559, which averages out to be 644.2 per season. It paints a similar picture that there might be a 10% dropoff from last season to this season (if there is one), but you're now comparing apples to apples instead of apples to oranges. Yes goals generally = points, but if 1 season you get a few "no assist" goals, and another season you get a lot of "2 assist goals" the goal totals might appear close, but the point totals (which is what you're measuring) could be thrown off... As for the other half of the argument, with your Anaheim (2010-11) and San Jose (2010-11) examples, yes as a team they did have quite a few "high-end scorers". But my counter argument is those teams lacked the depth that Bos has. If you breakdown the Anaheim scoring, Perry 98 Selanne 80 Getzlaf 76 Ryan 71 Visnovsky 68 Koivu 45 Fowler 40 Blake 32 Lydman 25 McMillan 21 Beauchemin 17 Winchester 16 ... That year they tallied 652 points, those 5 players accounted for [b]60.2% [/b]of the Ducks' total point totals. A similar trend could be found with the Sharks, Marleau 73 Thornton 70 Pavelski 66 Heatley 64 Clowe 62 Couture 56 Boyle 50 Setoguchi 41 White 26 Demers 24 Mitchell 23 Vlasic 18 Eager 17 Mayers 14 Murray 14 Wellwood 13 Braun 11 ... That year the Sharks tallied 610 points, with the top-6 garnering [b]64%[/b] of the pie, and the top 8 garnering [b]80%[/b] of the pie. If you look at the Bos situation, their top 5 last season, garnered just 52% of the pie, because the lower half of the team took up a bit more of the pie, you had your Peverley, Kelly, Pouliot, Rolston and Corvo who put up some decent point totals. It wasn't like the Ducks or Sharks who had little to no contribution down the bottom end... That's one of the main reasons which makes Bos such a lethal team. I'm a huge proponent of the TOI = points argument... but I think it's a bit of a stretch to compare Selanne to Seguin at this point in his career. Selanne has been a gun throughout his career, he's one of those prolific guys that doesn't need a whole lot of TOI to put up great numbers. Year after year he's proven that, so I'm prepared to label him as the "exception to the rule". I don't think Eberle or Seguin is at his level yet. If they continue to receive just 17 mins a game, you would have to think that they would fall in the 99% of players who won't crack 70+ points... If he increases into the 19s or 20s, then there's certainly a huge possibility that he cracks 70+, but if things stay status quo I just don't see it happening. - Ryan Ma Fri, 26 Oct 2012 15:53:35 +0100 http://hockey.dobbersports.com/index.php/columnistsarticles-mainmenu-77/917-holding-court/5003-holding-court-cracking-the-boston-conundrum#comment-23024 This article was a wonderful read, very engaging and well thought out. Is there a correlation in team's total goals scored and the increase in point production of the 6 players listed above? - Spec7ral Fri, 26 Oct 2012 14:28:48 +0100