GDT: Game 11: Columbus Blue Jackets vs. Calgary Flames |2/7 7PM EST FSO|

[Skraut]

Yeah, but at lot of those numbers are going to normalize. It's hard to run a 25%+ PP for an entire season, much like a 94.9% PK.

True. Forgot to mention the CBJ are currently at 97.8, which is currently 16th.

 

[Anisimovs AK]

The only folly would be thinking things are going to get drastically better. I told you last season what the history of teams that finish dead last is and that history isn't being re-written by this team's performance.

3 goals has always been a pretty good indicator to me. You score 3 goals in a game, you've got a good chance to win. You let up 3 goals, your chances of winning are not good. This team has scored 3 or more goals in exactly 3 of 10 games. Two of those 3 were the first two games of the season. This team has let up 3 or more goals in 6 of 10 games (7 if you include the shootout loss to Detroit). We lost all of those 6 games.

This team is not good at scoring and isn't likely to dramatically improve in that department over the next 38 games of this season. But, I can already see that the obvious defense when it is all over is that 48 games wasn't a large enough sample size and if the team goes 6 and 4 in the last 10 games notwithstanding anything else that we should assume they would have made the playoffs if only we had played 82 games.





97.8. So, just under "doing well". What is shocking is how bad the power play is considering our defensemen. Which is another indictment of this forward group.

You seem to be the only one doing that. Everyone that has posted so far seems to have come to grips with how bad this team is besides you. All Mayor Bee said was 10 games with two outliers skews the statistics a bit, he didnt say that after a larger sample size it "would get drastically better"

As for the game I dont know what to think. Calgary's offense is somehow just as bad as ours and Kipper is injured, but we are known to make backups look like Patrick Roy on occasion. Also we seem to play better against teams at the top of the standings as opposed to the teams directly above/below us.

4-2 with an EN goal. R.J scores it which lets him off the hook for another 10 games. there will probably be some worthless fight too, I'm thinkin Dorse vs some dude I've never heard of.

 

[joshjoshjosh]

Colton Gillies, Offensive Juggernaut, scores his 44th and 45th goals of the season to lead the CBJ to a 2-0 victory

 

[CapnCornelius]

You seem to be the only one doing that. Everyone that has posted so far seems to have come to grips with how bad this team is besides you. All Mayor Bee said was 10 games with two outliers skews the statistics a bit, he didnt say that after a larger sample size it "would get drastically better"

As for the game I dont know what to think. Calgary's offense is somehow just as bad as ours and Kipper is injured, but we are known to make backups look like Patrick Roy on occasion. Also we seem to play better against teams at the top of the standings as opposed to the teams directly above/below us.

4-2 with an EN goal. R.J scores it which lets him off the hook for another 10 games. there will probably be some worthless fight too, I'm thinkin Dorse vs some dude I've never heard of.

Surely you jest. We've got people writing off this team's performance as "growing pains" or the lack of a full pre-season to build chemistry.

Growing pains implies the the team's primary problem is youth. It isn't. Chemistry is closer to the mark, but the problem isn't that the pieces haven't had time to fit.

No, the primary problem is structural and it runs throughout the organization. There is no elite forward talent on the team or in the pipeline except, maybe, Johansen. Guys like Anisimov and Atkinson are nice complimentary pieces (assuming Atkinson can stay healthy, and that is always a question with a guy his size), but they are not guys I'd build my franchise around. Our goaltending is poor at the NHL level with no immediate help in our development system.

Those are pretty glaring holes that need to be addressed to successfully build this franchise into a winner.

If MB doesn't think larger sample size will materially change the results, then exactly what was the point? We're slightly better than we appear to be? Yeah us! (?)

 

[NotWendell]

I wouldn't say they are all at the top, but they are currently in playoff contention.

Team| PP% | PK% | Combined | Standings
OTT | 27.3 | 90.9 | 118.2 | 5th East
TBL | 32.5 | 84.2 | 116.7 | 3rd East
EDM | 28.3 | 87.2 | 115.5 | 7th West
NYI | 23.7 | 90.3 | 114 | 8th East
SJS | 24.5 | 88.9 | 113.4 | 4th West
CHI | 18.4 | 94.9 | 113.3 | 1st West

Fair enough. You are correct. My bad for being too preoccupied to read past Chicago, San Jose and Tampa Bay.

 

[Columbus Mike]

Bonus prediction - I catch myself singing the creepy Pizza Song out loud on my way out of the arena.

WE LIKE PITZA~~~~!!!!!

what a catchy song

Hope this helps.

 

[Timeless Winter]

Home game? Backup goalie starting?? Guaranteed Flames win.

 

[Mayor Bee]

The only folly would be thinking things are going to get drastically better. I told you last season what the history of teams that finish dead last is and that history isn't being re-written by this team's performance.

I don't think anyone thought that things would get drastically better in the short term. I made an off-the-wall preseason prediction, but that's part of my inner contrarian.

What we see is a young team (youngest in the league) that will improve as chemistry and individual skills develop. There's five or six players on the roster who have peaked, and the rest most likely have not. And these are major players getting big minutes who haven't peaked.

3 goals has always been a pretty good indicator to me. You score 3 goals in a game, you've got a good chance to win. You let up 3 goals, your chances of winning are not good. This team has scored 3 or more goals in exactly 3 of 10 games. Two of those 3 were the first two games of the season. This team has let up 3 or more goals in 6 of 10 games (7 if you include the shootout loss to Detroit). We lost all of those 6 games.

Interesting. Now run a study on it and see how closely 3 goals correlates to win percentage, because I don't have much interest in doing it.

(I usually use marginal goals, but I don't even look at a current season until it's half over. Take that for what it's worth.)

This team is not good at scoring and isn't likely to dramatically improve in that department over the next 38 games of this season. But, I can already see that the obvious defense when it is all over is that 48 games wasn't a large enough sample size and if the team goes 6 and 4 in the last 10 games notwithstanding anything else that we should assume they would have made the playoffs if only we had played 82 games.

Two examples that may or may not apply (I haven't decided yet):
- 2008-09 CBJ, two games under .500 just past New Year's.
- 1994-95 NJ Devils, 9-11-4 at the halfway point, and 13-13-6 at 30 games. This one applies to some extent because, lacking their offensive firepower, they made a couple deals (which on paper looked to make them even worse offensively) that didn't pay immediate dividends in a shortened season.

Early on, NJ in consecutive games won 6-1, lost 7-2, won 6-1, lost 6-3, lost 6-4. It took them forever to get going that season, and once they did...

 

[Mayor Bee]

No, the primary problem is structural and it runs throughout the organization. There is no elite forward talent on the team or in the pipeline except, maybe, Johansen. Guys like Anisimov and Atkinson are nice complimentary pieces (assuming Atkinson can stay healthy, and that is always a question with a guy his size), but they are not guys I'd build my franchise around. Our goaltending is poor at the NHL level with no immediate help in our development system.

We don't know that. That's part of the issues that will always exist with younger players, is not actually knowing how good they'll end up being. Give me 20 minutes and I'll come up with 50 highly-rated prospects who never came close to ever touching their potential, and 50 more who were afterthoughts and yet became excellent players. Why did Maxim Mayorov (regarded as an elite scoring prospect) amount to nothing in the NHL, while Jamie Benn (a legitimate afterthought) has?

There, now I only owe you 49 and 49.

 

[Anisimovs AK]

Surely you jest. We've got people writing off this team's performance as "growing pains" or the lack of a full pre-season to build chemistry.

Growing pains implies the the team's primary problem is youth. It isn't. Chemistry is closer to the mark, but the problem isn't that the pieces haven't had time to fit.

No, the primary problem is structural and it runs throughout the organization. There is no elite forward talent on the team or in the pipeline except, maybe, Johansen. Guys like Anisimov and Atkinson are nice complimentary pieces (assuming Atkinson can stay healthy, and that is always a question with a guy his size), but they are not guys I'd build my franchise around. Our goaltending is poor at the NHL level with no immediate help in our development system.

Those are pretty glaring holes that need to be addressed to successfully build this franchise into a winner.

If MB doesn't think larger sample size will materially change the results, then exactly what was the point? We're slightly better than we appear to be? Yeah us! (?)

If you really cant see how low other posters expectations for this team are then thats on you. I could go and quote people's posts, but you read it before and ignored it so you'd probably do the same again.

And yes, it seems to be the general consensus on these boards that the Jackets are not as terrible as people were making them out to be before the season started, however no one is expecting them to generate a winning record either. You refuse to recognize this reasoning because you only seem to form black and white opinions. So when someone posts "we arent that bad" you read "we're going to make the playoffs" and you respond accordingly

As for the bolded, You're not saying anything that anyone here doesnt know. It seems you like misrepresenting people's opinions so you can continue to kvetch about the organizations shortcomings. Have fun with that

 

[CapnCornelius]

What we see is a young team (youngest in the league) that will improve as chemistry and individual skills develop. There's five or six players on the roster who have peaked, and the rest most likely have not. And these are major players getting big minutes who haven't peaked.

I suggest if you believe any of the forwards who you think haven't peaked are going to suddenly going to become elite talents you are deluding yourself. There is a difference between not yet reaching your potential and having the potential to become an elite player.

Two examples that may or may not apply (I haven't decided yet):
- 2008-09 CBJ, two games under .500 just past New Year's.
- 1994-95 NJ Devils, 9-11-4 at the halfway point, and 13-13-6 at 30 games. This one applies to some extent because, lacking their offensive firepower, they made a couple deals (which on paper looked to make them even worse offensively) that didn't pay immediate dividends in a shortened season.

Early on, NJ in consecutive games won 6-1, lost 7-2, won 6-1, lost 6-3, lost 6-4. It took them forever to get going that season, and once they did...

Spoiler alert--we aren't the '95 Devils. Unless you'd like to argue that Sergie Bobrovsky just needs to find his inner Marty Brodeur and Wiz-Johnson = Niedermayer-Stevens.

We don't know that. That's part of the issues that will always exist with younger players, is not actually knowing how good they'll end up being. Give me 20 minutes and I'll come up with 50 highly-rated prospects who never came close to ever touching their potential, and 50 more who were afterthoughts and yet became excellent players. Why did Maxim Mayorov (regarded as an elite scoring prospect) amount to nothing in the NHL, while Jamie Benn (a legitimate afterthought) has?

There, now I only owe you 49 and 49.

This is the most ridiculous argument yet. We literally can argue that anyone under some arbitrary age that makes them young--25? 30?--may turn out to be great and/or horrible and there is no way of knowing. Fire the scouts and roll the bones, folks because we can never figure out the probability a player will or won't be good. Let's trade our entire lineup for 18 year olds regardless of where they were drafted or what scouting tells us about them and then our GM will never have to face criticism until the reach the magical age...by which time they will have been traded for the next set of 18 year olds. Brilliant!

And yes, it seems to be the general consensus on these boards that the Jackets are not as terrible as people were making them out to be before the season started, however no one is expecting them to generate a winning record either. You refuse to recognize this reasoning because you only seem to form black and white opinions. So when someone posts "we arent that bad" you read "we're going to make the playoffs" and you respond accordingly

Oh, I recognize the reasoning and I'm pointing out it is flawed. I'd like to know just how low the expectations were if this is somehow better. This team is performing worse than the worst team in Jackets history in terms of scoring and preventing the other team from scoring. If that is an improvement over expectations then I'd love to know what the expectations were. We must be talking '74-'75 Capitals bad.

 

[1857 Howitzer]

“@smitchcd: Looks like #CBJ D Jack Johnson will start his night paired with Cody Goloubef. Tyutin-Nikitin, Erixon-Holden the others.”

 

[Jaxs]

I wonder if the lone Flames fan in Dublin who phoned in death threats to the CBJ is out of prison yet?

 

[Zarathustra]

Agreed. How could anyone think we were going to be competitive going into this season? The building blocks and foundation is there, but still an extremely young team. Again, it is a GREAT draft class this year and we have 3 first round picks. Of course, you have to be optimistic. I do not want us to tank the season, in fact, I would love to show the league our competitive nature night in and night out (as JD said). This is the reality however. Although short, the season is still young!

As for tonight's game, it is a big one for sure. Gotta get wins on this home stand. California is after this and that is always a grueling trip for the team.

I'm rooting more against NY and LA than I am for the CBJ to be honest. It would be amazing if we had three picks that could end up first overall.

 

[Halfboard]

I wonder if the lone Flames fan in Dublin who phoned in death threats to the CBJ is out of prison yet?

Ha!, I remember that game..I was there....think we won 5-2? Beat Kipper..............

 

[Robert]

Those lines Rimer put up remind me of a jigsaw puzzel.... RJ is in his glory being on the first line every game, to bad Nash isn't around helping him...

The Jackets may win this one seeing how bad Calgary is.... lets see what happens.

 

[CBJx614]

"Could you be more specific?"
"C-a-n-a-d..... Eh? "

Love that commercial hahaha

 

[CapnCornelius]

“@smitchcd: Looks like #CBJ D Jack Johnson will start his night paired with Cody Goloubef. Tyutin-Nikitin, Erixon-Holden the others.â€

The one positive of these injuries--we're going to find out real quick what we have in Goloubef, Erixon and Holden. Goloubef and Holden in particular are getting to that point where we need to figure out where they fit in the future of this team.

 

[NotWendell]

Away on business but GameCenter has me blacked out. Any other link to this epic battle?

 

[CBJx614]

I'm rooting more against NY and LA than I am for the CBJ to be honest. It would be amazing if we had three picks that could end up first overall.

Hell it'd be amazing just knowing we have 3 top 15 picks. They could be 10 12 and 15 and I'd still be super excited.

 

[solomonsacct]

Anybody have a link?

 

[Halfboard]

Wow......extra big crowd tonight.................

 

[Robert]

Away on business but GameCenter has me blacked out. Any other link to this epic battle?

Worstofthewest.com lol

 

[eljefe72]

But of course...


EDIT: Nice come back though.

 

[MFRONE]

Love how the Jackets don't even bother to ever close out on the point guy despite at least a dozen goals scored from there this season.