BUX7PHX
Registered User
- Jul 7, 2011
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There are all sorts of arcane arguments that we could get into regarding the NHL's points system and whether it represents an accurate accounting of a team's performance, but for me it comes down to a very simple calculation - how many wins and losses a team has.
The fact that a so-called "loser point" is awarded in an overtime loss is incidental to the fact that the team didn't win. Now, is it an accurate measure of a team's performance if they lose in a shootout? That's a fair question. The NHL does not want tie games, and neither do I, the inherent unfairness of a crap shoot like the shootout aside. If the league were to be equitable about things, IMO they should change the points format to a three-point system - three points for a regulation win, two points for an overtime win, and one point for a shootout win. No points for a loss at all.
But the NHL doesn't want to do it that way because at the end of the season they want to artificially create "Game 7 Moments" throughout the league. They don't want to lose gate revenue because a fan base believes a team is out of the playoff picture. During the 2013-2014 season, we fooled ourselves into believing our team was playoff-worthy because our record appeared to be over .500, but the reality is we were nowhere near playoff-worthy. We had fifteen points generated from losing games. If that's not record inflation, I don't know what is.
Now, saying all this, I want to reiterate that I'm not saying all this to bash Tippett. What he did in his first three seasons, especially given the context of what was going on off the ice, was beyond anyone's wildest expectations, and he deserved the Jack Adams for doing it. But every coach has an expiration date - even Scotty Bowman got canned - and we had clearly hit DTs by the time he and Barroway worked out the buyout of his contract.
The Tocchet hire, IMO, has turned out to be a mistake. I see why Chayka hired him, although I don't agree with his reasoning. But Tocchet pretty clearly hasn't been the room presence that he needs to be with these kids, and given the team's performance, neither have his assistant coaches. But again, that's the risk you take when you undertake big changes. It's really a coin flip - it was equally likely at the time that Tocchet could have galvanized this team to greatness.
I understand what you are saying, b/c yes, 15 SOL is a considerable amount - most teams appear to average between 8-12, by all indications. I also think that there were far more games that went into the crapshoot of the shootout, since at the time that we are talking some of these points, OT was still 4v4 and didn't necessarily have the space that is available on the ice now. Definitely do not disagree with the 3 points for a win, 2 for OT/SO win concept, b/c it does clear up the grey area that we are talking about.
To me it still seems a little jaded, because then we would be talking about the 11-12 season as a "barely above .500 team," since the Coyotes finished 42-40, but I don't think anyone would associate that team is being "barely above average," regardless of how the playoffs finished. Maybe having 13 games where we lost in OT or the SO built us up to handle some of the close games, since the first 5 games of our opening round series against Chicago went to OT. Hell, the Kings won the cup that year as a 40-42 team, but I don't know if they should be considered "below average" either.
I appreciate that you recognize that every coach has an expiration date, but what is Tocchet's now looking like? I can look past a few games and understand that an 8-14 game stretch can happen where anything and everything can go wrong. Those were actually few and far between, even when you look at Tippett's last 5 years. The lone exception being the 14-15 season when 3 of those months were atrocious and playing with a collection of talent that was clearly the worst collection of talent that we had here over a good portion of time. No one also offers up the injury thing, even though Boedker missed 37 games with a spleen and Hanzal missed 45. People talk about not having Raanta, Chychrun, or Hjalmarsson, but at the time, Boedker and Hanzal were our top producers (Boedker averaged 0.62 PPG, Hanzal was at 0.65 - only Yandle was comparable at that productivity level).
All that I am saying is that if the same level of talk about injuries occurred, I think it would be hard to argue that Tocchet has had it that much worse, relative to what went down in, say, the 2014-15 season. We have lost our best goalie (where our defense overall has been below average), our best SAH D, and an up and coming D in Chychrun this year. Compare that to two top 6 forwards who were our best point generators from the F position. Or the relative talent level on paper and being able to get that talent level to be equal to or greater than what it is on paper. While one had 7 years in total here and one has less than a half season, I think that there is a distinct bias because somehow these injuries this year appear to mean more to the team than previous years. Or talent level relative to the bottom feeding that we had to rely on. Or the new system thing. Yes, a lot of people have to learn a new system. Even YOY while keeping the same coach, at least 4 or 5 players are probably needing to learn the nuances of the system. But I also don't think that we should be still seeing as much volatility in the system as we have seen - regardless of how little time we have with Tocchet's system. At some point, something needs to click and even the "team meetings" haven't worked to at least give us a little kick start.
If Tippett's shelf life ran out, what is your honest assessment of Tocchet's shelf life, b/c if this is the route that we are on, even improving by 20% YOY for the life of Tocchet's contract still puts us pretty much on the exact same path as what we were getting with Tippett and teams who had less talent, right?
We are currently on pace for 47 points this year. Maybe we are closer to a 55-58 point team, so even if I put this at 58 points for a starting point:
17-18: 58 points (?)
18-19: (20% increase YOY): 70 points
19-20 (20% increase YOY): 84 points
20-21 (20% increase YOY): 101 points
Does a 20% YOY increase even seem plausible? Should it be more or less? I just have a hard time seeing any type of scenario like this playing out, unless we hit absolute home runs from here on out in terms of drafting, development, playing, trades, and free agent signings. Even if we are truly closer to a 60-70 point team, asking for a 20% uptick in production and points is a lot to ask.