18/19 Tank Tracker Part Deux

ricky0034

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Jun 8, 2010
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As opposed to banking on a lottery pick that turns your franchise around? That requires a ****load of good fortune as well. You can't plan on that.

To "plan" for a lottery pick that turns your team around, not only would you have to 1) almost purposely decimate your team to finish last for the best odds, but you would also have to 2) get lucky with the way the ping pong balls bounce, but you would also 3) have to do it in the right draft year (sorry in advance if you got lucky with the #1, #2, or #3 picks in the wrong years.)

*Let's say there are 7 teams in any given year who are bad enough going into the season that they could reasonably finish in last in the NHL if things go their way: 14.28% chance of your team finishing last.
*The last place team has a 49.4% chance of drafting top 3 after the lottery balls are chosen: 49.4%
*And finally, looking through the past 10 drafts (except 2018 - too early, so 2008 - 2017), about 14 of the 30 picks did not become a star/franchise changing player (IMO, YMMV). - So that's a 53.3% chance of actually drafting the player you need even if the two above bullet points actually fall into place.

So what are the odds of all three of these things happening in any given year? 14.28% x 49.4% x 53.3% is approximately 3.76%. Are those good odds to "plan" on? No, in my opinion.

So, in conclusion, i'm certainly all for getting that #1 -#3 pick and would love to have the best odds to do it. If it happens, it happens and great! Awesome for sure. But i'm not sure it's smart franchise building to plan on that happening and always plan on building your team around that great top 3 pick that may or may not materialize. It should be looked at as kind of an added bonus if it actually does happen.

your math is pretty heavily off here

even if you just take all the numbers at face value you don't suddenly have a 0% chance of a top 3 pick if you don't finish last overall
 

TheOtherOne

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Jan 2, 2010
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winning a Cup without lottery picks is something that's not done in the cap era, having only been successfully accomplished once with an otherworldly performance from a goaltender who didn't find his stride and become a star until his mid-30s (talk about bad odds, lottery's got nothing on that :laugh:).
I'm so tired of people making this stat sound so much more important than it is.

We're only talking about 10 Stanley Cups (because the year before is a perfect example of a team that won without lottery picks (oh but we have to throw that out because Lidstrom)).
Those 10 Cups were won by 5 teams.
One of those 5 teams did so without the benefit of lottery (bla bla Seguin).
The league has 31 teams in it. Most of those teams have a top 3 draft pick on the roster.

So you can say "recently, success has been found mostly by teams with lottery picks".
Or you can say "In the ENTIRE CAP ERA, no team has EVER won a Stanley Cup without having LOTTERY PICKS!"

Let's knock it the f*** off with the latter. It's a limited statistic that doesn't really say anything meaningful beyond "earlier picks generally end up being better players on average". In other news, ice is cold.
 

Hen Kolland

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Feb 22, 2018
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But we have to take into account where we are, how we're composed, and what we're up against as well which I think gets lost in the shuffle a lot on here.

Look at our division. You have Tampa with Kucherov/Stamkos/Point/Hedman, Toronto with Matthews/Tavares/Marner/Rielly, Buffalo with Eichel/Dahlin/Skinner/Reinhart, Florida with Barkov/Huberdeau/Ekblad, Boston with Marchand/Bergeron/Pastrnak/McAvoy... Ignoring the rest of the league, how are we going to be competitive even in our own division when we're fighting those teams with Larkin and a handful of very good but not great players?

Monahan, Ekman-Larsson, Scheifele, Rielly, Pettersson are the only players in that list I would put at the Larkin level. The rest are players that are at an AA/Mantha type level. We already have those, as do all those teams in our division I mentioned. What they also have are several Larkin level players, we have just one. And out of the 33 players you mentioned, like I said I think there are only 5 that have fit the bill so far (still too early to really know from 2016 onward). That's 15%. Even if you allow for 2-3 of the 2016-2018 players becoming stars in their own right, that's still only around a 25% hit rate. Thus a 75% chance of acquiring another 2nd tier 'star', which is simply not what we need.

I’d easily put Elias Lindholm in the discussion. And Mika Zibanejad.

Nobody will say that it’s a guarantee. Nothing is guaranteed. But we are talking about a decent clip over 50% turn into quality top 6/4 guys, and half of those are turning into stars. Not exactly anything that presents a great deal of concern to me
 

obey86

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Jun 9, 2009
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I'm certainly not going to argue lottery odds with you, they are what they are. I am arguing on the basis that winning a Cup without lottery picks is something that's not done in the cap era, having only been successfully accomplished once with an otherworldly performance from a goaltender who didn't find his stride and become a star until his mid-30s (talk about bad odds, lottery's got nothing on that :laugh:). And even that's technically not true since they had Seguin, albeit undeveloped.

Until it's proven otherwise, I'm going to assume having a lottery pick is an essential component to a Cup winner. So as bad as the odds are, it certainly seems like they're the best bet.

Boston was a top 5 team in the NHL all season that year. They had a top 5 scoring offense also. They also made it back to the NHL finals 2 seasons later with a different starting goalie. So to say they only won the cup that year because of their goalie is silly.
 

Pavels Dog

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Look at our division. You have Tampa with Kucherov/Stamkos/Point/Hedman, Toronto with Matthews/Tavares/Marner/Rielly, Buffalo with Eichel/Dahlin/Skinner/Reinhart, Florida with Barkov/Huberdeau/Ekblad, Boston with Marchand/Bergeron/Pastrnak/McAvoy... Ignoring the rest of the league, how are we going to be competitive even in our own division when we're fighting those teams with Larkin and a handful of very good but not great players?
Tampa - heading for a major cap crunch. That said they're still relatively young and will remain a powerhouse. But Stamkos is 29 and Hedman 28, in a few years they could start declining in time for our players to start hitting their prime
Toronto - Relatively weak D, their offense is great but lots of cap tied up in a few players. Goaltending is something of a questionmark. Don't know that they are impossible.
Buffalo - Still sucks. Dahlin is legit. Eichel is offensively awesome but is he a winner? Overall they don't scare me because they can't draft outside the top 10.
Florida - Meeeehhhh
Boston - Heading into a mini-rebuild soon. Bergeron and Krejci are 33, Marchand 31.
Montreal/Ottawa are not good.

Tampa is the biggest hurdle for the next 5 years. Otherwise I don't think it's an impossible division on paper. But we need great players, and I don't know why we think we can't/won't get them.
 

TheOtherOne

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Jan 2, 2010
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I'm tired of allowing the benefit of the doubt to the tank crowd in all these arguments. Most of the time everyone on the forum understands that cherrypicking stats is not valid in an argument. Then we start talking about the draft lottery and it's "DRW doesn't count because Lidstrom is magic and Datsyuk is from Bumf***istan" "Boston doesn't count because Tim Thomas" "Nashville doesn't count because their defense is good or something".

If you want real statistics and you want to be taken seriously you have to count everything. So let's count everything from the Cap era. That means '06 to now. And it means counting winners and runners-up because Stanley Cup finals teams are not worthless failures, they're just teams that lost 1 game too many. It also means counting Seguin even though he didn't matter and ignoring him would help my point.

Using real statistics without cherrypicking, in the Cap era, 20% of the teams that made it to the finals had zero lottery (top-3) picks.

In a perfect league, statistically over an infinite time period, any given team would have a 6% chance to make the finals. But what we've measured in real life over the largest possible sample size says that teams with zero top-3 picks have a 20% chance to make the finals.

Mull that shit over for a while.
 

Gniwder

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Oct 12, 2009
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I just went through the NHL roster, and every team has at least one top 5 pick on their roster except the Ducks and Wings. So chances are pretty good that the Stanley Cup winner has a top 5 pick on their roster considering the Ducks and Wings are out.

Basically the only thing that tells us is that every team had at least one really bad season in the past 15 years. Now it's our turn, that's what parity does.
 

The Zermanator

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Boston was a top 5 team in the NHL all season that year. They had a top 5 scoring offense also. They also made it back to the NHL finals 2 seasons later with a different starting goalie. So to say they only won the cup that year because of their goalie is silly.

And Tim Thomas had a .938 SV% that year which just so happens to be the 4th best RS goalie performance of all time...which he just so happened to follow up with a .940 playoffs... Yep they were a top 5 team, you think that's a coincidence?

They didn't win when they went back 2 years later, despite a similar performance from Rask. So the only years they actually made it deep, they had alltime great performances from their goalies. The first time, their skaters were slightly better than Vancouver and they won. Then the Blackhawks had an edge in skaters and they won. The years they didn't get that level of goaltending they had 2 2nd rd exits and 1 1st rd exit before they failed to make the playoffs in 2015. The goaltending is absolutely what made the difference for them.

I'm so tired of people making this stat sound so much more important than it is.

We're only talking about 10 Stanley Cups (because the year before is a perfect example of a team that won without lottery picks (oh but we have to throw that out because Lidstrom)).
Those 10 Cups were won by 5 teams.
One of those 5 teams did so without the benefit of lottery (bla bla Seguin).
The league has 31 teams in it. Most of those teams have a top 3 draft pick on the roster.

So you can say "recently, success has been found mostly by teams with lottery picks".
Or you can say "In the ENTIRE CAP ERA, no team has EVER won a Stanley Cup without having LOTTERY PICKS!"

Let's knock it the **** off with the latter. It's a limited statistic that doesn't really say anything meaningful beyond "earlier picks generally end up being better players on average". In other news, ice is cold.

Well, we seem to be talking about odds a lot here. Detroit won the Cup in 2008 based off of a top 3 alltime dman who started winning nonstop Norris' after he turned 30, and two HHOFs who were picked in the 5th and 6th rounds. And in my response to obey86 I used the Bruins with Tim Thomas as the only other example where teams won without a lottery pick playing an integral role. A situation where a goalie did not become an NHL regular until his mid 30s and suddenly was an all star carrying his team through postseasons.

I’d easily put Elias Lindholm in the discussion. And Mika Zibanejad.

Nobody will say that it’s a guarantee. Nothing is guaranteed. But we are talking about a decent clip over 50% turn into quality top 6/4 guys, and half of those are turning into stars. Not exactly anything that presents a great deal of concern to me

You didn't address my point about how we're going to compete though. Even with Lindholm and Zibanejad added, we're still talking about a well over 50% fail rate to get an elite player. So how are we going to compete with those teams in our division if we're only getting quality top 6/4 players during our worst 'tanking' years?
 

Hen Kolland

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And Tim Thomas had a .938 SV% that year which just so happens to be the 4th best RS goalie performance of all time...which he just so happened to follow up with a .940 playoffs... Yep they were a top 5 team, you think that's a coincidence?

They didn't win when they went back 2 years later, despite a similar performance from Rask. So the only years they actually made it deep, they had alltime great performances from their goalies. The first time, their skaters were slightly better than Vancouver and they won. Then the Blackhawks had an edge in skaters and they won. The years they didn't get that level of goaltending they had 2 2nd rd exits and 1 1st rd exit before they failed to make the playoffs in 2015. The goaltending is absolutely what made the difference for them.



Well, we seem to be talking about odds a lot here. Detroit won the Cup in 2008 based off of a top 3 alltime dman who started winning nonstop Norris' after he turned 30, and two HHOFs who were picked in the 5th and 6th rounds. And in my response to obey86 I used the Bruins with Tim Thomas as the only other example where teams won without a lottery pick playing an integral role. A situation where a goalie did not become an NHL regular until his mid 30s and suddenly was an all star carrying his team through postseasons.



You didn't address my point about how we're going to compete though. Even with Lindholm and Zibanejad added, we're still talking about a well over 50% fail rate to get an elite player. So how are we going to compete with those teams in our division if we're only getting quality top 6/4 players during our worst 'tanking' years?

My way of addressing your point: the organization doesn’t need to be coddled with top 3 picks in order to try to build a contender. If you get lucky, celebrate. But don’t hitch your hopes to one avenue to success
 

TheOtherOne

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Well, we seem to be talking about odds a lot here. Detroit won the Cup in 2008 based off of a top 3 alltime dman who started winning nonstop Norris' after he turned 30, and two HHOFs who were picked in the 5th and 6th rounds. And in my response to obey86 I used the Bruins with Tim Thomas as the only other example where teams won without a lottery pick playing an integral role. A situation where a goalie did not become an NHL regular until his mid 30s and suddenly was an all star carrying his team through postseasons.
Yea duh, that's exactly my point! You're cherrypicking to invalidate the actual data. Look what happens when I apply that liberally for my own side: "Sure the Penguins won some Cups but only because Crosby is a top 10 player of all time". Now let's do it for 4 other teams and suddenly our sample size is zero.

One more time:
Using real statistics without cherrypicking, in the Cap era, 20% of the teams that made it to the finals had zero lottery (top-3) picks.
 

obey86

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your math is pretty heavily off here

even if you just take all the numbers at face value you don't suddenly have a 0% chance of a top 3 pick if you don't finish last overall

My post was in the context of “the Wings should be doing everything they can to achieve that top 3 pick as that’s the only way to rebuild ” as many people think this year has been a failure due to the winning streak at the end of the year that left us at #4.

I’m perfectly content at 4 as (as you mentioned) we still have a shot at a top 3 pick, and (imo) we will still get a really good prospect even if not top 3. The ranking crowd doesn’t see it that way really though, it’s “you need a top 3 pick for a successful rebuild or it won’t work,” hence, showing them how then logistics of tanking for the #1 lottery spot actually works out.
 
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Invictus12

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And Tim Thomas had a .938 SV% that year which just so happens to be the 4th best RS goalie performance of all time...which he just so happened to follow up with a .940 playoffs... Yep they were a top 5 team, you think that's a coincidence?

They didn't win when they went back 2 years later, despite a similar performance from Rask. So the only years they actually made it deep, they had alltime great performances from their goalies. The first time, their skaters were slightly better than Vancouver and they won. Then the Blackhawks had an edge in skaters and they won. The years they didn't get that level of goaltending they had 2 2nd rd exits and 1 1st rd exit before they failed to make the playoffs in 2015. The goaltending is absolutely what made the difference for them.



Well, we seem to be talking about odds a lot here. Detroit won the Cup in 2008 based off of a top 3 alltime dman who started winning nonstop Norris' after he turned 30, and two HHOFs who were picked in the 5th and 6th rounds. And in my response to obey86 I used the Bruins with Tim Thomas as the only other example where teams won without a lottery pick playing an integral role. A situation where a goalie did not become an NHL regular until his mid 30s and suddenly was an all star carrying his team through postseasons.



You didn't address my point about how we're going to compete though. Even with Lindholm and Zibanejad added, we're still talking about a well over 50% fail rate to get an elite player. So how are we going to compete with those teams in our division if we're only getting quality top 6/4 players during our worst 'tanking' years?

Sure... Scoring 5+ goals every home game against Vancouver was also all goaltending...
 

The Zermanator

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Tampa - heading for a major cap crunch. That said they're still relatively young and will remain a powerhouse. But Stamkos is 29 and Hedman 28, in a few years they could start declining in time for our players to start hitting their prime
Toronto - Relatively weak D, their offense is great but lots of cap tied up in a few players. Goaltending is something of a questionmark. Don't know that they are impossible.
Buffalo - Still sucks. Dahlin is legit. Eichel is offensively awesome but is he a winner? Overall they don't scare me because they can't draft outside the top 10.
Florida - Meeeehhhh
Boston - Heading into a mini-rebuild soon. Bergeron and Krejci are 33, Marchand 31.
Montreal/Ottawa are not good.

Tampa is the biggest hurdle for the next 5 years. Otherwise I don't think it's an impossible division on paper. But we need great players, and I don't know why we think we can't/won't get them.

Tampa: Hedman is an iron man, I don't see him declining soon. Point and Kucherov are both young, as are Sergachev and Vasilevskiy. Point is they're all on the right side of 30. But we're in general agreement here.

Toronto: Their relatively weak D has a better dman in Rielly than anyone we have had in about 7 years and anyone in our current pipeline. We have been trying to address this hole for the better part of a decade and still an answer eludes us. I envy Toronto's task of filling out their bottom 4 a lot more than ours of filling the top 2. Goaltending is a question for us as well, in fact our situation is even worse. And this all doesn't even get into Matthews/Tavares/Marner/Nylander. Toronto will definitely be a contender in the Atlantic for many years to come.

Buffalo: Not in as bad a position as their finish would suggest. We will see how they do next season if they manage to find an even halfway competent coach. The consensus on Housley seems to be he was an ineffective and weak coach that couldn't lead a team and had no original ideas. It's hard to imagine that with Dahlin and Eichel (who you are massively underrating, IMO) this team isn't in for a major improvement, and soon.

Florida: You're saying 'Meh' to a team who has possibly the best defensive forward in the league and oh also got 96 points, and another 90+ point player to boot. And a 1st OA dman to round things out. And now they've added one of the most successful coaches in NHL history. Again, another team who is in for a major improvement.

Boston/Montreal/Ottawa: We're in agreement there. Although I still see Boston being very good for several years. But we'll likely still be bad for most of those years so it doesn't affect us too much.

So that was my point about having to compare ourselves to who we'll be competing with. There are no less than 4 teams in our division alone who have several proven elite players all under 30, many under 25. What do we have in comparison? Larkin can't do it all alone. As much as I love AA/Mantha, etc they aren't like any of those players I mentioned. So if you're so pessimistic about the likes of Florida and Buffalo, I can't even imagine how pessimistic you'd have to be about the Wings...
 

The Zermanator

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My way of addressing your point: the organization doesn’t need to be coddled with top 3 picks in order to try to build a contender. If you get lucky, celebrate. But don’t hitch your hopes to one avenue to success

Please, enlighten me. What are these other avenues to success?

Yea duh, that's exactly my point! You're cherrypicking to invalidate the actual data. Look what happens when I apply that liberally for my own side: "Sure the Penguins won some Cups but only because Crosby is a top 10 player of all time". Now let's do it for 4 other teams and suddenly our sample size is zero.

One more time:
Using real statistics without cherrypicking, in the Cap era, 20% of the teams that made it to the finals had zero lottery (top-3) picks.

I'm not cherry-picking anything, I've accounted for every season since the lockout. The Cup has been won by a team with a lottery player (with roughly 50% of Conn Smythes also won by those very players, who are contenders in the years they don't win) every single year with 2 exceptions. And those 2 exceptions are wildly unrealistic in today's NHL. We're not getting another Lidstrom and we're not finding another Datsyuk/Zetterberg in the late rounds. The NHL isn't like that anymore, sorry. You can't buy players (cap) and you can't find superstars in the latest rounds because drafting is just too good these days. The only players chosen in the 5th or later I can think of in the cap era are Benn and Klingberg. If you're so interested in areas with lots of data, tell me the odds on that then.

So ignoring those two wins because they are exceptional circumstances that happen once in a blue moon, every single other Cup has been won by a team with a lottery pick.

And dismissing it because some of those teams have won several Cups makes no sense. 'You can't look at these wins because these lottery players ended up winning their teams multiple Cups...' And that's supposed to invalidate the tank argument??

As far as the bolded: So 80% of the teams had a lottery pick? And ~85% of the Cup winners had lottery picks (2/13)? Hmmm those numbers are similar, wonder if there's a correlation? Something that pushes you over the top...

Sure... Scoring 5+ goals every home game against Vancouver was also all goaltending...

Takes 4 rounds to win the Stanley Cup, Boston went to 7 games in 3 of those 4 rounds. On the backs of one of the best playoff goaltending performances of all time. In other words, despite having that level of goaltending the Bruins needed 7 games to win 3 rounds. The Canucks sh***ng the bed offensively and defensively in round 4 doesn't change that fact.

The Bruins won 4 games outscoring the Canucks 21-3. The Canucks won 3 games outscoring the Bruins 5-2. The Bruins had a wildly inconsistent offseason in terms of scoring goals, they'd score 0 or they'd score 6. Tim Thomas was a rock the whole way, all the way up to allowing 8 goals in 7 games in the Cup final. The Bruins won the Cup off the back of Thomas and an epic choke by the Canucks.
 
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TheOtherOne

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I'm not cherry-picking anything...

So ignoring those two wins because they are exceptional circumstances that happen once in a blue moon, every single other Cup has been won by a team with a lottery pick.
Come the f*** on man. This isn't worth it anymore.
 

ricky0034

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Jun 8, 2010
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My post was in the context of “the Wings should be doing everything they can to achieve that top 3 pick as that’s the only way to rebuild ” as many people think this year has been a failure due to the winning streak at the end of the year that left us at #4.

I’m perfectly content at 4 as (as you mentioned) we still have a shot at a top 3 pick, and (imo) we will still get a really good prospect even if not top 3. The ranking crowd doesn’t see it that way really though, it’s “you need a top 3 pick for a successful rebuild or it won’t work,” hence, showing them how then logistics of tanking for the #1 lottery spot actually works out.

I meant your 3.76% number

you can't just multiply it by 14% to represent a chance of finishing last like you did then not include numbers for the other rankings too because for example if you finish second to last you still have a 38.8% chance of picking top 3,the third to last has a 33.9% chance etc

by your numbers it would be your 3.76% number plus also:

14.28%x38.8%x53.3%=2.95%
14.28%x33.9%x53.3%=2.58%
14.28%x28.8%x53.3%=2.19%
14.28%x26.1%x53.3%=1.99%
14.28%x23.3%x53.3%=1.77%
14.28%x20.4%x53.3%=1.55%

obviously this is all overly simplistic but just going by your own formula the actual number would be 16.79% not 3.76% which is literally a 4.5x difference
 

obey86

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Please, enlighten me. What are these other avenues to success?



I'm not cherry-picking anything, I've accounted for every season since the lockout. The Cup has been won by a team with a lottery player (with roughly 50% of Conn Smythes also won by those very players, who are contenders in the years they don't win) every single year with 2 exceptions. And those 2 exceptions are wildly unrealistic in today's NHL. We're not getting another Lidstrom and we're not finding another Datsyuk/Zetterberg in the late rounds. The NHL isn't like that anymore, sorry. You can't buy players (cap) and you can't find superstars in the latest rounds because drafting is just too good these days. The only players chosen in the 5th or later I can think of in the cap era are Benn and Klingberg. If you're so interested in areas with lots of data, tell me the odds on that then.

So ignoring those two wins because they are exceptional circumstances that happen once in a blue moon, every single other Cup has been won by a team with a lottery pick.

And dismissing it because some of those teams have won several Cups makes no sense. 'You can't look at these wins because these lottery players ended up winning their teams multiple Cups...' And that's supposed to invalidate the tank argument??



Takes 4 rounds to win the Stanley Cup, Boston went to 7 games in 3 of those 4 rounds. On the backs of one of the best playoff goaltending performances of all time. In other words, despite having that level of goaltending the Bruins needed 7 games to win 3 rounds. The Canucks sh***ng the bed offensively in round 4 doesn't change that fact.

The Bruins won 4 games outscoring the Canucks 21-3. The Canucks won 3 games outscoring the Bruins 5-2. The Bruins had a wildly inconsistent offseason in terms of scoring goals, they'd score 0 or they'd score 6. Tim Thomas was a rock the whole way. The Bruins won the Cup off the back of Thomas and an epic choke by the Canucks.

Using this logic, why aren't we ignoring the way Pittsburgh built their team then too? They drafted 1, 2, 1, 2 in 4 consecutive drafts. The odds of the last place team in the NHL drafting 4 picks that high in 4 consecutive seasons (with how today's lottery works) is literally 0.09%. That doesn't even include the astronomical odds of drafting two of the best players in NHL history in consecutive drafts. Throw Pittsburgh's 3 stanley cup wins out the window for the previously mentioned reason.

So we're down to the Red Wings win not counting due to Lidstrom, the Bruins win not counting due to Tim Thomas, and the Penguins wins not counting. So we are now at 8 (tanking) to 0 (non tanking). Any other stanley cup wins we can ignore?
 

The Zermanator

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Come the **** on man. This isn't worth it anymore.

You want to talk about cherrypicking? Way to completely ignore context.

What about those 2 wins makes you think they are in any way replicable? How can you plan for that? You can't 'plan' to draft a player who wins 7 Norris trophies after 30, you can't 'plan' to draft two HOFs 171st and 210th overall. You can't 'plan' on having a 35 year old goalie suddenly put in all time great performances.

I'll tell you what you can plan for. You can plan and position yourself to be one of the worst teams so that you ensure you get one of the top picks. Why? Because it's predictable. It's the same thing Pittsburgh, Washington, Chicago, LA, etc ALL did.
 

The Zermanator

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Using this logic, why aren't we ignoring the way Pittsburgh built their team then too? They drafted 1, 2, 1, 2 in 4 consecutive drafts. The odds of the last place team in the NHL drafting 4 picks that high in 4 consecutive seasons (with how today's lottery works) is literally 0.09%. That doesn't even include the astronomical odds of drafting two of the best players in NHL history in consecutive drafts. Throw Pittsburgh's 3 stanley cup wins out the window for the previously mentioned reason.
Well we can thank Edmonton for making this so much harder to achieve I suppose, doesn't change anything. There is a common denominator to Cup winners, period.
 

TheOtherOne

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cher·ry-pick·ing
/ˈCHerēˌpikiNG/
noun
noun: cherry-picking; plural noun: cherry-pickings; noun: cherrypicking; plural noun: cherrypickings
  1. the action or practice of choosing and taking only the most beneficial or profitable items, opportunities, etc., from what is available.
    "it is an exaggeration based on the cherry-picking of facts"

Are we cherrypicking?
if NO: Then in the Cap era, 20% of the teams that made it to the finals had zero lottery (top-3) picks.

if YES: Then I'm going to say 4 out of the 21 Finals appearances were only because Pitt got Crosby, a top10 forward of all time, which is "exceptional circumstances that happen once in a blue moon", so we can throw out that data too. And I can go further and say things about the other teams but this is a stupid f***ing exercise so I won't.

EDIT: This is not important but just for fun, even if I DO let you cherrypick and throw out the 2 DRW appearances, then 16% (3/19) of the teams making the Finals had zero top3 picks. Which is still higher than the 6% you would get from pure randomness.
 
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obey86

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You want to talk about cherrypicking? Way to completely ignore context.

What about those 2 wins makes you think they are in any way replicable? How can you plan for that? You can't 'plan' to draft a player who wins 7 Norris trophies after 30, you can't 'plan' to draft two HOFs 171st and 210th overall. You can't 'plan' on having a 35 year old goalie suddenly put in all time great performances.

I'll tell you what you can plan for. You can plan and position yourself to be one of the worst teams so that you ensure you get one of the top picks. Why? Because it's predictable. It's the same thing Pittsburgh, Washington, Chicago, LA, etc ALL did.

No it's not. In today's NHL with the current lottery odds and where those teams finished standings wise, those teams would have been more likely to draft #4 or later than where they did to get their top players.

So they all did it prior to the current lottery odds being in place, which isn't something that can be copied. We need to throw those wins out. Not a single team in NHL history has won the cup tanking, using the current lottery odds in place.
 

The Zermanator

In Yzerman We Trust
Jan 21, 2013
3,380
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cher·ry-pick·ing
/ˈCHerēˌpikiNG/
noun
noun: cherry-picking; plural noun: cherry-pickings; noun: cherrypicking; plural noun: cherrypickings
  1. the action or practice of choosing and taking only the most beneficial or profitable items, opportunities, etc., from what is available.
    "it is an exaggeration based on the cherry-picking of facts"

Are we cherrypicking?
if NO: Then in the Cap era, 20% of the teams that made it to the finals had zero lottery (top-3) picks.

if YES: Then I'm going to say 4 out of the 21 Finals appearances were only because Pitt got Crosby, a top10 forward of all time, which is "exceptional circumstances that happen once in a blue moon", so we can throw out that data too. And I can go further and say things about the other teams but this is a stupid ****ing exercise so I won't.

Ah yes, so to avoid cherrypicking you use the best player in the world as your example? :laugh:

Chicago won just as many Cups with only 1 1st OA in Kane and another lottery in Toews. LA won with just a #2 in Doughty. Carolina just with Staal, and Anaheim with an aged Niedermayer and Pronger.

So despite your cherrypicking no the bar is not set at top 10 forward of all time to win a Cup. The one common denominator to all these winner though? Lottery picks.
 

The Zermanator

In Yzerman We Trust
Jan 21, 2013
3,380
1,182
No it's not. In today's NHL with the current lottery odds and where those teams finished standings wise, those teams would have been more likely to draft #4 or later than where they did to get their top players.

So they all did it prior to the current lottery odds being in place, which isn't something that can be copied. We need to throw those wins out. Not a single team in NHL history has won the cup tanking, using the current lottery odds in place.

That's a strawman. Rules are irrelevant to the fact that Cup winners have lottery players. Just because the new rules make it harder doesn't change that fact.
 

Pavels Dog

Registered User
Feb 18, 2013
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Sweden
So that was my point about having to compare ourselves to who we'll be competing with. There are no less than 4 teams in our division alone who have several proven elite players all under 30, many under 25. What do we have in comparison? Larkin can't do it all alone. As much as I love AA/Mantha, etc they aren't like any of those players I mentioned. So if you're so pessimistic about the likes of Florida and Buffalo, I can't even imagine how pessimistic you'd have to be about the Wings...
One thing to keep in mind is that we're likely drafting higher than anyone else in our division this year... could be a similar story next year (but probably Ottawa still sucks).

Why compare what we have now, when we know the process of rebuilding will result in us getting an injection of a lot of talent? We have a 9th OA pick who is just scratching the surface of becoming an NHLer. We have a 6th OA player who has just played 9 games. We are getting a top 5-6 pick this year. Likely next year too.
Combine that with our non top-10 drafting; Larkin, Mantha, Bertuzzi, Hronek, Cholowski, Veleno, Berggren, McIsaac, Athanasiou.. and you see why I'm not pessimistic about the Wings.
High-end picks + good depth drafting = success.

Yes some other teams in the division have more guys that are "proven" as high-caliber guy.. but they're also not drafting as high, drafting as often, and they don't have as much young talent being developed. Thinking we won't be able to compete would be as foolish as sitting on top as the Wings did in 2008 or 2009 and thinking it will last forever.
 

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