Are the Rangers the worst President's Trophy winners of the Cap era?

[FoxyClean]

Should the NHL have their Rangers redo their season in case it was a big fluke?

No disrespect to the Rangers, I'm a firm believer that New York winning the Presidents' Trophy is a huge fluke and robs the Hurricanes of truly accomplishing what their capable of. I've spent the last few days in pure disbelief and it just doesn't make sense to me. I've spent the entire regular season watching the Carolina play great hockey it's just not fair.

If the Canes lose again I will face that the Rangers deserved the win, but I am just 100% sure it was a fluke and does a big disservice to the Hurricanes and the NHL.

 

[NYR94]

Lol rent free.

 

[NyQuil]

Isn’t Carolina notorious for firing the puck at the net from anywhere?

Is that why their Corsi looks so good?

I mean Brady Tkachuk has unreal xG numbers but he also spends a lot of his time in the crease, so context is important. A lot of his scoring chances from there are just him swatting at the goalie pads.

 

[God]

i dunno, they might be, but a few bounces here and there have probably changed a bunch of the presidents trophy "races"... no real use trying to annoint a "worst" crown onto a bunch of good teams.

the funnier story is definitely the -37 GD washington capitals making the playoffs. there's a team that might be the worst playoff team of the cap era.

 

[WarriorofTime]

No, the 2012 Canucks are the weakest, followed by the 2010 Capitals.

Both fed on laughably bad divisions.

The Metro is also a pretty terrible division to be fair. A little different though with six divisions as you got some REALLY bad ones like the Southeast and Northwest in the years you mentioned.

 

[super6646]

Yes

 

[Tawnos]

I look at the Rangers and I don't see a team that really deserves to be in the position they're at. I see the gap in CORSI between them and Carolina is momentous. Carolina definitely should have won the President's Trophy, but NYR is a very luck-based, hope-for-a-penalty team and it got them where they are.

Honestly maybe the Rangers are a bubble playoff team in a Deserve-To-Win factored scenario, but you see so many teams with excellent analytics like the Devils for example that should be in but got unlucky with bad goaltending. When you look at Fenwick, GF%, etc. it paints a really scary story if you're a Rangers fan.

The only team I think that might be worse, SINCE THE CAP ERA, would be the 2009 San Jose Sharks. But I wanna know your opinions. Is the Rangers lucky/how big will an upset of them in Round 1 be compared to Boston last year.

The Rangers analytics are better than most people realize when you look at sources that aren't entirely reliant on publicly available data. I was listening to an interview with the main guy for Clear Sight Analytics (Steve Valiquette) and CSA has the 5v5 Rangers:

9th in xGF
8th in xGF off the rush
12th in xGF off offensive zone possession

1st in slot-line shots
1st in deflections
3rd in screened shots
4th in one-timers
5th in broken play chances

2nd in forechecking goals
5th in goals off faceoffs
5th in goals off rebounds

Not everything is perfect of course. For example, they're 28th in xGA off the rush. My main point is that you shouldn't let those publicly available models fool you too much.

The Hurricanes always have great numbers in public data models because they're shot attempt spammers and that's what those models love. That's not to say they're a worse team than their record would indicate. Not at all. It just demonstrates that those models favor a specific style of playing, which the Rangers don't employ and the Hurricanes do. And just like the Rangers have their flaws that can be exploited, shot spammers are vulnerable to their offense drying up when probabilities shift (which has eventually happened to the Canes the last few years).

 

[JimmyG89]

I look at the Rangers and I don't see a team that really deserves to be in the position they're at. I see the gap in CORSI between them and Carolina is momentous. Carolina definitely should have won the President's Trophy, but NYR is a very luck-based, hope-for-a-penalty team and it got them where they are.

Honestly maybe the Rangers are a bubble playoff team in a Deserve-To-Win factored scenario, but you see so many teams with excellent analytics like the Devils for example that should be in but got unlucky with bad goaltending. When you look at Fenwick, GF%, etc. it paints a really scary story if you're a Rangers fan.

The only team I think that might be worse, SINCE THE CAP ERA, would be the 2009 San Jose Sharks. But I wanna know your opinions. Is the Rangers lucky/how big will an upset of them in Round 1 be compared to Boston last year.

The good news in all of this is that people will pay to watch the Rangers in the playoffs.

If you wanna see the Devils, you can probably watch from the side of the highway as long as there are no hills.

 

[Megustaelhockey]

They could even be the worst Presidents' Trophy winner AND the worst Stanley Cup champion in the same year. Amazing.

 

[mandiblesofdoom]

Top 5 Goalie, solid Defense both in stars and depth, solid depth scoring… what am I missing.

I would put it more like:

Top 5 Goalie, Top 5 Defenseman, Top 10 forward, other talent throughout the lineup, some holes, some commitment to bad players* ... a pretty good team with so-so 5-on-5 play (that may be improving) but excellent special teams whose record was helped by getting more points in OT than anyone else.

Perhaps not the best team in the league but pretty close.

*NYR has moved on from some of the worst players they iced this year. Also Trouba is now on the third pair (good). The team still won't play Zack Jones, which is unfortunate.

 

[LionsHeart]

Who cares? They won the most games and beat some pretty damn good teams along the way.

 

[mandiblesofdoom]

They could even be the worst Presidents' Trophy winner AND the worst Stanley Cup champion in the same year. Amazing.

wouldn't that be a hoot.

 

[nbwingsfan]

I just wonder if they have the balls to put Quick in nets if Sheshterkin falters at all

 

[Megustaelhockey]

I just wonder if they have the balls to put Quick in nets if Sheshterkin falters at all

Quick has won 3 Stanley Cups. I don't think there will be much hesitation on the Rangers' part in that case.

 

[Profet]

I look at the Rangers and I don't see a team that really deserves to be in the position they're at. I see the gap in CORSI between them and Carolina is momentous. Carolina definitely should have won the President's Trophy, but NYR is a very luck-based, hope-for-a-penalty team and it got them where they are.

Honestly maybe the Rangers are a bubble playoff team in a Deserve-To-Win factored scenario, but you see so many teams with excellent analytics like the Devils for example that should be in but got unlucky with bad goaltending. When you look at Fenwick, GF%, etc. it paints a really scary story if you're a Rangers fan.

The only team I think that might be worse, SINCE THE CAP ERA, would be the 2009 San Jose Sharks. But I wanna know your opinions. Is the Rangers lucky/how big will an upset of them in Round 1 be compared to Boston last year.

You ok bro?

 

[JaegerDice]

Isn’t Carolina notorious for firing the puck at the net from anywhere?

Is that why their Corsi looks so good?

I mean Brady Tkachuk has unreal xG numbers but he also spends a lot of his time in the crease, so context is important. A lot of his scoring chances from there are just him swatting at the goalie pads.

Hypothetically, even if Carolina were guilty of firing the puck from anywhere (spoiler: they're not, which is why their xGF% is also always toward the top of the league), it wouldn't matter.

What matters is even if they took every shot from the red line, they can collect the puck again and put shot, after shot, after shot towards the opponent's net.

In doing so, even if they had 0% chance of scoring (spoiler: they wouldn't, as every goalie in the league has a sv% under 1.000), they prevent the other team from scoring so long as they are shooting, retrieving the puck, passing it around, and shooting it again.

 

[PuckLuck3043]

I wonder how the Devils are going to do in the playoffs? Oh wait.

 

[GAGLine]

The Rangers' 5 on 5 numbers haven't been top of the league in forever. It hasn't stopped them from having success. They beat the CORSI darlings, Carolina, 2 years ago, despite worse analytics. It's almost like actual results matter more than expected results.

 

[Gains]

5 of the last 13 President Trophy winners were teams that lost in the SC Final the previous year.
Boston 2020
Nashville 2018
Rangers 2015
Boston 2014
Vancouver 2012

 

[JaegerDice]

The Rangers analytics are better than most people realize when you look at sources that aren't entirely reliant on publicly available data. I was listening to an interview with the main guy for Clear Sight Analytics (Steve Valiquette) and CSA has the 5v5 Rangers:

9th in xGF
8th in xGF off the rush
12th in xGF off offensive zone possession

1st in slot-line shots
1st in deflections
3rd in screened shots
4th in one-timers
5th in broken play chances

2nd in forechecking goals
5th in goals off faceoffs
5th in goals off rebounds

Not everything is perfect of course. For example, they're 28th in xGA off the rush. My main point is that you shouldn't let those publicly available models fool you too much.

The Hurricanes always have great numbers in public data models because they're shot attempt spammers and that's what those models love. That's not to say they're a worse team than their record would indicate. Not at all. It just demonstrates that those models favor a specific style of playing, which the Rangers don't employ and the Hurricanes do. And just like the Rangers have their flaws that can be exploited, shot spammers are vulnerable to their offense drying up when probabilities shift (which has eventually happened to the Canes the last few years).

I have no problem with these non-public microstats, but they need to tell us what they've found the correlation to future goals, future goals for percentage, and wins for each of them is.

The reason people like CF% and xGF% are because they've been tested to have a higher correlation to future goals and goals for percentage than current goals or goals for percentage do.

All of those slices of data are interesting to have, but if you can't show me that they're more correlated to goal differential and wins over time, then why do I care beyond pure curiosity?

 

[Hughes SpeciMAN]

I have no problem with these non-public microstats, but they need to tell us what they've found the correlation to future goals, future goals for percentage, and wins for each of them is.

The reason people like CF% and xGF% are because they've been tested to have a higher correlation to future goals and goals for percentage than current goals or goals for percentage do.

All of those slices of data are interesting to have, but if you can't show me that they're more correlated to goal differential and wins over time, then why do I care beyond pure curiosity?

Data analysis techniques can be helpful in identifying patterns and trends in data, but if the data being analyzed is not correlated to the outcome of interest, then the results may not provide any meaningful insights. For example, if a particular statistic is not predictive of future goals or wins, then focusing on that statistic may not lead to a meaningful impact on future outcomes.

To address this concern, it's important to first understand why certain statistics are more predictive of future goals and wins than others. For example, Corsi and expected goal statistics can be more predictive because they take into account a wide range of shot attempts, not just the number of goals scored. These statistics can help to capture the overall offensive and defensive tendencies of a team, as well as their ability to generate and prevent high-quality scoring chances.

To evaluate the predictive power of particular statistics, it's important to conduct statistical analyses to determine the correlation between the statistic and future goals and wins. This can involve using techniques such as regression analysis, which can help to determine the statistical significance of the relationship between the statistic and the outcome.

I find it sad but also predictable how people are attacking the devils in this post. We have the brightest future of any team in the league and a brighter history, pretty much any team would kill for.

 

[TheUnusedCrayon]

Are they even the worst Rangers team to have won the President's Trophy during the era?

The 2007 Sabres,, 2010 Capitals, 2011 Canucks, 2018 Preds are probably also among the weaker winners. All still great teams, though, of course.

How did you include the 2011 Canucks? They dominated in so many stats and are deemed one of the best teams to never win a cup...

 

[winnipegger]

I can't shake the feeling that Washington is going to beat them in 7 games leading to much soul searching.

 

[Neil Racki]

Top 5 Goalie, solid Defense both in stars and depth, solid depth scoring… what am I missing.

Haterade .. you are missing a Big Gulp of luke warm haterade.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

I find it sad but also predictable how people are attacking the devils in this post. We have the brightest future of any team in the league and a brighter history, pretty much any team would kill for.

Pull back on the throttle, pilot; you're dangerously close to that mountain range.