Ignoring the condescension, which is annoying, but it's late...I agree in general that qualifying for the playoffs is more important than which place you finish. How often does the Presidents Trophy winner also win the Stanley Cup? Psssst...it's MUCH more frequently than 1 in 16. How can that be if those silly standings points don't matter? OK, I guess it was hard to ignore...
Yes, it's true PC winners win are a higher rate than 1 in 16, which only suggests that the playoffs aren't COMPLETELY random, which isn't what I was arguing. My point was, that standings points are one of the weakest indicators of team performance and quality you can find. You don't even have to go 'fancy' to find better, 5v5 goal differential would have been more than enough to indicate that the Blackhawks were in for a war.
It's totally true that the Hawks weren't a significantly more talented team that Nashville that year. The preseason predictions were Chicago, Dallas, and Nashville battling for the top of the Central with no clear favorite. Hawks exceeded regular season expectations, Preds had terrible start but righted the ship to squeak into the playoffs, and Dallas flopped. Get to the playoffs and you can throw out the regular season standings, but you can't win the Cup without making the playoffs (cough, Dallas, cough), so I'm in favor of making the playoffs comfortably to get as many kicks at the can as possible.
You can throw out the standings points, but you can't throw out the full picture. I'd rather not make the playoffs if I don't have a shot in hell of winning the whole shebang. Otherwise you're just wasting a season and getting a worse pick. The idea that 'anything can happen in the playoffs' is largely garbage romanticism. The teams that win the cup are generally among the top tier teams in the league when you look at the legitimately predictive numbers. Those that aren't, typically have historic goaltending running white hot.
Look, I liked Kempny also and never understood why Q didn't like him more. Inexplicable, really. But Gus gave the puck away in game 7 vs StL the year before doing just this - skating into traffic in the neutral zone. So people bag on Q for not giving young players a chance and not letting D skate the puck, then there's no way that losing that series is Q's fault, right? He was playing a young D at a critical point and skating the puck is the right thing to do, so I guess stuff just happens...
And I have a separate, very non-sarcastic question for all the folks who keep saying the game is quicker now but we need to let the D skate the puck more. Isn't it faster to pass the puck forward rather than skate it? I'd love to read a reply from someone who can explain clearly why the puck moves faster skating than passing. I'm confused every time someone talks about quicker transition but also wants the D to skate the puck more. What am I missing?
Q straight up torched Gus in his post-game comments....and then he was basically never heard from again until this season. Seabrook and TVR (and Oduya... and Rozsival) could happily vomit all over themselves shift in, shift out through 2016 and 2017, and Q would protect them and keep throwing them out there. But god forbid you make one error trying to make a play out of your zone.
And for the record, I posted on these very forums that I was happy and surprised with Q this season for continuing to throw his PMDs out there even after they made turnovers. I wasn't calling for his head at the time he was fired, after losing 5 straight or whatever it was, for that very reason. It seemed he finally got the memo, and was willing to let players work through errors rather than picking and choosing who gets buried for an error and who gets to play shift after shift without recourse.
As for your question... do you believe speed in hockey only works one way? That it only favors the offensive team? Teams are forechecking and getting into passing lanes MUCH faster. The Blackhawks Dmen are getting the puck, looking up and finding an opposing player in their passing lane...then they're passing D to D, which to the shock of nobody alleviates roughly zero pressure, and then they're hemmed in their zone for another shift. Meanwhile, successful teams are not looking for tape-to-tape passes, they just want to the puck out NOW, so they'll go off the glass, or they'll pass to an area and create a 50/50 race, or they will take the skating lane where it presents itself. And forwards are actually coming back to help their D both skate and pass the puck out, rather than waiting at the far blue-line for passing plays that will never come.
You know who had the most defensive-zone to offensive-zone transition plays for the Washington Capitals last season? Kuznetzsov. Under Q, he'd be waiting stationary at the blue line, waiting for a pass that never came cause the passing lane was closed off before the D could even look up to find him.
Special teams have notably improved under the new regime, or maybe not...should I check the numbers? Shouldn't the PP be the easiest thing to fix?
Go ahead, though you should look at 5v4 shots and chances generated per 60 rather than PP%, as comparing PP% over 9 years vs 10 or so games would be a little silly.
Eh, too many problems last year to even get into it.
Not really. Poor coaching and poor goaltending. The latter saved the former's job for 15 or games this season.
My original point was that the teams that lost in the first round to StL and Nashville were legitimate Stanley Cup contenders. I never thought last year's team had a chance. Ditto with this year's rendition. If you prefer this current mess to those two years we lost in the first round, then OK, to each his own. But I 100% reject the notion that those were bad years and count as negatives on Q's resume.
If that was your point, then I vehemently disagree. Neither of those teams had a chance of getting past the 2nd round in the playoffs unless Corey Crawford managed a 950 sv% through the playoffs.
EDIT: Looking back, the 2016 team could have made it past the 2nd round matchup to the conference finals before being slapped around by San Jose.
