Speculation: Could the Leafs be legitimate contenders?

[smitty10]

If the Leafs are to be a Stanley Cup contender they'll need to add a top pairing defenseman to play with Phaneuf and either develop or sign a top 6 forward to fill out the 2nd line. I think this team has a good enough first line to contend and strong depth, but they're lacking a second top pairing guy and this could be their downfall.

I think the lineup will look like this:

JvR-Bozak-Kessel
Lupul-Kadri-Holland
Komarov-Kontiola-Frattin
Ashton-Santorelli-Clarkson

????-Phaneuf
Rielly-Robidas
Gardiner-Polak
Holzer

Bernier
????

Reimer and Franson will both be gone. Hopefully we can acquire something solid in return and maybe sign someone like Daniel Winnik to play on our 4th line/PK for cheap.

I'm happy that we'll be running 4 lines that can actually play hockey, instead of 2-3 lines and a 4th full of plugs. This is a step in the right direction and with a couple of tweaks we could have a very good team in Toronto.

 

[Mess]

I guess .500 is the new .450.

Being over .500 used to mean being above average. Now it means nothing.

Leafs finished with 84 points just a hair above .500 and only 7 NHL teams finished below them in the standings.

If you take the 30 teams and picked the teams in the middle @15th place you have Detroit and Columbus and they had 93 points and made the playoffs.
& 93 points of 164 = .567 hockey.

Average compared to a bell curve based on ranking 1-30 means your a playoff team. Which I guess makes sense since 16 of 30 teams make the playoffs which is > 50%.

All non playoff teams are essentially below average and the bottom 14 teams.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Leafs finished with 84 points just a hair above .500 and only 7 NHL teams finished below them in the standings.

If you take the 30 teams and picked the teams in the middle @15th place you have Detroit and Columbus and they had 93 points and made the playoffs.
& 93 points of 164 = .567 hockey.

Average compared to a bell curve based on ranking 1-30 means your a playoff team. Which I guess makes sense since 16 of 30 teams make the playoffs which is > 50%.

All non playoff teams are essentially below average and the bottom 14 teams.

Like I said, .500 doesn't mean anything anymore.

 

[Disgruntled Observer*]

Leafs finished with 84 points just a hair above .500 and only 7 NHL teams finished below them in the standings.

If you take the 30 teams and picked the teams in the middle @15th place you have Detroit and Columbus and they had 93 points and made the playoffs.
& 93 points of 164 = .567 hockey.

Average compared to a bell curve based on ranking 1-30 means your a playoff team. Which I guess makes sense since 16 of 30 teams make the playoffs which is > 50%.

All non playoff teams are essentially below average and the bottom 14 teams.

Or, using the "human" definition of .500 (that the rest of the 7 billion people on earth use), there were 15 teams above .500, and 15 below it.

 

[Swervin81]

Or, using the "human" definition of .500 (that the rest of the 7 billion people on earth use), there were 15 teams above .500, and 15 below it.

So the human definition of .500 = median? Ummm... pretty sure .500 is a winning percentage, not rankings percentile.

 

[Mess]

Like I said, .500 doesn't mean anything anymore.

Well it means you're not very good when you come close to .500 in terms of results.

In the last 6 full 82 game NHL seasons the Leafs have recorded (83, 81, 74, 85, 80 and 84 points total) with 3 times actually mathematically being below .500 statistically and 3 times just a fraction above. The 6 season rebuild average = 81 points and below .500. (.494)

That is the starting point at present when trying to determine if Leafs are legitimate contenders.

I'd suggest the first or next in-between step is to at least make the playoffs a few consecutive times in a row in a 82 game season and then decide if you're a legitimate contender thereafter.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Well it means you're not very good when you come close to .500 in terms of results.

In the last 6 full 82 game NHL seasons the Leafs have recorded (83, 81, 74, 85, 80 and 84 points total) with 3 times actually mathematically being below .500 statistically and 3 times just a fraction below. The 6 season rebuild average = 81 points and below .500.

That is the starting point at present when trying to determine if Leafs are legitimate contenders.

I'd suggest the first or next in-between step is to at least make the playoffs a few consecutive times in a row in a 82 game season and then decide if you're a legitimate contender thereafter.

They're obviously not legitimate contenders, anyone who thinks they are should seek help immediately (if not sooner ).

 

[Disgruntled Observer*]

So the human definition of .500 = median? Ummm... pretty sure .500 is a winning percentage, not rankings percentile.

I'm saying that, last season, there were 15 teams above REAL .500, and 15 teams below.

Using "fake" .500, there were 25 teams above, and 5 below.

Wouldn't it just make more sense to use the REAL .500, as opposed to the fake one?