How many points will the 2019-20 CBJ have?

[majormajor]

Tough to see this team dropping below 80 points after the last three years. We lost two key players, but this isn’t basketball. I don’t think Bob and Panarin combined are worth 20 points. Particularly if you’re counting last season’s Bob. (We were on pace for about 96 points prior to the Duchene trade and he wasn’t particularly great in the regular season anyway.) I think it’d take a perfect storm of negatives (combo of injuries and regressions by numerous players) to fall below 80.

I don't know how folks get to an expectation of 80 pts. It seems like people are just mentally subtracting two or three elite players from last years point total. Duchene obviously didn't do much for our point total, and Bobrovsky wasn't any better than league average last year. Panarin was outstanding but like you said that's one player and this isn't basketball.

In comparison to last year:

I wrote earlier that I wouldn't be surprised by a .906 team sv% next year, although I frankly have no idea what to expect from these goalies. It's more that you have to be pretty darn bad to get numbers much lower than that. Our team save percentage was in that neighborhood last year so I'm not shaving wins off of last year's total on account of Bob.

The loss of Panarin I think will costs us a lot of goals. Something like 25 goals for, a goal contribution that only few players in the league are worth. Using the same math I have in the post above, that works out to about 8 points in the standings. Throw in another couple points off for a weaker possession game in Panarin's absence which will lead to more shots against.

There's also plenty of room for improvement too. Last year was a disaster in some ways. I don't think the team was ever the sum of it's parts, but I don't know how to account for that and I can let that go. The PP and the changing age of players though are both things that have quantifiable effects.

Unless you've got an extreme dearth of talent you wouldn't ever go into a season expecting a PP to hit at 15%, which we just did. Simple regression to the mean would give us another 11 goals there (.05*221 opportunities). You might say that's too optimistic but the PP was much better than that in the playoffs, I wouldn't have strong expectations for it good or bad.

Maturation of players should account for another big boost. Some of the most important players on the roster are still in their raw stages, it would do wonders for the team if Dubois and Werenski simply follow the average growth trajectory. The team as a whole is moving upward on the age-performance curve. I don't want to gin up the math to figure out what that would be worth right now, to do it right you'd have to plug in the ages and past production for every player and then multiply by their movement on the curve, too much hassle for a Saturday.

 

[Cyclones Rock]

Last season the CBJ had the third least man games lost to injury:

NHL Injury Viz: 2018/19 team injury breakdowns

The CBJ were 10-4 in OT and SO (8-3OT 2-1 SO)

These two factors-assuming average injury incidence/OT/SO performance-should cause a loss of at least 6 points from last season's totals. Probably more.

 

[Cyclones Rock]

I don't know how folks get to an expectation of 80 pts.

Subtract 6-8 points for normal man-games lost and .500 SO/OT performance. Subtract 6 points each for Bob and Panarin and there's 18-20 less points than last year's 98.

I'm not saying that 80 points will happen but I certainly can acknowledge that the possibility of that much of a performance drop off is not completely far-fetched.

 

[majormajor]

Subtract 6-8 points for normal man-games lost and .500 SO/OT performance. Subtract 6 points each for Bob and Panarin and there's 18-20 less points than last year's 98.

I'm not saying that 80 points will happen but I certainly can acknowledge that the possibility of that much of a performance drop off is not completely far-fetched.

The OT performance was the first thing that came to mind when I was thinking about Panarin's impact. I don't think 6-8 pts is the normal man games lost. And the one player we lost to injury last year happened to be damn good - Murray made just about everyone better, including lifting Panarin up from sub 50% goals results to about 70%. Also while we are reaching, throw in the possibility that Dubinsky plays less this year, that should add a good number of points to our totals.

 

[Cyclones Rock]

The OT performance was the first thing that came to mind when I was thinking about Panarin's impact. I don't think 6-8 pts is the normal man games lost. And the one player we lost to injury last year happened to be damn good - Murray made just about everyone better, including lifting Panarin up from sub 50% goals results to about 70%. Also while we are reaching, throw in the possibility that Dubinsky plays less this year, that should add a good number of points to our totals.

6-8 points was for both overtime/SO and man games.

Yeah. Panarin's productivity was a function of Murray. Some stat shows that. Good grief.

 

[thebus88]

What will be considered this years --"unsustainable!!"-- and what will be the subsequent "excuses" for the wins during the upcoming season?

October cant come soon enough, and come late November/Dec the naysayers will be back under their rock and/or acting as if the nay was never say'd.

 

[thebus88]

ALSO, let me use this time to make it clear that (all of) THESE NUMBERS AND "PREDICTIONS" ARE BOGUS AND COMPLETELY MADE UP.

With that said, to add to whatever other "math" you other guys want to add to the 2019/20 CBJ point prediction model, I hereby add 13 points (5 wins, 3 OT losses -for cyclone-) to the total for the team to play in front of a goalie they want to play in front of and a goalie who wants to play in front of the team.

Multiple people have been making sarcastic and even serious and disparaging comments about Atkinson and others in the organization making comments about "wanting players who want to be here". All signs point to these comments being directed towards the 1 player who was disciplined mid season for being literally unprofessional, and this player happened to play arguably the most important position on an ice hockey team, and played VERY INCONSISTENTLY/terrible at different points during the year.

Something I've brought up in the past is that when these players make these types of comments, they DO NOT ACTUALLY MEAN the city of Columbus. What they really mean by, "be here", is simply WANT TO BE ON THE TEAM. Also, I will now play the "played hockey" card, I really don't know how all/some/any seem to keep downplaying the whole clear breakdown (for WHATEVER reason's) between the team and Bobby. Its a big f***ing deal. Like, really.

I mean, ignoring the whole pretty simple concept of wanting your starting goalie and entire rest of the team be on the same page, we have supposed fans essentially bashing 1 of the longest tenured current players and other important/respectable and valuable people in the organization for quite literally doing and saying all the things you should want them to do and say.

Go ahead, enjoy all the top 6 forwards and games in hand, along with all the turtleneck and seafood selfies with Bobby a person could ever imagine.

 

[thebus88]

Also, I see clear comparisons into how people are interpreting the removal of Panarin from the lineup in relation to when Nash was removed for 2 inferior players in Dubinsky and Anisimov. You could also say the same for the Johansen-Jones trade. The CBJ were better the very next game, but how? Nyquist is a legitimate top 6 winger that will make up for a significant chunk of offense from losing Panarin.

Also, in relation to Panarin and all these "advanced predictions" can you guys explain to me how the 16/17 CBJ season happened and how they got as many points as they did? Please show your work.

People need to remember, current Norris candidate and also current Columbus Blue Jacket ice hockey player Seth Jones, is the guy who played and plays 50% of games, NOT Panarin.

 

[CBJWerenski8]

A season of regression is inevitable. Analytics aside, we lost two of our most important players (arguably the top 2), and only have added Nyquist, a solid but not gamebreaking player, to the team to try to chip away at the production lost.

People throw Duchene away because he was only here for like 20 games but he was also around for our best stretch of hockey and (probably, I don't know for sure) best streak we had that season. Duchene's stats might have been meh, but his presence on the ice helped others. The same way Panarin's did.

Banking on improvement from within is fine, and healthy for the team. We need to know what exactly Bjorkstrand, Dubois, Anderson, and Wennberg are. Plus, it gives Texier or maybe Bemstrom a chance to shine. But I don't see all of our young players having a better season than last year, and I think that's what is going to be required to replace Panarin and Bobrovsky's production on the team. That's not even mentioning the Duchene factor, because we are one of the more average to below average teams down the middle in the NHL.

If one of the goalies can catch lightning in a bottle and play at a top tier level then we can push for a playoff spot.

 

[koteka]

This exercise is challenging because:

- We were not the 8th best team in the east last year. We underperformed as a whole in the regular season last year. So any analysis that chops off points from last year’s total because the Russians left is lazy and not very good.

- While we underperformed overall, we had an unsustainably high record in overtime. Panarin was an unbelievable 3 on 3 player. So we should drop to closer to .500 in overtime costing us potential points.

- Cam probably won’t have 41 goals again, but the 35 goals and 62 points he had in 16-17 are a reasonable expectation. Some people think he will fall off a cliff without Panarin which is ridiculous. Will scoring drop off? Probably. Will it drop off a ton? Not likely.

- Who knows if we find our goalie?

- If we lose early, do we trade some vets (Murray, Savard, Nash) for picks, keep playing struggling young goalies, start playing kids like Bemstrom, and while not exactly tank, decide to play for the future? People try to set a lower bound for this team seem to assume that if we struggle out of the gate, we are still going to try to get to the best record we can. Maybe the organization decides we could use a Lafreniere or a Byfield and we let the goalies play even if they all look bad. I don’t see us blowing the team up, but I could see us writing off the season if we are out of it by January.

- I think people are overrating teams in the Metro after free agency. The Capitals are better than us. The Islanders and Penguins could drop. The Rangers are not a playoff team in my opinion and could really struggle — they are still a couple of seasons away. Who knows about the Devils and the Flyers? We could get the 3rd spot in the Metro if we can keep the puck out of our own net.

I voted the middle option, but I think we are one of the most unpredictable teams in the NHL next year. Along with the Islanders and Blues.

 

[Viqsi]

A season of regression is inevitable.

In some areas, I agree... but I don't think it's nearly as extreme as it's being made out to be by the sub-80 point folks. And there were a couple spots where we underperformed last year.

I mean, I can see where folks might come up with 80-and-below-point seasons (Cyclones Rock had a good illustration), but that strikes me as about as silly as insisting that everybody like Tex and Bemstrom and Elvis and so forth are going to take off running without any issues and that we'll therefore win the Metro. It's an outlier, not a likely outcome. We'll have ups as well as downs.

 

[domi28]

Also, in relation to Panarin and all these "advanced predictions" can you guys explain to me how the 16/17 CBJ season happened and how they got as many points as they did? Please show your work.

I'm just guessing but it might have had a little something to do with this:
41-17 .931 2.06

 

[majormajor]

A season of regression is inevitable. Analytics aside, we lost two of our most important players (arguably the top 2), and only have added Nyquist, a solid but not gamebreaking player, to the team to try to chip away at the production lost.

People throw Duchene away because he was only here for like 20 games but he was also around for our best stretch of hockey and (probably, I don't know for sure) best streak we had that season. Duchene's stats might have been meh, but his presence on the ice helped others. The same way Panarin's did.

Banking on improvement from within is fine, and healthy for the team. We need to know what exactly Bjorkstrand, Dubois, Anderson, and Wennberg are. Plus, it gives Texier or maybe Bemstrom a chance to shine. But I don't see all of our young players having a better season than last year, and I think that's what is going to be required to replace Panarin and Bobrovsky's production on the team. That's not even mentioning the Duchene factor, because we are one of the more average to below average teams down the middle in the NHL.

If one of the goalies can catch lightning in a bottle and play at a top tier level then we can push for a playoff spot.

Duchene was also here for our worst stretch, that and he was just noticeably ineffective. He's not an all around type of player, if his stats are meh he is meh. I give him precisely zero impact on the regular season performance.

We don't need "all of our young players having a better season", not even close. If for instance Anderson stays the same, Bjorkstrand plays more minutes but stays the same performance wise, Wennberg gets shot into the moon, Bemstrom doesn't make the team, Texier has a good 40 pt debut, and Dubois takes a step - becoming a stronger player and holding around 60 pts - then we are fine offensively. We have 5 guys coming off 20+ goal seasons, and a bunch more who scored close to that. Maybe you were not here when we discussed the goal output for next year, I counted up 250 goals, and most everyone here was close to that. People had a hard time getting under 240, which is basically league average. You seem to be expecting like 220 goals or something. I'd really like to see the player by player projection for that.

If one of the goalies plays at a top tier level we would be one of the top teams in the league, we don't even need that to make the playoffs.

 

[thebus88]

I'm just guessing but it might have had a little something to do with this:
41-17 .931 2.06

Can you name all the players who had an impact on those numbers?

Hint: Its not 1 player


(8) Top-Six Forwards: $32 Million a year
(5) Home Games in Hand: 1 made up point in the standings and $500,000 in ticket revenue
(1) Vezina Winner: $70 Million

Winning against/beating "superior" teams when it matters (year after year) and finishing ahead of most ("more skilled") teams in the league with "players who want to be here" in Columbus, PRICELESS!!

Yandle and Stralman and Bobrovsky…...OH MY!!

 

[Long Live Lyle]

I'm just guessing but it might have had a little something to do with this:
41-17 .931 2.06

That team also scored 249 goals that year, good for sixth in the NHL. It’s not like they were winning every game 2-1.

 

[Cyclones Rock]

The 2019-20 NHL standings as predicted by oddsmakers | Offside

Metropolitan Division
1. Washington Capitals(96.5)
2. Carolina Hurricanes(95.5)
3. Pittsburgh Penguins(94.5)
WC1. Florida Panthers(96.5)
Non-playoff teams
9. Philadelphia Flyers(90.5)
10. New Jersey Devils(88.5)
11. Montreal Canadiens(88.5)
12. New York Rangers(87.5)
13. Columbus Blue Jackets(84.5)
14. Buffalo Sabres(83.5)
15. Detroit Red Wings(75.5)
16. Ottawa Senators(68.5)

Set by sportsbetting.ag whoever they are. If this is commonplace among bookmakers, it's not a positive sign.

 

[Viqsi]

The 2019-20 NHL standings as predicted by oddsmakers | Offside

Metropolitan Division
1. Washington Capitals(96.5)
2. Carolina Hurricanes(95.5)
3. Pittsburgh Penguins(94.5)
WC1. Florida Panthers(96.5)
Non-playoff teams
9. Philadelphia Flyers(90.5)
10. New Jersey Devils(88.5)
11. Montreal Canadiens(88.5)
12. New York Rangers(87.5)
13. Columbus Blue Jackets(84.5)
14. Buffalo Sabres(83.5)
15. Detroit Red Wings(75.5)
16. Ottawa Senators(68.5)

Set by sportsbetting.ag whoever they are. If this is commonplace among bookmakers, it's not a positive sign.

I think it's a good sign of easy money, myself. Odds are set based on what the gambling market is predicting, not expert analysis. So it's another indication of the popular perception of the Jackets - which we know is going to be bad, because of all the folks who naively assume that Panarin and Bobrovsky were the only quality players we had.

 

[Dr. Fire]

The entire key to the upcoming season will be the goal-tending. I know, I have an astounding grasp of the obvious. But I think that the team will be able to make up a bit for the loss of the forwards. Not entirely, but enough to make the season better then some think. I just can't imagine the PP being any worse then last season, and the fact that the Bob / Bread distraction will be gone will help. Plus with all the doom saying this team could play with quite a chip on it's shoulder. Not predicting we make the playoffs, because the East is truly the beast this coming season, but I think the CBJ will be better then expected and fun to watch. If Elvis or Korpi catch fire, hell, who knows. Personally I think it will be Elvis who will be in the building.

 

[Old Guy]

The entire key to the upcoming season will be the goal-tending. .......Plus with all the doom saying this team could play with quite a chip on it's shoulder. Not predicting we make the playoffs, because the East is truly the beast this coming season, but I think the CBJ will be better then expected and fun to watch. ........

I'm an admitted optimist. Every year will be the best CBJ season ever with compelling reasons to watch and root and be a fan.
This coming season, I see a stingy defense that limits the number of opponents shots the young goal tenders have to save. I don't know the average shot on goal each game, but the general rule is 30 (10 per period). It would not surprise me to see the CBJ goal tenders face 25-26 shots on average per game.

82 games * 30 shots = 2,460 @ 91% save = 221 goals against.

82 games *26 shots = 2,132 @ 91% save = 192 goals against. If somebody offered me 192 goals against for the season right now, I would buy that and take my chances.

 

[Cyclones Rock]

I think it's a good sign of easy money, myself. Odds are set based on what the gambling market is predicting, not expert analysis. So it's another indication of the popular perception of the Jackets - which we know is going to be bad, because of all the folks who naively assume that Panarin and Bobrovsky were the only quality players we had.

I picked 80-87 points which is an 83.5 points average. I'm right on the betting line it looks like.

It is just a betting line (and one line at that). In a 31 team league there are always going to be teams which under perform betting lines and those which exceed expected performance. I doubt St. Louis was picked to win the Stanley Cup by many starting last season.

I can see how outsiders aren't impressed by the CBJ. Other than the top pairing on defense and a couple of the forwards, this team doesn't have much "curb appeal" when glancing at the line up.

 

[CBJWerenski8]

The 2019-20 NHL standings as predicted by oddsmakers | Offside

Metropolitan Division
1. Washington Capitals(96.5)
2. Carolina Hurricanes(95.5)
3. Pittsburgh Penguins(94.5)
WC1. Florida Panthers(96.5)
Non-playoff teams
9. Philadelphia Flyers(90.5)
10. New Jersey Devils(88.5)
11. Montreal Canadiens(88.5)
12. New York Rangers(87.5)
13. Columbus Blue Jackets(84.5)
14. Buffalo Sabres(83.5)
15. Detroit Red Wings(75.5)
16. Ottawa Senators(68.5)

Set by sportsbetting.ag whoever they are. If this is commonplace among bookmakers, it's not a positive sign.

The only teams I am 100% certain we are better than in the East are Detroit and Ottawa. So, this makes sense to me.

 

[Long Live Lyle]

The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn’s model has us in the “high 80s”. Details weren’t released yet, but I’m guessing it’s factoring on Korpi’s WAR, which I don’t think was very good. So, if anything, we might be able to project a bit higher (I doubt our starter will have a worse WAR than Korpi last year).

 

[majormajor]

I think it's a good sign of easy money, myself. Odds are set based on what the gambling market is predicting, not expert analysis. So it's another indication of the popular perception of the Jackets - which we know is going to be bad, because of all the folks who naively assume that Panarin and Bobrovsky were the only quality players we had.

From what I've seen the player by player analyses, like Mike Johnson's, tend to put the Jackets in the 90s, while the off the cuff analyses are in the 80s.

It's either:

"Wow losing Panarin and Bobrovksy is going to really hurt, but now that we look at it they still have a lot of really good players, it's just the goaltending that is a huge question mark".

or

"Wow losing Panarin and Bobrovsky is going to really hurt and the goaltending is a huge question mark."

Edit: Just what I've seen so far. Dom's model says we're in the upper 80's and I'm sure that will be thorough.

The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn’s model has us in the “high 80s”. Details weren’t released yet, but I’m guessing it’s factoring on Korpi’s WAR, which I don’t think was very good. So, if anything, we might be able to project a bit higher (I doubt our starter will have a worse WAR than Korpi last year).

Anytime a projection is heavily based on one sub-replacement player's WAR I'm thinking that's a really easy problem to fix. Play someone else. You have to imagine Tortorella putting a failing player out there over and over again for it to have any realism to it, and that's just not going to happen. There is a chance that both Korpisalo and Merzlikins are relatively poor (in the .895-.905 range), but there isn't much chance that they are both less than .895 AND the club decides to leave them that way. You can get a replacement goalie for nearly free that has a better expected save percentage than that.

 

[majormajor]

I'm an admitted optimist. Every year will be the best CBJ season ever with compelling reasons to watch and root and be a fan.
This coming season, I see a stingy defense that limits the number of opponents shots the young goal tenders have to save. I don't know the average shot on goal each game, but the general rule is 30 (10 per period). It would not surprise me to see the CBJ goal tenders face 25-26 shots on average per game.

82 games * 30 shots = 2,460 @ 91% save = 221 goals against.

82 games *26 shots = 2,132 @ 91% save = 192 goals against. If somebody offered me 192 goals against for the season right now, I would buy that and take my chances.

I don't think any team is going to hit 2132 shots against these days, the lowest last year was the Flames at 2302. The Jackets already had a pretty low shots against total - 2418 which was 7th in the league. Where there's room for improvement is in the shot quality department. That's what the Islanders did, their shots against were still a hundred more than ours last year, but they didn't give a lot of quality and their goalies caught on fire. I think if we see that improvement it will show up in the save percentage, and we might need it just to get our raw goalies to 91%.

91% * 2500 is a reasonable slightly optimistic scenario, which I think would be enough to get them in the playoffs. That's 225 goals against and I don't see any way this roster scores less than 230 goals.

 

[Speedy Sanderson]

I'm going with 91 points. Goal-scoring will be by committee and I don't expect a huge drop-off in offense. The defense should be solid. However, I think goaltending is a major issue. I don't trust Korpi given what I've seen, and I don't think Elvis comes in and dominates in his first season in the NHL. CBJ will be good, but don't forget that the Metro is going to be brutal this year - Rangers and Devils are no-longer pushovers given their retooling, and I think the Canes could be even better this season.