News and Notes XXII: Now With More Finnish!

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bleedgreen

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My post was two paragraphs of talking about what's going on, and I only said the league has figured them out "a bit" so people are focusing not really on what I was saying.

The point was much more about that these two aren't really all stars, and that we put them in tough positions constantly. I think it's way more likely that this is closer to their normal than being plus 22 on a minus team that struggles to score. We grind the hell out of them and have already come to expect near perfection. I think people HAVE studied them and are attacking them harder. Forwards are laying the body every chance they get as well.

I don't care about their blunders really, I think they're overall level of play has come down to earth a bit. It's. It not really surprising, last year was beyond fair expectations. Hanifin could easily end up being our best d. Sometimes these two just look a bit tired.
 
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geehaad

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If their body of work so far was 48 games, then I could be on board with the notion of returning to the mean, but they had sustained success under their belt. You don't just forget how to play defense. What is more believable to me is that they're being given orders like HAL9000, told to do something that either conflicts/complicates/overloads their defensive essence. I think it'll get figured out.
 

A Star is Burns

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I agree that expecting them to be at the level of play they were at last year at all times is a bit much, but they've been way too far in the other direction this year. As has been mentioned, I don't agree with them getting figured out when there have been some uncharacteristic blunders that have often been more on their play than anything the other team did. That kind of stuff can be cleaned up, and I think it will at some point.

I think they're capable of much better play, even if it doesn't quite live up to last year. Obviously, Faulk is capable of more offensively as well, and hopefully the flood gates will open up for him at some point. Like I said, this top four hasn't played up to what we envisioned, and we've been decent. If those three get it together at the same time, we might still be the team we thought we could be.
 

Ole Gil

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If their body of work so far was 48 games, then I could be on board with the notion of returning to the mean, but they had sustained success under their belt. You don't just forget how to play defense. What is more believable to me is that they're being given orders like HAL9000, told to do something that either conflicts/complicates/overloads their defensive essence. I think it'll get figured out.

That's what I've been saying for a while. I just don't believe Faulk/Slavin/Pesce/Hanifin/Fleury couldn't all do what everybody does to our players. Just herd them wide, and give up the deadly no angle Bowman wrister. Instead, they are making a much more difficult play, and end up giving up partial breakaways. Faulk and Hanifin in particular just don't seem comfortable doing it.

I just think with the skating, size, and skill of our D that it'd be very hard for the opposing players to get into high danger zones if the goal was to keep them out of high danger zones, rather than prevent zone entry.
 

CandyCanes

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We're giving up 3.08 goals per game this season, last season that number was 2.87.

On offense we're scoring 2.88 per game & last season 2.62.

I actually feel as a team they are playing a lot more aggressively offensively this season vs last. I'm guessing that's why the scoring rate is up and why we are giving up more goals per game. There seems to be some different straedgies implemented this season. I wonder if this more aggressive play has a part in Slavin & Pesce's drop in play.
 

Sens1Canes2

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My post was two paragraphs of talking about what's going on, and I only said the league has figured them out "a bit" so people are focusing not really on what I was saying.

The point was much more about that these two aren't really all stars, and that we put them in tough positions constantly. I think it's way more likely that this is closer to their normal than being plus 22 on a minus team that struggles to score. We grind the hell out of them and have already come to expect near perfection. I think people HAVE studied them and are attacking them harder. Forwards are laying the body every chance they get as well.

I don't care about their blunders really, I think they're overall level of play has come down to earth a bit. It's. It not really surprising, last year was beyond fair expectations. Hanifin could easily end up being our best d. Sometimes these two just look a bit tired.
Problem is, virtually everyone on here not only thought Slavin was an All-Star a month ago, but a serious Norris contender for the next bunch of years (with a needed and acknowledged bump in offensive production).

I don't think THAT (the latter), but do know that what I've seen from him tells me he's an elite shut down guy and the pairing is too. The mistakes that Slavin in particular is making are just so unlike him....that's all I was saying.
 

RodTheBawd

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From that SBNation article:
Nels Popp, an assistant professor of sports administration at UNC-Chapel Hill, is an expert in ticket sales. Even he has trouble determining the accuracy of attendance numbers.
“I actually think a lot of teams do it differently, whether it’s tickets sold or ‘show rate,’” Popp said. “They usually tend to take the bigger number, which is going to be tickets sold in most cases. It is misleading. It happens all the time in pro sports. It happens all the time in college sports. I’ve been to a lot of events where I’ve been like, ‘no, there’s not 40,000 people here.’”

Nailed it.
 

Primetime8

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Oct 10, 2014
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From that SBNation article:


Nailed it.

It's sold rate for sure. Red Wings games have tons of empty seats for boring weekday games. I took a trip to Detroit once for a playoff baseball game and got $12 seat for center ice upper bowl last minute against CBJ when they were terrible. The arena was about 2/3 full but the game was listed as 100% attendance.
 

Boom Boom Apathy

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It's a double edge sword though. I don't care who you are, but a player likes to play in front of a big, rowdy crowd and it motivates them more than playing for an empty, quiet building. I do get what the Canes are doing now, why they are doing it and it does have merit (in terms of being loyal to STH fanbase), but the downside is it likely does have some impact on the team. Maybe it's negligible.
 

Boom Boom Apathy

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spin zone: playing in front of poor crowds makes them less prepared to play in front of bigger crowds on the road.

Imagine what it would have been if they had good crowds? They missed the playoffs by 8 points.

Conclusion: Bad crowds caused the Canes to miss the playoffs. Holy shit, it really was our fault.
 

Surrounded By Ahos

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Now as a data person I'm irked. Why make the Y axis go in the opposite direction?? I sat here for a solid 30 seconds trying to figure out what hits Ryan was throwing that I was missing.

Yeah, that’s a very questionable decision on the part of the graph maker.


Also:

News: Aho now has 21 points.

Note: That is more points than any winger playing for Toronto.
 

CandyCanes

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An interesting data visualization:



Remember when Ron Francis came in and said we're gonna get bigger, stronger, more physical, and become hard to play against.

Well he's succeeded at getting us bigger so far. Being harder to play against is slightly true. But the stronger/physical part is severely lacking.
 
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MinJaBen

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Ouch! So much for the media darlings...

New year, same story. A promising young team that seems to be doing everything right but is destined to finish somewhere in the middle of the league, just on the outside of the Eastern Conference playoff picture.

The frustrating thing about this from a Hurricanes perspective is that they should be better than this. Teams that play the way they do, limit shots the way they do, and control possession the way they do not only tend to make the playoffs, they tend to do very well once they get there.

The Hurricanes are once again the NHL’s most frustrating outlier.
 
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