Tracking the Blues’ Stanley Cup Quest—LOL

[Saint Loser]

5-2 Lightning.

Blues pick up 2 points on the Canucks.

Keep the eyes on the team in front of you.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

9 points out with several games in hand.

Sign me up for getting back on the bus. I think they're going to make things interesting here with regards to a wildcard spot.

 

[WeWentBlues]

I've been looking at the standings and thinking about this all morning. Blues are definitely within striking distance of the current wildcard leaders considering our games in hand. We also have games in hand on Minnesota and Dallas who we have to jump in the standings but not as many games in hand against those two teams.

I know what the probabilities, statistics and history books say. However, has a team this good on paper ever been in a similar situation? Usually teams that are out of the playoff race by Thanksgiving don't end up making the playoffs because those teams stink. In the Blues case, we are either one of the best clubs in the league or the worst clubs on a nightly basis. Logic and precedence don't apply to this team and how it performs the rest of the way.

 

[Saint Loser]

No games tonight that are of consequence to the Blues.

12 of the next 15 games are against the Eastern Conference.

Looking at the 5 teams immediately ahead of the Blues in the standings, only 10 of the remaining 50 games are against those 5 teams.

Vegas 1
Edmonton 1
Dallas 4
Minnesota 2
Vancouver 2

Assuming, of course, that the standings remain statically relative.

 

[Saint Loser]

Blues will need some help tonight.

 

[fishsandwichpatrol]

It's too early to lose hope IMO. This team has looked terrifying at times. If we can somehow figure it out and get consistent we can definitely make the playoffs.

 

[CaliforniaBlues310]

To be fair, at least despite the start, there isn’t a single team who’s played fewer games than us. I’m still trying to be optimistic, and if we turn this around, it should be a little easier due to all the games in hand.

I still have a slight feeling Q is waiting for the holidays to pass to coach again so...

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

It's too early to lose hope IMO. This team has looked terrifying at times. If we can somehow figure it out and get consistent we can definitely make the playoffs.

This team looks terrifying ALL the time, its just sometimes its a good terrifying and sometimes its the bad kind.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Please reference the 2015 run of 20-1-2 courtesy of the Hamburgler in 2015 from mid Feb to mid April. Andrew Hammond captured lighting in a bottom and led his team to a 89.1% point capture rate through the last 23 games of the season...

The numbers are absolutely against us, but it's just highly improbable, not impossible. I don't have faith in Allen to lead us down the stretch and salvage our season any more, but he's certainly streaky enough to ruin our chances at a top 10 pick with a few solid stretches of play...

@Irish Blues I'd be curious to hear how you intend to project our chances at a top 10 pick, given the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde quality of play we've seen from our boys this season? I know you've already shared a reasonable ballpark target from recent draft history, but we've shown the ability to shutout top 5 teams in the league and be shutout by bottom 5 teams on multiple occasions - how does one compensate for that in a projection?

Short answer: I don't. In an 82-game schedule, you barely have statistical validity for home and away. The notion that we would knock-off multiple top five teams in the league and then be shut out by multiple bottom five teams in the league is way off the charts. I will be looking at expected result, which works off of something closer to a average performance, and then deal with outlier performances from there.

Kind of like that 20-1-2 run referenced above. Yes, it happened once so of course it could happen again. The question is how likely that is to happen again given a similar team in a similar situation. I would not go betting everything I own on it to happen again in the next 10 years. Probably not even the next 20.

As far as my current outlook on this team's playoff chances, it really hasn't changed. It's not impossible for them to get back into this, a little better than it was previously, but I think it's a fairly low probability chance. (Say, 1-in-4 right now.) If it happens, congrats - that is one of the low probability scenarios, which was unlikely but still possible.

And remember, we still have January to come and that's where the goaltender people are currently applauding has historically s*** the bed. At this point, you cannot have a month like at the rest of the way because there's that little margin for error. Or, you got to hope Binnington is the second coming of Hammond - in which case, see my comment above.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

And since the front hasn't been updated: we're currently looking at 31-16-3 to get to 95, and we only have 22 of the remaining 50 at home. Maybe there is a point to give toward that, but you're still talking going at a Nashville-like pace the rest of the way.

That's what the road ahead looks like. We don't get at least 2 points the next 2 games, and now we're talking Winnipeg pace or at least what we did in the heyday of the Hitchcock era a few years back.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Now 31-15-3 for 95 points.

 

[Saint Loser]

Blues got a little bit of help today with Montreal tying late and winning in OT against Vegas.

Stars and Wild is a wash as long as one of them wins in regulation.

Lightning at Oilers

Jets at Canucks.

 

[Saint Loser]

FFS! Stars win in OT.

 

[Saint Loser]

JETS WIN!!!!!!

And Oilers are about to lose.

 

[Bluesguru]

Still 3 points from the Kings. Just sayin...…...

 

[Saint Loser]

Still 3 points from the Kings. Just sayin...…...

Yes, I know we suck. But I'm going to ignorantly revel in my bliss.

Leave me alone.

 

[Blueston]

Such a roller coaster team.

 

[Saint Loser]

Such a roller coaster team.

Like the Old Mine Train jerking you around and totally not smooth.

 

[Blueston]

Like the Old Mine Train jerking you around and totally not smooth.

Do they still have that ride at Six Flags in Eureka? Used to love that back when I was a kid.

 

[Saint Loser]

Do they still have that ride at Six Flags in Eureka? Used to love that back when I was a kid.

Not sure.

 

[Default]

Do they still have that ride at Six Flags in Eureka? Used to love that back when I was a kid.

Yeah they do.

 

[TruBlu]

One need only look at where we were last year at this time and how quickly we fell to see how crazy it is to think we will somehow squeak into the playoffs. It is more likely a run knocks us out of our draft pick this year (worst case scenario).

 

[Saint Loser]

The Blues chances are slim, indeed.

However, I am a product of the St. Louis high school system where pep rallies are king, soooooooo.......

One-man pep rally?

 

[Ted Hoffman]

I'm pretty comfortable for the moment moving the minimum playoff point threshold down to 93. 2 points doesn't seem like a big jump, since Edmonton and Dallas are both on pace for 88.83 points, but with more than half the season to go it's a sizeable move. I want someone to get at or above 95-point pace before I inch it back; I want the 1WC and 2WC teams to fall to .500 before I move it down any more. In any case, I can't see the cutoff falling below 90 so don't count on a move there unless it gets apparent that's where it's pointing.

So, 93 points to get into the playoffs right now. That means we need to go at least 29-16-3 to get to 93. The complicating thing in all of this is that if we're tied, we could trail on ROWs so we'd really need to get to 94 points. That won't be clear until much later in the season, so let's roll and ignore it. As we go into the Xmas break, here's how things stand:

Games Remaining: 48
Home Games Remaining: 21 [current record at home: 8-9-2]
Road Games Remaining: 27 [current record on road: 6-7-2]
Estimated Points Needed to get a Playoff Spot: 93
Sample Record that would get us to target: 29-16-3
Points Percentage Represented by Sample Record: .6354 [104.2 point pace over 82 games]

Next 5 Games:
12/27/18 - vs. Buffalo [21-11-5, 3rd in Northeast; 4-4-2 in last 10]
12/29/18 - vs. Pittsburgh [18-12-6, 3rd in Metropolitan; 7-2-1 in last 10]
12/31/18 - vs. NY Rangers [15-14-15, 10th in Eastern Conference; 3-4-3 in last 10]
1/3/19 - vs. Washington [22-10-13, 1st in Metropolitan; 7-3-0 in last 10]
1/5/19 - vs. NY Islanders [17-13-4, 9th in Eastern Conference; 5-4-1 in last 10]

 

[TruBlu]

I'm pretty comfortable for the moment moving the minimum playoff point threshold down to 93. 2 points doesn't seem like a big jump, since Edmonton and Dallas are both on pace for 88.83 points, but with more than half the season to go it's a sizeable move. I want someone to get at or above 95-point pace before I inch it back; I want the 1WC and 2WC teams to fall to .500 before I move it down any more. In any case, I can't see the cutoff falling below 90 so don't count on a move there unless it gets apparent that's where it's pointing.

So, 93 points to get into the playoffs right now. That means we need to go at least 29-16-3 to get to 93. The complicating thing in all of this is that if we're tied, we could trail on ROWs so we'd really need to get to 94 points. That won't be clear until much later in the season, so let's roll and ignore it. As we go into the Xmas break, here's how things stand:

Games Remaining: 48
Home Games Remaining: 21 [current record at home: 8-9-2]
Road Games Remaining: 27 [current record on road: 6-7-2]
Estimated Points Needed to get a Playoff Spot: 93
Sample Record that would get us to target: 29-16-3
Points Percentage Represented by Sample Record: .6354 [104.2 point pace over 82 games]

Next 5 Games:
12/27/18 - vs. Buffalo [21-11-5, 3rd in Northeast; 4-4-2 in last 10]
12/29/18 - vs. Pittsburgh [18-12-6, 3rd in Metropolitan; 7-2-1 in last 10]
12/31/18 - vs. NY Rangers [15-14-15, 10th in Eastern Conference; 3-4-3 in last 10]
1/3/19 - vs. Washington [22-10-13, 1st in Metropolitan; 7-3-0 in last 10]
1/5/19 - vs. NY Islanders [17-13-4, 9th in Eastern Conference; 5-4-1 in last 10]

I'm a math guy. I enjoy this.