The Sharks failed to clinch a playoff berth with a disappointing late giveaway against Columbus, but sewed up a spot the next game in an exciting win against Dallas.  The Dudes talk the possible and likely 1st round opponent for the Sharks and tell the feel-good Dude story of the year involving Mr. Dan Boyle.

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The Sharks ripped off seven wins in a row again, but they did another 180 in losing in embarrassing fashion to Dallas and Columbus, two teams out of the playoffs.  Where is this team going to end up?  The Dudes discuss.

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After three good wins, the Sharks manage to lose two critical road games to Anaheim and Phoenix, and they are back out of the playoff picture.  We can go over what they did wrong, how Mike Smith is the second coming of Ken Dryden or whatever, but the fact is this:  if the Sharks can’t beat Dallas and L.A. for the next four games, they don’t deserve to be in the playoffs anyway.  Should they manage to limp in without winning those four games, they will almost certainly get crushed by whomever they face in the first round, playing either St. Louis or Vancouver with no home ice.

That’s last night’s game, and soon, the title will describe the season.  The Sharks cough up another 3rd period lead, decide not to try in an overtime power play, and then cap it by putting Tommy Wingels as the third shooter in the shootout, a guy who has literally never participated in the shootout in his career.  I know we were looking for desperation, but to me that means urgency and fire, not grasping at straws.

But I’m going to try and not let my extreme frustration leak over too much into this post, and talk about something that is becoming increasingly obvious- the rift between Doug Wilson and Todd McLellan.  Exhibit A is T.J. Galiardi.  Only on the Sharks for two weeks now, Galairdi has been scratched once, and played only 2:30 against St. Louis.  His average ice time in the other two games was about 11:40, which is far below his average with the Avalanche before he was traded.  And Galiardi was, by many reports, on the outs with Joe Sacco in Colorado.  So the Avs want to get him out of town, and then trade him to a team that plays him even less than he played before?  There’s a disconnect here.

Exhibit B is the penalty kill.  DW goes out and gets three guys who can play the kill, because, frankly, the kill has sucked for much of the year.  As of this writing, it’s 28th.  So we get Daniel Winnik (averaging 2:51 this season on the kill) Dominic Moore (1:50) , and Galiardi (1:06).  So who are the big killers last night?  Pavelski (1:41), Couture (1:35), and Marleau (1:31).  The three PK specialists we got are dwarfed in SH ice time by Andrew Desjardins (1:35).  Only Moore played a full shift (0:41), with Winnik, probably the best PKer of the three, playing just 0:14.  What is wrong with this picture?  Play the #2, #3, and #4 scorer the most on the PK, make the new defensive forwards ride the pine, even when you’ve averaged only 1.9 goals per game over the last 10? It just makes no sense to me.

If the Sharks manage to squeak into the playoffs, all bets are off.  But if April brings a Marleau-Roenick tee time, either T-Mac or DW will be gone, and possibly both.

It’s Super Bowl Sunday, and the Dudes would rather talk about the Sharks than watch football.  They break down the encouraging wins against Columbus and Dallas, but lament the discouraging loss against Phoenix.  But both agree that Chicago next Friday is a big test

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1Y73sPHKxw[/youtube]

At this point, entering into the last day of the season, the Sharks have clinched the #2, but could still play Chicago, L.A., Nashville, or Phoenix.  The Ducks, having a lot of regulation and overtime wins, are guaranteed the #4. Doug’s wish didn’t come true tonight- the Preds lost.

The worst thing that could happen is Chicago loses in OT or the shootout. Because they have more ROW (regulation and overtime wins) than the Kings, they win that tiebreaker and move into the #7.  So we want a beatdown tomorrow, one way or the other.

It’s possible that seeds 4-8 could all end up with 99 points.  If that happens, it’s really crazy.  Chicago would move up to the #5 because they’d have 39 ROW.  Nashville and Phoenix would have to go to the fourth tiebreaker, because they’d have the same number of ROW, and split the season series.  The Preds have a better overall goal differential, so they are the #6.  We’d play Phoenix (I wonder if playing one team 9 times in a row would be an NHL record), and the Kings would fall to the #8.

It could get even crazier than that.  If the Hawks won in the shootout then there’d be a three-way tie for ROW.  The tiebreaker is points per game in those matchups.  Chicago has acquired 13 points in 10 games versus those two opponents, Phoenix 9 points in 8 games, and Nashville 10 points in 10 games.  So Chicago would still get the #5, but Phoenix would move up to the #6 and we’d get the Preds.

Because Dallas went 3-1 against the Hawks this year, they are still alive- they have to win in regulation or overtime tomorrow and the Hawks have to lose in regulation for the Stars to snag the #8.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend – go Wings!  And go Minnesota – we want Vancouver facing Chicago again.

The Dudes only have one game to talk about- the 6-0 pasting of the Stars – but they do it with relish.  Now that the season is finally winding down, it’s time to talk about possible first round matchups in the east and west, who will likely be playing when everyone gets healthy again, and of course, listener emails.

Note:  I’m experimenting with lower encodings, this week’s show was encoded at 64kB because of a request to make the file smaller.  I want to see if this measurably affects audio quality.

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It’s been a while since I wrote a stats-related post, and I figured I’d write one to piggyback on an interesting post on the Behind the Net blog (not to be confused with Behind the Net, the numbers site).  A while back I did a purge on the RSS feeds I read, and for some stupid reason, this blog was amongst the casualties.  I really must have been in a slash-and-burn mood that day, because it’s really one of the best hockey blogs out there if you are statistically inclined. What I want to do today is highlight some of the stats talked about in the linked post, and who on the Sharks are the best at those categories.

First of all, some real quick and dirty explanations of some of the stats referenced there.  I would recommend reading more about them, but not everyone can spend hours reading about advanced hockey metrics.  And as Doug would say, why would you want to?

• GVT – Goals Versus Threshold.  A complicated stat that tries to create one number for the value of a player, measured in goals in a season versus the value of a replacement-level player.  Similar to VORP in baseball.
• Rating – a BTN stat that is the difference between your team’s +/- per 60 minutes when you are on the ice versus when you are off the ice.  Unlike the regular +/- stat, it helps level the playing field for those on bad teams.
• QualComp – quality of competition.   The weighted average of the Rating of the players you face on the ice.
• Corsi – a +/- stat that counts shots instead of goals.  Actually, it counts all pucks directed towards the net, including missed and blocked shots.  Unfortunately, it’s similar to the +/- stat in that players on good teams generally have better ones.  Of the 28 players that have played a game for the Sharks this season, only 10 have negative Corsi, and most (Moore, Mashinter, Desjardins, McLaren, Wingells) aren’t regulars.
• Corsi Rel – The difference in your Corsi when you’re on the ice versus off.
• Corsi Rel QoC – Quality of Competition calculated not by +/- per 60, but Corsi Rel.
• Zone Starts – the percentage of shift-starting faceoffs being in the offensive zone.

If you’re still reading, pat yourself on the back, because that’s a load of math.  Let’s highlight the different Sharks players leading the categories in the stats that the LOES highlighted, in the order that I think is most important. The following is all 5v5 stats, and I’m not including anyone that’s played fewer than 10 games.

Corsi Rel – Kyle Wellwood – 14.6

It’s surprising, and doubtless related to a red-hot Joe Pavelski and clicking third line since he arrived.  Still, Wellwood leads the team in a stat I believe is miles better than +/-.  One downside to Corsi Rel is that time-on-ice isn’t factored in, and it should be noted Wellwood has averaged only 13.07 minutes of even-strength ice time per game, good enough for 15th on the Sharks.  For this reason, it’s worth mentioning the second place player, Ryane Clowe (14.1), who’s averaging more than two minutes more 5v5 ice time, and who I might argue is the team’s MVP.  Top Corsi Rel among defensemen? Jason Demers (8.6).

QualComp – Patrick Marleau – 0.101

Marleau is way out in front on this stat, with the second place Joe Thornton at 0.087.  Despite the fact that Marleau tends to play the wing more now, traditionally not as defensively important as center, he’s  the go-to guy when the other team’s top line is on the ice.  Top defenseman – Dan Boyle (0.062).

Corsi Rel QoC – Patrick Marleau – 0.885

I’m not sure why the LOES like Corsi so much yet mention QualComp instead CorsiRel QoC.  If Corsi is better than +/-, then Corsi Rel QoC is better than QualComp.  Maybe that’s what they meant.  Anyway, unsurprisingly, Mareau leads again, but there’s a bit of shifting under him.  Jumbo drops to 5th on the team, and Joe Pavelski (0.747) moves up to 2nd.  Boyle moves up to 3rd.

Zone Starts – Scott Nichol – 39.4

This means when Nichol took a faceoff to start a shift, 60% of the time it was in the defensive zone.  That’s a lot of trust from the coaching staff, and certainly related to the fact that Nichol is the best faceoff guy on the team. Like the last stat, it’s a way of measuring how sheltered a guy is.  It’s been calculated that you give up about 0.25 shots every time you take a faceoff in the defensive zone, so this is why Nichol’s Corsi isn’t so good.  With that in mind, it’s unsurprising that Marc-Edouard Vlasic (46.8) has the lowest zone start percentage among defensemen.

Time on Ice – Dan Boyle – 19.13

No doubt Boyle is the workhorse, and even strength is no exception.  He also plays the most PP and ES time.  Contrast this to the Ducks (for instance), with Vish leading the category, but if you look for #2, you see that Toni Lydman and Cam Fowler play about the same amount.  However, Fowler plays almost no PK, and three and a half minutes per game on the PP.  Lydman is the opposite, almost no PP time, but is way out in front of PK time. Certainly important when trying to evaluate a player.

I didn’t include GVT here because there isn’t a day-by-day calculation of GVT that I know of, and to be honest, GVT makes a lot of assumptions about the weights of various measures that I don’t necessarily agree with.  I won’t go so far as to say the attempt to create one stat that measures everything is a fool’s errand, but I feel like I get a better picture of a player when I look at several stats, and not just one.

Just a note for tonight- Jamie Benn and Alex Gologoski lead the Stars in Corsi Rel, so watch out for those guys.

This week there are four games to discuss, and while the Sharks could be on a slight upswing, the Dudes’ individual takes on it differ.  In addition to the ups and downs of the Sharks week, there’s lots of other news to discuss, including the return of Evgeny Nabokov to stateside.  Mike and Doug try and guess where he’ll end up, and take some other questions from listeners.

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After a good week last week, the Sharks respond by losing all three games to Colorado, Dallas, and Columbus.  The Dudes try not to get too down on the whole thing, and explore why fans may be not as enthusiastic this season as much as past seasons.  After some listener emails, the Dudes detail their new picking games contest, and address some fantasy issues.

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