Blackhawks 2010-2011 season

[UMFan83]

If the season ended today, game 1 of the playoffs would be at the UC :)

 

Minnesota and Calgary were both red hot and we got 4 points from them and gave them back 0. That's awesome. Not the prettiest finish but you can't be upset about that. Makes the Bulls loss today seem trivial.

[UMFan83]

lol UC chanting "MVP" for Toews. Seems to be a theme at the UC this year.

[17 Seconds]

well, they had 4 straight crucial games against teams they were competing for playoffs spots with, and they won all 4... and only gave 1 poiint away.

 

pretty great. i was hoping for 6 points in 4 games. to win all 4 is hhuuuuugggggggeeeeee

[brinoch]

Pretty big win. Now we have some Eastern teams to face...

[UMFan83]

The Tribune article on the game confused me. They started talking about tiebreaker rules. Last year the tiebreaker between 2 teams was overall victories. Now I think this article is saying that SO victories do not count for the tiebreaker, and only regulation wins is what is used to break ties.

 

That sounds really confusing as you can't even find that info on any sort of stat tracking websites.

 

Article in question: http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/hockey/blackhawks/ct-spt-0303-blackhawks-flames-chicago20110302,0,642364.story

[sneakypower]

hawks are 89.3% to make the playoffs, or so says this site:

http://www.sportsclubstats.com/NHL/Western/Central/Blackhawks.html

[kujay]

The Tribune article on the game confused me. They started talking about tiebreaker rules. Last year the tiebreaker between 2 teams was overall victories. Now I think this article is saying that SO victories do not count for the tiebreaker, and only regulation wins is what is used to break ties.

 

That sounds really confusing as you can't even find that info on any sort of stat tracking websites.

 

Article in question: http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/hockey/blackhawks/ct-spt-0303-blackhawks-flames-chicago20110302,0,642364.story

 

The first tiebreaker is regulation + OT wins. SO wins are not included. That's all it was saying. It was enacted by the league to, in a small way, lessen the importance of SO wins. And I don't disagree.

[kujay]

hawks are 89.3% to make the playoffs, or so says this site:

http://www.sportsclubstats.com/NHL/Western/Central/Blackhawks.html

 

That seems high. They are a two-game losing streak from being back out again. But I suppose it calculates trends and expected wins and all sorts of other [expletive] I can't wrap my head around.

[bukie]

Ugh, one of my pet peeves about the NHL is completely discounting OTLs as losses, like for example people saying the Hawks are 12 games over .500 now. They're 6 over, people. There are only 3 teams 12 games over or better, and those are Vancouver, Philly and Detroit.

[bukie]

Projected final standings based on current goal differential pythagorean:

 

Vancouver    115
Detroit      108
San Jose     102
Chicago       99
Los Angeles   98
Phoenix       95
Dallas        95   
Nashville     94
Calgary       94
Anaheim       92
Minnesota     92
Columbus      90
St. Louis     85
Colorado      77
Edmonton      65

[UMFan83]

The Tribune article on the game confused me. They started talking about tiebreaker rules. Last year the tiebreaker between 2 teams was overall victories. Now I think this article is saying that SO victories do not count for the tiebreaker, and only regulation wins is what is used to break ties.

 

That sounds really confusing as you can't even find that info on any sort of stat tracking websites.

 

Article in question: http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/hockey/blackhawks/ct-spt-0303-blackhawks-flames-chicago20110302,0,642364.story

 

The first tiebreaker is regulation + OT wins. SO wins are not included. That's all it was saying. It was enacted by the league to, in a small way, lessen the importance of SO wins. And I don't disagree.

 

Yeah it makes sense. But its impossible for you to calculate the tiebreaker without going through every game on the schedule and counting them, which is stupid.

 

I honestly don't know what the point of the points system is. As much as I would hate some fluky gimmicky event like the shootout determine the winner or loser of a contest, I'd rather do away with the extra point for OTL and just do Wins and Losses just like everyone else. Who cares if they lost in regulation, OT or a shootout, they still lost. I hate feeling good about getting a point in a game we lost, or feeling unsatisfied about giving a point to a competitor in a game we won.

 

Just for fun, if they did away with OTLs, this is how the West would look like:

 

1. Vancouver (1)   40-24   --
2. Detroit (2)     39-25   1.0
3. San Jose (3)    37-27   3.0
4. Los Angeles (8) 35-28   4.5
5. Chicago (4)     35-29   5.0
6. Dallas (7)      34-29   5.5
7. Anaheim (9)     34-30   6.0
8. Minnesota (11)  33-31   7.0
------------------------------
9. Phoenix (5)     33-32   7.5
10.Columbus (12)   31-31   8.0
11.Nashville (10)  32-32   8.0
12.Calgary (6)     33-33   8.0

 

Crazy how much that changes everything.

[kujay]

That is crazy, especially for Phoenix.

[NewUserName]

the entire OT/SO is for the fans. The only way that many teams would except adding OT/SO to begin with is if they still got the point for the regulation tie. Personally I would rather go back to just being a tie at the end of regulation with each team getting a point and give the team that wins a game 3 points. The problem with the old system was that once a game got below 4 minutes or so and was tied neither team was going to do anything that might cost them a point. If the incentive for winning the game was 3 points, I think that would make the end of tied games very exciting.

 

I would like to see a study done to see how teams that get higher point totals from OT/SO wins and OTL do in the Stanley Cup playoffs. My guess is that they probably underachieve in the playoffs, but have no basis for this guess.

[kujay]

I was thinking on my drive to court this morning about potential playoff matchups, and how if the Hawks get #4 seed it would set up a second round matchup with, you guessed it, Bobby Lu and the Canucks. Again.

 

Though I'm starting to wonder if they aren't better than us now. Like perhaps how a Pistons fan felt in 1991.

[Garwilly]

I was thinking on my drive to court this morning about potential playoff matchups, and how if the Hawks get #4 seed it would set up a second round matchup with, you guessed it, Bobby Lu and the Canucks. Again.

 

Though I'm starting to wonder if they aren't better than us now. Like perhaps how a Pistons fan felt in 1991.

 

That's assuming the 2 and 3 seeds both win, remember, the NHL reseeds.

[kujay]

I was thinking on my drive to court this morning about potential playoff matchups, and how if the Hawks get #4 seed it would set up a second round matchup with, you guessed it, Bobby Lu and the Canucks. Again.

 

Though I'm starting to wonder if they aren't better than us now. Like perhaps how a Pistons fan felt in 1991.

 

That's assuming the 2 and 3 seeds both win, remember, the NHL reseeds.

 

Oh yeah, forgot about that.

 

Damn, Toews is on fire.

[UMFan83]

When ryan johnson is scoring goals for you, you know things are going well for you.

 

3-1 Hawks. 17 minutes to hold on for the 7th win in a row. Please don't let down.

[UMFan83]

[expletive] awesome. 4-1 now!

[Butterscup1679666578]

god damn this team is on fire

[UMFan83]

I really hope we can hold on because the guys right at our heels seem to be on their way to winning tonight. Calgary is up 4-2 towards the end of the second, so they would remain 1 point behind us if we can win. dallas and anahem are right now 9th and 10th in the conference, so we're not going to really get much room to breath as far as just making the playoffs goes.

[UMFan83]

god damn this team is on fire

 

They are starting to resemble last years team. Lately i've noticed the Hawks dominating the puck control, and they been outshooting their opponents pretty consistently by a decent margin. They are also starting to put up 4-5 goals on a regular basis. Really really good performances lately.

 

LOL Kaner! 5-1

[kujay]

Carolina, thanks for playing, travel safe home.

[kujay]

Like to see the toughness from guys like Dowell, Stalberg and even Brouwer these days. Starting to look like a postseason team.

[UMFan83]

Like to see the toughness from guys like Dowell, Stalberg and even Brouwer these days. Starting to look like a postseason team.

 

My expectations are starting to switch from "just make the damn playoffs" to "winning a playoff series"

 

The awesome thing about the 7 game winning streak is that only 2 of the wins were not regulation wins. The other 5 wins were all by 2 goals or more. The Hawks have outscored their opponents 28-16 during the winning streak.

[Butterscup1679666578]

7 points out of first, 17 games left.