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2017-2018 NHL Thread

This happened over the weekend and I don't know why.
https://twitter.com/wholegrainne/status/972959527283834880
 
Dylan Strome was recalled because the Coyotes were concerned about Derek Stepan after his shot block Saturday in Denver. He skated this morning and is good to go; Strome back to Tucson.
 
Meanwhile Lil' Mitch Marner is just out here banking goals off defensemen's knees and such.
 
Nik the Trik said:
Meanwhile Lil' Mitch Marner is just out here banking goals off defensemen's knees and such.
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You know, I was definitely disappointed when they took Strome right before the Leafs picked.  At this point, looks like a pretty disappointing pick for Arizona.  Looks like he's putting up numbers in the "A", but at this point (again), it's looking a little bit busty for them.

In looking at that top-10, it looks even more bust'ish:  http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/nhl2015e.html
 
Probably not the right thread, but it has yet to be determined conclusively, even at this point, if Matthews is definitely the best player to come out of the 2016 draft.
 
Frank E said:
Probably not the right thread, but it has yet to be determined conclusively, even at this point, if Matthews is definitely the best player to come out of the 2016 draft.
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Matthews is the "best player" no doubt. Best goal scorer? Right now that's Laine but that's close also.
 
https://twitter.com/akaRCN/status/973632520829902848
seh6p.gif
 
Nik the Trik said:
https://twitter.com/SlavaMalamud/status/971595788315918336

This is a twitter thread that should be read by anyone who wants to know what Russian hockey is all about.
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So we should all put money down on SKA to win?  Unless there is more money to be won on them losing, in which case we should put money on them to lose?
 
This will always be my favourite Ovechkin story:

https://twitter.com/DannyPage/status/973650171807514625

Imagine that it worked!
 
https://twitter.com/TSN_Sports/status/974100902859681793

He's played basically the entire season with either Maroon or Lucic on his left wing and the team also plays Zack Kassian on a regular basis. But sure, we'll give you Matt Martin I guess.
 
There are times that I wish I had the foresight to cultivate multiple media-adjacent personalities in select cities/fanbases as a 'voice of reason' that ultimately leads them down an insidiously dire and ruinous path, six degrees of sabotage style.

And then I'm reminded that I really don't need to expend any effort whatsoever.
 
https://twitter.com/frank_seravalli/status/974677173910073344

Oh please make this retroactive to all years so I can find out who gave Jay McClement a Selke trophy vote!
 
Going into the final weeks of the NHL schedule and how it may affect playoff positioning for teams in the Eastern Conference...

[tweet]971433204770099201[/tweet]
 
To provide a bit of context for the above, so that it's not just an unexplained chart, the model is explained in the article linked in this post back in August:

herman said:
Frank E said:
I understand the Leafs hardly had any injuries last season, and that's bound to readjust this season, so maybe that's what they're banking on doing with Leivo.
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https://theathletic.com/87892/2017/08/24/by-the-numbers-no-rest-for-weary-leafs-on-2017-18-schedule/

So next season, it appears the Leafs will be getting the short straw:
In 2017-18, the Leafs will play an average amount of ?tired games? with 26, but will only face a tired opponent 16 times, tied for the lowest amount in the league with Calgary ? four less than the next closest team. The 10 game difference between playing tired and playing a tired team is the lowest number in the league and is 24 games worse than the two leaders, Colorado and Detroit, both of whom have a rested game difference of 14.
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Dom goes into more detail about how that impacts play.

Micah Blake McCurdy elaborates on how rest impacts shot-rates:
https://twitter.com/IneffectiveMath/status/900734681326518272
www.twitter.com/IneffectiveMath/status/900734681326518272

As Frank mentioned, we're not likely to see the same injury luck as last season, where the only major injuries were Rielly, Marner getting sick, and Zaitsev's non-concussion; all our other injuries appeared to be whatever was convenient for the roster at the time. Let's see how the depth holds up.
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For those who aren't going to read that for whatever their preferred reason, it's a numerical model projecting how the schedule affects teams' win probabilities (expressed as points).

Over the whole season, the Leafs had one of the hardest schedules to play, based on the level of rest they would have compared to the teams they were facing (e.g. a team playing the third game in four nights against an opponent who has been off for two days, waiting for them at home usually means the visiting squad coughs up a stinker).

As I brought up a few weeks ago as teams kick into their playoff stretch drives or season death spirals, the Leafs now have one of the easier schedules remaining (after that crazy December on the road) as they have so many home games against trade-deadline-depleted bottom feeders who have pretty much given up, while Boston and Tampa have extra games in hand on us, meaning they have to play more vying for top seed.

The Leafs' pretty high number of top-player injuries does make this a bit tougher on paper, but the Marlies are providing well above replacement level talent swings.
 
Geoff Molson's explanation for why he's not firing Marc Bergevin is amazing (via @TonyMarinaro):

DYp_rMJVQAEjAI8.jpg


It basically boils down to: the failure of this season could be attributed to a number of different things, many of which are the GMs responsibility, but there's no reason that should fall onto the shoulders of the GM. Also, 6-8 years ago he was a good assistant GM.
 
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