Official Tank Nation Topic

[Darryl]

Leave the moderating to the mods guys.

 

[Madferret]

I don't think I need to be "trolling" to point out how silly the suggestion of a 12th place team taking out the leagues best is.

Well, that or ignorant of the concept of an upset in sports. But, hey, I'll leave that up to you.

The old 12th over 1st round one upset.

 

[brothert]

Honestly if the Leafs make the playoffs, they'd be on such a roll that the 1st round could be allot more interesting then most would think.

The Leafs have played the rangers a couple of times this season and won.  If they started playing a 7-game series with the Rangers today, the Rangers would certainly be favoured but I just wouldn't be all that surprised to see the Leafs take the series.  There's enough luck in hockey and the teams aren't as widely separated as in other sports. 

It just wouldn't be like the Raptors playing the Miami Heat where it would be the sign of the apocalypse if the Raptors were to win any multi-game series.

Are you being serious with this post? You think the Leafs would win a 7 game series against the league best Rangers?

It's impossible for anyone not trolling to read what was  said in what you're quoting as anything other than the  Leafs could win. Nobody has said that the Leafs would be the favourites or anything close.

I don't think I need to be "trolling" to point out how silly the suggestion of a 12th place team taking out the leagues best is.

What about the 91-92 North Stars.  Lowest ranked of the 16 teams knocks of 1st overall chicago and 2nd overall st.louis on their way to losing against the star laden pens in the finals.  Not only is it not silly, its been done before.

edit.. before the wicked response comes back he was implying that the leafs would be eighth in time to play the rangers in the first round.

edit 2.  Point gaps between chi-min 38, st.l-min 37

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

I don't think I need to be "trolling" to point out how silly the suggestion of a 12th place team taking out the leagues best is.

Well, that or ignorant of the concept of an upset in sports. But, hey, I'll leave that up to you.

The old 12th over 1st round one upset.

I don't know, 24 point gap between Toronto and NYR...almost brings you back to the 19-point gap between Ottawa and Toronto in 2000-2001....

 

[Tigger]

I don't think I need to be "trolling" to point out how silly the suggestion of a 12th place team taking out the leagues best is.

You mean aside from that being impossible?

 

[bustaheims]

I don't think I need to be "trolling" to point out how silly the suggestion of a 12th place team taking out the leagues best is.

A 12 place team, sure, but an 8th place team? That's a whole different story.

 

[Nik]

The old 12th over 1st round one upset.

So 8th over 1st remains a possibility because we've, you know, seen it but 12th over 1st is flat out impossible? There's a three point gap between the Leafs and the 8th place team and the Leafs have a game in hand.

 

[Kaberle15]

Dudes, this is the tank topic!

Anyway, IF the Leafs finish strong and get into the dance, they may upseat any team but Boston.

And regular season don't mean nothing, in the early 2000s, Ottawa aways won the season series and they got beat every time in the playoffs by the Leafs.

 

[Nik]

And regular season don't mean nothing, in the early 2000s, Ottawa aways won the season series and they got beat every time in the playoffs by the Leafs.

There's room between the regular season meaning nothing and the regular season meaning everything. When Montreal knocked out Washington in the first round in 09-10 despite a 33 point gap between them, Montreal had played Montreal well in the regular season, going 2-2 and with only one of the games being decided by more than one goal.

 

[Madferret]

Show me the $ guys - if the Leafs can get into 8th ill gladly retract ny comments.

 

[cw]

I don't think I need to be "trolling" to point out how silly the suggestion of a 12th place team taking out the leagues best is.

Well, that or ignorant of the concept of an upset in sports. But, hey, I'll leave that up to you.

The old 12th over 1st round one upset.

I don't know, 24 point gap between Toronto and NYR...almost brings you back to the 19-point gap between Ottawa and Toronto in 2000-2001....

Edmonton squeaked into 8th place for the 2006 playoffs and beat the 1st place .774 Wings who were 29 pts ahead of them.

8th place Montreal with a .537 win% beat 1st place .738 Washington in 2010 overcoming a 33 point gap.

It happens a lot more than 1st place teams in the NHL care to remember.

 

[Darryl]

Momentum means a lot. Look at the NFL and the Super Bowl Champion NY Giants. Got in on the last day and won it all.

 

[cw]

at first when i found out boston was the next game i thought..crap ...but now i'm not so sure..if they lose to boston it'll of course be business as usual..but if they win ..even if it's due to boston just playing like crap for a game..it'll give them one hell a confidence boost..and this team could use a few of those ...if it has any hope of pulling this off

They need to win 2 of the next 3 against 3 good teams.  Of course, repeat "they need to win 2 of the next 3" all the way til the end of the season.

They may need to play even better than that.  I ran the numbers a few games back and got over .765

I was basing that on 93 points though, the threshold may be lower this year. 

Course I ain't no math whiz.

We need cw's genius to give us the official number.

That's usually followed up by the realization that Detroit is the only team currently hitting the resulting winning percentage.

Because other teams are not doing as well, it's not quite as bad as in previous years with Washington's loss today. Washington's 8th place .531 win% projects to get 87 pts (The Jets are slightly being at .530 win%). Assuming the Leafs will lose that tie breaker, right now they need 21 pts out of their last 34 possible or .618 hockey the rest of the way to get to 88 pts. That has slipped some this week.

I think 88 pts is the lowest any team has qualified for the playoffs. With Florida & Ottawa projecting to get 93 pts and with so many teams trying for that 8th spot, there is a fair chance they could need for than 88 pts. Here's how that calculates out:

For the Leafs to need
88 pts, they need to play .618 hockey the rest of the way
89 pts, they need to play .647 hockey the rest of the way
90 pts, they need to play .676 hockey the rest of the way
91 pts, they need to play .706 hockey the rest of the way
92 pts, they need to play .735 hockey the rest of the way
93 pts, they need to play .765 hockey the rest of the way
94 pts, they need to play .794 hockey the rest of the way

The Rangers currently have the best win% in hockey at .711

Currently, they have about a 19% chance of making it.
http://www.sportsclubstats.com/NHL.html
A little win streak could get them back to 50/50 quickly though. A resumption of the losing streak would drop them to 1% chance in about 2-3 games.

One other observation: 15th place Montreal is on pace to get 75 pts which would be the highest point total for 15th place in the East since the lockout. And the average pt total for the bottom 7 teams in the East is the highest since the lockout. Therefore, there are fewer gimme games and no one is likely to have a grossly easy schedule left.

The Leafs have to hope all of the five other teams in front of them for 8th place don't get hot. With the bottom 7 projecting to be above average, the chance of that are less than a "typical" season.

 

[4th Liner]

Yep, my math is the same as cw's - I posted it in the other thread. For the Leafs to get to 88 points, they would need 21 more points in their remaining 17 games. They would need to go 10-6-1, or 9-5-3, or so to make it in.

 

[Kessel Run]

We play all those teams ahead of us as well (Tampa Bay, Buffalo, Washington, etc.) so wins in those games would go a hell of a long way.

 

[hap_leaf]

Looking at the remaining games, I am going to predict a 10-7 record.  Putting us 9th and having about the #10 to #12 pick. 

vs Boston L
at Pittsburgh L
vs Philadelphia L
at Washington W
at Florida L
at Tampa Bay W
at Ottawa W
at Boston L
vs NY Islanders W
at New Jersey W
vs NY Rangers L
vs Carolina W
vs Philadelphia L
vs Buffalo W
at Buffalo W
vs Tampa Bay W
at Montreal W

 

[Zee]

Looking at the remaining games, I am going to predict a 10-7 record.  Putting us 9th and having about the #10 to #12 pick. 

vs
Boston L

at
Pittsburgh L

vs
Philadelphia L

at
Washington W

at
Florida L

at
Tampa Bay W

at
Ottawa W

at
Boston L

vs
NY Islanders W

at
New Jersey W

vs
NY Rangers L

vs
Carolina W

vs
Philadelphia L

vs
Buffalo W

at
Buffalo W

vs
Tampa Bay W

at
Montreal W

You have 3 losses this week?  No "new-coach bounce"? 

 

[hap_leaf]

Its an ugly start but just look at that finish for excitement!

 

[ZBBM]

Looking at cw's stats from yesterday, the only way I see them making it is if they win (a) all every available point against teams below them in the standings, (b) almost all their games against the teams they are fighting against for the 8th spot, plus (c) half of the points up for grabs against teams that one would expect them to lose to.  I think 88 or 89 won't get it done; they'll need 90; i.e., 23 points the rest of the way.

Following the above logic, here's one Path to Ninety:

vs Boston W - 2 pts
at Pittsburgh L - 0 pt
vs Philadelphia W - 2 pts
at Washington OTL - 1 pt
at Florida W 2 pts
at Tampa Bay W - 2 pts
at Ottawa OTL  - 1 pt
at Boston L - 0 pts
vs NY Islanders W - 2pts
at New Jersey OTL - 1 pt
vs NY Rangers L - 0 pts
vs Carolina W - 2 pts
vs Philadelphia OTL - 1 pt
vs Buffalo W - 2 pts
at Buffalo OTL -1 pts
vs Tampa Bay W - 2 pts
at Montreal W - 2 pts

9-3-5 record the rest of the way.  Although this scenario doesn't require any long winning streaks, it does require that they get a fair number of games to OT.  If other teams ahead of them in the dogfight are able to do the same, it's lights out. 

Any way you cut it, it's a tall order.

EDIT: Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think they're done.  The slide went on about 3 or 4 games too long, and that little margin will kill us.

 

[pnjunction]

Agree Burke let them bleed out a bit too long for a realistic shot at playoffs.

I think after the Washington game was about the latest he could pull the trigger.  It's also the point where they were clearly back in the dumps after the Edm win and IIRC when defenders of Wilson became pretty much non-existent other than Burke.

If they get 2+ points out of the Florida and Chicago games we're in a bit better spot right now.  The Chicago game in particular looked winnable, all they had to do was not implode.  And of course the Florida game is completely different if our players have their heads on a bit tighter going into it.