OTF Classic

Into every NHL season a lame effort or two will happen to any team, but with Wednesday's 8-4 debacle in Buffalo, the Predators have now given up 6 or more goals three times in the last two-and-a-half weeks (previously to Chicago and Dallas at home). Perhaps most disturbing, there seems to be no single cause for these repeated train wrecks; they encompass a combination of marshmallow-soft goaltending, shoddy defensive zone coverage, and a total lack of composure. A few horrid examples: Dan Hamhuis stepping up and totally whiffing on an attempted hit on Derek Roy as the Sabres crossed into the Predators zone; instead of staying in position, his miss allows Roy to head to the net uncontested for an easy goal that made it 6-3. Scott Nichol lost it again, sucker-punching one of the Sabres who was tied up with Vern Fiddler. Nichol dropped his glove and came at the guy from the side and cold-cocked him. I wouldn't be surprised to see a suspension come out of that. For a decent PK...

Tonight the Predators return to action in Buffalo, taking on a team that's challenging for playoff position much like Nashville, but unlike them, sold off a major asset yesterday by trading away defenseman Brian Campbell for Steve "Spine of Glass" Bernier from San Jose (yes, the guy that Radulov boarded in the playoffs last year). For an interconference game, there's some interesting history heading in; besides the fact that Bernier will obviously be cowering in fear whenever Radulov steps on the ice, there's J.P. Dumont making his first visit to Buffalo after leaving there as a free agent in the summer of 2006. He won an arbitration case as a restricted free agent, but Sabres GM Darcy Regier didn't want to pay the awarded salary ($2.9 million for one year), so Dumont was able to walk away and sign with Nashville for two years at $2.25 million per. It will be interesting to see how he's received by Sabres fans, I doubt they'll be very harsh, as Dumon...

The great Arbitration Scoreboard now reads 18 settlements, 1 ruling, and 11 players with hearings yet to occur, after Derek Roy hit the jackpot in a new six-year, $24 million deal with the Buffalo Sabres. Is it just me, or does that sound like a lot of dough? I guess with Briere and Drury gone, Roy becomes that much more critical to the Buffalo attack. This contract would certainly seem to indicate that he'll be adding to the 18:27 he averaged on the ice last season, most likely picking up some additional power play duty - whether his 5'9" 188# frame can handle that workload will be a critical question come playoff time. It looks like there will be slim pickings for any GM's hoping to scoop up players whose original team walks away from an arbitration award, as was the case with J.P. Dumont and Vitali Vishnevski last summer. Yeesh, if it wasn't for Krazy Kevin Lowe up in Edmonton, we wouldn't have much to talk about at all this summer!

Edmonton Oiler fans haven't had much to celebrate this July, having missed out on the major unrestricted free agents (especially that painful Michael Nylander episode ), and it would appear that GM Kevin Lowe's ship is foundering . What's painful for Edmonton might turn into something exciting for fans around the league, however. The SS Lowe Perhaps partially in response to his dire situation, Lowe pitched a resounding 7-year, $50 million offer sheet to Buffalo Sabres restricted free agent Tomas Vanek, who was then retained by Buffalo which had the option of matching the contract. While Sabres GM Darcy Regier predictably whined about Lowe's offer, calling it "an exercise in futility," the fact is that it achieved two legitimate goals on Lowe's part. First, he had the chance to land a promising young winger in case the Sabres were bluffing and not prepared to dole out that $50 million. Secondly, he's forced Buffalo to pay more than they would have o...

My heart goes out to those rabid Buffalo Sabres fans whose hearts have been broken yet again - the President's Trophy was a nice prize, but all of you expected another couple weeks of hockey. Now, I'm sure many Sabres fans are going through a range of emotions in reaction to Daniel Alfredsson's OT winner that lifted the Senators into their first modern Stanley Cup Final, but before you take that ultimate step, please watch this:

Looking at these Eastern Conference Finals as an interested outsider, I'm left wondering if we're seeing the genesis of the greatest NHL rivalry since the Red Wings/Avalanche glory days of the 1990's. The recipe breaks down as follows: 1. You've got a playoff rematch, featuring teams with loads of young talent and great expectations. 2. There's bad blood aplenty, after the Chris Neil hit on Chris Drury, and the subsequent brawl. 3. Each team has a veteran coach who's not shy about using their public forum to badger the other team. 4. Rabid hockey fans in each city who want the Stanley Cup, but for the next two weeks only want to see their team defeat their hated rival. 5. The games themselves are a joy to watch, with plenty of up-and-down action, hitting, individual skill and tremendous goaltending. If only the NHL could get this on as many TV sets as possible - this series looks to be a classic. Techorati Tags: buffalo sabres , ottawa senators

The Buffalo vs. Ottawa pairing for the Eastern Conference Finals should result in a spectacular display of "new NHL" hockey, pitting two talented, offensively-oriented teams in a battle for the Prince of Wales Trophy . My predictive method of matching offense against defense and focusing on recent performance has proven pretty useful so far - so what does it say about this series? How the Sabres can score : Buffalo appears to be all about the execution - their shooting percentage from the prime scoring ranges (10-19 and 20-29 feet) is the best among the four remaining teams, and that ability to hit your spot under pressure (recall Chris Drury's 0:07 game-tying goal against the Rangers) will be critical to the Sabre's success in this series. They'll need that composure to beat Ray Emery in goal, who has been outstanding for Ottawa so far in the playoffs. How the Senators can score : Ottawa can be expected to pop off about four more shots per game than Buffalo, but...

Now that Buffalo and Ottawa have made it to the Eastern Conference Finals, I wanted to check in how my predictive modeling performed compared to actual results. Obviously, it wasn't too far off the mark, as I did pick both the Sabres and Senators to make it through. Just to recap, the basic idea behind this model is that I try to map out each team's offense against the opposing defense, projecting shots/game from various distances, shooting percentages, and thereby goals per game. The two key concepts are, first, an interaction between one team's offense and the other's defense (both in terms of shots allowed and goaltending), and secondly, trying to reflect recent performance by the use of exponential moving averages to represent the per-game values*. Bufallo/New York : I was hardly alone in picking the Sabres here, as they were the top team in the regular season, although the Rangers did put up a good fight, and if they had successfully handled the final minute of Gam...

The New York State NHL Finals begin tonight, as the Rangers head up to Buffalo, and it's time to focus our predictive powers on the likely outcome of this series. The Sabres have been the hot team all year and their rabid fan base has been waiting for this time ever since their playoff elimination last year, but the Rangers, while mediocre for much of the regular season, turned things on down the stretch and dispatched the Southeast division champs in an impressive first-round sweep. So what the numbers say about how this one will go? For table explanation, scroll down to the bottom of this post. How the Sabres can score : It seems like Buffalo should get a good number of close-in chances against New York, and the onus will be on Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist to keep things from busting loose. Buffalo is the hottest playoff team remaining in terms of shooting percentage in the prime 10-19 and 20-29 foot ranges, whereas Lundqvist is the hottest goalie at stopping those same s...

Just before the Conference Quarterfinal series began, I posted some predictions that were based on an application of the Shot Quality metric, basically matching each team's offense with the opposing defense, in terms of shots taken and shooting percentage from various distances. Now it's time to see how well that process worked, and in the days to follow, I'll tweak the process slightly based on the findings here, and post projections for the 2nd round series due to start later this week. So first let's review the Eastern Conference series one-by-one... Buffalo/NY Islanders : While the overall numbers came in lower than expected, the difference between the two teams' Expected Goals values (4.37 - 2.91 = 1.46) came in quite close to the Actual Goals (3.25 - 2.00 = 1.25), resulting in an easy victory for the Sabres. My qualitative hunch was that the Islanders' goaltending wouldn't keep up the pace set late in the season, but they actually did acquit them...

The New York Islanders made a storybook run just to qualify for the playoffs, but will that happy tale continue as they face off against the President's Trophy -winning Buffalo Sabres? My first-round previews continue with tonight's 1 vs. 8 Eastern Conference tilt... For table explanation, scroll down to the bottom of this post. How the Sabres can score : Buffalo already boasts a top-notch offense, but when you factor in the amount of shots that the Islanders give up as well, that's just throwing gasoline on the fire. In particular, note the "Shots Factor" entries from 29 feet and in. The New York blueline might as well roll out the red carpet and escort opposing forwards into the slot. From 10-19 feet, for example, the Islanders are yielding 45% more shots than average. How the Islanders can score : New York can also take hope in the fact that the Sabres cough up scoring chances as well, particularly in mid-range shots from 20-49 feet. The Islanders are also d...