Offensively Lame Ducks?

I just wanted to pass along a quick thought-provoker before heading down to the GEC for tonight's Ducks/Predators game. Just examining the offensive side of the game, it appears that Anaheim is going through a slow yet persistent offensive slide, whereas the nature of the Nashville offense is changing.

Here's a snapshot of what the Ducks have been up to. The blue lines represent shots per game (dotted indicates the trend), and the red ones represent average Shot Quality. Anaheim's overall shot totals are pretty stable, but the SQ trend line is sharply negative. With .100 being a league-wide average, they've gone from the penthouse to the outhouse, including five straight subpar offensive showings. Besides the injuries in goal and on the blue line, that's a worrysome trend for Randy Carlyle and crew.

As to Nashville, they've seen Shots Per Game decline slightly over the course of time, but an increase in average Shot Quality helps neutralize that effect. Their overall offense isn't surging or declining, but rather they seem to be taking slightly fewer, albeit more dangerous, shots.

Sorry for the rushed nature of this post, gotta head out the door. Come back in the days ahead for more thorough analysis of particular teams which may go shopping ahead of the trade deadline...

Celebrating a milestone month

I've been remiss in providing regular updates on my quest to turn this whole sports-blogging hobby into at least something of a significant side income, if not a career, but good news has a way of prompting action. That, and I've been heads-down busy working on a few different fronts to push things forward...

Social Media, Internet Marketing, and Real, Paying Customers - it really works!

Applying the basic tenets of internet marketing (SEO best practices and social media network building) have helped me grow the readership and engagement over at On The Forecheck tremendously in recent years, but lately I've been wondering if those same techniques could be applied to small- or medium-sized local businesses, to help them drive real, tangible business results. I'm talking about not just drawing idle hockey fans looking to a blog so they can muse over line combinations, but helping businesses connect with potential customers in ways that otherwise wouldn't occur. Recently, I was able to help make just such a thing happen, and it shows just how great the opportunities are for small, local businesses which may not have the resources or skills available to extend their brand effectively on the internet.

NHL Fake Trades, an idea worth pursuing further in 2013

As I wrote about a month ago , I decided to jump upon a short-term opportunity and set up a "hot topic" website for the 2012 NHL Trade Deadline. NHLFakeTrades.com was inspired by a column by Eric Duhatschek of the Globe & Mail, who looked at the frenzy with which hockey fans jump on even the sketchiest of information about potential hockey trades, and wondered if some cash could be made by simply and forthrightly writing about fictitious trade scenarios. This meshed nicely with an exercise I went through a few years ago to create a Random Trade Generator, so in the course of a few hours I went ahead and registered the domain, set up a WordPress site using ( as I do at Hockey Gear HQ ) the wonderful Genesis framework with the News theme , and freshened up the Trade Generator for 2012. So how did it do, in terms of traffic, revenue, and accuracy of the trade projections? Let's take a look...

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