Sharks vs Edmonton Oilers photos

Here are a few photos from the Edmonton Oilers 2-1 OT shootout win over the Sharks on Sunday, sorry for the poles in one photo but I thought it would be a different look at the shootout. More photos here.

Had a long discussion with an usher about Dwayne Roloson's style of play in the first period vs his play against the Sharks in the playoffs, and about Edmonton's chances of leapfrogging Phoenix, Nashville and Vancouver. We were directly behind Matheiu Garon, who was banished to the island where visiting goaltenders watch the game. I should have added that the Kings failure to sign Garon was a Pacific Division mistake second only to Anaheim's early Christmas present to Phoenix in Ilya Bryzgalomite.

The Sharks first period against Edmonton was an impressive one, 19 shots on goal and several quality scoring chances. The second period I was at ice level and San Jose came out flying. Within a minute there was a pile of bodies around the Edmonton crease, and an Oiler defenseman tried to push the net off its moorings to regain their composure. The power play unit of Marleau-Thornton-Cheechoo-Campbell-Pavelski could possibly be the best 5-man unit the Sharks have ever iced. Quick, hard passes down low by the forwards, and great puck movement up top by the defenseman created a lot of room for players to get open, but there were not enough point shots on net. More point shots will create more rebounds and more havoc, and the Sharks will start putting up the power play numbers again.

The Edmonton penalty kill was a force in the third period. Three horrible penalties taken in the latter half of the period, a tripping call on Gilbert, a hooking call on Stoll, and a delay of game call on Roloson. A determined effort from a very quick Edmonton penalty kill unit deserves credit for keeping the Sharks off the board. Roloson stoned Joe Thornton on a 2-on-0 in overtime, and then quickly hugged the post to shut down a hard shot from Brian Campbell, who tossed his stick after the play.

Fernando Pisani scored the decisive shootout goal for the Oilers, he froze Nabokov on his forehand, and then took it backhand and lifted it over Nabokov's stick 5-hole. The Edmonton Oilers announcers called the move before he took the shot. Graphic on Versus said that the Oilers are 15-3 in the shootout this year. Tale of tape on this game is about as close as it gets, both teams were only able to score on 5-on-3 power plays, and 3 rounds of the shootout were not enough to decide a winner.

The 11-game winning streak is over for the Sharks, but the points streak is alive and well at 12 games. Prediction tomorrow against Los Angeles: Sharks general manager announces the surprise signing of 68-year old former Chicago Bears head coach Mike Ditka Tuesday morning, and the Ditka-Sharks shut out the Kings 24-0.

The Streak is Over......

The Sharks winning streak is over thanks to fellow blogger and friend Mike Chen......oh yeah, outstanding goal tending my Roloson helped also. I think the streak was 4-5 games in when I realized that the Sharks had not lost since I had last blogged......and getting that Campbell guy didn't hurt either. Being the superstitious person that I am, I decided to leave things status quo until they lost. Of course my biggest mistake was mentioning this to Mike who decided to screw up the winning mojo and post a blog avoiding the topic....kinda. But what can you say, being down 11 pts in the standings and all of a sudden you look up and we have a small lead in the standings in the race for the #2 seed with games in hand. Dallas and Anaheim play this week and who do you root for? Just don't go into OT.

One interesting take from last night's game. If anyone saw the Sharks TV broadcast there was an interesting point in the game where Randy and Drew discussed the Pronger suspension. Randy mentioned he thought the penalty was light and it deserved more. To my surprise Drew had the opposite view. He explained he thought it deserved no suspension and that he was just trying to extricate his leg from Kesler's leg lock. This was the first time that I noticed a little tension in the broadcast as the fun-loving duo turned a little testy. Randy continued that he thought Pronger was a "bully" and needed to be punished. Drew countered with Pronger being a tough hard-nosed player and a major component of his team winning the Stanley Cup. Hard to argue that last point but anyone who saw the clip, knows that Pronger did that on purpose. 8 games compared to Simon getting 30? I think the answer is somewhere in between.

Kings Gameday: Who's Up For Some Libel?

Los Angeles Kings (5-6, 3rd in Pacific) vs. Edmonton Oilers (4-6, 5th in Northwest)

7 PST, FSN West and CBC

Edmonton's Town Square.

Edmonton is a sad little town. Oilers fans are probably the most dedicated fans in the NHL because really, what else are they going to do? Edmonton kind of strikes me as that shitty kid in your 5^th grade class who smelled and kept sand bees in his desk but you went to his birthday party anyway because he had a bounce house and a Batman impersonator. “C’mon guys, I have North America’s largest mall! And do you like festivals? We got festivals coming out the ass! Please hang out with me?” I like to think that they had Chris Pronger show up on a specific day where they had the Whore Festival or something and then showed him the mall to get him a sign. Then, a week later…

Chris: Hey, Raffi, what is there to do around here?

Raffi Torres: Have you seen our mall? It’s the largest in the North America!

Chris: Yeah, that was cool, where do you think I’ve been for the last week? But I need something else to do. Any nighlife?

Raffi: Night… life?

Chris: Umm, yeah, you know, dancing, women, something like that.

Raffi: We have the Festival of Trees coming pretty soon!

(silence…)

Chris: I’ve made a huge mistake.

I don’t like Chris Pronger, but I can’t really blame him for (allegedly) having an affair; what else was he going to do?

Mayor.

This is just me spouting off from my awesome California perspective (you wouldn’t believe how warm it’s been recently, it’s like having a fireplace going all the time), but Edmonton seems to have a real inferiority complex. They’re not relevant like Toronto, they don’t have history or arrogance like Montreal and Ottawa, they don’t have a film industry like Vancouver (stop taking our jobs, assholes), and they’re overshadowed in their own province by Calgary. I was in Calgary this summer and asked a Calgarian if he ever goes to Edmonton. He derisively snorted, “Why the fuck would I want to go to Edmonton?” That was amazing to me. That’s like a murderer refusing to share a prison cell with a child molester!

The Edmonton Oilers are doing their best impression of their city this season, in that they suck. Their fans like to pretend that they’re a tough, gritty team, but they really just don’t have that much talent outside of Ales Hemsky. (I really like Hemsky, though.) They overpaid in the off-season for a defenseman who can’t play defense (he’s hurt now) and a forward whose best skill is his ability to grow a playoff beard. (Seriously, it looked like seal fur.) It's almost like Penner's goals last year were the result of his linemates... nah, no way Kevin Lowe fucks up like that, right? Their one goaltender is the biggest whiner in the NHL and their other goaltender is such a tragic figure that Oedipus thinks, “Wow, that guy has a rough life.” Finally, their coach… well, their coach was the last guy in the NHL to not wear a helmet, so I refuse to say anything bad about him.

Haha.

So yeah, that’s Edmonton: the city is boring and the hockey team sucks. But hey, the economy is thriving, right? Pretty soon, you’ll be right up there with Columbus, Ohio in cities Los Angeles doesn’t care about.

Prediction: Kings win. Maybe not the game, but they live in L.A., so they still win.

On statistics and hockey, Oilers edition

I have another confession to make. I have something called a blush, which is a term I have coined for blog crush, for mudcrutch. Or maybe it's blenvy, but my spell checker keeps catching that one.

At any rate, Tyler is a guy who not only asks good questions about our sport, but then has the gall to answer them with statistical research. I am very fascinated with this sort of game, although when it comes to actually doing anything, I am a hack.

(Just like my HTML skills. Good thing the team color is turning orange; it would be easier than me trying to figure out how to make this page purple.)

However, I do have a keen eye for criticizing others' work, and now that I have a forum; let's see what happens.

Tyler can confirm this (I can't find a good link but if you give me one I'll put it here), but I believe that his position regarding the Oilers' 8th-seeded success is that the Oilers' seed is understated; really they should have a higher (possibly 3rd?) seed, thus their postseason success would be less 'shocking'.

His argument is based on goal differential, calculating an expected goals for and goals against for a team and an expected standings based on those factors. Generally, this GD is sufficient enough; my problem is not with this method.

However, you see, there is this Roloson Factor (RF) to deal with. Tyler (and others) argue that the Oilers have suffered from abysmally poor goaltending all season, and the RF has corrected this problem. Thus, using their season's GA isn't fair; we should instead use only the games Roloson has played in. In the RF games, the GA indeed did drop noticeably. But troublingly enough, so did the GF.

I am paraphrasing here, in that I haven't bothered to look at exactly which games Roloson played in, nor am I pulling empty-net goals or anything, but here's how the Oiler season looks segmented by Roloson Day in Edmonton:

10/5/05-3/8/06___3.18GF-3.10GA__17.9%PP,82.8%PK__.878sv%
3/9/06-4/18/06___2.60GF-2.50GA__19.4%PP,88.7%PK__.903sv%
__Total Year_____3.04GF-2.95GA__18.1%PP,84.1%PK__.884sv%

(Note the first segment covers 62 games of .589 hockey, and the second segment involves 20 games of .550 hockey. Edmonton by no means roared to the finish line.)

What can one make of this drop in Edmonton's goal scoring? Tyler cannot see a reason why that this 20-game anomaly should matter. He didn't see the Oil necessarily collapsing, and thus he decides to ignore it and use the season scoring average instead.

So loosely he grabs a GF from a season and a GA from a subset of games involving Roloson. This is where I see a problem.

I know where he's coming from, in that Roloson plays no part in the offense, so his effect really should only evidence itself in the defensive turnaround (which is substantial, particularly on the GA and PK numbers).

However, I think there is a connection between GF and GA that cannot be ignored. We observe in games that teams (and refs) push more for a goal in a 2-3 game than a 2-1 game. We observe how many games go to overtime or end as one-goal games. A trailing team more often than not 'gets the breaks'.

A better goalie implies that there is less time spent trailing, and probably more time holding a lead. I would expect a team that holds the lead more often to (a) score less, and (b) have less power plays. The latter comes both from spending less time on the attack and on biased refereeing.

Edmonton, in fact, (a) did score less, and (b) did have less power plays. Their PP% and PK% both improved, but they went from a 392-372 man-advantage count in the first 62 games to a 93-106 deficit in the last 20.

Now I don't want to knock the Oilers' playoff accomplishment by any means. That they earn on the ice, screw goal differential and us back-room pencil-pushers. And I don't really want to suggest that my numbers are right or anything; as always, the truth is somewhere in between. Hell, I'm not even sure that I'm saying that they don't deserve the 3rd seed, just by a lesser margin.

I'm just saying that discounting the fact that GF dropped along with GA is simplistic and convenient. The dropoff was probably too dramatic, but I would expect that there is a negative offensive effect to having a better goalie. When you lead more of the time, the balance of the game changes.

Note that I haven't really discussed goalie tendencies, like freezing or playing the puck. Both of these should influence a team's scoring rate as well. I also didn't mention Samsonov, who probably matters the most.

Stats lie to us all the time, but if we compile enough data they will eventually tell us the truth. Great work, Tyler. Now tell me everything I got wrong.

Ducks to take more of my money

(this better mean a free agent, Burke!)

Damn, I need a drink. Game 3 Notes

Not the best sign. I will say this on Fedoruk's behalf, he was spitting up blood from a vicious Rhett Warrener check two series ago. I doubt he's 100%. (Thanks to Matt for pointing out the correct hitter in the Flames series)

This is funny until he gets a concussion. Then I suppose it will be really funny. Roloson would make a good drinking game, drink for every penalty, assist, or mask-off (finish).

Again, out-stymied. The one-goal lead wins again.

My non-hockey friends, unfortunately, missed the very watchable first period. Then they sat grudgingly through the unwatchable second, until I gave them the TV and went down to my room to watch the rest. They instead played Katamari Damacy on the PS2. I started another post on boring hockey.

Pow, pow, pow, it gets worse-worse-worse. 4-0 Oil. Lucky friends, playing their Katamari.

It is a crazy third, Ducks go nuts but come up short. What does it mean? Have we solved some sort of puzzle? Why now? Pisani gets the game-winner, but other than that, it looked really good. Really good. Final whistle. Oil 5, Ducks 4.

Silly friends, upstairs on their Katamari.

Our PP stinks, but that is not new. We've had about the worst PP in these playoffs. Oil deserve credit, but note they weren't stopping a juggernaut.

3-0 of course has enough history behind it to be damn well condemning.

Got a mountain ahead of us, no margin for error.

This is soooo Disney.

Rolo