Showing posts with label stampede for stamkos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stampede for stamkos. Show all posts
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Why We're Cheering for Montreal Tonight
A Montreal win and an Ottawa loss drops Ottawa to fourth in the Eastern Conference. It also helps in the Stampede for Stamkos, especially since Edmonton won last night. This isn't a long or particularly in depth post, I just don't feel the same way about beating Montreal in the regular season as I do about beating Ottawa.
Ottawa sucks.
Ottawa sucks.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
The Stampede is on!
The Leafs love us, their fans. They love every one of us diehard true blue Leafs fans, I'm sure of it. Want to know how I'm sure? Fresh off of beating everyone's least favorite team the Ottawa Senators, the "best" team in the East, the Leafs go ahead and lose 8-0 to the Florida Panthers just to get back into the Stampede for Stamkos.
LA, feeling apologetic for ruining everything in 1993 and then giving a cup to Montreal was nice enough to hammer the Rangers, and Tampa Bay realized it had too many star players so they decided to beat St. Louis. That means the Stampede for Stamkos TM, R, Patent Pending looks like this:
Team GP Points
---- -- ------
LAK 55 47
TAM 54 49
TOR 55 51
CHI 52 51
EDM 55 53
Toronto isn't in the clear lead, and they've got some serious losing to do to make sure Chicago andAnaheim Edmonton don't shark the Leafs' chance at Stamkos. There's an important word in that last sentence: chance. Based on the lottery system, the bottom five teams in the NHL's standings have a chance at the first pick.
So then, based on the lottery, how often has the worst team in the league gotten the first pick? From here, we get this list:
Year Team Result Selected
---- ---- ------ --------
2000 NYI Moved from 5th to 1st DiPietro
2001 ATL Moved from 3rd to 1st Kovalchuk
2002 FLA Moved from 3rd to 1st Nash *
2003 FLA Moved from 4th to 1st Fleury *
2004 WSH Moved from 3rd to 1st Ovechkin
2005 PIT n/a Crosby
2006 STL Retained 1st selection Johnson
2007 CHI Moved from 5th to 1st Kane
In the eight years listed above, the worst team in the league only kept the first pick once. The Penguins had as bad a shot as anyone in the Sidney Crosby lottery, so it could be said 2/8. That means even finishing dead last the Leafs have about a 25% chance at Stamkos. However, 25% is a better probability than 12%, and if you're going to finish 27th, you might as well go for 30th.
Edit: For clarification, my use of 25% refers to the chances of the worst team getting the first pick in the last eight years. This is confusing due to the fact that the worst team has a 25% chance of winning the lottery, however since a team can move up at most 4 spots in the draft lottery this means that the worst team has a 48% chance, in theory, of getting the best draft pick. Here's the only link I could find to explain the current draft lottery rules, if someone has a better link I'm all ears.
LA, feeling apologetic for ruining everything in 1993 and then giving a cup to Montreal was nice enough to hammer the Rangers, and Tampa Bay realized it had too many star players so they decided to beat St. Louis. That means the Stampede for Stamkos TM, R, Patent Pending looks like this:
Team GP Points
---- -- ------
LAK 55 47
TAM 54 49
TOR 55 51
CHI 52 51
EDM 55 53
Toronto isn't in the clear lead, and they've got some serious losing to do to make sure Chicago and
So then, based on the lottery, how often has the worst team in the league gotten the first pick? From here, we get this list:
Year Team Result Selected
---- ---- ------ --------
2000 NYI Moved from 5th to 1st DiPietro
2001 ATL Moved from 3rd to 1st Kovalchuk
2002 FLA Moved from 3rd to 1st Nash *
2003 FLA Moved from 4th to 1st Fleury *
2004 WSH Moved from 3rd to 1st Ovechkin
2005 PIT n/a Crosby
2006 STL Retained 1st selection Johnson
2007 CHI Moved from 5th to 1st Kane
In the eight years listed above, the worst team in the league only kept the first pick once. The Penguins had as bad a shot as anyone in the Sidney Crosby lottery, so it could be said 2/8. That means even finishing dead last the Leafs have about a 25% chance at Stamkos. However, 25% is a better probability than 12%, and if you're going to finish 27th, you might as well go for 30th.
Edit: For clarification, my use of 25% refers to the chances of the worst team getting the first pick in the last eight years. This is confusing due to the fact that the worst team has a 25% chance of winning the lottery, however since a team can move up at most 4 spots in the draft lottery this means that the worst team has a 48% chance, in theory, of getting the best draft pick. Here's the only link I could find to explain the current draft lottery rules, if someone has a better link I'm all ears.
Friday, February 01, 2008
Stampede for Stamkos!
If Mats Sundin could have contained himself last night, Toronto would have been a whole point closer to Stamkos. Currently the Stampede for StamkosTM looks as follows:
- Team - GP - Pts
- LAK - 53 - 45
- TAM - 52 - 47
- TOR - 53 - 49
- FLA - 52 - 49
- CHI - 51 - 50
- EDM - 53 - 51
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Welcome to the rollercoaster
I watched a bit of last night's game, I'm going to admit it's hard for me to devote nights to the Maple Leafs when they play like this. It's hard, because I still feel like crap when they lose, but when they win I feel like I didn't do my part and thus can't enjoy it as much.
From what I saw though, two guys who've been in the doghouse played really well. Blake had a goal and an assist, and Tucker set up a pair of goals. Matt Stajan also looked good out there last night. Unfortunately Wellwood was as invisible as ever this season, and I'm starting to wonder if his groin just doesn't feel right (editor's note: that's what she said).
The third goal by the Blues on Toskala was maybe unlucky, but I felt annoyed watching it. Vesa's been really strong this season and he should have been able to hold on to that rebound. I guess the five guys standing around him could have shoveled the puck under his pads to help, but the whole thing just stunk.
So this is our rollercoaster ride. From feeling like we were in the hunt again last week, to this week where the Leafs are three points ahead of Tampa with an extra game played, and five points ahead of Los Angeles. Honestly some strong play for a week by either of those teams gives us Stamkos, and I think given our injuries:
The Leafs have a legitimate chance at finishing 30th. My old man is from Philly and I gave him a pretty hard time about last year. Karma is a bitch. At any rate I'm still rooting for the Leafs to win, but I'm at the point where I can accept the probable outcome of this season so at least I'm done grieving.
ps. I bet my dad that the Flyers would finish 4th or 5th in their division and I'd like to not lose that bet, so if you guys could root for everyone in the Atlantic besides Philly that'd be a big help. Thanks.
From what I saw though, two guys who've been in the doghouse played really well. Blake had a goal and an assist, and Tucker set up a pair of goals. Matt Stajan also looked good out there last night. Unfortunately Wellwood was as invisible as ever this season, and I'm starting to wonder if his groin just doesn't feel right (editor's note: that's what she said).
The third goal by the Blues on Toskala was maybe unlucky, but I felt annoyed watching it. Vesa's been really strong this season and he should have been able to hold on to that rebound. I guess the five guys standing around him could have shoveled the puck under his pads to help, but the whole thing just stunk.
So this is our rollercoaster ride. From feeling like we were in the hunt again last week, to this week where the Leafs are three points ahead of Tampa with an extra game played, and five points ahead of Los Angeles. Honestly some strong play for a week by either of those teams gives us Stamkos, and I think given our injuries:
- Bell - IR - Cracked orbital bone, requires surgery
- Devereaux - DTD - Wrist
- McCabe - IR - Hand
- Ponikarovsky - IR - Shoulder
- Steen - DTD - Seperated shoulder
- Colaiacovo - Healthy - Spot reserved for frequent customers
The Leafs have a legitimate chance at finishing 30th. My old man is from Philly and I gave him a pretty hard time about last year. Karma is a bitch. At any rate I'm still rooting for the Leafs to win, but I'm at the point where I can accept the probable outcome of this season so at least I'm done grieving.
ps. I bet my dad that the Flyers would finish 4th or 5th in their division and I'd like to not lose that bet, so if you guys could root for everyone in the Atlantic besides Philly that'd be a big help. Thanks.
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