[lunchbawks]

PHX took care of Chicago fairly easily.Mike Smith has been outstanding, I believe the Yotes can grind out a 6 game series win

[lakerboy]

Nashville will advance bud.

[lunchbawks]

Nashville will advance bud.

We are all free to form opinions. This will be another tight series, both very evenly matched teams

[PuckIt]

uh oh, battle of the lb.'s...

lakerboy you've been pretty spot on these playoffs - why you so confident in nashville?

[lakerboy]

Nashville is better at tough checking games than chicago. Phoenix style is the same but nash is more talented and deeper with same style. I think nash wins in 6 maybe 5.

[remeedella]

I think phoenix was hanging by a thread every single game and didnt deserve more than 1 honest win vs chicago. They are a bunch of 'flukers' My only concern right now is how much can I place comfortably at -160 for nashville to win the series. What kinda numbers you doing, I'm closing in on thinking 500 but should I hang around the line at what its at??

[DonFilet59]

I think it's the safest bet of the entire playoffs. Phoenix has no offense and I will take Rinne over Smith anyday.

[SlimZ]

LOL Phx will win in 6

You mean Nas took care of the Wings fairly easy compared to Phx vs Chi which went OT like every game...
Rinne and Smith are both very good goalies but i think Rinne is abit better
but overall def. and off. Nas has the edge.. i predict Nas 4-2 I went with them as my biggest play ever 30 units
GL on ur PHX+140
And yes ur the same guy saying Ottawa is going to win the cup this year too right LOL

[lunchbawks]

red wings had no business beating nashville, they were dreadful. chicago got outplayed but got lucky late goals to force OT, phx would have swept

[SlimZ]

U gotta understand they lost one of there core players... Hossa
and Crawford vs Smith was a big mismatch
Nashville is deep and balanced all around with goalie,def,off (best two pairing Def. in the league IMO Weber+Suter)

[ThinkingTrip]

I am confused at people who think that Phoenix will beat Nashville..

Phoenix is a one man team. They should change name from Phoenix Coyotes to Mike's Coyotes.. They have no chance without Mike, and they have been playing good against Chicago the whole year. Chicago is very offensive, and a team with solid defense and outstanding goaltending is able to crack them up.. Every game could easily have been a 2 goal game winning affair by Chicago.. But to the important.. Nashville got the goaltending and defense, to not let the Phoenix crack them up in the long end, and also Nashville like to play this defensively game, and shouldn't have any trouble at beating Phoenix.

Nashville in MAX 6.

But Nashville for sure.

[Deol]

Nashville AINEC. MAX 6

[lunchbawks]

If you think Nashville's D and goalie are a huge advantage vs PHX, I can't help you

[SlimZ]

If you think Nashville's D and goalie are a huge advantage vs PHX, I can't help you

are u saying Phx goalie + Def is better then Nas goalie+Def?

[lunchbawks]

no i said they are very evenly matched. if you think the coyotes are going to be pushed around here you're wrong.

Preds aren't especially good on the road, and game 1 is in PHX

[SlimZ]

no i said they are very evenly matched. if you think the coyotes are going to be pushed around here you're wrong.

Preds aren't especially good on the road, and game 1 is in PHX

Both teams away record is pretty much even BUT Nasville home record is way betterso it would be harder for Phx to win a game in Nas then for Nas to win a game in Phx

[SlimZ]

Ok enough with this stats comparing back n fourth we will see who is right and wrong after this series is over! GL on ur Phx+145

[lunchbawks]

have fun sweating out your all in bet

[SlimZ]

Im just curious what do u see Phx has the advantage in? Home court?

[aznbluff]

Im just curious what do u see Phx has the advantage in? Home court?

Home ice is an advantage. Ekman-Larsson may very well be the best player in the series. Phoenix defense depth is pretty impressive. Many underrated forwards, players like Pyatt, Korpikoski, and especially Boyd Gordon. Even their top end forwards are probably still underrated, Vrbata and Hanzal especially. Whitney a little overrated probably.

What I like about Phoenix is how Tippett uses his defensemen to their strengths and doesn't overexert them. He doesn't use Yandle in defensive situations because he, frankly, flat out sucks at it. He doesn't try to hide this, he just simply avoids it. Same with a player like Klesla and offensive situations (even though he has some points right now in the playoffs); doesn't get used in offensive situations because it just doesn't make sense to do so. So he basically gets his best offensive players to play in offensive situations and vice versa. Sounds simple right? But so many coaches tip toe around it and try to play their "stars" in situations that another "lesser" player on their team could do a better job at. So many examples of this, almost never a good idea.

[Dark Horse]

Teams split the season series 2-2 with road team winning every game, so home ice doesn't mean much here. My projection for the first game is 2.26 goals versus 2.27 goals. Doesn't get any closer. I couldn't pick a winner of this series if you put a gun to my head. With things being that even the obvious value is with +145. Not about who will win the series, but about value.

[aznbluff]

Just cause the road team won every game doesn't mean that it's not an advantage to be at home. It's just a fluke distribution of variance. The best team in the league could have went 0-4 against the worst team in the league this year and I wouldn't bat an eye at it. Just very normal variance. Home ice is huge in especially this series. These two (along with St. Louis and to a lesser extent LA) are the epitome of match-up teams. They rely on match ups to gain edges and the home team gets to dictate the match up for that night.

[odog11]

Just cause the road team won every game doesn't mean that it's not an advantage to be at home. It's just a fluke distribution of variance. The best team in the league could have went 0-4 against the worst team in the league this year and I wouldn't bat an eye at it. Just very normal variance. Home ice is huge in especially this series. These two (along with St. Louis and to a lesser extent LA) are the epitome of match-up teams. They rely on match ups to gain edges and the home team gets to dictate the match up for that night.

Agree totally that a 4 game sample spread out over the season with all other types of factors does not tell us much. How do you explain the success of road teams so far this year? Would seem it would have to even out some, but hard to argue home ice a huge advantage when home teams well bellow .500 so far.

[Dark Horse]

Coyotes are a team that is pretty much the same at home and on the road. There are teams with home ice advantage, and many teams with records that are very close for home and away. Some divisions have strong home ice, others almost none. The third strongest home record belonged to Chicago. Didn't mean anything to Phoenix, did it? Was that variance too?

There is a place for variance, but the Coyotes don't give a f*ck. Their secret is 'hockey the hard way'. Something not necessarily covered in statistics courses.

[aznbluff]

A lot of teams (most) out East are not match up teams, so home ice means very little in those games. The west is just so competitive, teams 1-8 were all very good teams. Close teams leads to higher variance. Then you have to look at the scenarios that the match up teams faced.

St Louis is just a flat out dominant team that rolls depth out in waves. They beat San Jose twice in San Jose but were rightfully favorites in both. They lost their first game at home because it was the first playoff game for a lot of their key players.

In Detroit, Nashville took 2 off the Wings at home after they lost Darren Helm. I don't know how much you know about Helm or the Red Wings but he is one of their most important forwards. I personally say 3-4th. The entire bottom 6 gets thrown in disarray without him. Basically, Babcock can't match up anymore without him. So home ice really does him no good anymore when lines 3 and 4 are both liabilities against a deep team like Nashville.

Phoenix-Chicago has been OT in like every game and those games could have easily went the other way. Phoenix taking two in a row in Chicago had a lot to do with taking Hossa out in game 3 as well, especially in game 3.

LA Vancouver I'll have to chalk up to an anomaly. Both teams should have been much better at home, especially vancouver

[Dark Horse]

I would look at resilience, rather than variance. Teams with a lot of fight in them. Do they have better road records than teams that play well only with the wind in their backs?

Nashville beat Detroit, but they never overcame a deficit. They lost the game in which they fell behind. So they're not necessarily battle tested. Phoenix showed a great ability to overcome deficits against Chicago. The last game reminded me of the rope-a-dope. Chicago in the role of George Foreman, with a 16-2 shot advantage in the first period. Only to lose 4-0. Variance? I think not.

[SlimZ]

Teams split the season series 2-2 with road team winning every game, so home ice doesn't mean much here. My projection for the first game is 2.26 goals versus 2.27 goals. Doesn't get any closer. I couldn't pick a winner of this series if you put a gun to my head. With things being that even the obvious value is with +145. Not about who will win the series, but about value.

Remember they did not have Radulov in those season meetings
and he is a key part of there offense now and i would say one of there best players

[aznbluff]

I would look at resilience, rather than variance. Teams with a lot of fight in them. Do they have better road records than teams that play well only with the wind in their backs?

Nashville beat Detroit, but they never overcame a deficit. They lost the game in which they fell behind. So they're not necessarily battle tested. Phoenix showed a great ability to overcome deficits against Chicago. The last game reminded me of the rope-a-dope. Chicago in the role of George Foreman, with a 16-2 shot advantage in the first period. Only to lose 4-0. Variance? I think not.

Getting outshot, espeically that badly, is a time tested recipe for failure. Shot differential is strongly correlated to winning frequency and has been tested over and over again to be the best predictor of future results. Fenwick% if you've never heard about it before, is probably one of the strongest stats out there for predicting hockey games over the course of a season. So, in this case, a 2-16 shot deficit and winning 4-0, yes, I would chalk up to variance, heavy variance at that.

[odog11]

Getting outshot, espeically that badly, is a time tested recipe for failure. Shot differential is strongly correlated to winning frequency and has been tested over and over again to be the best predictor of future results. Fenwick% if you've never heard about it before, is probably one of the strongest stats out there for predicting hockey games over the course of a season. So, in this case, a 2-16 shot deficit and winning 4-0, yes, I would chalk up to variance, heavy variance at that.

Yep, and Mike Smith playing like a demgod. Finding it hard to predict this series, I have Nashville to win the west at +525 and hedging would seem like the smart way to go. Not sure if I should do it with a series play or situationally with a game here or there, if I could get that +145 I would play it for a unit and be set up with profit or have Nashville in the finals able to let that ride or hedge again. I am thinking shots should be fairly even in this one, maybe slight edge to Nashville and their power play could be the difference.

[cutchemist42]

Nashville for game 1 for me.

[Dark Horse]

Getting outshot, espeically that badly, is a time tested recipe for failure. Shot differential is strongly correlated to winning frequency and has been tested over and over again to be the best predictor of future results. Fenwick% if you've never heard about it before, is probably one of the strongest stats out there for predicting hockey games over the course of a season. So, in this case, a 2-16 shot deficit and winning 4-0, yes, I would chalk up to variance, heavy variance at that.

Once again, not really. It depends where the shots are coming from. Phoenix clogs up the middle, and forces the opponent into difficult angles on goal. They also do a great job getting sticks in the way without blocking Smith's view (as quoted by the goalie). His great save percentage is a team effort. I'm not going to make a case in favor of a 2-16 period, but Phoenix was outshot the entire series and it didn't matter at all. All about quality shots.

Like I said, there is a place for variance, but you're trying to explain away everything that matters with it. You may as well use 'luck'. And then use it for everything that doesn't fit within your beliefs. Except 'I don't know, it must be luck' doesn't quite have the ring of 'I know, it's variance, heavy variance.'

[aznbluff]

Well, luck and variance are the same thing, so exchange variance for luck if you want. If you are on the right side of variance, you got lucky, if you are on the wrong side, you got unlucky. Every time a favorite wins a game, they still got lucky, since they don't win that game 100% of the time. Every time the dog loses, they still got unlucky, etc..

Quality of shots absolutely does matter, and I agree that a good defensive team bolsters the goaltender's save%. But there have been many studies and statistical analysis done that prove within 99+% certainty that there is no concrete way to limit quality of shots with a "system" or anything like that. They show that overall quality of shots remains proportionate despite the quantity of shots on net. So basically, a higher quantity of shots will result in higher quantity of quality shots as well. This (I think) is the basis behind the Fenwick% stat.

If Phoenix continually gets outshot throughout the next series, they can easily, easily overcome it and win. It would be completely normal and not surprising. However, they would have a much better chance if they didn't get heavily outshot, and an even better one if they outshot their opponent. Same goes vice versa.

[Dark Horse]

Quality of shots absolutely does matter, and I agree that a good defensive team bolsters the goaltender's save%. But there have been many studies and statistical analysis done that prove within 99+% certainty that there is no concrete way to limit quality of shots with a "system" or anything like that. They show that overall quality of shots remains proportionate despite the quantity of shots on net. So basically, a higher quantity of shots will result in higher quantity of quality shots as well. This (I think) is the basis behind the Fenwick% stat.

I would disagree with this. If a team doesn't get quality shots, a higher number of shots is not going solve their underlying problem. Nashville is an example of a team that knows how to get quality shots. Their conversion rate is the highest in the league. From game to game your variance or luck theory may hold up, but not over an entire season (nor a playoff series). The Phoenix strategy is to force the opponent away from the middle and into low percentage shots, so the series will be interesting.

[hydrosmak]

PHX took care of Chicago fairly easily.Mike Smith has been outstanding, I believe the Yotes can grind out a 6 game series win

Fairly easily? Every freaking game except the clincher went into OT. Most of them because they choked at the end of the game. You could say PHX got a little lucky as well.

[aznbluff]

For example, if you used score-adjusted Fenwick% this season for the first round playoff matchups:

STL (54.1) vs SJS (50.8) - Big gap between two good (>50) teams, shows the quality of STL

LA (57.5) vs VAN (52.3) - LA over Vancouver is not an upset, as they are the best team in the league by this metric, VAN also elite team

PHO (47.9) vs CHI (53.5) - Phoenix with a very large upset, due in part to the fact that Hossa (one of the best players in the series) was knocked out in game 3

NSH (49.2) vs DET (53.7) - Deceptive since Nashville now has Radulov (their best forward now) and also picked up some other key pieces at the deadline. No way they are a sub 50 team now.


NJD (52.7) vs FLA (49.6) - Edge NJD, despite 3v6 matchup

WSH (51.5) vs BOS (51.1) - the closest series, with Washington having a slight edge

OTT (52.9) vs NYR (50.1) - Ottawa with an edge in this series, despite another 1v8 matchup, surprisingly high rating for Ottawa.

PHI (49.6) vs PIT (55.9) - Big upset, overcame a gap of over 5 thanks to historically poor goaltending and injuries to D.