Tag: Hockey

Eating crow…sort of

In the past I’ve made no bones about rather having Cory Schneider in goal rather than Roberto Luongo. Schneider is the more technically adept goalie. He has likely has better instincts. Most importantly, however, he isn’t prone to the kinds of meltdowns that turn Luongo into merely an above-average NHL goalie.

On the other hand, over the last year or so I’ve really come to appreciate the man Luongo is. In a very public way his team demoted him and dangled trading him for a year. By virtue of signing him to possibly the stupidest contract of all time, Luongo was basically untradable. Despite all of this, he remained a good natured guy, stepped into his backup role with aplomb, and worked hard to show there was no ill will between Schneider and himself. He has been the very definition of a standup guy.

In his first public comments since the Schneider trade1, he continues to show he is a bigger guy than the Canucks deserve. He was even talking about voiding his crazy-ass contract just to help Vancouver and he move on.

But now that the team wants/needs him, he’s committed to the Canucks–at least publicly. He says all the right things. He’s motivated to repeat his 2010 Team Canada performance in the 2014 Olympics. It’s hard to not like the guy. I even follow him on Twitter2 because he’s a funny guy. I notice he still has the goalie wearing the “?” uniform as his avatar. So maybe there are some underlying hard feelings.

Not that I blame him.

I’d still rather have Schneider as my goalie though.

But I’ll feel some vindication if Luongo puts together the solid, no-head-games season he can. And I’ll enjoy the Stanley Cup celebration that such a season would bring.

1 http://o.canada.com/2013/08/23/roberto-luongo-breaks-silence-on-canucks-drama-considered-voiding-contract/
2 https://twitter.com/strombone1

USHL Standings Revisited

It’s a new week coming up so it’s time to revisit the USHL standings. Omaha had a damn fine week–knocking off Sioux Falls with a five goal second period. Figures that I was so sick that day I couldn’t manage 15 feet from the nearest sewer-connected portal so ended up missing what might possibly be the best Lancers showing all season.

Lincoln didn’t fare as well, winning two of three on the week. They lose a game-in-hand on Sioux Falls but with both Lincoln and Omaha playing three last week, the Stars still have two in hand on the Lancers.

By virtue of the fine showing, the Lancers pick up a place in the points standings on Lincoln. The unadjusted standings look like this:

TEAM GP W L OL TP
Sioux Falls 41 29 10 2 60
Fargo 41 26 13 5 53
Waterloo 42 25 17 0 53
Omaha 42 25 17 0 50
Lincoln 40 23 14 3 49
Tri-Town 41 18 19 4 40
Des Moines 43 19 22 2 40
Sioux City 40 8 22 10 26

Looking over the table after two weeks, we also see Des Moines being overtaken by Tri-Town. The Good Life trophy participants are 4-5-6 in the standings, which makes for a more entertaining introductory season for the trophy at least. Also funny how the victories are pretty lopsided between them. Omaha pwns Lincoln who pwns Tri-Town who pwns Omaha.

But I digress. The whole point of this exercise is to weigh games-in-hand into the standings to give a better picture of how the playoff race is shaking out. If we count games in hand as +.5 games, an OT loss as -.5, wins as +1 and losses as -1 we get the following table:

TEAM GP W L OL GB Playoffs
Sioux Falls 41 29 10 2    
Waterloo 41 26 14 1 -3.5  
Fargo 42 24 13 5 -4  
Lincoln 40 23 14 3 -5  
Omaha 42 25 17 0 -5.5 -0.5
Tri-Town 41 18 19 4 -10 -5
Des Moines 43 19 22 2 -11 -6
Sioux City 40 8 22 10 -16.5 -11.5

Looking here, Omaha still hasn’t quite pushed Lincoln out of the playoff picture. Also noteworthy, Sioux Falls picks up a game on most of the league in the last two weeks. Coming up, both Omaha and Lincoln have relatively easy matchups visiting Des Moines and hosting Tri-Town respectively before meeting each other for the Battles on Ice. Yours truly will be in attendance at Teh Battlez and, if all goes according to plan, highly inebriated.

See you there!

Ways To Look at the Standings

If you looked at the current USHL Standing in the West (prior to games played tonight) you’d see this:

TEAM GP W L OL TP
Sioux Falls 34 25 8 1 51
Fargo 36 21 10 5 47
Waterloo 35 22 13 0 44
Lincoln 33 20 10 3 43
Omaha 35 19 16 0 38
Des Moines 37 18 18 1 37
Tri-Town 35 15 16 4 34
Sioux City 34 6 20 8 20

And you’d see Lincoln sits in fourth place, on the cusp of elimination from post season play. But that really doesn’t paint an accurate picture of the season so far. For whatever reason, Lincoln has a game in hand against the division leader, two against the team immediately above them in the standings, and a whopping three games in hand against Fargo.

I, for one, prefer the baseball way of ranking teams in the midst of a season, taking games in hand into consideration instead of just throwing out the points totals. If we modify hockey standings to score as follows:

  • Loss: -1 game in the standings
  • Overtime Loss: -0.5 games in the standings
  • Win–overtime or otherwise: +1 game in the standings

and apply it to the current USHL West we get a much more appealing picture (because, hey, Stars fan!).

TEAM GP W L OL GB Playoffs
Sioux Falls 34 25 8 1    
Fargo 36 21 10 5 -3  
Lincoln 33 20 10 3 -3  
Waterloo 35 22 13 0 -4  
Omaha 35 19 16 0 -7 -3
Des Moines 37 18 18 1 -8.5 -4.5
Tri-Town 35 15 16 4 -9.5 -5.5
Sioux City 34 6 20 8 -15.5 -12.5

See, games in hand are actually important! In one view Lincoln is on the verge of not making the playoffs. In the other they’re tied for having home ice advantage in the first round. It is kind of a big deal.

Now, if Lincoln fritters them away, well…that’s just not going to happen. Go Stars!