So, are the Rags fans feeling good for the season ahead? 3 for 3 so far with impressive wins over CBJ and a close one vs the Hawks. Ain't too shabby.

BTW, watched the Caps-Devils ... Even though the Caps won, they still have some work to do.
- chimpira

I think we've been feeling good all summer long.

Lundqvist claims he's in the best shape of his life and has never felt this good to start a season...and it seems that's true.

Our team, despite being ranked like the last place prospect pool in the league for the past 4 years, continues to pump out quality NHL talent that can play 200 foot games. Lindberg is playing unreal, JT Miller is playing great, Hayes is developing, Kreider will probably have a breakout season and Stepan looks poised to finally break 70 points. McDonagh, Girardi, Staal, Yandle, and Klein are playing good right now...especially Yandle and Klein. We had Fast and Etem scratched last night which is just a testament to how deep we really are. I see a final 4 finish for the 4th time in 5 years at the very least again.

I think we've been feeling good all summer long.

Lundqvist claims he's in the best shape of his life and has never felt this good to start a season...and it seems that's true.

Our team, despite being ranked like the last place prospect pool in the league for the past 4 years, continues to pump out quality NHL talent that can play 200 foot games. Lindberg is playing unreal, JT Miller is playing great, Hayes is developing, Kreider will probably have a breakout season and Stepan looks poised to finally break 70 points. McDonagh, Girardi, Staal, Yandle, and Klein are playing good right now...especially Yandle and Klein. We had Fast and Etem scratched last night which is just a testament to how deep we really are. I see a final 4 finish for the 4th time in 5 years at the very least again.
- rangerdanger94

Yeah, I was going to say - Lindberg and Miller have been looking great so far.

Other guys all do to a certain extent. I think it was due to Ryan pushing Analytics to a group that doesn't want Analytics. There are people on here that love the numbers but a lot don't & made that known, so I think rather than get frustrated Gunner just stopped replying to everything. It would be very frustrating spending time on articles then have them pulled apart because some don't like the subject matter, easy way to become an angry sob at home.

RW is a numbers man & who knows what he is pursuing outside of HB. He gives us all a new blog every day & good luck to him in whatever he is trying to achieve outside. We can get used to talking shyte to each other!
- Aussiepenguin

Aussie your a smart guy!!! and you understand "analytics"!!!It is not hard Science... Our blogger presents numbers like their gospel!!! Their not an I ve read enough of your post's to know that's a fact!!!!! We re (all of us) the peons because we don't sit in on Pseudo Scientific "seminars"... (RYAN HOCKEY IS A SCIENCE AND ART!!!!) Your graphs are not hard SCience and will never account for aspects that are "art"

I understand that just fine. It's just that a player's Corsi for one game isn't a useful stat. I don't think there are any one-game stats that can even begin to give someone that didn't watch the game an idea of how well a player played. When talking about how a player played in a particular game, the only thing you can really do is talk about the actual hockey that was played.
- Victoro311

Victor, how can you put together data from 'different' games to evaluate your results? The opposition is different, the team may play differently, condition of ice different, health of the player(s) different. Doing that you are corrupting the data. How can you use Corsi from 1 game - you can't. How can you use it from multiple games - you can't as it's not correct data you are evaluating. Get my drift! Corsi is flawed in a huge way.

What good is the Corsi from the Yotes players last season? Means zero my friend.

As I've said before goals are 99.999999999% goalie.

Aussie your a smart guy!!! and you understand "analytics" is not hard Science... Our blogger presents numbers like their gospel!!! Their not an I ve read enough of your post's to know that's a fact!!!!! We re (all of us) the peons because we don't sit in on Pseudo Scientific "seminars"... (RYAN HOCKEY IS A SCIENCE AND ART!!!!) Your graphs are not hard SCience and will never account for "art"
- Brianandr1

BTW, whatever you're teaching in College/University, I hope it's not English. Unless you type really fast or make mistakes on purpose. No hard feelings, but it's a pet peeve of mine when people write "your" instead of "you're", "their" instead of "they're", and "it's" instead of "its".

BTW, whatever you're teaching in College/University, I hope it's not English. Unless you type really fast or make mistakes on purpose. No hard feelings, but it's a pet peeve of mine when people write "your" instead of "you're", "their" instead of "they're" and "it's" instead of "its".
- chimpira

Most of what we do is research based. I apologize! I write on this thread like I take notes. (Just jot it down) Ex... Believe it or not most people in my profession are mediocre writers at best... (Myself included)

Most of what we do is research based. I apologize! I write on this thread like I take notes. (Just jot it down) Ex... Believe it or not most people in my profession are mediocre writers at best... (Myself included)
- Brianandr1

No worries, mate.

Victor, how can you put together data from 'different' games to evaluate your results? The opposition is different, the team may play differently, condition of ice different, health of the player(s) different. Doing that you are corrupting the data. How can you use Corsi from 1 game - you can't. How can you use it from multiple games - you can't as it's not correct data you are evaluating. Get my drift! Corsi is flawed in a huge way.

What good is the Corsi from the Yotes players last season? Means zero my friend.

As I've said before goals are 99.999999999% goalie.
- Aussiepenguin

Your 100 percent correct!!! (Hank is great BTW)

CORSI lacks a control group... It would be like studying Dolphins from different parts of the world!!!! To many environmental factors to reach hard conclusions.

Victor, how can you put together data from 'different' games to evaluate your results? The opposition is different, the team may play differently, condition of ice different, health of the player(s) different. Doing that you are corrupting the data. How can you use Corsi from 1 game - you can't. How can you use it from multiple games - you can't as it's not correct data you are evaluating. Get my drift! Corsi is flawed in a huge way.

What good is the Corsi from the Yotes players last season? Means zero my friend.

As I've said before goals are 99.999999999% goalie.
- Aussiepenguin

It seems to me like this exact same logic could be applied to goal scoring as well. Basically if we're gonna use this train of thought is it possible to analyze a player at all? Wouldn't we be working off the assumption that every new game is a clean slate?

#trade71

#statsrdumb

Another doom and gloom Ryan Wilson blog. My hand is up by the way. I never considered the Coyotes the worst team in the league. They have the best defenseman in the NHL and a couple other really good ones. They have a very young and dangerous top 6 and they still have guys like Strone and Samuelson in the minors. Mike Smith steals games all the time, he just isn't consistent. The Penguins aside from Scuderi has been much better than hey we're supposed to be. When a goalie is dialed in like the last 2 games it's really a difficult task to score. With all the padding the goalies have these days there are not many open areas to score. Coaching is huge issue right now. Is Johnston going to scrap the 2 PP idea because he now sees its a terrible idea or is he going to continue us to be stubborn about it? Why is Scuderi still in the lineup when he is brutally useless and could easily be replaced by players already under contract? Why can't we try a third line of really young and hungry players and sit Cullen and Porter and Farmhandam can go to WBS where they belong? Let's try some new line combos and d pairings because it's not clicking right now.
Sprong Crosby Kessel
Perron Malkin Hornquist
Kunitz Bonino Bennet
Plotnikov Sundquist Rust or Wilson
Dumoulin Letang
Maatta Cole
Lovejoy Clendening
That would inject some life into this lineup and some speed and talent in the top 6

Aussie your a smart guy!!! and you understand "analytics"!!!It is not hard Science... Our blogger presents numbers like their gospel!!! Their not an I ve read enough of your post's to know that's a fact!!!!! We re (all of us) the peons because we don't sit in on Pseudo Scientific "seminars"... (RYAN HOCKEY IS A SCIENCE AND ART!!!!) Your graphs are not hard SCience and will never account for aspects that are "art"
- Brianandr1

My wife begs to differ!

Another doom and gloom Ryan Wilson blog. My hand is up by the way. I never considered the Coyotes the worst team in the league. They have the best defenseman in the NHL and a couple other really good ones. They have a very young and dangerous top 6 and they still have guys like Strone and Samuelson in the minors. Mike Smith steals games all the time, he just isn't consistent. The Penguins aside from Scuderi has been much better than hey we're supposed to be. When a goalie is dialed in like the last 2 games it's really a difficult task to score. With all the padding the goalies have these days there are not many open areas to score. Coaching is huge issue right now. Is Johnston going to scrap the 2 PP idea because he now sees its a terrible idea or is he going to continue us to be stubborn about it? Why is Scuderi still in the lineup when he is brutally useless and could easily be replaced by players already under contract? Why can't we try a third line of really young and hungry players and sit Cullen and Porter and Farmhandam can go to WBS where they belong? Let's try some new line combos and d pairings because it's not clicking right now.
Sprong Crosby Kessel
Perron Malkin Hornquist
Kunitz Bonino Bennet
Plotnikov Sundquist Rust or Wilson
Dumoulin Letang
Maatta Cole
Lovejoy Clendening
That would inject some life into this lineup and some speed and talent in the top 6
- Dcoms

I like what you're saying but I would be too uncomfortable giving Dumoulin the 20+ minutes a night that Letang's partner gets. I still think that we should roll the Maatta-Letang pairing.

There really is way too many bad vibes just two games into the season. 50% of the lineup is new. Let the boys build chemistry for a bit and the young guys settle in before hitting the panic switch. There's something to the Johnston critiques but I'm not ready to claim that he's lost the room or call for his firing two games into the season.

What is Katherine Tappen doing on a football show. She better have not left the NHL network.

This team continues to make goalies look like GODS. It seems to me like this team just stinks. Goalies all over the league are just average and we make them look better than they really are. Over rated talent on this team Announcers Steigy in particular make me sick. Blowing smoke about how good players are skating and doing this. They suck right now Quit with the hype crap
- holeinone

OH I wish they would take that emoticon away from you. Don't you prunes to eat because your plumbing is no longer working?

It seems to me like this exact same logic could be applied to goal scoring as well. Basically if we're gonna use this train of thought is it possible to analyze a player at all? Wouldn't we be working off the assumption that every new game is a clean slate?
- Victoro311

Yes very interesting Vic. The thing is that certain guys score goals regularly & against different oppositions. Now they don't always score by putting lots of shots on net do they? As 1 shot could equate to 1 goal then 10 shots nothing.

That's my point, there is so much Kaos in a game that there is no identifying event that triggers a goal every time. It's assessing each game as it's own event, & having information or data on how teams play as a whole, as a D & as a F line for that 1 game. Corsi isn't that statistic. Last years Yotes team isn't this years team. The data from the Kings game would give you more information about how they play than 3 years of historic data.

Different games different conditions. That 2nd Yotes goal should never have been scored it was did to the lack of urgency from the Pens players around Flower. That is Kaos, because next game there may be more urgency or Flower will find & hold freeze the puck. Goals are Kaos - unexplained events (although you can see why they happen after they happen), that cannot be predicted.

The only time I've seen him "engage" was when he taunted people to play the capgeek roster game. What a fun guy. What's the point of writing for an audience if you don't respect them?

I believe that about 4-5 replies on each blog are direct responses to his stuff; the rest - it's just a message board for people to vent and whatnot. But RW can keep riding his stallion.
- chimpira

Yeah he's a very condecending guy for a man that plagerizes half his material and steals the rest. If you have ever listened to his podcast his voice is a dead ringer for a$$ napkin Ed from the Howard Stern Show. Skip forward to about the 8 minute mark, it's uncanny http://youtu.be/660-iz60P5w

Yes very interesting Vic. The thing is that certain guys score goals regularly & against different oppositions. Now they don't always score by putting lots of shots on net do they? As 1 shot could equate to 1 goal then 10 shots nothing.

That's my point, there is so much Kaos in a game that there is no identifying event that triggers a goal every time. It's assessing each game as it's own event, & having information or data on how teams play as a whole, as a D & as a F line for that 1 game. Corsi isn't that statistic. Last years Yotes team isn't this years team. The data from the Kings game would give you more information about how they play than 3 years of historic data.

Different games different conditions. That 2nd Yotes goal should never have been scored it was did to the lack of urgency from the Pens players around Flower. That is Kaos, because next game there may be more urgency or Flower will find & hold freeze the puck. Goals are Kaos - unexplained events (although you can see why they happen after they happen), that cannot be predicted.
- Aussiepenguin

"kaos"

My wife begs to differ!
- Aussiepenguin

So does my ex... Briana lol... Shoud have changed my user name!!!

Have the Pens thrown a check this season?

“Dey soff”, as to reiterate what Thierren once said. Anyone think HCMJ would make similar comments (publicly)? Right.

There is greater parity in the league in terms of skill, speed, team strength, playing style, etc… maybe the margin of separation isn’t as great as we once thought it was. Teams are getting bigger, younger, and faster and IMO, the Pens need an injection of all three. On average, the team is 4th oldest, and ranks near the bottom in terms of height and weight. DAL has decent size, and is a fast team; AZ has size and some youthful speed. Teams w/ size and/or speed will continue to give Pgh trouble at both ends of the rink. Add-in HCMJ’s perimeter game and the results are pedestrian. What I don't get, is how he expects skill to return positive results w/out venturing to the middle of the ice.

Dropping points early in the season can be taboo, but it’s only been 2 games (too early for panic). However, by the time Thanksgiving rolls around, we’ll see how things are going for this team. Historically, if a team is more than two points out of the playoffs at this point of the season, their chances of making the playoffs are just over 10 percent.

My biggest gripe against this team, even going back to last season, is their inconsistent play/ lack of effort for a full 60 minutes. I get it – they’re not going to win 82 games (by 4 or 5 goal margin), but if they lose a game while putting everything on the line, then, as a fan, I can handle that. Playing in spurts, or coasting through parts of the game doesn’t endure the team to its fan-base – it frustrates them.
- out_of_market

The Penguins outhit the Coyotes and the Stars. They arnt soft, that's not the problem and having "tougher" players is not the solution. The goon days of the NHL are gone. John Scott was the last of the old WWF style hockey players that couldn't play hockey but were good for at least one staged side show a game. And a lot of those types of players are now living really awful lives in poor health and mental condition for being punched in the head too many times. A lot of them can't find work even and did not handle their money correctly.

Yeah he's a very condecending guy for a man that plagerizes half his material and steals the rest. If you have ever listened to his podcast his voice is a dead ringer for a$$ napkin Ed from the Howard Stern Show. Skip forward to about the 8 minute mark, it's uncanny http://youtu.be/660-iz60P5w
- Dcoms

Im surprised anyone reads these blogs anymore. I enjoy the comments but the blogs arent very interesting anymore. And I agree with everything you said. He just cuts and pastes crap.

Yes very interesting Vic. The thing is that certain guys score goals regularly & against different oppositions. Now they don't always score by putting lots of shots on net do they? As 1 shot could equate to 1 goal then 10 shots nothing.

That's my point, there is so much Kaos in a game that there is no identifying event that triggers a goal every time. It's assessing each game as it's own event, & having information or data on how teams play as a whole, as a D & as a F line for that 1 game. Corsi isn't that statistic. Last years Yotes team isn't this years team. The data from the Kings game would give you more information about how they play than 3 years of historic data.

Different games different conditions. That 2nd Yotes goal should never have been scored it was did to the lack of urgency from the Pens players around Flower. That is Kaos, because next game there may be more urgency or Flower will find & hold freeze the puck. Goals are Kaos - unexplained events (although you can see why they happen after they happen), that cannot be predicted.
- Aussiepenguin

So where, then, does this leave NHL GMs when constructing a team? This logic dictates that they really don't have anything to go off and it just comes down random turns of luck in specific games. Is there nothing an NHL GM can do to stack the deck and increase the odds of winning games by signing certain players? If we're claiming that each game is its own isolated event and nothing in the past can tell you anything about how a specific game will probably play out, then there's really not and there's no such thing as good or bad GMs. Just lucky and unlucky ones.

You can yell and scream all you like about Scuderi!!! (He was decent last night.. NOT GOOD OR GREAT!!!!!) Bottom line is this team cant score goals... Look at the last 20 games of 14-15... the playoffs and these 2 games... TIOPS article (posted earlier) is spot on regarding this coach, system and organization as a whole. (PLease as a pens fan let me be wrong!!!!)
- Brianandr1

What game were you watching? Scuderi was embarrassing. He fell down at least twice when no one was even near him. He did nothing useful in any way. Did you service him at a glory hole one day or something? I don't get why you're so blind to his uselessness?

Sprong Crosby Hornqvist
Kunitz Malkin Kessel
Perron Bonino Plotnikov
Potter Cullen Bennett

Don't like Kessel with Sid anymore, he is too much finess, I think Sid thrives on a line that gets in and grinds. I loved the Kuni Sid Horny line last year, but every game Sprong plays harder and harder on the puck. I think he could fit with Sid and Hornqvist.

Malkin is better suited to play with Kessel, I though the speed on Kessel and Crosby would be deadly but now I think the slower miander that Malkin plays with will allow Kessel more time to find a soft spot while everyone concentrates on Malkin.

Bonino is too slow, Fehr should be an upgrade one he gets back.

BTW Boedker looked pretty good last night and Domi is going to be a really good player.