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September 7, 2010, 04:12 PM ET
[UPDATED] Hockey Prospectus 2010-11 available tonight, plus VUKOTA fantasy hockey update
by Andrew Rothstein
UPDATE: The Hockey Prospectus pdf is now available. The new version of the VUKOTA spreadsheet has been released. You will download both of these products from your manage profile page at Baseball Prospectus. As revisions are released, they will be available for download from your manage profile page automatically–simply visit the page again to see all the latest versions of the products you have purchased.
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The Hockey Prospectus 2010-11 book will be available in .pdf form starting tonight on our website, while the hard copy of the book should be available on Amazon.com by next week.
The VUKOTA fantasy excel spreadsheet will be updated either tonight or tomorrow and will now include all GVTs, plus save %, PPG, PPA and PIM.
If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me at ARothstein@PuckProspectus.com.
September 2, 2010, 12:31 AM ET
VUKOTA fantasy projections now available
by Andrew Rothstein
The VUKOTA fantasy projections are now available. We’ll keep the VUKOTA spreadsheet updated in case of injuries or any transactions that cause depth chart changes, so that you’ll have the most up to date projections for the 2010-11 season.
Also, we’ve updated the player profiles in the Pittsburgh Penguins .pdf sample chapter from Hockey Prospectus 2010-11. These new player profiles will be found in the book and not the old ones.
August 30, 2010, 05:31 PM ET
Chat about Hockey Prospectus 2010-11
by Timo Seppa
Got questions about our upcoming book, Hockey Prospectus 2010-11?
Join me for an online chat on Friday, September 3rd at 1 pm. You can send in your questions ahead of time here.
Find out who VUKOTA is choosing as the best bet to raise the Stanley Cup this year, how your favorite team is going to fare, and who you should select on your fantasy hockey team. See you there!
August 30, 2010, 04:05 PM ET
Hockey Prospectus 2010-11 available soon, plus VUKOTA fantasy hockey projections
by Andrew Rothstein
Timo Seppa’s sample chapter from the Hockey Prospectus 2010-11 annual on the Pittsburgh Penguins is now up on the site. Feel free to check it out.
The VUKOTA fantasy hockey projections should be ready within the next day or two and will be posted on the site. Within the projections, you will find the 2010-11 projections for every player, which will include the basic statistics that most fantasy sites use. GVTs will not be included in the fantasy projections, but they will be included in the book.
The .pdf version of the book should be available either later on this week or at the start of next week, while the actual book should be available on Amazon.com near the end of next week.
Also, you might be surprised by the name of the book given that we go by the name Puck Prospectus on the website. Within the next couple of weeks, we’ll be making the change to Hockey Prospectus and we’ll be sure to give everyone notice as to when that is happening.
Good luck with your fantasy drafts and check out Hockey Prospectus as the 2010-11 hockey season approaches.
June 15, 2010, 01:20 PM ET
2010-11 Puck Prospectus Annual
by Andrew Rothstein
What a season it’s been and congratulations to the Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks.
With the NHL season at an end, it’s now time for us to turn our attention towards the offseason. To kick things off, we’re working on a series with ESPN called Plugging Holes, which began yesterday and can be found here.
Also this summer, we will be taking time to work on the very first Puck Prospectus Annual, which should be available starting the first week of September. Included will be VUKOTA team and player projections, player profiles, essays on shot quality, corsi and fenwick, league equivalencies, the top prospects in hockey, plus an argument for a balanced schedule as well as the history of statistical analysis in hockey. For those of you who love the injury insight you get from a Baseball Prospectus annual or the Football Outsiders Almanac, you will be happy to know that Will Carroll will be contributing to this project and will be writing about upper body and lower body injuries for us.
Enjoy the offseason and keep checking Puck Prospectus for up to date content on hockey throughout the summer.
June 11, 2010, 02:44 PM ET
Hall of Fame Induction Predictions, 2010-2012
by Iain Fyffe
On June 22, the Hockey Hall of Fame will announce its induction class for 2010. There are a number of quality players in their first year of eligibility, and a few holdovers that deserve consideration. Now that last year’s ridiculous class (Yzerman, Hull, Robitaille, Leetch) has cleared the boards a bit, we’ll see some less-sure-fire candidates this year.
I’m putting the finishing touches on the Inductinator, a system to predict who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame based on the standards of recent players who have been inducted. It’s not necessarily about who should be in, but who will be, based on implicit standards developed from how the selection committee inducts players. A series of articles is upcoming to detail the Inductinator, but for now we can use it to make some predictions; I wanted to get something out before this year’s class is announced. All of the following players meet the implicit standards used in the system.
- Class of 2010: Alexander Mogilny, John LeClair, Joe Nieuwendyk, Pierre Turgeon
- Class of 2011: Ed Belfour, Eric Lindros, Dave Andreychuk
- Class of 2012: Joe Sakic, Brendan Shanahan, Mats Sundin, Jeremy Roenick
Note that Lindros and Andreychuk are both eligible in 2010, but are the fifth- and sixth-most qualified players according to the system. One or both of them might go in this year, in which case the players they replace get shifted to 2011.
If the fourth available spot is to be filled in 2011 (and it doesn’t have to be), the most likely candidates are Adam Oates and Pavel Bure, both of whom miss the Hall of Fame standards by the slimmest of margins, according to the Inductinator. A wildcard is Sergei Makarov, who the Inductinator is not calibrated to evaluate, since he played most of his good years in Europe. The system is designed to examine current players, and Makarov was among the last of a type of player who doesn’t really exist any more: superstar players who play their prime in Europe and their declining years in the NHL. These days it’s the other way around.
May 28, 2010, 10:19 PM ET
Niemi’s Finnish track record
by Timo Seppa
In today’s Finals’ preview, I mentioned some promising stats for Philadelphia’s Michael Leighton in his last AHL campaign of 2007-8. But Leighton wasn’t the only goalie showing promise that season. Chicago goaltender Antti Niemi showed signs of potentially becoming a very good netminder in 2007-8 as well. In his age 24 season with the Lahti Pelicans of the Finnish Elite League, Niemi was 26-14-6 with a 2.35 GAA.
In addition to running his Goals Versus Threshold stat for the NHL, Tom Awad also runs it for leagues like the Finnish Elite League. Is it any surprise that Niemi’s 2007-8 season ranked 4th in the league, at a +30.4 GVT rating? (At age 23, he was a respectable +11.0 GVT, for 65th in the league.) That kind of performance clearly counts for something.
Fast forward to North America. While sporting an average .912 save percentage in 39 games with the Blackhawks this season, Niemi impressively had 7 shutouts - Steve Mason-like territory (Steve Mason from 2008-9, that is). With positive signs like the fine 2007-8 Finnish league season and the high percentage of shutouts (7 in 39 games) this season, it’s not surprising to see Antti Niemi coming up big this postseason, with a 12-4 record, .921 save percentage and 2 shutouts. And maybe a championship, to top it off.
May 18, 2010, 10:54 AM ET
The Flyers’ other achievement
by Timo Seppa
Everyone’s impressed–rightly so–with the Philadelphia Flyers dual 3-0 comebacks - both from a 3-0 series deficit against the Bruins and from a 3-0 deficit in the deciding Game 7. That we all know.
How’s this for another nice streak the Broad Street Bullies are on? - Between scoring the last 4 GF against Boston in Game 7 and all 6 GF against Montreal in Game 1, Philadelphia has scored 10 GF in a row without giving up any GA. And counting. Pretty sweet.
Such streaks are fairly rare, occurring a few times per typical season: According to Gabriel Desjardins, there have been only 29 other streaks of 10+ GF with 0 GA since the Lockout. And better than 10 GF? Only nine occurrences - three streaks of 11 GF (2007-8 Panthers, 2006-7 Canucks, 2008-9 Blackhawks), three streaks of 12 GF (2008-9 Sabres, 2005-6 Red Wings, 2005-6 Senators), three streaks of 14 GF (2005-6 Sabres, 2006-7 Senators, 2005-6 Thrashers).
For whatever reason, the Flyers’ feat was only matched one other time in 2009-10…
…and as you may have guessed, it was by the Montreal Canadiens. Over the course of three games in late January (3-1 against New Jersey, 6-0 against the New York Rangers and 1-2 against Florida), les Habitants scored 10 goals in a row without giving one up to the competition.
What’s the streak mean? That you’re good? That you’re lucky? Both, course.
It will be interesting to see if Philadelphia can extend this streak, but even more interesting to see if Montreal remains as resilient as they’ve been to playoff drubbings in general and poor Game 1’s in specific.
Thanks to Puck Prospectus contributor Gabriel Desjardins of Behind the Net for his assistance.
May 8, 2010, 09:02 PM ET
All-time GVT now available
by Thomas Awad
There is possibly no question we get more often at PuckProspectus than “where can I get GVT for all NHL players?”. Now your requests have been answered. You can now find, at the PuckProspectus Google Docs site (link at bottom), GVT data for every NHL player.
Ever.
That’s right, GVT for every player, every season, since 1944 is now available. For now, the file is only available as a download. If there is a different way you feel the data could be organized better, feel free to drop me a line.
The data is here, in the GVT folder:
http://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B8D4onnbcAAUNDJjNmRkNjMtNzEyYi00YmY2LTg4YjUtZGZiOTNhNmUwMzcz&hl=en
May 1, 2010, 12:21 PM ET
Hockey chat transcript
by Timo Seppa
What happened to the powerhouse Washington Capitals? Who’s going to advance out of the wild, wild Western Conference? Could it be a Penguins-Red Wings rematch…again? Why do I like the Habs so much?
Chat transcript from May 3, 2010 is available here
Also: You can also listen to my take on the postseason on Tuesdays at 5:05 pm on the John DiTullio Show on 1280 WHTK in Rochester and Saturday, May 8 at 10:25 am on the Blue Line Show with Matthew Coller on ESPN 950 in Rochester. Podcasts are available on both sites of my previous shows.
You can also get my postseason insights @timoseppa on Twitter.
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