WordsOfWisdom

FYI: The yellow highlighted columns are the SOURCE columns/data used to calculate the two columns on the far right. They're highlighted only to indicate where I'm getting the data for my calculations. The only column that matters is the blue one.

I think it would be very wearable too. Just have the legs stick out the bottom, and put some cut-outs for the arms. Head and neck would stick out the top. It would work. Bonus points if it's made out of real rubber/plastic like an actual pylon... and even more bonus points if it has some Leafs logos on it and a reflective area.

Leafs will be like: Who is this Matt Carle and when can we sign him????????

We need something that represents BAD DEFENCE........ (light bulb moment)......... Fans need to start throwing PYLONS on the ice!!!! Or maybe fans could dress up as pylons and sit near the glass so they're on TV.

FYI: The yellow TOI column is the result of copying a MM:SS value into Excel, which immediately converts it into a date/time field. What you see there is the player's average TOI per game at even strength represented as the portion of a 24-hour day in HH:MM. (Confusing right?) But knowing what Excel was doing, I compensated for that and fixed it so that my TOI column (on the right) is the player's TOI in minutes per game at even strength multiplied by number of games played.

Okay, so here we go. I found what I was looking for, crunched the numbers, and this is what I originally wanted when I started this process. Here are the Leafs players sorted by "Defence" from best to worst, and now point-producing players are no longer at a disadvantage: I did this quickly, so my math could still be wrong..... but this is as close to "definitive" as we're going to get in my opinion. HOW IT WORKS: I considered only EVEN STRENGTH play. The TOI column is the total minutes played at even strength for each player. The GA/60 is the number of goals the other team scored while said player was on the ice, divided by 60 to give a rate per "game". The blue column "DEF" considers that GA/60 rate and then factors in the ice time in minutes, to arrive at a figure not unlike "fielding percentage" in baseball. (Some of you may recall my defensive errors stat from a few years back and this will be familiar to you.) Basically, a perfect score is 1.000. A score of "0.897" means that 89.7% of that player's minutes were without the other team scoring a goal. Keep in mind that you need to have some playing time before this stat really means something. As you can see, Cody Ceci is the best Leafs player defensively. Matthews is the best defensive forward. Worst players defensively? Spezza, Marincin, Gauthier, Kerfoot, etc... Thoughts?

The Leafs sitting at 57 points and once again on the outside of the playoffs looking in, evoke the following reactions from Leafs fans: "We're one trade away from winning the Cup." "All we need is a defenceman and we're good to go!" "This is the best Leafs team in years!" Meanwhile, Flyers fans (with their team sitting at 58 points) seem to react as follows: "This team is unwatchable." "This team sucks." "Trade this guy away for pucks." "At least we're building towards something in the future." etc... It really is a different standard of excellence between the two organizations. The Flyers are the most successful expansion franchise in the NHL. When the Leafs essentially stopped competing in the 1970's, Philly sort of took over as the game's second most dominant franchise (behind only Montreal). The trouble with the Leafs is that the Leafs are still only "McDonalds good" when they're good. They're a playoff bubble team at their best, never threatening to win a division title let alone a President's trophy. Teams like Boston, Philly, Montreal, Detroit, Chicago, New York, etc. are "The Keg Steakhouse" or "Red Lobster" good when they're good. When they're on top, people know about it. They make noise. They dominate. They're able to stand at the top of the mountain, not just cling to the side of it halfway up from the bottom. When are we going to see a Leafs team that dominates in this league? Seriously. Will Leafs fans ever see a team that finishes first? I've watched ~30 other teams win a President's trophy and about that many other teams win a Stanley Cup. The only team in the NHL that can't finish on top of anything is Toronto. You could have a division with only two teams in it and Toronto would finish 2nd. Come f____king on. This team as currently constructed can finish 1st in GF and 31st in GA and they'll finish 16th in the standings (exactly where they should be), meaning there will be 15 other teams in this league who are more likely to win that Cup before Toronto does. (End rant after Leafs latest slide.)

And he's Frrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrenchaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Uhhhhaahhhhhahhaa! I keep thinking of Howe as a center for some reason. Okay, I'll retract my previous statement because Ovie has not surpassed Gordie yet. My favourite Brett Hull moment was when Canada was playing the US. The US had a power play and Canadian turncoat Brett Hull was getting feed after feed and doing one-timer shots over and over and missing the net lol. I believe that was the 2002 Olympics where Canada won gold. I think you might be in for a surprise. I'm not sure we've seen McDavid's "ceiling" yet. He may be able to score 50-60 goals and still put up the same assist figures that he's doing.

I think Crosby is the better overall player too. I'm just saying when we look back at these guys, Ovechkin is going to be considered as possibly the greatest goal scorer of all time (when we adjust for era). Nobody is going to say Crosby is the best playmaker or goal scorer of all time when he retires. Given that Crosby is a center, he should have more points. Almost all the top points players of all time are centers. Ovechkin is playing the game at another level and for the role of top winger, he is doing it better than anyone else in the history of the game. You could make the case today that Ovechkin is the best winger in the history of the NHL. Yes but whenever you watch a Gretzky highlight it's of him scoring. People aren't remembering the assists other than the Team Canada goal with Mario. That's my point. People remember goals and people remember goal-scorers. I'd take McDavid over both of them today too, but I don't see your comparison. McDavid can score better than Matthews can, and he's playing most of the time on a crap team in Edmonton. Did I not just watch McDavid blow past Rielly and score the best goal of this season so far a few weeks ago? Matthews can't do that. He's a good goal scorer, but he's not playing at the level McDavid is.

But you have to factor in the probability that given 6 random seasons of NHL hockey today, 1 of them will be wasted in a lockout, 1 of them will be lost to a torn ACL or concussion, and the last 2 will be spent in the KHL. So he has half a season to work with in the next lockout year (January to April) He has maybe half a season to work with in the torn ACL/concussion year (October to January) Plus two 82-game healthy seasons

I guess my point is that history remembers goal scorers more favorably so it's in Crosby's best interest to start shooting the puck more and become more of a goal scorer rather than being content to just pile up assists. Nobody remembers Adam Oates and nobody is going to remember Joe Thornton when he retires. They remember Gretzky because of his goals not his assists. Ditto for Lemieux. The fact that they could also get assists was an added bonus, but being a goal scorer first and foremost was most important.

Yeah he needs to step it up a bit. He is getting injured way too much. He's becoming more "Peter Forsberg" than "Steve Yzerman" if you know what I mean.

The #1 thing that would stop Ovie from passing those milestones would be yet another NHL lockout. I wonder how many games Ovie has lost to lockouts in his career thus far.

It's really up to Ovie. I think he finishes #2 all time behind Gretzky. He could easily play 3-4 more seasons of hockey at around ~30 goals per season if he stays healthy and stays out of the KHL, and that will be enough to pass Howe. If he gets any serious injury between now and then, I'll reduce my estimate to him finishing somewhere around where Jagr is. Question: Has Crosby even got to 500 goals yet?

(It's a slow weekend and I'm snowed in today so I figured I'd return to this thread again lol...) From what I'm hearing, most people seem to be of the opinion that: a) Your employer can do anything they want to you, so long as you agreed to it in your employment contract. In other words, employment contracts supersede any other laws and/or basic civil rights and liberties. b) That free speech only exists if nobody is offended by the speech. If anyone takes offence to the speech, the speech must be erased from all media sources, the speaker must be prevented from speaking in the future, and if the speaker has a job then they must be fired immediately as retribution or somehow have their life destroyed. c) People are happy with the status quo and don't see any conflict of interest or any potential problems that might occur by allowing your employer to control what you say in both your professional and private life. When you consider the "what's the harm?" argument in all of this, the worst thing that Roenick could do with his comments is put a scowl on the faces of a few listeners. That may/may not affect the viewership ratings for that show. The people in question who Roenick mentioned by name have the legal recourse of a defamation suit to defend their reputation against untrue allegations and so on. That's why it's there. But assuming nobody got offended, that would have been the end of the story right there. On the other hand, given how things did unfold, now we have created a culture of fear where nobody knows if they're allowed to say something any more. Now we've created a culture where you err on the side of caution, meaning you keep your mouth shut. If someone asks what you think about something, you say "I have no opinion on that" ... because that's the only thing you CAN say without being fired. Or (even worse) you have to read the media, gauge what's popular, and then follow the popular side by expressing the same opinion as everyone else. That's the "tow the line" / "group-think" route. I think the world loses so much more with the way things currently are. Comments don't have to be nice or necessary, they only have to be true.