Saturday, October 29, 2011

This is our post for 2011.

Hi.

During today's Rangers/Senators game, the commentators were talking about how lucky the Rangers have been to be .500 considering how bad their offense has been. They noted how rare it is for a team to be in that position when they're 29th in the league offensively. There are two problems with that.

First of all, they're not .500. They're 3-3-2. That's .375. If a team went ".500" throughout the year they'd finish with 82 points and miss the playoffs. Minnesota went 4 games over ".500" last year and finished 12th in the western conference.

Second, it's not a terrible thing for a team to be bad offensively. Some teams are built to focus on defense. I compiled a list of teams who have struggled offensively the past few years and finished with a ".500" record.

Season, Team, Goals/Gm, Rank, Record, Made Playoffs?

2009-10, Boston, 2.39, 30th, 39-30-13, Yes
2009-10, Calgary, 2.45, 29th, 40-32-10, No
2008-09, NY Rangers, 2.44, 28th, 43-30-9, Yes
2007-08, Anaheim, 2.40, 28th, 47-27-8, Yes
2007-08, New Jersey, 2.42, 27th, 46-29-7, Yes
2007-08, NY Rangers, 2.50, 25th, 42-27-13, Yes
2007-08, Boston, 2.51, 24th, 41-29-12, Yes
2006-07, New Jersey, 2.51, 27th, 49-24-9, Yes
2005-06, Calgary, 2.63, 27th, 46-25-11, Yes

You'll notice some repeat offenders on this list(Calgary, New Jersey, Boston, NEW YORK RANGERS). This is clearly an indication that a defensively minded team can succeed in the league.

Cheer up, the Rangers will be fine.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Just to make it clear that we ha... ah, fuck it.

September in October. Wins are dumb, Phil Kessel, Darren Helm... you get the picture.