Are the Caps this year's biggest frauds?

[Mez]

Only 4 teams do.

People saying the Canucks were trash last year and thought they’d be upset by the Preds or embarrassed by the Oilers were wrong.

Where did I say they were trash? all i said was that the Caps are getting high PDO right now and I dont expect they make it out of the 2nd round...this isnt hard to understand.

 

[um]

Where did I say they were trash? all i said was that the Caps are getting high PDO right now and I dont expect they make it out of the 2nd round...this isnt hard to understand.

That’s a safe statement for every team.

I also said people, I didn’t say you.

 

[GRob83]

those 16 games span was a little nosedive:
First 18 games with Ovi P%=.750
Next 16 games w/o Ovi P%=.656
Next 20 games with Ovi P%=.775

Wasn't a knock on Ovechkin at all. Players like Protas, Wilson, McMichael, Dubois and Chychrun all stepped up. Logan Thompson has been lights out all year. They lead the league with 10 players with 10+ goals. This is a special team and they have the best coach in the NHL. Nobody was named to a 4 Nations Tournament team so they get to rest for 2 weeks. Ovechkin being out just gave other players the chance to prove that this is a deep and dangerous team.

 

[Lshap]

But usually such team goes back to earth next year, and we have astonished threads, like "what happened to xxx? I thought they gonna be contenders", while in many cases answer is obvious- they were never contenders, just overachievers. This year happened with Canucks.

Don't know if it's the case with the Caps, I watched just one, maybe two of their games (I always start to watch hockey in December), also don't know what their "underlying numbers" says about their sustainability- but when I look at their roster, it just doesn't seem to be one of top teams in league.

Lots of teams have one-off seasons or playoffs. It happens all the time. The fact that it surprises us is a failure on our part to look beneath the surface. There are concrete reasons why a team might succeed one season: Health, adding key players, development of young players, etc. Likewise, there are concrete reasons why the same team might fail the next season: Injuries, losing key players, aging vets, etc. There's nothing supernatural about the final results over a full season /playoffs.

In Vancouver's case, they lost Demko plus other injuries, and they had pretty serious internal issues. They're not the same team as they were last season, and the results reflect that.

In Washington's case, they've added key players, Protas has taken a leap forward, and they have this winger who's been mostly healthy and scoring goals. Not close to the same team as last season, and the results reflect that.

Vancouver didn't overachieve last year. Washington isn't overachieving this year. Both teams have gone through big changes – for worse and for better – and the results accurately reflect it. The only things that overachieved were our lousy predictions and analysis.

 

[DitchMarner]

Their actual goal differential is like 30 goals better than their expected goal differential.

Its like the Rangers winning the president's trophy last year while being like +1 at 5v5 over the season.

Wild stuff is happening in the cap era.

Their goal differential is +57. If it was 30 goals lower, it would still be among the best in the League - in the range of teams like EDM, VEG, CAR and FLA.

 

[HTFN]

Lots of teams have one-off seasons or playoffs. It happens all the time. The fact that it surprises us is a failure on our part to look beneath the surface. There are concrete reasons why a team might succeed one season: Health, adding key players, development of young players, etc. Likewise, there are concrete reasons why the same team might fail the next season: Injuries, losing key players, aging vets, etc. There's nothing supernaturally about the final results over a full season /playoffs.

In Vancouver's case, they lost Demko plus other injuries, and they had pretty serious internal issues. They're not the same team as they were last season, and the results reflect that.

In Washington's case, they've added key players, Protas has taken a leap forward, and they have this winger who's been mostly healthy and scoring goals. Not close to the same team as last season, and the results reflect that.

Vancouver didn't overachieve last year. Washington isn't overachieving this year. Both teams have gone through big changes – for worse and for better – and the results accurately reflect it. The only things that overachieved were our lousy predictions and analysis.

I was on the end of a break and couldn't address that post, glad to see it.

HF as a collective is a bit monolithic and slow to respond to things it doesn't already expect. It seems to take about a season and half for certain things to become "common knowledge", and the more unexpected the quicker it goes away. Protas is a good example of someone who had a lot of us excited last year (and some of us even predicted this production) but if you tried to bring that to the main boards last year you'd be that guy who overvalues his own team's prospects and dismissed without consideration. Fair enough, but that snowballs over time such that there are 10-15 teams that most of HF just kind of... doesn't care to know enough about. Like... I don't know a damn thing about the Minnesota Wild right now, how they're trending, how good their young guys are or could be... it happens.

So yeah, teams are "flukes" until they're undeniable and then get penciled in as "good" until they're not anymore, and those predictions often tend to skew depending on how large and loud the corresponding fans are. The Caps were old and cooked and destined to be a lottery team for years to a lot of main boards folks, and a smattering of Caps fans talking about the ~16-20 million they had to spend and prospects people forgot about were ignored.

Now it's "wow, where did this come from" and the urge is often to figure out why the team is wrong until we all collectively give up instead of figuring out that HF can struggle with non-linear progression.

 

[Beezeral]

Right, but that doesn't make them frauds, it just reflects the randomness of how the playoffs played out.

The Bruins won the most games since 2005. How fraudulent could they possibly be?

When your analysis of a team is as deep as “how many wins did they have”. You are gonna completely miss the mark.

Bruins of 2 years ago massively outshot their xG %. They were prime for an upset and the panthers who spent the entire season underperforming their xG% were the team to do it.

 

[gtrower]

Their goal differential is +57. If it was 30 goals lower, it would still be among the best in the League - in the range of teams like EDM, VEG, CAR and FLA.

This is the point I was trying to make earlier with the PDO analysis. Are the Caps benefiting from shooting / save percentages that are (historically-speaking) unlikely to remain that high? Probably, yeah.

But they’re not just scraping by with those numbers. They’re wayyy out in front of the East. You can factor in some regression to the mean and they’re still among the best performing teams in the East.

The existence of this thread and the majority of the arguments in it would make a lot more sense if the Caps were something like 32-15-8, 72 pts (1st in East) and +35 (2nd in East). Factoring in some regression there and they’re looking like an average team that has gotten some good bounces.

But 36-11-8, 10+ points clear in the East, and +56 looks like a good team that has also gotten some good bounces.

 

[Midnight Judges]

When your analysis of a team is as deep as “how many wins did they have”. You are gonna completely miss the mark.

Bruins of 2 years ago massively outshot their xG %. They were prime for an upset and the panthers who spent the entire season underperforming their xG% were the team to do it.

The Bruins had a higher all situations xGF% than the Panthers (54.17% to 53.54%).

Even if we remove 3v3 from that equation (the Bruins were 4-2 and the Panthers were 4-5) it still probably doesn't get Florida ahead in all situations xGF%.

I think what you're doing here is focusing entirely on 5v5 while simply discarding 30%+ of all scoring. So powerplay, PK, empty net (which DOES happen in the playoffs) - you simply discard those events? They are a total non-factor?

OK, so let's follow that to its logical result: The Hurricanes kicked the shit out of the Panthers in the regular season in terms of xGF% at 5v5 (59.98% to 53.80%) while having a lower PDO. If 5v5 xGF% and PDO were the reliable playoff predictors you imply they are, shouldn't the Hurricanes have won that series? Or at least a single game?

 

[Golden_Jet]

The Bruins had a higher all situations xGF% than the Panthers (54.17% to 53.54%).

Even if we remove 3v3 from that equation (the Bruins were 4-2 and the Panthers were 4-5) it still probably doesn't get Florida ahead in all situations xGF%.

I think what you're doing here is focusing entirely on 5v5 while simply discarding 30%+ of all scoring. So powerplay, PK, empty net (which DOES happen in the playoffs) - you simply discard those events? They are a total non-factor?

OK, so let's follow that to its logical result: The Hurricanes kicked the shit out of the Panthers in the regular season in terms of xGF% at 5v5 (59.98% to 53.80%) while having a lower PDO. If 5v5 xGF% and PDO were the reliable playoff predictors you imply they are, shouldn't the Hurricanes have won that series? Or at least a single game?

Poster was referencing xG% not xGF%

 

[Midnight Judges]

Poster was referencing xG% not xGF%

Fair enough, but that doesn't appear to make much of a difference as natural stat trick's GF% appears to correlate with moneypuck's xG%.

NHL Team Stats

Stats and Graphs For All NHL Teams

moneypuck.com

The Hurricanes were 60.14% in xG% that regular season. The Panthers were at 53.64%. The Panthers destroyed the Hurricanes in a playoff sweep.

And again, the Bruins were still ahead of the Panthers in xG% at 53.77%, so I don't know where this Bruins were "prime for an upset" against Panthers narrative comes from. By this metric, the Bruins were still better than the Panthers.

Is PDO alleged to be the missing piece? -because again, the Hurricanes had a lower PDO than the Panthers and they got their asses handed to them.

Where is the principle here? Does it only work in hindsight and on selective match-ups? How is this an "aha!" moment for the Panthers vs Bruins, but not for the Panthers vs Hurricanes? What am I missing?

 

[Midnight Judges]

This is the point I was trying to make earlier with the PDO analysis. Are the Caps benefiting from shooting / save percentages that are (historically-speaking) unlikely to remain that high? Probably, yeah.

But they’re not just scraping by with those numbers. They’re wayyy out in front of the East. You can factor in some regression to the mean and they’re still among the best performing teams in the East.

The existence of this thread and the majority of the arguments in it would make a lot more sense if the Caps were something like 32-15-8, 72 pts (1st in East) and +35 (2nd in East). Factoring in some regression there and they’re looking like an average team that has gotten some good bounces.

But 36-11-8, 10+ points clear in the East, and +56 looks like a good team that has also gotten some good bounces.

Right, and the Capitals could still lose in the first round of the playoffs. Or they could go on a deep run.

Who friggin knows.

But I will say this: Whoever is pretending to know is full of crap. Hockey has a high degree of randomness - which I think is the one thing we can count on lol.

 

[BHD]

Fraud is a strong word to use. However, I do not think they are as good as their record suggests. I would be looking at bolstering the top six if I were Chris Patrick.