Pierre Turgeon in the playoffs

[JianYang]

Yes, there is no reason why they couldn't have kept them all happy, at least for that season.

Yes, Damphousse played wing for the large majority of the roughly first half of his career (he did play centre now and then during some of these seasons). He was moved to centre by Mario Tremblay in the fall of '95.

Tremblay coached the Habs for less than 2 seasons. Within the first year, his 2 best players - first Roy, then Turgeon - demanded to be traded because of him. And I think he got into some kind of a fight with Donald Brashear too, and they had to trade him.

At the end if '96-'97, Tremblay officially resigned, but it might have ended in him being fired anyway. The media and fans were all over him. He did a lot of damage to the team.

You're right about brashear. I remember there was footage of Tremblay kicking him out of practice. He was soon traded for cullimore, I think.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

Interesting stuff. Just curious, if you take all the preseason vegas odds for all teams, and convert them to probabilities, do they add up to exactly 100%? If not, did you do any adjustments to the results so that they squared up?

I'm just wondering because vegas odds are designed in a way that the bet-takers make money in the long run, while on the other hand, if you add up the odds in, say, THN, heading into the playoffs, they tend to suggest, mathematically, that there's about a 130% chance that someone will win the cup. Both ways are flawed if trying to determine actual perceived probabilities.

I'd treat the Vegas futures odds as "probabilities as perceived by people who follow the league closely". The oddsmakers themselves might not necessarily offer what they believe the true odds to be, as they'll offer odds based on minimizing their own liabilities (ex. get an even spread of money bet on many teams to guarantee a solid profit, rather than a whole bunch of money on one team and taking a huge bath if they end up winning). So it's far from an exact science.

That said, I'm not sure there's really anything that would be more accurate. Coming up with a set of parameters to create true probabilities based on available historical data would be very rudimentary (placement in the standings, goal differential, etc correlate with eventually winning a Cup, but that's way too broad). Those Vegas odds will account for publicly known injuries and recent form as well, which would be very time consuming to try to do after the fact (and still less accurate than if you'd experienced them in real time).

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

i still think the question isn't why did montreal trade away pierre turgeon so much as it is why the f did they want to bring shayne corson, a player you already have intimate knowledge of being a world class jerkoff, back?

surely you could have traded a 90 point star scoring center for something useful? for ex, young jason allison was traded for adam oates later in the year.

 

[seventieslord]

I'd treat the Vegas futures odds as "probabilities as perceived by people who follow the league closely". The oddsmakers themselves might not necessarily offer what they believe the true odds to be, as they'll offer odds based on minimizing their own liabilities (ex. get an even spread of money bet on many teams to guarantee a solid profit, rather than a whole bunch of money on one team and taking a huge bath if they end up winning). So it's far from an exact science.

That said, I'm not sure there's really anything that would be more accurate. Coming up with a set of parameters to create true probabilities based on available historical data would be very rudimentary (placement in the standings, goal differential, etc correlate with eventually winning a Cup, but that's way too broad). Those Vegas odds will account for publicly known injuries and recent form as well, which would be very time consuming to try to do after the fact (and still less accurate than if you'd experienced them in real time).

No, I'm fine with using that data as it exists. it just needs to be adjusted properly. If you add up the probabilities of all the teams to win the cup and it comes out to 140%, then every team's probability needs to be scaled back to 71% of whatever the odds say they are.

 

[JianYang]

i still think the question isn't why did montreal trade away pierre turgeon so much as it is why the f did they want to bring shayne corson, a player you already have intimate knowledge of being a world class jerkoff, back?

surely you could have traded a 90 point star scoring center for something useful? for ex, young jason allison was traded for adam oates later in the year.

As a habs fan, I became accustomed to getting little value for assets trades at the time. Turgeon was just one of them, and I was a corson fan.

 

[plusandminus]

It’s fair to consider the expectations for Turgeon’s teams. Looking at the preseason Vegas odds on hockey-reference, converting them to probabilities and adding up the expected values, Turgeon’s teams over his career were expected to win a cumulative 1.019 Cups. They ended up winning 0 Cups, making 0 finals, and only making the conference finals twice, one of which he was injured for. I’d say his teams performed below expectations.

His top teams by expectations as measured by preseason Vegas odds.

2000-01 St Louis Blues (+600) — this was his team with the most playoff success as well and probably his best performance.
2001-02 Dallas Stars (+800) — they missed the playoffs and Turgeon disappointed.
1990-91 Buffalo Sabres (+1000) — this was one of Turgeon’s worst playoffs, leading to the “Tin Man” moniker.
2003-04 Dallas Stars (+1000) — Out in the first round, Turgeon was past his prime.
2005-06 Colorado Avalanche (+1000) — Turgeon was almost done at this point and did very little in the playoffs.

I think "1.109" compared to 0 is really not a big difference. I falls well within the expected random distribution.

Anyway... So this is based on what people thought before the season started? It's all about expectations?
Like I wrote earlier on, "disappointment" or "success" is very tied to expectations. Swedish alpine skier (slalom and giant slalom) Ingemar Stenmark was during several seasons expected to win every single race, and when he didn't win people got disappointed and he had to answer more or less rough questions from the media. Still he was the best the world had ever seen, and he still holds the record for most World Cup wins. On the other hand, our 1994 World Championship bronze medal winning football (soccer) team is "forever" remembered because they surpassed all expectations.

Maybe looking at the regular seasons standings would give a more "neutral" picture?