Provost

You are so ludicrous and transparent. You will tell other posters they are dumb by incorrectly expounding on tiny micro stats with only a few games of sample size that have zero statistical relevance due to the volatility of tiny numbers.... but given a mathematically valid statistical inference of probability based on more than a third ofthe season, and you are suddenly “umm duh, but what about anomalies!!! Anything can happen!! Statistics are bad because the ones you are using don’t conform to my random beliefs!” We are much less likely to make the playoffs than make it... by a massive margin right now. 83-85% chance of missing. Playing those odds are smarter than holding your breath and hoping for the best. Odds can be wrong over a single or few instances... but they are odds for a reason. The house always comes out ahead in the end.

That just isn't true and was covered in the OP. Because we are behind and need to catch up to several teams and not just one, the so-called 4 point games work against us because so many of the games remaining for those teams we are trying to catch are ALSO 4 point games and guaranteed points for one of those teams on a given night. Your nonsense counterpoint that "well occasionally there are outliers against the odds" doesn't alter the stated post that it is highly unlikely already. Of course we could go on a 10 game run (as I also stated). Some people win the lottery each week... it doesn't negate the fact that winning the lottery is unlikely. That is a ridiculous point and in your terms just "WADR".

That is why I said practically and unlikely... I will clarify by editing and adding an "even" to make the sentence more understandable.

Ya, I don't think we need to be making any rash decisions... any team including ours can go on a 10-0 run and entirely change the conversation. I don't know that necessarily waiting until Mid March is going to be the answer as we will likely know our fate within a week or two. If we plan on selling some rentals, doing it earlier rather than later lets us leverage more potential suitors by including US teams that would want to make moves earlier due to quarantine rules and have those players in their lineup for a while before the end of the season and knowing the systems.

It is nice to live in hope, but the unique way the league is set up this year means that we are practically unlikely, even if we are not mathematically eliminated from playoff contention. Since it is only in division games, points will be awarded to the teams we are chasing on any given night. The normal path to gain ground in a playoff chase from other seasons is that a team falters and loses points to non division rivals, meaning that we can catch them just by playing better than they do. That simply doesn't exist this year. Since we have already fallen behind, we don't have to catch one team to make the playoffs, we have to surpass two of the three teams above us (Toronto and Montreal are already out of reach). The three teams we are realistically chasing play around 20 more games against each other... meaning we have no chance at all of gaining ground on them those games, even if we won 100% of our games on the same night (which we obviously won't). At least two points will be awarded to one of the teams we are chasing, and sometimes 3 points. We only have a chance of matching or losing ground in a big chunk of the remaining games to be played by our rivals against each other. That is a big chunk of the season remaining and opportunities to catch up. Once you correct for games in hand and winning percentages, we are currently: - about 4.2 points behind Calgary - about 6.75 points behind Winnipeg - about 5.2 points behind Edmonton Assuming around 63 points to make the playoffs that means we would have to play .640 hockey the rest of the way out (23-13 record). The teams we are chasing only need to crack .550 the rest of the way out to stay ahead of us and reach that 63 points plateau. Specifically, only two of them need to hit that mark for us to not make the playoffs even if we went on a huge hot streak. Refer back to the above point where they play each other a lot and at least one team is going to get points and it will be harder for them all to drop to lower than .500 since they are sharing so many guaranteed points between them. So, unlike most seasons... we have only a few paths to the playoffs now and they are much more limited and unlikely than in normal years. 1. Toronto and Montreal basically run the table when they play at least 2 of Calgary, Winnipeg, and Edmonton.. but Toronto and Montreal don't dominate us in similar fashion so we can make up points in those games. 2. Ottawa steals a bunch of points from two of those three teams we are chasing (but not so much that Ottawa passes us as well), but doesn't steal points from us in similar fashion. 3. We win around 3/4ths of our remaining games against two of the three teams we are chasing All of those are possible, but not terribly likely. Our current odds of making the playoffs sit at 15-17% according to sites like Moneypuck. Our next 6 games are against those teams we are chasing. We probably have to go 5-1 over that stretch to have made up any ground at all on at least two of the teams we need to pass (gaining ground on one team doesn't do us any good since they would be giving up points to one of the other teams we are also chasing at the same time). Going 3-3 even probably puts the practical seal on our playoff chances since there would be far fewer games left at that point to make up the ground still needed... Edit: as of 26 February, the odds sit around 2.5%. No team has ever come back from under 4%. All the wailing and gnashing of teeth in the first few pages by folks can be moved on from by any reasonable person. In reality though, we were always going to lose 3 games eventually and other teams we were chasing them would win some. It just happened quickly. Edit: 01 May... after a last spurt of misplaced ire, even the diehards now admit the playoffs are (and we’re) out of reach. Hopefully playing the kids and doing auditions for next year is the plan the rest of the way out. A bottom 5 finish isn’t out of the question... so we can hope now that our draft position improves.

If we can’t find an upgrade, sure why not. He is eminently replaceable though, that spot could probably pretty easily be upgraded with other available players. Heck, even Rathbone could come in and supplant him. An easily possible D lineup next year without breaking the bank: Hughes-Connor Murphy Schmidt-Tryamkin Soucy-Myers Edler-Gudas

Schmidt and whoever we pick up for cheap from other teams who can’t protect their own guys.

Sample size... Loui’s number is meaningless because he has played too few minutes and stats like that are too volatile to mean anything without enough minutes played.

He is a seriously good dude. He is moving back to the Okanagan and teaching at an academy my nephew goes to. He also gave a big chunk of change to a non profit I am involved with in the area. He is equivalent to Linden for the Flames... mad respect for the guy even though I hated our team playing against him.

That is what you call a sunk cost fallacy and is the cause of many a bad decision (including keeping Virtanen this long). If you can shed his cap hit, do it. That has more likelihood of being useful than the remote chance that Virtanen after 6 seasons suddenly blossoms into something he has never been.

I don't know... is there a less talented cousin playing in the 2nd tier Swedish league we don't know about? This is obviously not referring to William Nylander, unless the add from us is massive. The guy has no inside knowledge or presence from anything visible on his twitter, just a fan. It seems to be a joke as he posted this as his source...

His value is nothing... He had a short heater for a few weeks in the middle of last season... he was awful in the first part of last season and awful since. I quoted it recently, but may be misremembering... I think he has 9 points in his last 48 games... or a 15 point pace over a full 82 game season. He is paid $3.4 million next year in real dollars and has a $2.55 million cap hit. The bottom feeding teams don’t want to lay out that much cash for low end 4th line production, and contending teams don’t want to pay that kind of cap hit for someone who can’t crack our weak bottom 6 roster as a regular.

... what a gong show that they held onto him so long that his value as an asset is basically nothing.

That is pretty crazy... he isn’t a world beater by any means, but I can’t imagine in a normal year he wouldn’t be picked up by someone as a 13th or 14th forward at that price tag. Teams could actually save cap space by waiving a $1 million dollar depth player to the taxi squad and picking this guy up. I wonder if a lot of GMs are really not convinced there are going to be playoffs or a reason to make many moves or spend money. I guess maybe knowing that playoffs aren’t going to generate the extra gate revenue makes them matter a whole lot less anyways.

Yep... same. I got roasted when I said that December and January were a statistical blip. Of course if I had my druthers we would have traded him before last season, so his value wouldn’t have peaked like it did last deadline or offseason. Probably would have been a 2nd rounder though even then. I really hoped we could use him to move Eriksson in the “summer”. Imagine the spot we would have been in with $8.5 million cap space to sign Toffoli and whatever players were having a hard time getting a contract

MVP doesn’t stand for “Most Venerated Plug” ... otherwise you would be spot on.

There can always be a dumb GM who decides they can get more out of a player... but teams don’t generally pay for potential upside on reclamation projects, especially ones that are significantly overpaid for their current production. They pay for actual production and hope to reap some benefit from the upside. This is a guy with a single point in 14 games this season and isn’t good defensively to make up for that. He has had more than 25 points in a season exactly once in his career. He has 9 points in 48 games (a 15 point pace over an 82 game season) including playoffs in the calendar year since the start of last February so he is trending downwards.... It is at the point in his development where you can wish in one hand and crap in the other... see which one fills up first.

Why would they? There are better performers to be had for cheaper contracts. A team would have to believe in him having a bunch of upside to want him even for free. His cap hit has to be taken into account. There are solid players passing through waivers because of their bad value. Jake is underperforming his contract. His real dollars owed next year is $3.4 million. That is what would make Ottawa not want him. They can more efficiently use those dollars in what will be another tight UFA market. That would be a bad deal for them. Heck for that much cash you can almost get a Tyler Toffoli

He hasn’t been kicking around the NHL any longer, he spent a couple years in college. Virtanen’s points aren’t showing they are on the upswing. His points over the past calendar year are among the worst of the same span in his entire year. Virtanen simply had a hot streak in the middle of last season for a few weeks, outside that short stretch where he was almost a PPG, he has ranged from .25 to .33 points per game the rest of his entire career.

...

To put his current value in context, this is from the Devon Shore waiver thread. it is entirely possible/likely you could waive Jake and no one would pick him up at this point.

He plays all three forward positions, primarily Left Wing and Centre in the NHL He is a pretty useful 13th forward in that regard. You don't have to carry a centre and a winger because he can fill in wherever there is an injury. Right now on a 2 way contract even, if that makes Jake's trade value look even worse....

You want a kick in the face as a comparison... he has better career numbers than Virtanen in almost exactly the same number of games and seasons. Shore... 109 points in 299 games for a .36 PPG average Virtanen... 96 points in 293 games for a .33 PPG average. Shore plays all three forward positions so that also gives him an edge... Virtanen had better numbers last season, but worse every other season including this year. Devon Shore cap hit $700k. Virtanen $2.55 million http://www.sportsforecaster.com/nhl/player/9509/stats http://www.sportsforecaster.com/nhl/player/10878/stats

Uhoh... Ottawa is sneaking up on us! We have 1 point more than them over the last 10 games and they are on a 2 game winning streak right now! They are closer to us than we are to the playoffs once you factor in games played.

I feel like I missed something. Why not pick him up on waivers unless Carolina is picking up some salary? Does Toronto need to shed contracts that badly that they wouldn't pick up up unless they could drop a minor leaguer and a prospect? Do they want the depth for their taxi squad and didn't want him unless they could have him not on the active roster? That is a pretty small advantage since they couldn't move him back and forth from the taxi squad without clearing waivers.