Tag Archives: Confidence is a weird feeling

Minnesota Wild, NHL

Weekly Wild Whangdoodle: Playoffs?

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The Wild have essentially made the playoffs (more on this below) and unless there are some really big surprises out there (like a goaltender injury or two for Las Vegas or Colorado), they aren't going to catch either of the top two teams in the division. So, with 24 games left in the season jammed into 6 weeks, head coach Dean Evason has to ask himself whether the team is playing for regular season success or a post-season run?

Will they make the playoffs?

Yes.

St. Louis - 13-8
Arizona - 13-7-1
Los Angeles - 16-8
San Jose - 17-5
Anaheim - 18-2

  • To miss the playoffs, two of those teams would have to hit those marks, so it won't take much for the Wild to nail down at least the 4th spot in the division.

Will they catch Las Vegas or Colorado?

Colorado is three points ahead in the standings, while Vegas is four.

Head-to-head games remaining:

4 games between Minnesota and Las Vegas (2 this week)
2 games between Minnesota and Colorado
2 games between Las Vegas and Colorado

It's probably a little early to throw in the towel on the idea of catching one of these teams, but the games this week might go a long way to making the decision. A couple of wins this weekend might give those thoughts of home ice in the first round some more oxygen.

But, if the Wild lose ground to Vegas, it might be time to spend the remainder of the season working to ensure that they are in the best position to make some noise in that first round matchup.

What to do?

To me, that means rest.  All of these teams are going to be put through a gauntlet here over the next 6 weeks. Lots of back-to-back games, lots of travel. When playoff time comes around, it's very possible that success will be determined by who can send out the most complete team.

I would start resting one or two regulars when there are back-to-back games. Maybe not this week, but going forward, let Dumba rest his ankle for a three day weekend every once in a while.  Have Kaprizov take a Monday or two off down the stretch so he's not dinged up.  Brodin, Spurgeon, Eriksson Ek, Fiala, Foligno (once he's back) - all these guys are going to be needed in a playoff series in a big way. They aren't needed to add more standings points in a game against San Jose in the middle of April.

The Wild need 10 or 11 wins to lock up a playoff spot. (Their magic number is currently 19, but it's safe to assume LA/Arizona/St. Louis will lose at least a few games).  They would need a lot of good results to catch Vegas or Colorado (their magic number for Colorado is 25, for Vegas is 26.5).

This isn't the year that the Wild are going to dominate the division and find the easiest road through the playoffs by playing low seeds.  The really good results of the first half have put them in a place where they can be pretty secure in what the playoff picture looks like.  Now Dean Evason should take advantage of that and focus on maximizing his team's chances in the NHL's second season (you know, the one that leads to the Cup).

This week's schedule:

Welcome back to late night hockey!

The Sharks remain on the very outside of the playoff picture, but they keep not winning, so their opportunities are dwindling.  San Jose has  a winning record against the other two California teams, but is 3-12-1 against MIN, COL, LV, ARI.

Las Vegas has withstood Colorado's latest charge and remains on top of the division for now. They are still a very good team getting some very good goaltending.

  1. Vegas - 47 points (32G)
  2. Colorado - 46 points (33G)
  3. Minnesota - 43 points (32G)
  4. St. Louis - 38 points (35G)
  5. Arizona - 37 points (35G)
  6. LosAngeles - 32 points (32G)
  7. San Jose - 30 points (33G)
  8. Anaheim - 28 points (36G)

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The Kirill Kaprizov Corner

There's the point in this clip (right where it goes into slow motion) where you can see the defenseman has no idea what Kaprizov is going to do. Cut to the middle? Use him as a screen? Go wide?  So the Blues D-man decides to slow down and close the gap on Kaprizov to take away the middle of the ice.  He gets closer, but Kaprizov just steps on it and flies around him, gets off a quck shot that Binnington doesn't square up to and finds the net.

It's so good.

On the rookie leaderboards, Kaprizov's first in goals (11), first in assists (16), and first in points (27).

Kaprizov is tied for 10th in the NHL in even-strength points (25).

Leaderboards

PlayerGPlayerAPlayerPtsPlayerGAR
Kaprizov11Kaprizov16Kaprizov27Foligno6.9
Eriksson Ek11Zuccarello16Zuccarello21Brodin6.0
Fiala9Greenway15Greenway20Rask5.8
Foligno7Suter11Foligno16Kaprizov5.7
Rask7Brodin10Eriksson Ek16Eriksson Ek5.6

I added GAR (Goals Above Replacement - from Evolving Hockey) to the leaderboards. It's a touch over 5 Goals / Win, so the Wild have seven 1+-win players so far this season.  Can you name the other two players above 5 GAR?

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Minnesota Wild, NHL

Weekly Wild Whangdoodle: They’re Good, Actually

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Are the Wild good?

This is the question that keeps getting asked. It's kind of hard to believe that the Wild might be anything other than a middle of the road team that people mention only to say "yeah, they're ... OK, I guess."  But here we are. They took 4 points off Vegas, and continue to dominate teams during 5 on 5 play and get pretty good goaltending to go along with it.  At some point, the question has to be taken seriously.

The Analytic Method

Dom Luszczyszyn at the Athletic has a model that bases predicted outcomes on his Game Score stat (calculated by counting stats like goals, assists, shots, penalties drawn, but also factoring in possession stats like xG, faceoffs, and CORSI) as well as factors like strength of remaining schedule, injuries, etc.  I like it because he continually updates how things have changed over the season, so you can see exactly where the model started to buy into the Wild as a legitimate contender in the West division along with Colorado and Las Vegas.

Evolving Hockey uses a team goal differential stat to compare team performance. The stat is broken down into four components:

  1. Shot Rates
  2. Shot Quality
  3. Shooting
  4. Goaltending.

In comparing the teams in the West across these four factors we see once again that the Wild are comfortably in the same statistical neighborhood as Vegas and Colorado.

The numbers in the table represent the team's rank out of 31 NHL teams.  Shot Rate and Shot Quality are a comparison between a team and their opponent.  The Wild have the largest differential in the NHL between the average quality of their offensive shots and the quality of shots they allow (they rank 5th in shot quality and their opponents rank 29th).

TeamGoal DifferentialShot RateShot QualityShooting%Save%
Las Vegas232291
Minnesota5911712
Colorado61181916
Los Angeles172617156
St. Louis191920324
Arizona233116237
San Jose2522131829
Anaheim2823253123

The DG plays with Spreadsheets Method

Which teams in the division have winning records (taking more than 50% of the points) against other teams in the division? Point percentage in this case is percentage of the points awarded in a game. So a win in regulation gets a team 100%, a win in OT or shootout gets them 67%, OT/SO loss gets them 33% and regulation loss 0%.  Don’t be mad at me that this makes no sense, take it up with the NHL Standings Point Policy director.

TIER 1 - Las Vegas, Colorado, and Minnesota each have a points% greater than or equal to 50 against all but one team in the division.  Las Vegas is lower than 50% against Minnesota, Minnesota is lower than 50% against Colorado, and Colorado is lower than 50% against ... you guessed it - Anaheim.  (Colorado and Las Vegas have split their two games, so are each at 50% in their matchup).

TIER 2 - St. Louis, Arizona, and Los Angeles are each above a 50% points percentage against 3 other teams in the division. This seems like a natural second tier in the division so far this season. Dom's model would see this as a slight to St. Louis, but I think this matches the actual results pretty well.

TIER 3 - San Jose and Anaheim are certainly the low end of the West, generally not beating anyone consistently.

Now I can compare each teams result against those tiers so far this season:

TeamP% vs. Tier 1P% vs. Tier 2P% vs. Tier 3
Las Vegas47%75%74%
Minnesota50%64%71%
Colorado53%67%58%
St. Louis42%40%70%
Los Angeles31%62%50%
Arizona28%52%64%
San Jose24%44%75%
Anaheim39%29%25%
AVERAGE38%53%62%

What stands out here?

  • The Wild and Las Vegas are above average against every tier.
    • They've been good and they've been good against everyone in the division.
  • Los Angeles and St. Louis against Tier 2.
    • The Kings power play caught fire and they steamrolled the Blues over a set of games (Kings went 4-1-1), which makes a big difference in a short season like we've got this year.
  • Colorado against Tier 3.
    • They've gone to overtime against the Ducks in three of their 4 meetings. That makes it hard to drive up their points% against the bottom of the division.

To quantify how much of each teams standings position came from games against each tier I calculated points earned above average using the numbers above.

Teamversus T1versus T2versus T3Pts Above Average
VGK1.74.42.28.3
MIN2.22.81.05.9
COL2.72.8-0.84.7
L.A-2.01.9-1.4-1.5
STL0.4-3.91.6-1.9
ARI-2.2-0.20.3-2.1
S.J-2.8-2.21.6-3.4
ANA0.0-5.7-4.4-10.1

The Grand Conclusion

I think they're a good team, actually. Their point total isn't inflated by beating up on the bottom feeders and they've won some games against the best teams in the division. They have the statistical proof that they have played well, but that their success is not a fluke. Their scoring and expected scoring line up pretty well. (figure from MoneyPuck).

There is of course, a warning in this analysis. And that warning is the St. Louis Blues. The Blues have had a remarkably easy schedule in the first half of the season, playing 10 games against SJ and Anaheim (more than anyone in the division) and 5 games against Vegas, Colorado, and Minnesota (fewer than anyone in the division). But they ran up against a hot team in Los Angeles in February and dropped a bunch of points in games that they probably expected to win.  Now they have to make those points back in the second half of the season against teams at the top of the division, a much harder task. Those 8 games against the Wild have become a much more important set now that the Blues are looking up at the Wild in the standings.

The first half of the season has gone very well, the Wild have surprised a bunch of people by being legitimately good and exciting and fun. In the second half, the biggest danger becomes running into a cold streak or an opponent's hot streak that cuts into the advantage they've built by playing as one of the best teams in the division so far.

This week's schedule:

A whole bunch more words on the standings are up above, but here's how they look as everyone approaches the halfway point.

  1. Vegas - 37 points (25G)
  2. Minnesota - 35 points (26G)
  3. Colorado - 34 points (26G)
  4. St. Louis - 33 points (28G)
  5. LosAngeles - 28 points (27G)
  6. Arizona - 28 points (28G)
  7. San Jose - 25 points (25G)
  8. Anaheim - 22 points (29G)

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The Kirill Kaprizov Corner

Hat trick! 3 goals in one period! Look at how he shoots this puck on his second goal. He's turning on one skate, with no momentum toward the goal and still scores. AH! It's so good.

And while you're looking at that remember the 10 seconds before that where he comes off the bench like he's been shot out of a cannon and just ... skates past everyone.

He's so much fun.

On the rookie leaderboards, he's first in goals (10), first in assists (14), and first in points (24).

Players not Named Kirill

Who's got the best two-way line in hockey? Your Minnesota Wild, that's who.

Barkov or Barzal will probably win the Selke trophy for best defensive forward, but there will be a whole bunch of stat nerds who will take to Twitter and write "well, actually..." posts in favor of Joel Eriksson Ek.

The bad news is that Foligno will be out for at least a couple of weeks.

Leaderboards

PlayerGPlayerAPlayerPts
Eriksson Ek11Kaprizov14Kaprizov24
Kaprizov10Greenway14Greenway19
Fiala9Zuccarello14Zuccarello18
Foligno7Foligno9Foligno16
Rask6Brodin/Parise9Eriksson Ek16