On bad starts by mostly bad hockey teams
by Hawerchuk on Oct 18, 2009 3:25 PM EDT
4 comments
It's nice to think that the Leafs' seven-game winless start is somehow unprecedented. Well, not nice, exactly, but there is some comfort in being historically bad if you're not going to be good. Something about not letting a crisis go to waste.
Anyways, there are 28 teams that have started out the season with seven-game winless streaks since the 1967-68 expansion. Some of them weren't horrible - eight actually made the playoffs, though none were good enough to get past the second round - but most were. Oddly none were first-year expansion teams. Eleven teams fired the coach - the 1971-72 California Golden Seals pulled the trigger after just three games.
At any rate, I wanted to point out one fact - while these 28 teams played something like .130 hockey over their first seven games, they went on to play .419 hockey for the remainder of the season. So while they might have been historically bad, they weren't all the worst teams in NHL history, and the following season, they ended up playing .422 hockey on average. And everybody congratulated themselves on improving the team from one year to the next.
Except they didn't improve: they played historically bad hockey for seven games, then played approximately .420 hockey for the next 157 games. They were .420 teams in the season with the bad start, and .420 teams the following season. But the average .420 team improves to become a .454 team the next season, three wins better than the .420 teams in the "bad start" group. So the price of a bad start in one season is a poorer team than you'd otherwise expect the next season. And that's bad news for everybody - except for the team you traded your first round draft picks to.
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Winless Streaks
I heard that the 1966-1967 Leafs lost 10 games in a row. Not sure if it was the first 10, but still, bad stretches can be overcome – the Pens weren’t in the playoffs until February last year; worked out pretty well for them. Not saying that Kessel = Crosby or that Grabovski = Malkin, but they aren’t dead yet.
by Belligerent Burkie on Oct 19, 2009 2:18 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
They were 3-1-5 after 9 games. The key difference between losing 10 in the middle of the season and at the beginning is that you don’t notice it quite as much in the middle. If you play well then play badly, you still have the memory of playing well. If you start out playing badly, then you’re more likely to bag the season and fire the coach.
The 66-67 Leafs lost 10 in a row, and then immediately went 10 games without losing. They were 15-47 GF/GA during the loss streak, then 38-15 over the next 10. Overall, over 20 games – 8-10-2, 53 GF, 62 GA – they expected 16.8 points over that stretch and ended up with 18.
by Hawerchuk on Oct 19, 2009 2:54 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Some of them weren’t horrible – eight actually made the playoffs, though none were good enough to get past the second round
So what you’re saying is… we have a chance. :D
Being a Leaf fan here requires one to be sufficiently lubricated... and truculent!
by stucky on Oct 19, 2009 4:50 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
yeah, Leafs were 50/50 on opening day to make the playoffs, now they’re at 29%…
by Hawerchuk on Oct 19, 2009 5:05 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
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