Time For A Two Goalie System?

KuklasKorner : The Puck Stops Here : Time For A Two Goalie System?:

The San Jose Sharks have been the best team in the NHL so far this year. Their 20-4 record (with one regulation tie point) gives them 41 points and first place in the NHL. However, all is not perfect in San Jose. Their number one goalie Evgeni Nabokov has yet to play particularly well. He is sporting a .896 saves percentage, which has a lot to be desired. His other numbers do not look so bad. He has a 2.57 GAA and a 13-2 record. This is a testament to how well the Sharks have played in front of him. Nevertheless, his goaltending will become an issue if he continues to play at that level. It is impossible to have prolonged success in the NHL without better goaltending.

No, it won’t. Unless, of course, they stop winning. Which is doubtful, the way they’re playing.

I have to say this: it’s rather silly to look at a goalie that’s 13-2 and a goals against of around 2.50 and say “hey, maybe we should play the other guy”. Are we that bored that we have to go create a goalie controversy? No offense, but I just don’t buy it. Sometimes we get too enamoured with stats — pick the one stat that looks bad so we can talk about it, but forget to put it in the larger context.

Here’s the larger context. Well, “Nabokov is 13-2 and the team has only had one game in the last five weeks where it didn’t get at least one point (and Boucher was in net for that loss)”. Nabokov’s last loss was October 24th. Since then, he’s merely 8-0, giving up 17 goals for a GAA of 2.12. His save percentage since coming back from the injury is 917.

To me, that ends any question on this, but let’s dig a bit deeper. One aspect of the Sharks playing style this year is they have a very aggressive defense and a very aggressive offensive style. That means that many fewer EASY shots make it to the net (the sharks have allowed < 20 shots for a game three times, and < 25 shots eleven times) -- but the aggressive play of the defenseman lends towards some turnovers and odd-man rushes. In other words, a goalie's goal's against is likely to suffer, because fewer shots happen, but a higher percentage of good scoring chances. That was especially true early in the season while the team was trying to figure out this new system and mistakes were being made. Lately? Not so.

But also look at it this way. If you take three games out of the stats:

Anaheim 4-0 Loss
Philly 5-4 OT Win
Philly 7-6 SO Win

then Nabby’s numbers change significantly. His save percentage for the other 12 games he’s played becomes .919, good enough for 14th in the league (he’s currently 34th counting all goalies with 1 or more games played) — 9th if you only count goalies with 10 or more games. His GAA would drop to 2.08, good enough for 6th in the league, 3rd if you only count goalies with 10 or more games played.

And those three games were all six weeks ago, at the tail end of a sequence where the team played six games in 10 days and included back to backs twice and three plane trips (LA, Anaheim and Philly). Oh — and the team won 2 of those three games, and it was arguably the worst play for both the team and Nabokov all year.

The solution is obvious. When Nabokov was injured, backup goaltender Brian Boucher played extremely well. Boucher has a .928 saves percentage and a 1.89 GAA. Since Boucher was the temporary number one goalie, his better numbers are not a function of playing against weaker competition.

San Jose would probably benefit by using a two goalie system right now. Boucher is the hot hand and has not played in a little over a week since Nabokov returned from injury. His last game was November 22nd vs. Washington.

If you watch the Sharks every game, it’d be clear that Boucher’s a good goalie, but Nabokov’s a great goalie. it really isn’t close. It isn’t even that Nabokov’s playing badly, or even so-so. Even looking into the stats a little bit ought to make it clear that Nabokov’s “bad stats” were a small abberation early in the season. And despite that, the team took four of the six points.

The solution’s obvious: we really shouldn’t be having this discussion. So why are we? Nabby is 13-2. Have we hit that point where people aren’t happy unless the team is beating everyone 5-0? Is a one game losing streak unacceptable?

Oh, boy…

San Jose has a very good team this year. They have put up a first place record despite mediocre goaltending from their starter Evgeni Nabokov. When Brian Boucher is playing well, it would make more sense to use a two goalie system in San Jose than to go back to Nabokov exclusively. If Nabokov continues his lackluster play, I expect San Jose will not continue their winning ways. They can be overtaken by other top teams.

Sorry, his play is far from mediocre. His numbers are far from mediocre, too; they’re pretty darn good. Unless you look for something to complain about, and take it out of context. Of the goalie stats, save percentage has to be the plus-minus of goalie stats; so much really depends on team play. Honestly, as long as he’s winning, and when you look at his goals against, that’s all you really need to see to know Nabby’s doing what they team is asking of him.

(more on) How bad is Khabibulin? And Johnson?

Two for Elbowing: How bad is Khabibulin? And Johnson?:

Johnson’s injury isn’t a shoulder. I haven’t seen replays of the hit on tape, but everyone around us felt it was a clean hit, and Sharks radio seemed to agree. It looked shoulder to shoulder, and Johnson went into the board shoulder first. Not boarding, not hit from behind, not — anything. But Johnson hit the boards, and went down and was in serious pain immediately.

Finally got a chance to see the Grier hit on tape. Cherry of course labelled it the worstest, most cheap-shot disgusting nasty thingie in the history of hockey. Well, the worstest, etc, etc since the last time he declared a non-canadian player to be a nasty cheapshot artist on a good canadian boy, since we all know only canadians can play hockey.

In reality, Grier did get him in the numbers, and a little late. Johnson was in a vulnerable space, so I’m cool with the major and the fine. Both deserved. Don’t think he deserved more.

Given it happened no more than 10′ from our seats, it’s a nice reminder about both how fast the game is to people on the ice (i.e.: the refs) and how important angles are. It’s really easy to second-guess the refs, but when you get down to ice level where our seats are, the game’s a lot tougher to get right.

Airports almost empty day before Thanksgiving

Airports almost empty day before Thanksgiving | Venture Chronicles:

Case in point, we are talking about taking a family vacation to San Diego early next year (look out Kedrosky!) and decided that renting a minivan and driving down would be cheaper than flying and less hassle to boot. It’s a lot of time behind the wheel but no worse than trudging through an airport pissed off about having to pay $150 to check bags.

Whenever Laurie and I do our driving vacations — which we’ve done since before they made airports so damn painful — friends and co-workers have always wondered if we were insane. Now that airports have become so insane, people are starting to realize that plopping on a plane isn’t the only option, and in many cases, not the best.

We almost always drive vacations (and we never, ever fly to SoCal) for a few reasons: first, we tend to carry a lot of gear, including the computer stuff and cameras and etc. So under most circumstances, flying generates compromises we can avoid by driving. Second, driving is almost invariably cheaper. Third, in many cases, especially these days of three hour waits for connections and flight delays, TSA delays, baggage delays and rental car delays, it’s not significantly slower to drive. And finally, not only does it give us a chance to just sit and talk and be with each other, there’s a whole bunch of stuff between here and there worth seeing and looking at you won’t see at 30,000 feet. The journey CAN be the reward; hell, sometimes the destination is the excuse, not the reason.

When we did our Yellowstone trip this fall, I kept notes on costs and timing. Yellowstone is about the limit of what I’d consider reasonable for a “normal” vacation. Two days driving each way, with rational driving times each way. Silicon Valley is about 16 hours driving from Silicon valley; I prefer to keep each leg about 8-10 hours. That takes you through a lot of territory, though: from silicon valley, it’ll get you to Vancouver, Yellowstone, Salt Lake, Denver, Taos, and all points east. By limiting driving to 8-10 hours, you don’t have to play the “crack of dawn” patrol, you can stop and explore places of interest, eat without a drive-through window, and get into a hotel at a rational hour for a rational sleep. You’re not stressed or harried or exhausted when you get there.

(hint: it’s even MORE interesting to find spots along the way and make the entire journey part of the trip, but we wanted to maximize our time in the park, so we hustled out way each way; I did, however, flag four or five places as future photography locales… But for us, a typical trip to Victoria or Vancouver would involve a day or two in Portland and a couple of stops up and down the Oregon Coast, rather than putting all of our time into one place. Once you get into this “along the way” type of travel, lots of things open up, especially areas you’d have real issues getting to via an airport…)

Here’s a comparison of what it’d take to drive to Yellowstone, versus flying. In many ways, this is the extreme case: Yellowstone is about as far as I’d want to drive on a ten day trip (week off plus two weekends), so you’re spending the maximum amount of time in the car, which you’d think would benefit the airplane. Not necessarily.

For the driving, we left Saturday mid-morning, and arrived in Yellowstone around dinner time on Sunday, stopping overnight in Winnemucca, roughly half way. At the time, gas was headed down but we still paid an average right around $3.70 a gallon. The drive to Yellowstone is almost exactly 1,000 miles.

We drove 1,000 miles getting there, 1,000 miles around the park in the days there, and 1,000 miles coming back, spending a total of $400 for 107 gallons of gas. 2/3 of that gas was used in transit, so the fuel cost for travelling was around $250. Factor in car maintenance to be fair: $70 for the 3,000 mile lube, and some percentage of the 60,000 mile service and tire costs; practically speaking, that’s probably another $70, and I’m probably being generous (my last major service plus 2 new tires ran a grand. factor that cost into 30,000 miles, and you get about $70 for 2,000 miles).

So, the total cost of driving to and from Yellowstone is about $400.

Flying? I did some checks on flight costs at the same time we travelled. For Yellowstone, that’s either West Yellowstone or Bozeman. A typical flight to Bozeman at the same time would have cost you about $500 per person round trip and take 8 hours, flying through Denver or Salt Lake. I just checked, and today it’s about $400ish in December, but next June, we’re back at $450-$500 for a time when a rational person would take that trip. West Yellowstone is slower and more expensive, with only a couple of flights (totalling 90 seats) a day, and it’s seasonal. Then add in a rental car, which when I checked in September was averaging $130/week out of those cities.

So your travel costs end up running you at best about $1,000-$1,100. And if you fly to Yellowstone, you’ll arrive just in time for dinner Saturday — in Bozeman. It’s late enough you won’t actually get into the park until Sunday morning. Leaving? you either get the crack of dawn patrol for a flight out around 7AM, or a late flight out and get home at midnight on Sunday.

Net result? If you fly, you get a Sunday in the park coming in, and a Saturday in the park going out that you don’t get driving. And for the privilege, your cost goes from about $400 to $1,100, over 2X. I’m not counting hotel or food costs here because the same meals get eaten (only in different places) and hotel rooms get used — although most likely, the room on the road while driving will likely be cheaper (ours were about half the cost or more).

As to the hassle factor of driving? you can’t tell me that the joys of the TSA, of flight delays, of 3 hour connecting flight waits, of checking and retrieving luggage and renting cars — and airport food — is any great shakes. It’s all in the attitude; getting into the mindset that the trip is part of the journey and not just a way to the destination opens up many options. And, well, having time to unplug and just talk to the people you’re with? Or heading off a side road and exploring? (well, laurie calls it “getting lost again”, but I prefer to see it as adventuring into the unknown). Massive fun.

Flying options options; I wouldn’t want to drive to chicago or tampa, not unless it was part of a longer, extended trip. OTOH, a two day drive from where you live opens up many places — from silicon valley, pretty much everything west of and into the rockies.

And if you stop and think about it a bit, there is basically no way you can do an airport run from northern california to southern california faster than driving these days, not once you factor in the time getting to and from airports, TSA lines, renting cars, etc. etc. At best, it’s a wash. and driving’s much cheaper. I can’t see why anyone flies back and forth on that shuttle, honestly.

so for me, it’s car first. We’ve done flying trips to Vancouver and Victoria in the past (flying into Victoria directly, into Vancouver, and into Seattle and crossing the border), and you know what? Have fun in the plane (hah). I’ll just hop in the car. You may get there a bit sooner, but I’ll be relaxed and happy when I get there, and I’ll have all of my stuff. What did you decide not to bring to fit into the overhead and checkin restrictions, anyway?

What I don’t understand is why when airlines decided on what business model they were going to follow, they chose “greyhound bus” as what they wanted to be when they grew up….

Update: One of the commenters made an important comment:

It’s hard to argue with most of what you wrote, but flying does allow me to take do a trip like a 4-day weekend in Vancouver from time to time.

And that’s an important thing to keep in mind: the trade-off between time and money. If your time is short, then spending money to minimize travel time, but when you do, it’s knowing that you’re taking a more expensive option for speed. That’s fine; I certainly wouldn’t drive a 4-5 day trip to Vancouver.

Ditto a day trip to SoCal; if I had to go to SoCal and return same day for a meeting (first, I’d try NOT to, but that’s a different issue), then I might fly, because otherwise it’d be a really long day; in that case, sitting in a plane or airport might be preferable to driving. But if I could schedule it to drive down, take in the meeting, overnight, and drive back while stopping at, say, Morro Beach on a Saturday, well, sign me up…

So ultimately, NONE of this is absolute. And if your idea of a perfect vacation is to sit on a beach in Cancun drinking margaritas — that’s great, too. But heck, you could sit on a beach near San Diego and drink for a lot less, I bet, and have pretty darn good weather, too. Or Phoenix, for that matter.

How bad is Khabibulin? And Johnson?

How bad is Khabibulin? | DailyHerald.com Blogs:

We might not know until Friday how badly Nikolai Khabibulin and Aaron Johnson are hurt.

Khabibulin went down in the final minute of the second period of Wednesday’s 3-2 OT loss to the Sharks with what appeared to be a groin or hamstring problem.

Johnson’s injury (his left shoulder?) didn’t look good. He was drilled into the boards by Mike Grier, who drew a major penalty and game misconduct for boarding.

Both injuries happened right in front of us; Khabibulin was defending the goal on our side of the ice, and Grier hit Johnson maybe 10′ from our seats.

Our best guess on Khabibulin was that his back tweaked. He didn’t seem to do anything that involved stretching or extending a leg, it was more like he bent over and something went *PING* and he more or less just fell down on his stomach and refused to move. Was very careful not to twist or try to turn over or anything. To me, that’s a lower back/spine tweak. Just dump him in the hot tub and see what happens…

Johnson’s injury isn’t a shoulder. I haven’t seen replays of the hit on tape, but everyone around us felt it was a clean hit, and Sharks radio seemed to agree. It looked shoulder to shoulder, and Johnson went into the board shoulder first. Not boarding, not hit from behind, not — anything. But Johnson hit the boards, and went down and was in serious pain immediately.

It looked really bad. The trainers were focussing on the lower abdomen. My best guess is one of two things; it’s possible that hitting the board and going down he speared himself with his own stick, and they were worried about the spleen (ugh). Either that, or in getting hit and hitting the boards he stressed his abdomen muscles, and perhaps pulled or tore something — potential sports hernia time. Either way, he was a seriously unhappy player and still in significant pain leaving the ice. I never saw the trainers or the players examining or touching a shoulder or anything other than the lower abdomen here; the pain was definitely near the waist…

I’d lean towards him going into the boards and getting wasted by his own stick here. We really saw nothing to justify a major penalty on Grier. Hopefully, he’s just sore as hell and didn’t tear anything or pop a spleen….

(hat tip: kukla)

going to Chicago!

When they announced the Winter Classic was going to Wrigley, I knew I had to give this a shot. Laurie grew up in the Chicago area, is a huge Cubs fan, played goalie (footnote 1) in the boys leagues there before there were girls leagues to play in, and was (and is) a huge Hawks fan. I thought it would be just perfect to get her to Chicago for the Winter Classic if I could swing it.

So I started exploring contacts, and thankfully, I found some folks (who shall remain nameless) who agreed, and we now have a ticket, and Laurie’s headed to Chicago for New Years! She promises to blog and post photos.

Nope, I’m not going. This one’s for her. If they ever do a winter classic in Southern Callifornia and the Kings, I’m right on it (with sunscreen) — and I figured two tickets would be asking for more favors than I felt comfortable asking (in reality, I could have gotten a 2nd ticket, but with the cats and birds and holidays and etc, the logistics are just much easier if I stay home and pet-sit) — fortunately, this is only going to cost me six months of washing cars and mowing lawns.

So we now have the plane ticket settled, and the hotel, and I’m jazzed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Laurie quite so — speechless — as when I told her, since I hadn’t said that I was scheming until I got confirmation it’d actually happened.

And to the nice people (the ones with the really large lawns!) — thanks from both of us. I can’t say just how much this has made us happy; Laurie because she gets to go, me because I was able to send her and work this out without her catching on…

Laurie’s first comment on hearing about this: I am going to freeze my butt off.

My response: and you’ll love ever minute of it.

And she will.

YEAH! I love it when a plan comes together.

(footnote 1: Laurie’s commentary on her growing up: all the girls I grew up with wanted to sleep with Tony Esposito. I wanted to be Tony Esposito — in all honesty, one of the best goalie scouts I’ve seen, I really nag her to start doing her scouting reports again. One of these days I need to tell the Ian Boyce story from our days working with the Spiders…)

Now which Sharks signed Claude Lemieux? Oh, the ones in Worcester

okay, Dave Pollak is on the job again, and this should settle out any question about Lemieux’s situation….

I didn’t THINK I was hallucinating. At least, not at the time I heard that stuff…

Now which Sharks signed Claude Lemieux? Oh, the ones in Worcester | Working the Corners:

Understandably, lots of interest in that Claude Lemieux report.

I finally caught up with Doug Wilson today. He and the organization weren’t amused by the fact one widespread news account said it was the SAN JOSE Sharks who signed Lemieux, not the Worcester Sharks. Turns out even the New York Times picked up the wrong version of events and had a paragraph about it in this morning’s paper.

No, no, no.

The Sharks and Claude Lemieux…

latest update: Dave Pollak talks to Doug Wilson, gets the story right….

Power rankings: Quarter-season analysis … – NHL – Yahoo! Sports:

1. San Jose Sharks (17-3-1, Previous: 1) – Yes, it’s the second-best first-quarter start in the least 25 NHL seasons, but 20 games a season do not make. The fact 43-year-old Claude Lemieux is being given as much as a 25-game look-see in Worcester tells you GM Doug Wilson still wants to add more grit to the mix. Depth on defense, especially of the physical variety, could be another area the team explores.

Seen three or four writers saying similar things; only problem is that as far as I can tell, it’s not true. I’ve seen two quotes by the team (Wayne Thomas, GM of the Worcester Sharks being one) noting that “this is for Worcester only”. With the Sharks at that peak of the Cup Run buildup, the AHL team doesn’t have the depth it’s had in the past, and it shows.

The team’s doing this for two reasons:

First, it can’t hurt to have a guy like Lemieux with the AHL kids teaching them a few ropes (and dirty tricks) and showing them what it means to be ready to play every day and in shape, and for Lemieux to have even gotten this far shows amazing determination and work ethic.

Second, Doug Wilson and Lemieux are old buddies, and Wilson has shown a willingness to toss a life preserver at someone if it (at least) won’t hurt the organization. Last year, it was Sandis Ozolinsh, who if people don’t remember, was Wilson’s blueline mate the first season of the Sharks existance until Sandis blew out a knee and was lost for the season. The team has found places for both Mike Ricci and Bryan Marchment. And then there’s this washed out has-been named Roenick….

The changes of Lemieux wearing teal seem to be somewhere very close to NONE. I never say never, but this seems to be a classic case of helping a friend by giving him a roster spot (which helps the Worcester team) and seeing if someone bites. I certainly don’t think the Sharks will — Brad Staubitz and Jamie McGinn will get the nod, among others, first.

Could this benefit some other NHL team? Perhaps. Is that a bad thing? I think not. The Flyers did this with Boucher, to the Sharks benefit, so it all evens out in the long run.

I just think folks need to set their expectations more carefully here. the Sharks have quietly tried to, but people don’t seem to be listening and this is starting to build some momentum well beyond it deserves.

update:

I decided, just for grins, to see if I could find the quotes about this. Here’s Mark Emmons at the Merc (although Wayne Thomas isn’t explicitly mentioned, I heard the same quote using his name):

Setoguchi deserves his spot on Sharks’ top line – San Jose Mercury News:

Claude Lemieux — yes, that Claude Lemieux — is about to join the Worcester Sharks on a PTO, or professional tryout contract.

At 43 and having played his last NHL game in 2002-03, the super-pest, royal pain with four Stanley Cup rings has been playing in Europe, but he is now on the North American comeback trail after a few games with the China Sharks last week.

A PTO contract lasts a maximum 25 games, though it can be renewed once. Beyond that, a standard player contract would be needed.

Sharks General Manager Doug Wilson has been traveling, but a team representative said this is strictly about Worcester, not San Jose.

He’s also one of the few noting the difference between a tryout contract and a playing contract..

And Eric Duhatschek actually talked to Wilson about it…

globeandmail.com: Globe on Hockey – Duhatschek: Claude Lemieux’s comeback continues:

In the midst of a longer conversation over his team’s excellent performance in the first quarter of the NHL season, Wilson confirmed that Lemieux will report to Worcester to play for the team’s AHL affiliate under general manager Wayne Thomas. However, Wilson stressed that the Sharks had made no commitment to Lemieux beyond providing him with a place to play, so that he can determine for himself whether a possible comeback attempt was realistic or not.

So let’s put this whole “Claude is back” away for a while… (and for the writers out there who’ve been calling him retired, well, no. Not in the NHL, but he was playing in Europe, at least up through last season, so this is less of a stretch than many are claiming it to be. He was a lot less retired than it maybe seemed)

I have to admit I have mixed feelings about this; I never forgave him for the hit he made on Draper — but I cheered his Conn Smythe, because my god, he earned it. He’s a heck of a player with a real edge. Personally, though, I’m not sure I’d want to see him take a teal jersey away from some of the other guys in the system.

Steve Ott out a month — more fun in Dallas

Andrew’s Dallas Stars and NHL Blog:

Steve Ott is expected to miss one month with a broken hand. This happened in the fight with Steve Montador the other night.

In other news, Brett Hull announced today that he’s engaged the service of a priest to perform an exorcism in the Star’s dressing room, and is visiting a psychic to try to figure out who cursed the Stars and work out some deal to get the curse lifted.

There is no truth to the rumor, he says, that he was found running around the lower concourse of the arena naked yelling “Morrow? Ott? Why not Turco and Avery? Give me a break here!”

Man, I don’t have huge sympathies for the Stars normally, but this is getting insane.

Sharks 7, Capitals 2.

PJ at Sharkspage, as usual, has some nice stuff on last night’s game, including post game comments by both coaches. My view of the game closely mimics those of the coaches (scary as that may be).

The Sharks started off with slow legs, and score notwithstanding, the Capitals really carried the play in the first. The ice was sticky, which tends to give the Sharks some fits, but I thought as the game went along they did a good job of adjusting to it. Precision passes were tough and the puck was bouncing a lot, the team reacted by carrying it more and closing the gaps.

As good an enforcer as Jody Shelley is, Donald Brasher pummeled him. Not even really close, although it was a long, classic, trade punches and grapple fight, really kind of a classic — except Shelley really got out fought. He went off for repairs for a bloody nose, and the coaches mostly kept them apart the rest of the game. That was helped by Brasher doing something in the 2nd to earn a 10 minute misconduct and spending a good chunk of time in the penalty box; his skating after that penalty was extremely limited.

The Sharks do something in the later parts of games I find interesting; rather than not sit the Thornton line and risk a team getting feisty with them, they put Jody Shelley on the line, so you end up skating Thornton/Setoguchi/Shelley. And that seems to keep anything untoward from happening, and gives Shelley some time to skate and play some hockey, too. It also seems to discourage the other team from placing their big guys out, since as far as I can tell, the Caps never put Brashear out once Shelley was on the ice.

you’ll never see it from the score, but Brent Johnson had a pretty good game. His biggest problem is (and always has been) rebound control, but to be honest, you can’t really blame a goalie if he lets in a rebound and his own player fumbles it around and then sticks it in his own net. He didn’t get a lot of help last night, and I think it was telling that the team left him in for the entire game.

You could see the momentum shift as the Sharks found their legs, adjusted to the ice, and the Caps turned into the team at the far end of a long road trip in their third game in four nights. The 2nd goal killed a lot of the enthusiasm, and as the 2nd period went along, you could see the Sharks just sort of take over.

At one point, I actually turned to Laurie and said “See, Ovechkin is actually taking shifts”. He was actually a lot more noticeable later in the game than earlier to us. Well, we actually noticed him, probably when he got frustrated and started taking runs and cheap shots (and penalties) — prior to that, he didn’t even hit the radar screen for us.

And then there was the Joe Thornton unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. Did you know that snowing the goalie was a penalty? Well, some vestigal part of me actually did — but damned if I’ve ever seen it called. On the other hand, if ever a player deserved to get it called, Joe did, because he came in alone, angled his skates and threw up a rooster tail that Warren Miller would approve of, and then basically stood there and started smiling and laughing. Until he found out about the penalty. Blatant doesn’t begin to describe it.

And honestly, I thought the refs had a tough job — Brashear and Shelley. Brashear running around chasing tiny guys like Setoguchi. A game with a score seriously tilted out of control, and tired, grumpy players. I don’t blame them for calling things fairly tight. By getting Thornton into the penalty box there, they defused a situation that could have escalated the game into chaos. they did it a couple of other times as well (the coincidental minors with Blake’s slash for instance), and that discouraged either team from getting stupid. Overall, I liked the reffing last night. (B+)

All in all, a rested team vs. a tired team. If Washington scores early, maybe a much different game, but once that own-goal hit, you could really sense the Sharks coming on and the Caps thinking about getting on the plane. But it was still a fun and entertaining game to watch…

Comments: Messy and flawed, but valuable

Comments: Messy and flawed, but valuable — mathewingram.com/work:

In my new role as the Globe’s “communities editor” (you can find more details on that in this post), I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about comments — that is, reader comments on news stories, columns, blog posts, etc. The Globe and Mail was the first major newspaper in North America to allow comments on every news story when it launched the feature in 2005, and judging by the ever-increasing numbers of people who use them, they are hugely popular. On some major news stories, we can sometimes get as many as 500 comments.

Comments aren’t popular with everyone, however. Some readers (and even some Globe and Mail staffers, to be honest) complain that too often our comment threads are filled with what might charitably be called “noise” — everything from bad spelling and grammar all the way up to partisan political in-fighting, ad hominem attacks and all-around rude and boorish behaviour. Some say they don’t really care what most people think about a topic, and don’t see the value in having public comments on stories at all.

The big problem is that comments are currently unfiltered; ultimately it’s still part of the wild-wild-west of the internet, and so the people who get filtered out in other areas of the net still show up in comments. Ultimately, reputations seem to be taming the trolls and the flamers, but haven’t really migrated to comments yet. It’s a reason why I’ve been watching things like Disqus — but I keep wondering if distributed reputations for comments is really a positive. We’ll find out.

Think about a typical comment: a site may require some ID/registration, but in many cases, it’s faux-authentication, where you can more or less make it up as you go along. That kills accountability, so users can play whatever games they want without much worry about policing or future impact to their ability to comment; at best, a post gets deleted. Bans are, well, pretty trivial to circumvent if you’re motivated and don’t mouth-breathe.

So where this is all headed, and to some degree has to go, is reputation.

A while back I started a project (which I ended up abandoning unbuilt) that had a lot of the same feel as what Yelp now does. A big part of the design was how to create a reputation system that is:

1. Primarily or completely automated (or it doesn’t scale)


2. Limits users ability to “game” the ratings


3. Doesn’t turn the reputation system into something to be gamed


4. Actually helps someone decide whether or not to read (or trust) a piece of content


5. Non-intrusive

Easier said than done. A first approximation are the karma systems of places like Slashdot, but it fails for me on (2) and (3), and is really of limited utility for the key issue, which is (4). It’s more of a chainsaw to help a user hide the worst.

So back to the yelp-like example. You look up a restaurant. There are four reviews of the restaurant, two good, one so-so, one hate. there are a few comments on some of the reviews, mostly people disagreeing with various points.

How the hell is a reader supposed to figure out what this all means? That’s the crux of the comment problem; how to put a COMMENTER in context. First, there has to be a context — and that’s missing in commenting systems today. this kind of harps back to my belief that anonymity on the net is bad, but the net mixes up anonymity with pseudonymity – i.e., I don’t need to know who you are, but I sure need to know that you are you (but I digress; see, if you care, identity proxies, 2004, anonymity destroys transparency, 2007, A group is its own worst enemy, 2008, SezWho, 2007, (who seem to have disappeared behind Disqus), A history lesson from usenet, 2007. That’s a hell of a digression…)

The idea is the basis of reputation systems — that over time, the “real you” comes out, and other users can use that information to judge whether or not to value your contribution — or perhaps tell the system to not even show it to you.

In the Yelp-like system, here’s what I came up with as a first cut. If I’m a J Random User looking at those reviews, what information would be useful for the user to determine what reviews and comments are useful? Try this:

First review: five stars. Best Restaurant Ever. the submitter created his account 2 hours before posting the review, hasn’t posted any content since. Easy guess: it’s the owner, or his spouse, astroturfing. Even if it’s not, you ought to assume it is.

Second Review: 1.5 stars. hate the service. rant. rave. grump. Again, account created an hour before posting, never used since. Obviously someone with an axe to grind. or maybe the waitress broke up with him.

Third Review: 3.5 stars. good food, uneven service, dirty fork. yada. The poster’s been a member for seven months, posted 25 items, average rating 3.8.

Fourth Review: 4 stars. Great food, good service, owner came out and talked. Went back and enjoyed it. Member for 3 months, posted 5 items, average rating 2.8.

Suddenly, with just a few bits of information, things clear up significantly. Astroturfing issues become visible quickly if you simply make it easy to see how active a member is in the larger community — if they’re a hit-and-run commenter, you can bet there’s some ulterior motive (positive or negative). This actually creates a fairly complex web of interactions, it encourages users to contribute to the site to build a reputation, for instance, and that’s good for the community.

Once users have been on the site for a while, they’ll get rated by other users. In my system, I used the rating of the user doing the rating to weight how strongly to count a rating, something I haven’t seen sites try yet, but that is a way to discount the idiots and encourage the strong contributors in a quiet but important way — the less others think of what you say, the less power it’ll have to affect other users on the site. In theory, below a certain number we’d likely just throw your opinion on the trash. Quietly, of course.

Quiet is a big aspect of this; to me, the second you start publishing these “reputation” numbers, it becomes a game of trying to “win” the reputation game. So simply don’t go there. I planned on sticking to the more general five star rating as part of the user profile, but no comparative public stats. Instead, users would be honored with “senior member” type labels based on longevity, activity and rating. Make up half a dozen titles, and allow them to be earned over time as a way to reward your best members. Just make sure that how you determine “best member” actually causes them to contribute and improve the community”. Bad metrics kill.

the final piece, of course, is making this information easy for someone browsing the site to find and use; something like showing the posting account name and rating (chuqui: 1.7 stars), and popping up more detailed info if they mouse over it (3 postings, member for 8 months, this was their 2nd posting and they were a member for a month at the time, last activity a month ago….); for users who want them, you could create slashdot-like filters that would automatically exclude, say, material posted by people with ratings < some number, or with fewer than N postings, or whatever.

The system is still open to gaming — but it’s a lot harder to hide from it, I think. Never got around to implementing it, but maybe one of these days. I’m still mulling bringing it back to life, but not i the original form.

Similar things could be done on a news site, or pretty much any community site. It’s a combination of

• making people create an identity


• tracking that identity’s actions


• allowing other identities to rank those actions


• allowing access to those rankings in rational ways

The combination of an identity, ranking/tracking and weighting things to discourage the one-post wonders can really put a dent into the sock puppets and trolls. sock puppets get marginalized by not building a track record to base a reputation on, trolls get marginalized because, well, as soon as you start building a reputation on a troll, it becomes self-evident. And if all of this encourages more contributions to a site and more community activity as a way to build that reputation, so that people will want to hear what you say, how is that bad for the community?

And done right, it’d be 99% self-policing and automated. I think.

This view isn’t confined to Globe readers, by any means: in a column in the National Post, author George Jonas said that the Web is like “an elegant restaurant with garbage on the menu,” and that “a huge blackboard on which anyone can write anything doesn’t mean much for those with nothing to say, i.e., most people.” Similar feelings have been expressed by various writers about comments on blogs, and some prominent Web writers have turned theirs off completely. Even the director of BBC News said in a recent speech that while she values comments, they are the work of a “vocal minority” and therefore shouldn’t carry too much weight.

It’s not an elegant restaurant with garbage on the menu; it’s a large, vibrant city where you aren’t even noticing that you’ve self-selected into that elegant restaurant. but otherwise, they’re all right. And the way to fix that?

Build accountability into the system. How do you do that? well, what’s worked so far online are reputation systems. Simply requiring a name and email isn’t going to be enough. And yet, that’s basically what we do today in comments. We focus on identifying someone, but forget that it doesn’t matter if we know WHO you are — it matters that we know whether you are worth reading. A simple identify doesn’t do that. A reputation does.

So the future for “fixing” comments has to be a reputation system of some sort. It’s not (just) about better identification systems, or about giving up. This is an area we’ve just started to explore and innovate.

Ed Levin area birding..

Late report, but I spent a couple of hours at Ed Levin and up on Marsh road sunday afternoon. I started at Ed Levin in the elms parking lot to see if I could find the acorn woodpeckers. Turns out they’re doing construction (well, destruction) on the playground and big, noisy machinery was chomping on things, so I didn’t see much of anything and didn’t stay long.

ended up headed to the first parking lot overlooking the lake, nearest the elms lot. The lake was pretty empty: some coots, some mallards, three scaups and some cormorants. I had a belted kingfisher fly by before I got out of the car, and never saw it again. Yellow-rumps chipping all over the place, two robins bathing in the stream and some scrub jays being scrub jays were the highlights. Nothing too interesting, but nice and quiet.

Marsh road was pretty quiet as well. the pond in the pasture near the start of Marsh was empty, not even canada geese. Didn’t see the turkeys or quail or bluebirds that hang out on the road; turns out the stream is dry, and so that area was pretty quiet. down near the end there was a large flock of blackbirds hanging out with the cows; I looked for tri-color, but there were three magpies also hanging out there and they kept starting panic flights and keeping everything in motion. I looked for raptors, but as far as I could tell, they were doing it because it amused them to get the blackbirds riled up.

Along the road down on the flat I did run into a small sparrow flock; in it was at least one (and possibly 2-3) Lark sparrows. One was nice enough to sit for photos, but I haven’t had time to process them. That was the highlight bird for the day.

One critter highlight: a lone coyote in one of the fields (near the pond near marsh road) wandering around looking for moles on the way out.

Location: Marsh Road, Calaveras
Observation date: 11/17/08
Number of species: 14

Turkey Vulture X
Red-tailed Hawk X
Anna’s Hummingbird X
Black Phoebe X
Western Scrub-Jay X
Yellow-billed Magpie 3
American Crow X
European Starling X
Lark Sparrow 1
White-crowned Sparrow X
Dark-eyed Junco X
Red-winged Blackbird X
Western Meadowlark X
Brewer’s Blackbird X

Location: Ed Levin Park area
Observation date: 11/16/08
Number of species: 14

Mallard X
Greater/Lesser Scaup X
Double-crested Cormorant X
Turkey Vulture X
American Coot X
Anna’s Hummingbird X
Belted Kingfisher 1
Black Phoebe X
Western Scrub-Jay X
American Crow X
Chestnut-backed Chickadee X
American Robin X
Yellow-rumped Warbler X
White-crowned Sparrow X

Greg on… Subliminal all-star messages

Two for Elbowing: Sidney Crosby: Subliminal all-star messages:

Good Lord, Chuq. I know you’re humor impaired, but does every post have to be the breakdown of the trapezoid rule that we did this morning?

Gee, I seem to have gotten under Puck Daddy’s skin a bit. Honestly, Greg, that was a pretty trivial face wash, much nicer than stuff you toss at the league on a regular basis. Dish it but can’t take? I thought better of you. Do you really want to be the Matt Barnaby or Jordan Tootoo of the blogging world?

But in any event, I apologize for thinking that a blog that lives on Yahoo and wants to be a major player in hockey coverage online might hold itself to higher journalistic standards than People magazine. Silly me. hey, did you realize it’s been an entire week since you snuck an ice girl picture into the blog?

Seriously, though, I’m amazed you took this so seriously…

Hmm. Humor impaired? Me?

Hmm.

There once was a girl from Nantucket…

I Said Wish Us Luck

Teds Take » Blog Archive » I Said Wish Us Luck:

Hard to believe we play again tonight in LA. We are in the heart of the season, 15 games in 30 days with nine on the road. Last night’s win was a great way to kick off the road trip but we are short handed and need some reinforcements ASAP.

And after Anaheim last night, LA tonight, it’s San Jose saturday, and I tell you what, the Caps were a team I flagged as a “can’t wait” game when the schedule came out, and they haven’t changed my mind. Right up there with the first game against the Wings this season as far as benchmark games and things I’m looking forward to seeing.

Comparing this year to last: Goaltending – From The Rink

Fun stuff. I never would have guessed the Lightning to have better goaltending, much less the most improvement. Boston? Minnesota? yeah. Ottawa? Not so much.

I’m surprised, but perhaps I shouldn’t be, that the Sharks goaltending is the same as last year; what isn’t obvious is how many fewer shots per game the goalies are seeing (this, of course, is a double-edged sword, fewer shots, but with the way they play, more odd-man and breakaway situations; so in a way, “the same” is actually pretty good in my mind).

And then there is Dallas, and the “what happened to Marty Turco?” question….

Comparing this year to last: Goaltending – From The Rink:

If I gave you 30 or so guesses as to which team’s goaltending has improved the most this season, it’d be pretty interesting to see just how far down the Lightning were on that list.

Mike Smith, and to a lesser extent Olaf Kolzig, have transformed the way Tampa Bay is losing games this season, so much so that the Lightning have the most improved save percentage of any team in the league.

I wonder how many teams in NHL history have had a nearly 4-per-cent swing in a single season?
2008-09 2007-08
RK TEAM SV% SV% Change
1 Tampa Bay 0.923 0.885 3.81%
2 Boston 0.935 0.914 2.07%
3 Minnesota 0.935 0.915 1.99%
4 Ottawa 0.916 0.902 1.47%
5 NY Rangers 0.925 0.910 1.46%

15 San Jose 0.906 0.906 0.00%

30 Dallas 0.868 0.905 -3.71%
0.9050 0.9063

The Life photo archives – From The Rink

The Life photo archives – From The Rink:

Bitter Leaf Fan Page made a great discovery today of some incredible hockey photos in Life’s photo archives, which are now fully searchable via Google. Here’s an AP story about the move.

Here are some of my favourite hockey-related pics:

I posted a few photos from the collection yesterday. James Mirtle adds some of his favorites, and they definitely kick some butt…

Slow Motion Killing

Tom Benjamin’s NHL Blog » Blog Archive » Slow Motion Killing:

Bob McKeown was on McCown yesterday promoting tonight’s episode of the EOWN Fifth Estate. He had news that Gary Bettman and Paul Kelly would be well advised to consider:

Recent research by neuroscientists now shows the link between on-the-field concussions and brain damage; a permanent injury that can lead to depression, suicide and severe aberrant behaviour. The damage is so profound, the researchers say, that post-mortem examinations of the brain tissue of five former professional football players can be compared only to the tissue found in the brain tissue of advanced Alzheimers cases.

Apparently professional football players have a life expectancy that is 20 years shorter than the average man. I’d like to know whether we’d see the the same kind of shocking result if someone ran the actuarial tables for hockey players.

Would the league eliminate head shots if someone was killed by one in a game? For sure. Does it really matter if the death is delayed by a few years? Should it? What kind of risks can we expect players to take to entertain us?

Its past time to take action.

Tom’s is dead right here on the need for action. Of course, the league IS taking action; note the memo circulated that intentional blows to the head aren’t going to be tolerated. A number of bloggers and media have pooh-poohed that, but ignore the underlying realities here: if you’re changing the standards of suspension, you have to formally notify the players and the player’s union so they can challenge and force negotiation if they want. Under a CBA environment, things like this are complicated by the legal logistics.

I know some want all blows outlaws; I could live with that, no argument. At the same time, I tend to think this is a good compromise point between taking too much physicality out of the game and tolerating the brutality. We’ll see what happens when the players don’t take the hint (they won’t) and the suspensions start ramping up, but I’m encouraged. I think a lot here needs to be done within equipment modification on elbow pads and shoulder pads, and the league is working with the players on that, too — hard caps and plastics on elbow pads need to go, folks.

As to life expectancy issues; just think about the number of old timers running around hockey games, the all-star game, heroes games, etc. Lots of them. Now, football? how many hang around? Not so. Football is a massively physical game, in a very different way than Hockey’s physicality. Hockey players have a lot more to worry about orthopedic issues (check out the number of artificial hips and knees at any heroes game); football has that TOO, but hockey’s a lot less brutal on a body over time. I’d expect hockey player’s life expectancies to much closer track “real” people. The Player’s association would actually have the data to figure this out from pension and membership info if they wanted.

Would the league eliminate head shots if someone was killed by one in a game? For sure. Does it really matter if the death is delayed by a few years? Should it? What kind of risks can we expect players to take to entertain us?

Yes, it really does matter if the death is delayed by a few years, if only because it becomes very difficult to pin the death on a single factor — and that’s a huge issue here. I mean, seriously; the data on smoking and lung cancer is pretty damn damning, and look how long it’s taken to get this far on solving that. Concussions vs. life expectancy is a lot less cut and dried, and even the football data is taking a few things and stringing them together; I happen to think they’re right — I don’t think the point is proven scientifically by any means.

As to Tom’s final point? He’s got it wrong. It’s what risk the players are willing to take to play the game. Our decision as fans is whether the game is too dangerous or risky for us to appreciate and enjoy it. If you think a game is too dangerous, you need to stop being a fan of it, because ultimately, the league will listen to people voting with their pocketbooks.

Down this road lies the slippery path of becoming TOO risk averse, folks. You can’t play a physical game without physicality. And that’s why I like the path the NHL is taking. They’re not over-reacting, and looking for that middle path that minimizes the risks without screwing up the game. And of course, in some corners they’re getting ripped for not being “serious” about fixing the problem, and in others, getting ripped for screwing up the game by even considering changing anything. Which mostly reminds us how easy it is to criticize, and how tough it is to actually do something useful…

My bottom line: the league needs to get more serious about kicking the butt of players that attempt to injure other players, and that includes hitting the head intentionally. But to take that the next step and presume you have to take hitting out of the game — I gotta problem with that. Now, if you remove the intentional hits to the head from the game and too many players are still being injured, then look at what else to do, but I don’t think that’s going to be necessary. And you can’t take the physical play out of hockey and still have hockey.

Sydney Crosby: Shootout liability?

Sidney Crosby: Subliminal all-star messages and shootout liability – Puck D… – NHL – Yahoo! Sports:

Jokes aside, back to Sidney. As you may know, he was stoned by Minnesota Wild goalie Niklas Backstrom on a pedestrian shootout attempt last night to end the Penguins’ game. Taking Crosby’s shootout history and current struggles into account, Tony from The Confluence wonders if it’s time for Crosby to be dropped from the skills competition top three.

[....]

However, to be fair, it must also be noted that Crosby overall is now 9 for 32 for 28% after his futile attempt last night against the Wild’s Niklas Backstrom.

[....]

It shouldn’t be an insult to Crosby, either, if he’s not center stage in the skills competition; nor should it be a second-thought for Pittsburgh Penguins Coach Michel Therrien. Unless, of course, 28 percent is still better than what’s riding the pine for the Penguins.

Well, the worst that can be said about Crosby is that he’s — average. The current scoring rate for shootouts this season is right around 30%, and since the shootout was implemented, about 31%.

9 for 32 is a bit below average. 10 for 32 is right on league average. 11 for 32 would be above it.

Basically, there’s nothing to see here; He’s not outstanding, he’s merely tracking the league.

Wow. he’s merely — average. this is a crisis. Some part of his game merely is okay.

Tell me again, why are we talking about this? Must be a really slow news day.

NHL claims all-star votes are valid, explains fraud prevention

NHL claims all-star votes are valid, explains fraud prevention – Puck Daddy… – NHL – Yahoo! Sports:

Last week, a scheme by Montreal Canadiens fans to flood the NHL All-Star Game ballot box with artificial votes was uncovered, in which a computer script inflated vote totals for Alexei Kovalev, Saku Koivu, Alex Tanguay, Andrei Markov, Mike Komisarek and Carey Price.

Over the weekend, and under the radar, the NHL took some action against these robo-votes

Nothing new here.

As I wrote back in 2006 in the Rory Fitzpatrick wars…

Two for Elbowing: Kuklas Korner:

Nope. Every year. just like clockwork. And it doesn’t matter. Not now, now last year, not ten years ago when the NHL started online balloting and the Sharks fans made it their goal to get Andrei Nazarov into the All-Star game (hey, back then, the NHL simply threw the votes out. no idea why they finally decided this year to treat this like a real election and count the fitzpatrick campaign; they have a long track record of ignoring or invalidating stuff they find inconvenient,a nd all of us involved with the “50,000 votes for Nazzy” campaigns (which may actually still be happening, I’ve lots touch) have known since year 1 that the vote was fixed (because none of our votes ever were counted, even when we followed the rules. WE won’t even get into the mid-campaign rule changes the NHL threw in to block us the first few years…..)

My basic philosophy still applies: it’s a FREAKING ALL-STAR game. Let the fans see who they want to play. If that’s Rory Fitzpatrick, fine. If that’s Pavel Bure, also fine.

I think the NHL is taking the right general attitude here, keeping the bots out. About the only change I’d make is to expand the ballot further; since it’s now online and not printed, there’s no real reason not to. And because it’s online, they don’t need to set the ballot until really late in the process, unlike printed ones. Make it, say, all players with either half a point a game or 18 of the first 20 games played for skaters, and 14 of 20 games played for goalies.

And otherwise, all I can say is that people who really get uptight over this stuff, who’s in, who’s out, who’s on the ballot — unless it’s your job with the NHL to create the ballot, you really have more important things you ought to be worrying about. relax. chill. Please.

Leaf fans: Get ready for a Burke-quake

TheStar.com | Hockey | Leaf fans: Get ready for a Burke-quake:

Now that the race is officially on to fast-track Burke to Toronto after the Leafs received the letter from the Anaheim Ducks yesterday clearing the way for contract negotiations to begin immediately, it’s worth contemplating the impact Burke might have if he’s on the job by next week.

Think earthquake.

Maybe not in the first week.

But by the second for sure.

Toronto’s already done everything but send a car to the airport. Probably for good reason, but I was musing last night about just how the Toronto area would react if this doesn’t end up happening. Part of me actually wishes for that, because it’d amuse me to watch a large chunk of the city and Toronto media fight to be first jumping off a cliff. Lemmings HO!

But that got me wondering what might actually keep Burke from going to Toronto — what could possibly cause him to go elsewhere?

So imagine this, if you will…. Bob Gainey phones up Brian Burke and says “I’m ready to retire, and we want you to take over the Canadiens”

Now wouldn’t THAT be a nightmare scenario for the Leafs? Because if you look at what interests Burke, it has a lot of attractiveness: it’s a Canadian original six team, long history and tradition, AND unlike Toronto, it doesn’t have that Toronto ownership “challenge” and it isn’t a team massively in need of an overhaul. And it’d allow Burke to tell reporters to piss off in multiple languages…

Now wouldn’t that just be more fun than spit if it were to happen…

Lightning fire Barry Melrose, move Tocchet to head coach

Lightning fire Barry Melrose, move Tocchet to head coach – Puck Daddy – NHL – Yahoo! Sports:

Tampa Bay Lightning Head Coach Barry Melrose has been relieved of his duties and Associate Coach Rick Tocchet has been elevated to interim head coach, Executive Vice President & General Manager Brian Lawton announced today.

Okay, who had “before Thanksgiving” in the “how long will he last?” pool? I think I was mid-December.

Wow. A shorter shelf life than Mike Keenan. Congrats, Barry.

Okay, seriously. I have some sympathy for Melrose here; I can well understand the motivation to get back in behind the bench. But…

The game has changed just a bit since he last coached. I honestly wasn’t all that impressed with him as a coach anyway. And this just had “bad idea” written all over it. (The detroit lions tried something like this with Matt Millen; it worked out equally badly; worse, actually).

Give the Lightning credit for not being afraid to admit they screwed up; it gives them a chance to get things moving forward, and Tocchet is a great start. Even better is it now looks like with Lawton in place, Lawton (not the owners) are making the decisions, and the owners are backing him. I’ll forgive them some early mistakes from enthusiasm in trying to reshape the franchise to their vision early; after all, Dan Boyle was “not their guy” and that only benefitted the Sharks (frankly, that was even more of a “huh?” move than Melrose. Melrose could well have made this work and everyone look like a genius. Just didn’t happen. Dumping Boyle? well, let’s see…