Hockey 100 - Come Learn About the Coolest Game on Earth

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Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

xzzy posted:

If a guy never touched a puck until he was 20 and somehow worked his way into professional circuits, is there any possibility he could play until he was 50?

To argue from anecdote: the increase in sports injuries and general brokenness I've experienced just getting into my late 20s as a totally non-serious athlete would suggest that it's not likely.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2011 21:23

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 00:01

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

Didn't [user] Tim Thomas play in the NCAA or something? Or is that the same person as Titanium?

# ¿ Sep 1, 2011 01:30

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

Lovie Unsmith posted:

So I mentioned in the N/V thread that my cousin has signed with an ECHL team that is affiliated with an NHL team. How much of a foot in the door is this for him, in terms of making it up to the big league?

Not very much of a foot at all. There have been 467 ECHL players to play in the NHL but it's a pretty safe bet that almost all of them were drafted into the NHL first or played during the lockout or something. I'm sure there are a few here or there that worked all the way up as undrafted guys but it's definitely a long shot.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2011 21:49

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

I'm pretty sure Nashville doesn't own the Milwaukee Admirals but they definitely get to call the shots.

I seem to remember reading something about the Chicago Wolves being a particularly independent AHL team and thus being a lovely affiliate because they bring in NHL vets on AHL contracts and prospects don't necessarily get the most playing time.

e: sorta beaten about the wolves.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2011 17:12

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

Pr0phecy posted:

Had my first game of the season last week and poo poo, incredible blisters and cuts on my feet. I also think that my U+ Pro's will break at the eyelet soon and I can't go back to $150 skates . Gonna spend entire paychecks on skates I guess.

Come over to the playing thread and tell us what size shinguards you wear!

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3395347

# ¿ Sep 27, 2011 18:09

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

Legerdemain posted:

Is there a rule against using a broken stick? Like if the head breaks off, it can still be used to poke at the puck and stuff. But it seems like guys just throw it away and skate around uselessly until they make a change.

Broken sticks are dangerous to play with so players are required to drop them. I believe goalies are allowed to keep using a broken stick until the next stoppage though.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2011 13:44

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

Legerdemain posted:

Anyway, how about dropped sticks? Can an opposing player just smack it to the other side of the ice? If a ref picks it up to get it out of the way, can the player take it back or does he have to get a new one?

Under rule 56 - Interference "A minor penalty shall be imposed on a player who deliberately knocks a stick out of an opponent�s hand, or who prevents a player who has dropped his stick or any other piece of equipment from regaining possession of it.

A minor penalty shall be imposed on a player who knocks or shoots any abandoned or broken stick or illegal puck or other debris towards an opposing puck carrier in a manner that could cause him to be distracted. (See also Rule 53 � Throwing Equipment.)"

A player can retrieve his own dropped stick or go to the bench for another, whichever he wants. Another player can move a dropped stick out of the way as long as he's not preventing the owner from picking it up or shooting it at someone. I don't think I've ever seen a player take a stick from a ref that picked it up. Usually refs don't pick them up during play and I can't imagine they would if it looked like the player might want to get it back.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2011 15:14

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

Scrotos posted:

Is there a service that I can watch all hockey games on my PS3, similar to DirectTV football package or MLB.TV? I am too cheap to pay for cable but like watching sports on my PS3.

If you buy NHL Gamecenter there is a PS3 app. Some caveats:

1. Games that are broadcast nationally or locally in your area will be blacked out on Gamecenter. So, if you want to watch the home team you're out of luck. I think past the 1st round all playoff games are nationally televised so those will be blacked out too.
2. You have to pay extra for the PS3 App
3. Last year the PS3 app sucked balls and was borderline unusable.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2011 17:13

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

Kekekela posted:

Thanks for this thread, its really helpful as an NBA fan that's going to be watching an assload of hockey this year. (and actually having moved to within walking distance of the Bolts arena I would be anyway)

Couple of questions:
1 - Ok, I actually thought I understood icing before reading this, but this part confuses me:
"For the purpose of this rule, the point of last contact with the puck by the team in possession shall be used to determine whether icing has occurred or not. As such, the team in possession must �gain the line� in order for the icing to be nullified. �Gaining the line� shall mean that the puck (not the player�s skate) must make contact with the center red line in order to nullify a potential icing."
Can anyone rephrase that or something? Are they saying if it goes across the goal line and the team that hit it there gets it back, they then have to come back to the center line with the puck?

2 - Boarding - What constitutes a "violent" hit? Is this just the same kind of subjective thing we get in the NFL where every time its called most of the fans are like "let them play the loving game" ?

1: The wording is a little confusing but it is pretty simple. In order for a puck being sent into the other team's end to definitely not be icing the team carrying the puck needs to cross the center red line (gain the line) before they shoot/dump the puck in. The other part of icing is that in the NHL they are barbarians and use "touch" icing so the team that committed an icing can race down and "beat" the icing if they touch it first...which sometimes ends with guys crashing into the boards and breaking femurs. Also the refs can wave off the icing if they think the defending team isn't making a decent effort to get the puck before it crosses the goal line.

2: It is subjective but a lot of times you know it when you see it. You will often see guys getting hit or crosschecked against the boards but they're pretty strong guys and don't get knocked down that easily. When someone gets knocked down (from behind) into the boards or slammed into the boards without a chance to get their arms up and catch/protect themselves there will often be a boarding call.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2011 03:32

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

Kekekela posted:

The "losing sight of the puck" thing makes a lot of stuff make sense also (although I see myself screaming a whole lot of "I CAN SEE IT FROM HERE WHAT THE gently caress IS WRONG WITH YOU" in the future)

Yeah, that happens and it especially sucks when you can tell the puck is slowly rolling towards going into the goal and then...*tweet*

# ¿ Oct 23, 2011 04:04

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

Kekekela posted:

Ok, I think this is it...

When "dumping in", aren't you risking icing? Also, isn't this basically giving up a turnover (not sure if this term is used in hockey but hopefully you know what I'm saying) unless the one guy chasing the puck happens to come up with it?

Are shifts really only like 45-50 seconds long on average? I swear it doesn't seem like they switch up that much but I guess I'm just not very attentive.

Usually teams will carry to center red before dumping and thus avoid icing. Sometimes teams will dump the puck in so that they can get a change. In those circumstances they are more or less giving up possession but they will have a couple players forechecking trying to make the other team cough up the puck.

Teams will also dump the puck as a means to enter the zone offensively. In those circumstances they will usually either shoot it hard around the boards which gives their opposite side winger a decent chance of getting the puck, or they will dump it into the opposite corner where it is easy for them to trap the opposing defenseman and maybe force a turnover. Keep in mind that a lot of times the forwards entering the zone are going at full speed so they can race to the puck pretty well.

Yeah, shifts are usually 45-50 seconds, NHL.com has shift length data for every player if you're interested.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2011 04:18

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

Kekekela posted:

Sorry if this is in the OP and I'm just missing it, but looking at the standings it appears that its 2 points for a win, and 1 point for an overtime game...I'm assuming that winning overtime must confer some advantage, so what would that be?

Yes, overtime wins give two points the same as regulation wins, with the confusing addition that shootout overtime wins don't count as wins for the purposes of tiebreakers in the standings.

Kekekela posted:

Ah, so I guess on the standings I'm looking at the 'OT' column is just OT losses, right? http://www.nhl.com/ice/standings.htm#?navid=nav-stn-main

Yes and "ROW" is regulation + OT (non-shootout) wins, the number of wins counted towards a tiebreaker.

Thufir fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Nov 7, 2011

# ¿ Nov 7, 2011 01:10

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

Kekekela posted:

OK, so looking at Washington:
W 9
L 3
O 0
ROW 8
Pts 18

This means they won 8 games in either regulation or non-shootout OT, and 1 game in a shootout...and have zero OT losses?

Yep. And Pittsburgh is 9-3-3 with a ROW of 6 so they won 6 in regulation or OT, 3 in shootout, and lost 3 in overtime or shootout. And lost 3 in regulation.

e: and here are the standings / tiebreak procedures

quote:

- Division leaders are seeded 1, 2, and 3 in Conference standings. If two or more clubs are tied in points during the regular season, the standing of the clubs is determined in the following order:

The fewer number of games played (i.e., superior points percentage).
The greater number of games won, excluding games won in the Shootout. This figure is reflected in the ROW column.
The greater number of points earned in games between the tied clubs. If two clubs are tied, and have not played an equal number of home games against each other, points earned in the first game played in the city that had the extra game shall not be included. If more than two clubs are tied, the higher percentage of available points earned in games among those clubs, and not including any "odd" games, shall be used to determine the standing.
The greater differential between goals for and against for the entire regular season. NOTE: In standings a victory in a shootout counts as one goal for, while a shootout loss counts as one goal against.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2011 01:23

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

VoodooDoll posted:

Is it a good thing or a bad thing when someone says a goalie was standing on their head in a game? I've heard commentators say it a couple times and I haven't been able to tell if it means the goalie is kind of loving around or that the goalie is being really acrobatic.

It's a good thing.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2012 02:11

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

We do monthly News/Views threads http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3458050

Be warned: may contain unbearable amounts of Bruins/Canucks dickwaving.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2012 04:01

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

Gameday Thread.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2012 04:06

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

Yeah, every once in a while GDTs will be kind of interesting but mostly it's just people throwing out observations that nobody else responds to and celebrating / venting.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2012 04:08

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

CobwebMustardseed posted:

So then how important is having a good power play to the success of the team? Obviously good is better than bad and goals are better than no goals, but if a team like the Rangers are twenty-sixth in PP% but third in goal differential...

I guess what I'm asking is: what does this mean? What knowledge about the nature of how strong or weak the Rangers are can I extrapolate from knowing that they have a high goal differential but a low PP%?

And speaking of which, where do you guys get statistics from? Is there a hockey equivalent of basball-reference? Also, if the OP (or someone else) was feeling ambitious and/or generous, something that would be valuable to me would be a breakdown of the thresholds of what is considered good for these stats. For instance, the OP explains what S% is, but when I read that Brooks Orpik has a S% of 7.1, I have no context to know if that's good or not.

NHL.com has all the basic stats available and there is also http://www.hockey-reference.com/ and http://www.behindthenet.ca/

"Good" can really vary depending on the player's role and the stat. For example, you asked about shooting %. Most NHL players will, over their career, have a S% of somewhere in the 7-15% range. Seeing someone at 20% doesn't mean they're doing good, it pretty much means they're getting lucky and might actually be over-performing and will eventually revert to the mean. To really get an idea for who is likely to be a consistent goal scorer you should look at s% and # of shots on net combined. Someone who shoots 10% (pretty average) but gets 200 shots a season is doing a decent amount of goal scoring. Something pretty much all the goal-scoring leaders have in common is that they take a ton of shots.

Some other stats:

Faceoff Percentage: only really useful for centers since some wingers will have a great percentage...on like, 3 faceoffs.
+/-: This is stupid and should be ignored
Zone starts: where a player starts their shifts, getting a lot of offensive zone starts will mean you get a lot of scoring chances but are kind of sheltered, lots of d-zone starts usually means you're doing tough defensive work and won't have as much opportunity to score.
TOI/Shift stuff: How much time a player gets per game / how many shifts.
PIM: Penalty minutes

There's also Qualcomp/Corsi/PDO/etc that you can probably read about here http://www.behindthenet.ca/about_stats.html

Thufir fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Feb 13, 2012

# ¿ Feb 13, 2012 18:41

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

CobwebMustardseed posted:

I guess that stats are not considered as important in hockey as they are in baseball. If we were discussing a baseball player and someone said to ignore his stats because they won�t give you an accurate picture of him and instead just watch him play, I would probably think that person is foolish. I guess this stems from hockey being a much more team-oriented sport (which makes it hard to evaluate individuals accurately) than baseball is.

I think baseball was an easier nut for stats geeks to crack. People are working on hockey but it's inperfect thus far. Part of what makes hockey tough it that there are tons of things a player can do to help the team that don't show up on the stat sheet. There's no stat for always being in the right place on the ice, backchecking, clogging shooting lanes, etc.

People are digging into it and some(most?) teams are running stats on their own (for example, Nashville's goaltending coach recently mentioned that he tracks what happens possession-wise every time the goal plays the puck) so I'm sure it will become more important in the future.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2012 19:52

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

Verviticus posted:

stuff about zone starts

Yeah, I was under the impression that Malhotra was chewing up the vast majority of the hard defensive minutes for the Canucks and moving the puck out of their zone which in turn allowed the Sedins to get some massively favorable % of offensive zone starts (best in the league I think) so Manny's providing tons of benefit for the team but the payoff comes when he's not even on the ice.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2012 14:16

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

Schremp Howard posted:

I get that yeah, that fifth goal was the winner, but I'd rather see who comes through in the clutch than who pots a seemingly meaningless goal and the team hangs on.

GTG?

# ¿ Feb 15, 2012 17:55

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

Petr Sykora has 5 GWG and I had no idea he was still in the league.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2012 18:39

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

DrGonzo90 posted:

This is great and makes a ton of sense. I too am a baseball nerd and love reading about stuff like this in any sport. If anyone has any more information on these kinds of stats, I'd love to read about it.

Here's a rundown on some of the main new stats: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/hockeys-new-numbers/article2178781/

and behind the net is pretty fun to play around on: http://www.behindthenet.ca/about.php

# ¿ Feb 15, 2012 22:55

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

I think a lot of time it's sort of like, team-building signaling. Like, if you just wrecked a dude on my team along the boards I'm gonna go after you even though I'll end up in the box and maybe get my face punched in, but my teammates will know that we've got each other's backs.

plus NHL refs don't want to impact the game too much and will almost always call off-setting roughing penalties so it's not necessarily that big of a deal.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2012 21:04

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

CobwebMustardseed posted:

When the playoffs are seeded, do they give the division winners the top three spots or do they go by how many points everyone has?

Yeah, a division win guarantees you a top-3 spot and the top 3 are ranked by the points among the division leaders and then everyone else is by points (and then various tiebreakers).

# ¿ Feb 17, 2012 15:38

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

CobwebMustardseed posted:

Is this because of some fundamental difference in the way Russians and Europeans play hockey? Are they more prone to loafing for some reason?

Pretty much just a Don Cherry-created stereotype. There are plenty of euros who play tough and North American players who float.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2012 20:14

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

They actually have a really extensive table laying out all the potential scenarios: http://www.nhl.com/ice/page.htm?id=26556

Though I'm fairly sure that just one set of coincidental minors during 5 v 5 play (2 min to each team) will always result in 4 v 4 and that chart just details situations with additional penalties on top of that.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2012 18:00

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

CobwebMustardseed posted:

So the thinking is that it's unfair to teams who are in a more competitive division? Because they might not get home ice advantage, despite technically deserving it for having gotten more points during the season?

Pretty much.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2012 15:51

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

CBJSprague24 posted:

Do guys coming out of retirement/back to the NHL (Selanne, Sundin, Radulov, etc.) require much adjustment or time to get their legs back under them for the NHL game? The reason I ask is I'm looking at picking up Radulov in a Fantasy league, but don't know if it'll be a wasted roster spot if he may not do much while re-adjusting to the Preds system.

I know this has happened before, but I never paid that much attention other than being aware that guys came out of retirement or back from overseas. Is it like riding a bike or will it take a few games?

I don't think you can really say, it'll vary by player.

e: But the safe bet is that yeah, it will take a few games.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2012 00:22

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

Dangerllama posted:

In beer league, we shake hands after every game.

Ninja edit: in the NHL it's not a "congratulations" handshake. It's a "condolences" handshake.

Ninjaer edit: ok, really it's both. Seriously. Classiest ending in all of sports.

It's seriously awesome how fast beer league goes from "argh gently caress you dirty shitbags!" to "hey, fun game man".

# ¿ Apr 22, 2012 05:44

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

CobwebMustardseed posted:

Does anyone have a good source for explaining the ins and outs of how the cap works?

http://capgeek.com/faq/

# ¿ Apr 23, 2012 19:50

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

CobwebMustardseed posted:

Which begs the question, what if the teams have the same number of points?

Probably the normal tie-breaks:

1. The greater number of games won, excluding games won in the Shootout. This figure is reflected in the ROW column.
2. The greater number of points earned in games between the tied clubs. If two clubs are tied, and have not played an equal number of home games against each other, points earned in the first game played in the city that had the extra game shall not be included. If more than two clubs are tied, the higher percentage of available points earned in games among those clubs, and not including any "odd" games, shall be used to determine the standing.
3.The greater differential between goals for and against for the entire regular season. NOTE: In standings a victory in a shootout counts as one goal for, while a shootout loss counts as one goal against.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2012 03:07

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

Sitting on the glass is pretty cool to do at least once, so you get an idea of the player's size and speed, but it is lovely for actually following the game.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2012 16:58

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

juche mane posted:

It's fairly common. Some guys can do it easily, other's get all hosed up. Generally speaking it's easier to go from center to the wing, or from one wing to your off-wing than to center. Generally, the center has more defensive responsibilities. For this reason, most forward prospects are actually drafted as centers from their junior/high school/european teams.

Well, to expand on this, at the kids/ juniors level teams will often want to play their best forwards at center since it's the hardest forward position to play, so the guys that get drafted tend to be centers, but when they get to the pro/ college level where they're playing with other guys who are legit good at center so they get moved to wing, because wing is the "easiest" position on the ice.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2012 02:32

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

CBJSprague24 posted:

Playing NHL 12, I just won the Cup with the CBJ and have the Calder Cup Final still to play with the Springfield Falcons. Which brings me to a question I'd never really thought about :

In a situation like this where the NHL team is finished with their season but the AHL Playoffs are still ongoing, would the NHL team send players on two-way deals down (in my CBJ's case, Byers, Atkinson, Johansen, MacKenzie, Giroux, Williams) to provide reinforcements to the farm, give them the summer off, or let the players decide for themselves? Is there something in the CBA, etc. that allows or prevents this from going on?

http://www.letsgoamerks.com/2012/02/27/information-about-the-deadline-for-ahl-playoff-rosters/

quote:

The NHL trade deadline is today (February 27, 2012) and any moves made can and usually do have some sort of impact on American Hockey League teams but that doesn�t mean moves are over. Teams can still trade players in the AHL and any moves have to be done by the deadline of March 5th at 3pm eastern time which is when clear day rosters are due and usually announced a day or two later. Also, any players in the NHL must be on an AHL roster today February 27 at 3pm to be eligible for inclusion. Corey Tropp was already sent to the Amerks today and we can likely expect Zack Kassian to be sent down as well and then immediately called back up.

What is the clear day roster? According to AHL by-laws, only those players listed on a team�s Clear Day roster are eligible to compete in the remainder of the 2011-12 AHL regular season and in the 2012 Calder Cup Playoffs, unless emergency conditions arise as a result of recall, injury or suspension.

That still leaves plenty of room to make changes to the roster but it�s done to prevent teams from sending down half of an NHL roster once the season is over. Teams may also add signed draft choices and players signed to amateur tryout contracts, provided that their respective Junior seasons are complete. If a player is called up to the NHL or a player is injured a team can still have someone play that�s not on the 22 man list.

This is all something that generates a lot of confusion this time of year and happens every year, myself included. Will try and send this out earlier than usual next season so we can all be informed!

# ¿ Aug 13, 2012 18:29

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 00:01

Thufir: May 19, 2004; "The fucking Mayans were right."

TEBOW 3 16 posted:

So as somebody who's totally ignored the lockout and everything since the playoffs in general, can anybody tell me if the Predators are better/worse than last year?

Bowing out like we did last year was a bitter pill so I'm wondering if I should welcome or dread watching them this year. Generally I love watching Pekka Rinne do cool poo poo, I'm just wondering what to expect.

I would say they're probably somewhat worse on paper but in the short season anything can happen. As a Preds fan I'm planning on just enjoying hockey this year and not getting too worked up about how the team does.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2013 21:32

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Sports Argument Stadium > Hockey 100 - Come Learn About the Coolest Game on Earth