Its amazing what a meaningless win over a depleted Islander team can do to the mainstream drive by media. "The Rangers are back in the race." Huh! The Rangers are five points behind eight place Boston with nine to play. Boston has ten games left. The Rangers are also two points behind ninth place Atlanta who has nine games left.
Make no mistake this was a depleted Islander team and with the exception off their 40 year old goalie, Dwayne Roloson, they played awful. Roloson made 39 saves, 17 in a scoreless second period. With the absence of Andy Sutton, traded away, and Brandan Witt, off to the minors, there were no D-Men to punish the Ranger forwards who skated freely in front of Roloson. I have no problem with the three stars of the game, Gaborik, Avery and Lundqvist. However, they should have squeezed Ro;oson in there somewhere.
Statistics aside, Sean Avery was the most recognizable and dominant player on the ice. He was complete disruption to the Islanders. He showed what he can do and how he can affect a hockey game if unshackled. When your coach is an idiot what can you do.
So it's off to Jersey tonight and a test to see if the "salary drive" is for real or is it more "fools gold". What do you think?
Thursday, March 25, 2010
So What?
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Boston as 78 points and ten games left. It is pretty clear that they will have 88 or more points.
We have 73 points. To get to 89 points we will have to finish 8-1-0 or 7-0-2.
We sure are back in the hunt. Ya, right.
Spot on Mike. It's a pure salary drive and the media doesn't pay any attention to the facts. Statistically speaking its a *very* long shot that the Rags make the playoffs.
Using various statistical measures like Monte Carlo simulation these websites, after last night's "must" win, have the following chances of the Rangers making the playoffs:
Hockey Rodent: 11.7%
Sports Club Stats: 10.4%
PlayoffStatus.com: 12-13%
Putting the odds another way. The Rangers chances of making the playoffs is about the same as rolling a 5 with a pair of dice (4 combos out of 36 = 11.11% chance)
The problem with odds is that they are not as sterile as rolling dice. The methods used assume that the likelihood of prior events this season is an accurate predictor of future events. That is false. At the end of the year teams with a lead tend to push harder, much like a runner does at the end of a race.
Our odds are 00.00%
Section 335,
The Rangers still have a slim chance. If I wanted to wager $1 that they make it, you wouldn't want to offer me 1,000,000-to-1 odds would you? A $1 million payout on a $1 bet if they do make it. If so I'll take it.
What odds would you give someone? 100-to-1, 50-to-1. The correct odds you should offer would be around $10-15 to $1, and take a buck back (the vig) for taking the action.
They have a punchers chance. The problem is they're punchless.