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What's Next For Braden Holtby

8/30/2020

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By Joshua Tenzer

    ​After the Washington Capitals won the Stanley Cup in 2018, things have consistently gone downwards for the team. Despite 3 straight seasons finishing with an impressive 105 points (including 2019-20 when scaled up to 82 games), the playoffs have been a different story. In 2019 the Caps lost to the Carolina Hurricanes in double overtime of game 7 after a 2-0 and 3-2 series lead. In the Corona-Cup of 2020, The Capitals came in third in the seeding round-robin losing to the Tampa Bay Lightning in a shootout and the Philadelphia Flyers before beating the Bruins. Then in the first round of the playoffs, they lost in 5 games to the New York Islanders.
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Braden Holtby
    ​Holtby has been in net for all but 2 playoff games since he debuted on the Capital’s major league roster during the 2010-2011 season. With his contract ending this offseason (whenever that may be), it’s time to look back at how he has performed in net, what’s next for him, and most importantly, what roster will he be on at the start of the 2020-2021 season?

    Braden Holtby has been outstanding during his decade-long tenure with Washington for whom he has played 565 games, 97 of them in the postseason. He is a 2-time all-star, a Vezina winner, a William M. Jennings Trophy winner, and led the Capitals to a Stanley Cup championship. The team pays him 6.1 million dollars in cap hit which is high for a goalie but not in the top 5 most expensive netminders. The only problem with Holtby is his apparent decline. At the end of the 2016-17 season, Holtby got the second most all-star votes for a goalie, won the Jennings Trophy, came second in Vezina voting, and 10th in Hart voting. That season was also the last where he would receive any votes for any NHL awards or make it to the all-star game. The graphs below show Holtby’s numbers compared to the league averages in the two most useful goalie stats: Save percentage and goals-against average. As you can see, his GAA is increasing and his SV% is decreasing. On both stats he is sub-par. He’s on the wrong side of thirty and it looks like, assuming that he signs a long term contract, this will be his last serious chance at free-agency. How much money will he get?

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    ​It’s a complicated question to answer. The first issue is the flat cap. Every year since its inception, the salary cap in the NHL has increased (except for the lockout-shortened season of 2012-13). Due to the coronavirus, the sports world has faced financial complications. 10-12 games per team were left unplayed and the postseason is without fans so a lot of ticket money was lost. Not to mention the fact that finances went down across the globe. NHL insiders have made it believed that the salary cap for the 2020-21 season will remain the same as the 2019-20 season at 81.5 million dollars.

    The second kink in the chain is the reality of Holtby’s stats. As commented on above, Holtby appears to be past his prime and in a period of decay. His numbers are in a death spiral and it is yet to be seen if he can pull out of it. A smart team would recognize that the likelihood of Holby performing as well as he did in D.C. is slim and would offer him less money than he is making now. However, this is NHL and smart teams are hard to come by. Last year, there was a goalie who was up for a contract negotiation like Holtby, was nearly the exact same age as Holby is, and was on a 3-year decline like Holtby: Sergei Bobrovsky. Bobrovsky left the Blue Jackets, where he developed into a generational talent, and signed with the Florida Panthers for a cool 10 million dollars. Bobrovsky proceeded to have the worst season of his career. The Panthers won only one postseason game: a qualifying round victory over the Islanders, and would fail to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Will teams learn from what happened to the Panthers or make the same mistake and roll the dice again? It’s yet to be seen but I’m not too optimistic.

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Sergei Bobrovsky on the Florida Panthers
    The third variable to consider is his competition. There are 17 goalies whose contracts are ending this offseason. Of those 17, Holtby has played the most games but is 13th in SV% and 12th in GAA. Names above him in both stats include Aaron Dell and Ryan Miller. When you enter the mind-bending fun land of advanced analytics, Holby struggles even more. There’s a stat Quality Start % which takes the total games started by a goalie and sees what percent of those starts have a higher save percentage than the league average. > 60% is good, <50% is bad, and the league average is about 53%. Holtby’s QS% is 46.8%.

    Despite all that, I think that Holtby will get about 6.25 million dollars in free agency this year. While that is an increase in money, it is actually a smaller percentage of the cap than when he signed his current contract in 2015. Bobrovsky also showed that NHL front offices are a sucker for the power of a big name even if the underlying statistics are cause for concern.

    The question to answer now is what team will Holtby start for next season? If the team isn’t listed it’s because they have either finalized a solid goalie situation for the next year or spent too much money and don’t have the room to sign Holtby to a deal that he would take. There are some teams that either have a good goalie situation or no money that I included anyway because I wanted to bring attention to those specific teams.

Chicago Blackhawks: I Think Not
    I’ve seen a few people on Twitter talking about how much fun it would be for Braden Holtby to sign with Chicago. I admit it would be fun to see Holtby play on the same team as other greats of the early 2010s like Partick Kane and Jonathan Toews. However, the Blackhawks already have a post-prime, 6 million dollar goalie they need to give a new contract to Corey Crawford. Prevailing wisdom has Crawford re-signing with Chicago and I tend to agree.

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Corey Crawford
Toronto Maple Leafs: I Mean… I Guess
    There's a rumor going around that the Leafs want to trade away their starting goalie Freddie Andersen and since they just sent their 2nd line winger Kasperi Kapanen for essentially the 15th pick of the 2020 draft, I wouldn’t be surprised if those rumors are true. It’s a very real possibility that Freddie Andersen isn’t on the Leafs come December considering it’s the final year of this contract and he’s played himself into a new contract that the Leafs can’t afford in the 2021 offseason. This then leaves Toronto with the goalie combination in their system being Jack Campbell backed up by Kasimir Kaskisuo which is not a winning combination. The Leafs would be in the market for a new starting goalie but they don’t really have the money for him. There’s some universe where Holtby is in blue next season but this universe probably isn’t it.

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Freddie Andersen
Washington Capitals: A Possibility
    Is it possible that he will come back to the Capitals for the next season? Yes. Is it likely? Not at all. One factor in this is the man who played backup to Holtby during this past season: Ilya Samsonov. In 26 games with the Capitals, Samsonov posted a 16-6-2 record with a GAA of 2.54 and a save percentage of .914 putting him easily in the top 30 goalies stats-wise. He’s part of this wave of young goalies impressing their GMs this season. In addition to being statistically better than Holtby this year, Samsonov is cheap, still on his entry-level contract.

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Holtby (Left) and Ilya Samsonov (Right) at Practice
    Washington is on a tight budget when it comes to the salary cap for the 2020-2021 season. They only have ten million dollars of cap space left and they have two defensemen and two forwards that need to be either re-signed or replaced. Even if all five of those players were allowed to walk by the Capitals and Washington signed five rookies at the league minimum, that would still only leave Washington with just under 6.5 million dollars to re-sign Holtby who, as we showed earlier, can fit into that budget. Of course, the Capitals could try to trade away some players to make some cap space for themselves but most of their contracts have three or more years remaining and the players are either too expensive for their skill level or not efficient financially as they still need to replace players who get shipped away. Having said that, it doesn’t seem likely or possible that the Caps can sign so many players for so little money and maintain enough cap space to re-sign their franchise goaltender.

San Jose Sharks: Could Be
    It is said that the Sharks are a rebuilding team and could definitely benefit from a veteran presence like Braden Holtby. The issues arise when you look at that statement more closely. They already have veteran presences like 41-year-old Joe Thornton and 35-year-old Brent Burns. The Sharks also already dropped a lot of cash on a 30-year-old goalie who hasn’t performed to the standards that they set for him. Martin Jones is paid 5.75 million dollars a year and since signing that contract has posted two straight .896 SV% seasons and a GAA of around 3.00. Jones also has a modified no-movement clause in which he submits a list of only three teams that the Sharks can trade him to. This essentially boils down to the fact that the Sharks are stuck with an overpaid, underperforming goaltender. Would they gamble on Braden Holtby after getting burned by Jones? Maybe, but it seems more likely that they would go for Matt Murray or Linus Ullmark who would cost them less in the event of another flop.

Detroit Red Wings: Top 3
    The Detroit Red Wings are an interesting team right now. They have 11 players who will be UFAs or RFAs in the coming offseason and over 34 million dollars in cap space. Not only that, but they have the truest mark of a rebuilding team: No contracts that go into the 2023-24 season. If the 2019-20 season was the last season of them intentionally tanking, we can expect them to re-sign key players like Anthony Mantha and Tyler Bertuzzi to long term contracts and start building the core that they will run with for the next half-decade. 

    ​The key position that the Red Wings need to fix with a free agent signing is goaltending. They started the season with their trust in Jimmy Howard. Throughout the season he played in 27 games and won only two of them. He’s old, his contract is expiring this offseason and he’s abysmal. He posted a SV% of less than .85 in a third of his starts. You might remember that a QS% of 50% is considered bad, Howard’s QS% was 26%! The goalie the Red Wings switched to was Jonathan Bernier who was better but still had a QS% of 42%. The Red Wings need a goalie and Holtby would be a massive improvement for them. They could sign Holtby and build a defensive core around his playstyle since they have zero defensemen on contract for the 2021-22 season.

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Detroit’s Current Goalies: Jonathan Bernier (Left) and Jimmy Howard (Right)
    While being in the middle of a rebuild is a potential positive for Holtby, it could also be the reason he chooses not to sign with the red and white. As stated, this should be the last contract Holtby signs and where he plays out the twilight of his career. Will he want to spend the first three years out of the playoffs and not have a chance to chase that second ring? Maybe. The Red Wings are a strong possibility but not the most likely option.

Ottawa Senators: Top 3
    Here we start getting into the teams that make the most sense for Holtby to go to. Like the Sharks, they are beginning their rebuild. They have a wealth of draft picks with 9 picks in the first 3 rounds of the 2020 NHL Draft. They also don’t have a serious future in net and their starter isn’t under contract for next season. Whereas with the Sharks, it didn’t make sense for Holbty to go there to be a veteran in the locker room, with the Sens, it would be a perfect role for him. They are poised to take the title of youngest team in the NHL from the Blackhawks and unlike Chicago, they don’t have a Kane or Duncan to give the roster a bit of maturity and guidance for the younger players. Holtby is a positive locker room presence and may even benefit himself from that mentor role.

    The Sens could take the best goalie in the 2020 draft class Yaroslav Askarov with the number 5 pick. Though Askarov is predicted to go at 13 to Carolina, NHL.com has Askarov as the 6th best player in the draft so taking him at 5 isn’t Daniel Jones levels of reaching. Holtby could take the starting role as Askarov develops until they split starts and eventually Holtby gets relegated to a backup role. This can be built into the contract the Sens offer him by front-loading his salary, giving him upwards of 7 million in the first two years, going down to 6.5 million for the next two, and giving him 4.5 million for the last three years.

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Yaroslav Askarov
Edmonton Oilers: Put Money on It
    The Edmonton Oilers are good. They have two of the four best hockey players in the world on the same line. Their top 6 is monstrous, their bottom 6 forwards are a mix of young and old serviceable interchangeable parts. Their defense is young, hard-hitting, and strong. This begs the question: Why didn't they make the playoffs this year? They were the 5 seed going up against the 12 seeded Chicago Blackhawks. When the Blackhawks won, their weaknesses were exposed by the Golden Knights, they should not have been in the playoffs so how did they beat the Oilers? The Oilers scored 3 goals a game which is on par with how they did in the regular season and the league average. The issue is that they let in a total of 19 goals in four games. Mikko Koskinen is a fine enough backup in the regular season but in the playoffs he dropped to a .889 SV%. Their starter, Mike Smith had a .902 SV% in the regular season and .783 in the play-in round. If they want to complete their remake of the mid-80’s team, they’ve already cast Connor McDavid as Wayne Gretzky, Leon Draisaitl as Mark Messier, James Niel as Jari Kurri, and now they need Braden Holtby to play the role of Grant Fuhr.

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Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl: The Modern Day Gretzky and Messier
​    Goaltending is the last piece that this team needs to make it deep in the playoffs. If I were Holtby and I wanted to play for the best possible team, I would go to Edmonton and sign a contract through the 2025-26 season, which is the same year that Connor McDavid’s contract ends. Edmonton would like this because Holtby’s contract would be off the books in time to give McDavid the biggest contract imaginable and Holby would like this because if his decline does continue, he’s still getting paid for years and might even get another ring. On a more personal note, Holtby was born and raised in Loydminster which is on the border of Saskatchewan and Alberta. The closest NHL team to Loydminster is Edmonton. This makes the most sense.



    The question I posed at the beginning of this article is so complex because of Holtby’s declining numbers, Bobrovsky’s contract, and each team having their own pros and cons. At the end of the day, the teams that make the most sense to me are the Senators, Red Wings, and Oilers. Out of those teams, I would say that he is most probably going to Edmonton in the offseason but no matter where he ends up, I will be watching very closely to see if it’s another flop or if he hoists the cup again.

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Braden Holtby Hoisting the Stanley Cup with Washington in 2018
    I would like to give a huge thank you to Capfriendly and Hockey-Reference for giving me all of the information I needed to compile this list.

Image Credits:
    Yahoo Sports
    NBC Sports
    NHL.com
    NoVa Caps
    Bardown
    Puckprose

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Racism Took Over K'Andre Miller's Q&A Session with the New York Rangers

4/3/2020

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By Joshua Tenzer

    ​Let me start off by pointing out the fact that I am a straight, white, male who has never faced racism of any kind - stupid middle school antisemitism, sure - racism, no.

    Something horrible happened today.

    On Friday, the third of April, the New York Rangers held a Q and A session with recently signed defenseman K’Andre Miller. Miller played for two seasons with the Wisconsin Badgers accumulating 40 points off 12 goals and 28 assists. 2 of those goals and 1 assist came against the Wolverines this year. He was listed by EliteProspects as the #1 Rangers prospect in the NCAA beating out senior Morgan Barron from Cornell for that award. After signing his entry-level contract with the Rangers who drafted him in the first round of the 2018 draft, the Rangers wanted to keep fan engagement going in the Coronavirus induced pause. They decided to let 500 people in a video conference on the platform Zoom with Miller to ask him questions. In hindsight, this was a horrible idea.
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K’Andre Miller at a pre-season NYR training camp
    ​During the video conference, Miller, a racial minority, was answering questions about his quarantine situation when an account with the screen name ‘FBI’ started to spam the chat with a wall of text that was the N-word in all caps over and over and over and over again. Any real questions got lost in the wave of racial abuse. K’Andre did not respond to the happenings in the chat but was clearly visibly uncomfortable due to what was on his screen. The individual was eventually silenced and the session continued.

    4 hours after the incident, the New York Rangers released this statement:
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    While it is nice that the Rangers said this and are condemning this behavior, 4 hours is an unacceptable time frame to take between the incident occurring and the releasing the statement. The NHL also took a similar amount of time. Racism clearly has no place in hockey, or any sport for that matter, yet it exists in almost every conceivable competition. Every month, a new story breaks about a soccer player facing racial abuse from fans, a WWE wrestler getting targeted by racist chants from the crowd, the use of slurs on the football field, and many more show that this isn’t a problem keen on leaving the public view. When incidents like this occur it is up to the team and the leagues to take action swiftly and denounce this as soon as they can. The faster they respond, the more unified the response is. I am ashamed and disappointed in my favorite sports team on this planet for taking FOUR ENTIRE HOURS to denounce racial abuse on the newest member of their NHL roster. ​
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New York Rangers podcaster Joe Fortunato echoing the feeling of the Ranger’s fan base during the time it took for the Rangers to respond to the racism
    Furthermore, fans are having different reactions to this. Some are calling it out, some are calling to ignore the abuse as the person with the ‘FBI’ account was clearly a troll trying to get a rise out of people, some are thanking K’Andre for his professionalism. While it is obvious that the fan base of the New York Rangers are behind Miller and in support of the young man, no matter what anyone calls for to respond to this, a whole subsection of people attacks in disagreement. If we call it out we are being stupid and giving the troll the attention they seek. If we ignore it we are letting the hatred bubble under the surface. If we thank K’Andre Miller for being professional we are being condescending. (I don’t really understand that last one but it’s happened. I’m willing to learn as well.) When something like this happens, there really isn’t one unified correct thing to do. No one has the answer to how to get rid of racism. We should not be attacking each other at a time like this. We should be together and supporting K’Andre Miller.

    ​One response to this that I have seen that makes me happy is the masses of New York Ranger fans and players saying how they are excited for K’Andre to come to New York and sharing highlights of him, including his beautiful snipe on the power play from the blue line against the Michigan Wolverines in Yost.
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Fellow New York Rangers players Jacob Trouba, Tony D’Angelo, and Ryan Strome on the K’Andre Miller incident
    ​​We can share all the love and highlights we want but that does not excuse nor make up for the hatred that K’Andre Miller endured today. We need to see better from humanity, especially at a time like this, and we definitely need to see better from the NHl, the New York Rangers, and any league or team where a player endures racism from fans, teammates, or opponents. 

Image Credits
Yahoo Sports
Twitter

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4 Reasons American Sports Fans Should Watch Hockey

11/19/2019

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by Joshua Tenzer

        ​Hockey is the least watched of the four major sports in America. In fact, in a 2018 Yahoo Finance article comparing the viewership of sports, they neglected to even include the NHL (1). As someone who has been a hockey fan since I still had all of my baby teeth, I think that America’s ignoring of hockey is a sin. I am here to give you, the average American Joe, five reasons that you should turn on the television and find a hockey game to be absorbed in.

Reason One: It combines the best aspects of every sport Americans like
        Hockey is undoubtedly a bizarre sport. Ten skaters chase a rubber circle around with wooden sticks trying to slap it past a goalie with to score a goal. Despite being like no other American sport, it has all of the best parts of every other sport followed by a majority of the country. 
Americans love violence and football has it in spades. Football actively creates situations where the only way to stop the opposing team is by forcing a player to the ground through hits and tackles. Hockey has the same big hits without them being a necessity on any given play. An offensive rush can always be stopped with a fancy move from a stick but hits are undeniably a part of the sport.
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Max Martin with a massive hit on Keith Getson in the Memorial Cup
        Hockey has a similar speed to Basketball. Play on the basketball court goes back and forth without much of a break until one team scores; hockey is very much the same. While play on the rink does stop for non-scoring reasons more often than basketball, play stops due to scoring much less often. In addition, the players on a hockey team are able to make substitutions on the fly, ensuring that everyone on the ice is fresh and able to move at a pace that fans find entertaining.
        ​The best aspect of baseball is that it is truly a team sport. Hockey also has that emphasis on the team. In football, there is no doubt that without a decent quarterback, your team has no shot. In fact, the NFL MVP has been a non-quarterback only four times since 2000. Football has approximately 12 positions depending on how you count them and only four are represented in the history of the NFL MVP award since its inception in 1975. Basketball teams can rise and fall with one player. When Lebron James was with the Cavs, they finished first in the central division every year. They also made the finals all four years. When he left, they fell to near the bottom of the eastern conference. While there were other lineup changes between those two years, most of their offensive production walked out the door as Lebron went to free agency. Hockey is like baseball in  that the MVP award is tied to no position and no team’s success is determined by one player. For example, in the summer after the 2017-18 season, John Tavares left the New York Islanders. Tavares was the team’s captain and had 84 points (37 goals and 47 assists) after playing in all 82 games. He was an important figure both on the ice and in the locker room. When he left the team to play in Toronto, a significant portion of the team’s offensive production left with him. This didn’t cause the Islanders to fall to the bottom of the league like the Cavs, quite the opposite happened. In the 2018-19 season, the Islanders went 43-27-7 and finished 2nd in the Metropolitan Division. They actually improved by a sizable margin after losing their captain despite the fact that no player on the 18-19 Islanders had over 62 points, 26 less points than Tavares had during his first year in Toronto. When the best player on a hockey team leaves, the team isn’t doomed to failure like in the NBA.

Reason Two: The referees are awful
         I know that sounds like a bad thing, but this isn’t an article on why the NHL is a good league, it is about why Americans should watch it. The NFL is the most-watched league in the country and one of the hobbies that football fans enjoy most is complaining about bad officiating. Whether it is about pass interference calls, questionable catches, or roughing the passer, the referees in the NFL get a lot wrong. They get calls wrong that can easily be corrected through the usage of replay. 
        The NHL is very much the same. In the first round of the 2019 playoffs, the San Jose Sharks were down three goals to none against the Las Vegas Golden Knights. Off of the faceoff, Cody Eakin cross checked Joe Pavelski in the chest causing him to fall backwards. In a freak occurrence, Joe fell on his head and he started to bleed. The referees saw Pavelski down in the ice and bleeding from his head so they assumed Eakin cross-checked Pavelski in the head. They gave Eakin a five minute major for this perceived act.

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Cody Eakin cross checking Joe Pavelski in the ‘head’
        ​For those who don’t know, in a normal penalty the offending team plays with one less player on the ice for two minutes or until the other team scores a goal. A five minute major, on the other hand, is a stretch of five minutes where the offending team plays a man down no matter how many goals the other team scores. 
        The referees made a judgement call based on the aftermath, even though there was a massive scoreboard right above the referees’ heads showing the replay again and again. The Sharks scored four goals on the power play to make it a 4-3 game. Las Vegas tied it up but lost the game in overtime. Did I mention it was game 7 in a best-of-7 series

Reason Three: The game is fast
        Baseball was once a sport known as America’s pastime but recently people have stopped watching. Baseball viewership is plummeting because fans think the game is too slow. According to the Wall Street Journal, a baseball game has about 18 minutes of action. Action is counted as any time the ball is in movement from when the pitcher throws the ball to when the play has stopped or when the catcher catches it. Baseball is given a three hour time slot on television. This means that the action of the game is only 10% of a broadcast.
        American fans like fast-moving sports such as football and basketball where the breaks in action are limited. Basketball is a 48 minute game played on a 2.5-hour time slot equating to action being 32% of the broadcast. Football is similar as it is a 60 minute game played in a three-hour time slot so it has an action percentage of 33%.
        Hockey has the highest percentage of action. It is a 60 minute game and it is broadcast in 2.5 hour time slots. This means that 40% of a hockey broadcast is time spent playing the game. Hockey is played in three periods so there is less time between sections of the game, and stoppages can be as much as 8 minutes apart because there is no set way to break the flow of the game. Of course, it should be noted that soccer has an action percentage of 75%.

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Reason Four: The Stanley Cup playoffs is the most exciting bracket in sports
        America loves a good tournament. March Madness is lauded as the tournament above all tournaments for its massive bracket. 64 teams compete in a winner takes all competition. What people don’t know is how few NCAA D1 teams make the tournament. The Stanley Cup is the only tournament where over half of the teams make it to the bracket, allowing the most number of fans possible to have a stake in the postseason. Only 18.2% of all NCAA D1 basketball teams make it to March Madness, 50% of NBA teams make it to the playoffs, 37.5% of NFL teams play in January football and 33.3% of MLB teams make it to the World Series playoffs. By comparison, since there are 31 teams in the NHL (for now) and 16 of them make it to the Stanley Cup Playoffs, 51.61% of hockey teams compete for the oldest trophy in organized sports.

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Mark Messier holding the Stanley Cup in 1994
        ​Some sports have predictable playoffs. No one is ever surprised when the Patriots make the Super Bowl. Lebron James made the NBA finals eight years in a row with two different teams. In the second half of that stretch, his Cavaliers faced the same team all four years. People were starting to tune out of the playoffs until the final because why should someone watch a series if they know what the outcome will be? 
Hockey is one of the least predictable brackets in sports. In the NHL playoffs there are four 1, 2, and 3 seeds, one from each of the four divisions. During the first round of the 2019 playoffs, all four 1 seeds lost to the four wildcards. That includes the Tampa Bay Lighting, a team that tied the NHL record for regular season wins, getting swept. The eventual Stanley Cup champions, the St. Louis Blues, were a 3 seed and had to upset four separate teams on their way to winning it all.
        When looking at 2019 and all of the major sports tournaments in America, the Stanley Cup playoffs had the most upsets. The graph below plots what percentage of series, or single games in the case of March Madness and the NFL, ended in an upset. The World Series had plenty of upsets while both basketball tournaments went mostly as predicted.
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        Hockey is great sport full of loud people, upsets, action, pacing, and bad officiating. It is the quintessential American sport. I’m not asking you to become a die-hard fan yelling at you TV after every game, nor am I asking you to find a team to root for and know every player. All I am asking of you, America, is to turn on your television and find a hockey game, sit down, and watch it. You might find your new favorite sport.

Sources:
(1) “Which U.S. Sport Had the Highest Viewership in 2018?” Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo!, 30 Dec. 2018, https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-sport-had-highest-viewership-141700953.html.

All statistics came from Hockey-Reference

Photo and Gif Credits to:
Sportsnet
NBCSN
NHL

4 Comments

A Church of Personality

10/25/2019

0 Comments

 
by Joshua L. Tenzer

        It’s no secret that New York sports fans are among the most insane anywhere in the United States. They are fickle, rash, illogical extremists yearning for the good old days of the 80s and 90s, and I am proud to be one. If you sift through the hot takes, the calls to fire whoever, the constant panic, and the armchair GM-ing, every once in awhile you find one having fun. When you do, you find some of the funniest and most devoted fans in existence. The perfect example of this: Ryan Mead and the Church of Kakko.


        Kaapo Kakko is only 18 years old and has only played 8 games with the New York Rangers, but he is already seen as the future of blueshirt hockey. Drafted #2 overall in the 2019, the Finnish 18 year old already has a spot as a top 6 forward in the garden. He competed in three international competitions before being drafted winning gold in all three. In the 2018 IIHF U18 World Championships, he tied for leading his Finnish team in points racking up 6 goals and 4 assists in 7 games. He has an assist and a goal through his first 8 games but a plus/minus of -8 and a negative point share. Regardless of these early concerning statistics, rangers fans are sticking with the young man and putting all their faith in him, most notably Ryan Mead.
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Kaapo Kakko taking a shot on opening night against the Jets
        Ryan Mead is an employee of The Athletic, a subscription based sports news website. He runs a podcast about the New York Rangers with Greg Kaplan called the Blueshirts Breakaway. However, his most significant contribution to New York is his prized creation: The Church of Kakko. What can almost be described as a religion, the Church of Kakko has its own 10 commandments, clergy, donation box, and Ryan Mead has even taken on a clever nickname for himself as the leader of this new cult of fans: The Kaapope. 

        The church has a central prayer to greet people on the face of the church’s website: “Kaapo Kakko is chosen, our lord and savior, a Finnish miracle, Cup-raiser. You are here because you acknowledge Kakko as our lord, let him be praised.” They sell posters of stained glass windows depicting Kaapo skating with a halo over his head and sweaters with the logo of the church.  1127 people and counting have purchased C.o.K. merchandise or signed up for the mailing list and have gotten their names on the clergy list on the Church of Kakko website. The whole thing is ridiculous, but it goes further into the realms of insanity.

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The Church of Kakko's emblem
        The Rangers opened the season on October 3rd at home hosting the Winnipeg Jets. Ryan Mead was at the game dressed in his Kaapope garb. Dressed similarly to the catholic pope he wore a mitre (the pope’s tall hat) and white and red robes - underneath a Kaapo Kakko Rangers jersey, of course. He was stopped constantly for pictures now proudly displayed on his twitter and made it to the front page of Finnish news website Ilta-Sanomat.
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The Kaapope himself at Madison Square Garden on October 3rd
        At first glance, this church seems like a joke taken very far but under closer inspection, it is what sports fans can be at their absolute best. Throwing all your faith behind a player to the point of forming your own church for him is an admirable task. As fans we all love to love our team so even as Ranger’s fans expectations of Kakko are reevaluated, the church continues to grow. Yes, the Church of Kakko is silly, ridiculous, and bizzare and yes Ryan Mead has made a cult but it’s also just a concentrated form of how good it is to love your team.

        Praise be to our lord, Kaapo Kakko.

Photo credits to:
  • Getty Images
  • The Church of Kakko
  • MSG
  • Nick Depalo (The Bishop of Branding)

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NHL 2018-19 Season Preview

10/17/2018

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By Owen Swanson & Charlie Goodwin

Western Conference

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Pacific Division

​Anaheim Ducks
Last Season: (44-25-13; 101 pts) Swept in 1st round by San Jose
Notable Offseason Departures: D Francois Beauchemin, D Kevin Bieksa, C Antoine Vermette
Notable Offseason Additions: C Brian Gibbons, F Carter Rowney, D Luke Schenn, D Andrej Sustr
Stanley Cup odds: +3000

Anaheim’s strong season was overshadowed by an absolute beat down at the hands of the San Jose Sharks in the first round of the playoffs. The Ducks looked pitiful in the series, being swept with home ice advantage and outscored 16-4 in the series. The offseason was one of addition by subtraction, as Anaheim stands to gain more from cutting ties with aging, unproductive players, such as Vermette and Beauchemin, than from the depth they added. However, look for a slight improvement from this team as a result of the added experience on their blue line. An eight year contract extension for goalie John Gibson cements Anaheim’s situation in net for the foreseeable future.

          Prediction: 2nd Wild Card, first round exit (Winnipeg)


Arizona Coyotes
Last Season: (29-41-12; 70 pts) Last in Western Conference
Notable Offseason Departures: F Max Domi
Notable Offseason Additions: C Alex Galchenyuk, F Michael Grabner, C Vinnie Hinostroza, F Brad Richardson
Stanley Cup odds: +10000

Arizona’s miserable 2017-18 campaign was likely contributed to by the absence of longtime team captain Shane Doan. The retirement of the 14 year Coyote left a void in the locker room that no doubt contributed to their lack of success last season. Look for a slight improvement for Arizona this year as Antti Raanta settles into his starting role in goal and star defensemen Oliver Ekman-Larsson assumes the capitancy. Increased production from the franchise’s young players, including Christian Dvorak, Alex Galchenyuk, and Clayton Keller with a full year under their belt will also set the franchise on the right track.

          Prediction: 7th in Pacific Division, 13th in Western Conference


Calgary Flames
Last Season: (37-35-10; 84 pts) 5th in Pacific Division, 11th in Western Conference
Notable Offseason Departures: D Dougie Hamilton, F Michael Ferland, D Brett Kulak
Notable Offseason Additions: F James Neal, D Noah Hanifin, C Elias Lindholm, C Derek Ryan
Stanley Cup odds: +3300

The offseason acquisition of Elias Lindholm and Noah Hanifin for Dougie Hamilton was no doubt a look into the future of the Flames. Thus, it was no surprise when Calgary committed long-term to Hanifin and Lindholm, tendering them each six year contract extensions. Considering their former head coach in Carolina was hired to lead the Flames this offseason (Bill Peters), the adjustment process in Calgary shouldn’t be too difficult for Hanifin and Lindholm. While moves like this suggest a focus on the future, the James Neal signing (5 years, $5.75 million AAV) in his age 31 season was unexpected. While these moves look aggressive on paper, it will take a few years for Calgary to see their full impact. A regressing James Neal and 36 years old Mike Smith in net won’t be enough to take this team to the playoffs as their young players continue to develop.

           Prediction: 5th in Pacific Division, 9th in Western Conference


Edmonton Oilers
Last Season: (36-40-6; 78 pts) 6th in Pacific Division, 12th in Western Conference
Notable Offseason Additions: C Tobias Rieder, C Kyle Brodziak, D Jason Garrison
Stanley Cup odds: +3000

Even a 108 point season from superstar Connor McDavid couldn’t get Edmonton to the Stanley Cup Playoffs last season. While McDavid will be around for a long time to come, the Oilers will continue wasting his years until the front office, more specifically GM Peter Chiarelli, commit to building around him. Once again, Chiarelli made moves that marginally added depth, but don’t expect the addition of Jason Garrison (1 year, $650K AAV) to magically solve Edmonton’s defensive woes. Strap in for another season of superstar production from Connor McDavid, but don’t expect to see him in the playoffs.

           Prediction: 6th in Pacific Division, 12th in Western Conference


Los Angeles Kings
Last Season: (45-29-8; 98 pts) Swept in 1st Round of Stanley Cup Playoffs by Vegas
Notable Offseason Departures: C Tobias Rieder
Notable Offseason Additions: F Ilya Kovalchuk
Stanley Cup odds: +2600

The loss of Jeff Carter for much of the Kings’ 2017-18 season had a significant impact on where they finished in the standings, but a healthy Carter in the playoffs didn’t help against the Golden Knights. A red-hot Marc-Andre Fleury lead the the Knights to a dominating sweep over the Kings.

​The Kings committed to a vision of contention for the next several years during the offseason by extending Drew Doughty (8 years, $11 million AAV) and signing 35 year old Ilya Kovalchuk (3 years, $6.25 million AAV). If the addition of Kovalchuk and a full, healthy year of Jeff Carter helps this team figure it out offensively, they will finish the season as dark-horse cup contenders in the Western Conference. Dustin Brown’s (28 G, 33 P last season) absence to start the season will hurt them, however.

          Prediction: 3rd in Pacific Division, second round exit (San Jose)


San Jose Sharks
Last Season: (45-27-10; 100 pts) Lost to Vegas in 2nd Round of Playoffs
Notable Offseason Departures: F Chris Tierney, D Dylan DaMelo, F Mikkel Boedker
Notable Offseason Additions: D Erik Karlsson
Stanley Cup odds: +1250

After falling to a dialed-in Marc-Andre Fleury and the surprising Vegas Golden Knights in last year’s Stanley Cup Playoffs, the San Jose Sharks look poised for a deep cup run this season. San Jose deserves credit for making the most impactful move of the offseason by acquiring Erik Karlsson for a package of draft picks, young NHL players, and prospects (including UM’s Josh Norris). The Sharks also made sure not to lose Evander Kane, an important producer in the offensive zone for San Jose, by locking him down for the next seven years ($7 million AAV). As long as Martin Jones continues to be dependable in goal, San Jose’s lethal back end will have two Norris Trophy finalists and will determine the fate of their season. The loss of Joe Thornton to start the season won’t hurt this team in the long run.

          Prediction: Pacific Division Champions, eliminated in Conference Final (Winnipeg)


Vancouver Canucks
Last Season: (31-40-11; 73 pts) 7th in Pacific Division, 14th in Western Conference
Notable Offseason Departures: C Henrik Sedin, F Daniel Sedin    
Notable Offseason Additions: F Antoine Roussel, C Jay Beagle, C Tim Schaller
Stanley Cup odds: +12500

Brock Boeser’s breakout campaign for the Canucks proved to be a silver lining on another extremely disappointing season, and Canuck fans shouldn’t hold their breath for a different outcome anytime soon. This season won’t end with the Canucks in a drastically different position in the standings, mainly because of the 100+ points generated by the now-retired Sedin twins that need to be replaced. However, Canuck fans may experience deja vu watching Elias Pettersson emerge as a Calder Trophy finalist, and his development will begin to solidify a young core for the Canucks to build around. Two of the offseason’s worst signings (Antoine Roussel, age 28, 4 years, $3 million AAV and Jay Beagle, age 32, 4 years, $3 million AAV) were made by Vancouver, however, and will hinder the progression of the franchise during this lost season.

          Prediction: Last in Pacific Division, Last in Western Conference


Vegas Golden Knights
Last Season: (51-24-7; 109 pts) Lost to Washington in Stanley Cup Final
Notable Offseason Departures: F James Neal, F David Perron, F Tomas Tatar
Notable Offseason Additions: C Paul Stastny, F Max Pacioretty, D Nick Holden
Stanley Cup odds: +1100

After a surprisingly successful first season, the Golden Knights will surprise no one this year. Breakout years from William Karlsson and Jonathan Marchessault, in addition to a renaissance season from Marc-Andre Fleury, propelled them to the Stanley Cup Final. However, their offseason moves leave something to be desired, as they signed 32-year old Paul Stastny to a 3 year contract ($6.5 million AAV), and extended defenseman Shea Theodore (7 years, $5.2 million AAV) and goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury (3 years, $7 million AAV). The Stastny and Fleury contracts are questionable because of player age and likely regression. Their best move of the offseason was trading for and extending Max Pacioretty (4 years, $7 million AAV), who will attempt to make up for the loss of the team’s 3rd most productive player, David Perron (66 points in 2017-18).

Vegas will have to withstand a stint on Injured Reserve for Paul Stastny and Alex Tuch, as well as defenseman Nate Schmidt’s 20 game suspension for PED use (which he still claims was done unknowingly) to start the season. The Knights will be in the mix once again this year, but expect an earlier exit from the Stanley Cup Playoffs as Marc-Andre Fleury regresses and sin city is unable to recapture the magic of their inaugural season. The Golden Knights are betting on development from their young forwards and the additions of Stastny and Pacioretty to replace the point production of James Neal and David Perron, but it’s a bet that won’t pay off.

          Prediction: 2nd in Pacific Division, first round exit (Los Angeles)


Central Division

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