Thursday, February 7, 2013

Things to love about the world today

1) This pie chart about football, from the Winnipeg Sun.

2) This goal light, which you hook up to some computer you have already, and you tell it what team you like, and then the goal light goes off whenever they score. Yes, Virginia, you are living in the future, where shit like this is real.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Why is this team so mediocre?

I said about a week ago that while our first four games didn't really tell enough of a full story to comment on, our first seven likely would at least be the beginning of one. Well, now we're 8 games into a 48-game season (1/6 of the way through), and if we chose to interpret a story based on these 8 games, that story would undeniably be mediocrity. 4 wins, 4 losses, and no free Bettman Points through 8 games have the Rangers tied for 8th out of 15 in the Eastern Conference. That's about as middlin' as you can get, save also having a perfect goal differential of 0 (ours is -3).

Some fans, such as Straw Man 1, will ask, "What happened to the Rangers?" After all, Straw Man 1 will point out, this team won more games than anyone else except the Odious Devils last season, and since then, it added Rick Nash. It is incomprehensible that to Straw Man 1, therefore, that we'd come out of the gate 4-4 this season.

The much more level-headed, sensible Straw Man 2 will note that 8 games is a dang small sample size and that we're coming off of a weird-ass lockout and virtually no training camp, and conclude that everything is crazy-pants right now. The Islanders have a winning record, and the Lightning have a goal differential of goddamn +18 in 8 games, which is just an impossible, wacky, fantasy-land goal differential. So, Straw Man 2 is tired of pointing out, no one should really be putting too much stock in the ridiculously small sample of 8 games that we've played so far.

Now, I like Straw Man 2 quite a bit. He's capable of reaching reasonable conclusions based on data, and he's not interested in writing narratives that don't actually exist based on only a handful of data points. Plus: he understands that, if you're only going to look at one number, it should be goal differential, not win/loss record. I would like to have a beer with Straw Man 2, and I considered making his point here today.

But I'm prepared to offer yet another "explanation" (of a set of facts that, Straw Man 2 reminds us, don't really need much in the way of explanation): the Rangers might just be a mediocre hockey team this season. More to the point, I think we should not at all be surprised if they are.

Yes, the Rangers added Rick Nash in the offseason. And as I've said here time and time again, giving up overpaid Brandon Dubinsky and inconsistent Artem Anisimov to add a monster like Nash was a way good idea. But no one seems willing to realize that this is basically a different team than the one from last season. The moves made yesterday are clearly flails to try to get together a 3rd and 4th line that aren't terrible. And Straw Man 1 is very willing to discuss losses like "the chemistry certain guys used to bring to the locker room." Straw Man 1 isn't blind to the loss of Brandon Prust. But he does still have trouble understanding why the Rangers aren't performing as well as they were last season. And what I want him to understand is that they are; they're just doing it on a bunch of different hockey teams.

Look. I am not suggesting anything earth-shattering. What I am suggesting is the easiest possible thing to understand. It's just that it's not how the conversation is ever framed for some reason. These are different human beings. Yes, the goaltending and defense are basically the same - and as I've said here before, those things are the ones more likely to improve with further play. But let's talk about the 12 forward spots that make up the majority of a hockey team. In the Conference Finals against the Loathsome Devils last season, we played a total of 13 forwards in those 12 spots. Let me remind you who they were: Artem Anisimov, Brian Boyle, Ryan Callahan, Brandon Dubinsky, Ruslan Fedotenko, Marian Gaborik, Carl Hagelin, Chris Kreider, John Mitchell, Brandon Prust, Brad Richards, Mike Rupp, and Derek Stepan.

Pop quiz. How many of those 13 forwards are still Rangers now, going into tonight's rematch against the Godforsaken Devils? Boyle, Callahan, Gaborik, Hagelin, Kreider, Richards, and Stepan. Seven, and that's counting Kreider, who is looking less and less likely to be good enough to deserve a roster spot this season. With Callahan's injury, we could have as few as 5 of them in the lineup tonight. If Kreider sits tonight, 2/3 of the forwards on the ice in white tonight will be guys who were not on that same ice the last time the Rangers were.

So, we can have debates about whether this team is better or worse than it was last season. And those debates should hinge on a comparison between Team 2012 (Anisimov, Dubinsky, Fedotenko, Mitchell, Prust, Rupp) and Team 2013 Right Now (Asham, Halpern, Miller, Nash, Powe, Pyatt). And I think that Straw Man 2's patience will win the day there. But let's all stop being surprised that this team is playing so differently than it did last season, when half of its forwards are literally different people.