If you need any further evidence that Scott Burnside of ESPN does not have clue, this should do it.
Last week the the Canucks were #17 (rankings done by Pierre LeBrun who actually does know something about hockey), they win 2 games and slip to 26??? http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/powerranking
Jason Botchford's take on the ESPN rankings:
Quote:
In his latest NHL power rankings, he places the 2-3 Canucks 26th in the NHL. That's one spot behind the hapless — and winless — Islanders. It's also down from 17th last week even after two impressive wins, a huge game against the Habs and a shootout home win against the Stars, accomplished without their leading sniper and arguably their best defenceman.
The 1-0-3 Stars one win was against a Flames team which started backup goalie Curtis McElhinney. Dallas managed to get the 18th spot, even after losing to the reportedly lowly Canucks.
Sure, the rankings are ultimately a pointless exercise. Who cares, really? But Burnside got some attention in the preseason when he picked the Canucks to miss the playoffs. Anyone know if he got some bad sushi on his last visit?
Aren't these power rankings usually hugely influenced by injuries?
In the last week we've lost (arguably) our best forward and defenceman..
No, normally power rankings reflect the past week's performance and record except for the first edition which is based upon:
Quote:
How exciting -- the first Power Rankings of the season.
Not a single puck has been dropped on the 2009-10 campaign, so this is all about expectations, past experience and maybe a little voodoo puck magic thrown in for good measure.
Scott Burnside just seems to have this thing for trashing the Canucks.
Look him up in the Urban Dictionary and you would find:
1. Scott Burnside
Stupid tool who does not check his facts when writing articles. Typically he makes fun of people who have far more money and far more power then he could ever think of having. http://www.urbandictionary.com/defin...ott%20Burnside
He had great fun picking the Canucks to not make the play-offs this season when virtually every hockey pundit was giving them a shot at the Cup (hint Scott there is this guy named Roberto something or other who is supposed to be a pretty good goalie).
If you need any further evidence that Scott Burnside of ESPN does not have clue, this should do it.
Last week the the Canucks were #17 (rankings done by Pierre LeBrun who actually does know something about hockey), they win 2 games and slip to 26??? http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/powerranking
Scott Burnside is on crack, how can you have a team who is winless above not one but 4 teams with wins, 2 of which have 2 wins. I thought he knew hockey, apparently not, lol. Scott Burnside you officially are comic relief and nothing more.
I'm doing my own Power Rankings (hopefully out tonight, harder than I thought) and I have the Canucks in the 18-23 range probably after 2 wins. Not sure yet though, still looking at other teams records.
Just to make sure, what's everyone's definition for power rankings. Mine is how well the team has played since the last ranking regardless of overall record. Islanders could win three straight next week and find themselves top 10 but would still be probably bottom 5 in overall ranking.
Edit: A lot more teams with a losing record this past week to bump the Canucks up.
Last edited by Placebo Effect: 10-13-2009 at 01:12 PM.
If you need any further evidence that Scott Burnside of ESPN does not have clue, this should do it.
Last week the the Canucks were #17 (rankings done by Pierre LeBrun who actually does know something about hockey), they win 2 games and slip to 26??? http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/powerranking
From my understanding these aren't really subjective; rather, the author comes up with some formula that they think encapsulates team success, crunches the numbers and then writes a short blurb for each team. Certainly the formula itself is subjective (in that certain things are weighted more heavily than others), and should be modified if it's churning out nonsense results, but the results aren't.
I guess what I'm saying is that the fact that say, the Islanders are #22 and the Canucks #23 doesn't necessarily mean that the author sat down and said "yeah, the Islanders are a better team than the Canucks", but simply that when he plugged the two teams' stats into his magical formula, the Islanders came out ahead by some probably small margin.
This is why I think they're largely useless and am kind of mystified as to why anyone cares about them, literally the only thing they tell you is which teams got the highest values from whatever formula the person is using, which is almost always kept a secret. I mean, I can understand it would be interesting to come up with a formula itself and see how closely it correlates to team success, but as a reader, what's the point? All TSN's rankings tell me is that the Islanders' stats so far give a better score from Scott Cullen's formula than the Canucks' do. Without knowing what the formula is, I have no context to judge what it actually means.
That said, I suspect the reason why the Canucks are scored so low, in two "major" rankings now, is that the formulas take injuries into account, so they're "correcting" for the number of points Daniel has scored so far and assuming that there will be much fewer in the upcoming games where he isn't playing.
While I agree this latest swing is weird (and don't they claim it's purely a formula anyway? I don't think he's picking the slots), you have to understand that picking the Canucks to miss the playoffs is not that big a stretch. It's a 30-team league with a salary cap... no team makes the playoffs by a whole lot anymore. Not winning your division -- any division -- puts you perilously close to the edge.
In the past 4 years, the Canucks have done exactly the opposite of what was predicted for them every single year. Why would this be so different, when their ups and downs haven't actually been that far apart? Injuries can be the entire difference maker, as they very well may be this year.
Up until the end of the summer, I sort of thought we'd be missing the playoffs this year too, indeed because of probable injuries.
This is why I think they're largely useless and am kind of mystified as to why anyone cares about them, literally the only thing they tell you is which teams got the highest values from whatever formula the person is using, which is almost always kept a secret. I mean, I can understand it would be interesting to come up with a formula itself and see how closely it correlates to team success, but as a reader, what's the point? All TSN's rankings tell me is that the Islanders' stats so far give a better score from Scott Cullen's formula than the Canucks' do. Without knowing what the formula is, I have no context to judge what it actually means.
My suspicion is that they came up with the power rankings specifically so that we can no longer say that +/- is the most meaningless statistic in hockey.
Scott Cullen has a page explaining his power rankings system, and I have read it before. You are correct that it is completely based on a formula. Basically he calculates a numerical score for each player (based on their stats), quantifying their contribution to the team, then he generates a team score based on the aggregate stats of all the players **currently on the active roster**. So yes, injuries to Daniel & Salo are going to drop us way down, and it has nothing to do with the fact that we won the last 2 games.
AFAIK, power rankings are meant to be a representation of how the teams are playing right now, e.g. for purposes of making your SportsAction picks. So if #5 is playing #16 then you should probably put your money on #5.
), also one spot below the Islanders.
