AJC > Sports > Thrashers > Blog > Archives > 2008 > August > 07 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USScheduling an improved record
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s not only whom you play. It’s when you play them. And the Thrashers appear to have a slight edge this season compared with last season in that department.
Here’s some analysis, using Microsoft Excel and a PowerBook G4.
The Thrashers had to play games on back-to-back days 18 times last season. They went 2-13-3 in those games. Contrast that with their 32-27-5 in other games, and you see a significant difference.
They were 17-16-5 when they played following a single rest day, 11-6-0 following two rest days, 2-2-0 following three rest days, 0-2-0 following four rest days and 2-0-0 following five rest days. (They lost their opener, but I’m not sure how you count the rest before that game.)
So, how does this season compare? They have 15 times when they play on back-to-back days, three fewer than in 2007-08. They have 41 times when they play on a single rest day, three more than in 2008-09. That difference, if their rest-day-effect stays the same, could be worth an extra victory, maybe even an extra three points in the standings.
OK, so that’s not much. But it’s something.
Other scheduling tidbits:
—Longest road trip: The four-game swing in February to Anaheim, Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Jose.
—Coldest road trip: Probably Colorado, Edmonton and Buffalo in March.
—Longest gap between games (not counting the All-Star break): Five days, from a Nov. 9 game at Carolina to a Nov. 14 game against Carolina.
—Toughest month: December, with a stretch of 15 games in 30 days. Four of those games are the back ends of back-to-backs.
—Toughest turnaround, mileage-wise: Playing a game at Philips Arena one night, then playing in Boston the next. The good news for the Thrashers is that the game in Philips is also against Boston.
Comments
By kracker
August 7, 2008 8:34 AM | Link to this
That’s good stuff, Mike. We need all the advantages we can get. One thing I noticed was that a lot of our bact-to-backs (11) came in just two months, December and March. That makes for a really long, grueling month of play. Are the back-to-backs clumped in a simmilar way this season?
By Sara
August 7, 2008 8:40 AM | Link to this
What always irks me about the back-to-back scheduling is how often our opponent had NOT played the day before. And we didn’t get many shots at other teams when they were on back-to-backs that I recall either.
But this may be where our new youth movement 2K8 helps this club out - younger legs should bounce back quicker.
By kracker
August 7, 2008 8:42 AM | Link to this
I’m going to change my name to something like yackov so my misspellings are forgiven. To be clear, I was referring to last season’s schedule.
By Bob
August 7, 2008 9:18 AM | Link to this
Sounds like everyone will know where this team stands by the end of December, that’s a rough month.
By GaVaHokie
August 7, 2008 9:19 AM | Link to this
—Longest gap between games (not counting the All-Star break): Five days, from a Nov. 9 game at Carolina to a Nov. 14 game against Carolina.
I like this… if they get off to a bad start, it’s early enough in the season to make significant changes to the roster or team strategy if needed.
By kracker
August 7, 2008 9:30 AM | Link to this
A rather significant plus this season will be if Anderson & the assts. know how to get this team ready to play after several days off. Under Hartley/Waddell it seemed like following every break longer than 2 days, the team would come out flat and sloppy and then have to scramble to try to salvage points.
By GaVaHokie
August 7, 2008 10:32 AM | Link to this
Under Hartley/Waddell it seemed like following every break longer than 2 days, the team would come out flat and sloppy and then have to scramble to try to salvage points.
Agreed.
They lost a lot of momentum… I remember a few years back (believe it was the 05-06 season) being in first in the SE, they went on a long break around February/March, teams caught them in the rankings, they lost the 1st place seed, dropped to 9th in the conference standings before returning to the ice… played flat and dwindled.
By William
August 7, 2008 10:46 AM | Link to this
hokie/kracker correct me if i’m wrong, but didn’t every year under hartley have a major hot streak only to be followed by a major cold spell later in the season.
By Dave
August 7, 2008 10:57 AM | Link to this
It doesn’t matter what the makeup of the schedule is, the Thrashers are going to go 0-82. Yes, you heard me say it first. Everyone shall shower me with praise when my prediction comes true.
By Dave
August 7, 2008 11:05 AM | Link to this
It doesn’t matter what the makeup of the schedule is, the Thrashers are going to go 0-82. Yes, you heard me say it first. Everyone shall shower me with praise when my prediction comes true.
By Robert
August 7, 2008 12:16 PM | Link to this
Shows the mental make up of some people who anwsers these blogs…Hey Dave…Hit post only ONCE..
By Brendan
August 7, 2008 12:20 PM | Link to this
Now Dave, did you mean 0-0-82? ‘Cuz that’s still 82-points on the season.
By DB
August 7, 2008 12:30 PM | Link to this
A quick analysis indicates that if the Thrashers had the same record spread in the backend of back to back games as opposed to other games, we would have ended the year at 88 points. Around trade time, we possible would have been in a different position as to trading Hossa. I think it is pretty much agreed that Hossa was going to leave ATL after the season, unless they were Cup competitors, which I can’t see in the near future. Maybe a blessing that we sucked on the backend side of back to backs.
By Mike Knobler
August 7, 2008 12:30 PM | Link to this
kracker There are four back-to-backs in December, which, with apologies to T.S. Eliot, is the cruelest month for the Thrashers. Three back-to-backs in November. Other months have two.
By Dave
August 7, 2008 12:34 PM | Link to this
0-82-0
WHERE’S NIKULIN???
By Dave
August 7, 2008 12:34 PM | Link to this
0-82-0
WHERE’S NIKULIN???
By R. Stroz
August 7, 2008 12:52 PM | Link to this
Mike - Have you taken a look at the number of games the Thrashers are catching other teams on the back end of a B2B series and the Thrashers have one or more days off going into said game?
By Mark
August 7, 2008 1:24 PM | Link to this
The problem with Back to Back games indicates that there is a conditioning problem with the team and that is a coaching and management problem. They should be doing more conditioning work; suicides, after practices, and more stationary bike work after games.
By Bob
August 7, 2008 1:41 PM | Link to this
Shows the mental make up of some people who anwsers these blogs…Hey Dave…Hit post only ONCE
Yepper.
Hey william, roswellthrasherfan, brian, dave, or whatever other name you want to come up with, I’ve got a hint for ya, if you want to insult NascarDave don’t imitate him, after all “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”.
Something tells me that also will go right over his head.
By Toby
August 7, 2008 1:45 PM | Link to this
Knobler DW leaking any trade rumors? Or is he waiting until Sundin decides what he’s doing? If he decides he’s going to play, he could put teams over the cap, though it sounds like he’s hanging them up.
By Dunwoody_Kevin
August 7, 2008 2:36 PM | Link to this
Hey william, roswellthrasherfan, brian, dave, or whatever other name you want to come up with,
Heh Heh, so I guess Brian is back to his childish ways again, lol.
By Viking
August 7, 2008 2:43 PM | Link to this
Sara,you took the words out of my mouth!
After last season, I “entertained” myself with creating stats for last season regarding back-to-back games and whether the opposing team were in the same situation and when we had an advantage.
It took a lot of work to do the stats for just the Thrashers, so I never got around to do the responsible thing before a blog posting - meaning a comparison with other teams.
Unfortunately, it appears that my Excel sheet has been deleted, so I am unable to add to Knobler’s statistic’s. However, I started to list the results for the other teams in our division for just the back to back games (not worrying about the opponent), and I remember that the Trashers suffered severely from this compared with other teams.
So, if the schedule this season is more Trashers friendly and if this year’s roster with its younger legs will have an impact, we should predict more than 3 extra points…
By Tony C.
August 7, 2008 3:47 PM | Link to this
EH.
I’m more concerned with the number of times our back-to-back games are against the same opponent. Certainly, we played a number of games where the opponent was “fresh” as Sara pointed out.
But really, as long as we are properly conditioned, especially with the total age of the team going down almost 7 years (by average), it shouldn’t be as dramatic a disadvantage as it has been.
GO BLUE !!!
By William
August 7, 2008 4:00 PM | Link to this
sorry folks but that was just r.stroz’s overactive imagination. if you can find anything in my “writing style” as he claims that matches brian please point it out to me. in the meantime i will continue to enjoy talking hockey.
By ranallo10 (in AT)
August 7, 2008 4:08 PM | Link to this
Personally, i think back-to-back games suck, but these guys are professional athletes. If I can play back-to-back games and remain relatively fresh, they can too…no? Especially when the “long grind of the season” hasn’t hit them in December, but hits closer to the trade deadline (usually).
Perhaps it was conditioning…I guess that means the coaching is the issue. Perhaps it was more than just conditioning, and the team emotions were not kept in check by the “leaders” on the team. Or perhaps it’s just happenstance.
Conditioning and preparedness makes the most sense to me, but being a sub-par athlete who can (and enjoys tremendously) play back-to-back nights of an exhausting sport…I don’t see how conditioning is the only issue at hand.
Oh, and every other team in the league has back-to-back games, often against fresh teams, or doing back-to-back on the away leg of a home-and-home series. I kinda see this like I do injuries…Atlanta’s not the only team to experience it, so why use it as an excuse unless it’s proportionally uneven for Atlanta.
By William
August 7, 2008 4:22 PM | Link to this
ranollo i thought that’s a good point because it’s not like we are the only team in the league that plays back to back games. so we play 15 instead of 14 that shouldn’t kill us.
By Viking
August 7, 2008 4:49 PM | Link to this
Fact: Our guys played worse than other teams in back to backs last year.
No excuses for past performances, just hoping this year’s younger team will do better and it will be reflected in the shape of wins.
By Tony C.
August 7, 2008 5:01 PM | Link to this
How’s the ice over the ranallo?
I imagine you’ll have some very nice sheets to play on this winter.
By ranallo10 (in AT)
August 7, 2008 6:04 PM | Link to this
Viking — Understood, but the Thrashers also played worse than 27 teams in the regular season.
How’d the Lightning and the Kings fare in back-to-back games?
Tony C. — Ice is great, but the quality of competition is suspect…I’ll fit in PERFECTLY.
By Viking
August 7, 2008 7:38 PM | Link to this
ranallo10- It is a big undertaking to answer your question, since I no longer possess the stats. It would actually be intriguing to see what the standings would have been counting out back to backs.
Since the Thrashers really, really sucked in this situation, my guess is that a standings table based on the winning percentage for non back to backs might be surprising.
However, that was then and now is now, so I do not think the work involved to figure it out is worth it. Perhaps the assumption that a younger team will fare better will suffice…
By ranallo10 (in AT)
August 7, 2008 7:53 PM | Link to this
Viking — Agreed, it’d definitely not worth your time. I do agree with you that perhaps such a bad record on back-to-backs is indicative that something needs to be approached, my way of simplifying it is that the entire season needed to be corrected, not just the back-to-back efforts.
Of course, I’m not implying anybody thinks differently regarding last season’s play, I’m just stressing that while a poor back-to-back record is not something to be proud of, it’s also not something to worry about for a coming season.
Maybe I’m over simplifying here, but I’m of the opinion that solid defensive teamwork and better puck possession will greatly improve the overall record, as well as the back-to-back record.
Tomato, Tomatoe…whatever.
By Former STH
August 7, 2008 8:52 PM | Link to this
They could play 82 games at Philips with three days between games and still not win more that 25 games with that sorry line-up. Its’ going to be a long boring winter.
By Tony C.
August 7, 2008 9:22 PM | Link to this
YOUR ENTHUSIASM IS OVERWHELMING
By Crazy Diamond
August 8, 2008 11:46 AM | Link to this
I still think we are so screwed. Thank you Atlanta Spirit Group.
By Lanny McDonald
August 8, 2008 12:24 PM | Link to this
Re: Poll Question
Definitely need more Scoring.
By truth
August 8, 2008 1:40 PM | Link to this
The Memphis Grizzlies have just presented a $58 Million Offer Sheet to Atlanta Hawks RFA Forward Josh Smith. Smith has signed the Offer Sheet.
Atlanta Spirit has 7 days to match the offer.
By Thrasher_Ed
August 8, 2008 4:44 PM | Link to this
Mike Knobler, Can you get any info out of Fort Know aka Thrasher Headquarters about Ilya Nikulin? That are varying reports on his status and we deserve to know from Waddellsworth!
By Mark
August 11, 2008 11:34 AM | Link to this
One more note about our record in back to backs. It is a lot harder and more taxing to play defense. The Thrashers were not a good puck possession team last season and spent the majority of the games chasing the other team around. This is perfectly illustrated by the number of shots surrended each game. Exerting more energy than the other team because you are chasing the whole night would be a good explanation as to why they were short on energy on the following night and the resulting poor record in back to backs.
By hunterj6
August 12, 2008 1:41 PM | Link to this
I love the Trash and can’t wait to get to some games. The young team will be fun to root for.
BUT,
Bulldogs and college football come first.
Also, excited about the Birds and Matt Ryan…Or Shockley?…
Just glad the baseball season is coming to an end