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Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Thrashers Are A Good Team - Unfortunately
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The 2007-08 version of the Atlanta Thrashers are a good hockey team. They are exciting to watch, sport the league’s top goal scorer and are keeping things interesting in the Eastern Conference standings. That’s right, the Thrashers are a good team.
But that’s the problem…they’re good. Not Great…good. Not very good…just good.
Here is why that is a problem. Take the Ottawa Senators, the best in the Eastern Conference, and the Detroit Red Wings who in the west reign supreme. Both will vie for, and probably succeed, in capturing their respective conference’s title. These are examples of “great” teams in the NHL today.
After that, in the east you have four “very good” teams, New Jersey, Montreal, Pittsburgh and Carolina, (who qualify for this category based more on their status as division leaders then points earned). These teams will contend for their division titles and, barring some unforeseen circumstance, will end up with some sort of spot at the playoff banquette table come April.
Then you have several “good” teams in the east…Atlanta, Florida, New York Islanders, Philadelphia, Boston, New York Rangers, and Buffalo. All of these teams are good enough to keep themselves in playoff contention and keep their fans interested all season long. They are all bunched up within a few points of one another and each are good enough to wind up in the playoffs.
However, if you do the math, once you account for the “great” and “very good” teams, there are only 3 playoff spots left to go around for the 7 or so “good” teams. So, four of them will be left out in the cold, (or the “warm”…seeing as it will be spring time then).
The Thrashers did a very good job recovering from their abysmal start to begin the year and right the ship by Thanksgiving. We were all amazed that after going 0-6-0 to start things off, they had worked their way to the .500 mark by that time. However, over the course of the past 6 weeks or so, they have been stuck right on the break-even point, one game over, one game under, pretty much since that time. They have put together some good runs during that time, but have yet to play well enough to push themselves up and over the other teams lumped together in that “good” batch.
Also, the standings can sometimes be deceptive given that throughout the course of the season teams play differing amounts of games at given times.
Case in point: If you take a quick gander at the standings this morning, you will see the Thrashers are in the 10th spot in the Eastern Conference, a mere one point behind the Islanders and Philadelphia who are tied for the 8th and final playoff spot. They are two points behind the Rangers who occupy the seventh spot and three behind sixth-place Boston. So, if you simply look at points, only three separate those five teams.
Pretty tight, eh? Well, not so fast.
Factor in the amount of games played against the amount of points earned in those games…at type of +/- ratio in the standings, if you will… and you will see a little steeper hill for the Thrashers to climb. Doing so, you will find the Eastern Conference standings looking more like this:
- *OTT: 58 PTS - 41 GP = +17
- *NJD: 49 PTS - 41 GP = +8
- *CAR: 46 PTS - 44 GP = +2
- PITT: 48 PTS - 41 GP = +7
- MON: 48 PTS - 41 GP = +7
- BOS: 46 PTS - 41 GP = +5
- PHIL: 44 PTS - 39 GP = +5
- NYI: 44 PTS - 41 GP = +3
- NYR: 45 PTS - 42 GP = +3
- BUF: 41 PTS - 40 GP = +1
- ATL: 43 PTS - 43 GP = 0
- FLA: 41 PTS - 42 GP = -1
- TOR: 40 PTS - 42 GP = -2
- WAS: 39 PTS - 42 GP = -3
- TBL: 35 PTS - 42 GP = -7
(* Denotes division leader).
Last year the Islanders captured the last spot in the playoffs in the Eastern Conference. They were a +10.
The good news in the above scenario is the fact that the Hurricanes are only +2 ahead of Atlanta. We have been fortunate enough that they have not played at the level of, say, New Jersey. However, the Thrashers had two cracks at them last week and actually lost a point in the standings during those games. In the eight games played against them, we have gained 4 points to their 5.
So, as you can see, the longer our Blueland Bruisers hang around the “zero” mark, the less likely April hockey will last for more then the last 2 regular season games. It’s time for them to get above the .500 hump and then put some distance between themselves and that mark…for good!
