Patrick Kane has left the chat

For real though who gives a sh*t about size like if they can actually play hockey then that’s fine but if not just send them to the ECHL I don’t care

Genuinely haven't seen much from Kane Lately, Suzuki has done the Datsyuk and the Kane this year

Suzuki has to do the Forsberg next to cement his shootout legacy lol

It is because Dom Values Minnesota players a lot higher than the Blues players. For whatever reason, that is.

Just about every single Habs fans on the site who were dealing Anderson for returns with the value of 1st+, just to throw an example.

Lots of people still value size way more than they should.

It's supposed to be a model. The Blues currently hold a playoff position on both points and points percentage - he has them at 18% to make the playoffs. Minnesota are 11th in the West, but they're 78%. He's clearly thumbing the scale.

Its a model that projects a teams remaining games based on the players on the team, look at the depth charts that go with the model. I don't think he is thumbing the scale, i think that Doms model thinks that the blues players suck.

Dude, get serious. Models don't think. The guy constantly makes it known that he hates the Blues because they cost him money on his bets. He's constantly trolling in his articles while also making it obvious he never actually watches them play. When the Blues lose, their % plummets 8-9%. when they win, it inches up 1-2%. The "model" might somehow magically have MINN slightly ahead of the Blues at this point, but 78%-18%? Puh-lease. He's thumbing the scale. Hard. It's rather easy to see.

Bobcat’s Post Game Notes, Game 17

Jackets lose to the Detroit Red Wings.

-Here comes another leg of this super long home stand. Detroit is just coming off of a long stint in California that ended 2 days ago, so I would THINK they’d be more tired than we are. I don’t know what to expect.

-…Lars, I was really joking when I brought up the idea of calling up Billy Sweezey a couple games ago. I didn’t expect you to do it for real! He’s scratched for tonight, but considering our recent bout with injuries, I’d expect either Andy or Guddy to get hurt, so Bill gets his NHL debut.

-The first 5 minutes of the period was a blur until Tyler Bertuzzi was sent off for hooking. First PP of the game, let’s see what we do with it…

-Two things really caught my eye (and ire): firstly, with about 1:20 left on the power play, Kenny tries to get too fancy on a pass and turns the puck over when he could have taken a shot that probably would have caused a goal-mouth scramble that may or may not have worked on our favor.

-Secondly, what the holy hell is Vladislav Gavrikov doing on the power play? If he’s supposed to be quarterbacking, Jake Christiansen can do that just fine. Gavi’s a penalty kill guy.

-Ollie gets sent off for cross-checking, and that leads to Dylan Larkin scoring on the goal-mouth. Rough stuff.

-Gus, Silli and Yegor rush with urgency, Yegor takes a shot, but Ville Husso makes the save. Chinny was NOT happy with himself for missing that one…

-…okay, that’s twice now. This time, Silli takes the puck away, gets a breakaway, but Husso takes the goal away. Ville for Vezina.

-Things look very even, both on the ice and on the stat sheet (although not necessarily the score sheet) as the first period fades to black. I would hope that we can make some offensive improvements in the 2nd and finally beat Husso.

-Captain Boone Jenner breaks out the quick stick to beat the defense and set up Bemmer to tie this game up before a full minute goes off the clock in the second! Let’s go!

-Lucas Raymond goes zoom to (almost) beat Gavi and sets up Bertuzzi for a shot that Korpi saves, followed immediately by Emil Bemstrom making his case for a future job as a stuntman. Glad he’s okay, but that was a scary collision with the net.

-I love watching Eric Robinson’s play, but I wish that he did more with it. Man is working his tail off, but it’s just not helping.

-Filip Hronek makes up for getting undressed by Boone by capitalizing on a gonzo pass from Marcus Bjork to bury it behind Korpi. I don’t think there was much that Bjork could really do there. Let’s hope that this is just his “Welcome to the NHL” moment that every rookie has.

-Noted ACGM nuisance Ben Chiarot takes a shot from the point and benefits from a lapse in judgement from Korpi to put the Wings up 3-1. Ouch.

-Michael Rasmussen gets a slapper to the forearm and goes straight down the tunnel. This sounds calloused as f*ck, but it’s kinda cathartic to see another team lose a player to injury instead of us. Now you know how we feel…

-Filip Hronek scores his second on the game on a play that confused all of us. He got the puck lodged between the back of the net and Korpi’s water bottle holder. Lol.

-Kuraly and Oskar Sundqvist start a scuffle between their lines, and that leads to 4-on-4 Hockey Time as the second period ends.

-We cannot catch a break. First, Sean gets sent off for hooking Jake Walman, and now Mathieu gets sent off for elbowing (which I have never understood why elbowing is a penalty to begin with).

-As the game becomes 5-1, I leave you with this:

In that 5-game skid around the time we left for Finland, my dad enlightened me to the concept of “Quicksand”. If you’ve ever watched the movie “The Replacements”, you’ll know of this one scene where the coach brings the team in for a locker room talk to ask what their fears are. Shane Falco (the quarterback and basically main character, played by Keanu Reeves) says that he’s afraid of “quicksand” (not actual quicksand, but a snowball effect of bad things that leads to a big loss). Says Falco:

“You’re playing, and you think everything is going fine. Then one thing goes wrong. And then another. And another. You try to fight back, but the harder you fight, the deeper you sink. Until you can’t move… you can’t breathe… because you’re in over your head. Like quicksand.”

That’s what I see out of the Jackets all the damn time, and it drives me up a wall. Our confidence is so shot that we get down on ourselves and lose games much worse than we really should because we’ve stuck ourselves into quicksand. I don’t know how we can fix that: We can’t strip Boone of the captaincy because there’s no one else to give it to that would make anything remotely better. Despite the calls for his head, I feel firing Brad Larsen at this point doesn’t change a damn thing. We’re just screwed.

Bobcat’s Post Game Notes, Game 18

Jackets win, 5-3 over the Florida Panthers.

-After last game, I sincerely hope this isn’t a return to the slump we had earlier in the year. At least this time, we have an excuse?

-Trey Fix-Wolansky gets the call-up for tonight, going in for Liam Foudy. Unfortunately he did not bring his aviator sunglasses. Give ‘em hell, Fix.

-Two goalies from Novokuznetsk, Kemerovo Oblast, Russia start on both sides: Daniil Tarasov for Columbus, Sergei Bobrovsky for Florida. Fun fact: one of Bob’s idols growing up was Daniil’s father, Vadim Tarasov, who played in the KHL and the league that came before it for years and years. It’s a small world.

-Jake Christiansen makes a clearing attempt that goes straight to, who takes a slapper that blows right by Dani. 1-0 Panthers.

-IT’S FELT LIKE FOREVER SINCE I LAST SAID THIS, BUT Y E G O R B O M B ! ! YEGOR CHINAKHOV SCORES HIS THIRD GOAL OF THE YEAR ON A BREAKAWAY!! THIS GAME IS TIED!!

-Marcus Bjork gets sent off for pulling down Carter Verhaeghe, but we kill it off with ease. I’m glad Florida’s power play really isn’t that great either.

-Yegor almost scores another, beating Bob again, but ringing it off the crossbar. That was close…

-We got outshot to the moon and back in the first, but we escape tied. Let’s hope we make some adjustments to play more offense than defense…

-Yegor on a rush towards the net, but noted *sshole Radko Gudas takes him out at the knees. We go on the power play.

-Kent Johnson takes a shot from the faceoff circle, and Boone gets the shaft of his stick on it to put it by Bob. We’re up by one. They gave it to Kenny, although Boone tipped it with the shaft (and it would have gone right into Bob’s glove had he NOT tipped it).

-A 3-on-1, Gus, to Cap, to Johnny Hockey, but Bobrovsky comes up large. That was 3-1 all the way, but the #1 Cop stops a crime in progress. God, do I miss him…

-Brendan, to Johnson, Kenny beats Bobrovsky five-hole, but he got too tight of an angle on it and missed the net. He was NOT happy after that one.

-Aaron Ekblad shuffleboards the puck past Tarry to tie the game with a couple minutes left in the second. Uh oh…

-Thankfully, we escape the second still tied. Still getting outshot to hell, but still tied.

-Reciprocating penalties, but one gets called: Mathieu Olivier gets crosschecked by Gus Forsling as he’s falling, and Forsling trips over Ollie’s foot. On to the penalty kill we go…

-Sean Kuraly, coast tO COAST-HOLY SH*T WHAT A GOAL. KURLS IS RED HOT.

-Jonathan Ice Hockey takes an easy shot that beats Bobrovsky five-hole to put us up by 2. Now let’s get him to score on the road now..

-With 4-ish minutes left, the Panthers empty the net. They’ve given up.

-Aaron Ekblad hooks Captain Boone in a desperate attempt to stop an empty-netter. Off to the power play we go!

-Boone Jenner scores to make it 5-2. This should be his second of the night, but I won’t complain any more about that.

-What a perfect way to make up for the awful performance last night. Let’s hope we continue this run into the future.

As BuffaloFan was saying, the model projects a teams remaining games based on the players on the team. That means the model says Minnesota players are better and as such, Minnesota’s playoffs odds are higher because the model values Minnesota’s players more, you can disagree that Minnesota’s players are better but that doesn’t mean the model is rigged

I think that was his value based on what GMs are willing to pay for players (same as Chiarot for a 1st at the TD or Lehkonen for a 2nd + Barron).

If Montreal were to trade Anderson it would be for a 1st +. In this flat market, I see that as unlikely, but that's the only way he gets traded.

As stated above, Minnesota has better players in all of their positions than the blues based on the model. If you want to argue that go ahead, but my arguing with a biased blues fan with no intentions to look and research something for himself would make me insane. This is why I will not be making any more comments on this matter, if Dom actually "thumbed" the model the Toronto Maple Leafs wouldn't be as high as they are, he says more things about the Leafs than any other team. Anyway, this was a waste of time. Thanks @A_Habs_Fan for saying what i was trying to say a lot more eloquently lol.

A biased Blues fan? No intention to research the model? What are you on about? I'm fully versed on the model for years now, and also versed in probability. This playoff percentage disparity, and how it moves with results depending on the team is so egregiously out of whack with reality. The eight-game losing streak dropped them from 70-something% to 6%. The six-game win streak has bumped them up from 6% to 18%. This is not difficult to see, nor is the overt and open bias Don has repeatedly shown against the Blues. He does love him some Minnesota, though - the same team he had as 75% favorites in last spring's playoff series, which the Blues won easily.

But yeah, you go run along while I sit here and try to figure out what Toronto has to do with any of this, or why you imagine Leafs fan Dom having the Leafs higher than they should be counts as evidence he doesn't thumb the scale. That's just some galaxy brain stuff there.

I'm not exactly surprised if that happens, hell it even happened with Chiarot.

I just can't understand why the f*ck would a GM be so stupid to consider that a viable option in the first place.

With the certainty of cap increase in the next couple year and major ones in that does that devalue players? @KSIxSKULLS

Would Hagel get 2 firsts if it was this year?

Probably not. It would be a first and prospect imo. If it was 1.5x3 like it was last year

Whether Dom has the Blues at 1% of making the playoffs or 100% if they make the playoffs you're a happy fan. So why are you so damn fired up about some random guys probability chart lol

@Sklikly how do you like Sergachev this year? I haven't watched many Tampa games but I was predicting a breakout year after the playoffs performance last year. I think he is the major reason they sold McDonough. Statistically looks like he is performing nicely.

Not necessarily devalue players, but it'd change circumstances. Such a thing would be, with the cap increasing, unlikely to happen again.

Hagel is still valuable as a cheap 40 point option, but it's true that majority of his increased value came from the fact the cap was so tight league wide.

Difference is, Chiarot washed signed for several more years. His value came from the fact that he was a rental at a low cap hit. Lehkonen also got a good return because of his low cap hit and contract flexibility

I think the reasons why Dom's modelling is sceptical regarding the Blues is because they've been a terrible team in terms of xG% going back to the 20-21 season, like bottom third every single year.
Therefore the model has no banked confidence in the Blues being able to sustain anything close to its current form, the current lack of confidence being exacerbated
While the Blues have been spending the last two seasons and some change being a terrible 5v5 team getting carried by unsustainably good shooting and ridiculously good goaltending (see Husso), Minnesota (and Toronto for that matter) have consistently performed very well in terms of xG% which is why the model is more confident in them making the playoffs.
The legacy of model trust / distrust is also a variable explaining why playoff percentages doesn't rise and fall at the same rates for different teams in-season.

In any case, the reasons above are likely to explain a lot more as to why Dom's model doesn't think the Blues are making the playoffs than a not so secret conspiracy on part of Dom to intentionally knock the Blues down a peg or two.
If Dom were thumbing the scales, we would've found that out already expressed in terms of variable input vs modelling output discrepancies.
As far as I know, no one has been able to report and provide proof of such a claim however.

Congrats on the shutout

I mean he’s played 22 career games. There are 15 teams he’s never played lol, it’s not that special. Crosby scoring his first ever goal in the United Center last night was surprising though