End of the Road

Alas, this may indeed be the final post for FHF. This blog was started in 2005 as a hobby more than anything and now some several thousand posts later and freelance jobs elsewhere, it looks like I won't have anything left to say. For this space, anyways.

This site isn't going to go away since I still use a lot of the links in the blogroll and occassionally reference some of the material in the archives. My writing will continue to appear in a bunch of different places around the web, including:

- Flamesnation.ca
- The Score.com
- The Fourth Period
- Rototimes.com/fanball.com

For those interested in the Scoring chance project, I will indeed be counting Flames scoring chances again this year. The results will likely appear on game posts over at Flamesnation, so feel free to swing by and take a look when the regular season begins.

New Design

I changed the blog template, mostly because the old one couldn't seem to accommodate the scoring chance tables properly. This one seems to. Let me know if you have any concerns/improvements in mind.

Housekeeping

For those wondering what happened to the scoring chances project, it's still ongoing. I have one more game from the regular season to count before collating all the data, which will be done at some point this summer.

As for my season reviews, they've all appeared at Flamesnation. I looked at Darryl Sutter, Brent Sutter and had a three part series on Jarome Iginla (1, 2, 3).

I still have stuff appearing at rototimes.com once a week and Hockey's Future every so often as well.

Some other things may be in the offering this summer. Announcements will be made if they come to pass.

Quick Note...

...I'm appearing on CBC.ca today to chat about the Flames. The chat will start at 12pm (MT) and should last about an hour.

I'm sure the mood will be a cheery one.

Just a link post

While I plan to add a "part two" to my corsi explanation, for now here are a couple of recent pieces on Daymond Langkow and the Dustin Boyd. Both issues are stirring debate amongst Flames fans, so (as always) I'd figure I'd add my 2(+) cents.

This and That - Staios, Boyd and Prospects

Just an update post.

For those looking for Dustin Boyd material, I have two in-depth articles on the lad from the last few years - 2008, 2009. Here is my prediction he'd be moved at the deadline and here's my take on the trade itself.

Also, here's my promised take-down of the Steve Staios trade.

Finally, my Flames Top 20 Prospects report for Hockey's Future is up.

More Personal Stuff

After a year heading the ship over at SBN, I've been recruited to be the managing editor for Flames Nation. As such, the bulk of my Flamescentric thoughts will be found there from now on. I will continue to add my general musings here as well as Flames scoring chances, but almost everything else will appear at my new digs.

Fantasy Drafts and Team Building

Awhile ago, I put up a post on offensive defensemen and how I thought it was inefficient to spend money on goals from the blueline when the dollars could be put towards forwards. The point that I struggled to communicate was forwards probably do more to drive results from straight up scoring to outshooting and possession. In contrast, many defensemen (and their results) are subject to circumstances: who they play against, who they play behind, where they start, etc. Which would mean that paying a whole bunch of money for points from the back-end is just you rewarding a coach for sheltering a defender or playing him 5 minutes a night on the PP as much as anything else.

Anyways, to further illustrate, I tried to put my theory to practice this summer in the CLS Fantasy draft, which was basically a re-drafting of the league across 30 different writers/bloggers. The draft order was random and the salary cap was in effect. Let's get to the team first and justifications after:

Ovechkin - M. Koivu - Elias
Huselius - Langkow - C. Armstrong
Dawes - Boyd - Moss
Prust - Backlund - Eaves

Matrin - Hamhuis
Hejda - Sarich
Gervais - Pardy

Biron
Schneider

I was gifted the first overall choice which was both a blessing and curse, especially in a draft like this which literally had days and days between choices.

Anyways, stuff I focused on:

- Spending money on top 6 forwards that were either proven outscorers (Ovechkin, Elias, Langkow, Koivu) or at least drivers of possession (Moss, Armstrong). PP ability was also considered (Huselius).

- Looking for guys that are good bets to outperform their contracts in the bottom half of the forward roster. Backlund probably doesn't fit in here, but he was one of the last picks and - at that point in the draft - I wasn't interested in scouring draft lists for a good fit.

- Finding value contracts on the back-end. Usually, I looked for guys who had proven they could play against the tough sledding in the past, at least as far as the top 4 were concerned. I also made sure to mix in some puck moving/skating ability and guys who have played on the PP (Martin, Hamhuis, Gervais).

- Like the bottom end of the roatation up front, I simply looked for good value guys who had a chance to improve for the 3rd pairing.

- To find decent, median level goaltending for cheap. I grabbed Schneider late in the draft because I figure he would have a decent shot at eventually usurping Biron. If not, the duo would only cost 2.48M anyways.

What I didn't worry about:

- Size

- "Truculence"

- Enforcers

- Stanley Cup rings

- Nation of birth

How the money was spent:

Forwards - $35.508M in cap space. A huge portion of that was invested in the top 6, obviously. Notice I have 8 forwards who have managed 20+ goals at least once in their careers (and a couple more that are good bets to eventually meet that mark).

Defense - 12.874. My most expensive defender was the criminally under-appreciated Paul Martin at 3.8333M, even though each one of my top four blueliners is or has been a top 2 defenseman in terms of quality of competition in his career.

Goaltending - 2.4842

Total - 50.87. Remaining cap space = 6.133M

The draft petered out before I could fill the final 2 or 3 spots with press-box guys, so the remaining cap space is marginally inflated. That said, I was somewhat surprised to see I could basically spend wildly up front and still end up with so much money left over. Guys like Elias and Huselius were available later in the draft because of their relatively unattractive contracts, so I was able to snag them thanks to my strategy of assigning money to the forwards before defense. Were this actually my team, I would probably seek toinvest most of those savings in another quality forward to better fill out that third line, although Dawes/Boyd/Moss would probably do well against third tier opposition anyways. One could probably swap Huselius and Elias in the top 6, depending on match-ups as well.

Unfortunately, there's no real way to prove that this line-up would would perform well in the real world, but it looks good on paper to me (aside from Backlund, who probably can't even hold water on a 4th line in the NHL yet). I think all three forward units are a good bet to move the puck in the right direction, while the admittedly unspectacular blueline would be at least competent at both ends of the ice.

Me About Town

I have some posts lined up for this space, but things have been rather busy recently. Some quick news items:

1.) I've been asked to appear on www.cbcsports.ca for a one hour live chat on the Flames. Should be interesting and I'm flattered the CBC thought of me for the occasion.

2.) I'll be covering the Flames for Hockey's Future from here on in. I began with the Predators, but following their prospects from up here proved rather difficult.

3.) My weekly fantasy article for rototimes.com will be back up soon. This year, I'll be focused on undervalued and overvalued players. The column is appropriately dubbed "Buy low, sell high".

For New Readers

A gracious reader has added me to Stumble Upon recently, resulting in a bit more traffic than usual.

To anyone new to this page, It's been my personal NHL ranting area for the last 5 years or so. It started out as a Flames focused blog, but I have recently moved my Calgary-only thoughts to SBNation and FlamesNation. I also have work that appears on Rotowire.com/Fanball.com (Fantasy hockey advice) and Hockeysfuture.com (Predators prospects).

I recently added a link to the sidebar which links to my favorite articles that have appeared here over the years. Some of them I still refer to every so often today, so please take a few minutes to click through some of my "greatest hits". To any of my regular readers, let me know if one of your favorites is excluded and I'll added it to the list.

As always, thanks for stopping by everyone.

Me About Town

With things moving along nicely at SBN, I also have some other stuff popping up here and there over the next month:

- My take on the Flames recently appeared in the Score's "Hardcore Hockey Guide", an insert in their Sports Forecaster which appeared on newsstands a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, my name isn't mentioned, just the site (FHF).

- I was also contacted by Adam Proteau of the Hockey News for a blurb on Flames coming season. I'm thinking it will appear in this months or next months issue.

- I also recently contributed a top-20 ranking of Nashville Predator prospects for Hockeys Future which should be appearing shortly. I'm sure the Forechecker will let me know if I made a mess of it or not.

- I'm also finishing up work on the Rototimes/fanball.com Fantasy draft guide, which should come out around the end of the month.

It's been a pretty busy summer, clearly.

Fantasy Draft

I'm taking part in a Fantasy Draft over at Cycle Like the Sedins. I'll be drafting for the Flames (naturally) and was gifted with the first overall selection for the first time in my hockey pool career.

There's quite a bit of pressure associated with first overall. On one hand, it's hard to go wrong...on the other, there's a lot of great choices available. A number of choices ran through my head, including:

1.) Pavel Datsyuk. We're operating under a cap for the draft, so the fact that Datsyuk is one of the best players in the league but only costs around 6M a year was attractive.

2.) Crosby and Malkin. Both young, both elite, both centers.

3.) Joe Thornton. Similar to Datsyuk in that he's consistently top tier but is relatively cheap.

After all that, I settled on - who else - Alexander Ovechkin. He's the most expensive player in the league but he's just so damn good. He outshoots and outscores the competition and is deadly on the PP. I'll obviously have to find bargains later in the draft in order to compensate for his huge cap hit, but I dont think that'll be a problem.

I'll update Other picks and the final roster (as well as my competition, which should be fierce) as we move along.

Sign of the times

I rarely use this blog for anything besides hockey analysis, but this is one of those personal posts...

The small start-up/ R&D company I've worked for the last few years is having trouble paying me due to economy-related funding issues. As such, I'm on the look out for part -time or full-time contractual or long-term employment.

I have experience writing and editing business documents ranging from business plans/ executive summaries to producing PPT presentations and investor relation communications. I also have some skills at research and analysis. I have 6 years of formal education invested in business admin (2 years) and a Bachelor of Arts (4 years).

Some of my best work for this space can be browsed here. Anyone interested in my full resume and such can email me @ kent.wilson@gmail.com

This post may not bear any fruit, but I figure it can't hurt to get this kind of thing in front of as many eyeballs as possible.

Question for regular readers of this space...

...is Richard Pollock cribbing me or do we just think really, really similarly? Read the linked article and then take a gander at some of my old stuff.

Amatuers vs the pros

The Score invited me to compete in a "bloggers versus talking head experts" pick 'em challenge for the post-season. Naturally, I accepted, along with all the other Score network bloggers. Points will be based on choosing winners and series lengths. Who is the best monkey-wheel-spinner amongst us you think?

Fantasy Hockey Scouts has more details here.

Let's get linking

I haven't done a round-up in awhile. Here are some of the sites earning my attention this morning.

- Calgary Sun has launched their own MSM blog-type thing for the Flames. It'll go up in the sidebar in short order. Today's news? The Flames have re-called Anders Eriksson. Ugh.

- The Giguere era is over in Colorado. In other news, Jacques Martin and Don Waddell are still employed.

- James rates the first round match-ups at Cycle Like the Sedins.

- Eric Francis column this morning isn't really worth the read aside from this comment near the bottom:

There is indeed egg on Sutter's face for scoffing at media types who wondered how he made the deal fit into the cap in the first place. His words at the time, "It's not even close -- you guys have no idea." Word is the Flames were within hundreds of dollars of the US$56.7 million salary cap.

- Pensblog alerted me to this NHL play-off bracket contest. Have at 'er handicappers.

- My first post on the impeding ouster of the Flames at the hands of a Blackhawks went up today as well.

- On that hubristic note, I ended up claiming first place in the Mirtle's blogger invitational hockey pool this year. I basically went wire-to-wire on the back of some good gambles (Koivu, Semin, Burrows, Mason, Pavelski) and some good luck in terms of injury. Ironically, my club didn't even have one scorer inside the NHL's top 15 (Eric Staal and Semin were my two best).

The competition was fierce, featuring some really top-notch hockey guys, so I'm stunned I managed to hang on till the end.

News and notes, April 7

- Well, while not ideal it certainly is dramatic. Flames versus Canucks tonight with the NW division on the line. The winner will be showered with praise! The loser will be taunted and booed till my throat is sore! Join the fun at my gamethread. There's also Flames Nation, of course.

- OR...you could swing by the Score where I'll be hosting another liveblog this evening. I expect the Canucks trolls to be thick as flies around a hogs head (unless Vancouver starts losing of course).

- I've been writing a weekly fantasy column for rototimes.com/fanball.com for more than year now, but last week's piece was the first time I really got into discussing and explaining advanced metrics. It'll be interesting to see if it's well-received by the more general readership there.

This and that

- To continue in the same vein as "Fallacies abound" below, Jasper over at the excellent Capitals blog Jaspers Rink is a little exasperated with Alexander Ovechkin recently:

Since authoring "The Sequel" on February 18, Alex Ovechkin has racked up six goals and seven assists in a dozen game, a 102-point pace over the course of a full season. He had a ten-game point-scoring streak snapped last night, and has been held off the scoresheet just two times in his past 22 outings.

Not bad.

But do you want to know what is bad? Over that 12-game span mentioned above, AO has a minus-8 rating (including back-to-back minus-2's in his last two games), and hasn't had a plus rating in a single game.

...

Alex Ovechkin, it seems, is bored. Bored enough to take shifts off.

...

In some ways, it's too bad AO isn't a little more motivated by individual accomplishments and accolades (he certainly doesn't have a second consecutive Hart Trophy locked up quite yet), because the team could use a more focused version of the Great Eight right now. And perhaps it's been a necessary break of sorts for him. But it's just about time for him to put the team back on his broad shoulders. It's time for the leader to lead.

Not focused? Bad leader? Bored? These all rang alarm bells in my head, so I looked at AO's ES numbers over the span in question:

+68 corsi, 9.4 SH%, .894 on-ice SV%, 6.8 on-ice SH% (!!), 96.2 PDO.

Ovechkin hasn't been bored recently. He's been unlucky. Theodore has been fairly awful in WAS the past little while (especially behind Ovie for whatever reason) and that on-ice SH% is way, way too low considering who Ovechkin is and who he plays with.

I don't blame Jasper for being annoyed and casting about for explanations - look at WAS ES SH% since Feb 18: 5%! I can't imagine how frustrating the last month or so must have been for Caps fans. But there's no way a club with that kind of personnel up front continues to shoot at 5% 5on5. I suspect Ovechkin's focus and leadership will improve once the percentages go up.

- I have a piece up over at Flames Nation on Calgary's potential first round opponent(s). My conclusion? Edmonton would be ideal...because they stink.

- Fun fact: Kevin Lalande went 3-0-0 of the CBJ farm team was named player of the week in the AHL. I have a link to the story over at SBN. Clearly he's trying to prove my assertion that a 4th round pick for a minor league goalie was an overpayment.

EDITED to add this link from the new Puck Prospectus (H/T Jonathan Willis). The piece is on a pervasive NHL-wide cowbell: size. Or, more accurately, the mistaken belief that BIG = GOOD -

This is clear evidence that size by itself is often considered an important factor by NHL teams when drafting players. It is far too common a problem to be explained by claiming that scouts saw something in each of these failed draft picks, and that they just didn't pan out. It is systematic and pervasive. Brian Gionta was also drafted in 1998, at #82 overall despite excellent scoring totals. His major problem was his height (5'7”). NHL teams show a definite preference for large players who don't play well over small player who do play well.

Iain Fyffe uses the 1998 Entry draft as a case study to prove his point, although wonders if this misconception is starting to fall away in the "modern" NHL thanks to the renewed emphasis on speed and skill in the wake of the obstruction crack down.

Tampa in Town

- I'll have a gamethread up around 3pm today so check it out. Im really digging some of the functionality at SBN so far.

- James O'Brien requested an "All Decade Team" from me this week. My picks were posted today over at Cycle Like Sedins.

- My weekly fantasy piece for rototimes.com should go live sometime this evening or tomorrow. This one is a "hot or not" tour through the Pacific division.

- The XMP3 contest will be ending with the trade deadline on Wed. If Sutter does indeed stand-pat, then I'll have to figure out another way to give the Satellite radio away.

Flames Gameday

- I have pieces at both Flames Nation and the New place going up today. It'll be my first gamethread at SBN, so make sure to stop by and inflate my comment numbers.

- In other news, I've had requests for material from the Score, Cycle Like Sedins and Sean Leahy this week. Im still struggling to get all the pieces out, so I'll let you know if/when any of the stuff is published.

- I'm hearing whispers the Flames are looking at some big name defensemen. Who would you prefer: Bouwmeester, Pronger or Niedermayer? There are plus and minuses to all of them.

UPDATE - My Puck Daddy bit is up today.

UPDATE 2 - My piece for the Score went up today too.