TOO MANY INTERNS WITH COMPUTERS

The NHL recently sent out an early season compendium of stats and figures and it is astounding in its bulk, it’s spin and its “well duh!”

Here’s a little sample with the no-spin take in italics:

• Goals. No final score has been more frequent this season than 4-3; in 2003-04, that result ranked fourth behind 3-2, 2-1 and 3-1. Wow, really! Just curious NHL, were those 03-04 scores for the whole 82 season or just the first two weeks? That’s what I thought. You might want to tap the breaks on the 7-goal a game stat until you get a little bigger sample size.
  
  
• Close Games, part 1. Teams have been tied or separated by one goal two thirds of the time (66.2%). Not only that, every game has started with the game tied and the team that has scored first has held a one-goal lead 100% of the time.
  
  
• Close Games, part 2. The margin of victory has been one goal for nearly half the games played to date (49 of 105, 47%). And, the team scoring more goals has ended up winning all 105 games to date.
  
  
• Powerful Power Plays. When teams have committed penalties, they have been costly. The League-wide power-play conversion rate of 20.9% is ahead of last season's season-long figure of 18.9%. Four teams are clicking at better than 30%: the Atlanta Thrashers (6 for 16, 37.5%), Calgary Flames (8 for 23, 34.8%), Vancouver Canucks (9 for 29, 31.0%) and Colorado Avalanche (10 for 33, 30.3%). Once again, 100 games does not a season make, wake me when four teams are still at 30% at Christmas, NHL propaganda machine!

Three other suggested categories for the NHLPM.

• Shutouts. Over the first two weeks of play all games in which a goaltender matched the number of shots faced with saves made (100%) ended in a shutout.
  
  
• Penalties. Once again the league’s on-ice officials have been vigilant and impossible to sway. Thru the first 105 games played all ice-level infractions called have resulted in a penalty and at no time has the judgment been reversed due to player lobbying or fan vitriol.
  
  
• On-Ice Logo. Percentage chance that the “Face-Off 09’” logos that adorn the ice just inside the attacking zones remain thru Halloween (97%), Thru Thanksgiving (72%), Thru Christmas (38%), Thru the Olympic Break (14%), Thru the Stanley Cup Playoffs (4.75%), and thru the end of The Mayan Calendar in 2012 (0.00000067295%)