Training Camp Update

So the Pens are through the first half of their 6 preseason games and are perfect to this point. That means nothing once October 7th arrives.

What you can pay attention to between now and then is the roster situation. The Pens opened camp with 57 players (33 forwards, 17 defense and 7 goalies). They are currently down to 41 players. The maximum they can open the season with is 23.

There is expected to be another round of cuts after the final home exhibition game tomorrow night against Chicago, leaving them with the last two games to tune up and figure out those final roster spots.

There are some interesting battles going on, not only on the blue line to see who can make the roster, but also with the forwards, to see who will play on the top two lines.

First, on defense, there are 5 spots locked down. Those belong to: Orpik, Martin, Michalek, Letang and Goligoski. There are, according to the official blog, five guys fighting with a realistic chance at the last two spots (the Pens website assume they'll carry 7 defense): Lovejoy, Engelland, Potter, Hutchinson and Wagner. All five guys are on two-way contracts.

My money is on Lovejoy for the #6 spot, just based on my own opinion. I think he brings a well-rounded game that would be well suited for the #6 spot on the blue line. Also keep in mind that Lovejoy is only on a two-way contract for this year. He's a one-way guy for the next two seasons. You want him to be in your lineup for sure next season.

I'm not sure that they'll carry seven D-men, namely because a guy on a two-way contract costs less when he's in the minors. I could see them doing it if they wanted to keep Despres around like they did with Kris Letang a few years back. Simon could stay with the big club up to 7 games before he needed to be returned to his junior team. While I think it could be great experience for Despres, the Pens don't really need him - they have several viable alternatives for the sixth (and maybe seventh) spot.

Up front, things are much messier. With Staal out for at least several games to open the season, that really opens the floodgates on the top two lines. Obviously you pencil Sid and Geno in the middle on each one, with Kunitz on a wing (likely with Sid). Beyond those three, anything goes. The players likely in the battle for a top 6 spot include: Dupuis, Kennedy, Comrie, Tangradi, Letestu, Talbot and Sterling (who I only add because if the Pens keep him, I can't imagine it being for a fourth line spot).

I like Dupuis, Comrie and Tangradi for the final three spots. Dupuis showed some goal scoring touch last year, and he certainly has the speed. Comrie has been a good offensive player in the past and has something to prove. Tangradi wants to show that he's the prospect the Pens hope he is.

In the last six forward spots, I'd expect Kennedy, Cooke, Asham, Adams, Talbot and Rupp for certain. Maybe you keep Letestu as your third line center, though I'm not sure he has the speed for that role. He certainly knows the system and can win faceoffs. Ryan Craig has been getting some press for his good play so far too. Godard is your scratch whenever the Flyers aren't in the other bench.

There are a bunch of young forward prospects that would love to get some time in the NHL on a regular basis, and there's really just no room on this roster for them. That means that Dustin Jeffrey, Nick Johnson, Joe Vitale and Tim Wallace will have another year down on the farm, waiting for a call. I hope something works out for those guys (or that I'm wrong), especially for Wallace who managed 27 goals last year in Wilkes-Barre.

Any way you look at it, the next week will certainly be interesting.

Your thoughts and opinions are welcome in the comments.

Five Year Blog Anniversary!

Believe it or not, it was five years ago today that I created Igloo Dreams. The first post was a crappy one, talking briefly an exhibition game against the Bruins. I didn't really know what I was doing back then... though I can't say I really know what I'm doing now either!

Five years is a long time to keep this little blog running as a one-man show. When I started, there were few (if any) other hockey blogs on the Pens. Pensblog hadn't started yet, and most every other prominent Pittsburgh sports blog hadn't been imagined. My inspiration was Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke?, the popular (and excellent) Pirates blog, and not just because it was written by a guy named Pat.

If you'll humor me for a minute, my favorite parts of the last five years are (in no particular order):

• Writing for the New York Times hockey blog as part of their original "Hockey Night in Blogdom" crew and royally ticking off Flyers' fans.
• Writing for Hockey Independent as I do currently every now and then.
• Having a friend do the fantastic header image for this blog.
• Sticking to my guns and writing because I enjoy it. I've turned down many offers for advertising, sponsorship and writing for other sites, mainly because I want to be able to write what I want, when I want with no one to answer to. I do this because I love it.
• Doing some pretty complicated statistical analysis, some of which I have yet to see reproduced elsewhere (which may be good or may be bad...). It wasn't easy to put together.

I know The Wife will sometimes tire of hockey and the amount of time it takes to watch as many Pens' games as I can handle, plus writing about them before and after. Each year at the start of the season, I think "I don't know if I want to do this for another entire year", and then I see the first minute of the first game and the drive comes rushing back.

So will there be another five years? I don't know. I do know that I'll keep writing as long as I enjoy it.

Pens sign F Mike Comrie

The Pens continued their bargain shopping today by adding Mike Comrie. Comrie signed for one year at a low price of $500,000.

Every article I've seen has noted that Comrie "hasn't score more than 13 goals since 2007-08". This has to be one of the dumbest statements I've seen recently. While it is true factually, it is also true that Comrie played just 43 games last year and managed 13 goals. That puts him at about 25 for a complete season.

Also consider that he's been stuck with some pretty bad teams lately - the Isles and the Oilers (yikes!)

Here's the thing that I'm wondering - who is going to play the right side on the top two lines? All of the potential candidates are left-handed.

Still, it was an excellent signing by Ray Shero. Comrie wants to prove he still has lots of gas in the tank, and the Pens will give him every opportunity to prove it.

Berkshire Hathaway (and Marek Svatos)

The results are normally inconsistent when you have a non-sports publication writing about the NHL. This article over at Forbes is just that - it raises some interesting points but falls flat on others.

Given that the article compares the Penguins to Berkshire Hathaway, I knew I had to read it. Berkshire, if you don't know, is probably the most successful company in the world. It is run by Warren Buffett and a single share of the stock currently costs $115106 (for a Class A share). The cheaper shares used to cost 1/30th of that (so still over $3500) until they recently split the stock. Buffett is called the Oracle of Omaha (where Berkshire is based) and is the world's most successful investor.

The immediate implication of the article title is that the Pens are brilliant not only in the moves that they make, but also with the timing that they make them. Buffett is famous for his attitude of "be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful".

Anyway, the article, by Mike Colligan (a writer over at thehockeywriters.com), makes some interesting points:

• Asham had other offers that were better, but came to Pittsburgh because he thought it was the best shot to win the Cup.
• Several examples of players accepting less to play in Pittsburgh
• An interesting contrast with the Blackhawks, as Chicago has had to dismantle a large part of their secondary cast this summer while the Pens opened the wallet and signed two premier defensemen.

I do have a few issues with what Mr. Colligan writes, however:

• Sid is cited as taking less to stay in Pittsburgh, but the article makes it out to be better than it is. Sid signed for $8.7m per season and the article implies he could be receiving $11.88m. While it is true that he could renegotiate his contract to get that maximum, when he signed the deal, the salary cap was lower and the maximum that Sid could have signed for was a hair over $10m. Still, it was nice of Sid to provide the discount.
• The Blackhawks issues this off-season were partially due to aggressive spending (hello, Brian Campbell), but also due to an offer snafu last year that forced the Blackhawks to sign several players to contracts that were much larger than what they ordinarily would have received (see Versteeg and someone else I can't remember - Seabrook or Sopel?)
• A bizarre advertisement, essentially, for Marek Svatos at the end, citing Svatos as one of the players that the Pens have the luxury of choosing. I'm sure Svatos would love to play for the Pens (heck, anyone that is in danger of falling out of the NHL would love to), but he hasn't played well for two years running. While the earlier part of the article shows how Berkshire picked up quality companies, the last example of Svatos doesn't line up.

All told, however, I think it was an interesting way to consider how the Pens are perceived around the NHL by players and their agents.

Penguins sign W Arron Asham

The terms are one year, $700K.

It's a low risk move to be sure, but do the Pens need more gritty players? Here's a list of the potential third and fourth line players on the roster right now (and I'm assuming Staal and Dupuis are in your top 6, given the lack of other options currently):

Cooke, Rupp, Talbot, Adams, Kennedy, Asham, Godard

I guess the question is, do you want Asham filling a temporary role in Pittsburgh for a year, or would you rather see someone like Tim Wallace or Dustin Jeffrey getting an extended look on the roster? This signing might say more about the lack of confidence in some of the young guys than anything else.

Maybe given the potential changes on the third line, Shero sees the value in adding a responsible forward that can play either wing and occasionally chip in on offense.

Faceoff Domination

Over at Hockey Independent, I put up an article dealing with the top 20 faceoff beatdowns in 2009-2010. Go on over and have a read.

Penalties: Part 2 - Hooking and Intereference

So last time, the big news was that hooking and interference were down by 27% from the second period to the third period in the 2009-10 NHL regular season.

In this post, we'll take a look at some of the refs who appear to be responsible for this sharp inconsistency.

First off, a few general numbers:

• Hooking and Interference were #1 and #4 on the overall list of penalties called (excluding Fighting, which isn't called at the discretion of the referee).
• H&I (Hooking and Interference) dropped by 27% from the second to the third period.
• All other calls (excluding Fighting) dropped by just 8% combined.

Why would this be the case? Is it consistent across all of the refs?

I can answer the second question pretty clearly.

First, a quick note about these numbers - there are two referees at each game and the NHL does not identify which referee made the call (or, at least, they don't publish it). That means the best we can do is "associate" each ref with the penalties that were called while they were on the ice. Despite the lack of individual accountability, I think the results are still interesting.

Given that the average drop is 27.49% (which is way too high in my mind), we'd expect to see some guys on each end of the spectrum.

In the charts below, the numbers for each period are the number of Hooking and Interference calls made in games worked by the ref. The % Change shows the percentage difference between the second and third period.

Here are the more consistent refs:

Referee	First	Second	Third	OT	% Change
#18 Greg Kimmerly	48	37	43	2	16.22%
#41 Chris Ciamaga	19	19	20		5.26%
#5 Chris Rooney	59	54	52	1	-3.70%
#9 Dan O'Rourke	52	64	59	1	-7.81%
#43 Brian Pochmara	54	72	65	2	-9.72%
#13 Dan O'Halloran	51	57	51		-10.53%
#11 Kelly Sutherland	56	53	47	2	-11.32%
#20 Tim Peel	57	57	49	3	-14.04%
#28 Chris Lee	58	60	51		-15.00%
#32 Tom Kowal	52	68	57	2	-16.18%
#3 Mike Leggo	57	51	42	2	-17.65%
#27 Eric Furlatt	82	72	58	1	-19.44%

The actual number of calls isn't very useful here since I haven't shown the number of games worked by each ref. The thing you can count on, however, is that if one of these guys is wearing the stripes, you're more likely to see H&I called in the third.

Here is the other end of the ref pool. These fellows have what I consider to be truly frightening numbers because they are wildly inconsistent between the second and third period for H&I:

Referee	First	Second	Third	OT	% Change
#45 Justin StPierre	81	89	40	2	-55.06%
#44 David Banfield	17	27	14	1	-48.15%
#25 Marc Joannette	42	66	35	1	-46.97%
#15 Stephane Auger	90	85	47	2	-44.71%
#48 Frederick L'Ecuyer	36	34	19	1	-44.12%
#7 Bill McCreary	63	60	34	2	-43.33%
#6 Dan Marouelli	37	44	26	1	-40.91%
#38 Francois StLaurent	58	80	48		-40.00%
#26 Rob Martell	63	58	35	2	-39.66%
#23 Brad Watson	68	73	45	1	-38.36%
#14 Dennis LaRue	57	60	38		-36.67%
#10 Paul Devorski	44	71	47	1	-33.80%

You have to wonder what some of these guys are thinking sometimes. StPierre, Auger, McCreary, Martell, Watson and LaRue are pretty consistent through the first two periods and then largely put the whistles away for the third.

You have to think the NHL has these numbers. You also have to think they're aware of the tendencies of these guys. Heck, they probably know (unlike us) which ref actually made the call, which would make this case even more strongly.

The problem with these numbers is that the players don't know what to expect from one night to the next. They get one night with a Kimmerly or a Rooney and the calls are pretty consistent across the entire game, and then you get an Auger or StPierre and the third period deteriorates into clutch and grab hockey.

Pretty interesting, I think. Thoughts on this?

This will be cross-posted to Hockey Independent (albeit in a summarized fashion with Part 1) later in the week (maybe later tonight if I can get my act together).

Penalties: Part 1

This is the first part in a series on penalties in the NHL. The data comes from various sources on the web, much of it from NHL.com in their play-by-play reports on each game.

In the 2009-2010 season, there were 12328 penalties called, which works out to about 10 per game (as there are 1230 games in each regular season).

The breakdown by period is:

• First period: 4062
• Second period: 4420
• Third period: 3745
• Overtime: 101

So, right off the bat, it looks as though the "they put away the whistles in the third" idea has some merit. We'll take a closer look at that later in the this post, and later in the series when we look at individual referee data.

The top 10 penalties called in 2009-2010 were:

Penalty	Calls
Hooking	1750
Roughing	1502
Fighting	1423
Tripping	1412
Interference	1065
Holding	953
Slashing	783
Hi-sticking	747
Cross checking	483
Boarding	310

Some notables that are missing from the top 10 include: Delay of game (puck over glass), Too many men, Goaltender interference, Holding the stick and the bloody version of Hi-sticking.

All told, there were 50 distinct types of penalties called in 2009-2010 (I was surprised how many different ones there were). Here are a few that were almost never called:

• Spearing was called 3 times, and one additional time as a double minor.
• Abusive Language - Bench was called twice
• Just one Illegal Stick penalty, on Brett Carson of the Hurricanes at 18:41 of the third period in a 5-1 blowout over the Rangers. Not sure the point of that one was...

Now let's take a look at the most commonly called penalties, broken out by period (I combined both the regular and double minor versions of Hi-sticking):

	Period
Penalty	1	2	3	OT	Total
Boarding	94	109	104	3	310
Cross checking	147	172	160	4	483
Delaying Game-Puck over glass	91	94	106	1	292
Fighting	674	454	295		1423
Hi-sticking	257	277	298	12	747
Holding	293	353	300	7	953
Holding the stick	54	67	42		163
Hooking	594	661	480	15	1750
Interference	376	394	287	8	1065
Interference on goalkeeper	67	85	79	2	233
Roughing	440	541	512	9	1502
Slashing	210	303	261	9	783
Too many men/ice - bench	74	104	60	3	241
Tripping	433	538	421	20	1412

We already saw previously that calls from the second period to the third period dropped from 4420 to 3745, a 15% drop. Most of these are judgement calls on the part of the refs. You can see they are pretty consistent on many of them - Roughing, Too many men, Boarding, Cross checking, Hi-sticking, Slashing, etc.

Take a second look at three calls that have a definitive impact on the speed and flow of the game - here they are with the drop from the second to the third period:

• Hooking - dropped by 27%
• Interference - dropped by 27%
• Tripping - dropped by 22%

I'm willing to let Tripping drop - it's essentially flat with the first period, so I could argue that the long change has something to do with that.

Hooking and Interference calls, however are way down from the first period numbers too. You can't tell me that it's not happening as much in the third period - I don't buy it. I think the refs are exercising their "judgement" (such as it is) instead of calling what they see on these penalties.

Any thoughts on the analysis?

Sidney Crosby and Faceoffs: Part 3

So for the last part, I thought I'd take a look at which players Sid had the most success against (or lack thereof).

With the linesman, we couldn't be certain who had dropped the puck, so we couldn't say for sure what the actual success rate was. With the players, it's obviously very specific and certain.

These numbers speak for themselves. I'm not showing anyone he faced less than 10 times, because I think the sample size is too small. That leaves us with 58 players Sid faces 10 times or more in 2009-2010.

Here are the top 10 guys that Sid dominated in the faceoff circle:

Player	Wins	Losses	Total	Win %
23 DRURY	29	7	36	80.56%
17 CARTER	16	4	20	80.00%
19 CONNOLLY	12	4	16	75.00%
26 CHRISTENSEN	8	3	11	72.73%
19 THORNTON	8	3	11	72.73%
91 STAMKOS	13	5	18	72.22%
27 REINPRECHT	14	6	20	70.00%
47 PEVERLEY	14	6	20	70.00%
9 WEISS	23	10	33	69.70%
11 BETTS	18	8	26	69.23%

Poor Chris Drury - he really had a hard time against Sid this season. Jeff Carter isn't far behind (just for reference, Sid was 33-21 against Mike Richards too).

And on the other end of the spectrum:

Player	Wins	Losses	Total	Win %
9 MORRISON	3	9	12	25.00%
42 ANISIMOV	5	12	17	29.41%
28 GAUSTAD	8	18	26	30.77%
91 GOMEZ	5	10	15	33.33%
37 BERGERON	17	28	45	37.78%
50 VERMETTE	4	6	10	40.00%
46 KREJCI	7	10	17	41.18%
14 PLEKANEC	12	17	29	41.38%
23 SLATER	5	7	12	41.67%
9 ROY	5	7	12	41.67%

Gaustad, Bergeron and Plekanec were easily his toughest challenges all year, because he faced them with regularity and wasn't terribly good against them. I don't have time to do it now, but it would be interesting to know if he struggles against right-handed players more than left...