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Nhamlet · 04-20-2020, 10:38 PM

Simulation Hockey Network
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From Dates
2019-11-13 -> 2019-12-27
(4/9/20 -> 4/19/20)

Welcome to the 3rd edition of the SHN’s weekly power rankings of the SHL teams. This week, we have part of the ranking crew, smalinowski7, jeffie43, and nhamlet here to discuss some of the thoughts behind each team’s performance, as well as their position in the power rankings. Thanks to sve7en for graphics as usual

Highest Ranked: 16
Lowest Ranked: 16

Smal: It might just seem like a ‘business as usual, Toronto in last’ ranking, but there was a brief period in time where them and TBB were even in points, and we actually had a preliminary power ranking with Toronto at 15 a few days ago. But for now, Toronto’s last place spot is safe for yet another week.

Nham: After the best week of their entire SHL season, the bell has struck midnight and the North Stars have reverted back into their rags having only very little to show for. They were recently showcased in a 3v3 PT which really highlight to everybody and anybody who wasn’t paying attention to the kind workload that the Toronto goalies are under on a regular basis.

Highest Ranked: 15
Lowest Ranked: 15

Smal: TBB is at least giving us something exciting to follow within the basement of the standings, and they find themselves right in the middle of Texas and Toronto, and it doesn’t seem out of the question that they could ‘catch’ either team. Their giant losing skid halted recently, and have won 3 out of their last 8.

Nham: All things considered, this is probably the best week that the Barracuda have had all season with a number of wins, overtime losses making them feel competitive despite their bottom of the league placement. Hopefully this might be an opportunity to continue some momentum to the end of the season while still being able to pick up a top pick.

Highest Ranked: 13
Lowest Ranked: 14

Smal: Texas and Minnesota have been seemingly trading places in the power rankings each week, and following along with their season trajectories show what look to be 2 pretty identical seasons. For now, despite having more goals scored, and less goals against than MIN, Texas’ recent 11 game losing streak lands them at #14.

Nham: Texas had generally had a routine of a couple wins and a couple losses since the beginning of the season but this last stretch was especially tough to watch with numerous losses that were by multiple goals. Not as bad compared to the other teams in their category when you look at their goal differential over this stretch but still enough losses to warrant them falling to this spot.

Highest Ranked: 13
Lowest Ranked: 14

Smal: MIN has struggled to score goals this season, which isn’t a surprise for the team with a forward core that only rivals Toronto in terms of low TPE/FHM build ratings. They’ve done a decent job at suppressing shot attempts, equal to WPG and better than WKP, but they have the 2nd most goals against in the league, and that along with the lack of offense finds themselves in the bottom 4.

Nham: Not much to mention other than the ongoing story of the scoring struggles of Minny. Being dead last in goals per game while only being average in shot suppression won’t get them far. There’s a real need for scoring and short of the deadline which is set to pass it’ll be a while before anything immediate shows up.

Highest Ranked: 12
Lowest Ranked: 12

Smal: After losing their first 10 games, WKP have been just under a .500 team this season. They do have the 4th worse team corsi percentage, goals scored, and goals against however. They’ve emerged away from the clear bottom 4 tier in the standings, but it hasn’t been a great season.

Nham: Is there such a thing as being an inconsistent loser? They have found themselves blown out half the time and the other half as relatively close games. I’m inclined to think that they’ve already given this season a pass and are expecting slightly better things next year. The question is since everybody else is hoping to get better, how much the newly relocated Platoon can make a significant difference in the future.

Highest Ranked: 11
Lowest Ranked: 10

Smal: In almost all of our power rankings so far, we’ve mentioned how the league is split into two tiers of teams, and that WPG was the best of the lower tier. But as of now, they’ve changed which tier they’re in and are only a few points back of CHI and SFP. They’re kind of in between the groups of good corsi teams vs. bad, but I think at this point have performed better than they were projected to this season.

Nham: Winnipeg has heated up to propel themselves into an unlikely but still possible playoff chase with 11 games remaining and 6 points behind the last spot. It’s probably still more of a possibility than a probability though, with the last 10 games they’ve won, only two have been against playoff opponents. Their remaining schedule has them facing the Wolfpack, Dragons, Pride, Blizzard and Panthers, so where they are right now is probably about where they’ll end up by the end.

Highest Ranked: 10
Lowest Ranked: 11

Smal: CHI and MAN have been neck and neck all year for the 4th spot in the East, but in the last few games MAN has taken the biggest point lead between these two teams since the first 10 games. CHI is slightly struggling to score, actually scoring as many goals per game as WPG, but have a much better team corsi, and are getting hit with one of the league’s worst PDOs.

Nham: It’s been a slog for Chicago during this middle of the season as they originally came out of the gate flying but since have struggled to win the 50/50 games they were taking advantage of before. It’s not entirely out for them because Manhattan still is figuring out how to become a top team like they were supposed to be and currently are still neck and neck in the standings.

Highest Ranked: 9
Lowest Ranked: 9

Smal: Our biggest drop in the rankings since last week, SFP dropped 4 spots to 9, and have lost 10 of their last 13. SFP finds themselves right at league average in team points, corsi, goals scored, and goals allowed, and it seems like it will come down to them trying to beat out NOL for the 4th spot in the West, and even potentially WPG if they continue to surprise.

Nham: The Pride have had as tough of a schedule as anybody could possibly face over this week so it’s no surprise they’re coming out of it a little battered. The good news is that the relative strength of their schedule is a lot easier with teams like Toronto, Minnesota, Winnipeg and Texas among them meaning there’s an opportunity for them to try make a difference before New Orleans shoves them out of the race.

Highest Ranked: 7
Lowest Ranked:8

Smal: As was just mentioned, NOL is currently in a battle for 4th in the West, with a 2 point lead of SFP, as well as 1 game in hand. Lil’ Manius and Nicholas WIlliams still seem to be doing everything right in the eyes of FHM, as they have the 1st and 3rd highest GRs, but Cain is still likely the team MVP. At second in the league in GSAA, and NOL at 11th in the league in scoring, Cain will need to continue to steal games if they want to finish in a playoff spot.

Nham: I did just say that the Pride have an easier schedule but so do the Specters with five more games against Texas, not mentioning other ones against Minnesota and WKP. Cain should unsurprisingly be their team MVP and arguably deserving of a league MVP nomination should NOLA make their way into the playoffs ahead of the Pride.

Highest Ranked: 7
Lowest Ranked: 8

Smal: Our biggest jumpers in this week’s power ratings, the Rage moved up 3 spots to #7. The defending champs, and overall one of the highest - if not the highest - TPE teams in the league haven’t quite lived up to the high expectations this season, but a late season streak is a better time than never. It’s a cop-out to call teams unlucky, but the Rage are scoring at just a fraction of a goal per game away from 5th in the league, but have one of the worst PDOs. The good news is that Larson had one of the best weeks among goalies, so if his play continues, they should be able to secure a playoff spot and perhaps make another deep run.

Nham: The up and down Rage are moving up this week and it’s at the perfect time as this is the last home stretch for trying to lock down that bottom seed for the playoffs. They’ve had some solid performances against the likes of Edmonton, Chicago, and San Francisco. They still haven’t been able to quite make it over the hump against Hamilton and New England having only one overtime win to go against either team. The good news is that they only play New England two more times but also have a game against Chicago in a major 4 point game so in some ways this is probably the best scenario the defending champs could ask for in their run to the cup again.

Highest Ranked: 5
Lowest Ranked: 6

Smal: CGY is having quite a strong season. They’re 6 points from 1st in the conference, with 2 games in hand. They have strong team possession metrics, and have enjoyed success despite a lower than league average PDO. They have players all over the top 10 charts, and recently Choybuk has emerged as one of the best league goal scorers and Bouchard as one of the leading passers, with Smeb, Driftwood, and Kennedy Jr. also leading the way on defense.

Nham: Calgary has been about as competitive as can be in the tightly contested Western conference. On one hand they’ve dropped two very close high scoring contests against New Orleans and Edmonton but have also come back to blowout the same Specters team as well as snatch a win from the Wolfpack. Seven of their remaining games are against playoff teams so they’ll need to keep up the intensity.

Highest Ranked: 5
Lowest Ranked: 6

Smal: It’s fitting that EDM enters this week at 5 in the power rankings, as they have the 5th best team corsi, goals scored, and goals against. EDM has seemed to run a goalie tandem more than most teams, however Spector has found the most success in net, at 5th in GSAA despite most of the leaders having many more games played. Other notable players include Scholz and Finn-Rhys, who both find themselves top 10 amongst defensemen in points, game rating, and relative corsi.

Nham: Arguably, if Calgary and Edmonton are so close in their standings, I might have had them below Calgary given that they dropped games against Manhattan, Minnesota and even Winnipeg in an overtime loss. They do have the stars in place to come out ahead in the tough games ahead.

Highest Ranked: 3
Lowest Ranked: 4

Smal: Buffalo has an absolutely red-hot PDO, almost a whole percentage point over second place. Mostly due to Robinson’s save percentage, which is first for all goalies who have played more than 7 games, as well as first in GSAA. What’s most astounding is that goaltending was flagged as a weak spot for Buffalo entering the season, with Robinson at sub-750 TPE. Maybe they’re running a defensively focused strategy in FHM, but whatever they’re doing is working, as they find themselves 5th in points in the league, and 4th in the power rankings.

Nham: That PDO is red hot alright, it sticks out like a sore thumb amongst everybody else given how hot Robinson has been. In their last 5 games they’ve only allowed 11 goals while scoring a whooping 27 in return. A couple 3 goal losses by New Orleans ruined what otherwise was the biggest high of their season.

Highest Ranked: 3
Lowest Ranked: 4

Smal: LAP are one of, if not the hottest team in the league right now, only dropping 1 game since the last ranking and moving up 3 spots. They have the third best team corsi, but only the 6th best scoring in the league. They have 4 different defensemen that appear on the top 10 charts, and Winter had a great week and is now 8th among forwards in scoring.

Nham: Amazingly somehow, the Panthers are up there when it comes to corsi for and against, yet also find themselves a little under on PDO. If it’s possible that this already great team could still receive a few more bounces their way on both sides of the puck, then they just might the team to watch out for to make a big upset in the playoffs against the title contenders.

Highest Ranked: 2
Lowest Ranked:2

Smal: Hamilton played great hockey this week, and are currently enjoying a 3 point lead in the league, although they have 3 more GP than NEW. They won all but one game since the last ranking, and most of their wins were by 3 goals or more. They have the second best team corsi, are the highest scoring team in the league, and it wouldn’t be entirely shocking to see them make a run at NEW for number 1 in the league by the end of the season.

Nham: No matter how impressive Hamilton (and it’s been very much so), they still haven’t quite taken the edge off the Wolfpack to take first place in the power rankings. They do sit ahead of New England strictly off of having played more games and winning those, so there could be some argument that they could be deserving of first place anyways.

Highest Ranked: 1
Lowest Ranked:1

Smal: NEW has been our unanimous number 1 team in the voting for all the power rankings this season, and that continues for another week. They’re the best possession team, score the 2nd most goals, and let in the least amount of goals. Their offense is led by Wagstrom and McShotty, who are 2nd and 3rd in the league in points, with 3 less games played than the number 1 player.

Nham: What more can be said about this team who has performed at every point of the season? Wagstrom is running away with the goal scoring title while Slap McShotty deserves some sort of golden mitts for being the league leader in assists.

Team Stats

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Team Attributes Charts
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These two graphs depict how highly rated each team is in certain categories compared to the rest of the league. These ratings aren’t based on TPE purely, but rather how each player spent their points and upgraded each ability, basically their player build. The first graph, the polar chart, shows how highly rated each team is on average in the 4 skater categories on the player builder, as well as average goalie ratings from their builds

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The boxplots show 'bulked' data for each team in the corresponding stat on the y axis. (The only stat that's not intuitive is that average rating refers to each player's FHM attribute ratings averaged into one value). The boxplots encapsulate all the player's for each team and group them into one object. Each dot in the boxplot (or outliers outside of them) represent a player on the team, and what value they performed at for the specific stat. The box captures the 25%-75% range of all player data, the 'whiskers' extend to show the extreme players, and any dots outside are outlier points (outliers really mean nothing in this scenario, the point isn't for statistics as much as just visualizing the range of each team). The line in the middle of each box represents the median value for each Team, broken down by position. The horizontal dotted lines represent the league average value for the stat in question for each forwards and D. Basically, we can think of the boxplots as the distribution or range for each team and position for whatever stat we're looking at

Core Player Stats

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