Quote:Juke: NOL is having a hell of a season. In fact, in the sim that happened after we ranked teams for this edition, they overtook BUF for first in the league in points while still having 2 games in hand on the Stampede. They still only have 1 regulation loss, and have the second best offense and defense in the league. They have 7 players above a ppg pace, and Cain has the league’s best save percentage and 3rd best GSAA. NOL has solidified themselves as the favorite from the West at this moment, which isn’t too surprising considering that they have the highest overall TPE roster.
Nham: With a lot of metrics, there are a number of reasons to consider the New Orleans Spectors to be the best team in the league. Unfortunately while they’ve garnered a fantastic record to this point, they haven’t quite proven it with a stretch of beating playoff teams as of this ranking. Chances are that when that part of the season rolls around, they’ll be looking just as good as they do now as they have before. The biggest differentiator compared to their Eastern counterpart in Buffalo is that while they almost have a top line of their own that could rival the Luffy/Scarn/Kholin trio, their group as a whole has made up for the difference so that the offensive record thus far between the two teams is fairly identical.
Quote:Juke: Despite the rough Saturday Sim for the stampede (which wasn’t counted towards these rankings), BUF continues to have the best underlying team stats in the league. With the number 1 corsi for, corsi against, goals scored, goals against, OPS, and DPS, they might even be playing better than their 22-5 record suggests. Luffy still has decent leads in the league in goals and points, and is currently on pace for a 41-41-82 season (which would prorate to a 67-67-134 in an NHL length season). There’s too many players in the top 10 charts to mention all of, but Doyle’s 4th best save percentage and GSAA in the league has been an underrated part of their success.
Nham: And unsurprisingly, Stampede continues to sit at the top. With near identical records to New Orleans in terms of goals scored, allowed, wins and losses, it was the overall domination of games compared to New Orleans that had them taking the slight edge. To illustrate that, they’re currently the only team who has 80+ corsi for per game and less than 35 corsi against. New Orleans on the other hand, sits in the pack of teams that are around 72+ corsi for and 40 against. If I had to find a flaw it would only be a minor one in that somehow they’re able to beat teams by nearly double digits but still allow one. I promise it’s not because I’m a salty Buffalo Goalie owner in fantasy that believes they should have had 3 times the number of shutouts. If I was Doyle, I would probably be a lot more upset personally.
Do you guys not consider strength of schedule when you write these up?
At the time of writing it, 22 games for NOLA and 24 games for BUF, Buffalo had played 12 of their 24 games against teams with losing records (BAPx2, TORx4, TBBx2, SFPx2 and MINx2) while NOLA had only played 8 of their 22 against those same teams (BAPx2, TORx1, TBBx1, SFPx1, MINx3) I'm not really interested in arguing the merits of which teams among those are stronger than which, but even at a glance it's clear to see that Buffalo has had more opportunity to pad their stats on those weaker teams. Playing half of your games against sub 0.500 teams definitely helps.
And while I know NOLA has played fewer games against playoff teams (only 7 against Buffalo's 9,) Buffalo has once again not played the more difficult team in Edmonton, which is the only team this season to defeat NOLA in regulation and your own #3 power ranking. Additionally, NOLA has won its only game against #4 CHI, while Buffalo has won one and dropped one against CHI. Against the #5 rated Calgary, who Buffalo is once again yet to play, NOLA has won both of their games. The last matchup for direct comparison would be #7 MAN, who both teams have won all their played games against, and finally BUF has played Hammy 3 times, with 3 wins, while NOLA is yet to play them.
With all that said, there's not a whole of between these two teams and it's gonna come down to head to head matchups to get a better ranking, but holding Buffalo up because of their stats, and only their stats, while they've played a weaker schedule (and more games) to date isn't really an argument that holds water. If you wanted to say that, 24 games into the season, Buffalo just had the presumed edge over NOLA, I honestly probably wouldn't have made this argument. I'm not saying I could or would do it better, for me ranking them as 1&2 with the information that you guys had available at the time would have been difficult to know who really goes where, and it's a fair point that you had already given Buffalo the #1 spot while NOLA hadn't yet made an argument to overtake Buffalo, and that works for me.
All in all, good write-up though boys. Look forward to seeing more.
To share a bit on the current process, there are typically 4 or more people that vote in order to determine the rankings and some of those folks like myself or others come to add the actual written thoughts. I know at least speaking for myself that strength of schedule is considered when looking at the week period as well as having data thanks to smalinowski that either the isolated week's data as well as the season as a whole. It's a tight line but I don't disagree in seeing that NOLA could be considered the top team in this week's ranking based on game dates 10/25-11/19:
NOLA W against Edmonton (1), Chicago (1) and Calgary (1)
L against Edmonton (1)
compared to
Buffalo W against Hamilton (2) and Manhattan (2),
L against Chicago (1) and New England (1)
Nhamlet![[Image: 1rdovVs.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/1rdovVs.gif)
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