The View From Wisconsin

I spent the majority of this week that I had off on vacation doing some playing around with my copy of Strat-O-Matic Computer Hockey Version 6. Mostly, it was an effort to try to update the teams so I could do some season simulations; the main problem is that the player sets that I have are from the two seasons before and after the "You-Know-What".

Since SOM doesn't allow you to directly alter player cards by entering player stats, you have to do some "estimating" for those players who either don't have cards (virtual cards, of course) or have cards that were practically non-existent (20 or fewer games played for players who have played much more in the ensuing three seasons). This wasn't easy, considering that about 10-12 players per team were either new or drastically changed over the ensuing seasons.

I followed the following rules of thumb in adding/subtracting players:

• If a player's stats hadn't changed drastically since 2004 or 2006, I pretty much left the player's card/stats alone. A lot of players fell into this category, as I didn't want to make things more difficult that they were going to be.
  
• If a player's stats were drastically more or less than it had been since 2006 - for example, Shea Weber (who spent most of 2005-06 with Milwaukee of the AHL) - I used a "comparison" method to determine a player who did play in 2004 or 2006 (or even some Hall-of-Famers) who was most similar to this player. I used this sparingly, as most players were pretty much established from 2006.
  
• If the player started playing in the NHL after 2006, and played a significant number of games afterward, I used their 2008-09 stats to determine a similar player from 2004 or 2006. I typically had to use this for five or six players per team.
  
• If the player started playing in the NHL this season, but had played hockey elsewhere (AHL, NCAA, Juniors, Europe) between 2006-2009, I used an "estimate" of their performance to determine their stats for similarity estimation. This was easier for some players than others, but for rookies it was a necessity.
  

I made the estimates of similar players using an Excel spreadsheet (of course; you'd expect anything less from me?) and the stats from 2004 and 2006. There were two methods of comparing players:

• For skaters, I used the four basic stats - games, goals, points, and penalty minutes. I used the absolute difference between the player I was comparing and every player in the 04/06 NHL. I had a tolerance level for each of the categories: 10 games, 5 goals, 15 points and 25 PIM's. If a player was beyond that amount of games/goals/whatevers between the player and the comparisons, the match total for that player was set at 1000. For each player, I totaled the sum of the differences between them to determine the player's "Match" score with comparison player. The lowest total was generally the player's card that I used in the game (unless the two players weren't from the same position, like a Defenseman and a Forward).
  
• Here's an example: Chicago RW Patrick Kane's 2009 stats were 80 games, 25 goals, 70 points, and 42 PIM's. His similarity scores matched him to two players from 2004: Shane Doan of Phoenix (79 gp, 27 g, 68 pts, 47 PIM) and Steve Sullivan of Chicago/Nashville (80 gp, 24 g, 73 pts, 48 PIM). His "Match" score for both was 10 points. As delicious as the irony of using Sully as Kane's "match" would be, I opted to use Doan instead. Kane's top five were rounded out by Martin Straka (2006 NYR, 11), Slava Kozlov (2006 ATL, 12) and Mark Recchi (2004 PHI, 13).
  
• For goaltenders, it was a bit more complicated: I used the goalie's games played, minutes played, wins and losses, goals allowed and saves made as the comparison stats. The thresholds were also different: 10 games, 240 minutes, 5 wins, 5 losses, 30 goals and 100 saves.
  
• The example for goalies: Steve Mason, the Calder Trophy winner for the Columbus Blue Jackets, played 3,664 minutes in 61 games, with 33 wins and 20 losses, 140 goals allowed and 1,518 saves. He had only five matches that didn't have one stat that wasn't out of range (something that happened a lot with goalies, by the way): David Aebischer (2004 COL, 109); Dan Cloutier (2004 VAN, 231); Evgeni Nabokov (2004 SJS, 261); Chris Osgood (2004 STL, 272); and Curtis Joseph (2006 PHX, 275).
  

Now, as a Predators fan, there was this nagging question I had about Nashville, and whether or not the Preds would be a different team if a certain player currently playing for Salavat Yulayev Ufa would make a difference with this team. Guess what - it would. The Predators ended up finishing fourth overall in the Western Conference. The two biggest surprises? The Phoenix Coyotes AND the New York Islanders made the playoffs, while the Penguins missed the playoffs.

I'm not sure if I may have had some Mustard-colored glasses on with some of the players on the Predators, but this team just looks like it should be better than it is.