“We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
MONTREAL, QC. — Hockey Math.
I excelled in math in school. Algebra, calculus, statistics. It was a breeze.
Yet hockey math causes me much stress.
Why?
Because the experts who calculate hockey math tell me that my boys in the Bleu Blanc Rouge won’t make the playoffs.
But that’s all it is. Math.
It doesn’t take into account the determination, the heart and the drive these players are exhibiting to get to that next level. Where in hockey math’s formulae is that component, I wonder?
No where.
There are 23 games left to play, which means the Canadiens can pick up a maximum of 46 points. We know they won’t win every single game, but they are only 8 points out of that coveted 8th place playoff spot.
If the stars align, and they start winning and others start losing… Well, one never knows.
This is my hockey math.
You can go hard or you can go home. Will.I.Am’s lyric is ever so relevant now.
The Habs have to play each game like it is Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.
Can they do this? You bet they can.
We have seen it. Last night against the Boston Bruins, they played liked this. The final result was not what everyone wanted, but the effort Coach Randy Cunneyworth wanted from the boys, he got.
“Looking at the effort and being down a couple of goals and battling hard says a lot about the group, the determination. It was a gutsy, gritty performance, our physicality was excellent. I think we stepped up to the plate in that department for sure. We had 20 going and no passengers”
Josh Gorges echoed this as well.
“We’re going to scratch and claw and do everything we can and we’ve been playing like it too. We’ve had a couple of rough patches but there’s still lots of hockey left. There is no time to let up, we don’t have that luxury.”
Hockey math. Please…
I want them to make the playoffs, because then it is a brand new season, and anything can happen.
Truly… Anything can happen.
I want them to win. That’s all that matters now.
Win.
(AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Paul Chiasson)
Unfortunately, when you have to pass 5 teams in 23 games with many head-to-heads and 3 point games, it also comes down to the true grit and determination of everyone ahead of you in the standings. It’s good to have faith and remain positive but at some point, not being a realist will only make the disappointment worse.
I wish I was able to be more of an optimist than I am, but as I’ve said before on my site, I acquiesce to history, trends and facts.
I ask optimists two questions:
1- When did 8th place come to represent success in Montreal?
2- As an 8th place team, what is the goal? Is it still the Cup, or is getting there enough?
If grit, heart and determination is enough to get the team in to the playoffs despite the odds, then I would assume that just “getting there” is not the end game, even for optimists. Let’s forget for a second how much energy the team will have to spend to pick up the points they need to leap from 13th to 8th, they then have to have something left in the tank for the playoffs. But if the Cup is the goal, I look back at history and see that the past 15 Cup winners started the playoffs with home ice advantage. Underdogs have come close, but we all know what they say about “close”.
What else is there if the Cup is not the goal? A first round upset? Getting to the conference finals? Yeah, you can apply the “anything can happen label” to those scenarios. But you cannot rationally say “anything can happen” if the Cup is the goal. It would have happened in the last 15 years if it were reasonably expected. Underdogs go all the way in baseball and in football, and we’ve seen that in the last few months, but it doesn’t happen in hockey, which is why the adage “the Stanley Cup is the hardest trophy to win” rings so true. I’m not saying it’s impossible for an 8th place team to win the Cup, if you want to get in to technicalities and sematics, but given the position the Habs find themselves in, they are closer to the bottom of the barrel than they are to 8th place. As counter intuitive as that sounds, there are benefits to being this low. Don’t take that to mean that I’m happy about this season’s result, or that I want to see them “tank”. But to have the chance to cut dead weight, and scoop up assets is something that the team cannot afford to pass on, especially when they are so close to it. At some point, we have to take the long view and invest in the team’s future success.
Again, I appreciate your optimistic outlook (and wish I could share more in it), but I’m too much of a realist to let my guard down.
Truth be told, 8th place has come to represent tremendous success in Montreal for the last 18 years. Since ’93, the Habs have missed the playoffs one third of the time (6 seasons ended without a playoff berth). That we are happy to praise the team for working hard in a loss is testament to this mentality. I hate to be the stern realist here, but we are not watching our fathers’ Habs.
I agree with you, Kyle: time to cut some dead weight and focus our efforts on the draft. The future has to be more friendly, right?
“We’re going to scratch and claw and do everything we can and we’ve been playing like it too. We’ve had a couple of rough patches but there’s still lots of hockey left. There is no time to let up, we don’t have that luxury.” Really like this quote, hopefully they keep working hard and win games.
Thank you for your comments! They are greatly appreciated.
My thoughts on this are that we have to deal with hope vs. analytics, which are the two approaches felt by all Habs fans. At times both feelings exist within the same person. It’s a pull of emotions vs logic, teetering back and forth.
We hear so much about the “math” and hockey analysis that I thought it would be important that the fans who still have hope be represented.
I am actually humbled by the fact that my words compelled you to write, and I thank you very much!
Funny how once playoff start we all say ‘stats mean nothing’ And they don’t.
A team makes it 2the Cup based on their hunger and their ‘nothing will stand in our way’ attitude!
Why is it so hard 2imagine that that same attitude can not be used to ‘make the playoffs’
One step at a time.Can’t get the cup if not in the POs.
But hey!! I have been accused to never giving up before and for being positive!
I’m working on that horrible character trait of mine!
I see stats as a means to provide reason for hope… or not. It’s about managing expectations in context, knowing that big decisions need to be made long before the season actually ends.
Each season I hope the Habs do well (predicted 6th) and have never hoped they’d lose a game. Ever. Faith that anything can happen against clear history that it rarely does? It’s just not for me.
8th place is the realm of marketing voodoo that feeds off faith and I prefer not feeding the beast. Not anymore.
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