All Playoff Talk, All the Time 2011

shabbs wrote:No games tonight...

Thank god. It'll give me a chance to catch up on life.

Big Ev wrote:Momentum means nothing. Sharks still take this series.

Oh we'll see about that.

Big Ev wrote:Momentum means nothing. Sharks still take this series.

sounds familiar from u....weren't the pens supposed to take the lightning too? and that tampa was only delaying their inevitable demise at the hands of pittsburgh? yeaaaaaaaaaaahhh

Michallica wrote:

shabbs wrote:1 game tonight...

Sharks @ Red Wings - 8:00pm ET - Sharks lead the series 3-2 [Game is on CBC]

Can Detroit force a Game 7?

I wish they could, but it won't happen. It ends tonight...

Couldn't be happier to be more wrong than I was. But the odds of the comeback happening twice in 2 years? I just can't see it.....I'm gonna say it'll be close but the sharks will find a way to prevail.

Michallica wrote:

Big Ev wrote:Momentum means nothing. Sharks still take this series.

sounds familiar from u....weren't the pens supposed to take the lightning too? and that tampa was only delaying their inevitable demise at the hands of pittsburgh? yeaaaaaaaaaaahhh

Durp, lightning we're down 0-3. Easier to win 3 in a row than 4 in a row

Datsyuk, Zetterberg and Lidstrom so badly outclass Thornton, Marleau and Boyle that it's almost comical. Let's see what happens in Game 7.

SJ can be thankful that they will be at home, and Niemi is playing well. They'll need Heatley and Marleau to step up (Big Joe seems to be playing alright).

It really should be a great game 7.

SpezDispenser wrote:Datsyuk, Zetterberg and Lidstrom so badly outclass Thornton, Marleau and Boyle that it's almost comical. Let's see what happens in Game 7.

That's kind of a pointless comparison when it's largely been the "other guys" for both teams that play big roles.

I wouldn't really say that Thornton and Boyle are being "outclassed", but Marleau has been a BIG disappointment so far. Heatley hasn't been great either, but guys like Couture, Clowe, Pavelski, Ian White (who knew), and even Torrey Mitchell, Kyle Wellwood, Setoguchi, and Douglas Murray have been playing quite well. San Jose is a really deep team (I might even argue they are deeper than Detroit). Other than the Heatley-factor, I really like SJ!!!!

Big Ev wrote:

Michallica wrote:

Big Ev wrote:Momentum means nothing. Sharks still take this series.

sounds familiar from u....weren't the pens supposed to take the lightning too? and that tampa was only delaying their inevitable demise at the hands of pittsburgh? yeaaaaaaaaaaahhh

Durp, lightning we're down 0-3. Easier to win 3 in a row than 4 in a row

except detroit has shown the capability to win 4 in a row in the first round, and completely dominated the sharx in game 6. Utter domination...with vancouver/chicago, the 'nucks outplayed the hawks in game 6 and still lost but they were playing well and hence won game 7. u never know what happens with san jose, it looks eerily similar to how the lightning were playing heading to game 7.

don't get me wrong, i agree with you that the odds are just too high and the occurence just after it happened last year has to be an extremely long shot. But I don't dismiss anything such as yourself....gotta start acknowledging reality.

Big Ev wrote:

Michallica wrote:

Big Ev wrote:Momentum means nothing. Sharks still take this series.

sounds familiar from u....weren't the pens supposed to take the lightning too? and that tampa was only delaying their inevitable demise at the hands of pittsburgh? yeaaaaaaaaaaahhh

Durp, lightning we're down 0-3. Easier to win 3 in a row than 4 in a row

"Durp"

Michallica wrote:

Big Ev wrote:

Michallica wrote:

Big Ev wrote:Momentum means nothing. Sharks still take this series.

sounds familiar from u....weren't the pens supposed to take the lightning too? and that tampa was only delaying their inevitable demise at the hands of pittsburgh? yeaaaaaaaaaaahhh

Durp, lightning we're down 0-3. Easier to win 3 in a row than 4 in a row

except detroit has shown the capability to win 4 in a row in the first round, and completely dominated the sharx in game 6. Utter domination...with vancouver/chicago, the 'nucks outplayed the hawks in game 6 and still lost but they were playing well and hence won game 7. u never know what happens with san jose, it looks eerily similar to how the lightning were playing heading to game 7.

don't get me wrong, i agree with you that the odds are just too high and the occurence just after it happened last year has to be an extremely long shot. But I don't dismiss anything such as yourself....gotta start acknowledging reality.

Game 7 is a single, isolated event. The odds shouldn't factor in past isolated events. Sounds like the gambler's fallacy to me. For example, someone bets 10 times on black and it hits red each time. He says to himself, "It's hit red so many times, surely the odds are in my favour this time." They aren't. Each spin of the wheel is an isolated event and is not influenced by the past. The odds in a hockey game are more nuanced than that, but the way that the wins and losses played out don't influence the outcome of the next game.

Of course, momentum plays a factor, but momentum can shift in the first seconds of the game.

tim1_2 wrote:SJ can be thankful that they will be at home, and Niemi is playing well. They'll need Heatley and Marleau to step up (Big Joe seems to be playing alright).

It really should be a great game 7.

Jumbo Joe coughed up the puck last night that led to Cleary's breakaway at the end of a PK. IfI was JR I'd say that was a pretty gutless play, except that Cleary hit the post (or did Niemi's jockstrap get in the way?)

spader wrote:
Game 7 is a single, isolated event. The odds shouldn't factor in past isolated events. Sounds like the gambler's fallacy to me. For example, someone bets 10 times on black and it hits red each time. He says to himself, "It's hit red so many times, surely the odds are in my favour this time." They aren't. Each spin of the wheel is an isolated event and is not influenced by the past. The odds in a hockey game are more nuanced than that, but the way that the wins and losses played out don't influence the outcome of the next game.

Of course, momentum plays a factor, but momentum can shift in the first seconds of the game.

Except that it's not a single, isolated event. It's the last game of a hard-fought series, where everything that's happened before has direct consequences on what will happen in game 7. Remember the rope-a-dope? Not saying this is San Jose's strategy, but you can clearly see that Detroit used up more energy in game 6 than San Jose did. Without it they may not have made it to game 7, but it may still cost them game 7. You just don't know what's left in that tank.

Momentum is one thing going in Detroit's favor, but that could be undone quickly in a road game. Anyhow, I'm not predicting one way or the other, but just saying that you can't treat it as a single, isolated event.

Perhaps...I'm not saying its impossible, but it is still improbable just because of the sheer magnitude of the comeback. Again, I really really hope I'm wrong on this though.

I guess if we want to look at it statistically now, we have to trace back to how many times a team was down 3-0 and came back to force game 7. and then from there you see how many teams completed the comeback or lost in game 7. I don't have the details on this (maybe some stat guru does) but when I heard about this on the radio, I think the team still lost game 7 more than it won

wprager wrote:

spader wrote:
Game 7 is a single, isolated event. The odds shouldn't factor in past isolated events. Sounds like the gambler's fallacy to me. For example, someone bets 10 times on black and it hits red each time. He says to himself, "It's hit red so many times, surely the odds are in my favour this time." They aren't. Each spin of the wheel is an isolated event and is not influenced by the past. The odds in a hockey game are more nuanced than that, but the way that the wins and losses played out don't influence the outcome of the next game.

Of course, momentum plays a factor, but momentum can shift in the first seconds of the game.

Except that it's not a single, isolated event. It's the last game of a hard-fought series, where everything that's happened before has direct consequences on what will happen in game 7. Remember the rope-a-dope? Not saying this is San Jose's strategy, but you can clearly see that Detroit used up more energy in game 6 than San Jose did. Without it they may not have made it to game 7, but it may still cost them game 7. You just don't know what's left in that tank.

Momentum is one thing going in Detroit's favor, but that could be undone quickly in a road game. Anyhow, I'm not predicting one way or the other, but just saying that you can't treat it as a single, isolated event.

Fair enough. I tried to temper my position by suggesting that the game involves much more nuance than a game of roulette. I think the truth lies between the two ways of looking at it.

Michallica wrote:Perhaps...I'm not saying its impossible, but it is still improbable just because of the sheer magnitude of the comeback. Again, I really really hope I'm wrong on this though.

I guess if we want to look at it statistically now, we have to trace back to how many times a team was down 3-0 and came back to force game 7. and then from there you see how many teams completed the comeback or lost in game 7. I don't have the details on this (maybe some stat guru does) but when I heard about this on the radio, I think the team still lost game 7 more than it won

I briefly tried looking that up this morning to make my point but then did not find something right away. I think you are right, and I think at least part of the reason is that:
1. The team that built up the 3-0 lead in the first place is probably a stronger team
2. The team that came back probably spent a lot of energy doing so

The power of the threat embarrassment is quite, well, powerful.

tim1_2 wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:Datsyuk, Zetterberg and Lidstrom so badly outclass Thornton, Marleau and Boyle that it's almost comical. Let's see what happens in Game 7.

That's kind of a pointless comparison when it's largely been the "other guys" for both teams that play big roles.

I wouldn't really say that Thornton and Boyle are being "outclassed", but Marleau has been a BIG disappointment so far. Heatley hasn't been great either, but guys like Couture, Clowe, Pavelski, Ian White (who knew), and even Torrey Mitchell, Kyle Wellwood, Setoguchi, and Douglas Murray have been playing quite well. San Jose is a really deep team (I might even argue they are deeper than Detroit). Other than the Heatley-factor, I really like SJ!!!!

It's a team game yeah, but Datsyuk has been ridiculous this series. Zetterberg too. Lidstrom to a lesser degree. Datsyuk has made it known to whoever didn't know before that he's the best player in the NHL not named Crosby - and even that's debatable now.

The supporting casts for both teams have been very good, but when the chips are down, the big boys from Detroit have killed it.

Datsyuk is a very unique, incredibly gifted player, at both ends of the ice. He's certainly in a league of his own, especially in this series. I'd argue that he's a more complete player than Sid, but that's an argument for another thread/day.

And he's only Big. That's why I call him Big Joe. Chara is Jumbo.