Loweball

There's a lot of talk of Sabermetrics and Moneyball amongst the Oilers blogs. The basic premise of these is the use of advanced statistics, beyond typical boxscore numbers, to evaluate a players true value to his team. Moneyball was a book about Billy Beane's Oakland A's and their use of the principals of sabremetrics to outsmart conventional subjective wisdom amongst Beane's peers. Part of Beane's success in Oakland has been his ability to sell high. He traded pitchers Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder near the peaks of their careers and kept on rollin'. He has the ability to demand a ransom, get top prospects and serviceable players in return, and keep the A's competitive and on budget. He might be a bigger dickhead than most GMs (that's an accomplishment in and of itself), but he's proven to be a good one. If nothing else, he was ahead of the sabre-curve, being the first of what has now become many GM's that employ sabremetrics analysts.

Anyhoo, one of the Beane-James gang in the oilogosphere is Tyler of MC79hockey.com. I imagine if he ran a hockey team there would be a rate of turnover amongst players that would be alarming to the general fan population. One deal that would have been made last season was the trading of Matthieu Garon. I remember Tyler posting on several occasions that the Oilers should trade Garon at the deadline. Last season, Garon appeared to be emerging as a legit #1 goaltender who couldn't be scored against in the shootout. Now trades for starting goaltenders don't seem to happen all that often (Roberto Luongo notwithstanding), and scouring my memory banks I really can't think of many teams trading for a new #1 mid season or otherwise. Roli to the Oilers for a 1st round pick jumps to mind. Andrew Raycroft to the Leafs for a highly touted prospect. Manny Fernandez for perennial allstar Peter Kalus. Jose Theodore and David Aebisher were traded for each other. Thomas Vokoun got a 1st and two 2nd's from the Panthers. Biron went to the Flyers for a 2nd, Chris Mason was had for a 4th, and Roberto Luongo (the NHL's best goatender) for a bag of pucks - twice. Kiprusoff was an unknown commodity and a stopgap measure for the Flames so his trade value was next to nothing when he was moved as well. So - who did I miss? I definately don't see much of a pattern there other than the Panthers should be the preferred trading partner of every other team in the league and the Avs haven't had a goalie since Patrick Roy was wearing his wife beater under a Colorado sweater. Returns for starting goalies appear to be all over the board and based on team desperation and manager IQ more than anything else. But there may be something to Tylers belief that Garon should have been sent out last season at the deadline. There were a few teams that would have shilled for a goalie that was stealing wins on a regular basis. The afore named Avs perhaps, having already taken Tommy Salo off our hands, could have been fleeced again. Washington and Tampa were both looking for goalie help (oh yeah, Mike Smith - forgot about him), and Ottawa really stands out as the team that didn't have it's goalie shit together. So the market wasn't huge, but the return may have been a 1st or top prospect from the Sens and or a 2nd from some of the others? I don't know much about Ryan Stone, but he's likely not worth a 1st or 2nd draft choice, and the fact that the Oilers had to take a goalie back in the trade shows that there was a least a little negative value in the Garon return as well.

So, the Oilers held onto Garon, didn't make the playoffs, didn't extend Garon, signed JDD, created a three goalie situation, ruined Garon's confidence, took away his playing a practice time, eroded what little trade value he did have, and then moved him. Is this Anti-moneyball? Can we call it Loweball?

I hope Sabourin likes Long Island

DiPietro Out

Dubielewicz Claimed from Islanders

Sabourin Waived

can we connect the dots?

Shouldn't a trade have been available here?

Vinny

Would you try to land him? And who would it take to get him?

Bruce Would be Proud

Got to my first game of the season last night, and boy I can see why those tickets were easy to come by - what a snoozer. Biggest cheer of the night was for the TSN broadcast of the Canada victory. Horcoff, to my eye, had one of his worst nights in memory - brutal giveaway in the 1st to put the Islanders up 1-0, and not much else to atone for that mistake. The only positive of the night for the Oilers was the play of the 4th line - Stortini in particular. At one point in the 2nd I leaned over to my wife (The first game we were able to attend together since Samsonov's home debut vs. Calgary back in '06 - another 3-2 victory for the good guys as I recall - seems she's a bit of a good luck charm) and said "Stortini needs to do something here to get the team fired up - a hit, a fight, someth"...........SCORES. Stortini threw the puck into the crease and it was 2-1 Islanders and the building had a little life. A few minutes later, Stortini makes a real nice play from behind the net and it's a tie game. I imagine Bruce had a big ole smile on his face.

Funny note from last night - the Oilers played a real nice little tribute for Doug Weight and thanked him for his community service during his tenure as an Oiler. A few minutes later, a stat on the scoreboard shows "Former Oilers Doug Weight and Bill Guerin currently sit 2 and 3 in Islanders scoring" - no mention the entire night of boobird favorite Mike Comrie. I guess the wound is still too fresh!

I Believe the Term is Batshit Crazy

This is my neck - the result of a hard rising slapshot from the top of the circle that I had come out hard on to cut down the angle. We were already losing - badly - as most of my team decided to show up for last nights game (our last game prior to the Christmas break) drunk, or stoned, or both.
Scary feeling to have your neck go numb - but after a five minute rest looking up at the rafters through a ring of players whispering about my new purple friend - and the offer to call the game as it was already way out of reach - I stepped back between the pipes. The very next shot went dead center between my eyes. Fuck it, I made two saves!

It's Not Good to Bottle Your Feelings

Remember that time you cut my skate laces in Edmonton? Huh, remember when everyone was laughing at me when my lace broke and I was late for practice and coach made me do laps? Huh, remember that? And all those stupid penalties in the playoffs - I mean come on, penalty after penalty - if it's a hook in the first it's a hook in the third! Didn't you read anything about the crackdown on obstruction. So you can't stay out of the box for one goddam minute and then, then, to top it all off, you run Andrew Ladd into Roli - Andrew Ladd! Could you have picked a bigger guy? I mean jesus, you cost me the Cup man - do you know how many Winchester's have their names on the cup? My Mom had T-shirts made and everything......and now I'm stuck playing for the Blues - how long do think it'll take to get a second shot at the Cup with the Blues huh? Huh? Broke my Mom's heart man - and nobody breaks Mom's heart!

Justice

So, OJ Simpson finally gets his due. Depending on which legal expert you listen to, his complicated sentence consisting of concurrent and consecutive terms will keep him in prison for somewhere between 7 and 15 years before parole.
If nothing else good can come from this, at least OJ's odds of finding the real killers have to be a bit higher in prison than on the golf course.
Hopefully OJ gets plenty of professional help - Analyst and Therapist types - I believe their known as Analrapists on the inside.