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The Skinny: Isles 5, Chicago 4

"The Skinny"  By Eric Hornick Game 31 Isles 5, Chicago 4 Simon Holmstrom scored a goal and added two assists, while Jean-Gabriel P...

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

The Skinny on the Road Warriors

These should have made The Skinny on Saturday:

Road Warriors
The Isles have the second-best road record in the East, behind only Pittsburgh.  They have guaranteed themselves a .500+ record on the road for the first time since 2006-07, and matched their most points in FRANCHISE HISTORY thru 21 road games:

Most points in first 21 road games (all time):
  • 30 in 2012-13 (14-5-2)
  • 30 in 1976-77 (13-4-4)
  • 27 in 1978-79 (11-5-5)
  • 27 in 1980-81 (12-6-3)
  • 26 in 1983-84 (12-7-2)
The Isles will need a win in Carolina to keep pace with the 76-77 team, who won their 22nd road game (4-3 in Boston on 1/20/77; Denis Potvin had the winning goal while Ed Westfall scored twice and Bobby Nystrom once).

The club record through 24 road games, which is all the Isles will play this regular season, is 34 points in 1976-77.  The Isles would need a 2-1-0 (or 1-0-2) finish to match that.

With a win tonight, the Isles will set a FRANCHISE record, for best point percentage in a season -- they need two points in the final three games to do so, which would guarantee them a .667 point percentage.  The club record is .663.

POINT STREAKS

The Isles have earned a point in five straight road games.  The last time they earned a point in 6 straight on the road was early in the 2006-07 season.  (They also had a 5-game point streak on the road in 2007-08.)

The Isles have earned a point in ten straight games overall (8-0-2).  They have had only one longer point streak in the Post-Cup era, going 9-0-1-1 in the first 11 games in 2001-02.  With a point tonight, the Isles would match their longest point streak since, well, THAT STREAK (the 15 game winning streak in 1981-82).

The Isles' current 10-game point streak means that they now have a point streak that is greater than 20% of their season schedule (10/48 =20.8%) for the first time in franchise history.  The Isles have three 15-game point (unbeaten) streaks in their history -- all in 80 game seasons (15/80 = 18.8%)

CLINCHING SCENARIOS

Isles clinch a playoff berth TONIGHT if they win and Washington defeats Winnipeg

OR

Isles lose in OT/SO and Washington defeats Winnipeg in regulation.

There is only one Eastern Conference game on Wednesday (Toronto at Tampa Bay) so if the Isles do not clinch tonight, that will not have an opportunity to do so again until Thursday.

NABBY NOTES

Evgeni Nabokov enters play tonight tied for the NHL lead in wins (23) with Antti Niemi of San Jose.  Nabby has led the NHL in victories once before in his career (46 wins in 2007-08).  The only Islander to ever lead the NHL in wins is Billy Smith, who won 32 times in the 1981-82.  Nabokov has 335 career wins, tied with Gump Worsley for 18th all-time.  While Nabokov has had the benefit of OT/SO wins, he has played in 217 fewer games than the Hall of Famer Worsley.
 
Forever1940 is the nom de plume of Eric Hornick, statistician on Islander home telecasts since January 21, 1982. Visit my blog: NYISkinny.com and follow me on Twitter @ehornick

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

With a win tonight, the Isles will set a FRANCHISE record, for best point percentage in a season -- they need two points in the final three games to do so, which would guarantee them a .667 point percentage. The club record is .663.

This is misleading. "point percentage" as cannot be calculated today as it was in the pre-1 pt OT era. A more accurate calculation takes into account the fact that approximately 13% of games go into OT where an extra point is awarded. Therefore a more accurate calculation would be
wins*2/((games played*.87*2)+(games played*.13*3))

This gives the Isles a .55 point percentage (before tonight's game).

Go Isles!

Eric said...

Thanks for your note. I certainly understand the math!

It's the same logic we use when we refer to the "NHL's version of .500". Unfortunately, ever since the NHL instituted the loser points some games have been worth two points and other three.

It is true that they would have accumulated 67% (or so) of the available points. It's also true that the opponent will have more than 33%.