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November 06, 2005
Gross misrepresentation
Toronto Sun "Hall of Famer" George Gross uncorks a howler, under the unfortunate title of "Stats don't lie":
Going into last night's contest, the Leafs have not shown stats that will make anyone believe they are a serious Stanley Cup contender. The best category for the Buds as a team is the power play percentage, in which they were ranked second in the league. However, if you remove their blowout win over the Atlanta Thrashers from the mix, the Leafs would be out of the top 10. The penalty kill was also doing well, ranked sixth.
In other words: Leafs' blowout wins don't count; the other 29 teams' blowout wins do. Seems fair.
There's more:
In the forward lines, eight forwards (Nik Antropov, Wade Belak, Marius Czerkawski, Tie Domi, Chad Kilger, Nathan Perrott, Alexei Ponikarovsky and Clarke Wilm) had combined for a grand total of 18 points and are a collective minus 17 (NOT [! –ed.] including Belak's minus-9 accrued mostly on defence and with only Antropov being a plus.) That is almost three full lines of players, five of whom dressed every night in Sundin's absence and four of whom will continue to do so now that he is back.
The plus/minus issue is real — the Leafs have piss-poor five-on-five numbers — but Antropov, Czerkawski and Perrott have only played 15 games between them. I mean, my goodness gracious, as of this morning, R.J. Umberger, Chris Therien, Brian Savage, Turner Stevenson, Branko Radivojevic, Patrick Sharp, Donald Brashear and Jeff Carter had combined for just 13 points — and these Flyers think they're going to win the Cup? Not if George Gross has anything to say about it.
Posted by Chris Selley at November 6, 2005 03:57 PM
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Comments
What's real is that Wade Belak, Marius Czerkawski, Chad Kilger, Nathan Perrott, and Clarke Wilm are not NHL calibre players. What the Leafs lack is depth, both on the wings and on the blueline.
Gross' statistical analysis is, of course, gross. But, fairly typical in the world of Toronto sports journalism.
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