For the record, when it comes to predicting team success in the regular season, the preseason is meaningless.
Sure, they still televise some of the games and keep score to determine a winner, but, NHL exhibition games largely resemble the Friday night pick-up game at your local ice rink: some of the guys play together regularly, others are just trying to keep up and some are hoping to get noticed by the right people; you can keep score, but, team performances are more a result of dumb luck line combos than anything else.
With large numbers of players shifting on and off the roster from game to game, it is virtually impossible to take anything of significance away from an exhibition game, win or lose.
Still, as useless as the exhibition season is at determining whether or not a given team is "good" or "bad", the preseason can reveal small things about individual players that may in fact have some relevance once the regular season starts.
These things are, for the most part, not quantifiable, but more often judged by look and feel.
Indeed, the most accurate thing you can say about players in the preseason is that they, "Look like ...
Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NHL
Article written by Matt Hutter
Detroit Red Wings: Jiri Hudler’s Impact and Four Other Reasons To Get Happy
September 27th, 2010 by Matt Hutter Leave a reply »
Advertisement