In response to Bookboy007's comment:
"the question was about the b's abysmal pp(which is 13%), and whether that's an important thing to consider improving on." - stevegm.
I think you're over-simplifying the question, steve. You've left out a few elements of NAS's OP that are important to the whole discussion and are partly behind the post of mine where you bolded me saying that the PP is bad and it would be nice if it wasn't. When you make it this simple, why not just take the PP out of it and say "it is important to keep trying to improve your team?" If you play better, you win more....
Look at NAS's OP again. I've highlighted the four things I think are important.
"Lots of time is spent discussing the powerplay and how to fix it. There are some good teams with high powerplay percentages and some awful ones as well. There are some good teams with low powerplay percentages and some awful ones as well.
I see no connection between scoring on the powerplay and winning hockey games. "Yeah, but NAS, they've been lucky. If they don't start scoring on the powerplay, they're doomed." 100% incorrect. This team can score 5x5. If they couldn't (see: Edmonton), it would be an issue. " - NAS's OP.
1. People discuss it endlessly. On all sorts of threads, especially the e-harmony ones and the trade Krejci ones, improving the PP is a rationale given for all sorts of moves as though a broken PP = a broken team. This thread was sparked by the disproportionate emphasis on the PP and what people have suggested as "fixes". Take for granted that the PP has been bad so far this year (at home, anyway), and that it would be nice if it was better. Stop and think about how far the Bruins should go to make that happen when they've only lost two games in regulation and neither by only one goal.
2. There isn't a reliable connection between simply scoring more goals and winning, so how could it matter if you're scoring more goals specifically on the PP? This is where this long thread veers into how the Bruins would address the PP. Play better/fire Ward/change who rolls over the boards when? That would be consistent with saying "everything else will remain the same, but we'll look for better PP results." In other words, play the hand you're dealt better. This is also where the question veers into should they be better, not whether they need to be better to win. As in, there's no excuse for the current group to fail on the PP.
3 and 4. This part is key. Are they doomed if they don't fix the PP? Not "is it worth trying to improve on the PP" but "do they need a better PP?" They had some truly awful stretches on the PP last year but still ended up with a middle of the pack annual PP% - maybe they don't need to improve so much as let the law of averages work itself out? Maybe the more important PP number is "opportunities" - the Bruins were 25th in the league in opportunities last year, meaning with an average PP% they only had 43 goals. They weren't very good at drawing penalties (read: diving). On the other hand, nobody scored more 5 on 5 goals than the Bruins, and only the Penguins had more total goals. (LA barely scored at all - only 188 goals all year and 49 on the PP.) If you can score as well or better than any other team 5 on 5, the need to improve on the PP decreases. It really doesn't look like a need; all the posts here saying it will be easier are conceding that the Bruins don't need a better PP - it would just be nice.
What people see to really want is PP goals in the games the Bruins lose, but as gnb points out above, you don't get to pick and choose, and even if you could, you don't necessarily need a 20%PP to score timely PP goals.
Lastly, let's not forget that the Bruins 10 ppg in the 2011 run came in 18 games, not 25. Take away the ridiculous showing against Montreal, and the PP% was closer to 16% (don't have time to work it out right now). There is more precedent for teams to make the finals with that kind of performance since the lockout. In the first two years, Carolina was nearly 25%, but Edmonton was 17%. Ottawa (19%) lost to Anaheim (15.2%). Detroit, Pittsburgh and Chicago would fit into the category of simply being very good on offense in their years.
I'm not over simplifing at all book. you're overly complicating a very fundamental reality, and i'm not saying that to be argumentive, or cocky, or stubborn. Again, I'll go over the question since you have it right here.
I succinctly answered what you're saying in the first paragraph earlier, and I answered that exact question in great detail. I can bump it back up I guess. If you see holes in the logic, by all means, bring them up, don't wear me out with the same questions unless I'm so rude as to not answer them.
Lets look again at what's hi-lited. The first thing is a general comment. Hardly important. "Lots of time" could be at the pool hall, or someones living room. I answered that one too. This time I'll be even more blunt. Attempting to interpret what's in 9 pages of this thread, to mean assorted comments in other threads, that don't really compare... is ridiculous. Again, that's been covered.
Paragraph 2. This is where it starts to get important..."no connection between scoring on the pp and winning". That's the heart and soul of this discussion. The part about "doom" is just exaggerated filler(which I also expanded on earlier). On this thread, no one is speaking anywhere close to those terms, only the OP, so it's adding hysteria when supposedly, the writer is disgusted by it. Notice the last line..." if they couldn't it would be an issue". Well.....sometimes they can't....that's why it is an issue. That's why the whole establishment says it is.
OK... #1. Yes, people "have" discussed this endlessly I guess. We're going on 10 pages. It should have been done in only a few, and would have been if some people weren't so stubborn. there's no room for opinion here. we've got access to tons of info here to validate a very elemantary, fundamental truth., and attempting to introduce tertiary stuff only serves to take ones eye off the ball. A 2 week trip to the north pole in winter hardly changes the fact that the sun comes up every morning just about everywhere. More important is the fact that what people say on other threads has no place here. It doesn't matter, and is unfair to even bring up. An adult discussion or debate is always based on the information at hand.
#2. THERE IS "a reliable connection between simply scoring more goals and winning". Maybe that's the problem here...and it's anything but a subtle one. The pk, offense, defense, goaltending, the home rink and several other issues point to a "substantial connection". You can plug in data that from time to time changes that, but it doesn't change the fundamental truth. You can win a hand of blackjack with a 7 down, but your chances are much better, with an Ace. "How far should they go" you ask. That's been answered over these 9 plus pages too. Overwhelmingly, most think they can do a good enough job within, blowing the "hysteria" thing right back at those who are making the accusations. There are also many intangible strengths that come from strong special teams but I've stayed away from going there. Lastly, you ask do they "need" to get better. btw, please be aware how abstract and nit picky your getting here. The answer is yes, because the goal is always improvement, they have the tools in place. They already know how to score, so there is no expectation to reinvent the wheel. If they're top 6, 5 on 5, it's unacceptable to be 27th on the pp. A better pp equates to more goals. more goals points to a clear "connection" to more wins, same as fewer goals scored on, has a connection to fewer losses.
3 and 4. We're still out on Mars here with should vs need. If anyone on this side inferred, or mentioned "doom", you may have a bit of a point, but since it comes from your camp, it's totally pointless drivel. nothing key here at all. as far as the law of average...sure., but you're out there again book. if it goes to 18 or 19, that;s "marked improvement". "Opportunities" is only decreasing the sample size and convoluting the obvious, but yeah, they need to improve there too. they're supposedly an elite team. assuming drawing penalties, equals diving, is an incredible stretch. And need vs nice is also grasping. Minimizing the potential of a pp by saying you have no choice when that goal is scored also applies to 5 on 5 goals, so lets be consistent. Since we don't know when those 5 on 5 strikes will occur, those extra pp goals add insurance, so yes they're needed.
When we get to your next to last paragraph,... you leave the galaxy entirely. Because you can't pick and choose..is preciesly the reason a good pp is fairly important. No one has inferred a good pp has anything to do with timely goals. 5 on 5 has nothing to do with timely goals either, so throw that out the window. You focus on each aspect of the game and if you're an elite team, with top level scoring prowess, you don't "accept" the inability to score when things get easier. And people want to see "pp goals in games the Bruins lose".................wtf
And in your final paragrph you're messing with a reasonable sample size, and diminishing it to have no statistical significance in order to keep this going. As far as I can go back(14 yrs), no team has won the cup with a pp as bad as Bostons in 11. They're pretty much in the cellar currently. We don't have to dust off many Bruin history books to find inarguable proof that there is indeed "a connection to scoring on the pp and winning", even though that stat in itself is trivial when there are mountains more that point to the same conclusion.
There is no reasonable debate here. You're arguing what you want the topic to be, when you want it to be, not what it is. Regardless how good the Bruins get on every other facet of their game, this stays an issue, and it'll be a weakness the industry, not just people on this site, will focus on.
Your right book, a lot of wasted words here. I'll bump up something to illustrate that in a moment.
9 beers
