A Shocking Revelation About Mario

Small Mario: 3 fingers and a thumb.

Big Mario: 4 fingers and a thumb.

Baltimore Blizzards' AHL Season

Warning: extreme nerding over a video game lies ahead.

Since the Baltimore Blizzards (my created team in NHL 2010) were slaughtered by Belarus in the World Tournament, it was decided to go "back to basics" and compete in the AHL somehow. The Blizzards replaced the now-defunct Iowa Chops for the season. Needless to say, the Blizzards went undefeated in the regular season.

For some reason I threw all the stats into a spreadsheet: BBZ AHL Season.

T. Regan (#9) had the most goals, most assists, most points, 3d most PIMS, 2d best +/-, and 4th most hits in the AHL.

D. Miller (#13) had the 2d most assists, 3d most points, most PIMS, 3d best +/-, and most hits in the AHL and the most goals of all defensemen.

A. El-Zeftawy (#26) had the 3d most assists, 6th most points, 2d most PIMS, best +/-, 2d most hits in the AHL and the 2d most goals of all defensemen.

The Blizzards had players with the 1st through 13th and 15th best +/- in the AHL

The Blizzards as a team had the most goals for (next team had 244), most goals for per game (next team had 3.05), fewest goals against (next team had 194), fewest power plays, most times shorthanded (413 -- the next team has 170), best penalty kill (yet most power play goals against), and most shorthanded goals for (next team had 6 -- that's 80 less!).

Now hopefully we can be undefeated in the post season as well. Then it's on to the NHL.

Baltimore Blizzards

In NHL09, if you create a player, he automatically goes into the Free Agent roster. If you create a team, you can build it out of players from any team. However, if you want to use your created team in a season or dynasty, you must replace another team. But, any players you created stay in the Free Agent roster. So, even though a created player is on your team, there is another copy of him as a free agent, who then gets sucked into playing on other teams.

So, I'm in year 2 of a dynasty using the Baltimore Blizzards (who replaced the Anaheim Ducks). Nearly all of the players on the team are also on other teams. I was wondering how much of an advantage playing on the Baltimore Blizzards must be to each player, as the Blizzards are in fact the best team in town. I am only 23 games into the second year. (BTW, we were eliminated from the playoffs last year in the first round by Vancouver, whose goalie is awfully familiar....)

First I gathered all the stats...

#	Name	Other Team	G (BBZ)	G (Other)	A (BBZ)	A (Other)	PTS (BBZ)	PTS (Other)	PIMS (BBZ)	PIMS (Other)	+/- (BBZ)	+/- (Other)	Hits (BBZ)	Hits (Other)
9	T. Regan	NYI	35	13	21	11	45	24	36	4	51	19	148	60
11	K. Brooks	NYI	19	9	24	18	43	27	15	0	51	19	52	36
13	D. Miller	LA	3	1	26	13	29	14	26	19	53	-6	152	20
14	S. Marasinghe	BUF	0	0	6	7	6	7	27	21	4	-11	34	48
25	M. Phelps	MTL	4	23	4	10	8	3	4	13	12	6	21	18
26	A. El-Zeftawy	NAS	3	5	26	10	29	15	48	36	49	-3	105	72
27	M. Regan	CBJ	0	1	9	12	9	13	42	63	21	-9	73	105
38	A. Goldberger	FLA	2	4	4	15	7	19	0	9	4	6	23	55
42	J. Jones	CBJ	5	5	5	19	10	24	2	0	12	-2	21	50
48	M. Ibach	EDM	1	5	3	7	4	12	4	6	5	5	8	18
49	C. Ebadi	MTL	4	2	6	6	10	8	12	7	8	-3	49	42
51	A. Glaros	FLA	6	14	4	9	10	23	8	6	8	14	27	14
64	B. Twomey	CAR	13	15	18	12	31	27	14	8	46	4	51	49
69	D. Houser	FLA	2	9	6	17	8	26	15	7	10	11	39	57
76	M. Clise	BOS	5	4	3	2	8	6	16	13	8	-6	9	8
90	R. Cobbinz	MIN	1	2	9	10	10	12	5	9	7	4	51	23

#	Name	Other Team	GP (BBZ)	GP (Other)	GAA (BBZ)	GAA (Other)	W (BBZ)	W (Other)	L (BBZ)	L (Other)	SV% (BBZ)	SV% (Other)	SO (BBZ)	SO (Other)
0	T. Reganen	VAN	17	19	2.16	2.59	11	7	5	12	0.876	0.909	1	0

Then I took the Baltimore Blizzards stat for each player and subtracted the other team's stat for each player....

#	Name	Other Team	ΔG	ΔA	ΔPTS	ΔPIMS	Δ+/-	ΔHits
9	T. Regan	NYI	22	10	21	32	32	88
11	K. Brooks	NYI	10	6	16	15	32	16
13	D. Miller	LA	2	13	15	7	59	132
14	S. Marasinghe	BUF	0	-1	-1	6	15	-14
25	M. Phelps	MTL	-19	-6	5	-9	6	3
26	A. El-Zeftawy	NAS	-2	16	14	12	52	33
27	M. Regan	CBJ	-1	-3	-4	-21	30	-32
38	A. Goldberger	FLA	-2	-11	-12	-9	-2	-32
42	J. Jones	CBJ	0	-14	-14	2	14	-29
48	M. Ibach	EDM	-4	-4	-8	-2	0	-10
49	C. Ebadi	MTL	2	0	2	5	11	7
51	A. Glaros	FLA	-8	-5	-13	2	-6	13
64	B. Twomey	CAR	-2	6	4	6	42	2
69	D. Houser	FLA	-7	-11	-18	8	-1	-18
76	M. Clise	BOS	1	1	2	3	14	1
90	R. Cobbinz	MIN	-1	-1	-2	-4	3	28

#	Name	Other Team	ΔGP	ΔGAA	ΔW	ΔL	ΔSV%	ΔSO
0	T. Reganen	VAN	-2	-0.43	4	-7	-0.033	1

So, here's my analysis thus far in the season....

Defensive players (Miller, Marasinghe, El-Zeftawy, M. Regan, Houser, Cobbinz) generally have much better +/-'s on the Blizzards, and of course, a lot more penalties. Baltimore's top line (El-Zeftawy & Miller) gets many many more hits and assists in Baltimore. I expected this to be the trend across the board. I'm surprised.

Forwards are pretty much all over the place. However, the +/- is usually better, and there's probably more penalties to be had on the Blizzards.

As for star goalie Timo Reganen, he wins a lot more on the Blizzards, but his save percentage isn't as high. He lets in fewer goals on the Blizzards and wins more, but he's also facing fewer shots.

Players that are better off on the Baltimore Blizzards:
In all areas, the following players had higher numbers on the Blizz: D. Miller, T. Regan, K. Brooks, and M. Clise.

I was expecting all the stats to be more clear cut than this. I'll probably revisit this when the season ends.... But after the playoffs, it doesn't matter which team players would have been better off statistically on, as long as Baltimore wins the Cup, hon.

NHL10 and NHL2K10 Both Look Awesome!

NHL10's new features:

• New first-person fighting engine
• Women in the crowd
• Better passing and shooting mechanics
• Fights and penalties after the whistle
• plus 190-something more tweaks
  

Pretty awesome, pretty awesome.... But NHL2K10 has WINTER CLASSIC MODE and the HARTFORD WHALERS! ZOMGOMGOMG!!!11!!!1!!one1!!!

Both games come out on September 15 and yes, I pre-ordered both of them.