We have an amazing, yet fluid development to report.  Given the tightly packed bottom of the western conference, as well as the mystifying performance of the Tampa Bay Lightning, our Western Conference Rho has actually surpassed that of the East.  Our west now stands at 0.56 and the east is now 0.55.

Both of these numbers are satisfactory to us through this point in the season, as most of our counter-punditry predictions have materialized.  Most notably, we refer to PIT, ANA, MIN and DAL……likely unpleasant surprises to those who actually get paid to follow, and opine on, the NHL. ANA to win the Stanley Cup?  It could happen, but are you aware of how many “experts” predicted the Ducks to have a fantastic season?  A lot.

While we are merely volunteer observers with an idea being tested in real life, we are within five standing slots for every team in the NHL except CGY (who has won seven in a row), WSH who is off to their best start in franchise history) and TB (who won the eastern conference last year, has been exceptional on  defense (with GAA hovering in the low 2’s), and is actually having trouble scoring because of injuries to Johnson and Palat.  We will take that any day of the week during our inauguration into advanced analytics.  We are enthused by the possibility of a mean reversion for our three “problem teams” to bring our Rho’s in each conference even higher.

Note – we will try to calculate an Advanced Bracton score for half the season in the coming weeks.