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Blitz 09 "A" Vegas Odds


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Blitz 09 Vegas Odds!

Notes:

  • The rankings are my own interpretation and the starting lineups may not really reflect the correct lineups as chosen by each coach.
  • Ratings are completely formulaic
  • Forward ratings were based on 3 forwards, with the first F getting more weight than the 2F, and more than 3F.
  • Defense ratings were based on 2 defensemen, with the first D getting more weight than 2D
  • Goalie ratings were based on the 1 G.
  • Overall team rating was based on 4F, 3D, and 1G, with weights of 6,3,2,1,3,2,1,1 for the 1F,2F,3F,4F,1D,2D,3D,1G respectively.

DAL (kingraph) +400
F: 8.5 D: 7.5 G: 7.5 OVR: 8.0
M. Gartner, S. Fedorov, P. Ysebaert, A. Kasatonov, U. Krupp, J. Casey

In all my Vegas odds, I go with the current champ as the odds on favorite. This season it's me. With the redraft Dallas blows up the team that brought them to two straight finals appearances and the title last year, but built a similar looking squad that should hold up well. Gone is Neely's muscle up front, replaced with a speedier, big shot playmaker in Mike Gartner. Having just used Gartner in his last GDL season, kingraph has plenty of experience using him. Fedorov replaces Selanne as the #2F, which may work better with Feds 5 passing skills. Ysebaert and Juneau will see action as 3F, just not sure which. K&K on D fit Dallas' style, and Casey should be just as good as Terreri was last season.

BUF (swos) +450
F: 7.5 D: 8.0 G: 7.5 OVR: 7.0
M. Modano, T. Fleury, C. Ruuttu, J. Patrick, K. Lowe, A. Moog


Swos has played in Blitz only 1 time before -- season 05. He also WON season 5! And then he left. But he's back to give Blitz another shot in season 08! His championship lineup in season 05 had Fleury, Roberts and Ronning. This season, swos brings back Fleury and adds Mike Modano to the mix, along with Christian Ruutu. Kevin Lowe also returns from the season 05 lineup, pairing up with James Patrick. Swos is undoubtedly one of the top coaches out there, and with this lineup being just as strong (likely better) than his championship team of 05, Buffalo should be one of the favorites to take home the cup this season.


MTL (Freydey32) +450
F: 6.5 D: 9.0 G: 6.5 OVR: 6.5
V. Kamensky, T. Granato, J. Otto, P. Coffey, D. Ellett, D. Beaupre


3 time Blitz champ looks to avenge his early exit last season after sustaining a wrist injury in the playoffs. A solid defense pairing of Coffey and Ellet will drive the opposition crazy as Frey utilizes his d-men on offense better than anyone. While Montreal's forwards aren't the best overall skilled, they manage to have strength in the key categories -- shot, speed and strength. Kamensky brings in a big 5/3 shot, Granato has his 5/4 speed, and Otto will take down 99% of whatever stands in his way. A good coach like Frey will get the most out of them, and couple with that strong D will be dangerous.

CHI (Zalex) +500
F: 8.5 D: 6.0 G: 9.0 OVR: 8.0
J. Jagr, K. Muller, V. Ruzicka, D. Wilson, C. Leschyshyn, B. Essensa


Always a strong favorite to do well in Blitz, Chicago brings back Kirk Muller and Vlad Ruzicka (8th season in a row!) to the F squad, with Jagr replacing Klima from last season. While he doesn't have the shot or speed of Klima, Jagr is tough to knock down and will be feeding Kirk for a ton of points this season. I'll predict Jagr leads the leage in assists this season. I like Chicago's defense this season, and Essensa may steal a game or two himself. Zalex managed to have a 2.53 GAA and .743 with Cujo in season 06, so this team will be difficult to score on!

NYI (IcestormNHL94) +500
F: 7.0 D: 7.5 G: 8.0 OVR: 6.5
B. Hogue, S. Richer, C. Lemieux, G. Wesley, V. Malakhov, T. Cheveldae


IceStorm relocates to Long Island in hopes to shake things up from his previous years in Buffalo! He brings in a similar looking F lineup as MTL, combining key elements of shot (Richer), Speed (Hogue) and Strength (Lemieux), but these forwards seem to bring more overall skill. Richer looks to make up for Sandstrom last year at C, but we'll see if Hogue and Lemieux (or someone) can generate enough offense to keep up. Malakhov and Wesley will provide be a solid defensive pairing for the Islanders, and Cheveldae is a great G for someone who plays great GC. Guaranteed a playoff spot -- I can see Ice finishing anywhere from 1-6 spot!


QUE (Plabax) +700
F: 7.0 D: 7.0 G: 6.0 OVR: 5.0
P. Klima, M. Recchi, D. Savard, B. Leetch, D. Sweeney, D. Berthiaume

Ah, the ultimate mystery. By calculations, Anaheim has the worst team in the A league. But that is by conventional standards / my own ratings. Plabax has proven from his recent GDL victory that he can go against the grain and be competitive with any team, and any goalie. While I think it's easier to get away with heavyweights in GDL than lightweights in
Blitz, I'm prepared to be proven wrong. Klima will be a scoring machine, and I'm predicting that he will lead the league in Goals this season. At 7 weight, he's also Anaheim's heaviest player. Recchi, Savard, Leetch and Sweeney are all skilled, but their biggest flaw is their light weight. And Berthiaume/Tabarraci in net would be a nightmare for folks. If anyone can make a run with this team it's Plabax. I can see him finishing 1st, 5th, 8th, or rage-quitting in the middle of the season like season 08. I just don't know...will be interesting to see how this plays out.

VAN (Depch) +750
F: 6.5 D: 7.5 G: 10.0 OVR: 6.5

R. Francis, P. Verbeek, T. Steen, V. Fetisov, G. Murphy, E. Belfour


Similar to Fitzo, I don't have much experience playing against Depch, but he did bring a good record in GDL XI, so we'll see what happens in Blitz. Depch went Goalie first, and Belfour is going to be the rock of this team. I think if Depch can get Belfour down to a GAA of less than 3, then this will be a difficult team to play. Fetisov and Murphy are okay defensemen as well, but not sure if they will be enough support for Eddie. Having focused so much on D&G, the Forwards for this team are the weakest in the A group (EDIT: worst forwards now belongs to hokkee). Francis, Verbeek and Steen don't exactly strike fear into the hearts of opponents, as Francis and Steen have that dreaded "3" speed, but Depch can make this work! As long as GFA > GAA, haha.

WPG (eggink) +1200
F: 8.5 D: 7.5 G: 8.0 OVR: 8.0
E. Lindros, G. Courtnall, S. Makarov, P. Housley, A. Zhitnik, C. Terreri


Season 07 B champ drafts #88 to try and smash his way through the competition. No Forwards boasts a bigger checking rating than Lindros at 13.6, and only Kjell outdoes that at 13.9. Surrounding Lindros will be a series of playmakers in Geoff Courtnall and Sergei Makarov, both 5 agility crafty wingers, where Geoff brings the speed and Sergei can thread the needle with his passing. In contrast to previous Winnipeg teams, the defense is anchored by the ultimate playmaker, Phil Housely, with 6 stk, 6 agility and 6 passing, and lightweight Alexei Zhitnik! Wouldn't be surprised if Glen Featherstone made an appearance for a heavy presence. It's clear this team is built around feeding the big E-train, and dancing around defenders. If egg can make this work, it will be hard to keep up.

LA (dcicon) +1200
F: 7.0 D: 9.0 G: 6.5 OVR: 8.0
S. Larmer, G. Roberts, G. Sanderson, S. Stevens, R. Blake, S. Burke


The current and 2 time B champ gets moved up this season to make a run at the "A" title. Anchoring this Kings team is a tremendous pair of defensmen in Scott Stevens and Rob Blake. They have 12.9 and 10.4 checking ability, respectively, and both have 4/4 speed/agilty, 4/4 passing/stick handling, 4 shot power and 4 defensive awareness each! Quite a package, they will be a nightmare to deal with for opponents! LA's forwards are also good enough to genrate offense. While they don't boast a 1st round superstar, Larmer, Roberts and Sanderson make up quite an effective unit. Not focusing on a single F may work well and keep opponents on their toes. Burke will need Stevens and Blake to keep shots to a minimum.

FLA (Houly) +1200
F: 8.0 D: 6.0 G: 8.0 OVR: 6.5
J. Roenick, J. Nieuwendyk, W. Gretzky, I. Kravchuk, P. Svoboda, B. Ranford


Yet another former 2 time B champ joins the dance in A this season. While I think Houly has the skills to make the playoffs and be the person nobody wants to face in the 1st round, I thought his overall team was weaker than others. Roenick and Gretzky are both 4 weight, and while the C/B check will mean they can knock some people down, I think it will be tough to have them lead an offense alone. Joe Nieuwendyk brings in a little weight at 8, but his poor 2 passing ratings means he's probably better at C than a winger. However, if Houly manages to evade defenders and release that 5/5 canon that Roenick boasts, he'll put up enough goals to win. Kravchuk is the typical mid-tier defender, and Svoboda can be useful with that C/B check this season. Ranford also solid in net. I can see Florida in the playoffs, but Houly will have to make every game count.

NYR (BoKnowsNHL94) +1200
F: 8.0 D: 7.5 G: 7.5 OVR: 8.0
S. Yzerman, J. Sakic, P. Eklund, A. MacInnis, E. Desjardins, R. Hextall

BoKnows has missed the playoffs in 3 of the last 4 Blitz seasons, and the season he made it he was the 8th seed. (He also played in season 07, but as a technicality when IceStorm had to drop out). While always competitive, it's been a tough struggle for Bok in Blitz. And it's not because of a lack of good teams -- Bok drafts well! This season also sees a great squad led by Blitz superstar scorer Steve Yzerman, Joe Sakic and Pelle Eklund. Strong D-men in Al MacInnis and Eric Desjardin compliment this group of Forwards nicely. I wonder if Bok's lack of playing time and exhibitions will hurt him this season, and he may miss the playoffs.

HFD (hokkee) +1200
F: 5.0 D: 10.0 G: 9.0 OVR: 7.0
D. Andreychuk, S. Momesso, B. Probert, R. Bourque, N. Lidstrom, G. Fuhr

Defensively, Hokkee has the best man in the game, Ray Bourque, with a great compliment (c/b checker) in Lidstrom, and solid goalie in Grant Fuhr, usually taken 3rd after Roy and Belfour. Hartford's Forwards are ALL 11 weight, 4 checking for a check ability of 11.6 each. This team is built to win the checking title! However, we're going to need some offense to win games and that is severely lacking. All three forwards have a 3 speed, which will really prevent any type of breakaway opportunity. They will have to flatten everyone out of the way and score on one-timers. Even that, Dave Andreychuck has the best shot at 4/4, the other guys each have 3 SHP. Stick handling and passing are all 2's and 3's. Yikes. Don't expect a fluid, sexy offense from this team...just a bunch of goons looking to crash the puck in the net! Look to get out of the way!

Yes, I gave egg, houly, bok, hokkee and dcicon the same odds...I really don't know where they'll end up!

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I read the write up about Klima & Jagr w/ a presumed allusion to some argument w/ Plabs/someone else, about who was better, w/ the Blitz Rom in effect, not that he claimed you to own Klima and now had Jagr.

Perhaps I'm wrong, and Raphy needs to smoke more.

Or maybe we are both right, and Raph needs to smoke more.

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I read the write up about Klima & Jagr w/ a presumed allusion to some argument w/ Plabs/someone else, about who was better, w/ the Blitz Rom in effect, not that he claimed you to own Klima and now had Jagr.

Perhaps I'm wrong, and Raphy needs to smoke more.

Or maybe we are both right, and Raph needs to smoke more.

I need to smoke more to understand that first paragraph.

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Nice writeup, was a nice read indeed.

I don't want to be nitpicking, but just one thing I disagree upon is though that I don't think Frey has a similar level offence as I do. He has a 5 shotpower C and 5 speed winger, which is all you can want. No way both of us are 6.5. :) Maybe 7.0 for Frey or 6.0 for me.

I personally would have Houly higher too, but that low weight offence should be relatively easy to check down. Depends how elusive Roenick is indeed and can Gretz feed those onetimers. I'm also putting Plabax also a bit higher on odds list, that is some incredible offence he has but can't see him making it all the way with the weight disadvantage. Agree that GDL is more forgiving with weights as there are less proper low weight defenders than there are fatties with fitting skills for defending.

Personally agree on the odds for myself, maybe even +800 since it's become very clear with my exis that I'm on a serious speed handicap with this team and it would be really really outside of the box to go all the way. Anything but playoffs would be a serious disappointment and gonna give it hell on playoffs! This team requires shitloads of focus to play it well and it's hard to execute on all games so we'll see. I guess next draft I will test a more arcade mode team and rely on speed and reactive gaming more (this will be done in GDL).

Edited by Depch
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I don't want to be nitpicking, but just one thing I disagree upon is though that I don't think Frey has a similar level offence as I do. He has a 5 shotpower C and 5 speed winger, which is all you can want. No way both of us are 6.5. :) Maybe 7.0 for Frey or 6.0 for me.

If I rated the linueps more qualitatively vs quantitatively, then you'd probably be right. However, on a pure formula basis, Kamensky is Frey's best forward, who is normally a late 3rd rounder, Granato and Otto 4th. I weigh the 1F heavily (6x) compared to others (3x for 2F and 1D...see original post for weights). So with the 1F x 6, 2F x3 and 3F x1, I come up with the Forwards rating, then translate all that into the 10 point scale. That's where everything shook out.

We can think of many other ways to rate forwards/teams, etc but this happened to be one way that I've used previously. The major flaw in my formula for team ratings with such a heavy weight on the 1F is that teams with an average set of F, or decently balanced won't generate a high rating. Best would be to sit and rate each team objectively and assess them vs others in "A", but I didn't want to spend that much time...figured I'd use the 80/20 rule. :)

PLACE YOUR BETS!

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Nice write up Raph - putting 10,000 bitcoin on Frey to win it all

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  • 3 years later...
34 minutes ago, Premium said:

@kingraph did you ever get your 10,000 bitcoin??? B)

:o Nope, never took the bet.  But if @Sicarius had 10,000 bitcoin in July'14, he would have made a sweet profit of ~$96,433,600 by today.  Hope you're enjoying your retirement Sic!  

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Well as long as we are beating this to death, BTC was worth a little over $600 in July of 2014, so betting 10,000 BTC on the Blitz winner is already ~ $6 million bet.  Based on that figure, I am guessing it was hyperbole. :P

(Though I am guessing some of you have heard of the 10,000 BTC Pizzas? That is no joke, but that is the early days...)

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