An awful lot of digital ink has been spilled on Patrick Roys 2013-14 Colorado Avalanche this summer, a team that more or less defied woeful play at five-on-five by riding unsustainable shooting and save percentages. Will Harris Astros Jersey . Largely because we have seen a model of this team before, many analysts are expecting some form of regression a€“ the 2011-12 Minnesota Wild and 2012-13 Toronto Maple Leafs have provided ample case studies in the importance of getting the right side of possession. Perhaps more accurately, they have provided lessons on why teams must not rely on volatile percentages to rack up wins. What makes this Colorado team interesting is two-fold. Firstly, theyre teeming with young and developing talent, which could help stave off that regression to a degree. Secondly, we have only seen one year of real success from this club. The season before, Colorado played to a 67-point pace and finished dead last in the Western Conference. Since we have data on teams dating back to 2007, its not particularly difficult to investigate relationships between sets of data. Correlations of subsequent seasons can tell us what kind of adjustments to make, if any, when trying to forecast future output. What I went ahead and did prior to this post was pull out Year 1 vs. Year 2 data for a variety of team-level even-strength numbers from 2007 to 2012 and dropped them in the table below. Repeatability is an r-squared number that tells us the percent of variance explained - the higher the r-squared number (up to 1.0), the more repeatable of a skill it is: Repeatability EV Shooting Percentage 0.00 EV Save Percentage 0.13 EV Goal For% 0.19 EV Fenwick% 0.33 EV Corsi% 0.38 EV Score-Adjusted Fenwick% (SAF%) 0.39 You are reading the above correctly. A teams even-strength shooting percentage over one year tells us absolutely nothing about how that team will shoot the following year. Save percentage is slightly more telling than shooting percentage, but ultimately, its a number youre going to want to heavily regress. As you go down the list, the correlations in data run tighter and the numbers dont need to be regressed as heavily. None of this bodes well for Colorado, a team that rode high percentages and carried terrible territorial control. One other note on the above - youll see that the r-squared between EV GoalFor% in the first year and EV GoalFor% in the subsequent year is 0.19. While EV GoalFor% is a better predictor of future EV GoalFor% than both EV Fenwick% and EV Corsi%, it is not a better predictor than EV Score-Adjusted Fenwick%. That said, lets look at some comparables for the Colorado Avalanche - teams that picked up 90 or more points (my random cut-off line separating average teams from good ones) who also carried sub-par possession numbers at even-strength. Well use equations generated for the year-one to year-two correlations to create an estimated number, and then compare it against the teams actual number. First, lets do the percentages at even-strength: Y1 EVSH% Est. Y2 EVSH% Actual Y2 EVSH% 2007 Pittsburgh 8.96% 7.89% 9.76% 2007 Montreal 8.73% 7.88% 8.23% 2007 Minnesota 8.39% 7.88% 7.50% 2008 Florida 8.35% 7.88% 7.71% 2008 Montreal 8.23% 7.88% 7.58% 2009 Colorado 8.84% 7.89% 7.93% 2010 Carolina 8.05% 7.88% 7.26% 2010 Dallas 8.72% 7.89% 7.62% 2010 Anaheim 7.79% 7.87% 7.99% 2013 Colorado 8.77% 7.89% ? AVERAGE 8.48% 7.88% 7.95% Its almost stunning how identical the expected year two and actual year two percentages are on both ends of the rink. The takeaway from this is simple: one year of shooting percentage data tells us absolutely nothing, and regressing it all the way to the league average will give us a much better forecast of whats to come. Y1 EVSV% Est. Y2 EVSV% Actual Y2EVSV% 2007 Pittsburgh 93.29% 92.55% 92.40% 2007 Montreal 92.53% 92.28% 92.27% 2007 Minnesota 92.25% 92.18% 92.70% 2008 Florida 93.27% 92.54% 93.13% 2008 Montreal 92.27% 92.19% 92.90% 2009 Colorado 92.62% 92.31% 91.35% 2010 Carolina 92.45% 92.25% 92.34% 2010 Dallas 92.49% 92.27% 92.05% 2010 Anaheim 92.32% 92.21% 91.66% 2013 Colorado 93.07% 92.47% ? AVERAGE 92.66% 92.33% 92.31% The same can be said for save percentage data - taking our year one data and pulling it back 87 per cent to the league average gives us a more accurate guess as to whats to come. Using that regression for forecasting purposes, expect Colorado to shoot around 7.89 per cent for next year at evens and stop around 92.47 per cent of the shots. Now, lets break away from shooting and save percentages and look at possession rates. We know Score-Adjusted Fenwick% is the most repeatable of these metrics. Lets repeat the above exercise with the same Colorado comparables, and try to pindown where Colorado will finish at evens this season. Ive included a fourth column in here to identify the change in points from Year 1 to Year 2. Y1 SAF% Est. Y2 SAF% Actual Y2 SAF% Points Change 2007 Pittsburgh 46.70% 48.05% 49.21% -3 2007 Montreal 47.22% 48.36% 47.56% -11 2007 Minnesota 47.77% 48.68% 47.39% -9 2008 Florida 46.18% 47.75% 45.66% -16 2008 Montreal 47.60% 48.58% 46.78% -5 2009 Colorado 46.33% 47.83% 46.38% -27 2010 Carolina 47.18% 48.34% 47.18% -9 2010 Dallas 47.60% 48.58% 47.60% -6 2010 Anaheim 45.46% 47.32% 45.46% -20 2013 Colorado 47.18% 48.34% ? ? AVERAGE 46.92% 48.18% 47.02% -11.78 You should first notice that regression seems less important with our possession numbers than the shooting/save percentages above. Thata€?s because possession is a repeatable skill - or in this case, the lack of possession is a repeatable skill. Every team that can be considered a comparable for Colorado 2013-14 was out-shot in Year 1 and Year 2 - in most cases, decisively. And, ita€?s impossible to ignore that column on the right, where every single percentage-good, possession-bad team of recent history saw a fall in the standings. The average fall for those nine teams was in the double digits, and the one team that didna€?t take a massive hit - 2007 Pittsburgh - improved their possession numbers by almost three full percentage points. Not only are those percentages running against the Avs, but they also go into next season missing their two best possession forwards from last season, with Paul Stastny signing in St. Louis and P.A. Parenteau traded to Montreal. Further, its difficult to project improved possession numbers when the Avalanche brain trust doesnt seem inclined to dig into possession-based analytics. This does not bode well for Patrick Roya€?s team. Ita€?s a virtual lock that their shooting and save percentages will climb down from their heights of last year, which means that their Goal% - last year, it was at 53.6 per cent - is in real trouble. The million dollar question is how far the Avs will fall - knocking them down by the average (-11.78) would likely still see them finish in the post-season, but their margin for error will be extremely tight this year. Carlos Beltran Jersey . - Joao Plata scored twice in the final 24 minutes, including the winner in stoppage time, to help Real Salt Lake remain unbeaten with a 3-2 victory over the winless Chicago Fire on Saturday night. Yordan Alvarez Astros Jersey . Minutes before the final whistle of Sporting Kansas Citys 3-0 victory over a shorthanded Montreal Impact squad on Saturday afternoon, Saputo tweeted: "Our fans deserve better. https://www.cheapastros.com/2833o-jake-marisnick-jersey-astros.html . The weekend at Oriole Park has been less kind, with three players suffering varying degrees of injury. The worst ailment of the three, at least optically, is the deep bone bruise suffered by Adam Lind when he fouled a pitch off the top of his right foot in the sixth inning of Saturdays game.Every night of the Stanley Cup playoffs, TSN hockey analyst and former NHL goaltender Jamie McLennan breaks down each goalies performance. Jonathan Quick, Los Angeles Kings (4) - Very good saves early on Marian Hossa, two times as well on Andrew Shaw. The Brandon Saad goal was a mirror of the Nick Leddy play from the previous game. He was very good with rebounds tonight, made a huge left pad save on Bryan Bickell in the third period while the score was 4-2. He continues to stymie the big guns of the Hawks. Quick has been very good at taking space for himself at top of crease, Hawks have not been able to keep him deep in his net annd he has seen most of the shots his way. Don Larsen Jersey. Corey Crawford, Chicago Blackhawks (3) - Faced a lot of high quality scoring chances tonight, not a lot could have been done on three of the four goals, the Kings did a very good job of getting traffic in front of him all night long. At one point looked like Joel Quenneville was going to maybe make a goaltender change, to jar some momentum, but Crawford continued to battle and made big saves on Marian Gaborik, Jeff Carter, Tyler Toffoli, Justin Williams and Dustin Brown to at least keep the score respectable, and close. Needs to steal one if the Blackhawks are going to survive. ' ' '