This is a good post.
The Sens had a great run, analytics was against them the whole way, but they showed that analytics may have a hole when a team fully commits to a defensive, traplike system.
A lot of the question marks als_revenge stated are valid. Tampa had a disastrous second season under Boucher. History is not behind Anderson repeating his stellar season. The expansion draft shouldn't be any more painful for them than it would another team and they have some young up and coming players to fill holes.
It's also possible that having better learned the system and having seen it succeed that they buy in even more and Ryan and Brassard can manage to produce within it during the regular season and they once again excel.
I just have a the same nagging feeling as als_revenge though, that not everything will go their way next season and they falter.
I'm not even sure that's going to be their problem. TB, Fla & Tor will all be better - that alone is going to translate to Ottawa optically appearing to be worse, even if they're exactly the same. That's where the issue with Ott. lies from my viewpoint. I don't see them improving drastically next season. They are who they are. White/Chabot will not have a major impact on their seasonal results. Whereas the other 3 teams, are all expected to improve/bounce back from this past year and just be a lot better.
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At the same time, teams like NYR and CBJ will be worse. Theoretically Washington too, they are playoff bound but a few losses here and there change point totals for other teams.
12 Team, H2H, Keep 6 (in Bold)
G, A, Pts, PPP, FW, SOG, Hits, Blocks
W, Saves, S%, GAA, Game Started
2C, 2LW, 2RW, 4D, 1Util, 2G, 5BN, 2IR, 1IR+, 1NA
C: Horvat, Trocheck
LW: J. Robertson, Byfield (C), Guenther
RW: Pavelski (C), Giroux (C), Svechnikov (LW)
D: Fox, Makar, Bouchard, Morrissey, Gudas
Util: Meier (LW, RW)
G: Oettinger, Georgiev, Samsonov, Woll
12 Team, H2H, Keep 6 (in Bold)
G, A, Pts, PPP, FW, SOG, Hits, Blocks
W, Saves, S%, GAA, Game Started
2C, 2LW, 2RW, 4D, 1Util, 2G, 5BN, 2IR, 1IR+, 1NA
C: Horvat, Trocheck
LW: J. Robertson, Byfield (C), Guenther
RW: Pavelski (C), Giroux (C), Svechnikov (LW)
D: Fox, Makar, Bouchard, Morrissey, Gudas
Util: Meier (LW, RW)
G: Oettinger, Georgiev, Samsonov, Woll
12 Team, H2H, Keep 6 (in Bold)
G, A, Pts, PPP, FW, SOG, Hits, Blocks
W, Saves, S%, GAA, Game Started
2C, 2LW, 2RW, 4D, 1Util, 2G, 5BN, 2IR, 1IR+, 1NA
C: Horvat, Trocheck
LW: J. Robertson, Byfield (C), Guenther
RW: Pavelski (C), Giroux (C), Svechnikov (LW)
D: Fox, Makar, Bouchard, Morrissey, Gudas
Util: Meier (LW, RW)
G: Oettinger, Georgiev, Samsonov, Woll
Next year is the year of the Lightning.
Everything will have holes, but what I was getting at moreso is specifically what one of those wholes may be, i.e. a defensive traplike system, where the analytics will always undervalue a team. It's harder to develop these analytics in hockey as compared to other sports as it is far more team based than others, which is probably why it's taken so long to develop useful advanced stats. It is still nice to have something to work with to help with predictions compared to what there was previously.