88 out of 10!
It’s Monday! The first full week in August is here, and you know what that means: summer is over.
Not technically, of course, but it sure is flying by, and seeing “August” on the calendar is always a jolt to the system.
Rather than continuing to argue about whether the Bruins are going to extend Jeremy Swayman or not, we have something new to argue about: player ratings!
Yes, the world-famous Stanley Cup of Chowder player ratings are back once again this year, continuing to claim their place as your most cherished yearly tradition.
I’m only a couple weeks late this year, which is great! Now, place your bets on which player I forget in the ratings first.
You’re likely familiar with the basic concept: rank a player/coach’s performance on a scale, we tally the results, then write up a profile.
This year, I’ve made a few changes:
- There’s no longer a split between reader and writing ratings. It made sense in the past to see how we differed, but with a small staff now, it just leads to skewed results. Instead, we’ll lump our expert takes in with everyone else.
- I took Cam Neely out of the “Coach/GM” ratings, mainly because it’s hard to tell what kind of role he played this year. It seemed silly.
- I changed the range to be rating from 1 to 5, instead of 1 to 10. In past years, it seemed like people were afraid to go to those really high or really low marks, leaving things kind of clustered in the middle. This should help clarify things a bit. If you feel strongly about 1-10, sound off in the comments and we can adjust.
- I took out some of the fringe players (Patrick Brown, Oskar Steen, Jakub Lauko) and the guys we have no need to discuss (Milan Lucic); while it helps to do everyone, these types of guys rarely generated much enthusiasm or discussion.
I’m going to publish a morning post with a link to each ratings form over the course of the rest of the week, one per day starting tomorrow (goalies, defensemen, forwards, coach/GM).
After that, give us a week to tally the results and divide the reviews, then we’ll have more stuff to put out there.
Questions? Concerns? Virulent anger?
Discuss.