Penny for your thoughts volume 3, in which the coin blows a golden opportunity

One of our persistent concerns with Sam Carchidi's tweets has been that too often they involve off-the-cuff opinions, yet his standing as beat writer for the Inquirer gives them a greater perceived authority than they deserve. We've mostly focused on how this relates to opinion-based questions -- such as guessing how many points Jaromir Jagr will score this year without seeing him play or looking up numbers -- but it shows up in other areas as well.

There have been a number of instances this season where he has taken the team's word for something as gospel, when he could easily look up the answer himself. After the jump, we'll give you two examples from just this week and show how these answers take a bite out of his credibility.

Carchidi reported that this year would be the first time since '93 that the Flyers featured three rookies in their opening night lineup. Someone asked "what about 2005 with Richards, Carter, Niittymaki, Umberger, and Sharp?" The best option for Carchidi was to quickly pull up those players' game logs from hockey-reference.com or Yahoo or wherever and give a definitive answer. If he didn't have time for that, then he should have just ignored the question, or re-tweeted it to see if anyone else could look it up.

Instead, he replied that the team said '93, so some of those five must not be rookies. This undermines the purpose of the writer going on Twitter; a dismissive brush-off of your readers' questions doesn't make them feel like your buddy or want to read your work. More to the point, his unfounded guess turned a correct answer (it was the first time they had three rookies in the opening lineup since '93) into an incorrect answer (the problem wasn't that only two of those five were rookies in 2005; it's that only two of the rookies were in the opening night lineup).

The second example came when he said this would be the first time the Devils opened their season against the Flyers since 1989. When a reader said it happened just two years ago, he again relied on the information from the team and guessed that maybe the user was thinking of the home opener. Why? We don't expect him to double-check everything the team tells him, but when someone alerts him that he might be wrong, when checking the answer takes seconds, why not look it up himself?

By not putting in that tiny bit of effort up front, he took yet another small hit to his reputation, as it became apparent that the reader was right. The Inquirer beat writer platform gives him a lot of credibility to trade on, but he shouldn't squander it on simple matters of fact like this.

Which brings us to the prediction round-up. This week we can close the book on a number of roster-related predictions. Carchidi is off to a very slow start at 2/8, but the coin isn't doing any better.

Carchidi says	BSH response	Coinflip vs Carchidi	Results
Lilja will be the #6 D, Bartulis #7	Mixed opinion. Travis and Eric agree; Geoff thinks Walker is in.	Tails = disagree	Walker has had the #7 spot over Bartulis
Read is a lock to make the team	Agree.	Tails = disagree	Read made the team, in top 9
Read takes Nodl's roster spot	Maybe his lineup spot, but not his roster spot.	Tails = disagree	Nodl didn't lose a spot
Betts is on the roster bubble	Disagree. Betts is a near-lock; his fourth line skill and cap hit are very favorable.	Tails = disagree	Betts got waived
Schenn is very likely to make the team, Couturier is 50/50	Schenn likely starts in AHL to make room for at least a 9-game Couturier tryout.	Heads = agree	Schenn started in AHL, Couturier in NHL
Cap constraints make it hard to keep Couturier or Walker	They can both fit if Schenn is in the AHL, which seems increasingly possible.	Heads = agree	Schenn is in the AHL, both made team
20% chance Nylander makes the team	Won't happen; already have too many 1-way offensive players	Heads = agree	Cut the next day week. Homer says no room for him.
Betts, Shelley, and Nodl are in danger of losing jobs to Couturier, Sestito, and Read.	Disagree. Sestito won't make team and Couturier and Betts play different roles. Read may take Nodl's role, but not roster spot.	Heads = agree	Betts lost job to Talbot. Sestito didn't make team; Nodl and Read both did.

There were only a couple of new predictions added this week; here are the cases that are still open: