Buppy

Miller, Ott, and Glendening have all been near the bottom of the team in ice time, both under Blashill and Babcock. Their ice time is not substantially different from many other 4th liners. People vastly overstate their usage, and the mis-usage of players in general. If AA was Austin Matthews he'd be playing 17 minutes a night. It's too early to say Blashill has been a failure, or that there's something wrong with the system, but I don't think you can say it's fine either. Except it's not really true.

He was not "off his game for 1-1.5 months". Got lit up by Boston and Pittsburgh, then had solid games against Ott and CBJ, not too bad against Col, poor against Chi, then gave up a couple early in the next Chi game and got pulled, then 4 straight solid games, not good in relief of Jimmy against TB, not too bad against Mon, worse against Pit and got pulled (and Jimmy did even worse in relief), then again pulled early after two early goals. That is not being bad for 1-1.5 months straight. He was good at times, bad at times. Considering that Jimmy wasn't faring much better over that same time, I have to think it was mostly the result of the team play overall. Which is not to say Mrazek (or Jimmy) were perfect, just probably not as bad as the stats suggest. Maybe if I was a coach, and being paid to analyze video, I'd do that... but considering I'm not getting paid and it probably wouldn't do any good, I'm not going to. Because again, it doesn't matter. Go ahead and call those games bad. Still doesn't mean he was bad for a month+, nor is it particularly uncommon for goalies to have several bad games in a relatively short period. And now, just as I predicted, you're starting to use Mrazek to define what consistent means. Now instead of it being 'consistent goalies don't have that many bad games, or bad stretches of games', it's 'well, regular bad games don't count, only <.800 bad games'. And not just that, but apparently you're saying that 2 such games is Vezina-worthy consistency, but 3 makes you "one of the most inconsistent goalies in recent Red Wings history". I'll grant you, games under .800 are rare, especially full games. Mrazek has only one of those in his career. Really about the only times it happens is when a goalie is pulled pretty early. So the crux of your argument seems to be falling on the two games in which he gave up two early goals and got pulled, resulting in very poor stats. I'm going to speculate a little here, but given that there were 1787 goals scored in 1st periods last year, I think it's safe to assume "2 early goals" is not all that uncommon. But I'd assume (speculating again, but I'm not going to dig through a ton of game logs) that a goalie being pulled after just 2 goals is pretty rare, especially for an established goalie. I think you're giving undue weight to a coach's decision. Now, there's no way to know what would have happened if Petr had been allowed to finish those two games, but going by the rest of his career, I'd say it's highly likely he would have finished above .800. Maybe you disagree. Not really important either way, being that it was only two games.

Depends what draft pick they want. Nyquist/Tatar + Sproul/Ouellet seems fairly close, but who knows if the Jets would agree. If they want a high pick added with that, it's too much. Especially if they only wanted Tatar, which would mean we'd have to make another deal to clear cap room.

You gave a (again, incorrect) stat on how many times Mrazek was pulled. You then tried to dismiss the times Holtby was pulled as the result of that one time he was dehydrated. Yes, I made a generalization. One you explicitly agree with, so I'm not sure what you're trying to argue against. Your generalization; that Mrazek was bad for 1 to 1.5 months; is wrong though. Even if we assume that all the bad statistical games were bad play (and we really shouldn't, which was the point of the generalization), he still had several good games in that stretch. I'm not going to analyze video of every game. I suspect even if I did we'd disagree on whether many of the goals were 'bad' or not. My point was never that Mrazek hasn't been bad at times. The point is that all goalies are "bad" at times, and even bad stretches aren't uncommon. I gave an example of Holtby, pulled 3 times in 14 games, 7 of those 14 games had a sv% .875 or lower. I gave another of Price, mentioned as a model of consistency, having 10 "bad" games in the first two months of his Vezina year. How about Hasek? 2000-01 Vezina year. 6 of his first 10 games under .895. Another stretch of 5 in 8 later in the year. And I didn't cherry-pick those seasons either. They are the only three seasons I have looked at. 3 Vezina seasons, two of them players mentioned in this thread as "consistent", yet none of them are significantly moreso than Mrazak last year. Maybe I just got lucky and the three arbitrary seasons I picked just happened to fit what I'm saying, but unless someone can show some data to the contrary, I'll stand by my assertion. Regardless, I suspect that the definition of "consistency" will be contrived to fall at whatever point people can mark a distinction between Mrazek and other goalies. No one is upset. Nor has even one person said Mrazek should play 70 games. Some have said Mrazek is our starter but that's it. Even you seemed to acknowledged that. Not sure why you keep bringing up the 70 game thing.

First, don't make up stats. If you want to debate, at least put in the effort to actually look up the stats you're talking about. Making s*** up to support your argument is bush league. And go ahead and ask any coach if pulling the goalie automatically means the goalie was playing poorly. It's a team game. Sometimes the team plays poorly, and the goalie suffers for it. I feel like that isn't something that should have to be explained. I assume you meant to quote chaps there, rather than me. OK, originally you said since January. Regardless, I think you still did something wrong. He has 56 starts in that time frame. All but 8 of them in the range of .844 to .972. 38 of them (68%) in the range of .870-.968. For Holtby, 49 of his 66 (68%) in the range of .875-.964. All but 9 in the .840-.972 range. Updated table: Mrazek Holtby M% H% 1000 4 3 7.14% 4.17% 950 10 19 17.86% 26.39% 930 9 10 16.07% 13.89% 920 8 7 14.29% 9.72% 910 4 6 7.14% 8.33% 900 5 4 8.93% 5.56% 890 2 2 3.57% 2.78% 880 2 6 3.57% 8.33% 870 3 5 5.36% 6.94% 860 1 3 1.79% 4.17% 850 2 1 3.57% 1.39% sub850 6 6 10.71% 8.33% total 56 72 total sub900 16 23 28.57% 31.94% Total +930 23 32 41.07% 44.44%

I didn't say save% was bad, I said average save% was. And 35 starts is a small sample size. And I'm not sure your stats are right. Since January, Mrazek has only 4 starts below .844 save%, and 3 above .972 (all SOs). This table shows starts and save%. Pretty similar. Mrazek has fewer bad games, but a few have been really bad statistically. But it is just a handful bad games. Mrazek Holtby M% H% 1000 3 1 8.57% 2.33% 950 9 10 25.71% 23.26% 930 3 5 8.57% 11.63% 920 3 4 8.57% 9.30% 910 3 3 8.57% 6.98% 900 3 2 8.57% 4.65% 890 1 1 2.86% 2.33% 880 1 4 2.86% 9.30% 870 1 4 2.86% 9.30% 860 0 4 0.00% 9.30% 850 2 1 5.71% 2.33% sub850 6 4 17.14% 9.30% total 35 43 total sub900 11 18 31.43% 41.86% Total +930 15 16 42.86% 37.21%

Just remember that in 2014-15, when Price won the Vezina, in the first two months of the season he played 23 games. 12 of them he had a .906 or lower save%. 10 at .889 or lower. Guess Price isn't actually consistent. con·text ˈkäntekst/ noun the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed. That idea of consistency doesn't exist in the context of hockey. Go check the stats. And it's not really accurate to say he was bad during the entirety of that stretch. Even statistically speaking, it was only about half the games. And that's being entirely too simplistic and assuming any bad stats were solely because of bad play, ignoring the rest of the team completely. Over the course of the season he was not "bad" at a higher rate than other starting goalies. That his bad games came in a relatively narrow time frame is not all that uncommon.

He was pulled 4 times all last year. I think you're counting one of the times Howard was pulled. That they came in a span of 14 games doesn't mean anything. 3 of Holtby's came in a 14 game span as well. And again, being pulled does not necessarily mean he was playing poorly. Not really. Average save% is a poor metric. Small sample size and highly subject to skew. Take out last night's game and Mrazek's average save% jumps to ~.908. SD drops to ~.083. He's had a few games that were particularly bad in terms of save%, twice being pulled very early and thus not having a chance to raise those numbers. http://www.hockey-reference.com/leagues/NHL_2016_goalies.html Quality Starts and Really Bad Starts are a decent measure of consistency. Mrazek's QS% last year was 63.3%, Holtby was at 63.6%. RBS was 9.8% for Mrazek, 9.1% for Holtby. Consistency, in practical, real-world terms, hardly exists. No one is, or is even close to, perfectly consistent. Mrazek happened to have a few "bad" games in a fairly short stretch last year. That isn't at all uncommon. At best, the "inconsistent" label is premature.

People don't understand what consistency means. Mrazek is as consistent as anyone. Braden Holtby was pulled 6 times last year. Getting pulled and/or having a statistically poor game doesn't necessarily mean the goalie played poorly.

You don't understand how it works. You only get cap relief for whatever amount you actually use. We can't claim LTIR for them, because we're not using any of that cap space. If, at any time, we wanted to call up Mantha, we could them claim it for Kronwall. (And the game/days requirement is retro-active, so he wouldn't have to be out another 10 games either.) And it isn't possible for us to add enough cap to claim LTIR for both Kronwall and Vanek.

No, he wouldn't be enough, and I wouldn't add much either, but I don't think we would have to. If the Ducks go looking for a scoring winger, I don't think they could find much better than Nyquist available. Regarding Nyquist .vs Tatar; I see them as basically equal. The only reason I specify Nyquist is because the cap works without requiring any extra moves.

With the "one last shot" comments from Anaheim, I'd guess they wouldn't consider trading him unless they think it will make them better. Then, if they haven't moved anyone, they'll look for something at the end of the season. The silver lining is that with their cap issue solved for now, and the Ducks again having some scoring issues, maybe it puts Nyquist back in play as a trade asset.

Seems weird that we wouldn't take him back. Maybe there's something else to the rules.

Not really. This only applies to RFA's that are left unprotected, so Vegas could still take one in the draft. But I would guess Tatar and AA will be protected anyway, and none of our other RFAs will be taken. Probably increases the chance that we lose Smith a little, but I think the odds are pretty good that he'll be gone by next year anyway.

Will you hate it when they sign Smith?

The guy the Ducks really need to move is Bieksa. Easier said than done, even without the NMC, though.

I guess this debunks the 30-day thing that's been talked about. As I understand the rule; if we were to be the only team to put in a claim for him, we could send him to GR without waivers. Not sure what would happen if someone else puts in a claim as well. Whether we would waive him again, or if he'd go right to the other team. If we can, we definitely should. I still believe he can be a good player. He's only been skating for about a month after his injury.

Unless Z just sucks this year, I'd think he'd be a pretty attractive piece for Vegas. $7M actual salary next year, but after that it plummets. Conn Smythe winning leadership. And it's not like anyone else we'll have exposed will be that great. I'd bet Z will be protected.

Interesting, but I wonder if Khan might be mistaken. In 2013, Zack Boychuk was waived by Pittsburgh on March 5th, and claimed by Nashville. Then on March 21st, Nashville waived him and Carolina re-claimed him. (Carolina had him originally, and waived him on Jan 31st, when Pit claimed him.) That was the lockout season though, so maybe a pro-rated time period. Then in 2015, Mark Arcobello was waived by Nashville on Jan 14th, claimed by Pittsburgh. Waived again on Feb 11th. But he had played 10 games with Pitt. Plus. there's nothing in CBA about it that I can find, though that doesn't mean much. Clear as mud. And after re-reading the CBA, I think I was a little off before. I believe it's if he's waived again, and we are the only team to put in a claim, we could then send him down without waivers within 30 days/10 games of the time we claim him, rather than from the time of the original claim as I said previously.

No, there's no game requirements. He could be sent to the minors, but would have to be put on waivers again. If that happened within 30 days/10 games of when he was originally claimed, and we re-claimed him, we could send him down right away though. Not sure if there's special waiver priority for us or other teams that made an original claim. I've heard there is, but didn't see anything in a cursory look at the CBA. A player claimed on waivers can't be traded until the end of the year, unless he's first offered "on the same terms" to any other teams who put in a claim for him. That's the only restriction as far as I know.

Giving up Tatar AND Nyquist and Smith for Fowler and Trouba would make our team worse, plus giving up or first. I think now I officially hate Trouba.

$12 budget team: Holmstrom-Datsyuk-Sheppard Fetisov-Larson Hasek

You misspelled "Kevin".

Helm has 3 goals as well. Would like to see his line get some extra time. Larkin at 3rd C. Ouellet's been decent the last couple. Not so much the first two I thought. Marchneko has a better history, plus gives us the L-R combo on each line. LGRW!

AA was on the first line in his first game and still didn't do anything. The kind of player he is, playing on a lower line should give him a better opportunity to stand out. He didn't have much problem doing so last year. We need to stop blaming Miller and Glendening for everything. He won't be out long anyway, unless they swap him for Mantha.