kipwinger

Your first 4 or 5 posts today were all relentlessly negative and you're calling me out? Lol. Also, I assume you agree that Yzerman is fielding a purposely s***ty team. Otherwise, he should be fired right now for incompetence.

Pretty hard to compete with the roster that Steven has assembled. If Wings fans want to see better then it's pretty easy to figure out who's at fault, and if they're ok with tanking on purpose (as we're doing) then half of LGW needs to walk back their comments about teams losing on purpose. I recall a number of folks around there bitching in years past about the draft lottery, and teams tanking, and advocating for the Gold Plan, etc. Will be curious to see how everyone responds now that Lord Steven is losing on purpose.

Seems pretty clear that the Canadian squad's frustration level has completely boiled over after their team leadership, including Veleno and Hayton, have been resoundingly outplayed by their peers. Hard to see how getting absolutely SMASHED by your biggest rival, losing a premier talent to injury, and watching your team leadership piss their pants can be spun as a good thing. Veleno and Hayton should be stripped of their letters if Canada wants to save any face at all.

Man Tampa blows. Hard not to think that NHL coaching genius John Tortorella developed the blueprint for beating these p*ssies a year ago. At what point is a team no longer "underperforming" and when do they just start "sucking"?

Very, very, disappointed in Veleno. He's supposed to be a leader on this team, instead he's losing (and using) his head and putting his team in a hole. Another black mark for a prospect who's already pretty suspect.

Need LGW to solve a friendly debate. So dig in.

Agreed, but none of that was what was being debated. I said that AA was the better goal scorer, he thinks Mantha is. The numbers only back up one of those claims. Hint: I'm being cocky because I've already done the math, unlike my little sugar plum over there, so I'm having fun with it. Also, Helm is really good defensively and AA is trash defensively. So aside from them both being fast they're pretty much nothing alike. AA is basically another Michael Grabner (i.e. really fast, really good scorer, not good at anything else).

C'mon babe, it's not fun if you don't play along. All day you've been calling me names and now you're giving me the silent treatment? Just give me a little acknowledgement that you're still here. Let daddy know you're not too mad to talk huh?

Both?

Now that you've said Mantha has the better linemates I'm about to make the "who is the better goal scorer" case using...ready for this?...empirical evidence. You ready? You excited?

Why don't you answer the first question I asked, the thread poll, and then after I'm done owning you I'll let you know. Fair?

Well rather than assume you're a coward and you're avoiding the question which I asked you directly in the other thread, I'll give you another chance here. Who do you think has had the better linemates throughout your career?

It was a genuine question, there are tons of people on this site that have never played a single game of hockey. As a result they might not understand some of the finer points of playing the game. I have no idea whether Neo is in that group or not, which is why I asked. Sorry if that gets your panties in a bunch.

Lemme guess, the one guy who said AA has had better linemates was Krsmith?

Real question: Did you ever play hockey competitively?

I mean, that's basically the ideal trajectory. Worries me though. Then again, I'm usually a fan of guys from Europe getting to NA as quickly as possible so I guess I have to take the bad with the good.

I'm always freaked out when our prospects decide to go the NCAA route. Unless they're one and done, I don't like it for their development. There are so few shots, and such little quality offense, I don't really think they learn too much down there. Hopefully it's one and one for Tuomisto.

Guy is a TOTAL clown. He goes on long diatribes about Russian life/culture/politics/hockey on Twitter all the time and gets all sorts of retweets from dimwit Canadian hockey personalities because he's highly critical of Russia. Dudes like Dreger eat him up. Nobody, as far as I can tell, has ever bothered to figure who exactly he is, and what exactly he does, that makes him such an expert on such complicated topics as Russia's role in the global economy and how that impacts the KHL's business model. But damned if he doesn't have an opinion.

According to analytics experts QoC doesn't really matter that much, relative to quality of linemates, for a few different reasons. 1) You control who your guys play with for 100% of the games you play, but can't control who they're out against for about 50% of games (on the road) you play. 2) In general opposition teams want to get their good players out against your bad ones. So generally speaking Blashill would want Mantha's line out against weaker competition, and other coaches would want their best guys out against our 3rd and 4th lines. Because of these things, QoC is basically irrelevant. Quality of linemates isn't though, because barring an icing during the middle of a line change, you send players out together every shift and change them together every shift so they consistently play with the same quality (or lack thereof) linemates. Here's a great article on it, just so you're not simply taking my word for it. https://www.vancourier.com/pass-it-to-bulis/why-quality-of-competition-doesn-t-matter-to-analytics-experts-anymore-1.23414544

I don't think you were. I think those are valid points, and it's reasonable to skeptical on this (or any) discussion board because usually people are more interested in trying to "win" rather than trying to be "correct". Which is why I'm trying not to say too much until it's pretty clear which way the wind is blowing on the question above. Don't want to tinge things.

I agree, but none of that is the point that I'll be making. But if it helps you to feel better about my intentions I'll say this, irrespective of linemates, Mantha is a better hockey player than AA and that's why he gets more minutes with better linemates.

It's not rigged, it's for context. Once enough people have voted I'll explain where this is all going but I don't want to bias anything beforehand.

Fair enough, that's why I said "generally" in the poll. Make sure you vote.

That's fine. I'm just asking a simple question, "who played with the better players". Not "who is a better player" or "who's line is better". Simply, "who played with better players".

I never said AA was the better player, just the better scorer, so your first point is moot. Your second point is moot because their careers are more than one season long. But there's the thing, I can prove that AA is the better scorer with empirical evidence. I just need you to answer one question first. Over the course of their careers, who has played with the better players in general? Keeping in mind, of course, that Mantha has averaged about 2.5 more minutes per game (hence he's played on higher lines than AA).