kipwinger

Teams draft best available. If that's a goalie then it's a goalie. You really only draft position of need if there's really no difference in quality between two or three players when you're drafting. Likely the reason they took the goalie is because he was obviously their highest rated player available at that particular point in the draft. I'd rather have too many good goalies, than a more evenly balanced prospect pool with worse players. Too many good players is an asset. While our trades didn't necessarily pan out, it's because we had too many good forwards and defense prospects that we were able to deal Jarnkrok, Janmark, and Backman without "mortgaging our future".

Agreed. I love Backes (and Ladd too). Always have. And I would have loved to have either about 3 years ago. But at this point, there are cheaper options for what they bring to the table. Both those guys are looking for long term deals, and will get far more money than they'll be worth toward the end of it. As I've said all along, the only guys I'd sign long term are Stamkos and Okposo given their ages.

I'm a big fan of our picks going the college hockey route. One thing that's true of college athletes across the board is the amount of time they have to dedicate to fitness. They have required gym times that are typically overseen by accomplished trainers and nutritionists. For a guy that's undersized, I think it's the best bet. Not that Canadian junior teams don't emphasize fitness, but I think all things being equal a player comes out of college hockey more physically mature than they do out of Canadian Juniors. Also, anybody else impressed with Tyler Wright's drafting? He's put together some very solid draft classes the last 3 years and you really don't hear too much about him otherwise. He's sort of below the radar within the organization, but I like what he's doing.

I know right. People around here ***** and moan for YEARS about how we never draft any tough, gritty, abrasive forwards. So we draft an 18 year old who's 6'2, 200+ lbs., leads his league in penalty minutes, and is big and tough. What do people do? ***** and moan.

I'm not sweating any of these picks. Over the last couple of years I've found myself saying "Who's Tyler Bertuzzi", "Who's Axel Holmstrom", "Who's Ville Saarijarvi"? Fast forward one year. They're all studs in their respective leagues. If nothing else, we draft really well.

Don't want Subban, I heard he was a turnover machine.

1. You measure possession using corsi and Fenwick, not giveaways and takeaways. And here's why... 2. Most really good possession players have lots of giveaways. Why? Because they have the puck a lot. Hard to turn the puck over when you're chasing it all over your own zone. Subban, Burns, Thornton, Karlsson, and Doughty led the league in giveaways this year. Are they bad possession players too? Obviously not.

A slow piece of s***. But who cares, speed doesn't matter in hockey anyway.

Brendan Smith IS one of the best possession defensemen in the NHL. He's just not particularly great at other things, like scoring or maintaining his zone coverage. I'm not sure what's so tough about this? You could be an overall bad player but still excel with regards to possession. Conversely, someone like Tyson Barrie is good at scoring, but bad at driving possession. You're conflating two things that aren't the same. Possession metrics don't indicate that you're a good offensive (or defensive) defenseman. They simply indicate that you're a good possession defenseman. Whether or not you value that trait is another story, but the numbers don't lie.

Also, you're completely misprepresenting my position. Which is as follows: My untrained eye misses lots of things throughout a hockey season. So I use empirical data to either validate or invalidate what I think I saw. Because data collection (unlike my drunken viewing of hockey games) is routine, standardized, non biased, and is performed by trained professionals I have a high degree of confidence in the results. In the case of Tatar, and possession stats, I'm especially confident in the data because possession metrics are based on shots. And shots are one of the easiest to collect and most universally accepted stats in hockey. Hope that clears it up for you.

The example you just gave isn't a tautology.

Your argument is tautological. You think the data is "inaccurate" because it doesn't comport with what you see, and you trust what you see because the data is supposedly inaccurate. Or, in other words, Tatar isn't a good possession player because I don't see it. And I dont see it because i dont believe possession stats. And round and round we go

All it means is that when he's on the ice the team directs more shots at the opposing net than they do if someone else is on the ice. In this respect the stats are quantifiably true. Maybe your perception is skewed. Either way I tend to put more faith in math than I do your eyeball test. But that's just me. What's more, when you break down his WOWY stats you see that every individual he plays with directs more shots on net than if he weren't playing with them. Its pretty iron clad.

I don't really care about the lefty righty thing either. We have enough righties to make balanced pairs now with Green, Marchenko, and maybe Sproul. I wouldn't trade Tatar thought. I want a team based on possession and he's been one of the best possession forwards in the NHL for the last two years.

Vatanen got 4 years at less than 5 million dollars. I'd be thrilled if Dekeyser signed a similar contract.

I don't know how true it is but I read somewhere recently that Malkin struggled with Sullivan's new faster system. Supposedly he feels more comfortable in a slower more controlled offensive scheme. Could be the source of the rumors.

I hope that Anaheim giving Vatanen a big contract means Fowler will become available. Would be my first preference on defense. He's got excellent possession numbers, logs a ton of minutes, has shown he can put up good offensive numbers, is big fast and athletic, and he has roots in Detroit. Plus, Anaheim is rumored to want a left winger for their top six. Something we could/should have a surplus of after free agency.

If we have to keep Datsyuks contract I'd like to see us sign okposo, trade for Hartnell (bad contract for bad contract), and trade Nyquist (plus) for a defenseman. Okposo-Larkin-Abby Tatar-Sheahan-Hartnell Z-AA-Mantha Miller-Glendening-Jurco We could weather the storm for a year with this lineup until Days was off the books.

Stats aren't an opinion. Tatar scores slightly more with significantly less opportunity. That's not an opinion, that's a fact. Looking at total numbers when one guy plays WAY MORE than the other guy, especially on the powerplay doesn't tell the story. That's like saying that Pulkkinen and AA are roughly as good offensively as one another because they both played wing this year, their point totals are close, and they played about the same number of games. You're completely discounting the fact that Pulkkinen gets more minutes, and more powerplay minutes, and still scored slightly less. So he is, in effect, a less potent offensive player. I don't care who you like better. That's not the subject of debate. I care about representing the facts. And the facts are that both are scorers, and Tomas Tatar scores at a better rate than Nyquist does by a healthy margin when you adjust for usage. If you like Nyquist better anyway, that's up to you.

Similar production belies the fact that Nyquist produces slightly less, with much more opportunity to produce. In that regard it's not similar at all. The totals, as a function of their usage really aren't.

The differences aren't negligible. In the two full seasons they've played, Tatar has more points, and goals, than Nyquist. In fewer minutes, with worse linemates. And Tatar does more damage at even strength. He doesn't need to be on the powerplay to score in the way Nyquist does. Last year Nyquist got 42 more minutes of powerplay time than Tatar and didn't out score him. This year Nyquist had 37 more minutes of powerplay time and didn't outscore him. That's pretty significant. Tatar's possession numbers are also WAY better. The kind of possession numbers that indicate you're driving offense for your teammates. The very same possession numbers that make people gush over Brendan Smith (but for some reason they conveniently overlook when it comes to Tatar). Defensively, Tatar has had more takeaways than Nyquist in two of the three years they've played regularly. But admittedly the numbers are close. Otherwise, neither are great defenders. The only time Nyquist out performed Tatar was in 2013-2014, which was a partial season, and in which Nyquist put up a wildly unsustainable shooting percentage. In every other, quantifiable, way Tatar is a better player. Definitively.

Shaw is their version of Darren Helm. He will get paid accordingly. I think the reason they were willing too move Teravainen is because Panarin panned out and having both of them, plus Kane in their top six made them too small up front. St. Louis wore them out in the playoffs. A little like us with both Tatar and Nyquist. Maybe we should take a page from their book and move the worse of our two little guys (Nyquist).

I don't think there's any reason to over inflate Smiths value, but there's no value in denying it either. He's a good possession defenseman given the minutes he's getting. Currently, he's no problem for the wings on the third pair. But should you find yourself gushing too much over him remember that Green's possession numbers are almost as good AND he scored way more points. That's what stops Smith from being good instead of situationally good. He hadn't, so far, translated his puck possession skills into active offensive contribution. So he's decent, not nearly as good OR bad as his detractors or proponents suggest. Saying all that, I'd keep him. I think the league is trending toward athletic, puck possession, defensemen. And I think he has value in that regard. But I think ideally he will always be a third pair guy unless he starts producing enough offense to counterbalance his poor defensive zone play.

Except that's not true at all. You absolutely CAN isolate individuals performances using advanced stats. In simple terms, by aggregating the shots for and against accrued by a players most frequent linemates when said player is on the ice w/them vs. when they aren't and someone else is. Its no different than measuring someone's possession numbers, just in reverse. Instead of counting the shots for, you'd count the shots against. And I assume you're perfectly fine with those stats, you've used them repeatedly in the past to analyze the play of Brendan Smith. And using those same measures you find that Miller's unit gives up a ton of chances when he's on the ice rather than say Jurco or Anderson. Probably because despite his shot blocking, he's too slow and weak to gain control of the puck, and too unskilled to advance it when he does. Either way, Miller sucks.

In a vacuum, I'd want a big minute, strong posession, defenseman. However, there aren't any available in UFA. So we would need to trade, and it would be easier to sign forwards (and use our extra guys) to trade for that kind of a defenseman. So I'll go with top six scorer. He will make someone like Nyquist expendable, and therefore able yo be traded for the defender we need.