kipwinger

Tortarella has a Stanley Cup AND a Jack Adams Trophy. Carlyle does too, but he's the only one on your list with a resume as good as Torts'. The defense on that team was a complete joke. He had three quality forwards and Khabibulin. That's about it. People could say the same thing about most coaches that've ever won. Quenneville, Sutter, and Babcock ALL had as good, or better teams. So did Carlyle. Julien's wasn't significantly worse. I've always hated that argument. It either applies to nobody or everybody.

The man once said of himself: "I'm a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm. I'm a runaway son of the nuclear A-bomb. I am the world's forgotten boy, the one who searches and destroys." What do you think? Iggy IS a deterrent.

I wish Iggy Pop had a giant Wings logo tattooed on his chest. That would be way more kickass. McCartney is weak...and British. Iggy Pop is the musical equivalent of a prison riot. That's the kind of guy I want representing my team. Oh, and he's from Michigan. Screw McCartney and his Pens sticker, our city's got a better class of musician.

As far as NHL heels go, Torts is right up there with Gary Bettman. His obstinacy, hot temper, and complete lack of self awareness is a model for all those who aspire to villainy. Who has two thumbs and is glad he's back?

Richards had this team playing way above its head for the last three seasons. I think he's got a good future as a head coach in the league, but he might need to coach a more veteran team for a few years before he's ready to helm another young one.

And you were there to explain how the offense wasn't good, after even fewer games. We are all here to talk about the team, and throwing our hands up and citing small sample size is true of every single objective measure we would use to judge the performance of this team. At least up to this point. But I don't think we all want to wait for 20 games before posting again. I get your point. Its a small sample, but what else should we use to judge the defense? Turnovers? We are middle of the league in those. Scoring chances against? Middle of the league in those. Goals against? Middle of the league in those. In fact the only thing that's downright terrible is our shots against. And given that such a small sample size can dramatically skew stats, couldn't we actually be quite a lot better than even I'm suggesting? Nothing other than shots against suggests our defense is terrible. Mediocre? Sure. And that's what I was refuting...over 5 games. But the narrative seems to be "our defense sucks" regardless of how they play. Likely because its fun to point fingers at Ericsson, Quincey, Kind, and Smith.

When I wrote my first post yesterday, ESPN hadn't updated their stats from the weekend games, so our GAA wasn't 2.6. It was lower, and were were ranked 9th in the league. Which wasn't bad. That's what I was predicating my argument on. When they updated based on the Montreal game we dropped to the 2.6 GAA you're seeing now. But you'll recall that Montreal scored two powerplay goals, and one empty netter. So it's not like that drop in GAA was the result of "bad defense" in the sense that our defense keeps being accused of (i.e. turning the puck over, blowing zone coverage, failing to clear the crease, etc.).

I know. I was only ever talking about the five games we played. As I said in both threads, I'm not projecting how the defense will play all season. I'm just saying that haven't been bad through 5 games. Which makes people lose their minds apparently. In the five games we've played, our defense has been the least of our worries. I said our defense looked fine the first give games, and the entire forum acted as if I'd given them a free pass for the remainder of the season.

You keep bringing up the fact that I didn't see 1 of the 5 games we've played like that precludes me from making a general statement out the quality of our defense. Are we only allowed to draw conclusions about the team if we watch all 82 games? Because that seems asinine. For the 5 games we've played, our defense hasn't been bad. We haven't gotten scored on much, and when we have, a disproportionate amount of the goals (30%) have been powerplay goals. I don't need to see all five games to conclude that. I just need to know math. Thankfully I do. I agree. One of the ways to get more shots, and stop the other team from taking shots, is to take fewer penalties and be more successful on your special teams. Something we're currently not doing, and which is adversely affecting the team. Much more so than the "bad defense" in fact.

I really don't know how to make this more clear. Our team's goals against average is slightly above average (statistically). And it's negatively skewed by our bad penalty kill (30% of the goals scored against us have been powerplay goals). So our PK is bad. Not our defense. 30% is terrible. For context, 13% of the goals we've scored have been on the PP. 30% for them. 13% for us. We also have the tenth most penalty minutes per game (most of which were taken by forwards). If you're shorthanded all the time, and you're not very good at killing penalties, you A) Don't get shots, B) Get shot on more often, C) Get scored on more (remember that 30%). Through 5 games, we've been abysmal offensively and on special teams. Our goaltending and defense have both been decent to above average. And that's why we're 3-2. Any attempt to paint some "the defense is just as bad as the offense and special teams" argument is completely ignoring reality. Through 5 games, the defense is the least of our concerns.

Not really. Last year, Chicago had the 9th worst shots against per game statistics. We all know how that ended. Giving up shots isn't a good thing. But if they're low percentage shots, then it's not the end of the world. In general, we've got room to improve defensively. But we're a far cry from the god awful bunch of defensive losers that many are making us out to be. At least so far. If we were that bad, we'd gotten scored on a bunch. But we're not getting scored on. And contrary to popular belief that has nothing to do with how good our goalies are or aren't playing (they really aren't playing that great).

I wasn't using only even strength goals to "count against the defense". The team's goals against average includes powerplay goals against. And that's the number I'm basing my argument on. When I said "we're not getting scored on, at even strength", my point was that a disproportionate number of goals which make up our GAA came came on the powerplay. And our GAA is still among the best in the league (or was when I started the coversation hours ago). In other words, our stats are pretty good (both team and goalie stats). And they're EVEN BETTER if we don't include powerplays. And the reason this is useful is because we've given up a relatively large number of PP goals in our five games. But this shouldn't reflect poorly on the defense (or the goaltending) because getting scored on when you're short handed has little to do with the quality of your defense. Lots of bad defenses have good penalty kills, and lots of good defense have bad penalty kills. For example, last year Carolina and Colorado had top five penalty kills, but they weren't good defensive teams. Our defense has been good. So good that we're not giving up many even strength goals. We're giving up a relatively large number of goals on the PK. Which makes the score look bad, but hardly reflects on the quality of our defenseman over these first five games.

This just in, I was wrong (sort of). We're not top ten in Goals Against. When I started this conversation (hours ago) espn hadn't updated their website from saturday's games yet. It's now updated, and as a a result of the Montreal game, we're now tied for 13th. However, as I stated before. Three of Montreal's four goals were powerplay or empty netters. So they can hardly be attributed to "poor defense". But I did want to ackowledge the change for discussion's sake. I've already discussed shots a bunch of times. So no, I'm not leaving them out. Overall team goals against stats count powerplays too. I'm not holding anything against the goalies and that i'm not counting against the team at large. If you exclude powerplay and empty net goals, our GAA goes down even further. The stats I reported (Goalie stats, and team stats) all include powerplay goals in the totals. I excluded powerplay goals, and empty netters, in my conceptualization of "team defense" because the two are not really correlated. Lots of bad teams have good penalty kills and powerplays. However those things are not indicative of the quality of the team's offense and/or defense.

It's not some trick of the numbers. Our defense is giving up a fair number of shots. But neither of our goalies are playing out of their minds. So apparently the shots against have been pretty easy to handle. Which is probably attributable to the defense only allowing low percentage shots. Again, try as you might. You're just not going to be able to prove that the defense has been as abysmal as everyone seems to think they've been. At least not up to this point.

As I pointed out in the other thread. Our goalies have been worse, statistically, than our overall defense. We've got a top ten defense in terms of goals against. Our goalies are ranked 15th and 17th in Save Percentage, and 14th and 31st in Goals Against Average.

Sample size only matters if you're projecting to a larger universe. I'm not. I'm saying they've been good so far. I'm not saying they'll be good all season. I'm summing up the 5 games in question, so which other sample should I use?

If our defense is so terrible, why aren't they getting scored on? Let me guess, our goalies are bailing them out? Oh wait, nope. No they aren't. Their numbers are worse than the overall defensive numbers. We've got the 10th lowest GAA, but our goalies rank 14th and 17th in Save Percentage, and 14th and 31st in Goals against average.

I get that, but that didn't happen, so it's clearly not to blame for the last two losses. It's like you're trying to blame real losses on potential shortfalls. For far, in 4 of our 5 games, our defense has been good. How do I know? Because we didn't get scored on much. Seems pretty simple. We've won three times. Another game we lost because of 5 on 5 play. And another we lost because of awful special teams play. To sum up our team by saying "our defense is bad" completely ignores the fact that for 4 of our 5 games, our defense was very good. So good in fact, that we hardly got scored on. Should we try to improve it? Absolutely. But any attempt to try and paint our defense as some bottom tier group of losers (as many folks consistently do) completely ignores objective reality.

Hyperbole. I didn't say any of that. If you're just going to distort my argument then why bother having a discussion. I said our defense had been fine so far, and they aren't the reason we've lost two in a row. My evidence for this is that we're not getting scored on at even strength. Instead, I've placed the blame pretty squarely on the shoulders of our depth scoring, and our special teams. But I find it telling that you're trying so hard to distort my argument JUST to find a way to blame the defense for something. Our defense has been good for the majority of our games so far. That may change, but to this point they've been good. So find another scapegoat until they actually deserve the criticism huh? Edit: Also, my current argument only makes Babcock look better. I'm criticising the offense, something I said was bad under Babcock and would be better under Blashill. Our defense was fine last year, and it's fine this year. We need to score more, and our "offensive coach" isn't getting it done. How does that make Blash look good and Babs look bad?

Sure, all those things are bad. But they're worse if they're leading to goals against. Which are they aren't...so far. That's my point. We're not getting scored on much. So while there's definitely room for improvement, this knee jerk blame the defense stuff is overblown. Because all their potential pitfalls (which you've correctly pointed out) haven't translated into goals against (which you're glossing over). Sure turning the puck over is bad. It can lead to goals against. But if it hasn't lead to goals against (it empirically hasn't...so far) then it's a little hard to blame that for our losses. And that was the only thing I was addressing to begin with.

By your definition of "defense" this is just as much the result of the offensive players performing badly as the defensive ones. It's a tautology. If the offense IS the defense (or a big part of it as you've suggested), and the defense is bad at doing offensive things (we've already determined they're not getting scored on), then what does that really mean? That the team overall is bad at moving the puck and getting sustained offensive zone pressure? I agree. But that can hardly be called "bad defense".

You're selling Kronwall short. Lots of people do. He consistently posts as good, or better, seasons than all the other 1A defenders. Yet he never gets any love. He plays in every situation. Is very good on both sides of the puck. Hell, he had more powerplay points than Duncan Keith AND Drew Doughty last season. And he's an excellent penalty killer. Yet for some reason people say he's not a top guy. I don't agree.

And the special team. Don't forget those. We're currently not really very good at specials teams. We're in the bottom third in power play percentage AND penalty kill percentage.

Saying something over and over without using evidence to support it, doesn't make it true. Except in this case. You've convinced me. Our defense sucks. Because, despite not getting scored on much, they're not good at generating offense. Which apparently is their fault, and not the offense's. I'm convinced. The offense is the defense is the offense. And round and round we go.

Yep. By my standard our defense has been pretty good so far. As evidenced by the fact that we're among the ten teams who have been scored on the least. But you're changing the argument. I was just saying that our goalie, and defensemen have played well through 5 games. Which they have. Not that they can't be better, or that they're a quantum leap above last year's team. Our defenseman haven't taken many penalties and haven't gotten scored on much. Can they be better? Sure. But this tendency to blame every loss on the defense is bullcrap. No you're saying "well, the defenseman might not be that bad, but that's not REALLY defense. The whole team is defense, and in that regard they've sucked". Which still isn't true. Our team isn't getting scored on much. Plain and simple. Whether you're referring to the defensemen exclusively, or the defenseman + the defensive aspects of the fowards' game, or all of the above plus the goalies. We're just not getting scored on much. Could we be better offensively? Absolutely. How? By scoring on the powerplay (for one thing). Something I said a half a page ago.