Top 20 and Bottom 20 +/- stats for 09/10 season

[hockey23 79]

My issues with Ericsson come less from looking at his +/- stats and more from having watched him make mistakes again and again, game after game. My personal favorite was when, in an OT game against the Coyotes, Ericsson was guarding the front of the net but decided to completely ignore the front of the net and stop covering Shane Doan and instead leave his spot in front of the net in order to chase someone whom Stuart already had covered. This left wide open both the crease area and Shane Doan. Doan got the puck and had all the time and space in the world to beat Howard. The whole thing was symbolic of just how stupid Ericsson was last year. I don't think he's dumb. I just think he's careless.

The play in question is here:

Watch it again because what I see is Ericsson staying in front of the net and then picking up the defenceman pinching down. Helm had Doan and then curled off and let him walk to the net.

[eva unit zero 271]

You probably thought that because he has won the Selke twice in his career and been a nominee a couple other times. The last couple years have been terribly unkind to Brind'Amour.

Brind'Amour's defense to me has always been overrated. He's always been a good to very good defensive forward and one of the league's better two-way players... but Selke caliber? No. Even worse for the undeserving Selke winner is Kris Draper. Very good defensive forward, but why did he go from not getting serious consideration for the trophy, to winning it, to again not getting serious consideration? Was his defense really that much better in that one year than in other years? Nope; it was the 20-goal season. Yes, in other years Draper probably deserved more consideration than he was getting... but he was not even the best defensive forward on his team the year he won.

With Brindy, it was partially that some of the better defensive forwards from recent years were retiring, (guys like Carbonneau, Otto, Tikkanen, Kurri, while the younger guys like Fischer, Sundstrom, Pahlsson, Madden, etc. had not yet established themselves as top-notch defenders. Moreover the fact that he's been very good defensively for a while and hadn't received serious Selke consideration but people felt he probably should have gotten more consideration earlier in his career.

If Datsyuk only scored 50 points, he would get very few Selke votes. If Zetterberg scored 90, he'd win it by a landslide. Scoring affecting the Selke (Gilmour in 1993 over guys like Joel Otto and Guy Carbonneau? Hello, is this thing on? Oh, right, 127 points; surely that makes him great defensively.)

It's like Mike Green. He's a Norris nominee because of the unwritten rule that you HAVE to include the top scoring defenseman somewhere on your ballot. He's not even one of the ten best d-men in the NHL, yet he might be a First-Teamer for the second year in a row.

If you take a look back at the NHL awards you can see a lot of times a guy was awarded or considered for an award he shouldn't have even been close to. 1995-96 Hart is particularly amusing. Poassibly the best line ever created, and certainly the best OFFENSIVE line ever created (Lemieux/Francis/Jagr) played together all season. Lemieux won the Hart, Jagr finished 5th in voting. Francis did not receive a single first, second, or third place vote. The three of them finished 1-2-4 in scoring, with Joe Sakic's 120 beating Francis' 119. Francis and Lemieux tied at 92 for the league lead in assists, and Lemieux led with 69 goals and 161 points. Jagr was second with 62 goals and 149 points, and third with 87 assists. To my knowledge, this is the only line ever to have all three members over 100 points (LA's line of Robitaille/Gretzky/Nicholls in 88-89 was the closest I am aware of, with 46/54/70 for a total 170 goals and 98/168/150 for a total 416 points respectively) and the Penguins' line scored 69/27/62 goals respectively for a total of 144 goals and 161/119/149 for a total of 429 points. Amusingly, this was also the year Gretzky won the Hart by a landslide not winning the Art Ross (31 points behind Lemieux), Pearson (Yzerman), OR the First Team selection (Lemieux).

Lemieux's linemates were Rob Brown and Dan Quinn, who totaled at 83-126-209 between them compared to Lemieux's 85-114-199.

Yzerman's linemates were Gerard Gallant and Paul MacLean, who totaled at 75-89-164 compared to Yzerman's 65-90-155.

Gretzky's Linemates were Luc Robitaille and Bernie Nicholls, who totaled at 116-132-248 compared to Gretzky's 54-114-168.

The Wings also had the worst scoring depth while all three teams had comparable goaltending and defense. The Kings had the best offensive depth. It's hard to argue Gretzky was the most valuable when the Kings had three of the top six scorers at forward between the three teams, while the Wings only had Yzerman in the top six. The Wings also only had one of the top four scoring defensemen (Chiasson) and neither of the top-two starting goaltenders according to save percentage among starters. So based on first and second teams from these three teams, the Wings only have two players compared to Pittsburgh and LA each having 5.

Just more proof that the Hart is not at all voted on as an "MVP" trophy but rather a "Player of the Year" trophy.

And for anyone who actually read this far? Thanks for reading all the way through my rambling and ranting off into wild random directions.

[stevkrause 1,247]

Watch it again because what I see is Ericsson staying in front of the net and then picking up the defenceman pinching down. Helm had Doan and then curled off and let him walk to the net.

dead on.