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Originally Posted by Vagos
I feel like the media just RAN with that story and created so much speculation that people just started assuming that the only plausible explanation for the Bruins being terrible in the second half of the season was because they were all pre-occupied with what their goalie was putting on his FB wall.
This probably had something to do with it I'd say:
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Originally Posted by Geddy Lee
You don't say?
Nice quote from the Sun-Times xposted in the Deadspin piece: "It's a much bigger thing than some photographs in a 48-hour window." Maybe Grind can attest to this, but my cousins in Chicago kept telling me it's been a problem for a couple years now.
Paging Pegula, Terry?
Meh, Kane is still a fine player. Perhaps it's something that the Hawks are going to pursue. I was more speaking to the inevitable development of a stupid narrative. In the end, I don't know what's going on there so it's probably pointless to speculate.
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Originally Posted by Geddy Lee
This is where the analysis tends to lose me. What constitutes success for these guys in "tougher assignments?" I'm assuming that means they'll be playing against better players. Better players play more often, meaning if you're going to give the bottom 6 guys a bigger role, they in turn must play more often. And if I'm playing Matt Stajan and Blake Comeau more often, on a team that just doesn't score that much to begin with, I think I'm going to run myself into trouble. So why are we playing them against better competition? Because they tend to outshoot the other team's plugs and they need a bigger challenge?
Saying that they may be in line for a bigger role doesn't necessarily mean they have to play every single shift against the other team's first or second liners. It just implies that instead of playing their time against the other team's bottom six, they could be better served taking more shifts against the top six to give the Flames' top line the chance to play against some weaker players during the course of the game.
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Never mind I'm skeptical that they could even play well against better players, because both of those guys have a combined hockey IQ lower than the sum of their jersey numbers, but I'm not even sure they were as good as advertised last year against the 3rd and 4th lines they played against. Watching Comeau especially was akin to piercing your eyeballs with hot needles - he was either wasting offensive opportunities his speed created because of his tunnel vision and hands of stone, or he was taking penalties 200 feet away from his own net. And Vollman kept bemoaning his bad luck on FlamesNation this season - if anything, his 24-goal year with the Islanders is clearly becoming the statistical outlier. You watch this guy waste 2 or 3 chances into the breadbasket almost every night and you understand why he had a 3.6% shooting percentage this year despite firing the 4th most shots on the Flames - he is garbage. That's the last guy I want getting a promotion.
I mean, Comeau had played 245 games before this year and his lowest SH% over a season was 9%. His shot rate is way up over the past few years and his PDO this year was 979 for goodness sakes. Sure, that year with the Islanders is probably the outlier because he is a career 10% shooter, but saying he is garbage because of a one year when everything suggests he'll be much better next year is a bit much. Also, the simple fact is that he was generating offensive opportunities, as you suggested. Sure, maybe they didn't go in this year, but next year they should be expected to start going in at a much higher clip. At least he was actually keeping the play away from his own net, which is very valuable.
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It's great to move the play in the right direction, but you actually need to do something once you're there as well. Maybe if they did, teams wouldn't load up against Iginla night after night. It basically comes back to what we've already known for quite some time - the Flames just aren't that deep.
Well, I think the point is that they may be deeper than everyone thinks, the players just aren't being utilized in the correct ways. If you gave some of the lower guys a few more tougher shifts, it would negate everybody loading up on Iginla. And yeah, the object is clearly to score goals, but it's also to prevent the other team from scoring. It's easier to do the latter when the other team doesn't have the puck which is something that guys like Stempniak have been good at throughout their career.
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Originally Posted by Geddy Lee
Alan Ryder's Leafs analysis has two lines that I really like: "Corsi ignores shooting results and is therefore rather tough on individuals with shooting talent," and "Corsi is rather apologetic to those without shooting talent." That's so bang on for me. I mean, people love to discredit the body of work a guy like Kessel contributes, but point-per-game players just don't grow on trees; he's still pretty ****ing valuable to his team.
Well yeah, but anyone doing strict SORTBYCORSI probably isn't doing it right, so I think you're making a mountain out of a mole hill here. I think people discrediting Kessel comes from Burke's silly trade, the Toronto fans/media, the need for a scapegoat, etc.
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I think I'm starting to identify what I find to be a specific problem with this type of analysis; it feels like there's an assumption that the range of talent level found in the league isn't as wide as it really is. As in, there's a belief that you can turn average into above average with only zone start and QoC (Vollman insinuating Malkin's 109 points and Neal's 40 goal season were "all thanks" to their offensive zone start percentage just seems downright silly). I still believe the jump in tiers from league average talent level to above average talent level, and above average to superstar talent level, is pretty damn steep, even in the world's best league. These guys aren't that generic.
Have you seen Moneyball? The point is more to identify guys with undervalued or hidden skills that others seem to overlook - the Flames' bottom six seemingly being an example. Malkin and Neal start in the offensive zone because they are awesome, but people tend to overlook that the Staal line gets all of the tough assignments in the defensive zone which frees Malkin and Neal to get easier starts against lesser players. Malkin is going to be a force whenever he is on the ice, but with the Penguins depth it allows them to (correctly) utilize him to dominate in these roles.
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And while I was on the topic of the Leafs, Vollman again just refuses to look at context when he's trying to explain Komisarek's troubles, saying "at least [his] poor results can be partially explained by playing in his own zone far more often than he should have been allowed." Yeah, because that's the guy I want to feed at the point for a shot after creating an opportunity. Where else is a "defensive defenceman" going to play? ldo he should've been in the press box, so why not just say that?
Well, Phaneuf and Gunnarsson seemed to have performed competently sending the play forward against tough competition, so maybe give them a few more d-zone chances to lessen Komisarek getting shelled in his own end. Regardless, Komisarek stinks and I think it's more of an indictment of Toronto's defensive depth.