Anton Babchuk
Registered User
nash plays the easiest minutes ever. he starts 60.6% of shifts in the offensive zone and faces second-worst competition on the team, behind only dvorak. yeah, he scores more than he gives up. it's kind of hard not to...and yet he is still a whole +1. they are giving the tough minutes to jordan staal's line and tons of defensive zone faceoffs to malhotra. you can't judge a player's stats in a vacuum as if everyone is used the same.
nash is awful at faceoffs, yet those lost faceoffs are far less likely to end up in the back of his net because riley nash rarely takes defensive zone faceoffs. since malhotra was signed, there have been 11 games where nash did not take a single defensive zone faceoff at even strength. do you understand how this can impact his shiny +/- stat? and hurt others?
i'd argue that there are plenty of third line centers who can either (a) be trusted to play against better players and take defensive zone faceoffs or (b) perform better with the soft minutes that nash gets.
nash is bad and this leads muller to shelter him, benefiting his counting numbers. it's the very fact that he is bad that puts him in a situation where his stats look semi-acceptable. westgarth was a +1 last year, is he an acceptable third liner?
nash is awful at faceoffs, yet those lost faceoffs are far less likely to end up in the back of his net because riley nash rarely takes defensive zone faceoffs. since malhotra was signed, there have been 11 games where nash did not take a single defensive zone faceoff at even strength. do you understand how this can impact his shiny +/- stat? and hurt others?
i'd argue that there are plenty of third line centers who can either (a) be trusted to play against better players and take defensive zone faceoffs or (b) perform better with the soft minutes that nash gets.
nash is bad and this leads muller to shelter him, benefiting his counting numbers. it's the very fact that he is bad that puts him in a situation where his stats look semi-acceptable. westgarth was a +1 last year, is he an acceptable third liner?