Line Combos: 2019 Line Combo Discussion Starter

[Tables of Stats]

I do what to say this, I have no idea on what your definition of the word "around" your goalie game example range from 3 games all the way to the 20s. You want me yo look at around the same the save Percentage. You have anywhere from 908 all the way to 932 save percentages as your example. So 17% apart from Demko. So Demko had a 915 save percentage so I can use anywhere from 898 to 932 I guess which most goalies have that save percentage.

These are my examples that I came up with. A few games to about 20 games 1st vs 2nd years and these are the goalies that have their numbers improve. Allen, Elliot, MAF, Bernier, Quick,Gross, Dubynk, Halak, Schneider, Rask, Crawford, Bishop, Howard. Your original argument almost all sophomore go through a slump is 100% not accurate

Yes I did say age matters but I think if we are talking about elite young player svs ok young players. I don't think it matter much considering the fact Hughes as 19 year old already had a better college season than a 22 year old Stecher.

There are no evidences that indicates more rookies have second year slump vs getting better. It is not a higher chance Petey won't improve in his second year.

Also btw some of your goalies examples you comparing a few games from year 1 to year 2. I dont think the Data that you are working with, won't be close to accurate. The sample size is too small.

My goalie data is picked from goalies who played between 5 and 15 games, around Demko's sample size, and from .905 Sv% and up to avoid accusations that I picked worse goalies to compare him to. I studied only the past 10 seasons as going back too far provides data that doesn't fit as well. For goalies that played less than 5 games in their official rookie seasons, I chose their next season and the season after that using the Calder definition of a rookie.

Obviously, we're talking low sample sizes and high signal to noise, but that's the case with pretty much every hockey stat. Even using three-year averages from our main roster you're at a sample size of ~246 games plus or minus injuries and the odd season where a midseason trade has a player playing 83 or 84 games. Those sample sizes are still small compared to baseball, and hockey has more moving parts than games like football or basketball.

Looking at the idea of a sophomore slump, let's widen our net and look at rookies from the 20005 - 2006 seasom onward who scored at or above a 0.75 PPG rate in at least 40 games and see what their next season held. My previous data was 10 years and looked only at forwards, this may let an exceptional defenseman through. I won't post all the stats here, I'll just post the number of increased, decreased, and stay with a point either way.

http://www.nhl.com/stats/player?rep...ter=pointsPerGame,gte,0.75&sort=pointsPerGame

Up: 10 of 30
Down: 15 of 30
Same: 5 of 30

So half of these highly skilled players dropped off, 2/3rds of them dropped off or failed to improve, and 1/3rd of them showed some level of improvement. These are some of the most skilled players in the NHL and they couldn't consistently improve in their sophomore seasons. I think that is fairly conclusive that the idea of a sophomore slump is real even among the most skilled players.

I'd imagine the trend would hold among all rookies, but I really don't want to code a script to automate that and doing it manually would be a chore. Be my guest on that one if you think it will prove anything.

As for Hughes vs Stetcher, I think age and physical maturity matter more at the NHL level than they do at the college level. We've seen this time and time again as players move from the junior, college, and European ranks into the AHL and NHL. Skill only gets you so far when you're lacking in strength, experience, and explosiveness which all come with age and physical maturity. That's not to say Hughes can't go off and score a ton of points, just that I'm not comfortable making such a prediction.

 

[Tables of Stats]

people are putting too much weight on the chemistey between Pearson and Horvat... they played 15 games guys...

If Baertschi is healthy you HAVE to staple him on Horvats Left Wing

Pearson is gritty and would SHINE on the third line. Gives us USEFULL depth, where as Baertschi's style wouldnt compliment a third line at all

Ferland Petey Boeser
Baertschi Horvat Miller
Pearson Sutter Virtanen
Roussel Beagle/Gaudette Leivo

Left side depth here is very impressive. We just need an upgrade at 3C... a 30 point two-way 3C would do wonders

I don't have confidence that Baertschi will be healthy enough for that and last season he was tried there and didn't click especially well after coming back from his injury. If he is able to go, I think you try him there again and move Pearson down to the 3rd line. If he's hurt or just not producing you move Pearson or even Roussel to that line and see if that sparks something.

 

[Canucks1096]

My goalie data is picked from goalies who played between 5 and 15 games, around Demko's sample size, and from .905 Sv% and up to avoid accusations that I picked worse goalies to compare him to. I studied only the past 10 seasons as going back too far provides data that doesn't fit as well. For goalies that played less than 5 games in their official rookie seasons, I chose their next season and the season after that using the Calder definition of a rookie.

Obviously, we're talking low sample sizes and high signal to noise, but that's the case with pretty much every hockey stat. Even using three-year averages from our main roster you're at a sample size of ~246 games plus or minus injuries and the odd season where a midseason trade has a player playing 83 or 84 games. Those sample sizes are still small compared to baseball, and hockey has more moving parts than games like football or basketball.

Looking at the idea of a sophomore slump, let's widen our net and look at rookies from the 20005 - 2006 seasom onward who scored at or above a 0.75 PPG rate in at least 40 games and see what their next season held. My previous data was 10 years and looked only at forwards, this may let an exceptional defenseman through. I won't post all the stats here, I'll just post the number of increased, decreased, and stay with a point either way.

http://www.nhl.com/stats/player?rep...ter=pointsPerGame,gte,0.75&sort=pointsPerGame

Up: 10 of 30
Down: 15 of 30
Same: 5 of 30

So half of these highly skilled players dropped off, 2/3rds of them dropped off or failed to improve, and 1/3rd of them showed some level of improvement. These are some of the most skilled players in the NHL and they couldn't consistently improve in their sophomore seasons. I think that is fairly conclusive that the idea of a sophomore slump is real even among the most skilled players.

I'd imagine the trend would hold among all rookies, but I really don't want to code a script to automate that and doing it manually would be a chore. Be my guest on that one if you think it will prove anything.

As for Hughes vs Stetcher, I think age and physical maturity matter more at the NHL level than they do at the college level. We've seen this time and time again as players move from the junior, college, and European ranks into the AHL and NHL. Skill only gets you so far when you're lacking in strength, experience, and explosiveness which all come with age and physical maturity. That's not to say Hughes can't go off and score a ton of points, just that I'm not comfortable making such a prediction.

My goalie data is picked from goalies who played between 5 and 15 games, around Demko's sample size, and from .905 Sv% and up to avoid accusations that I picked worse goalies to compare him to. I studied only the past 10 seasons as going back too far provides data that doesn't fit as well. For goalies that played less than 5 games in their official rookie seasons, I chose their next season and the season after that using the Calder definition of a rookie.

Obviously, we're talking low sample sizes and high signal to noise, but that's the case with pretty much every hockey stat. Even using three-year averages from our main roster you're at a sample size of ~246 games plus or minus injuries and the odd season where a midseason trade has a player playing 83 or 84 games. Those sample sizes are still small compared to baseball, and hockey has more moving parts than games like football or basketball.

Looking at the idea of a sophomore slump, let's widen our net and look at rookies from the 20005 - 2006 seasom onward who scored at or above a 0.75 PPG rate in at least 40 games and see what their next season held. My previous data was 10 years and looked only at forwards, this may let an exceptional defenseman through. I won't post all the stats here, I'll just post the number of increased, decreased, and stay with a point either way.

http://www.nhl.com/stats/player?rep...ter=pointsPerGame,gte,0.75&sort=pointsPerGame

Up: 10 of 30
Down: 15 of 30
Same: 5 of 30

So half of these highly skilled players dropped off, 2/3rds of them dropped off or failed to improve, and 1/3rd of them showed some level of improvement. These are some of the most skilled players in the NHL and they couldn't consistently improve in their sophomore seasons. I think that is fairly conclusive that the idea of a sophomore slump is real even among the most skilled players.

I'd imagine the trend would hold among all rookies, but I really don't want to code a script to automate that and doing it manually would be a chore. Be my guest on that one if you think it will prove anything.

As for Hughes vs Stetcher, I think age and physical maturity matter more at the NHL level than they do at the college level. We've seen this time and time again as players move from the junior, college, and European ranks into the AHL and NHL. Skill only gets you so far when you're lacking in strength, experience, and explosiveness which all come with age and physical maturity. That's not to say Hughes can't go off and score a ton of points, just that I'm not comfortable making such a prediction.

Kinkaid played 19 games. Btw you looked at Ortio 2nd and 3rd season and not his 1st and 2nd season. Ortio numbers actually got better. Your 5 to 19 games sample size. Close to half of goalies I listed has that sample size.

Crosby Malkin Mcdavid Ryan Laine Backstrom Kopitar Toews Guentzel Gudreau Marner Connor all had more points

These 5 Nyalnder Boeser Kane Stasney Forsberg. All with 4 points part. We can call those the same.

So the remaining 13 had less points which is about the same. There is no clear evidences to suggest second year gets less points.

Not sure where you included 15. Maybe you put Guentzel and Ryan having worst season since there ppg were less. But if you do that, you need to give me Matthews since his ppg went up in the second but raw points went down.

 

[Tables of Stats]

Kinkaid played 19 games. Btw you looked at Ortio 2nd and 3rd season and not his 1st and 2nd season. Ortio numbers actually got better. Your 5 to 19 games sample size. Close to half of goalies I listed has that sample size.

I must have misremembered and used a set of goalies who played between 5 and 20 games instead of 5 and 15. The horrors of an increased sample size!

With Ortio specifically, I used his 2nd and 3rd seasons because I don't think it's likely that Demko would see a decrease in his games played. I also don't think you can say that he improved when they played 3 fewer games, had the same GAA (admittedly a team stat) and increased their Sv% by the difference of 2 goals allowed. This was born out by his stats the next season and his subsequent exit from the NHL.

Or are you going to argue that Ortio is a measure of success that we should hope Demko follows?

Crosby Malkin Mcdavid Ryan Laine Backstrom Kopitar Toews Guentzel Gudreau Marner Connor all had more points

Toews stayed the same in PPG. Ryan, Guentzal, and Laine dropped in PPG. Your list of 'increases' doesn't show what you say it does and given that we agree elsewhere that jives with my 10-5-15 split. The average player stayed the same or decreased his PPG pace even if a few players, either due to better health, fewer health scratches or not playing in a lockout-shortened season, put up a greater number of points. So unless you're trying to argue that better health and thus more games to score in coupled with the same of a slightly decreased PPG counts as an improvement I think we can dismiss your objections.

If you want to dispute my claims, why don't you do the calculations for this batch and show what the trend is among this larger sample size? Use PPG and show what the trend is.

 

[F A N]

people are putting too much weight on the chemistey between Pearson and Horvat... they played 15 games guys...

If Baertschi is healthy you HAVE to staple him on Horvats Left Wing

Pearson is gritty and would SHINE on the third line. Gives us USEFULL depth, where as Baertschi's style wouldnt compliment a third line at all

Ferland Petey Boeser
Baertschi Horvat Miller
Pearson Sutter Virtanen
Roussel Beagle/Gaudette Leivo

Left side depth here is very impressive. We just need an upgrade at 3C... a 30 point two-way 3C would do wonders

I think the key is who makes Horvat better. Health permitting, both Baertschi and Pearson are likely to have dry spells so you want to switch things up. But like Norade said, Baertschi's health can't be counted upon at this point.

I wouldn't say that Baertschi's style wouldn't compliment a third line. If Gaudette is centering the 3rd line it's probably not going to be used as a defensive line. If Sutter is centering the 3rd line as you have it, Baertschi can actually bring some playmaking to that line. While Baertschi is known more as a scorer, I think his playmaking is underrated.

 

[Canucks1096]

I must have misremembered and used a set of goalies who played between 5 and 20 games instead of 5 and 15. The horrors of an increased sample size!

With Ortio specifically, I used his 2nd and 3rd seasons because I don't think it's likely that Demko would see a decrease in his games played. I also don't think you can say that he improved when they played 3 fewer games, had the same GAA (admittedly a team stat) and increased their Sv% by the difference of 2 goals allowed. This was born out by his stats the next season and his subsequent exit from the NHL.

Or are you going to argue that Ortio is a measure of success that we should hope Demko follows?



Toews stayed the same in PPG. Ryan, Guentzal, and Laine dropped in PPG. Your list of 'increases' doesn't show what you say it does and given that we agree elsewhere that jives with my 10-5-15 split. The average player stayed the same or decreased his PPG pace even if a few players, either due to better health, fewer health scratches or not playing in a lockout-shortened season, put up a greater number of points. So unless you're trying to argue that better health and thus more games to score in coupled with the same of a slightly decreased PPG counts as an improvement I think we can dismiss your objections.

If you want to dispute my claims, why don't you do the calculations for this batch and show what the trend is among this larger sample size? Use PPG and show what the trend is.

If Demko won't play less games is your argument. Then not sure why you used Holtby and Backman as your argument. The second year rhey played less games. Your goalie list is all over the place, it's not very consistent. Seem like you just Cherry picking on whatever numbers helps you.

No, what you did was you played around with nhl.com and found an argument that will work for you. That is called cherry picking. You put in 40 plus games and 0.75 ppg and you said to yourself. These numbers proves that canucks1096 is wrong. I can cherry pick as well. If you go 0.80 ppg and 50 plus games. The numbers work out to be the around the same. We can also look at center position only since Petey is a center. The center has more player s increasing ppg in the second year.

Anyway I respect your opinion on Demko and Petey numbers getting worst. But like said, I will say it again. There is absolutely no clear evidences to suggest that second year have their stat decrease.

 

[Tables of Stats]

If Demko won't play less games is your argument. Then not sure why you used Holtby and Backman as your argument. The second year rhey played less games. Your goalie list is all over the place, it's not very consistent. Seem like you just Cherry picking on whatever numbers helps you.

That's a bold assertion given that Holtby's numbers continued to fall after that season of fewer games played and that Bachman was never considered as a real prospect beyond his '12 - '13 season. Nor do your refutations do anything to prove that your claim is more likely than my own. If you want to show that Demko should improve his stats next season then, by all means, find the evidence to prove that this is the case.

No, what you did was you played around with nhl.com and found an argument that will work for you. That is called cherry picking. You put in 40 plus games and 0.75 ppg and you said to yourself. These numbers proves that canucks1096 is wrong. I can cherry pick as well. If you go 0.80 ppg and 50 plus games. The numbers work out to be the around the same. We can also look at center position only since Petey is a center. The center has more player s increasing ppg in the second year.

If I wanted to get a proper data set I had to set the games played limit to 40 to account for the 48 game lockout season, otherwise you potentially discount an entire season. As for PPG and center versus winger, this was again needed to enlarge the data set. You yourself complained earlier about a small sample size and now you're advocating for narrowing it? Talk about trying to massage the numbers to make a point...

Anyway I respect your opinion on Demko and Petey numbers getting worst. But like said, I will say it again. There is absolutely no clear evidences to suggest that second year have their stat decrease.

You have even less evidence to back up your own claims of across the board growth for all of Pettersson, Horvat, Hughes, and Demko. It's also telling that you focus on improvement and haven't made any attempt to dispute my numbers for players likely to experience a drop off in play. Methinks you perhaps have an agenda or at least a desire for this team to improve so strong that you aren't willing to look at things rationally.

While I respect that you engaged me in conversation I can't agree with your conclusions or respect your unsupported positions.

 

[Canucks1096]

That's a bold assertion given that Holtby's numbers continued to fall after that season of fewer games played and that Bachman was never considered as a real prospect beyond his '12 - '13 season. Nor do your refutations do anything to prove that your claim is more likely than my own. If you want to show that Demko should improve his stats next season then, by all means, find the evidence to prove that this is the case.



If I wanted to get a proper data set I had to set the games played limit to 40 to account for the 48 game lockout season, otherwise you potentially discount an entire season. As for PPG and center versus winger, this was again needed to enlarge the data set. You yourself complained earlier about a small sample size and now you're advocating for narrowing it? Talk about trying to massage the numbers to make a point...



You have even less evidence to back up your own claims of across the board growth for all of Pettersson, Horvat, Hughes, and Demko. It's also telling that you focus on improvement and haven't made any attempt to dispute my numbers for players likely to experience a drop off in play. Methinks you perhaps have an agenda or at least a desire for this team to improve so strong that you aren't willing to look at things rationally.

While I respect that you engaged me in conversation I can't agree with your conclusions or respect your unsupported positions.

Examining sophomore slumps in the NHL | The McGill Tribune

This article proves you are wrong about the sophomore slump. 0.70 ppg there are more sophomore that have better seasons. 0.80 ppg is around the same. You decided to cherry pick your argument to 0.75 to make your argument look more sexy. Busted. Lol

Let's take a step back. This is your argument on why you think Petey will decline in points. This is not my argument, I don't need to come out with evidences. It's your job to do that, As of now you still haven't given me legit evidences on second year player stats decrease. If you can't provide that, then I am sorry you need to use another argument.

My argument is my first reply to you a few days ago.

 

[Canucks1096]

I think the key is who makes Horvat better. Health permitting, both Baertschi and Pearson are likely to have dry spells so you want to switch things up. But like Norade said, Baertschi's health can't be counted upon at this point.

I wouldn't say that Baertschi's style wouldn't compliment a third line. If Gaudette is centering the 3rd line it's probably not going to be used as a defensive line. If Sutter is centering the 3rd line as you have it, Baertschi can actually bring some playmaking to that line. While Baertschi is known more as a scorer, I think his playmaking is underrated.

Last season Canucks bottom 6 were outscored 2 to 1. Virtanen, Baer and Levio are all capable of getting 15 goals but the issue is don't think any of those wingers can get 15 goals with Sutter or Beagle or Gaudette. If Canucks didn't have cap issues and bunch of bad contracts. I wouldn't mind signing Brassard. He is Perfect third line center, Canucks need a third line centee that can put up some points and make their wingers better. Brassard is that center

 

[Bertuzzzi44]

Last season Canucks bottom 6 were outscored 2 to 1. Virtanen, Baer and Levio are all capable of getting 15 goals but the issue is don't think any of those wingers can get 15 goals with Sutter or Beagle or Gaudette. If Canucks didn't have cap issues and bunch of bad contracts. I wouldn't mind signing Brassard. He is Perfect third line center, Canucks need a third line centee that can put up some points and make their wingers better. Brassard is that center

Agreed. Sutter & Beagle reduce the effectiveness of their wingers. A quality 3C like Brassard would be nice, but with our current roster situation our only hope is Gaudette making progress and thriving as the 3C.

 

[Askel]

Agreed. Sutter & Beagle reduce the effectiveness of their wingers. A quality 3C like Brassard would be nice, but with our current roster situation our only hope is Gaudette making progress and thriving as the 3C.

Yeah Ive argued this since Beagle was signed. Having 2 centers that is useless offensevly isnt a smart way to build a team. In the modern NHL you need depth.

 

[NoShowWilly]

basically the only thing I have concluded to myself is that I want three scoring lines. I like the pairs idea but not sure who else I want where. If Gaudette comes in ready to go this year then he can centre that third line. Else I switch Miller to Centre. Hope Baertschi is indeed 100%.

Absolutely no way I want to see the bottom two lines centered by both Beagle and Sutter when remotely healthy.

there are a ton of ideas but I really need a keyboard. actually a lot of fun with the options.

 

[Tables of Stats]

Examining sophomore slumps in the NHL | The McGill Tribune

Let's look at this a little more closely. The Mcgill Tribune article gives no reason for a 0.70 cut-off which makes it seem just as arbitrary as my 0.75 cut-off point is. They also don't have a games played cut-off so a rookie could have scored 3 points in 4 games and been included on their list. Using their stated parameters there are actually 77 rookies who scored 0.7 PPG from '05-'06 to '16-'17, to get the 26 number you have to pick 46 games as a cut-off point, so why 46 and not say 30 which gives a set of 30 players or 40 which gives 28?

So that right there already tells me that they didn't conduct very good or well-documented research for their article. They also listed a lot of factors for why a rookie might slump in their sophomore season yet tried to dismiss them because most players eventually bounce back. This doesn't disprove the idea of a sophomore slump because that exact behavior, a single-season slump followed by a season returning or surpassing their rookie form is what the sophomore slump theory predicts.

So we're 0 for 2 for this so-called proof of yours.

Then they go on to make some predictions, and if they're any good these ought to be right on the money. They actually did okay here, so that's 1-for-3 as our final score.

I don't think this article proves anything because they don't show their work well enough and they present weak arguments for why the slump is an illusion.

Now as to why I picked 0.75, honestly it just seemed like a good number to compare 1st line-level players, but let's look at the top 93 forwards in the league and see what our actually cutoff should be. This past season 0.75 covered 88 players while 0.70 covered 106 players, the year before 79 to 96, the year before that 50 to 78. Looking at numbers for that entire span, it seems like 0.70 is a good fit giving us 1,296 entries for players scoring at that rate of a needed 1,266 players required to fill 12 years of 90 top-line players and two more years of 93 top liners. My number was too strict and neglected to consider how scoring rates have slumped a few times since the lockout.

So, using these numbers, let's look again at the rookie class using 0.7 PPG as our cut-off for scoring rate and 25 and 40 games played as thresholds for who we examine. 25 because that is what defines the cut-off for Calder eligibility and 40 because it's roughly half a season and allows for rookies who played in the lock-out shortened season some room for injuries and scratches.

At 25 games played 0.7 PPG, we get a sample of 34 players. At 40 games played and 0.7 PPG, we get a sample of 32 players. Given that there's only a two-player difference between the two lists I'm going to include Brassard and Bozak as they meet the NHL requirement for a Calder eligible rookie season. My Change by PPG and Change by P stats both use the values found in the tables and Change by P is not adjusted for a normalized 82 game season as I feel points gained or lost due to injuries or lack thereof should be counted.

Name	GP/R	GP/S	TP/R	TP/S	PPG/R	PPG/S	Change by PPG	Up or Down	Change by P	Up or Down
Alex Ovechkin	81	82	106	92	1.31	1.12	85.5	D	-14	D
Sidney Crosby	81	79	102	120	1.26	1.52	120.6	U	18	U
Evgeny Malkin	78	82	85	106	1.09	1.29	118.3	U	21	U
Connor McDavid	45	82	48	100	1.07	1.22	114.9	U	52	U
Matthew Barzal	82	82	85	62	1.04	0.76	73.1	D	-23	D
Artemi Panarin	80	82	77	74	0.96	0.9	93.8	D	-3	D
Paul Stasny	82	66	78	71	0.95	1.08	113.7	U	-7	D
Elias Pettersson	71	??	66	??	0.93	?.??	??.?	?	?	?
Bobby Ryan	64	81	57	64	0.89	0.79	88.8	D	7	U
Brock Boeser	62	69	55	56	0.89	0.81	91	D	1	U
Patrick Kane	82	80	72	70	0.88	0.88	100	S	-2	D
Patrik Laine	73	82	64	70	0.88	0.85	96.6	D	6	U
Colby Armstrong	47	80	40	34	0.85	0.43	50.6	D	-6	D
Anze Kopitar	72	82	61	77	0.85	0.94	110.6	U	16	U
Jonathan Toews	64	82	54	69	0.84	0.84	100	S	15	U
Niklas Backstrom	82	82	69	88	0.84	1.07	127.4	U	19	U
Brad Boyes	82	62	69	34	0.84	0.55	65.5	D	-35	D
Auston Matthews	82	62	69	63	0.84	1.02	1.21	U	-6	D
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins	62	40	52	24	0.84	0.6	71.4	D	-28	D
Jake Gunetzel	40	82	33	48	0.83	0.59	71.1	D	15	U
Marek Svatos	61	66	50	30	0.82	0.45	54.9	D	-20	D
Derick Brassard	31	79	25	36	0.81	0.46	56.8	D	11	U
Johnny Gaudreau	80	79	64	78	0.8	0.99	123.8	U	14	U
Mark Stone	80	75	64	61	0.8	0.81	101.3	U	-3	D
Clayton Keller	82	82	65	47	0.79	0.57	72.2	D	-18	D
Mitch Marner	77	82	61	69	0.79	0.84	106.3	U	8	U
Yanni Gourde	82	80	64	48	0.78	0.6	76.9	D	-16	D
Nathan MacKinnon	82	64	63	38	0.77	0.6	77.8	D	-25	D
Filip Forsberg	82	82	63	64	0.77	0.78	101.3	U	1	U
Jeff Skinner	82	64	63	44	0.77	0.69	89.6	D	-19	D
William Nylander	81	82	61	61	0.75	0.74	98.7	D	0	S
Kyle Connor	76	82	57	66	0.75	0.8	106.7	U	11	U
Tyler Bozak	37	82	27	32	0.73	0.39	53.4	D	5	U
Ondrej Palat	81	75	59	63	0.73	0.84	115.1	U	4	U
Logan Couture	79	80	56	65	0.71	0.81	114.1	U	11	U
Average Player	71	76	62	62	0.87	0.82	94.3	D	0	S

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

For ease of viewing players that saw an increase in PPG are bolded, those who dropped are italicized, those who stayed the same are in plain text, and Pettersson and Average Player are underlined. I would have colored them but that wouldn't copy from my spreadsheet and coloring each field using BBCode is too much work. So for that formating issue, I'll attach my spreadsheet for those who prefer to read it that way.

By the numbers 18 of 34 players saw a decrease in PPG and 20 of 34 players had their PPG decrease or stay the same. The average player saw slightly better health but the same points total for a minor decrease in PPG. In terms of actual points scored there were 18 players who scored more points along with one who scored the same but when averaged out there was no change in points scored over Average Player's sophomore season. This supports exactly what I said back at the start of this debate; this time using numbers chosen objectively to avoid complaints.

Do you still deny what the data actually says?

Let's take a step back. This is your argument on why you think Petey will decline in points. This is not my argument, I don't need to come out with evidences. It's your job to do that, As of now you still haven't given me legit evidences on second year player stats decrease. If you can't provide that, then I am sorry you need to use another argument.

I never claimed he would decline, my conclusion was that we should expect him to produce at roughly the same rate with a slight bias towards an increase due to stronger line-mates... I included the possibility that he may decline based on the fact that my selected sample showed a slight tendency towards a sophomore season decline.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

Agreed. Sutter & Beagle reduce the effectiveness of their wingers. A quality 3C like Brassard would be nice, but with our current roster situation our only hope is Gaudette making progress and thriving as the 3C.

Gaudette first needs to make progress and become a decent 4C.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Gaudette first needs to make progress and become a decent 4C.

That's even if there's any room for him. His waiver exempt status could mean exile to Utica all by itself.

Hard to get into line building when you know there's still more deals to be made. Someone's got to go for Boeser to be signed...

 

[Canucks1096]

Let's look at this a little more closely. The Mcgill Tribune article gives no reason for a 0.70 cut-off which makes it seem just as arbitrary as my 0.75 cut-off point is. They also don't have a games played cut-off so a rookie could have scored 3 points in 4 games and been included on their list. Using their stated parameters there are actually 77 rookies who scored 0.7 PPG from '05-'06 to '16-'17, to get the 26 number you have to pick 46 games as a cut-off point, so why 46 and not say 30 which gives a set of 30 players or 40 which gives 28?

So that right there already tells me that they didn't conduct very good or well-documented research for their article. They also listed a lot of factors for why a rookie might slump in their sophomore season yet tried to dismiss them because most players eventually bounce back. This doesn't disprove the idea of a sophomore slump because that exact behavior, a single-season slump followed by a season returning or surpassing their rookie form is what the sophomore slump theory predicts.

So we're 0 for 2 for this so-called proof of yours.

Then they go on to make some predictions, and if they're any good these ought to be right on the money. They actually did okay here, so that's 1-for-3 as our final score.

I don't think this article proves anything because they don't show their work well enough and they present weak arguments for why the slump is an illusion.

Now as to why I picked 0.75, honestly it just seemed like a good number to compare 1st line-level players, but let's look at the top 93 forwards in the league and see what our actually cutoff should be. This past season 0.75 covered 88 players while 0.70 covered 106 players, the year before 79 to 96, the year before that 50 to 78. Looking at numbers for that entire span, it seems like 0.70 is a good fit giving us 1,296 entries for players scoring at that rate of a needed 1,266 players required to fill 12 years of 90 top-line players and two more years of 93 top liners. My number was too strict and neglected to consider how scoring rates have slumped a few times since the lockout.

So, using these numbers, let's look again at the rookie class using 0.7 PPG as our cut-off for scoring rate and 25 and 40 games played as thresholds for who we examine. 25 because that is what defines the cut-off for Calder eligibility and 40 because it's roughly half a season and allows for rookies who played in the lock-out shortened season some room for injuries and scratches.

At 25 games played 0.7 PPG, we get a sample of 34 players. At 40 games played and 0.7 PPG, we get a sample of 32 players. Given that there's only a two-player difference between the two lists I'm going to include Brassard and Bozak as they meet the NHL requirement for a Calder eligible rookie season. My Change by PPG and Change by P stats both use the values found in the tables and Change by P is not adjusted for a normalized 82 game season as I feel points gained or lost due to injuries or lack thereof should be counted.

Name	GP/R	GP/S	TP/R	TP/S	PPG/R	PPG/S	Change by PPG	Up or Down	Change by P	Up or Down
Alex Ovechkin	81	82	106	92	1.31	1.12	85.5	D	-14	D
Sidney Crosby	81	79	102	120	1.26	1.52	120.6	U	18	U
Evgeny Malkin	78	82	85	106	1.09	1.29	118.3	U	21	U
Connor McDavid	45	82	48	100	1.07	1.22	114.9	U	52	U
Matthew Barzal	82	82	85	62	1.04	0.76	73.1	D	-23	D
Artemi Panarin	80	82	77	74	0.96	0.9	93.8	D	-3	D
Paul Stasny	82	66	78	71	0.95	1.08	113.7	U	-7	D
Elias Pettersson	71	??	66	??	0.93	?.??	??.?	?	?	?
Bobby Ryan	64	81	57	64	0.89	0.79	88.8	D	7	U
Brock Boeser	62	69	55	56	0.89	0.81	91	D	1	U
Patrick Kane	82	80	72	70	0.88	0.88	100	S	-2	D
Patrik Laine	73	82	64	70	0.88	0.85	96.6	D	6	U
Colby Armstrong	47	80	40	34	0.85	0.43	50.6	D	-6	D
Anze Kopitar	72	82	61	77	0.85	0.94	110.6	U	16	U
Jonathan Toews	64	82	54	69	0.84	0.84	100	S	15	U
Niklas Backstrom	82	82	69	88	0.84	1.07	127.4	U	19	U
Brad Boyes	82	62	69	34	0.84	0.55	65.5	D	-35	D
Auston Matthews	82	62	69	63	0.84	1.02	1.21	U	-6	D
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins	62	40	52	24	0.84	0.6	71.4	D	-28	D
Jake Gunetzel	40	82	33	48	0.83	0.59	71.1	D	15	U
Marek Svatos	61	66	50	30	0.82	0.45	54.9	D	-20	D
Derick Brassard	31	79	25	36	0.81	0.46	56.8	D	11	U
Johnny Gaudreau	80	79	64	78	0.8	0.99	123.8	U	14	U
Mark Stone	80	75	64	61	0.8	0.81	101.3	U	-3	D
Clayton Keller	82	82	65	47	0.79	0.57	72.2	D	-18	D
Mitch Marner	77	82	61	69	0.79	0.84	106.3	U	8	U
Yanni Gourde	82	80	64	48	0.78	0.6	76.9	D	-16	D
Nathan MacKinnon	82	64	63	38	0.77	0.6	77.8	D	-25	D
Filip Forsberg	82	82	63	64	0.77	0.78	101.3	U	1	U
Jeff Skinner	82	64	63	44	0.77	0.69	89.6	D	-19	D
William Nylander	81	82	61	61	0.75	0.74	98.7	D	0	S
Kyle Connor	76	82	57	66	0.75	0.8	106.7	U	11	U
Tyler Bozak	37	82	27	32	0.73	0.39	53.4	D	5	U
Ondrej Palat	81	75	59	63	0.73	0.84	115.1	U	4	U
Logan Couture	79	80	56	65	0.71	0.81	114.1	U	11	U
Average Player	71	76	62	62	0.87	0.82	94.3	D	0	S

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

For ease of viewing players that saw an increase in PPG are bolded, those who dropped are italicized, those who stayed the same are in plain text, and Pettersson and Average Player are underlined. I would have colored them but that wouldn't copy from my spreadsheet and coloring each field using BBCode is too much work. So for that formating issue, I'll attach my spreadsheet for those who prefer to read it that way.

By the numbers 18 of 34 players saw a decrease in PPG and 20 of 34 players had their PPG decrease or stay the same. The average player saw slightly better health but the same points total for a minor decrease in PPG. In terms of actual points scored there were 18 players who scored more points along with one who scored the same but when averaged out there was no change in points scored over Average Player's sophomore season. This supports exactly what I said back at the start of this debate; this time using numbers chosen objectively to avoid complaints.

Do you still deny what the data actually says?



I never claimed he would decline, my conclusion was that we should expect him to produce at roughly the same rate with a slight bias towards an increase due to stronger line-mates... I included the possibility that he may decline based on the fact that my selected sample showed a slight tendency towards a sophomore season decline.

The way you are looking at this still has some major flaws, all the players that increase in point totals played 72 plus games except Mcdavid. 9 out of the the 20 players that decrease/stay the same missed at least 18 games. Less than 50 games, 4 decrease and 1 increase. I think we can both agree the more games you play, in a lot cases your point total is going to decrease. These numbers can't be just a coincidence.

If you go min 50 to 60 games, 16 same/decrease vs 13 incresse. Min 65 to 70 games 11 same/decrease vs 13 increase.

Since Petey played 71 games. I found it odd that you decided to go min 25 games. You did say is because Calder requirement but I think it's because going to 25 games is going to help your argument.

I can change the numbers that it will help me as well. I do have a legit reason since Petey played 71 games. Makes sense to look at players around 71 games. For Demko, you did look at 5 to 15 games becuase Demko played between those games but for Petey, you decided to look at much less games.

Like I said I respect your opinion on you saying Petey point will stay the same or decrease but however you don't have a legit reason for that. As of now you can't provide legit evidences to prove that your theory is correct.

 

[Tables of Stats]

That's even if there's any room for him. His waiver exempt status could mean exile to Utica all by itself.

Hard to get into line building when you know there's still more deals to be made. Someone's got to go for Boeser to be signed...

We can potentially play the LTIR game like Toronto is doing if Baertschi and Roussel both start the season hurt. Also, CapFriendly shows us with $5 million in cap space but with 16 skaters up and counting towards the cap. Just sending down Schaller and Motte clears up $2 million in space which lets us sign Boeser for $7 million AAV.

I still hope for a move or two just to get us some breathing room but we may not see one until a returning LTIR forces our hand.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

That's even if there's any room for him. His waiver exempt status could mean exile to Utica all by itself.

Hard to get into line building when you know there's still more deals to be made. Someone's got to go for Boeser to be signed...

That is probably a good idea, or would be if I had faith in Utica as a developmental system.

 

[Canucks1096]

If Canucks still had Macann, he would be a perfect fit for the third line center. Reliable defensively, fast and can get 15 G 30 plus points as well.

 

[Tables of Stats]

The way you are looking at this still has some major flaws, all the players that increase in point totals played 72 plus games except Mcdavid. 9 out of the the 20 players that decrease/stay the same missed at least 18 games. Less than 50 games, 4 decrease and 1 increase. I think we can both agree the more games you play, in a lot cases your point total is going to decrease. These numbers can't be just a coincidence.

You say that as if it doesn't matter, but it does. You have a chance of getting injured in your sophomore season which would effect your PPG and real points scored, sometimes drastically. If I was making the case that we could predict the career of a player, rather than just a sophomore trend, I'd agree with you and would have tried to look 4 seasosn deep instead of two.

In this case, when looking at just a single season, I think we need to factor in some 'luck' such as injuries or a slow start leading to being benched.

If you go min 50 to 60 games, 16 same/decrease vs 13 incresse. Min 65 to 70 games 11 same/decrease vs 13 increase.

Since Petey played 71 games. I found it odd that you decided to go min 25 games. You did say is because Calder requirement but I think it's because going to 25 games is going to help your argument.

I went with 40 the first time because going above that excludes the lockout-shortened 48 game season. I noted which players this allowed to be included so you could easily remove them from the data if you so wished. In this case, it just so happened that both the players had down seasons in their next year but both bounced back to some extent the next season, both went on to record at least 0.7 PPG in at least one season though neither stayed as tp, line players.

I can change the numbers that it will help me as well. I do have a legit reason since Petey played 71 games. Makes sense to look at players around 71 games. For Demko, you did look at 5 to 15 games becuase Demko played between those games but for Petey, you decided to look at much less games.

This is bunk. I've stated why I chose 40 games many times and why I went with 25 games for this data set, I mentioned the two players added by name specifically so you could exclude them as desired. This whole accusing me of lying thing is weak, and I'll report you the next time you do it.

 

[Luck 6]

Last season Canucks bottom 6 were outscored 2 to 1. Virtanen, Baer and Levio are all capable of getting 15 goals but the issue is don't think any of those wingers can get 15 goals with Sutter or Beagle or Gaudette. If Canucks didn't have cap issues and bunch of bad contracts. I wouldn't mind signing Brassard. He is Perfect third line center, Canucks need a third line centee that can put up some points and make their wingers better. Brassard is that center

I have a feeling we're going to have to deal with more of a north-south 3rd line that generates offense in that regard.

Something like Pearson-Sutter-Virtanen.

 

[BeardyCanuck03]

I have a feeling we're going to have to deal with more of a north-south 3rd line that generates offense in that regard.

Something like Pearson-Sutter-Virtanen.

Pearson has been mentioned by both Benning and Green as their first choice to play with Horvat.

 

[Luck 6]

Pearson has been mentioned by both Benning and Green as their first choice to play with Horvat.

Agreed - They had chemistry last season and I fully expect them to play quite a few games together. But, if a guy like Baertschi is available he may be the better option on the left side next to Horvat; this would likely push Pearson to the 3rd (or 1st) line.

 

[Askel]

I personaly wouldnt mind having Baertschi on the 3rd line, he is a better passet than Pearson. Would be nice ti have at least one player in the bottom six that is a decent passer.

 

[Johnny Canucker]

Line combos are over rated in my opinion. If you have 20 dented marbles, and you toss them all in a container and shake them around , then lay them all out in sets of 3s.... doesn’t matter how many times you do it, you always have 20 dented marbles.