ATD 2017 Draft Thread IV

[Sprague Cleghorn]

I'll go ahead and take C Steve Kasper to finish my 2nd PK unit, and to be the C for my checking line.

 

[jarek]

I'll go ahead and take C Steve Kasper to finish my 2nd PK unit, and to be the C for my checking line.

Had him last year. He's definitely one of the best defensive C left and a strong PK'er.

 

[JFA87-66-99]

Sorry about that guys, the Bankers select W Reggie Leach

 

[Johnny Engine]

I'm going to take hard working Edgar Laprade.

 

[Dreakmur]

Orillia Terriers select Fleming Mackell

 

[seventieslord]

Regina is pleased to add the centerpiece of their 4th line... a true even strength specialist and all-around greaseball, Dale Hunter, C.

Hunter is exactly the kind of player I like to have because he'll be so fun to do a bio on. I can't wait to read the kind of stuff that was written about a player who:

- Had an outstanding ES scoring record (by far the fewest PP points among all 1000 point scorers)
- Had 236 fights in the NHL
- Placed 7th, 7th, 11th and 13th in Selke voting
- Was a captain for five seasons
- Is 26th all-time in NHL playoff games
- Tied for 5th all-time with 4 playoff overtime goals (2 that ended a series)
- Killed 18% of penalties for teams 6% better than average (only a "3rd unit" PK guy)
- Was an infuriating, agitating player to play against

A little undersized, Hunter ticks all the boxes for a bottom six player except that. I don't consider his high PIMs a positive, but a good deal of them came from fights that didn't give the other team a PP, as well as misconducts. There's also no debating that his dirty play kept the opponent on edge on a regular basis.

I wanted a mix of defense/toughness as well as even strength offense. There was no one who brought even close to the level of all three Hunter brought. Happy to add him.

 

[895]

Am I the only one who thinks the emphasis on penalty killing forwards is overblown?

Statements:

- Your team kills about 4 penalties a game.
- elite PKs are about 90% efficient, average ones about 85% and poor ones about 80%

Conclusion:
- elite, average and poor PKs give up 0.4, 0.6, and 0.8 PPG per game on average.

Statements:
- A PKing forward is 1 of 5 players on the ice and therefore about 20% responsible for the efficiency of it. (A goalie is probably responsible for more than 20% but let's just ignore that)
- Even then, a PKing forward only kills about half the teams penalties.

Conclusion:
- Given that all the other players on the PK are average, an elite PKer will only improve his team's PK by about 1/10.

So if you take a PK unit that is comprised of only average PKers that gives up 0.6 PPG on average and inject an elite PKing forward, you can expect an improvement to about 0.58 PPG.

Is drafting an elite PKer worth reducing your GAA by about 0.02? I think drafting an offensive guy can help more.

 

[Dreakmur]

Am I the only one who thinks the emphasis on penalty killing forwards is overblown?

Statements:

- Your team kills about 4 penalties a game.
- elite PKs are about 90% efficient, average ones about 85% and poor ones about 80%

Conclusion:
- elite, average and poor PKs give up 0.4, 0.6, and 0.8 PPG per game on average.

Statements:
- A PKing forward is 1 of 5 players on the ice and therefore about 20% responsible for the efficiency of it. (A goalie is probably responsible for more than 20% but let's just ignore that)
- Even then, a PKing forward only kills about half the teams penalties.

Conclusion:
- Given that all the other players on the PK are average, an elite PKer will only improve his team's PK by about 1/10.

So if you take a PK unit that is comprised of only average PKers that gives up 0.6 PPG on average and inject an elite PKing forward, you can expect an improvement to about 0.58 PPG.

Is drafting an elite PKer worth reducing your GAA by about 0.02? I think drafting an offensive guy can help more.

How much is that offensive guy that won't get offensive minutes going to increase your scoring? You think it's a lot more than 0.02 goals per game?

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Am I the only one who thinks the emphasis on penalty killing forwards is overblown?

Statements:

- Your team kills about 4 penalties a game.
- elite PKs are about 90% efficient, average ones about 85% and poor ones about 80%

Conclusion:
- elite, average and poor PKs give up 0.4, 0.6, and 0.8 PPG per game on average.

Statements:
- A PKing forward is 1 of 5 players on the ice and therefore about 20% responsible for the efficiency of it. (A goalie is probably responsible for more than 20% but let's just ignore that)
- Even then, a PKing forward only kills about half the teams penalties.

Conclusion:
- Given that all the other players on the PK are average, an elite PKer will only improve his team's PK by about 1/10.

So if you take a PK unit that is comprised of only average PKers that gives up 0.6 PPG on average and inject an elite PKing forward, you can expect an improvement to about 0.58 PPG.

Is drafting an elite PKer worth reducing your GAA by about 0.02? I think drafting an offensive guy can help more.

In addition to Dreakmur's comments...

The PK stats you are citing are for average PKers against average PP's. The ATD PP units are made up of the very best PP players of all time, so to maintain those averages you would need to have the very best PKers of all time.

Also, there are certainly a lot of players available who are much better offensive players than the elite PKers you're speaking of, but are any of them also average ATD PKers? The best offensive players available right now likely played very little or no PK time in real life, making them far below average PKers in the ATD.

 

[jarek]

Am I the only one who thinks the emphasis on penalty killing forwards is overblown?

Statements:

- Your team kills about 4 penalties a game.
- elite PKs are about 90% efficient, average ones about 85% and poor ones about 80%

Conclusion:
- elite, average and poor PKs give up 0.4, 0.6, and 0.8 PPG per game on average.

Statements:
- A PKing forward is 1 of 5 players on the ice and therefore about 20% responsible for the efficiency of it. (A goalie is probably responsible for more than 20% but let's just ignore that)
- Even then, a PKing forward only kills about half the teams penalties.

Conclusion:
- Given that all the other players on the PK are average, an elite PKer will only improve his team's PK by about 1/10.

So if you take a PK unit that is comprised of only average PKers that gives up 0.6 PPG on average and inject an elite PKing forward, you can expect an improvement to about 0.58 PPG.

Is drafting an elite PKer worth reducing your GAA by about 0.02? I think drafting an offensive guy can help more.

As a rule, it is generally agreed upon that bottom-6 players won't get enough "reps" to get into a enough of a groove to contribute offense on a consistent basis.. especially 4th liners.

seventieslord made an excellent post about it here:

Sure, I can do that. I mean, I don't think we can ever truly account for the "quality" of ice time these guys received, but adjusting for quantity is a good way to demonstrate the relative differences between two guys who might otherwise seem worlds apart.

To take two extreme examples of guys who'll receive bottom-six minutes, Getzlaf and Jarvis. VsX says that the team with Getzlaf will get approximately 2.65x as much offense from him as Jarvis' team will get from him. But is that really the case? Taking only their ES points, Getzlaf actually produced 2.0x as much as Jarvis did, which is no doubt still sizeable, but then there's more to consider from there.

Jarvis during his prime played approximately 12 ES minutes per game. Getzlaf played 16 from 2008-2014 (actually, the highest in the league among centers!) - so this is a case of a guy scoring about 2x as much, with 1.33x as much icetime. Still doing more with his icetime than Jarvis was, yes, but then we haven't even considered that for one of them, scoring points was his primary role while on the ice, and he played with Corey Perry. For the other, defending and checking were his primary roles, and he most often played with Bob Gainey. I can't exactly quantify these two factors, but they are both in Jarvis' favour to some degree, right?

...And this is with one of the very best offensive 3rd liners and one of the worst offensive 4th liners (on the surface at least). Just how much more scoring are these people drafting offensive third lines really going to get from these players? And does it always outweigh the defensive skill that so many are foregoing by letting some of these usual 3rd/4th liners drop like they have this year?

I'm not going full VI on us here, saying we should draft role players in real life to play roles at this higher level; I'm totally on board with drafting stars who can play roles. But the pendulum may have swung too far.

These players are typically better left for heavy forechecking roles and such.

Besides, in the real NHL, if the optimal use of roster spots was to get as much offense in the lineup as possible, don't you think coaches would do that? Even in the O6 era, they didn't do that.

If real life NHL coaches whose jobs are to figure out the best way to win hockey games have decided that simply loading up on offensive talent isn't the answer, surely you must accept this as true, yes?

 

[jarek]

I'm going to take hard working Edgar Laprade.

Nice pick. There is so much praise about his defense and penalty killing that it's hard not to call him elite at it even in the ATD.

He has a reputation around here for being soft, but I'm not really sure if it's deserved.

Known as "Beaver" because of his hustle and work ethic on the ice, Laprade was known as a aggressive but very clean player.

Smallest of the famous hockey Laprades, Edgar fought like a bulldog on defense and sped like a greyhound on attack.

Rangers will have their spark-plug, Edgar Laprade, back in action.

Soft players don't get described like this.

He lacks size and that's going to limit his effectiveness against bigger players along the boards, but I really doubt he would have gained the reputation that he did if he was unable to compensate for this.

If his size and lack of PIMs are the only reasons him being soft has been canonized, then I think it's time we revisit this.

Orillia Terriers select Fleming Mackell

I have no idea what to think of Mackell. He either PK'd A LOT, or was one of the most prolific short handed threats of all time.

Player | GP | SHG | SHA | SHP
Gordie Howe | 1030 | 19 | 15 | 34
Eric Nesterenko | 894 | 22 | 10 | 32
Jerry Toppazzini | 783 | 19 | 13 | 32
Don Marshall | 862 | 16 | 13 | 29
Bob Pulford | 727 | 23 | 5 | 28
xxxxx | 964 | 14 | 12 | 26
Alex Delvecchio | 1024 | 16 | 9 | 25
Red Kelly | 990 | 12 | 10 | 22
Fleming Mackell | 483 | 10 | 8 | 18
Allan Stanley | 901 | 2 | 14 | 16
George Armstrong | 942 | 7 | 9 | 16
Bobby Hull | 674 | 10 | 5 | 15
Norm Ullman | 817 | 6 | 9 | 15
Dave Keon | 472 | 9 | 5 | 14
Tim Horton | 978 | 3 | 11 | 14

Almost as many SHP as Armstrong but in about half as many games.

This, unfortunately, doesn't really speak to the quality of his PK'ing minutes, only that he likely PK'd a great deal.

One other issue altogether is that he doesn't have that much of a reputation as a defensive player, only enough to say he's "pretty good".

Regina is pleased to add the centerpiece of their 4th line... a true even strength specialist and all-around greaseball, Dale Hunter, C.

Hunter is exactly the kind of player I like to have because he'll be so fun to do a bio on. I can't wait to read the kind of stuff that was written about a player who:

- Had an outstanding ES scoring record (by far the fewest PP points among all 1000 point scorers)
- Had 236 fights in the NHL
- Placed 7th, 7th, 11th and 13th in Selke voting
- Was a captain for five seasons
- Is 26th all-time in NHL playoff games
- Tied for 5th all-time with 4 playoff overtime goals (2 that ended a series)
- Killed 18% of penalties for teams 6% better than average (only a "3rd unit" PK guy)
- Was an infuriating, agitating player to play against

A little undersized, Hunter ticks all the boxes for a bottom six player except that. I don't consider his high PIMs a positive, but a good deal of them came from fights that didn't give the other team a PP, as well as misconducts. There's also no debating that his dirty play kept the opponent on edge on a regular basis.

I wanted a mix of defense/toughness as well as even strength offense. There was no one who brought even close to the level of all three Hunter brought. Happy to add him.

Nice pick. But I assume you're none too pleased that basically all the great PK guys are now gone.

 

[895]

\

Besides, in the real NHL, if the optimal use of roster spots was to get as much offense in the lineup as possible, don't you think coaches would do that? Even in the O6 era, they didn't do that.

If real life NHL coaches whose jobs are to figure out the best way to win hockey games have decided that simply loading up on offensive talent isn't the answer, surely you must accept this as true, yes?

I agree with a lot of what you, dreakmur, and hawkey town said.

But I don't think this part is true. If you look at the best on best teams of the big hockey nations, pretty much everyone is a stellar offensive talent. There's no one on Team Canada that's just there to kill penalties.

 

[King Forsberg]

These players are typically better left for heavy forechecking roles and such.

Besides, in the real NHL, if the optimal use of roster spots was to get as much offense in the lineup as possible, don't you think coaches would do that? Even in the O6 era, they didn't do that.

If real life NHL coaches whose jobs are to figure out the best way to win hockey games have decided that simply loading up on offensive talent isn't the answer, surely you must accept this as true, yes?

I must have missed seventie's post here but since one of my players was mentioned I figure I should explain my selection a little it. When I picked Getzlaf I wanted to add some offense to my third line for sure. Getzlaf's offensive resume is pretty good for a third liner. However I wouldn't have drafted just any offensive center to play this role. Getzlaf has the size and toughness to play a physical role here even if his offense is limited by icetime. He's good at cycling the puck and using his size which should translate well enough here. And he's at the very least, reliable defensively. He's had Selke votes spread across most of his career, finishing as high as 10th. Between that, his size, physicality, and offense, it makes him a tough matchup to play against.

I also want to comment on the general topic of offensive players in a bottom six role. It's tough to say which roster building technique is the best at this level or the NHL, or the Olympics. In the NHL it's tougher to just load up on offensive players since there's only a finite amount in the league at one time. However if we look at almost every Stanley Cup champion they all have had major contributions from their bottom six players. Depth is sometimes the difference between a winner and loser. The Olympics has a bigger talent level and there are always offensive players playing defensive roles. There are certainly better traditional bottom six players that don't make teams like Canada, Russia, or Sweden because a better offensive player makes it over them. But again it has to be the right offensive players playing these roles.

We are picking the very best players of all time here. In a smaller draft every team will have a few superstars that will their main offensive contributers. But the difference between teams has to be the depth on the roster. Only having two traditional lines of offense seems like a death sentence given the sheer amount of talent available. What if your top 6 isn't producing? There has to be some offensive support in the bottom six. The tough part is finding the right players to do this. (Obviously) There are several forwards available who are better on offense than numerous guys drafted. But they don't have the intangibles or skill set to play a bottom six role here.

TL;DR: Teams must have offense in their bottom six because it creates match up problems and depth. It's tough but advantageous to find offensive players who can play a bottom six role.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

I agree with a lot of what you, dreakmur, and hawkey town said.

But I don't think this part is true. If you look at the best on best teams of the big hockey nations, pretty much everyone is a stellar offensive talent. There's no one on Team Canada that's just there to kill penalties.

Wasn't this Patrice Bergeron's role in the 2010 Olympics?

 

[overpass]

Re: the scoring players for depth roles discussion, we just saw the last Stanley Cup champion win in large part because they had a strong third scoring line. Is that having an impact on this ATD?

 

[jarek]

I agree with a lot of what you, dreakmur, and hawkey town said.

But I don't think this part is true. If you look at the best on best teams of the big hockey nations, pretty much everyone is a stellar offensive talent. There's no one on Team Canada that's just there to kill penalties.

I was going to say something else but there's definitely a good bit of truth to what you're saying, and I don't have a great answer to it. Even stranger is that the bottom-6 forwards for Canada in 2014 amounted to 14 of the 26 points the forwards scored.

We do live in an era of hockey where the very best players are expected to be the best in every area of the game. Even still, I wouldn't call Matt Duchene for example anything more than a scorer.

If Bergeron, Toews and Marleau weren't strong penalty killers, I imagine Canada would have taken other guys to fill those roles more adequately.

If you look at the lineups for the 72 and 74 Summit Series, you'll find that they are constructed much closer to the traditional sense, with players clearly brought for top-6 and bottom-6 types of roles.

I think after a certain point, the offensive advantage a player brings to the table outweighs any sort of defense or physicality that a lesser player might have. Certainly this exists in the real NHL. Is Canada really going to bring Antoine Vermette, a fairly proficient penalty killer over Matt Duchene?

In the ATD, the lines are drawn much, much closer, and the need to fill a crucial special teams role will overcome the perceived offensive edge a player might have over another in many cases.

Re: the scoring players for depth roles discussion, we just saw the last Stanley Cup champion win in large part because they had a strong third scoring line. Is that having an impact on this ATD?

More specifically, they were able to put an elite scoring player on a line with two warm bodies who would dominate other teams' lesser units. However, I think the 3rd scoring line idea has percolated into this ATD for some time now. However, let's be real here - that player only scored 5 goals at ES during the whole playoffs. His 5 power play goals, however, led the playoffs.

To be honest, I think Matt Murray was more important to that cup run.

 

[jarek]

I must have missed seventie's post here but since one of my players was mentioned I figure I should explain my selection a little it. When I picked Getzlaf I wanted to add some offense to my third line for sure. Getzlaf's offensive resume is pretty good for a third liner. However I wouldn't have drafted just any offensive center to play this role. Getzlaf has the size and toughness to play a physical role here even if his offense is limited by icetime. He's good at cycling the puck and using his size which should translate well enough here. And he's at the very least, reliable defensively. He's had Selke votes spread across most of his career, finishing as high as 10th. Between that, his size, physicality, and offense, it makes him a tough matchup to play against.

I also want to comment on the general topic of offensive players in a bottom six role. It's tough to say which roster building technique is the best at this level or the NHL, or the Olympics. In the NHL it's tougher to just load up on offensive players since there's only a finite amount in the league at one time. However if we look at almost every Stanley Cup champion they all have had major contributions from their bottom six players. Depth is sometimes the difference between a winner and loser. The Olympics has a bigger talent level and there are always offensive players playing defensive roles. There are certainly better traditional bottom six players that don't make teams like Canada, Russia, or Sweden because a better offensive player makes it over them. But again it has to be the right offensive players playing these roles.

We are picking the very best players of all time here. In a smaller draft every team will have a few superstars that will their main offensive contributers. But the difference between teams has to be the depth on the roster. Only having two traditional lines of offense seems like a death sentence given the sheer amount of talent available. What if your top 6 isn't producing? There has to be some offensive support in the bottom six. The tough part is finding the right players to do this. (Obviously) There are several forwards available who are better on offense than numerous guys drafted. But they don't have the intangibles or skill set to play a bottom six role here.

TL;DR: Teams must have offense in their bottom six because it creates match up problems and depth. It's tough but advantageous to find offensive players who can play a bottom six role.

Getzlaf definitely brings much more to the table than just offense, no question. Even if he's not scoring, he'll be useful in a bottom-6 capacity.

As you said, the smaller draft makes it very possible to create offensive lines in a depth role. I think the winner of this draft will be the one who most effectively balances having depth of scoring talent without impacting their PK too greatly. There are definitely some teams who have opted for a 3rd scoring line at the expense of their PK.

 

[Dreakmur]

Team Canada also has some much depth, it really can't be a fair analogy for this kind of thing. If, for example, I had a choice between Craig Ramsay and Ted Lindsay for my 3rd line role player and penalty killer, of course I'd take Lindsay. He's not as good at very specific jobs as Ramsay, but he can do it well enough that the edge in other parts of his game get him the spot.

 

[jarek]

Team Canada also has some much depth, it really can't be a fair analogy for this kind of thing. If, for example, I had a choice between Craig Ramsay and Ted Lindsay for my 3rd line role player and penalty killer, of course I'd take Lindsay. He's not as good at very specific jobs as Ramsay, but he can do it well enough that the edge in other parts of his game get him the spot.

Pretty much what I alluded to, yeah.

 

[overpass]

I
More specifically, they were able to put an elite scoring player on a line with two warm bodies who would dominate other teams' lesser units. However, I think the 3rd scoring line idea has percolated into this ATD for some time now. However, let's be real here - that player only scored 5 goals at ES during the whole playoffs. His 5 power play goals, however, led the playoffs.

To be honest, I think Matt Murray was more important to that cup run.

Pittsburgh's three third line forwards were #1, #2, and #3 on the team in even strength points for the playoffs. Yes they were beating up on lower lines and pairings, but that's the benefit of having a true third scoring line.

The prevailing trend for third lines in the NHL has changed quite a bit in the ATD era. Remember the third line of the 2007 Ducks? They were a big part of their Cup win as a pure checking/matchup third line.

 

[jarek]

Pittsburgh's three third line forwards were #1, #2, and #3 on the team in even strength points for the playoffs. Yes they were beating up on lower lines and pairings, but that's the benefit of having a true third scoring line.

The prevailing trend for third lines in the NHL has changed quite a bit in the ATD era. Remember the third line of the 2007 Ducks? They were a big part of their Cup win as a pure checking/matchup third line.

Yeah I rechecked and realized he led the team in scoring. Pretty impressive. Obviously a big part of the cup win.

When you can put an elite offensive player on 3 lines it is definitely a huge advantage, especially in a lower scoring era.

 

[seventieslord]

Nice pick. There is so much praise about his defense and penalty killing that it's hard not to call him elite at it even in the ATD.

He has a reputation around here for being soft, but I'm not really sure if it's deserved.

Soft players don't get described like this.

He lacks size and that's going to limit his effectiveness against bigger players along the boards, but I really doubt he would have gained the reputation that he did if he was unable to compensate for this.

If his size and lack of PIMs are the only reasons him being soft has been canonized, then I think it's time we revisit this.

Who has ever called him soft?

Personally, I think he's in the argument for the top-10 defensive forwards of all-time. I have a top-9 but I'm not sure who gets that 10th spot and I could be swayed in favour of a guy who made the HHOF almost solely on the basis of his defense.

(Nighbor, Walker, Provost, Keon, Ramsay, Clarke, Gainey, Carbonneau, Bergeron)

I have no idea what to think of Mackell. He either PK'd A LOT, or was one of the most prolific short handed threats of all time.

Player | GP | SHG | SHA | SHP
Gordie Howe | 1030 | 19 | 15 | 34
Eric Nesterenko | 894 | 22 | 10 | 32
Jerry Toppazzini | 783 | 19 | 13 | 32
Don Marshall | 862 | 16 | 13 | 29
Bob Pulford | 727 | 23 | 5 | 28
xxxxx | 964 | 14 | 12 | 26
Alex Delvecchio | 1024 | 16 | 9 | 25
Red Kelly | 990 | 12 | 10 | 22
Fleming Mackell | 483 | 10 | 8 | 18
Allan Stanley | 901 | 2 | 14 | 16
George Armstrong | 942 | 7 | 9 | 16
Bobby Hull | 674 | 10 | 5 | 15
Norm Ullman | 817 | 6 | 9 | 15
Dave Keon | 472 | 9 | 5 | 14
Tim Horton | 978 | 3 | 11 | 14

Almost as many SHP as Armstrong but in about half as many games.

This, unfortunately, doesn't really speak to the quality of his PK'ing minutes, only that he likely PK'd a great deal.

One other issue altogether is that he doesn't have that much of a reputation as a defensive player, only enough to say he's "pretty good".

Absolutely he killed penalties a lot. He had to. SHP were extremely rare back then, even for guys who killed the most penalties.

Nice pick. But I assume you're none too pleased that basically all the great PK guys are now gone.

No, it's totally fine. I gambled that two of three guys would drop, and I won that gamble. I had a plan in place for if I missed Kesler, and Hunter is part one of that plan. Kesler's PK ability is far from unique, and his offense, as I said before, is very underwhelming at even strength. I liked him for his selke record (more reflective of his ES defensive ability). That was really what he had on other available players. But the PK part of Kesler? Easily replaced.

To be honest, I think Matt Murray was more important to that cup run.

The Smythe voting results say you're in the minority there.

 

[jarek]

Who has ever called him soft?

Personally, I think he's in the argument for the top-10 defensive forwards of all-time. I have a top-9 but I'm not sure who gets that 10th spot and I could be swayed in favour of a guy who made the HHOF almost solely on the basis of his defense.

(Nighbor, Walker, Provost, Keon, Ramsay, Clarke, Gainey, Carbonneau, Bergeron)

Well I called him soft before. But I don't remember how I made that determination.

Bergeron in the top-9? Really? Is there really no one better? All due respect to Patrice, but his career isn't even over yet, and he has a few contemporaries that are close to him as defensive players.

That said I could see Laprade in that group based on the praise he gets.

 

[seventieslord]

Bergeron in the top-9? Really?

Yeah, I don't even think that's controversial.

 

[tinyzombies]

Not to mention the agitation element. Doug Harvey was none too pleased with him.

How good was he as a penalty killer anyways? The current bio available on HFBoards only has a couple of references to him as a penalty killer, and not in the glowing sense.

Sullivan is the guy Harvey sent to hospital w a ruptured spleen right? When asked by the media if he wanted to visit him in the hospital, Doug said: "I hope the sob dies. Print that in your papers."