You can throw out the regular season stats as they mean squat. Playoffs are a totally different game, and I include the goalies when talking D. I haven't looked it up but I bet both Fleury and Murray had a better sv% in the playoffs vs regular season. Teams play much different come playoff time. My opinion of course, so I do respect your view.
Well, I use them as a factor because it's still the same team playing in the playoffs that made that regular season record. Also... they NEED that regular season record to make the playoffs. At this point, I would be fine with the Yotes just getting their regular season in order so we could even complain about playoff performance lol (prolly too late for this season). I do agree that it's a different game in the playoffs and all of that, though. But I also still don't think its a surprise because good teams are just going to be good usually. (Plus getting hot at the right time does wonders!)
2 coaches are scratching him even though he has production. There must be a reason. I think it is his play away from the puck. Fans aren't smarter than both coaches and don't have all the information either.
I've thought about this quote a bit. It's been said several times by different people. It makes me wonder... it could be that there IS a reason we don't know. But what if there isn't? What if there is only the reason they said like "doesn't try hard enough all of the time" or "needs to be more sticky"? To be fair to Tip, he didn't scratch him so often when he was producing that first year... when he wasn't producing that's when it happened. But Tocchet is doing it even when he's one of the better producers on the team. It's weird.
There is also the possibility that 2 different head coaches are wrong or have some kind of bias against the kid. Just on different wavelengths even. It's not impossible both of them are/were screwing up. We don't have any evidence that RT knows what he is doing as a head coach so far that we can point at and say "Yea well he's being scratched but we are winning".
I also just bring this up because it might be really unfair to Duke to assume he must be a bad person or something just because of the decisions of 2 coaches that haven't even said that was the reason either, ya know? If both coaches said "oh he has attitude problems and he's a locker room cancer" then I would be much more wary on that front. But, by all accounts, Duclair has had a good attitude throughout the deal that I've heard of.
I definitely agree that we don't have as much info as they do. But I am the type that prefers to try and keep my judgments of what's happening within the data I do actually know. Because once I venture past that, anything could be possible. And when anything is possible, there are a lot of wrong answers down that road.
The fact that the comment exists though does point to the craziness of Duclair being scratched so often, though! Because, on the ice, it appears he's at least earned enough to play some more. Other players have definitely earned a scratch and haven't gotten one... so I also start getting that feeling that it doesn't add up. It's nuts.
Sorry, long post... just my own thought on that idea that there must be something going on. Because I've been debating myself about that for a while lol.