GDT: Home Cookin' - Blues (11-3-1, 1st in West) @ Devils (9-3-1, 2nd in East), 7 PM, MSG+2
- Thread starter Better Call Sal
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I know people go over board with the advanced stats.
But advanced stats, and traditional statistics, give us a basis on which we can support our opinions.
Without these stats, you can basically say whatever comes into your head as "That's how I see it".
Actually if you score on the PP it does not factor into +/-.Hmm. What stat do you click when you are on the ice at even strength or on the power play, and the puck goes in the net? It seems like they should have an analytic for that as it would seem to be more important....
Oh, nevermind - that's +/- and everyone knows that's a flawed stat that doesn't tell ANYTHING....
But if you think its a good stat, then Gibbons and Coleman are our best players. Noesen is better then Hall, Bratt and Nico.
glenwo2
LINDY RUFF NEEDS VIAGRA!!
Well saying "That's how I see it" is another way of saying "In my opinion" so I don't see the issue here.
- May 1, 2011
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The relative corsi is usually how a player performs in comparison to other players. So a player might have a -corsi rating overall, but still be a + in the relative corsi category. For instance, Severson a +5.2 relative corsi, but his overall corsi is still 49.2%.
With the way we play and this Hynes system, I don't expect many players on the team to have a + in the corsi for percentage. In Hynes first two years here, only a handful of players finished with an overall positive corsi for%, though there was a higher number of players who finished with a positive relative corsi.
With the we play/have been playing, I expect the same thing with this season's team. In the first two and 1/6th seasons that Hynes has been the head coach here, this has been a recurring theme. His system is the same thing, there's just a few different ways to get there. Either you suppress shots to something respectable and you stifle your own offensive chances, or you turn on your own chances, but get bombarded in shots against. That's pretty much been his system. There's almost always a significant negative shot differential. Sometimes we'll play a game where we look really dominant in all aspects, like that first Ottawa game, but we get outshot/outpossessed/outchanced/outwhatevered too much. And we even get outshot that much more when having a lead, which almost every team is outshot when in the lead, but we seem to turtle it more than your average team.
I think the team has improved this year, but I don't for a minute believe that coaching has. Occasionally, Hynes looks like he's getting better with personnel situations, then Lovejoy scored 2 points in a game and Hynes thinks he's good all of the sudden. I really don't trust his talent evaluation or what he thinks went wrong in games. Because he feels the need to change defensemen and forwards when we allow a lot of goals, even if it's only because the goalie played poorly. Then, when the defense/team defense plays poorly but the goalie plays great and keeps it from being a blowout, he keeps the same lineup in.
He's already on record saying something like ''We don't really pay attention to the quantity of shots, we look more at the quality of them'' last year, and his system proves that this year. What he seems to be going for is one of those Carlyle systems, where we cash in on breakaways/odd man breaks and ''High-Danger scoring chances'', but get outshot on the other end and sometimes hold on for dear life. Think Patrick Roy in his coaching stint in the NHL too.
So I still don't think you can say, despite the record, that this is both a good team and a well coached team. I don't think you can have it both ways with what we've seen so far. I lean towards it being an okay team, that's still not very well coached.
Zippy316
aka Zippo
Put simply, the Devils defensive group is exposed if the forwards aren't dominating the game. They did do a relatively good job of mitigating St. Louis' chances last night, but the forwards couldn't sustain any pressure/attack and our defense isn't good enough to control the game.
We're really missing a stabilizing force on the back-end. Greene isn't that any more and it shows. Severson, Santini, and Mueller have no one to get paired with that they can trust and play their game, especially against better teams.
We're really missing a stabilizing force on the back-end. Greene isn't that any more and it shows. Severson, Santini, and Mueller have no one to get paired with that they can trust and play their game, especially against better teams.
Zippy316
aka Zippo
So this begs the question.
Is it better to have a 2012-13 DeBoer coached Devils that looks good on paper but doesn't produce wins? Or a Carlyle/Hynes type team that looks poor on the stat sheet but still produces wins?
Not saying Hynes is a good coach, but I don't like the idea of holding the past couple years against him as indicative of how he wants to play. Our teams have been flawed and it still is now.
- May 1, 2011
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I still don't believe the 12-13 Devils were as good as their possession stats. I think the fact that we were almost always playing from behind when the goaltending went to hell in February, just put us behind the eight ball in most games. We were already in a hole early in most of those games, and almost always had to battle back from behind, due to questionable goaltending.
Another reason I never was impressed with the DeBoer system, especially the lockout season and 13-14 was because while we had a positive shot differential and barely allowed scoring chances, we also barely got any scoring chances. We were one of the worst teams in the league at shots against, for those two seasons, if I'm not mistaken. We didn't generate enough offense/chances on most nights.
We're actually generating quite a few more chances this year, than we did in most of DeBoer's years, but we're also allowing a ton more.
- May 1, 2011
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In Hynes defense, we have seemed to look a whole lot worse, since guys have gotten injured. We didn't look great from a possession standpoint, early on in the first 8-9 games, but we've looked significantly worse since the Arizona game.
Johansson is historically a good possession player. Palmieri is not, but he's still a player that I believe does much more positive than negative.
If we're still looking like this when they come back and when Zajac comes back, then I don't know what to say. Zajac is historically one of the best possession players on the team, probably second to only Taylor Hall.
Johansson is historically a good possession player. Palmieri is not, but he's still a player that I believe does much more positive than negative.
If we're still looking like this when they come back and when Zajac comes back, then I don't know what to say. Zajac is historically one of the best possession players on the team, probably second to only Taylor Hall.
Zippy316
aka Zippo
I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole that is another DeBoer conversation. It was more just for a comparison sake.
I think this year should be the best case of judging Hynes. The last couple years, there was way too much junk on the roster. You replaced junk with junk and had people getting stressed out that Kalinin was playing over Matteau or Bennett when in reality, they all sucked. It was either terrible stop gaps or mistake-prone youth so there was really no winning with any roster decision.
Hynes has had by far his best personnel this year and his usage so far has been strong. Some bone-headed moves (particularly benching) at times, but they've all been for a good purpose and valid reasoning. In my opinion, he's managing the defense as well as he can given what he has and he's made some great decisions as far as the forwards go. He's managed to get the Devils to battle every night, respond to adversity, and stay competitive despite a ridiculous schedule and a myriad of injuries.
Emperoreddy
Show Me What You Got!
- May 1, 2011
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I mostly just think he's not a good X's and O's coach. I think the team is definitely buying in right now, and this is the system that he's trying to play. If Severson is out for Lovejoy tomorrow night, he's really off his rocker, as we played a POOR defensive game (even though it was just one period, it was bad enough for an entire game's worth), Lovejoy sucked again, Lovejoy really shouldn't be in anyway. I'd be more understanding if we never had benched him for most games in the first place.
I won't be calling for his head at any point before this season ends, but with the best start in franchise history, if we do miss the playoffs, I don't think we should bring him back for another kick at the can, barring multiple important people being injured long term. And Zajac's injury up to this point, shouldn't factor in to an excuse when the season ends, as we (so far) have a pretty good record without him.
Zippy316
aka Zippo
I really don't think Greene is the defender he once was. For a good while he was a top-pairing guy. I think the year with him and Larsson playing ridiculously low-event hockey helped to cover up some of his overall regression, but he's just not the defender he was from 2011-12 to 2014-15 anymore.
He can hold his own enough in a similar role, but he's not controlling the game like he used to.
Emperoreddy
Show Me What You Got!
I’m not sure what people expected on the back end.
Greene is the only good vet on the team. Santini, Mueller, and Butcher are basically rookies. Severson is still quite inexperienced and the rest are scrubs.
Greene is the only good vet on the team. Santini, Mueller, and Butcher are basically rookies. Severson is still quite inexperienced and the rest are scrubs.
Emperoreddy
Show Me What You Got!
We just don’t have the roster right now to be able to consistently win these close games. Especially against teams that make their day playing in these types of games.
We have to out score teams, and thankfully even with a depleted roster we can still score.
Also how bad we are at faceoffs is a big part of the possession story.
We have to out score teams, and thankfully even with a depleted roster we can still score.
Also how bad we are at faceoffs is a big part of the possession story.
Zippy316
aka Zippo
The issue with the Devils under Hynes the last couple years is that when the games get tighter, Devils aren't doing the little things that help them win. You watched the Blues last night and even when the Devils were dictating the play, the Blues managed to be in control of the game. They played the disruption game -- same thing the Devils struggled with against the Capitals. Not giving any space, using their body to slow players down, using their sticks to deflect passes or break up rushes, etc.
Devils haven't seemed to play that same way under Hynes. Only year they sort of did it was his first year when they were loaded with veteran players who played that way due to experience. Luckily for Hynes, he's gotten an influx of guys who play focused and smart (Hischier, Santini, Bratt, and I'd put Butcher there as well) but there's still a lot of guys that need some work there (Zacha, Severson, Wood although he's improved, and Mueller). Moore's in the latter group, but I've given up on him. Hall's another guy I'd like to see them enforce some better habits into, but at least he generally has a positive impact.
The high flying game is fun and all, but the structured, discipline play is what consistently wins you games. I'd like to see Hynes do a better job at reinforcing that area of the game -- just about every perennially successful team has had a defensively-oriented coach provide the foundation.
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I think the best way to play defense is to attack and be in the O-zone more than not. Standing around and defending (like the 3rd period against Vancouver) is a bad way to go.
I think our style of play in Hynes first year, was similar to this year and last year, as far as puck possession goes, or lack of possession. We just played an ultra-conservative style, where we yielded few shots on goal, but got even fewer of our own. In the last year and 1/6th season, we've opened it up a bit and generated more scoring chances, but it's come at the expense of giving up even more.
Even the ''Defensive'' teams like for instance, the trapping Devils, were still puck possession teams. We had a positive shot differential in many of those games, and we also spent much more time in their O-zone than they spent in our D-zone. They had stats that tracked that on the NHL.com game logs, back in the late 90's-early 00's, and we always spent much more time in their end. Despite being labeled a trapping team or a defense first time.
For all the talk about systems I don't think there's really that much difference between most systems these days. I think more often than not talent wins out, and overall the talent just isn't there yet for us. It's getting better certainly, but the defense still has a ways to go, and the injuries we've suffered up front are really starting to catch up with us. We're missing our best goal scorer and a guy who looked like he was on a mission in Palmieri. We're missing our best defensive forward and one of our better possession forwards in Zajac. Johansson, while certainly not lighting it up, is really good at getting the puck through the neutral zone. Without those players it's a lot easier to keep our offense from sustaining pressure, which in turn leads to the play coming back our own way more often. Throw in the fact that St. Louis is a terrible matchup for us and you get last night.
Emperoreddy
Show Me What You Got!
Scoring via possession isn’t really our game either right now.
Our bread and butter is off the rush and quick counter attacks.
Our bread and butter is off the rush and quick counter attacks.
Hah! Ridiculous! If a 20 year old with 80 career games can't produce at a 50 point pace with 4th line wingers he's a worthless bum! Defense? Puhleeease! Who needs defense from a young forward, we have the awesomeness of Ben Lovejoy for that!
Alex NJD
Registered User
Emperoreddy
Show Me What You Got!
- May 1, 2011
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It brings me back to the not so long ago debates about Merrill and Larsson.
I think there was a even a time where a couple people actually thought Merrill was better than Severson.
As far as overrated goes, I think Merrill was the most overrated prospect we’ve had in some time. Santini never brought this kind of hype before he turned pro, neither did Severson. All I heard about Merrill from 2010-2013 (and probably trough 2014) was how much of a stud he was, and how he should have went in the first round, if not for attitude/off-ice issues.
I agree. Merill is/was probably the most overrated defenseman we had in the past 5 years
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