Post-Game Talk: Kraken 4 - Jets 3

[DRW204]

Yup. The dump of data in those posts was TLDR for most, and there are way too many confounding variables to make it worthy of serious discussion.

In the end, it doesn't take long to look at pooled data for the obvious conclusions, rather than mining it to find a contrary point. Ehlers has only averaged > 17 minutes per game in 2 seasons out of the nine he's been on the Jets. In those two seasons, the Jets were 19th and 20th in league standings and had a negative goal differential. What do you suppose was happening with the team when Ehlers was promoted?

Have a look at these numbers from the only season in which Ehlers averaged >18 minutes/g, especially +/-, since it was referenced in the data dump

NHL Stats

The official source for NHL Stats including skaters, goalies, teams stats and more.

www.nhl.com

the problem is w/ average it's not on absolutes which seem to be OPs goal. & it's not 5v5 TOI.

during KCs injury, this is just an easy stretch to reference b/c ehlers was top line ~80% of the time - Ehlers played over 17m/gp , and saw a bit of an uptick in 5v5 TOI/gp (from ~13 mins to ~14 mins). 9/16 were under 17mins.

they were 9-0 in those games. and 3-2-2 when over (Jets are down, and the offensive players play more). it is possible for the Jets to have Ehlers on the top-line and play less than 17 mins overall (or 14 mins at 5v5) . another distinct stretch to look at would be 18-19 b/c i remember ESW being the top line for the first half.

 

[Dale53130]

Yup. The dump of data in those posts was TLDR for most, and there are way too many confounding variables to make it worthy of serious discussion.

In the end, it doesn't take long to look at pooled data for the obvious conclusions, rather than mining it to find a contrary point. Ehlers has only averaged > 17 minutes per game in 2 seasons out of the nine he's been on the Jets. In those two seasons, the Jets were 19th and 20th in league standings and had a negative goal differential. What do you suppose was happening with the team when Ehlers was promoted?

Have a look at these numbers from the only season in which Ehlers averaged >18 minutes/g, especially +/-, since it was referenced in the data dump

NHL Stats

The official source for NHL Stats including skaters, goalies, teams stats and more.

www.nhl.com

The Jets missed the playoffs, the two years that Ehlers averaged more than 17 minutes per game.

i don't think all the gp being posted are necessarily w/ scheifele though? like 17-18 scheifele missed from 12-27-2017 to 2-9-2018, do you just remove that stretch with his TOI entirely (tbh i didn't look at all the game logs if it was removed bc the images are messing up my browser )

even looking at 18-19; i just know this stretch really well- in Nov-Dec 2018 there's a bunch of games under 17 mins there, but he played a lot w/ scheifele at 5v5. and really stats from 4-5 years ago, how representative is that to the team now w/ new coach, new personnel etc.

I went through each game, and each starting line-up (day of). If there were any moments within games, when either one was moved off of their lines, than yes, that's not captured.

If you could see, you'd recognize that I didn't just randomly string a bunch of games together.

 

[DRW204]

The Jets missed the playoffs, the two years that Ehlers averaged more than 17 minutes per game.


I went through each game, and each starting line-up (day of). If there were any moments within games, when either one was moved off of their lines, than yes, that's not captured.

If you could see, you'd recognize that I didn't just guess which games were thrown together.

Yeah sorry I haven't looked through the entire thread and just attempting to go through it

 

[scelaton]

The Jets missed the playoffs, the two years that Ehlers averaged more than 17 minutes per game.

Yes, that was my point. Drownings happen more in the summertime, but hot weather doesn't cause them.

What else do you think might have been happening with the team during those two seasons to cause them to miss the playoffs and/or to make Ehlers have to play more?

Just think about it, no need to reply.

 

[Inanna]

This is one of those nights on HFJets when I’m really glad I have Facebook.

 

[Dale53130]

Yes, that was my point. Drownings happen more in the summertime, but hot weather doesn't cause them.

What else do you think might have been happening with the team during those two seasons to cause them to miss the playoffs and/or to make Ehlers have to play more?

Just think about it, no need to reply.

He played more, and they missed the playoffs.

Are you saying he's a non-factor in winning and losing?

 

[WolfHouse]

Yes, that was my point. Drownings happen more in the summertime, but hot weather doesn't cause them.

What else do you think might have been happening with the team during those two seasons to cause them to miss the playoffs and/or to make Ehlers have to play more?

Just think about it, no need to reply.

Jets have never won a won a playoff round during the seasons where Kyle connor plays more than 19 mins a game

 

[KingBogo]

This is one of those nights on HFJets when I’m really glad I have Facebook.

Hang in there and witness a big trade or maybe just crickets?

 

[Buffdog]

I think this is a misunderstanding - you weren't on HF when Enstrom would get injured for a stretch and the Jets would win a few games and some people concluded that the Jets were better without Enstrom.

The notion that the Jets are better served when Ehlers and Scheifele aren't on the same line is similar.

They're both wrong, fwiw...

If thats you're position, I feel that you need to go back through the numbers @Dale53130 posted and expmain why - because the objective results diaagree with your take. You have a responsibility to back up your claim

For the record, you might me be right. But as of now, all you have is an unsubstantiated opinion and it just seems that you're refusing to consider any actual proof that it might be wrong

 

[DRW204]

Jets have never won a won a playoff round during the seasons where Kyle connor plays more than 19 mins a game

When down in games who gets more TOI? The top 6 would be getting way More opportunities

 

[hn777]

Slam dunk away, I wasn't protecting the rim. You're quoting something I wrote, that has nothing to do with your reply.

Prior to this year, Ehlers and Scheifele started games on the same line, a total of 178 games.

Here's Ehlers impressive totals:

Goals: 64
Assists: 86
Plus/Minus: +33
Shots: 553

And Scheifele's totals:

Goals: 80
Assists: 101
Plus/Minus: +33
Shots: 404

Impressive numbers. Really impressive.

The Jets won/loss totals in those games, was:

Wins: 87
Losses: 91

In that same batch of games, I excluded all of the games where Ehlers played less than 17 minutes per game. Here's Ehlers production now in those 104 games:

Goals: 32
Assists: 50
Plus/Minus: -4
Shots: 353

Scheifele in those 104 games where Ehlers only played 17 or more minutes:

Goals: 44
Assists: 56
Plus/Minus: 0
Shots: 259

The Jets won/loss totals is now:

Wins: 43
Losses: 61

To add, they were playing a lot of those games with prime Blake Wheeler. They weren't always considered as the 1st line when they played together, but almost always were.

Here are the records in those 104 games:

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While you (and others) are busy trying to find ways how the Jets will lose, I'm trying to reverse-engineer (in rudimentary ways) why they've perhaps settled on certain ideas/drawn certain conclusions.

There may be some useful information in your work, but I also see some potential methodical issues causing questionable interpretations:

1) (more an observation than a methodical issue per se) It seems in your totals, there's a trend of Ehlers going from mostly negative +/- to mostly positive +/- over his career. Maybe his endurance improved?
2) He may have been moved higher up the lineup in games they were already losing skewing your +/- interpretations. And also playing in more EN situations again skewing results.
3) These are apparently regular +/- (a flawed stat including ENG, SHG etc.) and not 5v5 GF/GA (more meaningful stat especially since our discussion is about line configurations at 5v5)
4) No distinction between 5v5 time and PP time in the total icetimes
5) Already mentioned by several posters - it's not like fatigue is evenly spread over the total icetime. It may be an issue in the last couple of marginal minutes
6) Also mentioned - one player/line outplaying and outscoring the opponent can not in a meaningful way causally correlate with the team losing more games. What do you think happens, if all players/lines outscore their opponents? Yep, the team wins.

Lost in the Ehlers vs Connor discussions is the fact, Scheifele is struggling without Ehlers. Scheifele is not such a strong playdriver on his own, that some posters seem to believe. Neither Connor, Wheeler, Vilardi has been able to take Scheifele into positive territory. Only Ehlers has. Year after year after year.
I don't mind Ehlers playing on a separate line from Scheifele, but Scheifele *should* mind.
Ehlers doesn't need Scheifele, but Scheifele (and Connor) needs Ehlers to get positive results.

I agree with Ehlers not being a great PP player, so IMO PP2 is fine, but they should play him *topline minutes* at 5v5 with or without Scheifele, as he is our most efficient 5v5 forward. With limited PP time and no PK time, endurance shouldn't be a huge problem.

 

[Buffdog]

This is one of those nights on HFJets when I’m really glad I have Facebook.

I though FB was for old farts like me (although I gave it up 5 years ago and it was one of the best decisions I ever made)

 

[Dale53130]

Jets have never won a won a playoff round during the seasons where Kyle connor plays more than 19 mins a game

I know you're joking (I think), but he did average more than 19 minutes per game in the EDM series.

 

[Jet]

I dunno. They have been very vague and the whole he's traveling with thr team when it was obvious he wasn't close just stunk of misdirection.

The weirdest thing for me was he sat on the bench the rest of the game. I've never seen that before

 

[KingBogo]

There may be some useful information in your work, but I also see some potential methodical issues causing questionable interpretations:

1) (more an observation than a methodical issue per se) It seems in your totals, there's a trend of Ehlers going from mostly negative +/- to mostly positive +/- over his career. Maybe his endurance improved?
2) He may have been moved higher up the lineup in games they were already losing skewing your +/- interpretations. And also playing in more EN situations again skewing results.
3) These are apparently regular +/- (a flawed stat including ENG, SHG etc.) and not 5v5 GF/GA (more meaningful stat especially since our discussion is about line configurations at 5v5)
4) No distinction between 5v5 time and PP time in the total icetimes
5) Already mentioned by several posters - it's not like fatigue is evenly spread over the total icetime. It may be an issue in the last couple of marginal minutes
6) Also mentioned - one player/line outplaying and outscoring the opponent can not in a meaningful way causally correlate with the team losing more games. What do you think happens, if all players/lines outscore their opponents? Yep, the team wins.

Lost in the Ehlers vs Connor discussions is the fact, Scheifele is struggling without Ehlers. Scheifele is not such a strong playdriver on his own, that some posters seem to believe. Neither Connor, Wheeler, Vilardi has been able to take Scheifele into positive territory. Only Ehlers has. Year after year after year.
I don't mind Ehlers playing on a separate line from Scheifele, but Scheifele *should* mind.
Ehlers doesn't need Scheifele, but Scheifele (and Connor) needs Ehlers to get positive results.

I agree with Ehlers not being a great PP player, so IMO PP2 is fine, but they should play him *topline minutes* at 5v5 with or without Scheifele, as he is our most efficient 5v5 forward. With limited PP time and no PK time, endurance shouldn't be a huge problem.

Then take the time to refute with your own analysis. You ask some good questions, but then end your post with some strong claims in the last 2 paragraphs without any supporting evidence. You aren't going to win a debate if the other side does the work and you only throw darts back.

 

[hn777]

Then take the time to refute with your own analysis. You ask some good questions, but then end your post with some strong claims in the last 2 paragraphs without any supporting evidence. You aren't going to win a debate if the other side does the work and you only throw darts back.

I have put forward that info many times already.

 

[DRW204]

The weirdest thing for me was he sat on the bench the rest of the game. I've never seen that before

If if it's upper body and had to be sent back to WPG to be reevaluated - that doesn't strike me as a broken bone? I think those you can tell right away. Possibly soft tissue? which could be worse

 

[Buffdog]

There may be some useful information in your work, but I also see some potential methodical issues causing questionable interpretations:

1) (more an observation than a methodical issue per se) It seems in your totals, there's a trend of Ehlers going from mostly negative +/- to mostly positive +/- over his career. Maybe his endurance improved?
2) He may have been moved higher up the lineup in games they were already losing skewing your +/- interpretations. And also playing in more EN situations again skewing results.
3) These are apparently regular +/- (a flawed stat including ENG, SHG etc.) and not 5v5 GF/GA (more meaningful stat especially since our discussion is about line configurations at 5v5)
4) No distinction between 5v5 time and PP time in the total icetimes
5) Already mentioned by several posters - it's not like fatigue is evenly spread over the total icetime. It may be an issue in the last couple of marginal minutes
6) Also mentioned - one player/line outplaying and outscoring the opponent can not in a meaningful way causally correlate with the team losing more games. What do you think happens, if all players/lines outscore their opponents? Yep, the team wins.

Lost in the Ehlers vs Connor discussions is the fact, Scheifele is struggling without Ehlers. Scheifele is not such a strong playdriver on his own, that some posters seem to believe. Neither Connor, Wheeler, Vilardi has been able to take Scheifele into positive territory. Only Ehlers has. Year after year after year.
I don't mind Ehlers playing on a separate line from Scheifele, but Scheifele *should* mind.
Ehlers doesn't need Scheifele, but Scheifele (and Connor) needs Ehlers to get positive results.

I agree with Ehlers not being a great PP player, so IMO PP2 is fine, but they should play him *topline minutes* at 5v5 with or without Scheifele, as he is our most efficient 5v5 forward. With limited PP time and no PK time, endurance shouldn't be a huge problem.

First of all, this is a much better post than the "well, yeah but Enstom" shit that @Atoyot threw out. Those are all legit issues with the data that @Dale53130 has put up

The only real comment that I'll make is about fatigue, because I think that you're confusing aerobic endurance with muscular endurance. There is an overlap there to be sure, but we're talking two different energy systems

Aerobic endurance largely involves the heart and lungs, whereas muscular endurance had more to do with the number and efficiency of mitochondria in muscle cells. With ehlers, my suspicion is that his issue is more with the latter than the former. One clue to that is how it appears that he prefers to take shorter shifts then his linemates. The other clue is just the size of his legs. Smaller muscles.will.need.to work harder to generate the same amount of.force compared to larger muscles with more fibres.

Imagine you're doing sprints... let's say 200M repeats X 30 (like a hockey game) while resting 4 minutes between each sprint. Not a perfect comparison to a hockey game, but it will do.

According to what you posted, you're assuming that all sprint times will be the same until a certain point and then they'll fall off. That wouldn't be the case at all... the first X number will be in a similar distribution, but they will fall off drastically and not in a linear fashion. Furthermore, the back end of those 200M will be the first to suffer.

If you were talking purely aerobic endurance, then yeah a person can pace themselves for an entire marathon and their last mile splits will be similar to their first. Hockey leans heavily into the anaerobic pathway (with an aerobic component to be sure)

If if it's upper body and had to be sent back to WPG to be reevaluated. That doesn't strike me as a broken bone? I think those you can tell right away. Possibly soft tissue? which could be worse

I'm wondering about an MRI for his back. Hopefully its not that

 

[Atoyot]

Me: this data says Jets lose more than they win when schief and Ehlers play together

You: yeah, but enstrom

Me: we aren't talking about enstrom, that's a strawman

View attachment 831492

You: you don't know what that word means

Um, it means exactly what I said it means.

"Refuting an argument other than the one under discussion"

AKA refuting a discussion about ehlers and schief with a comment about enstrom. Two ENTIRELY different convos

If you're gonna accuse someone of not knowing the meaning of a word, it usually helps to know the meaning yourself first

So, not a strawman, got it. Mentioning a comparable situation to address a point is not a strawman. Arguing against a point that was never made, is. I was refuting a point that was made. Whether you think it was a valid point that I made is completely irrelevant to whether it's a strawman or not.

 

[Howard Chuck]

Wow. We need hockey back!

 

[KingBogo]

I have put forward that info many times already.

Then it should be easy to repost it.

 

[Buffdog]

So, not a strawman, got it. Mentioning a comparable situation to address a point is not a strawman. Arguing against a point that was never made, is. I was refuting a point that was made. Whether you think it was a valid point that I made is completely irrelevant to whether it's a strawman or not.

I disagree that it's a "comparable situation"

"Some posters say that when it's a waxing crescent moon on the second tuesday of the month, helle has a bad game". That's why Connor should be on the first line

 

[Dale53130]

There may be some useful information in your work, but I also see some potential methodical issues causing questionable interpretations:

1) (more an observation than a methodical issue per se) It seems in your totals, there's a trend of Ehlers going from mostly negative +/- to mostly positive +/- over his career. Maybe his endurance improved?
2) He may have been moved higher up the lineup in games they were already losing skewing your +/- interpretations. And also playing in more EN situations again skewing results.
3) These are apparently regular +/- (a flawed stat including ENG, SHG etc.) and not 5v5 GF/GA (more meaningful stat especially since our discussion is about line configurations at 5v5)
4) No distinction between 5v5 time and PP time in the total icetimes
5) Already mentioned by several posters - it's not like fatigue is evenly spread over the total icetime. It may be an issue in the last couple of marginal minutes
6) Also mentioned - one player/line outplaying and outscoring the opponent can not in a meaningful way causally correlate with the team losing more games. What do you think happens, if all players/lines outscore their opponents? Yep, the team wins.

Lost in the Ehlers vs Connor discussions is the fact, Scheifele is struggling without Ehlers. Scheifele is not such a strong playdriver on his own, that some posters seem to believe. Neither Connor, Wheeler, Vilardi has been able to take Scheifele into positive territory. Only Ehlers has. Year after year after year.
I don't mind Ehlers playing on a separate line from Scheifele, but Scheifele *should* mind.
Ehlers doesn't need Scheifele, but Scheifele (and Connor) needs Ehlers to get positive results.

I agree with Ehlers not being a great PP player, so IMO PP2 is fine, but they should play him *topline minutes* at 5v5 with or without Scheifele, as he is our most efficient 5v5 forward. With limited PP time and no PK time, endurance shouldn't be a huge problem.

Many thoughts here:

1) Perhaps. But I think his endurance (IMO) is an issue. Even the last game, he had an extended shift and he was sucking wind on his way to the bench, and once he was on the bench; though he's always done that since I've been watching him.

2) Sure, I agree with that.

3) I agree with that too. I used this though, because Ehlers has generally been (substantially) higher than the other forwards most years, and I wanted to see if/how it changes when I compared his play in the two blocks of time that I went with.

4) I wasn't hiding his 5v5 time, though it would be VERY fair if someone pointed this out because of who I am. To be clear, I think he's a good/great 5v5 player, a good/great transition player, but I wanted to filter the things I wanted to see. I wanted to understand if (the rumour) that Scheifele doesn't like playing with him, had to do with his shot selection; to see if there was a correlation there. Also, I wondered if Scheifele didn't like the idea of cutting his minutes down; though I seriously think he should be open to dialing back his amount of time on the ice.

5) I get that, but what I don't understand, why is he accruing more points in games when he plays 16 minutes or less, compared to when he plays more than 17 minutes? No one has yet to touch this. The sample size is his entire career. Which also makes me question the validity of P/60. Perhaps Ehlers is just an outlier.

6) Yes. This whole thing that I did, isn't to say Ehlers is the culprit, he's the reason the team lost those games, that's a bit much, and I think a lot of people think I'm literally saying that.

No. That's ridiculous. There's too much nuance, moving parts, variables, variance, etc, to pin anything on one guy.

I'm just looking at the correlation between his production in Sample A vs Sample B, and I primarily chose those time frames based on why multiple coaches settled in on 16:00 (or so) minutes per game over the course of his career. Rather than think that they're idiots, I wanted to understand why they chose that time.

Also, part of this was that @Mortimer Snerd made a post while back, pointing out that Ehlers and Connor played pretty much the same amount of TOI in their careers, which made me question that I wasn't looking at what Ehlers was doing, correctly. This coupled with a number of @Buffdog 's posts in recent weeks in support of team deployment/coaching decisions, and @DRW204 talking about Ehlers' 5v5 play (making a convincing case).

Hey, I think KFC should be playing 18 minutes per game. Personally, I've always preferred him playing away from Scheifele and Ehlers. I think he should be on the 2nd line, with a defensively sound power forward on the opposite wing, and a solid enough center in the middle. I don't like him on a line with 3 offensively gifted players, though here and there is fine. Just as long as he gets lots of exposure on the PP1 unit and overtime.

Having said all of that, I think that there are likely very good reasons why they're keeping KFC on the top line. If they're winning, they have to be doing something right. I just wonder if the top line is supposed to be a bit of an "innings eater", with the idea of chemistry being developed that carries over to the PP1 unit, and maybe that internally, they actually think Ehlers should only be playing 16 minutes per, while balancing out the top two lines.

 

[Atoyot]

I disagree that it's a "comparable situation"

"Some posters say that when it's a waxing crescent moon on the second tuesday of the month, helle has a bad game". That's why Connor should be on the first line

That's fine, you can disagree with it all you want, still doesn't make it a strawman and the reason you gave for it not being comparable was because the sample size was too small despite it being very close to the sample size OP used to make their point.

But anyways, everyone's getting annoyed with our bickering and I'm about done with this. Have a good night man.

 

[Buffdog]

Many thoughts here:

1) Perhaps. But I think his endurance (IMO) is an issue. Even the last game, he had an extended shift and he was sucking wind on his way to the bench, and once he was on the bench; though he's always done that since I've been watching him.

2) Sure, I agree with that.

3) I agree with that too. I used this though, because Ehlers has generally been (substantially) higher than the other forwards most years, and I wanted to see if/how it changes when I compared his play in the two blocks of time that I went with.

4) I wasn't hiding his 5v5 time, though it would be VERY fair if someone pointed this out because of who I am. To be clear, I think he's a good/great 5v5 player, a good/great transition player, but I wanted to filter the things I wanted to see. I wanted to understand if (the rumour) that Scheifele doesn't like playing with him, had to do with his shot selection; to see if there was a correlation there. Also, I wondered if Scheifele didn't like the idea of cutting his minutes down; though I seriously think he should be open to dialing back his amount of time on the ice.

5) I get that, but what I don't understand, why is he accruing more points in games when he plays 16 minutes or less, compared to when he plays more than 17 minutes? No one has yet to touch this. The sample size is his entire career. Which also makes me question the validity of P/60. Perhaps Ehlers is just an outlier.

6) Yes. This whole thing that I did, isn't to say Ehlers is the culprit, he's the reason the team lost those games, that's a bit much, and I think a lot of people think I'm literally saying that.

No. That's ridiculous. There's too much nuance, moving parts, variables, variance, etc, to pin anything on one guy.

I'm just looking at the correlation between his production in Sample A vs Sample B, and I primarily chose those time frames based on why multiple coaches settled in on 16:00 (or so) minutes per game over the course of his career. Rather than think that they're idiots, I wanted to understand why they chose that time.

Also, part of this was that @Mortimer Snerd made a post while back, pointing out that Ehlers and Connor played pretty much the same amount of TOI in their careers, which made me question that I wasn't looking at what Ehlers was doing, correctly. This coupled with a number of @Buffdog 's posts in recent weeks in support of team deployment/coaching decisions, and @DRW204 talking about Ehlers' 5v5 play (making a convincing case).

Hey, I think KFC should be playing 18 minutes per game. Personally, I've always preferred him playing away from Scheifele and Ehlers. I think he should be on the 2nd line, with a defensively sound power forward on the opposite wing, and a solid enough center in the middle. I don't like him on a line with 3 offensively gifted players, though here and there is fine. Just as long as he gets lots of exposure on the PP1 unit and overtime.

Well thought out and nuanced. I wish more posters were as objective and open minded