Player Discussion: Neal Pionk

[GNP]

By reading these comments from some good posters, I see they are pretty much sold on what they've seen from Pionk so far. Has to be a win situation for Chevy, as signing Pionk allowed us to save cap space and sign the other young players.

To me --so far, it looks like he can hold his own quite well, and is a good skater, with a decent shot. He certainly doesn't look out of place. I wouldn't say he's a star 1st pairing defenseman, but he is still young with some upside, and it's to early to judge right now --let's see how he fares over some time.

In general though, we got a decent replacement for Trouba at 1/2 the cost.

 

[Tommigun]

I think Pionk has been our best defender to start the season, due to Morrissey's inconsistent play. Morrissey will definitely regain that #1 spot (he may already have) but Pionk is good! He's doing far better here than Trouba is in NYR at least according to stats (haven't watched Trouba play other than the game vs the Jets).

 

[DEANYOUNGBLOOD17]

Pionk was the sole cause of the first goal against yesterday..... what a bad turn over behind our net.

I like some of his offence attributes but he is weak on the puck in our D zone.

 

[Tommigun]

Pionk was the sole cause of the first goal against yesterday..... what a bad turn over behind our net.

I like some of his offence attributes but he is weak on the puck in our D zone.

Yes he was, as Morrissey has been multiple times this season. Those plays happen.

 

[MrBoJangelz71]

Pionk was the sole cause of the first goal against yesterday..... what a bad turn over behind our net.

I like some of his offence attributes but he is weak on the puck in our D zone.

Lol, that was probably his first blunder that cost us a goal, he has been very good in our end this season.

 

[WiscoJet]

I almost feel bad after looking at Trouba's stats.....almost.

Almost as if it was a Rangers problem not a Pionk problem.

 

[Jets 31]

Pionk has been very good so far , i can't see how anyone would think different . And Pionk is getting 3 million a year compared to Trouba's 8 million , it allows us to have another good player on the team .

 

[backwards motion]

As somehow I've been able to watch like 3/4 of the games this year, no way no how I can explain how I've been able to do it. Stars aligning and stuff?

I've liked Pionk. I don't remember every play or pass made by him, but seems that if Laine last night had "man's pass" to Scheifele, Pionk can also pass. Maybe not a laser tape 2 tape as Duke was it, said. But still, with the price tag. He's been what I hoped. Nothing like prime Karlsson, but at least for his money, a good player to be there in there when needed.

 

[Guffman]

Plenty of players have had good results on defensively bad teams. In fact, here's 20 of them from the worst 8 teams in terms of CA/60 in the NHL.

Pionk is 208th out of 245 defencemen in the NHL with over 1000 minutes over the last three years aggregate in terms of Goals Above Average per 60 (Evolving-Hockey). Trouba was 60th. You've traded away essentially a #2/3 defenceman for someone that might be closer to a #7 then he is a top 4, and a late first rounder that is essentially near the tail-end of its second cluster:

That is not the kind of return you get for a potentially top pairing defenceman, even if everyone knows he wants out.

And people wonder why I laugh at “advanced stats”.

It was pretty funny reading the first couple of pages and everyone’s hot takes without actually seeing him play, whether it was based on Ranger fan opinions or advanced stats.

 

[pinerider]

Gorton and NYR got Pionk’d by Chevy. 11 pts in 18 GP, +6, 37.5% of Trouba’s cap hit... plus Heinola. Outstanding deal for the Jets.

 

[DeepFrickinValue]

Pionk among many pleasant surprises this year among Helle, KFC, Ehlers, Heinie, Laine and Roslo.

Edit: Added Laine

 

[Whileee]

Pionk among many pleasant surprises this year among Helle, KFC, Ehlers, Heinie, and Roslo.

I would add Laine's play to the "pleasant surprise" list this season. He hasn't scored as many goals as we can expect, but his overall play is considerably better, particularly in his own zone. His zone exits have improved substantially. He's also been much more effective at puck support in the offensive zone and puck possession. I don't have any doubt that his shooting percentage will climb, and combined with the improvements in other parts of his game I expect a stronger contribution from him this season than last.

 

[WPGChief]

And people wonder why I laugh at “advanced stats”.

It was pretty funny reading the first couple of pages and everyone’s hot takes without actually seeing him play, whether it was based on Ranger fan opinions or advanced stats.

I'll set a calendar reminder for the end of the season for you to quote this post again.

Trouba is having a historically career-low season for an also historically bonkers NYR team in which every single player on their team is below the NHL average in Corsi for and against. Like, it's so bad it's nearly approaching Buffalo/Toronto tanking levels bad - but they're still above 0.500 in terms of points% on the backs of Panarin and Buchnevic scoring nearly double their expected goals thus far and everyone else being somewhat even. Perhaps there is something to be said to the systems of the Rangers and that Lindy Ruff might not be a mastermind at defense. Of course, Micah did show that perhaps Trouba was being carried by his teammates as his isolated impact wasn't pretty in terms of defensive coverage - but to your point above, he was being sold as a top pairing defenseman in which returns have traditionally been more than a 1st round pick and a defenceman who largely had struggled in a season-and-a-half bit of play.

Hindsight is 20/20 - just because we landed on Heinola when the likes of Lassi Thomson, Tobias Bjornfot, and Simon Holmstrom were also being taken in that range, and that Heinola has shown that he already has some chops to play at the NHL level today, doesn't mean it's a foregone conclusion that Heinola becomes a top-pairing defenceman in the future, just like we shouldn't be assuming that Trouba (and Morrissey for that matter) are going to be this historically bad for the rest of their career, just as we also shouldn't assume that Pionk is going to be historically this good (or better) for the rest of his career.

Pionk has been a pleasant surprise to the start of the season, and has in fact been the best Jets defender this season in terms of game score (EDIT: I mean, having an average game score of 0.16 kind of tells you some other things about the team and him as a whole when that's good for 139th out of 270 defenseman with at least 5 games played). In terms of RAPMs, I'm glad that over the course of 1/5th his previous playing time, he might not truly be a standard deviation below all defenders in all significant categories in the NHL, and is more along the lines and thoughts of what you did read in the earlier posts in this thread: a defender who might be able to drive some offense but at the cost of defense. I still don't think that's worth much in terms of surplus value of his $3m x 2 year contract when Niku could probably do the same thing if the team ever figures out what they truly want from him (in that they forgive Pionk and the veterans for their defensive miscues but staple him to the bench for the same thing).

We're 18 games into the season and this team is barely getting by on Hellebuyck being very good in net thus far masking some of the atrocious defending in front of him. God forbid Hellebuyck gets injured and Brossoit continues playing just-average or below-average as it might expose some not good things about this team that we routinely forget when we always rely on what we see and remember.

 

[Guffman]

I'll set a calendar reminder for the end of the season for you to quote this post again.

Trouba is having a historically career-low season for an also historically bonkers NYR team in which every single player on their team is below the NHL average in Corsi for and against. Like, it's so bad it's nearly approaching Buffalo/Toronto tanking levels bad - but they're still above 0.500 in terms of points% on the backs of Panarin and Buchnevic scoring nearly double their expected goals thus far and everyone else being somewhat even. Perhaps there is something to be said to the systems of the Rangers and that Lindy Ruff might not be a mastermind at defense. Of course, Micah did show that perhaps Trouba was being carried by his teammates as his isolated impact wasn't pretty in terms of defensive coverage - but to your point above, he was being sold as a top pairing defenseman in which returns have traditionally been more than a 1st round pick and a defenceman who largely had struggled in a season-and-a-half bit of play.

Hindsight is 20/20 - just because we landed on Heinola when the likes of Lassi Thomson, Tobias Bjornfot, and Simon Holmstrom were also being taken in that range, and that Heinola has shown that he already has some chops to play at the NHL level today, doesn't mean it's a foregone conclusion that Heinola becomes a top-pairing defenceman in the future, just like we shouldn't be assuming that Trouba (and Morrissey for that matter) are going to be this historically bad for the rest of their career, just as we also shouldn't assume that Pionk is going to be historically this good (or better) for the rest of his career.

Pionk has been a pleasant surprise to the start of the season, and has in fact been the best Jets defender this season in terms of game score (EDIT: I mean, having an average game score of 0.16 kind of tells you some other things about the team and him as a whole when that's good for 139th out of 270 defenseman with at least 5 games played). In terms of RAPMs, I'm glad that over the course of 1/5th his previous playing time, he might not truly be a standard deviation below all defenders in all significant categories in the NHL, and is more along the lines and thoughts of what you did read in the earlier posts in this thread: a defender who might be able to drive some offense but at the cost of defense. I still don't think that's worth much in terms of surplus value of his $3m x 2 year contract when Niku could probably do the same thing if the team ever figures out what they truly want from him (in that they forgive Pionk and the veterans for their defensive miscues but staple him to the bench for the same thing).

We're 18 games into the season and this team is barely getting by on Hellebuyck being very good in net thus far masking some of the atrocious defending in front of him. God forbid Hellebuyck gets injured and Brossoit continues playing just-average or below-average as it might expose some not good things about this team that we routinely forget when we always rely on what we see and remember.

That’s a pretty long post that doesn’t really address you thinking Pionk is trash based on your review of advanced stats.

Chevy clearly did not share your viewpoint and we can all see that Chevy was proven right yet again based on Pionk’s performance with the team.

I think there’s a big problem relying solely on your advanced stats when an actual hockey professional has a completely different Conclusion, don’t you think?

Feel free to bookmark my post. It’s almost like you’d rather be right than have Pionk maintain his level of play.

 

[Whileee]

I'll set a calendar reminder for the end of the season for you to quote this post again.

Trouba is having a historically career-low season for an also historically bonkers NYR team in which every single player on their team is below the NHL average in Corsi for and against. Like, it's so bad it's nearly approaching Buffalo/Toronto tanking levels bad - but they're still above 0.500 in terms of points% on the backs of Panarin and Buchnevic scoring nearly double their expected goals thus far and everyone else being somewhat even. Perhaps there is something to be said to the systems of the Rangers and that Lindy Ruff might not be a mastermind at defense. Of course, Micah did show that perhaps Trouba was being carried by his teammates as his isolated impact wasn't pretty in terms of defensive coverage - but to your point above, he was being sold as a top pairing defenseman in which returns have traditionally been more than a 1st round pick and a defenceman who largely had struggled in a season-and-a-half bit of play.

Hindsight is 20/20 - just because we landed on Heinola when the likes of Lassi Thomson, Tobias Bjornfot, and Simon Holmstrom were also being taken in that range, and that Heinola has shown that he already has some chops to play at the NHL level today, doesn't mean it's a foregone conclusion that Heinola becomes a top-pairing defenceman in the future, just like we shouldn't be assuming that Trouba (and Morrissey for that matter) are going to be this historically bad for the rest of their career, just as we also shouldn't assume that Pionk is going to be historically this good (or better) for the rest of his career.

Pionk has been a pleasant surprise to the start of the season, and has in fact been the best Jets defender this season in terms of game score (EDIT: I mean, having an average game score of 0.16 kind of tells you some other things about the team and him as a whole when that's good for 139th out of 270 defenseman with at least 5 games played). In terms of RAPMs, I'm glad that over the course of 1/5th his previous playing time, he might not truly be a standard deviation below all defenders in all significant categories in the NHL, and is more along the lines and thoughts of what you did read in the earlier posts in this thread: a defender who might be able to drive some offense but at the cost of defense. I still don't think that's worth much in terms of surplus value of his $3m x 2 year contract when Niku could probably do the same thing if the team ever figures out what they truly want from him (in that they forgive Pionk and the veterans for their defensive miscues but staple him to the bench for the same thing).

We're 18 games into the season and this team is barely getting by on Hellebuyck being very good in net thus far masking some of the atrocious defending in front of him. God forbid Hellebuyck gets injured and Brossoit continues playing just-average or below-average as it might expose some not good things about this team that we routinely forget when we always rely on what we see and remember.

The Jets are also a "historically bonkers" team in terms of xGF% vs. CF%.

Hmmm... if Trouba's stats are attributable to the gong show D of the Rangers, then maybe we should look at Pionk's stats the past couple of seasons with a really bad NYR D in a similar light, particularly since it was the first 100 games of Pionk's NHL career.

In retrospect, I think that Pionk was probably rated more highly by scouts than seemed warranted by a somewhat cursory review of his shot metrics. Having watched him through training camp and the first 19 regular season games with the Jets, he's a better player than I expected and he clearly has a skill-set that you could imagine scouts valuing.

Still, the trade return for Trouba was disappointing, in a vacuum. But when you consider that he was a year removed from UFA and there was a very limited number of potential trade destinations, it's hard to know whether the return could have been higher. I certainly didn't sense that Chevy was gushing about the trade return (and Pionk, in particular), but he likely took what he thought was the best deal on the table. If he thought that Pionk was a #3-4 RD, then his view of the trade value was higher than many fans here, including me.

 

[scelaton]

Pionk was the sole cause of the first goal against yesterday..... what a bad turn over behind our net.

I like some of his offence attributes but he is weak on the puck in our D zone.

As others have said, that blunder was the first really memorable gaffe he has made. Considering his playing time and utilization, that is quite impressive. For comparison--forget the struggling Trouba--think of how many times we used to talk about big, bad $7.6M Buff and his memorable mistakes.

 

[Whileee]

As others have said, that blunder was the first really memorable gaffe he has made. Considering his playing time and utilization, that is quite impressive. For comparison--forget the struggling Trouba--think of how many times we used to talk about big, bad $7.6M Buff and his memorable mistakes.

Buff made some mistakes, but he did so many good things that outweighed the mistakes.

Having said that (and I love Buff), I actually think that the Jets' OT 3v3 is better without Buff. Morrissey and Pionk give them more quickness / mobility and more of a passing mentality with less risk.