Observations, Part VIII

[FossilFndr]

Might as well start a new one, VII was @ 1008

Go Preds

Click to read more...

 

[Pred303]

man I love these beneath the ice segments. professionally done

 

[Pred303]

tweets and vids are blocked on my work computers, so I can't see if someone has posted anything about hutton's injury. did someone say he had a concussion or concussion symptoms?

 

[Roman Yoshi]

tweets and vids are blocked on my work computers, so I can't see if someone has posted anything about hutton's injury. did someone say he had a concussion or concussion symptoms?

Concussion like symptoms I believe.

I really wish we had picked up Scrivens. Would've been a much better back up than Hut or Maz. Oh well.

Back to the question I asked in the last thread, is anyone really worried about Colin Wilson? I know he has six points in 13 games, but I am worried he isn't going to reach that 20/20 mark he reached last year. Just haven't been all that impressed with him this year.

I would argue that Smith (only three points) has looked significantly better than Wilson.

Thoughts?

 

[NSH615]

Concussion like symptoms I believe.

I really wish we had picked up Scrivens. Would've been a much better back up than Hut or Maz. Oh well.

Back to the question I asked in the last thread, is anyone really worried about Colin Wilson? I know he has six points in 13 games, but I am worried he isn't going to reach that 20/20 mark he reached last year. Just haven't been all that impressed with him this year.

I would argue that Smith (only three points) has looked significantly better than Wilson.

Thoughts?

Wilson like Forsberg lately IMO just can't get one in. He has been trying hard, but either hits the pipe, or puts it right on the blocker or right in the chest of the goalie. He's had several good chances. I think because he hasn't scored lately, he is forcing some of his shots.

 

[Pred303]

i agree neither has played very well yet, but both still could put up 40 plus points very easily. Wilson has always had a good shot and been a very high percentage shooter in his career (13%) and is only shooting 4% so far. i think he will return closer to his career shooting percentage as the season winds on, surely. Wilson's real problem has always been getting enough shots, only slightly above one a game before last year, when he started getting more than 2 a game for the first time. this year that shot total has fallen again (23 in 13 games). we need a few more shots per game out of him.

smith on the other hand has never been as accurate a shooter as Wilson (only 8.9% in his career. this year he actually was right there before the last game and after all those shots Saturday is only slightly below his career numbers (7.7%). he's always compensated for that by generating a high number of scoring chances and shots, about 3 per game on average in his career and right there again this year. as long as smith keeps getting his chances, sooner or later they will go in, and normally in bunches. I'm not terribly worried yet, not as long as he's getting chances.

it's kind of funny really, if Wilson could generate as many chances as smith he'd be a 30 plus goals scorer, and if smith could shoot like Wilson he would be too. we might need to combine these two lol

face it, both have been extremely unlucky many times this year. both could easily have 5-6 goals and we wouldn't be worried.

 

[triggrman]

as a team we don't seem to be getting the bounces this year, Forsberg seems to be just like Smith and Wilson.....

 

[Pred303]

agree trig. seems Forsberg is having at least one highlight save a game against him right now. well come to think of it, seems every top 6 guy is getting that lol. and man are we hitting an abnormally high number of posts and crossbars.

 

[mikemcburn]

For today's fun I looked at a few face-off numbers...

CURRENT SEASON (2015-2016)
* according to data taken from nhl.com
* includes all game situations (es, pp, pk)

WIN% BY ZONE:
* ranked highest to lowest win% (number of draws won-lost in brackets)

ALL ZONES WIN%

Jarnkrok 56.90% (29-22)
Gaustad 54.0% (114-97)
Fisher 50.40% (131-129)
Hodgson 46.10% (41-48)
Smith 36.00% (9-16)
Ribeiro 30.60% (45-102)
Wilson 30.00% (3-7)

O-ZONE WIN%

Wilson 100.00% (2-0)
Jarnkrok 88.90% (16-2)
Fisher 57.00% (49-37)
Gaustad 44.90% (31-38)
Smith 42.90% (6-8)
Ribeiro 40.50% (15-22)
Hodgson 37.00% (10-17)

N-ZONE WIN%

Fisher 54.20% (45-38)
Hodgson 53.30% (16-14)
Jarnkrok 50.00% (8-8)
Gaustad 39.60% (19-29)
Ribeiro 35.40% (23-42)
Wilson 0.00% (0-3)
Smith 0.00% (0-1)

D-ZONE WIN%

Gaustad 68.10% (64-30)
Hodgson 46.90% (15-17)
Fisher 40.70% (37-54)
Smith 30.00% (3-7)
Jarnkrok 29.40% (5-12)
Wilson 20.00% (1-4)
Ribeiro 15.60% (7-38)

WIN% BY PLAYER:
* ranked according to number of draws taken
* win% by zone breakdown in brackets

Fisher 260 (57.00%OZ > 54.20%NZ > 40.70%DZ) 50.40%
Gaustad 211 (44.90%OZ > 39.60%NZ > 68.10%DZ) 54.0%
Ribeiro 147 (40.50%OZ > 35.40%NZ > 15.60%DZ) 30.60%
Hodgson 89 (37.00%OZ > 53.30%NZ > 46.90%DZ) 46.10%
Jarnkrok 51 (88.90%OZ > 50.00%NZ > 29.40%DZ) 56.90%
Smith 25 (42.90%OZ > 0.00%NZ > 30.00%DZ) 36.00%
Wilson 10 (100.00%OZ > 0.00%NZ > 20.00%DZ) 30.00%

SNAP SHOT:

3 guys appear to get worse the closer they are to their own net
- Jarnkrok 59.50% drop (88.90%OZ > 29.40%DZ)
- Ribeiro 24.90% drop (40.50%OZ > 15.60%DZ)
- Fisher 16.30% drop 57.00%OZ > 40.70%DZ)

2 guys appear to get better the closer they are to their own net
- Gaustad 23.20% hike (44.90%OZ > 68.10%DZ)
- Hodgson 9.9% hike (37.00%OZ > 46.90%DZ)

3 guys appear to be comfy in the neutral zone
- Hodgson 53.30%NZ
- Fisher 54.20%NZ
- Jarnkrok 50.00%NZ

2 guys appear not to be so comfy in the neutral zone
- Gaustad 39.60%NZ
- Ribeiro 35.40%NZ

CAREER STATS
* according to data taken from war-on-ice.com
* data only goes back to 2005 (so the early years of Gaustad, Fisher & Ribeiro are not included)
* even-strength & regular season games only

Career WIN% Record By Player
* ranked by total number of faceoffs taken
* average number of faceoffs/game in brackets)

Fisher 7643 51.05% (10.87)
Ribeiro 6589 43.66% (9.11)
Gaustad 6501 56.71% (9.73)
Hodgson 2246 46.04% (7.44)
Jarnkrok 757 46.76% (7.72)
Wilson 704 45.45% (1.85)
Smith 579 42.49% (2.00)

Career Dzone Start Percentages:

Gaustad 40.49%
Hodgson 34.71%
Fisher 31.90%
Wilson 29.47%
Smith 28.51%
Jarnkrok 26.78%
Ribeiro 25.07%

Career Ozone Start Percentages:

Gaustad 36.19%
Hodgson 45.63%
Fisher 48.01%
Wilson 53.66%
Smith 55.33%
Jarnkrok 56.15%
Ribeiro 59.68%

NOTE: Career stats for Wilson, Hodgson, Smith & Jarnkrok are skewed for varying reasons...

- Neither Wilson & Smith should really be in here I guess because despite the call by some to shift them to center, neither appear to have really been used at center regularly (other than possibly Smith back in 2011-2012, but I dunno). Still, fi adjusting for those years these guys didn't even average above 1 faceoff/game, then:

• For Wilson we'd eliminate 3 years (2011-2012 & 2012-2013 & 2014-2015) = increase to 2.48 faceoffs/game and increase to 46.65% win%.
• For Smith we'd eliminate 2 years (2013-2014 & 2014-2015) = increase to 4.01 faceoffs/game and increase to 42.75% win%.

- Hodgson spent most of 2014-2015 as a winger after the first month, taking only sporadic faceoffs afterward, so his faceoffs/game for that year is an anomoly. If adjusting his career numbers by discounting that year, while his faceoffs/game would increase to 8.66 and his win% to 46.62%. Not big diffs so for this exercise I included the anomoly year anyway.

- Jarnkrok's numbers aren't so much skewed as simply lacking where it goes to having much of a sample size.

Current Year's Win% Relative to Career Averages & Number of Faceoffs/Game

Fisher: 52.17% @ 14.15/game (career average: 51.05% @ 10.87/game)
48.09% (2012-2013 @ 10.34/game)
53.86% (2006-2007 @ 10.77/game)
* last 10 years (2005-2006 > 2015-2016) data only
* has hit above 50% in each of the last 3 seasons, and 7 of the last 10 seasons
* has never fallen below 48% in any of the last 10 seasons
* has only avg'd less than 10 faceoffs/game in 2 of the last 10 seasons

Ribeiro: 31.67% @ 9.23/game (career average: 43.66% @ 9.11/game)
40.86% (2006-2007 @ 4.86/game)
48.19% (2005-2006 @ 6.38/game)
* last 10 years (2005-2006 > 2015-2016) data only
* his 4 worst win% seasons occured in his highest ozone start% years, go figure
* hasn't hit above 45% since 2012-2013, and only 3 times above 45% in last 10 years
* win% doesn't appear affected by the number of faceoffs taken

Gaustad: 52.52% @ 10.69/game (career average: 56.71% @ 9.73/game)
51.68% (2007-2008 @ 9.20/game)
60.12% (2012-2013 @ 14.61/game)
* last 10 years (2005-2006 > 2015-2016) data only
* has never fallen below 51% in any of the last 10 seasons
* has been comfortably above 50% in each of the last 7 seasons (56.08%>60.12%)
* the last 7 seasons has also been the seasons he saw the most faceoffs per game (9.64>14.61)

Hodgson: 45.45% @ 6.77/game (career average: 46.04% @ 7.44/game)
39.02% (2010-2011 @ 5.13/game)
47.07% (2012-2013 @ 12.08/game)
* worst win% was rookie year with lowest number of faceoffs taken
* both years with less than 500 faceoffs had worst win% (39.03% & 43.65%)
* three years with more than 500 faceoffs had best win% (45.95% & 47.03% & 47.07%)
* appears to do better with the more faceoffs taken
* sample size suggests will be ceiling with a high 40s win%

Jarnkrok: 62.50% @ 3.33/game (career average: 46.76% @ 7.72/game)
38.81% (2014-2015 @ 11.17/game)
47.51% (2014-2015 @ 7.88/game)
* worst win% was rookie year, when he also had career highest faceoffs/game (11.17)
* only year w more than 500 faceoffs had a 47.51%
* too small a sample size to figure if win% improves or worsens with more faceoffs taken

Wilson: 25.00% @ 0.62/game (career average: 45.45% @ 1.85/game)
40.88% (2014-2015 @ 1.78/game)
50.00% (2009-2010 @ 2.74/game)
* best win% was rookie year
* hasn't seen more 300 faceoffs in any one year
* doesn't appear to have spent much time in the dot over 6 NHL seasons
* the one year he took the most faceoffs (300 which was double any other year) was his best win% (46.67%) since rookie year

Smith: 46.43% @ 2.15/game (career average: 42.49% @ 2.00/game)
31.25% (2013-2014 @ 0.41/game)
50.00% (2014-2015 @ 0.37/game)
* only time hit 50% was the year he took the fewest faceoffs (30 total/year, 0.37/game)
* doesn't appear to have been a regular faceoff guy over 5 NHL seasons, getting fewer faceoffs each year

 

[Pred303]

both Wilson and Smith were centers in the minors converted to wingers, I like that they have been taking more and more offensive zone faceoffs for Ribeiro whether on even strength or the pp.

In general, neutral zone faceoffs stats are next to worthless, since a faceoff is typically only important for the first 10 seconds after the draw. I do think gaustad is doing a tremendous job in the defensive zone considering the rule changes.

I normally only look at d and o zone faceoffs as important because that 10 seconds can lead to a shot or shot against. I also find the studies interesting showing how little statistical correlation there has been to team records versus team faceoff percentages over the years. we were horrible last year as a team in the dot too.

 

[mikemcburn]

Yup, it appears Wilson & Smith have been wingers most of their respective NHL careers. As for their time in the dot over their combined 10 NHL seasons, the most either of them ever saw for faceoffs was Smith back in his rookie 2011-2012 year, when he averaged 5.54 faceoffs per game (in all situations) and hit at win% of 44.00%. Still, he did far better in the ozone specifically back then (59.50%) so that's a plus. Wilson hit a high of 4.23 faceoffs/game in 2013-2014 (again, in all situations), and did better with a 48.40% total win% including 65.00% in the OZONE. How well those numbers would hold up over the course of taking regular face-offs, who knows. Some guys get better as they go, others get worse.

Nevertheless, I wouldn't get too excited about either taking much of Ribeiro's faceoffs this season. For starters I'd guess we see Ribeiro/Fish swapped soon enough, but even if Ribeiro were to center Wilson/Smith for the balance of the season it's likely Ribeiro's OZONE performance will improve as he adapts to the rule changes (it's notable that just last year Ribeiro was actually 71.00% in the OZONE and 67.50% the year before - his 40.50% so far this year are far below his recent norm).

Besides, it appears to be Smith charged with covering for Ribeiro's ozone draws more so than Wilson (2 faceoffs), and Smith's 42.90% over 16 draws hasn't exactly been much of an upgrade to Ribeiro's 40.50% over 37 draws. Career wize, looking at overall performances (all zones, situations), Wilson and Smith don't appear to be much of an upgrade either (Wilson 46.60%, Ribeiro 44.50% career, Smith 42.50%).

Anyhow if one was looking at the trends so far this season and wanted to maximize the odds of getting possession off the draw in the key zones, then

> neither Ribeiro or Jarnkrok would be allowed to take defensive zone faceoffs

> only Fisher and Jarnkrok would be taking offensive zone faceoffs

 

[Pred303]

I thought we might see a few lineup changes for tomorrow night after seeing so many of our key guys struggling to score recently and then being shutout. Normally you see shutouts as catalysts to tweek your lines. this was a strange shutout though and lavy's post game comments make me wonder if he does anything yet.

personally I think it's time to go back to;
Forsberg-ribs-neal
Wilson-fisher-smith
and give that another quick look. maybe ribs can get neal and Forsberg going again, and maybe fisher can do the same for smith-Wilson. ribs just seems to compliment those two better and fisher seems to do the same for that 2nd unit. at least that's what we saw in a full season..

think I would also seriously consider flipping ribs and fish for each other again on the pp.

 

[Pred303]

and mike, I get what you're hinting at, that the third line should get more offensive zone starts. if Wilson is kept on that third line I wouldn't disagree with that. but Wilson almost surely won't stay on the third line long unless someone suddenly lights it up on the second. I expect Wilson to be moved back to that second unit very soon.

you're at a disadvantage here, having to base your ideas on these first 13 games stats. and those stats have been exceptionally weak for sure. however, others of us have watched these other guys for a long time and know the capabilities of the 6 top line guys when things click, as they did for long periods last year. take who should get offensive zone draws for example. just looking at faceoff stats and this years sorry offensive forward numbers I understand you saying jarnkrok should get more offensive zone starts than riberio whichever of the top two lines he's centering when you look at face off % and this years small stat sample of goals scored. a line taking an offensive draw with Ribeiro might only have a 40% chance of winning the initial draw versus jarnkrok at 50% or better. and that sounds huge. but we've seen past performance where Ribeiro's line might have a 10% less chance of winning the draw than our third line, but still that shift knowing that the first or second group still had at least twice the chance of actually scoring a goal that same shift, won draw or not.

until that other forward with enough offensive talent is found or promoted to either fill 2nd or 3rd line left wing roles I just don't see it changing. in my mind we simply don't have enough offensive talent right now on the roster to spread the ones we do across three lines. we tried the exact same thing multiple times last year and it always wound up failing for the exact same reason.

 

[NSH615]

303, the shutout was weird because they put up 45 shots with at least half of those being quality shots and at least 20% of them being in the blue ice. They also hit like 5 pipes. Therefore it wasn't that the offense wasn't working, it was we played a hot goalie.

 

[sparkle twin]

I really like these frame by frame articles. So much more than I see trying to watch it all at one time.

Frame-by-frame analysis: bad power play

 

[Pred303]

sometimes you need a win more than others. tonight we just flat out need a win. a high scoring, dominating win. one that raises several key guys confidence level. We need multipoint games from several. we need one that gets our pp hot again. we need a win that gets us playing well through this home stretch. for the first time all year we've fallen below last year's goal scoring pace. rinne has fallen below last year's save %. the pk and pp are both struggling. neal has gone cold. Forsberg, smith, Wilson, Ribeiro, fisher are all significantly below last year's point paces. time to get it going

I don't worry over standings in November. In fact I hardly ever even look at them. You don't worry now about what other teams are doing or not doing. what you worry about is yourself and how we are playing. we're not chasing teams, win our own games and nothing else matters really. time to start our own winning streak. time to score some goals.

 

[mikemcburn]

and mike, I get what you're hinting at, that the third line should get more offensive zone starts. if Wilson is kept on that third line I wouldn't disagree with that. but Wilson almost surely won't stay on the third line long unless someone suddenly lights it up on the second. I expect Wilson to be moved back to that second unit very soon.

you're at a disadvantage here, having to base your ideas on these first 13 games stats. and those stats have been exceptionally weak for sure. however, others of us have watched these other guys for a long time and know the capabilities of the 6 top line guys when things click, as they did for long periods last year. take who should get offensive zone draws for example. just looking at faceoff stats and this years sorry offensive forward numbers I understand you saying jarnkrok should get more offensive zone starts than riberio whichever of the top two lines he's centering when you look at face off % and this years small stat sample of goals scored. a line taking an offensive draw with Ribeiro might only have a 40% chance of winning the initial draw versus jarnkrok at 50% or better. and that sounds huge. but we've seen past performance where Ribeiro's line might have a 10% less chance of winning the draw than our third line, but still that shift knowing that the first or second group still had at least twice the chance of actually scoring a goal that same shift, won draw or not.

until that other forward with enough offensive talent is found or promoted to either fill 2nd or 3rd line left wing roles I just don't see it changing. in my mind we simply don't have enough offensive talent right now on the roster to spread the ones we do across three lines. we tried the exact same thing multiple times last year and it always wound up failing for the exact same reason.

Maybe you're fixated on the 3rd line too much, 303, cuz you're subscribing thoughts to my comments that don't exist. The face-off look had nothing to do with lines or which line ought to get x zone starts, etc.

For greater certainty - my last reference to playing the puck possession odds went only to your 10 second comment and was based only upon the small sample size of this season so far. Sry, thought you'd have picked that up not only because I flagged it, but also because my preceding comments essentially went over the contrast between Ribeiro's struggling start this year compared to his norm of recent years (which of course challenges the idea that either Wilson or Smith are likely to be relied upon to take Ribeiro's faceoffs "more and more", or even should be considering the lack of real upgrade their current or historical records indiciate).

Anyhow, cycling back to playing the possession odds, PL isn't shy about plugging a center out to take a timely draw (and then after the faceoff flip with the line's regular pivot). The fact Smith has taken some of Ribeiro's ozone draws suggests PL is also aware that despite historical records Ribeiro is getting off to a sluggish start this year. For both those reasons it's not crazy to imagine that he'll continue to look for the best chance to get possession off the draw by getting guys out there who are currently doing well in whichever situation. And in that case, well, fact is the better odds right now mean anyone but Ribeiro and Jarnkrok for dzone draws, while Fisher and Jarnkrok are the current best odds for the ozone draws.

I realize you're focused on the ozone stuff, but the dzone is of course at least equally important, and arguably more so for a team relying so heavily on Gaustad in a shut down role. Obviously Fisher has been used to to spot Gaustad for es dzone draws, I thought the fact Hodgson looks markedly better in the dzone (than he does in the ozone) was curious too, but more interesting was the big drop after Gaustad's 68%, Hodgson's 46% and Fisher's 40% - I mean the next guys taking regular dzone draws are Jarnkrok 29% and Riberio 15%.

You can nix thinking/ideas off the top because of the limited sample size only 13 games in, but going on to mention that the same thing was also a hole the year before negates the notion that it's merely a short term or temporary thing. You could also argue that team's faceoff ability as a whole is irrelevant on the basis that it's still winning games, etc. but I'd bet there are few gms and coaches who'd agree

Flipping over to roster needs, if you really want to talk about lines and gaps as a whole, as much as 1C or another offensive winger are on the wish list, it wouldn't hurt to find a cheap "faceoff specialist"... A guy like Malhotra was for the Canadians last year ($850k, low end 4th line minutes as a gap filler but a true "defensive specialist" for 1st PK duty, iced in every game or zone situation for his draw reliability). I'm not advocating Malhotra himself of course any more than I'm suggesting Poile should run out and find himself that type of guy. Nor am proposing that getting a real defensive specialist to ease up reliance on one key guy (Gaustad) should be a priority. I'm just throwing out ideas to knock around.

 

[Scoresberg]

Sissons recalled.

 

[NSH615]

Sissons recalled.

That's a little surprising. I would have expected Kamenev. I also wonder who is out.

 

[Yukon Cornellis]

That's a little surprising. I would have expected Kamenev. I also wonder who is out.

Hutton got moved to IR to make room.

 

[mikemcburn]

Sissons recalled.

Oooooo.... interesting.

Well, presumably not for tonight's game as Salomaki's insert has basically covered for Nystrom to this point anyway. But presuming Nystrom stays on IR a bit then it's maybe a little bit hopeful that the new kid may see a game before being shipped back. I'm curious about him.

 

[Byrddog]

Interesting one has to start thinking there rotating the young guys up to consider trade value.

 

[Pred303]

I don't see it that way at all, both salamaki and now sissons were first call ups because both were playing the best hockey in MIL at the time and were really recalled to replace guys on the 3rd and 4th lines and not the top two line higher skill positions. if any of the top 6 go down I would expect a fiala/moses/Kamenev call up, but not for a Nystrom. like most injury call ups, you call up a guy who can play similar roles to the guy they are replacing.

again, add in on Sissons that he had a good camp and scored a couple of goals in the early preseason games.

 

[mikemcburn]

Yup, it's not that guys ever get shuffled to account for a hole anywhere in the lineup, Salomaki was recalled to directly replace Nystrom - that's why the kid has been playing a 4th line shut down role and getting double-shifted on the PK

 

[mikemcburn]

A possibly interesting read on goal scoring droughts throughout the NHL (with a bit of a bent toward the Leafs' woes this early season as the article was drafted for a Canadian paper) -

http://news.nationalpost.com/sports...-in-scoring-drought-as-nhl-sees-drop-in-goals

Through Sunday’s games, goals per game have dropped this season to 5.28. Of particular concern is the trend of lower scoring happening early in the season.

Traditionally, higher scoring games are registered in the first half of the season with offence becoming tighter as the season heads into the months of February, March and April.