Player Discussion: Patrik Laine Part VII: Eliitti! - Mod Warning Post #79

[YWGinYYZ]

Thread continued from: http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=2209473


Some posts from the last thread to get us started.

Well, if Laine's better than McDavid then he just plain is better...

You could argue that Ovechkin in his prime coupled with some slight, further improvements(Even in his prime there certainly was room for improvement) could have been better than McDavid / Crosby.

This elite / generational labeling with "one will never touch the other" is more than silly at this point.

Kovy was an amazing hockey player until he left for Russia.....can you imaging a young Kovy on this Jets team . Patrik will carve his own path and I am really interested to see that unfold in Winnipeg for the next decade. All I want is a cup parade in Winnipeg before I die please.

I'm not sure where this "center is way more important position than any other position"-strong claims really come from. Seems to me though that this is a more North American thing than European.

I think in Finland the best players have usually been wingers (Kurri, Selänne, Tikkanen, Laine and many others), and I think this pretty much applies to Russia also (Kharlamov, Krutov, Makarov, Mogilny, Bure, Ovechkin, Panarin, Kucherov, etc.).

Tappara won FEL championship last and previous seasons with wingers being clearly their best players. And this hasn't been at all rare in FEL or KHL. I think Sweden might be more like North America in this matter, but I don't think even Swedes are overappreciating the center position in the way that so many North Americans are doing.

I think this is more a cultural issue which has to do with the fact that some countries just happened to get their all time best players as centers, which then after all automatically made especially those countries appreciate the center position way more than other positions.

I honestly believe that there is no single position more important than the others. If you have good enough players at any positions, your team can do really well. The most important thing is to have width, balance, great coaching and great team chemistry in your team. If you don't have all these, it is quite unlikely for your team to do well.

Well it's even more strange considering the fact that this decade alone, a team's won 3 cups being lead by an offensive winger.

I don't put a whole lot of value towards C over W, personally. Even more so when it comes to specifically offensively elite players. The center position's defensive requirements restrict the freedom quite a bit - In fact, very recently Granlund started performing much better after being moved to the wing.

Blackhawks with their Panarin-Anisimov-Kane line have been employing the "2 elite offensive wingers with a defensive C" layout which I find more optimal - The wingers are allowed offensive freedom whereas the C does his job without limiting his own offensive potential.

When C is the most defensively important role in the game(for the forward line), why do you even want a super offensive player there instead of a player who plays to the position's strengths? You think about players like Eichel, even Stamkos or Seguin - There's a clear trade off in defensive ability for that position. I think that having an offensive specialist as the C instead of W is a waste of defensive potential.


In my opinion, this is outdated thinking and people will catch on... With time.

Click to read more...

 

[Aavco Cup]

This explains everything

https://www.illuminatiofficial.org

 

[Asiantuntija]

Patrik Laine and Connor McDavid will battle about Art Ross next season. Good times coming for our team.

 

[nobody important]

The whole issue of center vs winger aside, how about we wait and see what Laine does in his second season before we start declaring him on a par or above McDavid? I'm as big a Laine fan as anyone, but I'm not going to set myself up for disappointment with unrealistic expectations. Keep in mind he is not a one man show. His success is based on the success of those around him, and on coaching decisions beyond his control.

 

[grieves]

The whole issue of center vs winger aside, how about we wait and see what Laine does in his second season before we start declaring him on a par or above McDavid? I'm as big a Laine fan as anyone, but I'm not going to set myself up for disappointment with unrealistic expectations. Keep in mind he is not a one man show. His success is based on the success of those around him, and on coaching decisions beyond his control.

This was exactly my line of thinking until I realized that there are legitimate patterns to this game.

Its not about being so excited about Laine that you need to surround yourself with other idiots and just make stuff up. Its about recognizing a pattern and then getting excited because the data shows that there is reason to get excited.

I used to call these guys complete morons because it FEELS so ridiculous what they are saying. But if I allow feelings to get in the way of rational thinking, then I would be disappointed in myself.

 

[psycho_dad*]

We don't know the future but past tells us so far he has been on par and even better than McDavid if you look at wjc-u20, whc and nhl rookie season.

So if one wants to predict using available data as indicator, it backs up the high expectations.

 

[mcpw]

He's literally McDavid.

 

[grieves]

I may be way off here but I hope this is not starting to be about a Finn stepping on the toes of a Canadian, where even Jets fans are not happy about it. I would have zero clue but I hope we are measuring individuals without looking at their nationalities.

 

[grieves]

We don't know the future but past tells us so far he has been on par and even better than McDavid if you look at wjc-u20, whc and nhl rookie season.

So if one wants to predict using available data as indicator, it backs up the high expectations.

I know what you mean but I dont think saying Laine had a better d+1 season is correct without getting into it more. Technically you are correct but I would say that McDs season was inconclusive as he only played half of it. The half he did play, he was killing it. Ppg-wise no contest. All things considered its absolutely Laine.

Just be careful not to misrepresent yourself on such a volatile subject.

 

[psycho_dad*]

You are correct, McDavid rookie season was a bit inconclusive

 

[garret9]

McDavid just put up the 4th best ever GAR season we have recorded (going back to the 2009-10 season), 24.6 GAR. That would be 0.3 GAR/GP.

In his rookie season he put up a 10.81 GAR season per 45 games, 0.24 GAR/GP.

To compare, Laine 6.7 per 73, or 0.09 GAR/GP.
To compare, Matthews 9.3 per 82, or 0.11 GAR/GP.

Don't get me wrong, Laine and Matthews are both elite, exceptional, young talents. Anything could happen, but McDavid is tracking to be the best player since Crosby, maybe slightly better.

 

[19GoalsInPlayoffs]

McDavid just put up the 4th best ever GAR season we have recorded (going back to the 2009-10 season), 24.6 GAR. That would be 0.3 GAR/GP.

In his rookie season he put up a 10.81 GAR season per 45 games, 0.24 GAR/GP.

To compare, Laine 6.7 per 73, or 0.09 GAR/GP.
To compare, Matthews 9.3 per, or 0.11 GAR/GP.

Don't get me wrong, Laine and Matthews are both elite, exceptional, young talents. Anything could happen, but McDavid is tracking to be the best player since Crosby, maybe slightly better.

As you know, GAR is quite controversial... it has flaws as any adv stats. Nice to know and usable - yes, but to use GAR to say that McDavid is the best player since Crosby is quite - well - odd. McDavids GAR happens to be very high, and he happens to be "the best player since Crosby".

If you got very high GAR it is more likely that you are very good player, but if your GAR is lower, it doesn't mean that you are not. Correlation does not imply causation. Not even in GAR.

http://hockeyanalysis.com/2017/04/02/gar-what-is-it-good-for/

 

[Gm0ney]

As you know, GAR is quite controversial... it has flaws as any adv stats. Nice to know and usable - yes, but to use GAR to say that McDavid is the best player since Crosby is quite - well - odd. McDavids GAR happens to be very high, and he happens to be "the best player since Crosby".

If you got very high GAR it is more likely that you are very good player, but if your GAR is lower, it doesn't mean that you are not. Correlation does not imply causation. Not even in GAR.

http://hockeyanalysis.com/2017/04/02/gar-what-is-it-good-for/

McDavid's GAR lead is so big that the stat would have to be simultaneously way underestimating Laine and way overestimating McDavid. I love Laine, but McD is on another level.

 

[19GoalsInPlayoffs]

McDavid's GAR lead is so big that the stat would have to be simultaneously way underestimating Laine and way overestimating McDavid. I love Laine, but McD is on another level.

In GAR, yes.

And don't get me wrong. McDavid might be the best player since [insert name here]. And GAR is quite nice way of looking hockey players as "total packages". I don't even mean that McDavid isn't better player at the moment. I just don't buy that another level stuff. They are playing in differently coached teams, in different positions. And are different kind of players.

Everything so far just points out that Laine might have a very bright future in this thing called ice hockey. Even as bright as McDavid. I sincerely hope that _both_ of them can and will pursue to be the best hockey player in the world.

 

[nobody important]

I may be way off here but I hope this is not starting to be about a Finn stepping on the toes of a Canadian, where even Jets fans are not happy about it. I would have zero clue but I hope we are measuring individuals without looking at their nationalities.

No no no. Nothing like that. I've just noticed some of the more optimistic predictions for Laine tend to come from his countrymen. And women. Personally, I hope Laine is not better than McDavid but it has nothing to do with Canadian vs Finn. It has everything to do with how much it would cost us to keep him.

 

[Ippenator]

No no no. Nothing like that. I've just noticed some of the more optimistic predictions for Laine tend to come from his countrymen. And women. Personally, I hope Laine is not better than McDavid but it has nothing to do with Canadian vs Finn. It has everything to do with how much it would cost us to keep him.

Well I'm a Finnish fan and I can admit that for sure my nationality does have at least some effect on how positively I see Laine's future. Part of it is though the fact that I have been watching very intensively Laine play for almost three years now, and during those three years I have been able to compare him to all the other very promising Finns that I have followed during the over 30 years that I have been following Finnish and international hockey, and he has impressed me during the last two years more than any other Finnish or even European young player that I have seen during this time.

I have seen his special skills and I have also realized how highly motivated and devoted he is for developing himself constantly. I have seen the similar things recently in Sebastian Aho, but I have not seen it in the so much hyped and praised Barkov or Granlund. So I do really think that there is something more into what I see in Laine than just some Finnish hockey fan's hype. As a remark also that I absolutely hate and despise the team (Tappara) that Laine played for in FEL, as I have been always an enthusiastic fan of Tappara's rival Ilves, and it has always been a pain for me to see Tappara win FEL championships. But when I see someone as good and special as Laine, I just can't be without admiring him as a player.

 

[DeepFrickinValue]

McLaine sounds like a good irish ladd.

 

[garret9]

As you know, GAR is quite controversial... it has flaws as any adv stats. Nice to know and usable - yes, but to use GAR to say that McDavid is the best player since Crosby is quite - well - odd. McDavids GAR happens to be very high, and he happens to be "the best player since Crosby".

If you got very high GAR it is more likely that you are very good player, but if your GAR is lower, it doesn't mean that you are not. Correlation does not imply causation. Not even in GAR.

http://hockeyanalysis.com/2017/04/02/gar-what-is-it-good-for/

Ya, GAR has its weaknesses, and I have noted them here and how to appropriately use the number... that said, my advisement would be to not use David Johnson as evidence on too much. That article is weak at best. He's the king of sample manipulation, cherry picking, and straw man arguments.



GAR's weakness is that it is inexact. It's imprecise. It's an estimate.

It's also the best estimate we currently have. No other stat comes close. The issue is that people look at something that doesn't cover the whole picture and complain/ignore it despite it covering a huge chunk of the whole picture.

The worst bit of that debate is Johnson follows it up with stats he'd prefer that all have proven to be less effective.

So, McDavid's season being the 4th best in GAR doesn't mean it was perfectly the fourth best season. What it does mean that his season was ****ing really good and among some of the best over that time frame.
We can't say exactly how good McDavid's rookie season was, but we can say with a great deal of confidence that his performance was a tier above Laine's or Matthews'.

Some quick advice on WAR:

“WAR is not meant to be a perfectly precise indicator of a player’s contribution, but rather an estimate of their value to date. Given the imperfections of some of the available data and the assumptions made to calculate other components, WAR works best as an approximation. WAR is trying to answer the time-honored question: How valuable is each player to his team? Comparing two players offensively is useful, but it discounts the potential contribution a player can make by saving runs on defense or special teams. WAR is a simple attempt to combine a player’s total contribution into a single value.

The goal of WAR is to provide a holistic metric of player value that allows for comparisons across teams and years and a framework for player evaluation. While there will likely be improvements to the process by which we calculate the inputs of WAR, the basic idea is something fans and analysts have desired for decades. WAR estimates a player’s total value and allows us to make comparisons among players with vastly different skill sets.

“Given the nature of the calculation and potential measurement errors, WAR should be used as a guide for separating groups of players and not as a precise estimate. For example, a player that has been worth 2.4 WAR and a player that has been worth 2.1 WAR over the course of a season cannot be distinguished from one another using WAR. It is simply too close for this particular tool to tell them apart. WAR can tell you that these two players are likely about equal in value, but you need to dig deeper to separate them.

However, a 2.4 WAR player and a 0.5 WAR player are different enough that you can have a high level of confidence that the first player has been more valuable to their team over the given season”

 

[grieves]

Ya, GAR has its weaknesses, and I have noted them here and how to appropriately use the number... that said, my advisement would be to not use David Johnson as evidence on too much. That article is weak at best. He's the king of sample manipulation, cherry picking, and straw man arguments.



GAR's weakness is that it is inexact. It's imprecise. It's an estimate.

It's also the best estimate we currently have. No other stat comes close. The issue is that people look at something that doesn't cover the whole picture and complain/ignore it despite it covering a huge chunk of the whole picture.

The worst bit of that debate is Johnson follows it up with stats he'd prefer that all have proven to be less effective.

So, McDavid's season being the 4th best in GAR doesn't mean it was perfectly the fourth best season. What it does mean that his season was ****ing really good and among some of the best over that time frame.
We can't say exactly how good McDavid's rookie season was, but we can say with a great deal of confidence that his performance was a tier above Laine's or Matthews'.

Some quick advice on WAR:

Oh yeah bring it on, I love learning about this game.

Q1: you said McD just put up a season, does that mean you are taking into account a season where Laine has had nothing to say yet comparatively? D+1 vs d+2?

Q2: should you consider GAR relevant for a forward under the age of 23 since physical development is such a wild card?

Q3: European vs NA, is this accounted for in any way?

 

[garret9]

Oh yeah bring it on, I love learning about this game.

Q1: you said McD just put up a season, does that mean you are taking into account a season where Laine has had nothing to say yet comparatively? D+1 vs d+2?

Q2: should you consider GAR relevant for a forward under the age of 23 since physical development is such a wild card?

Q3: European vs NA, is this accounted for in any way?

1) I just meant that McDavid has been so good, it's unlikely anyone touches him with how he's been going. I had shown McDavids D+1 and D+2 years to Matthews and Laine.

2) Yes, you should at least take into consideration. It's just that Laine and Matthews posted elite numbers for young rookies, and McDavid was a whole another level. That's not defining of the 3, but it still tells you something.

Age curves help us project, although we still have a lot to improve upon those.

We do have some trends to go on:
Elite players peaks are much longer
Physical player's peaks are much shorter and decline out faster
Different skill sets last longer
Etc.
But there is definitely more we could learn.

Anything is possible, but not all is most probable.

3) No. We do not account for this, yet. This is one thing you could add to the list that we do not account for yet.

My experience has been though that people way over state experience. It matters, no question... but age and physical abilities seem to be the biggest factor.



See, this is FAR better criticism than Johnson gave. And some I don't have answers for.

 

[garret9]

I should also point out, one of the criticisms of GAR has been it undervaluing the tails, like McDavid, and distributing that to linemates.

 

[psycho_dad*]

I do not find the different level in past accomplishments. No matter how much people keep claiming it's there

 

[19GoalsInPlayoffs]

GAR's weakness is that it is inexact. It's imprecise. It's an estimate.

It's also the best estimate we currently have. No other stat comes close. The issue is that people look at something that doesn't cover the whole picture and complain/ignore it despite it covering a huge chunk of the whole picture.

The worst bit of that debate is Johnson follows it up with stats he'd prefer that all have proven to be less effective.

Well, I'm not going to join the Johnson bashing, but as you said GAR is an estimate. You should always use it with grain of salt. Like every other adv stat out there.

Hockey is a very complicated sport and it is played with so little margins that you just can't extract all the decisive factors in to numbers. There have been plenty of very good players, elite or generational even, who are or were of utmost importance to their teams and wouldn't have gotten near the McDavids GAR numbers.

Does that mean that McDavid is on another level compared to them? And might I ask what that "level" is and how important that "level" is for a game called ice hockey?

I don't mean GAR doesn't work. I'm just saying GAR is just one stat that might help you to see something in players you might not notice without it.

For example if you'd pick the 20 best GAR players of their position to an one team, you'd probably get one helluva team, but it might not even get you in to the playoffs. It certainly would not guarantee any of your players or your team the Rocket, Hart or any of the "important stuff". And strangely most of the "top GAR" team players would see their GAR drop singnifically after one season together. Would that mean that they have gotten so much worse with all the other "top GARs"? Or just imply the shortcomings of that individual stat...

To keep this on topic; even as Laine would never get near McDavids GAR numbers he might still one day be discussed as one of the greatest players. Or might not. Only the future will tell (not the GAR ).

 

[WPGChief]

Well, I'm not going to join the Johnson bashing, but as you said GAR is an estimate. You should always use it with grain of salt. Like every other adv stat out there.

Hockey is a very complicated sport and it is played with so little margins that you just can't extract all the decisive factors in to numbers.

You are quite literally talking to the guy whose company's sole purpose is to do just that. (And, day-by-day, is likely getting there.)

There have been plenty of very good players, elite or generational even, who are or were of utmost importance to their teams and wouldn't have gotten near the McDavids GAR numbers.

Those are the Thorburn types right?

For example if you'd pick the 20 best GAR players of their position to an one team, you'd probably get one helluva team, but it might not even get you in to the playoffs.

I was bored. Some positions may be off, but here's a general idea.

To keep this on topic; even as Laine would never get near McDavids GAR numbers he might still one day be discussed as one of the greatest players.

You will maybe see Laine put up good Even Strength Offence and better PP Offence GAR metrics (as time goes on), but McDavid is just so damn incredible at creating even strength offence. Let's not forget that Laine played the entire season at the age of 18 and scored a **** ton of goals - and also not forget that McDavid even better and was only hurt by the fact he was injured and missed games.

 

[19GoalsInPlayoffs]

You are quite literally talking to the guy whose company's sole purpose is to do just that. (And, day-by-day, is likely getting there.

Yes _I_ do know with whom I am discussing this with .

It would be nice to know for example Brett Hulls (Thorburn of his time ) GAR. Unfortunately it is not possible to have that.

And as I said you'd get a helluva team with the top 20 GAR. But there are couple of odd figures there, which just might be the black holes of that team. Of course it might be quite hard to not get in to the playoffs with both Crosby and McDavid in the team, but for example the team chemistry with this lot might not be optimal... Hockey is not basketball, you don't get top results with just couple of superstars (sometimes even playing just for "themselves").

By the way, it would really be very interesting to see how would Sids and Connors GAR look like after a season played together (the one in the 2nd line, the other in the 1st). It might work (Gretzky-Messier) or it might not ([insert any two superstars in the same team not delivering here])

And as I said most of those players would see their GAR drop significally after the first season together. I do believe you know the reason for this not being their talent level dropping. So that alone gives you a hint of the shortcomings of GAR.

One thing that will probably affect the GAR of Laine is his high shot quality. If Laine really does got very high and sustainable shooting precentage - he really might have those- he will not be getting as high CF numbers he "should" be getting based on his goalscoring ability. But this is also the things that only the future will show.