People have this mindset where you get a bunch of points any other issues in your game are forgiven.
Better than scoring few points and still having issues in your game, i.e. RNH.
Then if you don't get points to a high extent it's either all about the defensive game or being big and hitting things, but most people don't really understand what good defense is so they look for faceoff winning percentage cause that's what people on TV praise good defensive centers for when there is far more to it then that.
RNH is neither bad nor great when it comes to his defensive acumen; faceoffs are just one part of the picture, but for being deployed in the role he is you'd hope he would be better at that particular facet of the game.
Regardless of what the points say when you look at the player as the sum of his parts, RNH is presently the 2nd best forward on our team.
Let's pretend this is true; why, then, do you not have a problem with one of the team's highest-paid players and 2nd best forward being deployed as a shutdown center? Surely that's not the best use of either that money or his talent?
To the bolded, if anything his low shooting % is an indication that things will pick up. He's not going to be shooting at 6% under his career average forever.
You just made my point for me. He's shooting at an unsustainably bad percentage. If/when he gets it back to normal, look out, especially since he seems to miss the net a lot less than the other highly paid guys (Ebs and Looch).
Addressing these together, since they hit on the same point- even if you doubled his shooting percentage, he'd have a whopping three more goals/points. That's still a sub-50 point pace over 82 games, which RNH won't play anyway as he never has.
A big part of his lack of production has been his line mates. Pouliot has been completely ineffective, and his right wing has consisted of Puljujarvi when he was playing quite poorly, Slepyshev when he was playing quite poorly, Kassian who is not a top 6er, and Eberle who has struggled immensely this year at hitting the net
If RNH has to be carried around by his linemates at this stage of his career, we have much bigger problems than just his salary.
If you've watched the last 4 games with Maroon-Nuge-Eberle as a line and don't think that line is on the verge of exploding then I don't know what to tell you.
Exploding in the sense of one game and then disappearing for another 20, or sustained success?
Nuge finally has line mates who are actually creating scoring chances this year. Once the 3 of them get a little puck luck and snap out of their funk (in Eberle and Nuge's case) I don't think its any stretch to think that Nuge could put up 35-40 points in the final 60 games.
So you don't think it's a stretch RNH reaches less than his career high, and a number just above his career low over 50+ games... oi.
None of these guys face competition even close to what RNH has through this season, which severely discredits those stats. Context is extremely important when you're talking about Corsi and the like.
Err, Staal, Anisimov and Stajan all have higher CF%RelTM than RNH. Hell, by that metric, Nic Dowd is also an equally effective player- same points, same CF%RelTM- at literally a tenth the price.
And outside of maybe Artem Anisimov, if you replace him with any of these players it is a significantly noticeable downgrade and the team suffers because of it. And not just because of what shows up on the stat sheet.
You keep talking about these magical things RNH does that happen off the stat sheet, but no level of advanced analytics can highlight what, exactly, they are. If you can't quantify it, it's pretty hard to argue it exists.
I agree the production is an issue, which is likely going to stabilize itself if he continues to play with Jordan Eberle, but your argument lies solely in his point production, which is tunnel-visioned.
What part of my continued analysis of his performance on BOTH sides of the puck would tell you I'm obsessed only with his offense? Maybe you keep missing it, but here is it again: my problem with him is not that he's disappeared offensively; it's that he's done so
while also not being anywhere close to elite defensively. If that's now his bread and butter, he needs to actually deliver. He's not.
So you're essentially saying Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is bordering on salary dump?
If his name was John Smith and he had back-to-back < 40 point seasons making $6M playing in a market like Florida or Phoenix, what would you consider him to be?
One of our HFOil's more articulate posters posted this the other day. Perhaps you have an opposing opinion.
http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=124804563&postcount=481
One can be articulate as all hell and still be incorrect. If we've stooped to the point that we're trying to hold RNH up against Couturier- a player who makes nowhere close to $6M as a power matchup center, just saying- and only just coming out even if not out-right losing in that comparison, we're in a worse place than I thought.
When considering pay, age, production, etc. etc. 10/10 times I would take Couturier as a defensive/top line matchup center over RNH.
In his first three years Nugent-Hopkins had 132 points in 182 games. If Draisaitl plays 82 games this year he will have played 191 NHL games and he would need to put up 56 points in his last 60 games this year to match Nuge's production up to the end of his ECL.
And that's not exactly out of the question for Draisaitl. He's shown himself to be a streaky offensive player before, and I'd argue even with his respectable start we've still not seen the best of him. However...
This year Draisaitl has exactly 1 more ES point than Nuge despite having easier opposition to play against and far less defensive responsibility. So I am curious why people think that he will deserve so much more than a guy like Nuge. Would it surprise me to see him get $6M on a long term deal. No. But I don't see a case for more.
You have to remember that the cap was $64M when RNH signed that seven-year extension. It's now $10M higher. Inflation alone will count for Draisaitl reaching $6M. After that? It's a matter of what he does the rest of this year. Should he go off and maintain a near-PPG pace you can bet he's going to be a tough sign.
Right now the Oilers cap structure looks very good going forward. The key really is the long term deals for Klefbom and Larsson,. Having your top pairing make a little over $8M is absolutely huge.
But the top four isn't done. A puckmover/offensive catalyst on the back end is still very much a requirement, and they aren't cheap- either in assets or real dollars. Look at what Burns just fetched.
Add in the fact that it looks like they will be able to replace guys like Hendricks and Letestu internally with cheap players and they have a lot of flexibility. If they need to shed a contract up front the primary candidate would be Pouliot.
Any dollars we save in a Pouliot will be eaten up in raises to those cheap (for now) internal players you mention. Pitlick won't make $725K forever- and, in fact, he's an RFA next summer.
Here is a possible roster based on what they have now.
Maroon (3.8M) McDavid (10M) Puljujarvi (.925M)
Lucic (6M) Nuge (6M) Eberle (6M)
Caggiula (1.75M) Draisaitl (6M) Pitlick (1.3M)
Slepyshev (1M) Khaira (.95M) Kassian (1.5M)
Lander (1M) Pakarinen (.9M)
Kelfbom (4.167M) Larsson (4.167M)
Sekera (5.5M) Russell (4.2M)
Nurse (3.8M) Davidson (2.25M)
Benning (1.25M)
Talbot (4.167M)
Brossoit (.9M)
Total = $77.425M
Space=$3.675M
You have the space to upgrade the defense.
For starters, I'm not sure why you think McDavid will be an easy sign at $10M. If he wins the Art Ross this year, which looks increasingly likely, that may very well be his
low end.
In addition, that team still doesn't have a puckmover- and still has one whole right-handed shot on the back end.
So, let's say you spend the $3M to upgrade on Russell... well, you're not done. Being that this is the 2018-19 season, you then need money at year-end to:
-Extend Puljujarvi
-Extend Eberle (or sign a replacement, who will cost more than $6M in an $81M cap world)
-Extend Talbot
And no, another $3M boost in the cap would not do it.
You have also made some generous approximations about the bottom six in assuming that all of Caggiula, Slepyshev, Pitlick, Khaira, Pakarinen and Lander are or remain NHL players, but do so just adequately enough that none of them break $2M in salary. There's a reason even fourth line guys like Hendricks get, for example, $1.85M; cheaper options are rarely worth the few dollars saved, even in such a limited role.
At the end of the day, that no other team rolls with three $6M centers should tell you something. It's not done because it's a daft idea, and cripples a club's cap position.
This last stat is simply bad use of numbers. Typically when a team is behind or playing badly they shorten the bench. Nuge also tends to play more when the opposition is very strong because he is the guy the coach trusts most on the ice against top players.
And yet the team loses when he's leaned on more. That's kind of my point.
So going off the Oilers site RNH had 3 points in those 8 games, was -2 and averaged 3.375 shots per game. My recollection is RNH was playing great and Draisaitl and McDavid weren't producing as much during the losing streak which is why RNH was playing more. So i looked at the stats. McDavid, Draisaitl and RNH each had 2 points in those 5 losses. RNH wasn't producing any worse in those games and in some cases was a main reason they were still in those games.
RNH should be producing more than the guys he's playing more than, don't you think? If he's not, that's absolutely another red flag.
As an example, if RNH isn't playing awesome do they even have a chance to lose it late like they did in New York against the Rangers?
Again, if our best argument in favor of RNH is "Well we needed him to lose that game close", I'm not seeing the advantage here.
I'm not saying they have cap space for all 3 centre's past next year but using a stat of what a team's record is when a player gets a certain ice time can be very misleading when not used in context.
It is what it is- there's no context or explaining needed. The team seems to do worse when he plays more, which is not something you want (or expect) from this seemingly beastly two-way center.
