Baemon Severson*
N1CO!!!
It's gonna be a fad in the NHL or at the most less useful because it's a free flowing game. Analytics is perfect for baseball and football. I know every team has a analytic department but it's never going to overtake traditional stats and actually watching the game and players I bet there's never been a trade cancelled last second cause the player was bad at a certain analytic. At most it will have 25% of the importance in player evaluation.
As for Severson vs Lovejoy defensively, both have played the same amount of mins. Severson leads every negative "defense stats"; giveaways, TA-GA differential, is -25 which is so bad, 150% worse than the next defensman. Lovejoy in the same amount of time is a -4, has double the blocked shots, more hits, less turnovers and better TO-GA differential. Lovejoy just does his job, he's nothing special. Both players will be better next year with reduced minutes from Santini stepping up or a signing.
It pissed me off I have to bad mouth Severson who is actually one of my favorite players. However I'll never lie to myself about a player. A player is what he is and he's hopefully gonna be our 2nd pairing RHD and PP QB for years. But he needs to improve defensively. Santini is so much better in that aspect and it's so obvious, I thank god we have him cause what I was seeing from Severson was actually atrocious. Just sick of this ******** witch hunt against Lovejoy.
Dude, there is literally not one thing Lovejoy excels at. He's slow, he treats the puck like it's herpes, his stickwork isn't good, he goes out of position to make hits, he screens our goalies like it's no one's business. There is a reason why the Devils get torched a ES when he's on the ice. He is garbage. You can be a useful defensive dman like Santini if you can skate and move the puck at a passable level. He can't