Sharks playoff grades

[Juxtaposer]

Where are you getting those stats for Burns and Vlassic?? Or like what is "on the ice for" you are basing this on.

Naturalstattrick shows:

5v5- GF GA ES/ GF GA All Situations/ GF GA
Vlassic- 5 - 4 / 6 - 6 / 8-11
Burns- 6 - 8/ 7 - 11/ 14-14

So wildly different for Vlassic, but similar for Burns at ES.



I agree Vlassic doesn't deserve an A or B, but for what was expected of them both, Vlassic did his job better than Burns did.

Burns barely outproduced Vlassic at ES/60, while playing infinitely worse defense.

I might even agree with you to trade Vlassic over Burns, but that isn't an argument for them having played equally good/bad these playoffs.

ps.- You posted again while I was writing this. Vlassic has significantly better stats away from Braun then with him. So I dont know that mocking, or being facetious towards a poster for saying Braun might be hurting that pairing is really warranted. Might be quite an oversimplification, but not some far out theory worthy of derision.

I was neither mocking or deriding a poster nor being facetious. I was simply stating the fact whenever the Vlasic-Braun pairing performs poorly, everyone around here is quick to blame Braun and absolve Vlasic of all fault.

I might even have implied that Braun isn’t a pylon that needs to be babysat. I know, a truly hot take.

I’ve also stated multiple times in this forum in the past year that the Vlasic-Braun pairing is no good and that the best solution is trading Braun and finding a new partner for Vlasic. I stand by that. But my point is that Vlasic is never blamed for his shortcomings. He can do no wrong for most posters around here.

 

[Mattb124]

These boards are way too hard on Labanc. You guys might not see it yet, but if Hertl is the new Jumbo Joe, then Labanc is our future Pavelski. The fact that he put up 40 points and a full season at 22 is insane. I promise you, he is gonna work with the same trainer Tierney did, and have a monster season next year. Watching him on the PP, you see just how good a player he can be. 1v1, in the corners, he doesn’t have the size yet. He will lose those battles until he adds some mass. I have no doubt that the organization makes that their top priority for him over the summer.

He has a lot of potential, great vision, passing and shot. He really needs to figure out how to use those skills in tight spaces and with limited time. IMO he is 2 years away from taking a big step in his development.

 

[Bizz]

There’s another one: blaming Braun whenever that pairing does poorly.

look at this video, now tell me that Braun wasn't in f***ing no man's land while Marchessault walks right in and scores.

 

[Dicdonya]

I was neither mocking or deriding a poster nor being facetious. I was simply stating the fact whenever the Vlasic-Braun pairing performs poorly, everyone around here is quick to blame Braun and absolve Vlasic of all fault.

I might even have implied that Braun isn’t a pylon that needs to be babysat. I know, a truly hot take.

I’ve also stated multiple times in this forum in the past year that the Vlasic-Braun pairing is no good and that the best solution is trading Braun and finding a new partner for Vlasic. I stand by that. But my point is that Vlasic is never blamed for his shortcomings. He can do no wrong for most posters around here.

Whelp, clearly I had not previously read that opinion, and the way in which you responded sounded flippant and mocking. So my apologies if I misunderstood the intent, and certainly didn't know the backstory for the response.

I agree mostly with what you said then. Moving along

 

[Sharks96]

Basic stats won’t take you very far analyzing a player...

Advanced stats don’t always lead to results. Do players get signed because they got a nice corsi?

 

[Juxtaposer]

Advanced stats don’t always lead to results. Do players get signed because they got a nice corsi?

Yes they do. Corsi is on the NHL.com website and therefor can be used in arbitration cases.

 

[TomasHertlsRooster]

Where are you getting those stats for Burns and Vlassic?? Or like what is "on the ice for" you are basing this on.

Naturalstattrick shows:

5v5- GF GA ES/ GF GA All Situations/ GF GA
Vlassic- 5 - 4 / 6 - 6 / 8-11
Burns- 6 - 8/ 7 - 11/ 14-14

So wildly different for Vlassic, but similar for Burns at ES.



I agree Vlassic doesn't deserve an A or B, but for what was expected of them both, Vlassic did his job better than Burns did.

Burns barely outproduced Vlassic at ES/60, while playing infinitely worse defense.

I might even agree with you to trade Vlassic over Burns, but that isn't an argument for them having played equally good/bad these playoffs.

ps.- You posted again while I was writing this. Vlassic has significantly better stats away from Braun then with him. So I dont know that mocking, or being facetious towards a poster for saying Braun might be hurting that pairing is really warranted. Might be quite an oversimplification, but not some far out theory worthy of derision.

Sorry, I was saying that those are Vlasic’s numbers for this series. Check Natural Stat Trick again and check the last 6 games. Those numbers were all strengths.

I think we all know that Braun hurts that pairing and we all agree that Vlasic deserves better deployment and a better partner. But Vlasic has clearly declined as well and he was a big part of why we lost this series.

 

[Used As A Shield]

Advanced stats don’t always lead to results. Do players get signed because they got a nice corsi?

Are you Demelo? All your post history makes it seem likely, if so welcome to the boards!

 

[Sharks96]

Are you Demelo? All your post history makes it seem likely, if so welcome to the boards!

Just defending a player that I feel is good who gets an unfair biased opinion on here.

 

[CaptainShark]

I wasn’t relying on advanced stats when I judged Demelo... i am more of an eye-test guy.

 

[Gecklund]

By the eye test DeMelo looked okay. Not great but not as awful as some people make him seem.

 

[WTFetus]

Are you Demelo? All your post history makes it seem likely, if so welcome to the boards!

96. Too young to be Demelo; too old to be Jack Deboer. I'm stumped.

By the eye test DeMelo looked okay. Not great but not as awful as some people make him seem.

By the eye-test, Demelo looked not terrible. I wouldn't call him okay. He collapses under any kind of pressure and handles the puck like a grenade. People are particularly frustrated because not only is there a more effective player in the press-box (Dillon-Heed was a far superior 3rd pairing by the eye-test and advanced stats), but there are better players in the actual line-up that Demelo played over.

That last part is on Deboer instead of Demelo, but he's a 6/7D who got to play Top 4 minutes.

 

[Alwalys]

Demelo was functional. That's about all you can say about him. He brought nothing special and nothing we needed. He didn't get completely caved and that is not an acceptable standard.

 

[Painful Quandary]

DeMelo is fine. The issue is that both him and Dillon are defensive defensemen. DeMelo would look good on a bottom-pair with an offensive defenseman partner.

 

[TomasHertlsRooster]

DeMelo is fine. The issue is that both him and Dillon are defensive defensemen. DeMelo would look good on a bottom-pair with an offensive defenseman partner.

No he wouldn’t. Dillon has done so multiple times. Dillon is a great partner for an undersized two-way RHD (which DeMelo is) because Dillon’s physicality allows him to absorb a lot more of the contact that would crush DeMelo because of his size. DeMelo would look good on a bottom pair with absolutely nobody and he only looks decent with Brenden Dillon because as he has proven throughout his entire tenure as a Shark, Brenden Dillon is a very solid, mobile #5 LHD who can be a part of one of the NHL’s best bottom pairs.

DeMelo was out on the 6-on-5 in the second biggest game of the season so let’s not call him a defensive defenseman. He is poor offensively, yet is deployed by DeBoer as our second best offensive defenseman and the QB of the 2nd PP unit; a couple of jobs in which he performs the opposite of admirably.

 

[Painful Quandary]

DeMelo was out on the 6-on-5 in the second biggest game of the season so let’s not call him a defensive defenseman. He is poor offensively, yet is deployed by DeBoer as our second best offensive defenseman and the QB of the 2nd PP unit; a couple of jobs in which he performs the opposite of admirably.

This is a legitimate criticism of DeBoer, he has poor personnel decisions and is never proactive about changing personnel (how many games did Paul Martin play against Vegas). The fact that DeMelo got thrown out there is absolute insanity, it would be like if TMac threw out Scott Hannan in that situation. What makes DeBoer's decision all the more frustrating is that we do have a legit 2nd PP unit QB sitting the pressbox (I think we all know who).

 

[LA Shark]

We played Vegas 10 times this year. We won 3 times...maybe it's possible Vegas was just better than us this year...

It took me a long time to admit it, but when you play a team 10 times and win 3 games and that team had more regular season points, they're the better team.

Not sure this is the proper thread for this, but all the complaing/excuses made me want to express it. Dont get me wrong, I dont think we played our best hockey all series or even iced our best team for the first 3 games, but at some point you have to tip your cap and admit they just plain out beat us 7 out of 10 times this year.

 

[Sharks96]

96. Too young to be Demelo; too old to be Jack Deboer. I'm stumped.



By the eye-test, Demelo looked not terrible. I wouldn't call him okay. He collapses under any kind of pressure and handles the puck like a grenade. People are particularly frustrated because not only is there a more effective player in the press-box (Dillon-Heed was a far superior 3rd pairing by the eye-test and advanced stats), but there are better players in the actual line-up that Demelo played over.

That last part is on Deboer instead of Demelo, but he's a 6/7D who got to play Top 4 minutes.

He played a little more in the playoffs but he certainly didn't play top 4 mins in the regular season. He had the lowest average ice time out of all the d. Only started playing PP consistently at the end too. I get he doesn't have the bomb Heed does but he has good instincts offensively and makes smart decisions. 0.3 points a game with the least amount of ice time/opportunities and only being 25 are all encouraging things but yet he's only a 6/7 in a lot of people's eyes which just puzzles me, he's an every day NHL player.

 

[Sharks96]

No he wouldn’t. Dillon has done so multiple times. Dillon is a great partner for an undersized two-way RHD (which DeMelo is) because Dillon’s physicality allows him to absorb a lot more of the contact that would crush DeMelo because of his size. DeMelo would look good on a bottom pair with absolutely nobody and he only looks decent with Brenden Dillon because as he has proven throughout his entire tenure as a Shark, Brenden Dillon is a very solid, mobile #5 LHD who can be a part of one of the NHL’s best bottom pairs.

DeMelo was out on the 6-on-5 in the second biggest game of the season so let’s not call him a defensive defenseman. He is poor offensively, yet is deployed by DeBoer as our second best offensive defenseman and the QB of the 2nd PP unit; a couple of jobs in which he performs the opposite of admirably.

That was a very puzzling move. DeMelo I can't remember being on the ice for a 6 on 5 all year yet put him out in game 5? Have to think Vlasic was either tired or banged up or something. We didn't call our timeout pretty sure so there wasn't a chance for guys to catch their breaths.

 

[TomasHertlsRooster]

That was a very puzzling move. DeMelo I can't remember being on the ice for a 6 on 5 all year yet put him out in game 5? Have to think Vlasic was either tired or banged up or something. We didn't call our timeout pretty sure so there wasn't a chance for guys to catch their breaths.

It was one of DeBoer’s many puzzling coaching decisions, mostly because DeMelo is terrible. You bring up points in defense of him but he scored pretty much all of those points against weak teams that the Sharks dominated after they got Kane.

Numbers don’t even matter with DeMelo because when you watch him, he is so clearly not an NHL player and he so clearly lacks NHL level confidence in his abilities, along with NHL level tools.

He has nothing going for him. 11 of DeMelo’s 20 points this season came against non-playoff teams and the other 9 came against teams that got destroyed in the first round. He is so obviously terrible that I don’t even care what his numbers say because I literally only have to watch him for 5 games to see that A) He is totally terrible, and B) I have seen enough games to know that what I’ve seen him of him wasn’t just random variance painting an unflattering picture of him. He is pretty much the opposite of McDavid; McDavid is a guy that is literally so phenomenal and so much better than everybody else that when you just watch him, you know that he is easily the best player in the NHL. It doesn’t even matter if Crosby’s 5V5 score adjusted reltXGF% is higher than McDavid’s because McDavid is literally so much better than everybody else that you just see it as soon as you watch.

DeMelo, on the other hand, is just so bad that you know as soon as you watch and unless he literally scores 20 goals as a defenseman (which would be exactly 20 more than he did score this year), I don’t care what his advanced metrics say, or how many phantom assists he gets, because I watch him and he just truly f***ing blows. All of HF feels the same way as well. But please don’t try to paint his numbers as being impressive because Tim Heed’s numbers were so much better with Brenden Dillon and Dillon has shown consistently that he can be an elite 3rd pairing guy with the right partner.

 

[Alwalys]

We played Vegas 10 times this year. We won 3 times...maybe it's possible Vegas was just better than us this year...

It took me a long time to admit it, but when you play a team 10 times and win 3 games and that team had more regular season points, they're the better team.

Not sure this is the proper thread for this, but all the complaing/excuses made me want to express it. Dont get me wrong, I dont think we played our best hockey all series or even iced our best team for the first 3 games, but at some point you have to tip your cap and admit they just plain out beat us 7 out of 10 times this year.

or you could watch the games and see they weren't really all that much better. their system f***s with us bad though.

 

[tiburon12]

We played Vegas 10 times this year. We won 3 times...maybe it's possible Vegas was just better than us this year...

It took me a long time to admit it, but when you play a team 10 times and win 3 games and that team had more regular season points, they're the better team.

Not sure this is the proper thread for this, but all the complaing/excuses made me want to express it. Dont get me wrong, I dont think we played our best hockey all series or even iced our best team for the first 3 games, but at some point you have to tip your cap and admit they just plain out beat us 7 out of 10 times this year.

Nah, that's way too reasonable for HF.

 

[LA Shark]

or you could watch the games and see they weren't really all that much better. their system ****s with us bad though.

I watched every minute of every game. I dont think they were all that much better than us. Just a little better than us overall. Goalie is part of the team too. Fluery was noticeably better than Jones all series. Half the time we outplayed them we had nothing to show for it thanks to Fluery. I picked the Sharks to win the series. I continued to believe they would win the series until game 6. But after them taking the last 2 in a row, outplaying us in a home elimination game, winning the regular season series and postseason series, I have no choice but to concede that they were the better team. Even if very slightly and due in large part to their superior goal tender, but better none the less.

 

[Alwalys]

I watched every minute of every game. I dont think they were all that much better than us. Just a little better than us overall. Goalie is part of the team too. Fluery was noticeably better than Jones all series. Half the time we outplayed them we had nothing to show for it thanks to Fluery. I picked the Sharks to win the series. I continued to believe they would win the series until game 6. But after them taking the last 2 in a row, outplaying us in a home elimination game, winning the regular season series and postseason series, I have no choice but to concede that they were the better team. Even if very slightly and due in large part to their superior goal tender, but better none the less.

Does the record show that goaltender to be superior or did he just have a timely stretch of excellent play?

 

[LA Shark]

Does the record show that goaltender to be superior or did he just have a timely stretch of excellent play?

That's a valid point. Personally I believe that Fluery is the better goal tender. Numbers wise I believe their career save % is very close but fluery was higher this year. True Fluery isnt better than Jones to the point that he appeared in this series. So I'll say when we played them this year, I thought they were the slightly better team, and I really did think we were the better team going in. But at this point I just dont think it's fair to say they weren't better than us this year. As Bill Parcels said, "you are what your record says you are." Haha