TSN: The problems run deep in Ottawa

HSF

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Sep 3, 2008
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The team is just having a poor year especially Anderson and Karlsson. Do I think Anderson is done? No not at all. His mechanics and game are still there we see it in games like against Toronto. The team is just having a poor year. Pageau is gonna be bad forever? I doubt it
 

BatherSeason

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Jun 16, 2009
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And yet he wasn't coming out of the lineup. Coaching staff certainly wanted to shelter him, no argument there, but they also saw merit to what he brought. When we had a lead, he typically wasn`t involved in protecting it. When we needed offense though, he typically was. I suspect that during an prolonged offensive drought, he probably gets more icetime.

He rounded out the bottom pair nicely. We miss what he did for the bottom pair imo. When Chabot was on the bottom pair, he wasn't needed there, but now that Chabot has rightfully moved up, it sure would be nice to have the 10 mins Wideman could provide in games where we struggle to score.

I absolutely agree with everything you are saying I just don't think the coaching staff did. The only part I disagree with is the "coming out of the lineup" part. Him being used as a 7th dman or a forward on the 4th line wasn't going to continue. If everyone was healthy, he would probably have rotated in and out of the lineup with Claesson.
 

Micklebot

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Apr 27, 2010
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I absolutely agree with everything you are saying I just don't think the coaching staff did. The only part I disagree with is the "coming out of the lineup" part. Him being used as a 7th dman or a forward on the 4th line wasn't going to continue. If everyone was healthy, he would probably have rotated in and out of the lineup with Claesson.


Perhaps, but everyone hasn't been healthy, and that depth option helps. When Claesson was really struggling, Wideman likely gets another look. I also think his spot was more tied to Chabot, as they don't seem to like playing Claesson, Harpur or Boro on the right side.

In the end, we're left in a situation where it's entirely conditional on how Boucher would have deployed him, but we know that when he was healthy and in the lineup, despite his limited usage he was contributing. So perhaps you're right and Boucher would have scratched him, but in that event, we'd still be missing the contribution he had been providing in the games he did play prior to being injured.
 

CDN24

Registered User
Jun 17, 2009
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If you read the article he isn't saying Ottawa as a whole is worse offensively. He's saying that our bottom 6 relative to the rest of the league is trash offensively, which is a valid point. It's got nothing to do with last year vs. this year, and it has nothing to do with the top 6 forwards or with Karlsson. It's comparing this year's bottom 6 vs the rest of the league's bottom 6, and by that metric we're literally dead last.

A legit concern, and hardly one which you can discount by saying "cherry picked stats" given that all he did was add up every team's bottom 6 scoring and adjust for ice time.
I am usually not a fan of Yost's articles as they are overly simplistic telling you what and drawing poor conclusions without investigating the why. In this case he is not wrong he is saying that the bottom 6 scores at a rate that is last in the league- that's true. And the problem will not go away anytime soon as these guys are all under contract for at least one more year.

The return on moving most of them will be negligible as they are overpaid/term left. Doesn't matter that they gave burrows a no trade (that 2.5M for next year is effectively a no-trade clause).
 

tony d

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Jun 23, 2007
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Yeah, our team has a few issues. Goaltending is a big 1. Anderson is 37 in May and got to be thinking retirement. Condon shouldn't be a #1 goalie so we need to address goaltending. Defense is a ? mark as well, Methot's absence is greatly felt by the team as well.
 
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Sens of Anarchy

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Jul 9, 2013
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No.

Coaches match wherever they can regardless of whether it's a home game or a road game. The guy playing 10 minutes a night is playing against easier opposition. His per 60 is useless because it's not going to scale or be relevant. You're better off going points per game and comparing to other players in his line-up position (4th line, 3rd line or even better - checking line, energy line players, etc...).

They're not equally impressive. The guy playing 20 minutes a night is doing it against tougher competition. Do people not see the changes on the fly as soon as the zone is cleared because the coach doesn't like the unfavorable matchup? They're not going to make that change for the 10min per night guy and he will receive 'easier' minutes which provides better opportunities to score.

So if you look at those two players in your example and go "wow equally impressive" and then scale him up to ~15 minutes or ~20 minutes... his points per 60 is going to drop. What do you think that implies? They're not equal achievements. They are not equal players.

And it gets much more complex than this... which is why points per 60 or anything per 60 is worthless. You could only use these numbers to compare with players in a similar situation and at that point... why not use PPG?

If anything all this amateur analysis by Yost proves is that Boucher overplays his 3rd and 4th line and gives them too many minutes... and not this 'not carrying their weight relative to the bottom 6 of other teams' narrative.

If you want a clear example of this: Tom Pyatt plays roughly the same amount as Kevin Fiala (2nd line Nashville). Tom Pyatt is not deciding to be on the ice that often. The coaching staff is. Tom Pyatt has played with some of our skilled players. He's played in the grinding role. He's not scoring like Kevin Fiala with talent, he's not scoring like him without talent.

The TOI brings another metric into the PPG that give it more meaning .. in your example.. Neither in isolation tell you a whole bunch.
 

SPF6ty9

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Feb 22, 2016
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I mean there needs to be more research to go into the validity of his claims about the bottom 6. Much of our bottom 6 averages about 10 mins of their 60 min average playing shorthanded while Mark Stone is the only forward in the top 6 with any consistent shorthanded minutes. It is these sorts of comparisons to how other teams use their bottom 6 that would really be valuable.

That said, by the eye test, our bottom 6 sucks. Particularly now that we're lining up in more traditional lines instead of spreading out the fire power you can really see those lines struggle to set up offensively. As a budget team we need to be allocating our $$ priorities more to our Core players like Stone, Duchene, Hoffman and not to guys like Burrows who's value above replacement is minimal if not negative this year.
 

Knave

Registered User
Mar 6, 2007
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Ottawa
The TOI brings another metric into the PPG that give it more meaning .. in your example.. Neither in isolation tell you a whole bunch.

The problem is it's used to make an argument look more credible when it's incredibly flawed and more flawed than PPG.

Boucher plays his guys too much. That's not "Pyatt and Thompson and Dumont aren't carrying their weight"... it's "why is Boucher overplaying these guys relative to other coaches in the league who play players of their talent and line-up position much less?".
 

Sens of Anarchy

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Jul 9, 2013
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The problem is it's used to make an argument look more credible when it's incredibly flawed and more flawed than PPG.

Boucher plays his guys too much. That's not "Pyatt and Thompson and Dumont aren't carrying their weight"... it's "why is Boucher overplaying these guys relative to other coaches in the league who play players of their talent and line-up position much less?".

Using it as the only metric on which to base an argument is the problem
 

Do Make Say Think

& Yet & Yet
Jun 26, 2007
51,157
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You would too if you were hacked.....

He does nothing but seek attention these days, it’s unfortunate.

Considering the capacity for analysis , or lackthereof, amongst our fans he is doing the right thing.

He is about as good as clickbait but that's the thing about clickbait: it doesn't feel like it is if it's talking about something you agree with.

That's the whole point of clickbait.
 

JD1

Registered User
Sep 12, 2005
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Wideman was very sheltered with GB, not sure it hurts as much as it should or as much as some are stating. If Wideman was healthy, he would be the d-man scratched most nights. Remember, Boucher played him as a forward on the 4th line when he got hurt. He had no defined rule within this team and that's on Boucher.

no defined role? I think that's pushing it. he played for basically 1.25 years under Boucher as a bottom pair guy that provided some offence. playing a game or two or whatever it was up front didn't change his role imo.
 

JD1

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Sep 12, 2005
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You're also disregarding that Brassard and Ryan being ahead of last year's pace doesn't mean much when they both had atrocious seasons in 16-17. So yeah, not much of an argument to counter Yost's here. Ryan has 5 goals so far for christ's sake.

Our top-6 isn't very good.

I'm not disregarding it at all.

Yost said "almost every forward" and I point out that 4 are a ear of pace and 1 is on pace which out of 11 guys isn't almost every.

not much going right this year. That said pretty sure most fans would have been happy to take a 7% uptick in scoring back in October

how we fell apart so bad defensively is a head scratcher.
 

Ice-Tray

Registered User
Jan 31, 2006
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Goaltending, absolutely, but if we're levelling both barrels at the bottom 6 guys I'm not sure we're on the right path. If your season lives and dies by the bottom six guys, you need a better top six.

I would personally place blame on goaltending, coaching, and our top 6/top 4 guys.
 

Cosmix

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I know lol. I was being sarcastic.theres this idea that ownership doesn’t allow management to buy away their mistakes so it’s nelnyks fault. But I mean. The mistakes this management team makes are pretty avoidable with better personnel in place

The sarcasm icon is useful at times. :)
 

Cosmix

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We do need to talk about Pageau. What's up with him? I wasn't actually opposed to having Hoff on his line assuming he could provide some offense, but that didn't work at all. I just don't see the explosiveness in him anymore, that ability he had to go after the puck holder, substitute himself with him and run away with the puck. IMO there's probably some injury nobody's talking about.
It certainly is an issue and an injury is one possible explanation. Another is coaching.
 

Cosmix

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Bigger picture.

All any coach or team ever says is we need to look at today, this year, this season, this series etc. and play our game, be ourselves.

So, how do we do that? That is the question we need to answer.

I don't know.

But I feel like there is so much pent up stuff and unsaid resentment that plagues this organisation.

I mean every second year we lose and the other year we make it all about being the pesky underdog and taking down the big dog.

It doesn't help that it is a new coach every year but that speaks to the pattern of mistrust and placing blame.

If the top is unaccountable, then why shouldn't the bottom be?

The “top” you are talking about (coaching staff) is not the top of it all, as it excludes the GM and his hockey ops management team (assistant GMs, scouts, etc.) and the owner who sets the budget.
 

50 in 07

Registered User
Feb 10, 2016
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I'm not disregarding it at all.

Yost said "almost every forward" and I point out that 4 are a ear of pace and 1 is on pace which out of 11 guys isn't almost every.

not much going right this year. That said pretty sure most fans would have been happy to take a 7% uptick in scoring back in October

how we fell apart so bad defensively is a head scratcher.
Talking about a 7% uptick in scoring from last year to this year is meaningless without context because scoring league wide is up.

We may be scoring a higher # of goals this year but relative to the rest of the league it doesn't make a difference. Last season over 82 games we put up 2.51 GF/game and this year its up to 2.76 GF/game, but we're actually ranked the same - 22nd - in that metric both seasons.
 

JD1

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Sep 12, 2005
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Talking about a 7% uptick in scoring from last year to this year is meaningless without context because scoring league wide is up.

We may be scoring a higher # of goals this year but relative to the rest of the league it doesn't make a difference. Last season over 82 games we put up 2.51 GF/game and this year its up to 2.76 GF/game, but we're actually ranked the same - 22nd - in that metric both seasons.
yes that's why I mentioned the uptick relative to the league a few posts ago
 

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