Why is Jesper Fast an Automatic ?

[NYRFANMANI]

Fast is absolutely physical for his size. Finishes checks all the time. Have you forgottgen about the wars he has had with OV?

All memory has been lost after last season.

 

[Revel]

All memory has been lost after last season.

Lol, I hear you. Anyway, pay attention to Fast and you'll see that he finishes checks regularly...some quite hard. He is also very good along the boards and difficult to take off the puck, because he gives it 100%. I'm not saying he is Dylan McIlrath, but he is quite involved physically. Takes a beating and gives it back when he can.

 

[NYRFANMANI]

I see the board play, I can invision it. He's tough yes, again for his size and such. But it's just not good enough, I fear.

As 13th fwd I'm perfectly fine with it, we will have injuries and he will play. If we'd trade one of Zucc or Nash (preferably Nash of course) for picks and futures, Pirri can move up and Fast on the 4th.

 

[WesMcCauley]

I think it's a waste to have Pirri on the 4th line. Grabner-Jooris-Fast is what I want to see. Pirri needs to have a more offensive role on this team.

BINGO! Pirri scored 22 in 49 games two seasons ago. He is a pure sniper. He needs to get a chance at more icetime than 4th line defensive sone starts with poor offensive linemates.

 

[WesMcCauley]

Yeah, no way in hell Fast is our best defensive forward. I was quite unimpressed with him in that bit of PS I caught from him. To me he's not a lock at all.


Pirri-Jooris-Grabner as a 4th line. I'll take Grabner's speed and back-check over Fast's.

Grabner has declined badly. Isnt close to the player he was for Islanders 3-6 seasons ago.

 

[Brooklyn Ranger]

file this thread under shiny new toy syndrome. The next 6 days are going to tough.

 

[NYRFANMANI]

Grabner has declined badly. Isnt close to the player he was for Islanders 3-6 seasons ago.

Be that as it may, the 4th line shouldn't be of any concern really. Glass isn't on it, that alone is worth a lot. Grabner or Fast doesn't change much. It's actually more of a luxury to be able to rotate between some guys.

file this thread under shiny new toy syndrome. The next 6 days are going to tough.

What are you getting at? Our shiny new toys (Buch, Vesey) seem legit.

 

[The Mouth]

103 forwards have played over 200 shorthanded (4v5) minutes since the start of the 2014-2015 season.

Fast is one of 11 without a shorthanded point.

He is tied for the 2nd worst shorthanded shot rate (3 shots in 225 minutes).

The above do matter. There are some players who are legitimately good shorthanded scorers and shooter. Nash and Stepan are two. Some players actually shoot more shorthanded than even strength. Toews actually has almost a 30% GF% shorthanded in his career (1055 minutes played) which is absolutely ridiculous. The average of guys with 1000+ mins since 2007 is only 11%. That makes a HUGE difference. Shorthanded offfense is one o the more underrated things in the game I believe.

He's 77/103 in SH CA60.

He's 96/103 in SH CA60RelTM so it's not a function of being with Glass or something.

He's 74/103 in GA60 and 78/103 relative to the team.

He's 33rd in blocked shot rate so he does do that though it doesn't seem to be doing much. Likely because a lot of the time you block a shot on the PK it just deflects right back to the other team anyway and you end up taking yourself out of the play.

There's basically nothing he's good at doing shorthanded other than blocking some shots.. He doesn't prevent shot attempts. He doesn't prevent goals. And he doesn't create shorthanded scoring chances.

I find this stunning. Thanks for doing the research. It's hard to defend against those stats.

 

[DanielBrassard]

He's a perfectly fine 4th line winger. One of the best of not best shot suppressors on the team. Good forechecker, makes good decisions with the puck

 

[silverfish]

Subtweet:

Always love people who constantly **** on fancystats until there's a post backing up their original opinion.

 

[Draft Guru]

I think Fast is just a young guy listening to what the coach tells him. His role here has been a defensive bottom 6 forward. In Sweden he showed more offense playing in an offensive role. He's probably afraid to make a mistake, hence the overly safe play we've seen from him. It's understandable. He wants to stay in the lineup. He does exactly what AV tells him and that's why AV is a big fan of his.

 

[NYRFANMANI]

Yes, I give Fast one thing, now that I remember, when confident, he definitely put a stamp on the game. Now AV rarely brings out confidence in the guys it seems. Mabye Book will add that, would be nice. He's great depth piece for this team. He's a balanced player. Sucks that he sucks on the PK apparently.

 

[Kovalev27]

Boom myth busted. Fast is a horrible Pker

Has zero offense

Not big

Not good at anything.

We want pkers on our 4th line? (AV's words) then Fast shouldn't be on this team.

 

[bobbop]

Grabner has declined badly. Isnt close to the player he was for Islanders 3-6 seasons ago.

Grabner isn't being paid like a 34 goal guy anymore either. He's a different player now. Give him some time to get acclimated, he will be fine.

 

[bobbop]

I'm amazed by the short memories about fast. Two years ago he went something like 35 games as a PKer with no goals scored when he was on the ice. He is pound for pound tough. Check back with me in 20 games if he isn't playing well but right now he is a vested veteran who deserves respect. Don't you dare set him up as the next Glass.

 

[Brooklyn Ranger]

Be that as it may, the 4th line shouldn't be of any concern really. Glass isn't on it, that alone is worth a lot. Grabner or Fast doesn't change much. It's actually more of a luxury to be able to rotate between some guys.






What are you getting at? Our shiny new toys (Buch, Vesey) seem legit.

Vesey is new--but, the talk about him around the league was not hype--but Buch was drafted by the Rangers several years ago so I don't think of him as a shiny new toy. I was refering to the habit of penciling in free agent signings like Grabner, Jorvis, Gerbe, etc ahead of home grown players iike Fast (since this a thread about him).

 

[hi]

Extremely overrated. If he was a free agent signing this past summer he would have been waived already.

 

[NickyFotiu]

Fast isn't a negative or a positive. He doesn't move the needle much in either direction. Do we have four 4th liners that are better? Time will tell.

 

[Inferno]

I'm amazed by the short memories about fast. Two years ago he went something like 35 games as a PKer with no goals scored when he was on the ice. He is pound for pound tough. Check back with me in 20 games if he isn't playing well but right now he is a vested veteran who deserves respect. Don't you dare set him up as the next Glass.

id say many of us, myself included, felt like that was more of a result of the goalie behind him than he himself. ive felt hes one of the worst PKers on this team for a long time. I love the guy 5 v 5, and i think hes the perfect "after a goal is scored" guy or "change the momentum" guy. but there are 2 things he needs to stop doing...playign in the top 9, and penalty killing. the guy is a good player, i really like him as a 4th liner, and have no problems whatsoever with him being on this team...but, he is replaceable, and limited in his abilities

 

[Kovalev27]

Bob those numbers don't lie. People want to argue with me basing my view on him by eye test but those numbers their tell the same story. I actually think he's a horrible shot blocker too. Those stats don't show how often he poorly tries to block shots that get thru him which kills your goalie.

Personally I'd rather Glass be playing over Fast.

However I'd be thrilled with grabner Jooris pirri all day long over Fast.

 

[Kakko]

Bob those numbers don't lie. People want to argue with me basing my view on him by eye test but those numbers their tell the same story. I actually think he's a horrible shot blocker too. Those stats don't show how often he poorly tries to block shots that get thru him which kills your goalie.

Personally I'd rather Glass be playing over Fast.

However I'd be thrilled with grabner Jooris pirri all day long over Fast.

Laughable

 

[Hunter Gathers]

I think it's a waste to have Pirri on the 4th line. Grabner-Jooris-Fast is what I want to see. Pirri needs to have a more offensive role on this team.

Pirri can't have a bigger role. He's proven that. He's beyond awful in his own zone.

 

[NYRFAN218]

I'm amazed by the short memories about fast. Two years ago he went something like 35 games as a PKer with no goals scored when he was on the ice. He is pound for pound tough. Check back with me in 20 games if he isn't playing well but right now he is a vested veteran who deserves respect. Don't you dare set him up as the next Glass.

I like Fast but I'm not quite entirely sure who he's definitively better than at this point. Only guys I could think of are maybe Grabner and Jooris on the current roster and it wouldn't be definitively.

Jesper's a good player that does a lot of things very well but the offensive numbers are pretty lacking and he's just not good on the PK. He put up 30 points last year which would obviously be amazing for a 3rd/4th line player but a lot of that I think was from his top 6 playing time.

His best games were in the 2015 playoffs but it seemed like he never really matched that play at any point last season. He's a good 4th line player but what he brings, to me at least, could always be found elsewhere.

 

[Tawnos]

I find this stunning. Thanks for doing the research. It's hard to defend against those stats.

It's not that hard, because it's not a debatable use of the statistics.

First of all, SA16 makes it seem like it's a bad thing for players to block shots on the PK. Blocking shots is a central part of PKing in the NHL for every single player who goes out there and does it. If we take blocked shots out of the equation, and look at Fenwick instead of Corsi, Fast rates 44/103 in FA60.

Personally, I'm not sure about even including missed shots, since an awful lot of missed shots on the power play are a result of the PKers positioning. Fast rates in a similar place in SA60 at 41/103.

Second of all, looking at relative to team statistics for something like this is kinda strange. Of course Fast is going to rate low on the scale here. It's not because he's a bad PKer, but because the Rangers have had some high-end PKers on the primary units, such as Stepan and Nash. When you're looking at his numbers relative to some of the best PKers in the league who play on his team, he's not going to look great. Then, SA16 compounds that problem by making it a leaguewide ranking, as if that could matter less.

Jesper Fast is a 3rd year player in the league. His effectiveness on the goal front is really a tale of two seasons. Among players playing 50 minutes or more in 14-15 (Fast played 67), he ranked 21st out of 187 in GA60. In 15-16, for players playing 100 minutes or more (Fast played 162), he ranks 102 out of 117. So what happened between the two years?

Well, a few things. 1.) Dominic Moore, who was his primary partner last year, was clearly diminished in effectiveness. 2.) He, admittedly, was getting more ice-time against tougher opposition after taking over Hagelin's place. 3.) While he was a part of this, the entire team's PKing took a major step backwards last year, including among those high end PKers I mentioned. It was a team-wide problem largely brought on by a coaching staff who refused to adjust strategy despite having a different PK makeup. 4.) Lundqvist, possibly as a result of poor play in front of him, dropped nearly a full save percentage point in 4v5. Behind Fast, the drop was more like 6%. Yes, Fast has a hand in this.

My point is this: there's evidence that Fast is a good PKer and there's evidence than he isn't. There's no conclusive evidence either way just yet, so how about we let this season play out before making final judgments? Effective PKing is more of an experience game than almost anything else in hockey outside of maybe faceoffs and Fast is still early in his career. I think we should revisit next offseason.

 

[Filip Chytil]

I could have sworn the title to this thread was, "Why is Jesper Fast an Automobile?"

That's when you know it's time for more coffee.

Anyways, carry on....