Line Combos: 15/16 forward lines

[puck stoppa]

Not exactly.

I'm talking about "good leaders who are also terrible at their job".
As well, leaders that without them the team goes into disarray.

Then add this:

to your added quote, i was responding to you talking about your own workplace, that had nothing to do with hockey players.

 

[garret9]

to your added quote, i was responding to you talking about your own workplace, that had nothing to do with hockey players.

Sorry, I meant combining the two. Taking real life and then adding the hockey aspects as a thought experiment.

Poor wording by myself.

 

[EastRiver]

Wow. Another thread that devolves into Thorburn sucks. Let me remind you(s) that the turning point of the season, as I complained all year long, was that Peluso was in our lineup. He was noticeably in our lineup getting beat on the backcheck for the GWG breakaway goal scored by the Panthers, which many thought, given our schedule would be the end of the Jets season. Lo and behold he was scratched after that (did he play again) for Eric O'Dell, and we went on to win 5 in a row, against Tampa, San Jose, St. Louis, Washington and Edmonton.

I think we need at least one helmet puncher in our lineup, because like it or not, other teams deploy them. Cody Mc Leod is going to run our goalie this year, count on it. Ryan Reaves will play nasty against us. Expect dirtiness from guys like Antoine Roussel and Daniel Carcillo (who slowed our team down by breaking Perrault's forearm). Remember Thorburn's fight against Jared Boll, after he ran Postma from behind, a nasty game we won. That is what makes him a respected player in the dressing room, if not HF Boards. I think the biggest advantage Thorburn has on Peluso is that he can play in a defensive system, his skating and hockey IQ are above Peluso's. And Peluso, as a scrapper, is not on the ice for any significant minutes, unable to play the system effectively, so his scraps are usually the staged, unnecessary, kind.

I do not have an objection to adding more skill, especially to make us a 4 line team. But I think that it is foolish to field a team of just skill, without any toughness. Intimidation is a big factor, and if skill always beat toughness, we would not have beaten the Hawks 4-1 in the season series. We may have beaten Anaheim had Mark Stuart succeeded in completely crushing (Katie)Perry. As much as we wore down, how many players did we knock out last season by simply destroying them? I think Mau likes that meanness, as a fan I do too, and I expect it to continue.

Maybe we would be improved if it were Halischuk/Thorburn competing for 12/13 instead of Peluso, but I want to defend Thorburn for being useful. I would maybe prefer a guy like Derek Dorsett or someone similar to him, but anyone saying that we shouldn't have toughness in our lineup does not really understand the game, and that is not meant to be a slight at you either, E.R., but a rather a blanketed statement. And yes we have some toughness on D, but our team is better with Buff and Stu in the lineup, and yes I say that with a straight, and serious, face.

Every thread devolves into this because Thorburn continues to plate above where he should. I try to stay optimistic abot the Jets but every time I see Thorburn up in the roster it's hard to. I also don't see the need for a goon on our roster. Surely there are some more talented players like Stuart, that can handle that.

 

[Whileee]

There is empirical data on moral and work production.

However, there is a weird assumption being made with needing guys that are good in room despite being bad on the ice.
We have to remember that hockey is not the normal random sample human distribution. Most of these guys are the extreme tail of the distribution with survivorship from being groomed and selected as they moved up through hockey.

It's not like Ladd, Little, Wheeler, etc. are bad in the room people and need Stuarts and Thorburns to keep the room from falling apart.

Defending or keeping status quo just in case it is not being agnostic to it either.

I'm saying you don't have an appropriate counterfactual so I would have to accept your opinion over Maurice's. You could be right, but I'm not sure about that.

 

[garret9]

I'm saying you don't have an appropriate counterfactual so I would have to accept your opinion over Maurice's. You could be right, but I'm not sure about that.

Except I'm not asking you to defer to my opinion.

In fact, I'm not sure you are quite sure of what my opinion is, since everyone seems to treat me more as an atheist than an agnostic... not even agnostic, but I treat the variables like I'm agnostic since we have no idea how significant they are or how well people are at detecting them.

 

[Jetabre]

I'm not really sure what's going on in general.

 

[Whileee]

Except I'm not asking you to defer to my opinion.

In fact, I'm not sure you are quite sure of what my opinion is, since everyone seems to treat me more as an atheist than an agnostic... not even agnostic, but I treat the variables like I'm agnostic since we have no idea how significant they are or how well people are at detecting them.

I'm suggesting that you don't have all the variables, that's all. Some of my concern with the current "advanced stats" is that they are really not that advanced at all because they don't have a lot of the variables that would be needed to assess the complexity inherent in team performance. The Jets were in the top-10 in possession stats and had 99 points despite an impressive spate of injuries. Could some of the performance of other players be attributable to having Thorburn on the team over the past few years? Hard to know. It's not that it's "intangible", so much as it's unmeasured because we don't have a counterfactual situation against which to compare it.

From a stats perspective, considering strictly their ice-time and on-ice performance, what was the overall direct negative impact on the Jets from Thorbs and Peluso in terms of goal differentials and points?

 

[garret9]

I'm suggesting that you don't have all the variables, that's all. Some of my concern with the current "advanced stats" is that they are really not that advanced at all because they don't have a lot of the variables that would be needed to assess the complexity inherent in team performance. The Jets were in the top-10 in possession stats and had 99 points despite an impressive spate of injuries. Could some of the performance of other players be attributable to having Thorburn on the team over the past few years? Hard to know. It's not that it's "intangible", so much as it's unmeasured because we don't have a counterfactual situation against which to compare it.

From a stats perspective, considering strictly their ice-time and on-ice performance, what was the overall direct negative impact on the Jets from Thorbs and Peluso in terms of goal differentials and points?

I'm not sure about what the limitations of underlying metrics has to do with this...

Could have been better? Sure.
Maybe it could have been worse? Sure.
Could have not changed too?

Hard to know.

 

[Whileee]

I'm not sure about what the limitations of underlying metrics has to do with this...

Could have been better? Sure.
Maybe it could have been worse? Sure.
Could have not changed too?

Hard to know.

My question is to quantify how negative they were in comparison to an average 4th liner in terms of goal differentials or wins/losses.

 

[mcpw]

My question is to quantify how negative they were in comparison to an average 4th liner in terms of goal differentials or wins/losses.

Somebody somewhere posted 1st-3rd period splits of Corsi and GD. Nice indication.

 

[Whileee]

Somebody somewhere posted 1st-3rd period splits of Corsi and GD. Nice indication.

That was me.

Of course the Jets need a better 4th line. I think the problem has been more about Slater, Halischuk and Wright than about Thorburn. Thorburn's a problem when he's on the 3rd line or above. The Jets have had terrible depth, there's no question about it.

Let's see how much Thorburn and/or Peluso negatively affect the Jets this season now that they've got better depth and some youth to fill in the bottom 6.

 

[garret9]

My question is to quantify how negative they were in comparison to an average 4th liner in terms of goal differentials or wins/losses.

Well I've been working on a post on that.

Jets have typically been above average for lines 1-3, with the exception of 2011-12 (GST technically was a 3rd line due to TOI).

They have typically been bottom 5 for lines 4.

 

[Whileee]

Well I've been working on a post on that.

Jets have typically been above average for lines 1-3, with the exception of 2011-12 (GST technically was a 3rd line due to TOI).

They have typically been bottom 5 for lines 4.

Can you estimate how many wins / losses the underperforming 4th line translates to?

Is the problem Thorbs or Slater and Halischuk, or Peluso?

 

[garret9]

Can you estimate how many wins / losses the underperforming 4th line translates to?

Is the problem Thorbs or Slater and Halischuk, or Peluso?

Well I don't have that specifically run now, but I do know off the top of my head that the diff between top 20% 4th line to bottom 20% is about:
* 21% that of the spread in impact with 1st lines
* about 50% for lines 2+3 (just under 50% for L2 and under L3, the two are fairly close)



You should need to reword that as who is the greater problem.
You can live with any of them. After all, Glass was on the 2011 Canucks who were a great team. Glass is worse than maybe all 3 .
I've said before that I'm a-okay with Thorburn the #12/13. I just don't like Thorburn the #9/10 like he was last year.

 

[voyageur]

From my experience coaching AAA hockey here in Winnipeg, you can't have (nor do we seek) 12 highly skilled forwards, all doing the same things. It's redundant.

We break our strategies down to different roles. Different types of players. Why have eight possession, pass first wingers? Who's shooting. Why have six offensive minded D-men? Who's my 'stay at home' safety valve.

The construction of a team, IMO, goes far beyond.....find/recruit/sign the 20+ most skillful individuals per team. I've won championships with players that were considered strictly 'checkers'. No real offensive talent/flair to speak of. However, they brought other very important elements to the ice & locker room. To each his own.


P.S. When I say strictly checkers; these boys were elite skaters with impeccable work ethic and great character guys (didn't complain about ice time etc.).

Thank you for posting your insight, I think the coach's perspective is the most important. He is the one who understands how players complement each other, strengths and weaknesses, on and off the ice.

The leadership we put in place last year got us into the playoffs, I would not expect it to change much. Perhaps Myers and Stafford take on bigger roles. Scheifele, Lowry and Trouba take steps forward. Thorburn is a vocal leader, I ascertained that from the Jets skills competition. I would be curious how Buff figures into the team. He does not strike me as the most vocal but when he speaks you listen

I can only see our team improving this year, as Burmistrov replaces Frolik, but somebody younger and more talented are going to replace Slater and Galiardi.

Would one way to solve our defensive glut be to return Buff to forward? If he is a team player, and he seems to be (with the realization too that versatility with success=$$$) could he be deployed as a forward? Just thinking if we wanted a more veteran lineup to start the year, without moving one-way contracts, how about

Ladd-Little-Wheeler
Perrault-Scheif-Buff (still first unit PP d-man however)
Lowry-Burmistrov-Stafford

(that's a big forward group, with talent)

and choose your own 4th line.

Defense:

Enstrom-Trouba
Chiarot-Myers
Stuart-Postma

and Pardy time, Peluso, Harrison in the pressbox (3 players with good attitudes, work ethic).

Ensures quality depth too, as I would suspect at least two of Petan, Copp, Armia would start on the farm in this scenario, maybe all 3 as the top unit for the Moose.
Morrissey too. With an injury there is an opportunity.

 

[garret9]

From my experience coaching AAA hockey here in Winnipeg, you can't have (nor do we seek) 12 highly skilled forwards, all doing the same things. It's redundant.

We break our strategies down to different roles. Different types of players. Why have eight possession, pass first wingers? Who's shooting. Why have six offensive minded D-men? Who's my 'stay at home' safety valve.

The construction of a team, IMO, goes far beyond.....find/recruit/sign the 20+ most skillful individuals per team. I've won championships with players that were considered strictly 'checkers'. No real offensive talent/flair to speak of. However, they brought other very important elements to the ice & locker room. To each his own.


P.S. When I say strictly checkers; these boys were elite skaters with impeccable work ethic and great character guys (didn't complain about ice time etc.).

You don't because you can't.
Nothing to do with redundancy.

We have examples of this in the Olympics:
This thought pattern was what killed Team Canada.
The leaving of this thought pattern was what brought back Team Canada.


The only role that matters is outscoring the opposition. Everything is just a means to that end.
The stay at home defenseman that improves your chance at out scoring more than the offensive defenseman is better.
The offensive defenseman that improves your chance at out scoring more than the stay at home defenseman is better.


The roles you give to lesser players is due to the inability for them to do others so you are *hoping* (key word) that having them perform these roles can provide additional value that their on-ice play is missing.
This additional value can be special teams or it can be physically grinding down your opposition.

It's not because these limited players improve your team more than having 12 Crosbys would. It's that there are no 12 Crosbys.