2021 Off Season Discussion Thread

[ItsOnlytheRiver]

I guess you don't remember when Bernie made up the Blues having locker room issues and essentially running Oshie out of town. JR isn't a great hockey guy, but Bernie will be straight up dishonest for clicks.

Are you laying the Oshie trade on .. Bernie? I don’t like the guy either, but I can’t imagine that’s true. The Blues did appear to think they had a locker room issue and traded away the guy who most likely was the biggest partier. He cleaned up his act in Washington, but he missed a practice here (pretty spicy rumors about why). I think the Blues wanted to send a message and try to change their culture. I don’t think Bernie had anything to do with that other than a good guess on his part.

 

[stl76]

Also, just because I have the stats up right now, it's worth noting that while Scandella's shot-based possession stats are bad, his goal-based stats are actually pretty good (really good considering the difficult minutes he played).

For instance his 5v5 CF% (44.27%), xGF% (43.56), and HDCF% (42.51%) are all low. On the other hand, his actual 5v5 GF% (54.84%) and HDGF% (58.06%) are both quite high. For comparison, Scandella played 833:16 5v5 minutes and gave up 13 high danger goals against when he was on the ice; Dunn played 719:22 and gave up 18.

I don't think this is just luck. Rather, I think this info, combined with a high goalie save % when he was on the ice, suggests that Scandella did a pretty good job playing "bend but don't break" defense against opponents top lines.

 

[Louie the Blue]

I guess you don't remember when Bernie made up the Blues having locker room issues and essentially running Oshie out of town. JR isn't a great hockey guy, but Bernie will be straight up dishonest for clicks.

Do you recall that the desire from Armstrong to shake up the locker room stemmed over multiple seasons before the Oshie trade? That originated with Perron to Edmonton.

And something had to be done after the Minnesota series. Oshie’s had great postseason success in Washington and I’m glad for him. But he was not performing that way in St. Louis.

 

[BadgersandBlues]

I don't know where you're getting the idea that Scandella didn't play with Parayko or against top lines, but it's demonstrably false.

Scandella's most common d partners 5v5 were Dunn (307:34), Faulk (243:55) and Parayko (130:19). His time with Dunn was mostly 2nd pairing minutes when Parayko was injured. When healthy, Parayko was primarily paired with Scandella (130:19) and Krug (126:55), with Walman (86:03) and Dunn (85:49) also seeing some time.

According to PuckIQ, Scandella (143.3) was second on the Blues in TOI played against "Elite" QoC behind Faulk (162.7) and just ahead of Krug (143.1) - PuckIQ | Woodmoney

Overall, Scandella had a 43.6% oZS% last season, but even that relatively low number is inflated from the minutes he played with Dunn (likely because the coaches didn't trust Dunn in the dzone). According to NaturalStatTrick, Scandella - Dunn had an oZS% of 52.88%. When Scandella was paired with Faulk (43.75%) and Parayko (31.71%), the oZS% dropped quite a bit and I would wager the defensive assignments where a LOT tougher in terms of QoC (again, likely because the coaches didn't trust Dunn defensively). - Defensive Pairs - Natural Stat Trick

Was Scandella perfect? No, of course not, and nobody is saying he was. Were Scandella's contributions worth $3.275 mill against the cap? Yes, IMO. Did Scandella eat a lot of tough defensive minutes against other team's top lines? Abso-f***ing-lutely.

Allright, I'll take these one at a time. You are correct, Scandella played with Parayko more then I remembered. However, Scandella had the worst Corsi numbers with each of his D partners! He was third to last with Faulk, second to last with Dunn, and dead last with Parayko. Walman (A guy I was pretty high on even before I looked at those numbers on PuckIQ) posted a 54.84 Corsi with Parayko! In other words, Scandella sucked with everyone we played him with lol.

Second, that stat about Elite is so misleading. Scandella played a total of 819.5 minutes last season 5v5 and only 143.3 of them were against "Elite" competition - which means he played 17.5% of his shifts against Elite competition. I'm sorry, but that's not a lot. Walman for instance played 31.2 of his 303.9 minutes against Elite competition, a 10.3% rate. Scandella played the majority of his minutes against "Middle" competition (380.3/819.5 minutes or 46.4%) and got caved in to the tune of a 43.1%, the worst on our team other than Gunnarsson against said competition.

Finally - the OZ start % thing is really falling out of favor as a stat we should care about. Scandella started on the fly or in the neutral zone way more often then either the offensive or defensive zones. His D zone starts amounted to basically 1-1.1 D zone starts and .5 offensive zone starts per game.....that's not nearly enough to justify getting caved in on possession the way he did. It wasn't just his Corsi either - from an xGF% perspective he was on the three worst pairings (Faulk, then Dunn, then Parayko) other then Parayko/Dunn.

If you think that's a Top-4 D-man, that's your prerogative. I personally don't think so. For 3.25 I'd expect more....maybe not a guy who can carry his own pair, but def a guy who isn't a detriment.....which according to the stats he very much is.

I did find some of the stats interesting - Krug/Parayko (Albeit a small sample size) were actually our most effective defensive pairing last year, with an xGF% of 59.34 and Walman/Bortuzzo were third with 53.17. Gives one hope that a healthy Parayko could actually pair well with Krug.

 

[BadgersandBlues]

Also, just because I have the stats up right now, it's worth noting that while Scandella's shot-based possession stats are bad, his goal-based stats are actually pretty good (really good considering the difficult minutes he played).

For instance his 5v5 CF% (44.27%), xGF% (43.56), and HDCF% (42.51%) are all low. On the other hand, his actual 5v5 GF% (54.84%) and HDGF% (58.06%) are both quite high. For comparison, Scandella played 833:16 5v5 minutes and gave up 13 high danger goals against when he was on the ice; Dunn played 719:22 and gave up 18.

I don't think this is just luck. Rather, I think this info, combined with a high goalie save % when he was on the ice, suggests that Scandella did a pretty good job playing "bend but don't break" defense against opponents top lines.

Those goals were all helped by a crazy unsustainable shooting %. He had the two highest on ice shooting %....both of which are well above the norm.

 

[LGB]

To me it seems like Puck IQ's QOC metrics were pretty flawed last year because teams only played other teams within their divisions. The distribution is way off compared to previous years.

 

[BadgersandBlues]

To me it seems like Puck IQ's QOC metrics were pretty flawed last year because teams only played other teams within their divisions. The distribution is way off compared to previous years.

Yea, I've never dug into the actual stats on that before, but the numbers seemed really weird at first glance. According to that site, Scandella played less then 3 minutes a night against Elite competition 5v5 - he played an average of 17:30 of 5v5 a night. Again, that doesn't sound like crazy heavy lifting to me.

 

[Mike Liut]

I’d be willing to add to Tarasenko and retain some salary for a better return. Tarasenko + Sanford + 2 mill retention for an upgraded LHD? I’d even add Perunovich for a really good young LHD with term.

I want young, size and term and an upgrade over every LHD on our roster

 

[ezcreepin]

I don't know where you're getting the idea that Scandella didn't play with Parayko or against top lines, but it's demonstrably false.

Scandella's most common d partners 5v5 were Dunn (307:34), Faulk (243:55) and Parayko (130:19). His time with Dunn was mostly 2nd pairing minutes when Parayko was injured. When healthy, Parayko was primarily paired with Scandella (130:19) and Krug (126:55), with Walman (86:03) and Dunn (85:49) also seeing some time.

According to PuckIQ, Scandella (143.3) was second on the Blues in TOI played against "Elite" QoC behind Faulk (162.7) and just ahead of Krug (143.1) - PuckIQ | Woodmoney

Overall, Scandella had a 43.6% oZS% last season, but even that relatively low number is inflated from the minutes he played with Dunn (likely because the coaches didn't trust Dunn in the dzone). According to NaturalStatTrick, Scandella - Dunn had an oZS% of 52.88%. When Scandella was paired with Faulk (43.75%) and Parayko (31.71%), the oZS% dropped quite a bit and I would wager the defensive assignments where a LOT tougher in terms of QoC (again, likely because the coaches didn't trust Dunn defensively). - Defensive Pairs - Natural Stat Trick

Was Scandella perfect? No, of course not, and nobody is saying he was. Were Scandella's contributions worth $3.275 mill against the cap? Yes, IMO. Did Scandella eat a lot of tough defensive minutes against other team's top lines? Abso-f***ing-lutely.

I was going to grab these stats, but you've done it for me so thank you. Also, this is purely conjecture, but more than 56% of Scandella's "bad" games using plus/minus were against Vegas, so I find it hard that he got lucky. If anything, he's unlucky his numbers weren't better because the Blues imploded every time they played Vegas, but I would never seriously make that argument. I will never defend +/- like it's some great stat, but it's REALLY hard for a guy who is "bad" to have a good +/- on a subpar team while playing a defensive role. It just doesn't happen that often.

 

[stl76]

Allright, I'll take these one at a time. You are correct, Scandella played with Parayko more then I remembered. However, Scandella had the worst Corsi numbers with each of his D partners! He was third to last with Faulk, second to last with Dunn, and dead last with Parayko. Walman (A guy I was pretty high on even before I looked at those numbers on PuckIQ) posted a 54.84 Corsi with Parayko! In other words, Scandella sucked with everyone we played him with lol.

Second, that stat about Elite is so misleading. Scandella played a total of 819.5 minutes last season 5v5 and only 143.3 of them were against "Elite" competition - which means he played 17.5% of his shifts against Elite competition. I'm sorry, but that's not a lot. Walman for instance played 31.2 of his 303.9 minutes against Elite competition, a 10.3% rate. Scandella played the majority of his minutes against "Middle" competition (380.3/819.5 minutes or 46.4%) and got caved in to the tune of a 43.1%, the worst on our team other than Gunnarsson against said competition.

Finally - the OZ start % thing is really falling out of favor as a stat we should care about. Scandella started on the fly or in the neutral zone way more often then either the offensive or defensive zones. His D zone starts amounted to basically 1-1.1 D zone starts and .5 offensive zone starts per game.....that's not nearly enough to justify getting caved in on possession the way he did. It wasn't just his Corsi either - from an xGF% perspective he was on the three worst pairings (Faulk, then Dunn, then Parayko) other then Parayko/Dunn.

If you think that's a Top-4 D-man, that's your prerogative. I personally don't think so. For 3.25 I'd expect more....maybe not a guy who can carry his own pair, but def a guy who isn't a detriment.....which according to the stats he very much is.

I did find some of the stats interesting - Krug/Parayko (Albeit a small sample size) were actually our most effective defensive pairing last year, with an xGF% of 59.34 and Walman/Bortuzzo were third with 53.17. Gives one hope that a healthy Parayko could actually pair well with Krug.

You say Scandella's 17.5% against Elite competition was not much, yet it lead the entire team in terms of TOI% against Elite competition. To put it another way, Scandella's % of minutes played against opponents top lines was higher than any other Blues dman. If that's not a lot, as you claim, then who did play a lot against top lines? Comparing that 17.5% to Walman's 10.3%, that's a MASSIVE difference. Especially considering the fact that Walman started in the ozone against Elite QoC 61.1 % of the time, whereas Scandella started in the ozone against Elite QoC 37% of the time.

I don't want to derail this thread completely, but Scandella's game is simply not conducive to being accurately valued by corsi. This is true for a lot of defensive dman who face tough deployment by their coaches. Yes, Scandella (43.80%) and Gunnar (40.20%) got "caved in" in terms of CF% against Middle QoC. So did Mikkola (44.20%). Scandella (43.4%), Gunnar (43.5%), and Mikkola (37.3%) also had the 3 lowest ozone start %'s against Middle QoC among Blues regular dmen. You're telling me it's a coincidence that the 3 dmen with the lowest ozone start % also had the lowest CF%? Statisticians can run models that try to account for it, but the bottom line is that zone start percentage is indicative of the type of situations that a coach used to deploy a certain player.

Shot based advanced stats like CF% and xGF% are one piece of evaluating dmen, but I think you are putting way too much stock in them.

 

[LetsGoBooze]

I want young, size and term and an upgrade over every LHD on our roster

Don't we all. Just unrealistic to have a roster full of these guys.

 

[stl76]

Those goals were all helped by a crazy unsustainable shooting %. He had the two highest on ice shooting %....both of which are well above the norm.

Not sure where you're seeing this. Scandella's 5v5 On-Ice SH% (9.71%) did lead the team, but it was relatively in line with other dmen like Faulk (9.65%) and Krug (9.57%). - Player Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

 

[Majorityof1]

JR tries too hard to publish column like postings instead of being more of a beat writer. What purpose did the article he dropped at midnight have other than repeating what he already wrote?

Derrick Goold, for the Post-Dispatch, is an excellent beat writer for the Cardinals. JR was when he was at the PD, but him trying to being something he isn’t dilutes his writing. Thomas is OK for the PD, but he has fairly limited connections and is coming from covering football.

Bernie used to be a good columnist, but I think personal problems and his ego impact his work now.

And? I am not arguing that JR is not a good columnist, or a good beat writer. He isn't. But calling him "Judas" is calling him a betrayer. You could argue that he betrays his readers by being a substandard reporter. But we have all known that for years. Calling him Judas is because he wrote an article critical of the Blues and people think that is a betrayl. It is not. Criticizing him for that is total bullshit. It is a reporter's duty to report the news. Being a mouthpiece for the team would make him an even worse reporter than he already is.

I wish he was a better reporter so he could really hold the Blues feet to the fire if the accusations laid out in JR's articles are true. As is, we get these easily dismissable articles full of innuendo. But if the Blues really did send Tarasenko to sub-standard doctors and then ignore his complaints that he wasn't healed, that needs to be brought out. That would be the betrayal by the team. A betrayal of its employees and its customers to whom they do owe a duty.

 

[ezcreepin]

Allright, I'll take these one at a time. You are correct, Scandella played with Parayko more then I remembered. However, Scandella had the worst Corsi numbers with each of his D partners! He was third to last with Faulk, second to last with Dunn, and dead last with Parayko. Walman (A guy I was pretty high on even before I looked at those numbers on PuckIQ) posted a 54.84 Corsi with Parayko! In other words, Scandella sucked with everyone we played him with lol.

Second, that stat about Elite is so misleading. Scandella played a total of 819.5 minutes last season 5v5 and only 143.3 of them were against "Elite" competition - which means he played 17.5% of his shifts against Elite competition. I'm sorry, but that's not a lot. Walman for instance played 31.2 of his 303.9 minutes against Elite competition, a 10.3% rate. Scandella played the majority of his minutes against "Middle" competition (380.3/819.5 minutes or 46.4%) and got caved in to the tune of a 43.1%, the worst on our team other than Gunnarsson against said competition.

Finally - the OZ start % thing is really falling out of favor as a stat we should care about. Scandella started on the fly or in the neutral zone way more often then either the offensive or defensive zones. His D zone starts amounted to basically 1-1.1 D zone starts and .5 offensive zone starts per game.....that's not nearly enough to justify getting caved in on possession the way he did. It wasn't just his Corsi either - from an xGF% perspective he was on the three worst pairings (Faulk, then Dunn, then Parayko) other then Parayko/Dunn.

If you think that's a Top-4 D-man, that's your prerogative. I personally don't think so. For 3.25 I'd expect more....maybe not a guy who can carry his own pair, but def a guy who isn't a detriment.....which according to the stats he very much is.

I did find some of the stats interesting - Krug/Parayko (Albeit a small sample size) were actually our most effective defensive pairing last year, with an xGF% of 59.34 and Walman/Bortuzzo were third with 53.17. Gives one hope that a healthy Parayko could actually pair well with Krug.

I don't think it's even worth it for me to dig up pairing stats or competition numbers because I don't have subscriptions to certain advanced stats sites, but I really don't think you should be dying on the hill of "he started on the fly or neutral zone way more often than d or o-zone". Literally EVERYONE will inevitably start on the fly more often than in a zone, it's just how the game is played. Not even being hyperbolic, but EVERYONE had more starts on the fly+neutral zone than o+d-zone (Walman had more neutral zone starts than o-zone). But, it's not worth it to try to make an argument about neutral zone starts because there's zero context given with that stat. It doesn't say where they started in the neutral zone, something I think is kind of important if we're making claims about his defending.

 

[Louie the Blue]

And? I am not arguing that JR is not a good columnist, or a good beat writer. He isn't. But calling him "Judas" is calling him a betrayer. You could argue that he betrays his readers by being a substandard reporter. But we have all known that for years. Calling him Judas is because he wrote an article critical of the Blues and people think that is a betrayl. It is not. Criticizing him for that is total bullshit. It is a reporter's duty to report the news. Being a mouthpiece for the team would make him an even worse reporter than he already is.

I wish he was a better reporter so he could really hold the Blues feet to the fire if the accusations laid out in JR's articles are true. As is, we get these easily dismissable articles full of innuendo. But if the Blues really did send Tarasenko to sub-standard doctors and then ignore his complaints that he wasn't healed, that needs to be brought out. That would be the betrayal by the team. A betrayal of its employees and its customers to whom they do owe a duty.

Calling him Judas is probably overkill, yes.

And I'm not criticizing the first article regarding the trade request. I'm criticizing the second-which was literally pounding sand and covered pretty much everything already from the first.

Again, I wish he was more like Goold. Goold's fantastic at what he does. Remember Mark Saxon? For all the shit he got, he ended up writing articles that were critical of the Cardinals clubhouse and Matheny before Matheny was shown the door. Thomas/Timmerman coverage is just OK and I honestly much prefer how they cover the Blues-just reporting the facts-instead of JR's way of sensationalizing his writing and letting personal relationships and emotion influence his work.

Thomas would let some of his personal relationships influence his coverage of the Rams. Like, who the hell writes a series of articles about an equipment manager being let go unless he's your source?

 

[BadgersandBlues]

You say Scandella's 17.5% against Elite competition was not much, yet it lead the entire team in terms of TOI% against Elite competition. To put it another way, Scandella's % of minutes played against opponents top lines was higher than any other Blues dman. If that's not a lot, as you claim, then who did play a lot against top lines? Comparing that 17.5% to Walman's 10.3%, that's a MASSIVE difference. Especially considering the fact that Walman started in the ozone against Elite QoC 61.1 % of the time, whereas Scandella started in the ozone against Elite QoC 37% of the time.

I don't want to derail this thread completely, but Scandella's game is simply not conducive to being accurately valued by corsi. This is true for a lot of defensive dman who face tough deployment by their coaches. Yes, Scandella (43.80%) and Gunnar (40.20%) got "caved in" in terms of CF% against Middle QoC. So did Mikkola (44.20%). Scandella (43.4%), Gunnar (43.5%), and Mikkola (37.3%) also had the 3 lowest ozone start %'s against Middle QoC among Blues regular dmen. You're telling me it's a coincidence that the 3 dmen with the lowest ozone start % also had the lowest CF%? Statisticians can run models that try to account for it, but the bottom line is that zone start percentage is indicative of the type of situations that a coach used to deploy a certain player.

Shot based advanced stats like CF% and xGF% are one piece of evaluating dmen, but I think you are putting way too much stock in them.

Scandella was inarguably the worst partner just about every other Dman we played with him had. Corsi, Fenwick, xGF%, SC%, etc. Every other pairing, with the exception of the Dunn/Paryako pairing that -juuuuuust- got over the minutes filter was worse. Statistically speaking, Faulk played his worst with Scandella. Parayko played his worst with Scandella. Dunn played his worst with Scandella. That's the trend I noticed and it's why I don't think Scandella was worth the money we paid him. Again, my bar for Top-4 Dman is a guy who isn't a detriment to his pairing and can either log PP or PK minutes and make a positive impact. I don't think that's unreasonable. Scandella was the worst partner for the three D-man he was paired with on a regular basis, plus he was a big minute PKer for one of the worst PKs in the League. If you think that's a guy that's worth 3.25M and gets top 4 minutes, then I guess we just gotta agree to disagree

 

[Blueston]

And? I am not arguing that JR is not a good columnist, or a good beat writer. He isn't. But calling him "Judas" is calling him a betrayer. You could argue that he betrays his readers by being a substandard reporter. But we have all known that for years. Calling him Judas is because he wrote an article critical of the Blues and people think that is a betrayl. It is not. Criticizing him for that is total bullshit. It is a reporter's duty to report the news. Being a mouthpiece for the team would make him an even worse reporter than he already is.

I wish he was a better reporter so he could really hold the Blues feet to the fire if the accusations laid out in JR's articles are true. As is, we get these easily dismissable articles full of innuendo. But if the Blues really did send Tarasenko to sub-standard doctors and then ignore his complaints that he wasn't healed, that needs to be brought out. That would be the betrayal by the team. A betrayal of its employees and its customers to whom they do owe a duty.

Calling him Judas bc he doesn’t serve as mouthpiece for team is silly. It’s not his job to make team look good. It is his job to be a journalist though and not just print what an agent with an agenda wants to get out there. He did it for Petro and is now doing it for Tank. So he is betraying basic tenets of journalism.

 

[stl76]

Scandella was inarguably the worst partner just about every other Dman we played with him had. Corsi, Fenwick, xGF%, SC%, etc. Every other pairing, with the exception of the Dunn/Paryako pairing that -juuuuuust- got over the minutes filter was worse. Statistically speaking, Faulk played his worst with Scandella. Parayko played his worst with Scandella. Dunn played his worst with Scandella. That's the trend I noticed and it's why I don't think Scandella was worth the money we paid him. Again, my bar for Top-4 Dman is a guy who isn't a detriment to his pairing and can either log PP or PK minutes and make a positive impact. I don't think that's unreasonable. Scandella was the worst partner for the three D-man he was paired with on a regular basis, plus he was a big minute PKer for one of the worst PKs in the League. If you think that's a guy that's worth 3.25M and gets top 4 minutes, then I guess we just gotta agree to disagree

Like I said previous, I don't want to completely derail this thead (any further than I already have haha). We can agree to disagree. You seem to look at these stats and think that Scandella made other players worse. I look at them and conclude that Scandella was drawing tough match ups in difficult minutes, which allowed other players to be relatively sheltered (thus putting up those higher stats away from Scandella). In other words, Scandella was playing a lot of tough minutes, so other players were generally playing easier minutes away from Scandella than they played with him.

I think losing Sundqvist (not to mention JBouw, Steen, and Pietrangelo) was a much bigger factor in our PK struggling than Scandella. If you check out PK stats on NaturalStatTrick, a lot of them indicate to me that Scandella was actually one of our more effective PKers - Player Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

The only thing other thing I would reiterate is that I think you are putting way too much stock in shooting based stats like corsi and xGF% to evaluate dmen. You say "Scandella was inarguably the worst partner just about every other Dman we played with him had", then point to shooting based stats as evidence. You're conflating shots with being a bad D partner.

To illustrate my point, here are the 3 Blues dmen with the highest individual 5v5 CF%: Bortuzzo (51.79), Walman (49.82), Dunn (49.35). Here are the 3 Blues dmen with the highest individual 5v5 ozone start %: Dunn (60.00%), Walman (57.14%), Bortuzzo (56.90%). Here are the 3 Blues dmen with the lowest individual 5v5 CF%: Gunnar (42.86%), Mikkola (43.13%), and Scandella (44.27%). Here are the 3 Blues dmen with the lowest individual 5v5 ozone start %: Gunnar (37.93%), Mikkola (43.18%), and Faulk (43.73%). Scandella (45.97%) had the 4th lowest individual 5v5 ozone start %. Player Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

 

[BadgersandBlues]

Like I said previous, I don't want to completely derail this thead (any further than I already have haha). We can agree to disagree. You seem to look at these stats and think that Scandella made other players worse. I look at them and conclude that Scandella was drawing tough match ups in difficult minutes, which allowed other players to be relatively sheltered (thus putting up those higher stats away from Scandella). In other words, Scandella was playing a lot of tough minutes, so other players were generally playing easier minutes away from Scandella than they played with him.

I think losing Sundqvist (not to mention JBouw, Steen, and Pietrangelo) was a much bigger factor in our PK struggling than Scandella. If you check out PK stats on NaturalStatTrick, a lot of them indicate to me that Scandella was actually one of our more effective PKers - Player Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

The only thing other thing I would reiterate is that I think you are putting way too much stock in shooting based stats like corsi and xGF% to evaluate dmen. You say "Scandella was inarguably the worst partner just about every other Dman we played with him had", then point to shooting based stats as evidence. You're conflating shots with being a bad D partner.

To illustrate my point, here are the 3 Blues dmen with the highest individual 5v5 CF%: Bortuzzo (51.79), Walman (49.82), Dunn (49.35). Here are the 3 Blues dmen with the highest individual 5v5 ozone start %: Dunn (60.00%), Walman (57.14%), Bortuzzo (56.90%). Here are the 3 Blues dmen with the lowest individual 5v5 CF%: Gunnar (42.86%), Mikkola (43.13%), and Scandella (44.27%). Here are the 3 Blues dmen with the lowest individual 5v5 ozone start %: Gunnar (37.93%), Mikkola (43.18%), and Faulk (43.73%). Scandella (45.97%) had the 4th lowest individual 5v5 ozone start %. Player Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

Again, I think zone starts are vastly overrated. The numbers look big, but if you take the actual amount of starts divided by the actual games played, you're talking about 1 start in one zone per game and 1/2 a start in the other zone per game with those type of 55/45 splits. If a D-man starts in the D-zone once a game and starts in the O-zone once every other game but gets caved in on possession, that again means to me that said Dman isn't driving play North. The puck is in our zone far more often then it's in theirs, which is the goal of pretty much any successful team. Shooting stats are a proxy for puck possession. When Scandella is on the ice, the other team has the puck more. When you put any of the three D-men he played with (Dunn, Parayko, Faulk) with ANY other partner, they do better at keeping the puck compared to him, as well as create a better ratio of real scoring chances and expected goals.

Scandella played less then three minutes a night against "Elite" competition, out of his total of 17:30. Even if you take the Elite matchups out, he still looks terrible, unless it's against "Grinder" competition. If we're expecting a guy to hold down a Top-4 role, I think he needs to do better. We're basically paying a guy 3.25M to not bring any positive impact. Now, could we replace him and have a WORSE impact? Yea, we could. Mikkola looks terrible from most metrics, so at least it's not him? But again, if we're trying to actually win a Cup, we're going to eventually need an upgrade on his spot.....which we can handle at the TDL.

 

[ezcreepin]

Again, I think zone starts are vastly overrated. The numbers look big, but if you take the actual amount of starts divided by the actual games played, you're talking about 1 start in one zone per game and 1/2 a start in the other zone per game with those type of 55/45 splits. If a D-man starts in the D-zone once a game and starts in the O-zone once every other game but gets caved in on possession, that again means to me that said Dman isn't driving play North. The puck is in our zone far more often then it's in theirs, which is the goal of pretty much any successful team. Shooting stats are a proxy for puck possession. When Scandella is on the ice, the other team has the puck more. When you put any of the three D-men he played with (Dunn, Parayko, Faulk) with ANY other partner, they do better at keeping the puck compared to him, as well as create a better ratio of real scoring chances and expected goals.

Scandella played less then three minutes a night against "Elite" competition, out of his total of 17:30. Even if you take the Elite matchups out, he still looks terrible, unless it's against "Grinder" competition. If we're expecting a guy to hold down a Top-4 role, I think he needs to do better. We're basically paying a guy 3.25M to not bring any positive impact. Now, could we replace him and have a WORSE impact? Yea, we could. Mikkola looks terrible from most metrics, so at least it's not him? But again, if we're trying to actually win a Cup, we're going to eventually need an upgrade on his spot.....which we can handle at the TDL.

These are stats from a Stanley Cup winner:

I could include more but I don't need to. We are arbitrarily picking stats without context for any of it, but everyone would love to have this player. Sometimes it's necessary to gather more numbers and charts to paint a clearer picture, because not everyone can be a Hedman and be perfect under an advanced stats microscope. If I'm going to be consistent on this position, then I have to concede that Sundqvist is actually AWFUL when you look at his advanced stats, but no one here would say that he's bad. In fact, a lot of people here would argue he is an important cog to this lineup. This is why context is important.

p.s. The player mentioned is Bouwmeester

 

[stl76]

Again, I think zone starts are vastly overrated. The numbers look big, but if you take the actual amount of starts divided by the actual games played, you're talking about 1 start in one zone per game and 1/2 a start in the other zone per game with those type of 55/45 splits. If a D-man starts in the D-zone once a game and starts in the O-zone once every other game but gets caved in on possession, that again means to me that said Dman isn't driving play North. The puck is in our zone far more often then it's in theirs, which is the goal of pretty much any successful team. Shooting stats are a proxy for puck possession. When Scandella is on the ice, the other team has the puck more. When you put any of the three D-men he played with (Dunn, Parayko, Faulk) with ANY other partner, they do better at keeping the puck compared to him, as well as create a better ratio of real scoring chances and expected goals.

Scandella played less then three minutes a night against "Elite" competition, out of his total of 17:30. Even if you take the Elite matchups out, he still looks terrible, unless it's against "Grinder" competition. If we're expecting a guy to hold down a Top-4 role, I think he needs to do better. We're basically paying a guy 3.25M to not bring any positive impact. Now, could we replace him and have a WORSE impact? Yea, we could. Mikkola looks terrible from most metrics, so at least it's not him? But again, if we're trying to actually win a Cup, we're going to eventually need an upgrade on his spot.....which we can handle at the TDL.

Zone starts are overrated?

Here are the 3 Blues dmen with the highest individual 5v5 CF% from 2019-20: Dunn (55.21%), Pietrangelo (53.13%), and Bortuzzo (52.09%). Here are the 3 Blues dmen with the highest individual 5v5 ozone start % from 2019-20: Bortuzzo (62.88%), Dunn (62.54%), and Pietrangelo (52.38%). Here are the 3 Blues dmen with the lowest individual 5v5 CF% from 2019-20: Bouwmeester (45.21%), Gunnar (47.08%), and Parayko (49.41%). Here are the 3 Blues dmen with the lowest individual 5v5 ozone start % from 2019-20: Parayko (40.20%), Bouwmeester (41.69%), and Gunnar (48.63%). - Player Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

Here are the 3 Blues dmen with the highest individual 5v5 CF% from 2018-19: Dunn (55.00%), Bortuzzo (53.98%), Pietrangelo (53.31). Here are the 3 Blues dmen with the highest individual 5v5 ozone start % from 2018-19: Dunn (65.84%), Bortuzzo (60.85%), Pietrangelo (52.75%). Here are the 3 Blues dmen with the lowest individual 5v5 CF% from 2018-19: Bouwmeester (48.07%), Parayko (50.24%), and Edmundson (50.63%). Here are the 3 Blues dmen with the lowest individual 5v5 ozone start % from 2018-19: Edmundson (45.21%), Parayko (46.07%), and Bouwmeester (47.64%). - Player Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

In both these years I put in parameters to exclude players with small sample sizes. Notice any trends?

When Scandella was on the ice last year, he was deployed in a defensive role against tough QoC more than most other Blues dmen. I believe that him eating those minutes allowed other dmen to take easier assigments, which is part of the reason why other dmen's shooting based stats are better without Scandella than with him. Part of the positive impact for which we are paying Scandella $3.275 mill comes from the boost other dmen receive when they get easier match ups. It's this important nuance that too often gets lost in conversations involving advanced stats (especially colorful charts posted on twitter).

 

[Ranksu]

 

[parliamentlite]

Regarding Scandella, I'll default here to what Chief said when we acquired him: "He has a good stick."

 

[Ranksu]

Jeesus what nitpicking and defending Scandella who is imo decent. Doing his job decently. Playing top4 minutes, but will get burned on vs toughest opponent. Should get paid ~2mill.$ max imo. 3rd pair dmen. Would be ideal with Bortuzzo.

Nothing to compare Gunnar who did play with Pietro and handle his job nicely. I doubt Scandella would do it same way. Scandella's transition game isn't anything near as good Gunnar, who didn't do not so many mistakes when passing puck. Scandella has bad habit to turnover puck too easily.

It could be that Edmundson could have been answer, but too hesitate move by Army.

 

[parliamentlite]

Zone starts are overrated?

Here are the 3 Blues dmen with the highest individual 5v5 CF% from 2019-20: Dunn (55.21%), Pietrangelo (53.13%), and Bortuzzo (52.09%). Here are the 3 Blues dmen with the highest individual 5v5 ozone start % from 2019-20: Bortuzzo (62.88%), Dunn (62.54%), and Pietrangelo (52.38%). Here are the 3 Blues dmen with the lowest individual 5v5 CF% from 2019-20: Bouwmeester (45.21%), Gunnar (47.08%), and Parayko (49.41%). Here are the 3 Blues dmen with the lowest individual 5v5 ozone start % from 2019-20: Parayko (40.20%), Bouwmeester (41.69%), and Gunnar (48.63%). - Player Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

Here are the 3 Blues dmen with the highest individual 5v5 CF% from 2018-19: Dunn (55.00%), Bortuzzo (53.98%), Pietrangelo (53.31). Here are the 3 Blues dmen with the highest individual 5v5 ozone start % from 2018-19: Dunn (65.84%), Bortuzzo (60.85%), Pietrangelo (52.75%). Here are the 3 Blues dmen with the lowest individual 5v5 CF% from 2018-19: Bouwmeester (48.07%), Parayko (50.24%), and Edmundson (50.63%). Here are the 3 Blues dmen with the lowest individual 5v5 ozone start % from 2018-19: Edmundson (45.21%), Parayko (46.07%), and Bouwmeester (47.64%). - Player Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

In both these years I put in parameters to exclude players with small sample sizes. Notice any trends?

When Scandella was on the ice last year, he was deployed in a defensive role against tough QoC more than most other Blues dmen. I believe that him eating those minutes allowed other dmen to take easier assigments, which is part of the reason why other dmen's shooting based stats are better without Scandella than with him. Part of the positive impact for which we are paying Scandella $3.275 mill comes from the boost other dmen receive when they get easier match ups. It's this important nuance that too often gets lost in conversations involving advanced stats (especially colorful charts posted on twitter).

We all kinda like to forget how bad J-Bouw's analytics were, and how much we all wanted to be rid of him, right up until the win streak and cup run happened.

edit: this isn't a response to what you said, moreso me looking for a non-pitchforky place to evaluate players