Speculation: Avs macro issues thread

[Duchene2MacKinnon]

All you're doing is proving Lemaire is a good defensive coach, and can turn a non flashy, built to be defensive team into one that can catch lightning in a bottle but never turn into a consistently good or top team. Not until they fix the problems they're trying to cover up.

Would Lemaire or Babcock help make Bodnarchuk, Redmond, Holden, Wilson, Guenin, and an aging Hejda and Stuart better? Absolutely. Would that fix the team's problems, or are those defenseman comparable to what Lemaire and Babcock had to work with? Absolutely not.

No they can go on runs deep in the playoffs, while still playing solid hockey and being competitive the next years. It's not like one year they win their division and the next they finish bottom 5. That's lightening in a bottle.

i think you're downplaying the devils D of 11 and 12. andy greene is a very solid player and for the cup run they got a nice addition in zidlicky. terrible defender but solid offensive defenseman at the time.

not that it still was a D that one would expect to make the finals, it wasn't.

Nah, I know Greene is fantastic. He's as big a snub as EJ last Olympics. I said that on here when they announced the team. You said it yourself terrible defender.

Look at guys like Fayne,Salmela and now Schlemko take them out of the devils and they'd get exposed. If they were with the avs they'd be lumped in with the Redmon's and Guenin's of the world.

 

[JoemAvs]

The D core is too poor IMO, that's what I'm referring to. You can partially cover up for a huge hole and problem on you roster, but you can't fix it enough to be competitive long term. It needs to be fixed.

It's like a car that has been run into the ground and has glaring problem with it. A good mechanic can get it running and cover up a lot of it's problems, but it's never gonna compete long term with the other well tuned machines on the road.

I honestly think all this talk about systems, and structure, and x's and o's is just a simple answer for some. It just gets said over and over and over again, but how on earth would anyone here who's saying that know what kind of x's and o's he's drawing up? It's just being said without any knowledge.

Then we see them lose games after game off avoidable mistakes by defenseman. Nothing to do with x's and o's, but poor plays and mistakes.

Yeah of course our defense is not great and a big issue. But it is far from the worst in the league.

There are plenty of teams that should do worse but are not.

There was a very interesting statistic posted in SEPHs mainboard meltdown thread:

Structure is not a simple answer at all. And it is IMO the right answer.

It is way simpler to just point at the players and say they don't want it enough or that they are not smart enough.

No one is under the illusion that this is a top10 defense group. But EJ, Barrie and Beauch are pretty solid top 4 Ds.

Look at Detroit, Dallas, Ottawa (they improved with Phaneuf but defensively they are still pretty terrible), Philadelphia, Buffalo, Toronto, Vancouver, Arizona, Edmonton and maybe Carolina and Boston.

Those teams (and maybe a few others I haven't thought of) are arguably not in much better shape when it comes to defensemen than the Avs. A few of them are clearly worse.

And yet it is the Avs that are always among the worst possession teams in the league.
It is the Avs that can't ever seem to get over their issues on the blueline.
Why is that?

Why can other teams with way less talent at forward or goaltending play better hockey (and I am not even talking results. I am talking how that team looks in comparison to their opponents most of the time) than our team?

Why have all our core players stagnated for 3 years now in their development?

Why do we still not have a real idea how this team wants to consistently win games in this league?

No one is saying that this is absolutely 100 % the fault of our coach. The players have some issues themselves. But thinking about blowing up the core before even trying another coach is insane.

The Pens should have really traded Crosby under Johnston if we go by that logic. The dude looked terrible and seemed to have stopped "wanting it" completely at some point.


And I loved Patrick Roy back then. Still do. He will always be my favorite goaltender. But we are not talking Patrick Roy the Avs player, we are talking Patrick Roy the Avalanche coach. Huge difference.

Same for Sakic who will always be my favorite player and the guy that made me an Avs fan. But that player is gone. Now he is the GM and recently I am not a big fan.

 

[Foppa2118]

No they can go on runs deep in the playoffs, while still playing solid hockey and being competitive the next years. It's not like one year they win their division and the next they finish bottom 5. That's lightening in a bottle.

Teams that have big problems can be solid with good coaching. After their initial success, that's usually their peak capability, until they fix the problem. Being solid.

Average problems are some thing different, and every team has them.

A good coach can cover up for problems like Duchene and Nate being the top two centers, but not particularly good two way players. A good coach might be able to cover up for Landy having a down year probably due to injury, and also him taking too many bad penalties. A good coach might be able to make up for their goaltender not being able to make the big saves every once in a while during a season. A good coach might be able to make up for EJ having an off year due to injury or something else, and putting strain on the rest of the D core. These are average sized problems teams go through during a season

Right now the Avs have two of six defenseman that are "good defensively" and that's been the case for a long time, and even more so if you consider Beauch>Hejda. I'm not counting a 20 year old Bigras among that two, because he's still young and inconsistent.

A good coach might be able to turn bad water into drinkable, but he can't turn water into wine, and he can't turn AHL defenseman into good NHL defenseman. Especially when his #1, who is a good defenseman, struggles for half the year. These are major season ruining problems.

 

[Duchene2MacKinnon]

...And Roy hasn't done any of those things.

Forgot to add in my earlier post that make Stuart,Bords,Guenin,Holden better players would fix a lot of the problems.

People have said why they think Roy is a bad coach right now but I have never heard what makes him a good coach.Just that this isn't his problem because X,Y and Z. The only thing that gets mentioned is his management of players,which is a good to have, however it is not the only thing you need to be a good coach.

 

[Foppa2118]

Structure is not a simple answer at all. And it is IMO the right answer.

Honestly that graph doesn't prove anything in regards to the cause of this problem, and it certainly doesn't prove why those stats are Roy's fault, and not that his D core which consisted mainly of poor defenseman like Bodnarchuk, Redmond, Holden, Wilson, Guenin, Benoit, Sarich, and an aging Hejda and Stuart.

That graph does not explain how to turn those defenseman into competent NHL defenseman. It does not show how to turn those players into being smart and skilled enough to be good possession players, or solid defensively.

 

[JoemAvs]

Honestly that graph doesn't prove anything in regards to the cause of this problem, and it certainly doesn't prove why those stats are Roy's fault, and not that his D core which consisted mainly of poor defenseman like Bodnarchuk, Redmond, Holden, Wilson, Guenin, Benoit, Sarich, and and aging Hejda and Stuart.

That graph does not explain how to turn those defenseman into competent NHL defenseman. It does not show how to turn those players into being smart and skilled enough to be good possession players, or solid defensively.

That graph proves what everyone can see with their own eyes and read in every statistic. The Avs are one if not the worst possession team in the league.

Can you explain to me why the Avs are so terrible when it comes to possession?

If your defense is putrid, wouldn't you emphasize possession to keep the puck as much as possible outside of the "dangerzone" and therefore reduce the pressure on your Dmen?

How does Toronto do so much better possession wise than the Avs?
Cause their Dmen are so much more talented?
What about Detroit or Dallas or Philadelphia?
Why don't they have those issues with possession?

And yeah nice that you have listed those failed experiments on the bottom pairing.
You could add Hunwick to the list. The guy that plays on the top pairing for Toronto...

Of course that defense is not very good. But it is the job of the coach to mitigate that by implementing a solid system and a good structure that can help them overachieve (That is basically the job description for a coach if you add player management/motivational skills).
Do you really think that Roy has done a good enough job on that part?

Do you really think that Patrick Roy is a good coach?

 

[Foppa2118]

Why are you so defensive?
That graph proves what everyone can see with their own eyes and read in every statistic. The Avs are one if not the worst possession team in the league.

Can you explain to me why the Avs are so terrible when it come to possession?

If your defense is putrid, wouldn't you emphasize possession to keep the puck as much as possible outside of the "dangerzone" and therefore reduce the pressure on your Dmen?

How does Toronto do so much better possession wise than the Avs?
Cause their Dmen are so much more talented?
What about Detroit or Dallas or Philadelphia?
Why don't they have those issues with possession?

And yeah nice that you have listed those failed experiments on the bottom pairing.
You could add Hunwick to the list. The guy that plays on the top pairing for Toronto...

Of course that defense is not very good. But it is the job of the coach to mitigate that by implementing a solid system and a good structure that can help them overachieve (That is basically the job description for a coach if you add player management/motivational skills).
Do you really think that Roy has done a good enough job on that part?

Do you really think that Patrick Roy is a good coach?

Roy is unproven as a coach in the NHL, I don't know if he's a "good coach" or not. What I do know is that no coach can turn Bodnarchuk, Redmond, Holden, Wilson, Guenin, Benoit, Sarich, and old Hejda and Stuart into good possession players or competent NHL defenseman.

This possession obsession is completely out of hand in terms of team success anyway. Man I wish we could be as good at "possession" as the Leafs. That's done wonders for them in 30th place.

Also, Hunwicks "success" in Toronto and the likelihood that he maintains that level of play might be the most overrated thing on this board in years.

 

[agentblack]

This possession obsession is completely out of hand in terms of team success anyway. Man I wish we could be as good at "possession" as the Leafs. That's done wonders for them in 30th place.

I had to lol at that. Because yeah for all that statistical awesomeness for possesion and shot creation ...they are in ..30th ? Sometimes too much info can color a situation in entirely wrong light. Last place is still last friggin place.

 

[JoemAvs]

Roy is unproven as a coach in the NHL, I don't know if he's a "good coach" or not. What I do know is that no coach can turn Bodnarchuk, Redmond, Holden, Wilson, Guenin, Benoit, Sarich, and old Hejda and Stuart into good possession players or competent NHL defenseman.

This possession obsession is completely out of hand in terms of team success anyway. Man I wish we could be as good at "possession" as the Leafs. That's done wonders for them in 30th place.

Also, Hunwicks "success" in Toronto and the likelihood that he maintains that level of play might be the most overrated thing on this board in years.

So you want to blow up the core rather than try a more proven coach first?
Interesting.

And it is flabbergasting that the Avs section of hfboards still has not learned to get over their advanced stats hatred. We often outperform them but most of the time exactly those flaws that lead to those stats catch up with us.
That is so remarkably similar to what Leafs fans were writing under Burke / Carlyle that it is not even funny. Go ask what they think about that now looking back.

Possession play is not only on the players. It is also on coaches. Roy clearly does not value possession or (the evil) Corsi at all. And he is simply wrong. It is far from the most important thing in the world but it a solid indicator for sustainable success and improving it would be an integral piece to finally get this team somewhere.

Of course Toronto can not do anything with their possession. Look at that roster.
In the end you need talent in this league.

But the Leafs have no talent but a good system and structure. Once they get in the necessary talent that will be a winning combination.

The Avs do have way more talent but we rely way too heavily on it because we have no real structure and our system is not very good.


I repeat that thanks to that ridiculous Lindros trade, coaching is severely underrated among Avs fans. We had so much talent back then that we won anyways.
But that unique situation will never happen again (in a capworld). And I still believe we could have won more with better coaching back then.

 

[Foppa2118]

So you want to blow up the core rather than try a more proven coach first?
Interesting.

And it is flabbergasting that the Avs section of hfboards still has not learned to get over their advanced stats hatred. We often outperform them but most of the time exactly those flaws that lead to those stats catch up with us.
That is so remarkably similar to what Leafs fans were writing under Burke / Carlyle that it is not even funny. Go ask what they think about that now looking back.

Possession play is not only on the players. It is also on coaches. Roy clearly does not value possession or (the evil) Corsi at all. And he is simply wrong. It is far from the most important thing in the world but it a solid indicator for sustainable success and improving it would be an integral piece to finally get this team somewhere.

Of course Toronto can not do anything with their possession. Look at that roster.
In the end you need talent in this league.

But the Leafs have no talent but a good system and structure. Once they get in the necessary talent that will be a winning combination.

The Avs do have way more talent but we rely way too heavily on it because we have no real structure and our system is not very good.


I repeat that thanks to that ridiculous Lindros trade, coaching is severely underrated among Avs fans. We had so much talent back then that we won anyways.
But that unique situation will never happen again (in a capworld). And I still believe we could have won more with better coaching back then.

I have never suggested that once.

So you need good players to be successful, and possession numbers can be misleading, and only a small part of the puzzle?

 

[JoemAvs]

I have never suggested that once.

So you need good players to be successful, and possession numbers can be misleading, and only a small part of the puzzle?

It sure read like you were deflecting the blame away from the coach onto the players.
That basically implies that we need big changes in that regard if we consider what Sakic was saying a few days ago.
But maybe I misinterpreted something. Than my bad.



No. It is not a small part of the puzzle. It is an important part.
All stats can be misleading. But those possession stats for the Avs are not misleading. We lead the league (or are close to the top) in blocked shots and yet we are still very much at the bottom when it comes to shots allowed. Everyone can see that we spend way too much time chasing players around in our own zone.
Everyone can see that we have trouble breaking out of our zone.

You are dismissing those alarming statistics and observations way too easily. Our possession game is a huge issue right now. Maybe the biggest.

You need a combination of many things to win in this league. Talent of course is huge.

Possession is not the most important thing. But you can not have the Avs approach to possession and be last in the league in it and seriously believe you can win much in this league regardless of your talent level.

Not in a league where individual scoring is down and where it becomes harder and harder for the top guys to consistently shine. Relying on your talent to magically make something out of nothing (or out of the very limited oportunities we have thanks to spending so much time in our own end) each and every game simply is not a recipe for success.

 

[AslanRH]

There's a medium folks between talent and possession/system.

Leafs have system with little to no talent, Avs have talent with little to no system. One seems it should be easier than the other to improve.

 

[agentblack]

There's a medium folks between talent and possession/system.

Leafs have system with little to no talent, Avs have talent with little to no system. One seems it should be easier than the other to improve.

It is? I think you can argue that the Leafs may never find that elite talent to put them where they think they need to go and the Avs may never get a good system in place to take this talent to the next level.
I think a good team is like a good movie, it kinda needs to be a perfect storm. So many things have to work out for a team to win.

 

[Foppa2118]

It sure read like you were deflecting the blame away from the coach onto the players.
That basically implies that we need big changes in that regard if we consider what Sakic was saying a few days ago.
But maybe I misinterpreted something. Than my bad.



No. It is not a small part of the puzzle. It is an important part.
All stats can be misleading. But those possession stats for the Avs are not misleading. We lead the league (or are close to the top) in blocked shots and yet we are still very much at the bottom when it comes to shots allowed. Everyone can see that we spend way too much time chasing players around in our own zone.
Everyone can see that we have trouble breaking out of our zone.

You are dismissing those alarming statistics and observations way too easily. Our possession game is a huge issue right now. Maybe the biggest.

You need a combination of many things to win in this league. Talent of course is huge.

Possession is not the most important thing. But you can not have the Avs approach to possession and be last in the league in it and seriously believe you can win much in this league regardless of your talent level.

Not in a league where individual scoring is down and where it becomes harder and harder for the top guys to consistently shine. Relying on your talent to magically make something out of nothing (or out of the very limited oportunities we have thanks to spending so much time in our own end) each and every game simply is not a recipe for success.

You think that chart isn't misleading, but you know what my favorite part of that graph you posted is? Chicago and Edmonton have almost identical numbers. They're sitting right on top of each other.

Not only that but Toronto is very close to the Hawks and Caps shots against, but fairly ahead of both on shots for.

You would never know from that chart that the two best teams in hockey right now are Washington who's 1st overall in the standings by an astounding 15 points, and Chicago, who have three cups in the last six years, while Edmonton and Toronto are the two worst teams in the league, and have been bottom dwellers the last few years playing awful hockey.

 

[JoemAvs]

You think that chart isn't misleading, but you know what my favorite part of that graph you posted is? Chicago and Edmonton have almost identical numbers. They're sitting right on top of each other.

Not only that but Toronto is very close to the Hawks and Caps shots against, but fairly ahead of both on shots for.

You would never know from that chart that the two best teams in hockey right now are Washington who's 1st overall in the standings by an astounding 15 points, and Chicago, who have three cups in the last four years, while Edmonton and Toronto are the two worst teams in the league, and have been bottom dwellers the last few years playing awful hockey.

For the Avs it is not misleading. And that is what we are talking about right?

Statistics are not perfect. There always will be outliers that do not make sense.

You can then dismiss the general concept as a whole and laugh at it or you could stop and think for a minute about them and whether (and where )they make sense or not.

Does that graph really not make sense in general? Can't you see that most good teams are in fact above average in that graph?

Where does that graph say that it helps you evaluate who is the best team in the league? Of course there is more to hockey than possession statistics or Corsi.
But you can also see that doing well in that graph correlates pretty nicely with being a good team or not.


Adhering blindly to statistics is stupid. But they can show you a lot if you use them in combination with the eyetest and common sense.

Dismissing them because of some outliers is as stupid as treating them as gospel.

 

[Foppa2118]

For the Avs it is not misleading. And that is what we are talking about right?

Statistics are not perfect. There always will be outliers that do not make sense.

You can then dismiss the general concept as a whole and laugh at it or you could stop and think for a minute about them and whether (and where )they make sense or not.

Does that graph really does not make sense in general? Can't you see that most good teams are in fact above average in that graph?


That there really seems to be a correlation between that graph and being a good team?

How is a meaningful stat in terms of the Avs success but not the Hawks, Caps, Leafs, or Oilers? How can it be trusted as reliable when it's capable of being so off discerning the two best teams in the league with the two worst?

For those stats to have some relevance on success, when the two best teams in the league are essentially neck and neck on that chart with the two worst teams, then it would seem to imply the good teams struggled during those 25 games, while the poor teams played over their head well.

Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case either. The Hawks and Caps were crushing the league in those 25 games, while the Oilers and Leafs have been abysmal. Meanwhile they had eerily similar numbers on your chart.

Hawks - 16-8-1
Caps - 18-6-1

Oilers - 8-13-4
Leafs - 5-17-3

Why are their numbers nearly identical?

 

[Alex Jones]

The scariest part of the graph to me is that that shows the last 25 games, when the Avs have supposedly played their best hockey.

 

[Foppa2118]

Really? That's the scariest part? After I just pointed out the two best teams in the league are nearly identical on that graph with the two worst teams in the league?

I got to step away from this thread. I feel like I'm about to OD on crazy pills.

 

[JoemAvs]

How is a meaningful stat in terms of the Avs success but not the Hawks, Caps, Leafs, or Oilers? How can it be trusted as reliable when it's capable of being so off discerning the two best teams in the league with the two worst?

For those stats to have some relevance on success, when the two best teams in the league are essentially neck and neck on that chart with the two worst teams, then it would seem to imply the good teams struggled during those 25 games, while the poor teams played over their head well.

Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case either. The Hawks and Caps were crushing the league in those 25 games, while the Oilers and Leafs have been abysmal. Meanwhile they had eerily similar numbers on your chart.

Hawks - 16-8-1
Caps - 18-6-1

Oilers - 8-13-4
Leafs - 5-17-3

Because you are misreading the chart.
This is not meant to replace playing games or evaluating performances via the eyetest.

This is meant to show that SA/SG in general correlates pretty nicely with being a winning team or not. Of course there are outliers.

Babcock and McLellan (who I still think is a good coach) are not your run of the mill coaches.


Again. Possession or Corsi is not the end of all. I never said that. But being good at it undeniably helps you win or vice versa. Atleast being last in the league by a significant margin certainly is not conducive to winning.


And the Avs have been putrid at it for years now.

We are the worst possession team in the league according to that graph.
Everyone in here can attest to that if we are really being honest.

The Avs absolutely suck at it. We win games on the back of our high end talent and goaltending.

But that formula so far has not come close to getting us where we want to be.

So how about we stop dismissing all those statistics and try to take a more objective viewpoint and take them seriously?

A neutral perspective often helps. Go ahead and read all of those posts from other fans on our team or ask them what is wrong with it.

You will hear the words Coaching and Corsi/Possession way more often than you would like.


I think it is astonishing that you are so hellbent on not wanting to acknowledge this problem. Our possession game is by all accounts putrid. That is a problem whether you like it or not.

 

[Foppa2118]

Because you are misreading the chart.
This is not meant to replace playing games or evaluating performances via the eyetest.

This is meant to show that SA/SG in general correlates pretty nicely with being a winning team or not. Of course there are outliers.

Babcock and McLellan (who I still think is a good coach) are not your run of the mill coaches.


Again. Possession or Corsi is not the end of all. I never said that. But being good at it undeniably helps you win or vice versa. Atleast being last in the league by a significant margin certainly is not conductive to winning.


And the Avs have been putrid at it for years now.

We are the worst possession team in the league according to that graph.
Everyone in here can attest to that if we are really being honest.

The Avs absolutely suck at it. We win games on the back of our high end talent and goaltending.

But that formula so far has not come close to getting us where we want to be.

So how about we stop dismissing all those statistics and try to take a more objective viewpoint and take them seriously?

A neutral perspective often helps. Go ahead and read all of those posts from other fans on our team or ask them what is wrong with it.

You will hear the words Coaching and Corsi/Possession way more often than you would like.


I think it is astonishing that you are so hellbent on not wanting to acknowledge this problem. Our possession game is by all accounts putrid. That is a problem whether you like it or not.

I got it. The outliers are the ones that disprove the charts relevance, while the accurate examples are the ones that show Roy's at fault for the play of bad defenseman.

Wait crap. Even if that was somehow fair, it doesn't prove that at all. I'm still not doing this right.

 

[Alex Jones]

Really? That's the scariest part? After I just pointed out the two best teams in the league are nearly identical on that graph with the two worst teams in the league?

I got to step away from this thread. I feel like I'm about to OD on crazy pills.

Teams have different issues. The Avs issue is clearly that they struggle to hold possession.

The Leafs problem is that they are incredibly untalented and thus shoot the worst percentage in the NHL.

The Oilers problem is that they both shoot and defend below the league average.

The Avs are above average in shooting percentage and about average in save percentage. The problem is that the Avs get terribly out shot.

With regards to the Caps and Hawks, they have the two highest save percentage in the league, and the Caps also have the best shooting. Possession is not everything, but it is something and being a consistently terrible team in this regard is extremely concerning and indicative of a major flaw in the team.

 

[JoemAvs]

I got it. The outliers are the ones that disprove the charts relevance, while the accurate examples are the ones that show Roy's at fault for the play of bad defenseman.

Wait crap. Even if that was somehow fair, it doesn't prove that at all. I'm still not doing this right.

You are deflecting like you did in all your other answers.

What does this chart show?

It shows us score adjusted shots/60 mins at 5vs5. Basically even strength possession.

Not more and not less.

It shows us that if we apply that metric, the Avs are dead last.




Everything else is just an interpretation of that graph.

I think that it shows pretty decently that the good teams are doing rather well on that chart.

The area clearly below average consists of Colorado, Arizona, Ottawa, Columbus, Vancouver, Buffalo, Calgary, New Jersey, Boston, Minnesota, Florida and the Rangers.

The area clearly above average consists of Detroit, Winnipeg, Nashville, Carolina, SJ, TB, PIT, LA, ANA, CAR, DAL, TOR and NYI.

Then you have teams like STL, CHI and EDM who are right around average.


Now you could look at each team individually and ask yourself: "Why are they where they are on this graph"?.

Minnesota for example obviously is below the line because they have been playing so putrid recently that it even got their coach fired.

Arizona, Ottawa, Columbus, Vancouver, Buffalo are where you expect them to be.

Same goes for LA, TB, Dallas, Anaheim and even San Jose (IMO they are pretty good).

Leafs and Oilers look like they are better than they should be.

Leafs have Babcock who is a top3 coach atleast who always has done a great job at having his team play a great possession game. But they have 0 talent on their roster so it is no surprise that those stats do not translate into winning.

Oilers have McLellan who is not a bad coach either but probably the most inept blueline in the league.


Chicago and Washington should be higher. But this is 5vs5 and Washington and Chicago have the best and 3rd best powerplay in the league. St.Louis is 6th. Their goalies also have a great save percentage this year.

That could explain why they are outperforming that graph.


But what is the excuse for the Avs? Why are they dead last? Why have they been at the bottom for a couple of years now in those kind of statistics?
They have a slightly above average Powerplay. So that does not help.


The problem to me seems to be that you do not even want to think about what those statistics probably mean. You look at things that do not add up in your mind only to outright dismiss them as a whole.

What is your interpretation of that graph?
That it is worthless? That possession does not correlate with sustained success at all?

That advanced stats are just mumbo jumbo?

 

[Nalens Oga]

Ignoring the coaching issue (people can't seem to agree if it's a coaching issue or not, I obviously think the coaching's a big problem), look at the roster itself and the roster of the 8 teams in front.

Is our roster any better than the rosters of the teams currently in a western playoff spot? We can't agree that coaching is the problem but we can agree that the roster we have as-is isn't any better than the western playoff teams. Rebuilding isn't a quick thing but we rebuilt since 2009 then reset that in 2013 so it's been at least three years. To be in the third year of a rebuild and still have a roster weaker than 8 other teams in the conference is a bit of a poor show. I know they got screwed over with poor drafting and whatnot but didn't exactly make any of the shrewd moves that the other teams did. I'm not trying to justify Roy and the team being out of the playoff spot, I think he should be fired because of how they play not whether they're 9th or 7th but if we're looking at the big picture then look at GMing too. GM's get judged by the moves they make and sometimes, you have to judge them more by what they fail to do. Barring some trade magic which I doubt Sakic can pull off, we're still not gonna be one of the top-8 teams on paper in the conference even with Rantanen/Zadorov. Either way, I have 0 confidence in the guys in the office and hopefully by the time the next change comes, Duchene/Mac/Landeskog/EJ still have a lot of hockey in them so we don't have to rebuild from almost scratch.

 

[Foppa2118]

You are deflecting like you did in all your other answers.

What does this chart show?

It shows us score adjusted shots/60 mins at 5vs5. Basically even strength possession.

Not more and not less.

It shows us that if we apply that metric, the Avs are dead last.




Everything else is just an interpretation of that graph.

I think that it shows pretty decently that the good teams are doing rather well on that chart.

The area clearly below average consists of Colorado, Arizona, Ottawa, Columbus, Vancouver, Buffalo, Calgary, New Jersey, Boston, Minnesota, Florida and the Rangers.

The area clearly above average consists of Detroit, Winnipeg, Nashville, Carolina, SJ, TB, PIT, LA, ANA, CAR, DAL, TOR and NYI.

Then you have teams like STL, CHI and EDM who are right around average.


Now you could look at each team individually and ask yourself: "Why are they were they are on this graph"?.

Minnesota for example obviously is below the line because they have been playing so putrid that it even got their coach fired.

Arizona, Ottawa, Columbus, Vancouver, Buffalo are where you expect them to be.

Same goes for LA, TB, Dallas, Anaheim and even San Jose (IMO they are pretty good).

Leafs and Oilers look like they are better than they should be.

Leafs have Babcock who is a top3 coach atleast who always has done a great job at having his team play a great possession game. But they have 0 talent on their roster so it is no surprise that those stats do not translate into winning.

Oilers have McLellan who is not a bad coach either but probably the most inept blueline in the league.


Chicago and Washington should be higher. But this is 5vs5 and Washington and Chicago have the best and 3rd best powerplay in the league. St.Louis is 6th.

That could explain why they are outperforming that graph.


But what is the excuse for the Avs? Why are they dead last? Why have they been at the bottom for a couple of years now in those kind of statistics?
They have a slightly above average Powerplay. So that does not help.


The problem to me seems to be that you do not even want to think about what those statistics probably mean. You look at things that do not add up in your mind only to outright dismiss them as a whole.

What is your interpretation of that graph?
That it is worthless? That possession does not correlate with sustained success at all?

That advanced stats are just mumbo jumbo?

All that chart shows is that the Avs are not strong in one particular area of the game, according to that metric. It doesn't say the root cause of that problem, and it doesn't say how important that issue is to team success, and it certainly gives no assurances of scientific accuracy to how much worse the Avs are than other teams, or relevance to the discussion at hand, when the two best and two worst teams in the league are right next to each other, smack dab in the middle of the chart. It loses massive amounts of credibility and importance due to that fact.

 

[Nalens Oga]

All that chart shows is that the Avs are not strong in one particular area of the game, according to that metric. It doesn't say the root cause of that problem, and it doesn't say how important that issue is to team success, and it certainly gives no assurances of scientific accuracy to how much worse the Avs are than other teams, or relevance to the discussion at hand, when the two best and two worst teams in the league are right next to each other, smack dab in the middle of the chart. It loses massive amounts of credibility and importance due to that fact.

No that's a very telling graph that shows you aren't strong in many areas of the game. It can mean that you aren't strong at holding the puck, you aren't strong at passing it to generate shots, you aren't strong at getting it out of your zone, you aren't strong at finding shooting lanes, you aren't strong at generating and then shooting at rebounds, you aren't strong at freezing the puck when it's in your zone under pressure, etc....maybe not all those problems but multiple ones.

If you mean to say that ignore that chart and use the eye test then the eye test to me personally shows that the 30th placed Leafs are far more organized in their own zone and at getting the puck out than us. They just don't have offensive talent. Plus, charts show trends, all the charts show us on the negative side so yeah one by itself isn't strong but if they're all suggesting that you're **** then you're probably ****.