Dan Girardi

[R2theDizzlE]

Uh how? It's solely looking at how much he's paid. Don't tell me anything about years left and service time and such. As a sample among the whole league it's purely noise. He has the 21st highest cap hit this year. That's not debatable in any way.

I absolutely can assure you in the seasons to come while his contract plays out, that number will go down.

 

[SA16]

I absolutely can assure you in the seasons to come while his contract plays out, that number will go down.

Yes obviously but that has nothing to do with this season. Of course it will go down. His contract is fixed. The cap is going up. Contracts will go up in proportion with that.

 

[Tawnos]

Uh how? It's solely looking at how much he's paid. Don't tell me anything about years left and service time and such. As a sample among the whole league it's purely noise. He has the 21st highest cap hit this year. That's not debatable in any way.

Yes, but it misses the mark on how a better defenseman, even a much better defenseman, could be paid less than him because they had less leverage in negotiation due to service time. The going rate for a first pair, in his prime, UFA D starts at $6m. And that's the bottom end.

 

[Mikos87]

In the span of a shift Dan Girardi blocked a shot in the slot from E.Staal. and got his stick to deflect another shot from getting on net.

Now those are what I call two good plays.

If you look at it from a Corsi perspective, that was bad since he was on for two shot attempts against but didn't sniff the offensive zone during that shift.

See its plays like that are why he eats top pair minutes. He made two really good hockey plays, but advanced stats suggest he had a bad shift.

This is why I can't take this Girardi hate seriously. It is customary for the common Ranger fan to have a whipping boy on defense. Girardi is now that guy.

 

[Raspewtin]

Uh-oh...

That table doesn't filter out Girardi being on the ice, which he usually is with McDonagh.

I did it for you.

McD is a possession anchor!

Or, he just draws the toughest matchups and so when anyone is out with him their numbers go down because if he's out there it means the toughest opposition is out there too. And when they're not out with McD their numbers go up because the opposition doesn't have their best guys out there.

Nah, it's definitely that McD sucks. Boyle is our best Dman by far.

lulz, quite the opposite.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

I don't think G is a quality first pair Defenseman, much more suited into the 2nd pair role. This is why I don't think he deserves 1st pair salary.

Not everything is ideal. Its not ideal that we are paying our defenseman that plays only the third most minutes 5.7M on a long term deal, but thats what it took to keep Staal. Just like ideally it would be better to get Girardi signed to a contract paying him less, but that just wasn't going to happen.

If we want to keep our wining core together, we would have to overpay some players. These players have earned big reputations in the NHL, and if we didn't give them big deals, someone else was going to and it was going to weaken our team.

With contracts, you win some and you lose some. McDonagh's deal is terrific. Klein's, Zucc's, Hayes' and Talbot's as well. Staal and Girardi's, not so much. I don't understand all the complaining. Who cares if we are slightly overpaying these two right now? We are winning and they are playing relatively well. It could be a lot worse. We could be the Carolina Hurricanes and we could be paying Semin and his 4 goals on the season 7M.

 

[jniklast]

That table doesn't filter out Girardi being on the ice, which he usually is with McDonagh.

I did it for you.

lulz, quite the opposite.

You conveniently left out OZone%. I just checked Brassard, an he has a 55.3 OZ% with only McD and a 37 OZ% with only Girardi. I'd be very interested in the other numbers, maybe I'll do it later.

 

[silverfish]

You conveniently left out OZone%. I just checked Brassard, an he has a 55.3 OZ% with only McD and a 37 OZ% with only Girardi. I'd be very interested in the other numbers, maybe I'll do it later.

I'd imagine it's the same for every player.

If McDonagh isn't with Girardi, who is he with? Boyle or Klein.

If Girardi isn't with McDonagh, who is he with? Staal, J. Moore, or Hunwick.

Hm.

But that is certainly interesting, Ras... Did not even know you could do that.

EDIT - I ran a super WOWY for Nash-Brassard-Zuccarello; McD-G

Together, 59.1% ozone starts

Girardi without them, 40.8%

That table doesn't filter out Girardi being on the ice, which he usually is with McDonagh.

I did it for you.

How do you filter out one player?

TOI?

Ozone starts?

 

[silverfish]

Charts!

Minimum 200 minutes on the Rangers... I'd say G gets some pretty tough competition and zone starts, wouldn't you?

Here's a chart with the top four 5v5 Fenwick teams in the league (NYI, LA, NSH, TB)... A lot of red there in Girardi's realm...

Taking off the team filter, but still applying a 200 minute filter, there are 14 defenseman who get tougher zone start %s 5v5 than Girardi.

400 minutes? 11 defenseman

500 minutes? 10

750 minutes? 8

900 minutes? 7

1100 minutes? 4.

Josi, Seidenberg, Staal, Weber. Among them, only Weber boasts a CF% > 50 (barely, at 50.1). Everyone knows Weber is elite. Nobody is arguing that Girardi is elite.

They are ALL negative CF% relative players. Girardi and Seidenberg tied for the worst at -5.7%. They all range from -3.8% (Staal) to -5.7%.

What do score effects have to say about this?

Only Staal and Seidenberg have more TOI/G when leading 5v5 than Girardi.

When trailing 5v5? Girardi has the LOWEST TOI/G among these players. This is very relevant, because in this scoring situation, every player has a CF% > 50%. Josi and Weber jump to 55.9% and 57.4% respectively! Hard to imagine this situation isn't heavily impacting their overall numbers... In fairness, it is important to note that in this situation, Weber and Josi have far worse ozone starts than Girardi. It may also be important to note that only Staal has a positive relative corsi in this situation among these defensemen.

Girardi leads the way in PK TOI, and boasts the lowest GA/60 Shorthanded among the group.

And finally, even though I'm still not sure how this is calculated, Girardi has the 2nd highest TOIC% 5v5 among this group, with Weber and Josi at 17.8 and Girardi at 17.7%

Conclusion:

It's more than apparent Girardi gets some of the toughest assignments, whether it be competition or offensive zone starts in the league. I maintain that these factors, as well as TOI/G in certain situations need to be accounted for when citing possession numbers like they are gospel.

Weber has been in the conversation for Norris trophies, and is considered one of the elite right-handed d-men in the league. Roman Josi has exploded onto the scene as another one of the league's best. Yet, here's Girardi, possession anchor and third-pairing defenseman holding his weight against these guys in similar, if not worse, usage.

Once again, I maintain that these metrics have faults in the measuring of stay-at-home positional defenders. I understand the point that if you have the puck, the other team doesn't. The best defense is a good offense. People are saying this like people used to say that if you hit someone, they can't score. Well, if you hit someone, you don't have the puck. The game is evolving, maybe even too fast. These possession metrics are great, but they are faulted because of the variables and fluidity of the game of hockey.

One team isn't going to have the puck the entire game (unless you're playing the Sabres). Every player in the NHL is going to need to know how to play away from the puck and positionally. JT Miller is a prime example of this. If you're a young kid and you can't play in your own zone or know where to be, you're not going to play. Jesper Fast is the exact opposite of JT Miller. Coming to the show and knowing exactly what to do away from the puck, and it has kept him in the lineup.

I love advanced stats. I want to learn more and more about them every day; but I can admit their faults. Hockey is not baseball. When Shea Weber takes a slap shot, it's not always going to go top-left corner at 100 mph. When Mariano Rivera took the mound, there was what, a 95% chance the batter was going to see a 92mph cutter that broke about 5 inches away from a right-handed batter? And yet, Mariano is still the GOAT (wanted to throw that in there as to make sure everyone knew I wasn't taking a shot at the greatest).

So, I'd say, hold off for now on measuring defensive defensemen with these stats. Hopefully, with puck tracking and other technologies, SAP can give us a really in-depth look at exactly what some of the posters who are complaining about Girardi are seeing, or, more hopeful, they give us a better look into just how good G is in his own end, and keeping scoring chances limited, etc... etc... all relative to the completely **** assignments he gets on faceoffs and competition.

On another note, every time I do a "Girardi Analysis" I'm shown how good Marc Staal is 5v5. What a ****ing monster

I'm going to be away from my computer for most of (if not the rest of) the day. I hope this sparks some good conversation, or at least some thought. Will check back in when I can.

 

[Raspewtin]

You conveniently left out OZone%. I just checked Brassard, an he has a 55.3 OZ% with only McD and a 37 OZ% with only Girardi. I'd be very interested in the other numbers, maybe I'll do it later.

Realized I was missing them half way through and didn't include them, shoot me.

Differences don't make up the CF% discrepancies anyway.

How do you filter out one player?

TOI?

Ozone starts?

You can't do it through the website, you have to do the math yourself.

 

[jniklast]

Realized I was missing them half way through and didn't include them, shoot me.

Differences don't make up the CF% discrepancies anyway.

That's your opinion. I know of the famous 1.8 CF% per 10% OZ%, but that's a league wide approximation and only accounts for the OZ% itself, while it usually means different usage.

Of course in the end McDonagh is the better player, so I would expect the numbers to reflect that. But Girardi's numbers are influenced by his usage. The diference from 2008-09 and earlier compared to afterwards heavily suggest that. At least it's a lot more likely than that he suddenly got significantly worse.

 

[Raspewtin]

That's your opinion. I know of the famous 1.8 CF% per 10% OZ%, but that's a league wide approximation and only accounts for the OZ% itself, while it usually means different usage.

Of course in the end McDonagh is the better player, so I would expect the numbers to reflect that. But Girardi's numbers are influenced by his usage. The diference from 2008-09 and earlier compared to afterwards heavily suggest that. At least it's a lot more likely than that he suddenly got significantly worse.

I'm not arguing that his usage has nothing to do with his garbo possession numbers. I'm sure they have some sort of negative effect on them.

What I'm not buying in to, is the idea that he'd be a good possession player if he didn't face the match-ups he does. He's just a really bad possession player.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say his change in usage isn't why his possession numbers have totally plummeted. I think a large part of it has to do with how he changed as a player under John Tortorella.

One of the keys to his constant defensive shell game, was "make no attempt to impede a zone entry", attackers would come in waves over our blueline totally unencumbered. Girardi used to be pretty good at denying zone entries when he first broke into the league. He also was much more likely to throw a strong hit in open ice his first few years. Those aspects have totally evaporated in his game, and it's part of what so strongly reflects in his possession numbers IMO. If a puck handler carries into our zone against Girardi, you can guarantee at the very least he'll get the puck deep. Never does Girardi even attempt a stick check, a body check, closing the gap, none. It's an easy zone entry against him. He used to not play that way, and it pisses me off.

 

[NYRFANMANI]

There was some discussion about G not cheering with Fast on his goal last night. Someone said, maybe somebody pulled a Sharp, what does that mean? (see GDT vs. ANA, post #2, or the PGDT for ANA.)

 

[haveandare]

Charts!

Minimum 200 minutes on the Rangers... I'd say G gets some pretty tough competition and zone starts, wouldn't you?

Here's a chart with the top four 5v5 Fenwick teams in the league (NYI, LA, NSH, TB)... A lot of red there in Girardi's realm...

Taking off the team filter, but still applying a 200 minute filter, there are 14 defenseman who get tougher zone start %s 5v5 than Girardi.

400 minutes? 11 defenseman

500 minutes? 10

750 minutes? 8

900 minutes? 7

1100 minutes? 4.

Josi, Seidenberg, Staal, Weber. Among them, only Weber boasts a CF% > 50 (barely, at 50.1). Everyone knows Weber is elite. Nobody is arguing that Girardi is elite.

They are ALL negative CF% relative players. Girardi and Seidenberg tied for the worst at -5.7%. They all range from -3.8% (Staal) to -5.7%.

What do score effects have to say about this?

Only Staal and Seidenberg have more TOI/G when leading 5v5 than Girardi.

When trailing 5v5? Girardi has the LOWEST TOI/G among these players. This is very relevant, because in this scoring situation, every player has a CF% > 50%. Josi and Weber jump to 55.9% and 57.4% respectively! Hard to imagine this situation isn't heavily impacting their overall numbers... In fairness, it is important to note that in this situation, Weber and Josi have far worse ozone starts than Girardi. It may also be important to note that only Staal has a positive relative corsi in this situation among these defensemen.

Girardi leads the way in PK TOI, and boasts the lowest GA/60 Shorthanded among the group.

And finally, even though I'm still not sure how this is calculated, Girardi has the 2nd highest TOIC% 5v5 among this group, with Weber and Josi at 17.8 and Girardi at 17.7%

Conclusion:

It's more than apparent Girardi gets some of the toughest assignments, whether it be competition or offensive zone starts in the league. I maintain that these factors, as well as TOI/G in certain situations need to be accounted for when citing possession numbers like they are gospel.

Weber has been in the conversation for Norris trophies, and is considered one of the elite right-handed d-men in the league. Roman Josi has exploded onto the scene as another one of the league's best. Yet, here's Girardi, possession anchor and third-pairing defenseman holding his weight against these guys in similar, if not worse, usage.

Once again, I maintain that these metrics have faults in the measuring of stay-at-home positional defenders. I understand the point that if you have the puck, the other team doesn't. The best defense is a good offense. People are saying this like people used to say that if you hit someone, they can't score. Well, if you hit someone, you don't have the puck. The game is evolving, maybe even too fast. These possession metrics are great, but they are faulted because of the variables and fluidity of the game of hockey.

One team isn't going to have the puck the entire game (unless you're playing the Sabres). Every player in the NHL is going to need to know how to play away from the puck and positionally. JT Miller is a prime example of this. If you're a young kid and you can't play in your own zone or know where to be, you're not going to play. Jesper Fast is the exact opposite of JT Miller. Coming to the show and knowing exactly what to do away from the puck, and it has kept him in the lineup.

I love advanced stats. I want to learn more and more about them every day; but I can admit their faults. Hockey is not baseball. When Shea Weber takes a slap shot, it's not always going to go top-left corner at 100 mph. When Mariano Rivera took the mound, there was what, a 95% chance the batter was going to see a 92mph cutter that broke about 5 inches away from a right-handed batter? And yet, Mariano is still the GOAT (wanted to throw that in there as to make sure everyone knew I wasn't taking a shot at the greatest).

So, I'd say, hold off for now on measuring defensive defensemen with these stats. Hopefully, with puck tracking and other technologies, SAP can give us a really in-depth look at exactly what some of the posters who are complaining about Girardi are seeing, or, more hopeful, they give us a better look into just how good G is in his own end, and keeping scoring chances limited, etc... etc... all relative to the completely **** assignments he gets on faceoffs and competition.

On another note, every time I do a "Girardi Analysis" I'm shown how good Marc Staal is 5v5. What a ****ing monster

I'm going to be away from my computer for most of (if not the rest of) the day. I hope this sparks some good conversation, or at least some thought. Will check back in when I can.

I'd be pretty interested to hear a retort to this.

 

[LetterJ]

There was some discussion about G not cheering with Fast on his goal last night. Someone said, maybe somebody pulled a Sharp, what does that mean? (see GDT vs. ANA, post #2, or the PGDT for ANA.)

Not going here...I commented on this topic on the main boards and got an infraction (warning). First one ever. I didn't even think it was that bad what I said.

 

[Richter Scale]

That table doesn't filter out Girardi being on the ice, which he usually is with McDonagh.

"This chart is inconvenient for my unwavering world view, so I'm going to change it and ignore it."

"Also, I'm going to ignore the point you were making because I don't want to have to address it."

"Also, I'll change your chart in a way that isn't at all comparable to the methodology I used to develop the chart I originally made which your chart was responding to, to show the weakness of the argument my chart was supporting. Because **** numbers that don't support my point of view."

"Oh, also I'm going to ignore that this methodology was weak for my argument, but point out why it might be for yours."

"Also, even though I'm a 'stats person' I suddenly don't care about sample size at all."

I definitely see the sound, unbiased arguments that the stats allow you to make showing through. Totally better than the "biased" eye test.

 

[Raspewtin]

"This chart is inconvenient for my unwavering world view, so I'm going to change it and ignore it."

This chart doesn't aid in factoring out a bias we are discussing, so I'm going to change it.

"Also, I'm going to ignore the point you were making because I don't want to have to address it."

Which is?

"Also, I'll change your chart in a way that isn't at all comparable to the methodology I used to develop the chart I originally made which your chart was responding to, to show the weakness of the argument my chart was supporting. Because **** numbers that don't support my point of view."

Could've been that I realized maybe the first chart wasn't adequate. Why would you consider that, though?

"Oh, also I'm going to ignore that this methodology was weak for my argument, but point out why it might be for yours."

What

"Also, even though I'm a 'stats person' I suddenly don't care about sample size at all."

I'm sure you'd trip over yourself in support if they were in Girardi's favor

I definitely see the sound, unbiased arguments that the stats allow you to make showing through. Totally better than the "biased" eye test.

Elaborate

 

[Richter Scale]

Which is?

I'm not going to try to speak for Silverfish, as I can't be sure what point he was trying to make. But I'll say what I got out of that chart (comparing it with your first): That perhaps McD is put in some of the same situations as G (since they are typically paired together, this would make sense), and so a similar trend of other players' CF% going up when away from him would tend not to support your argument that there is something solely about G that makes that happen. Perhaps its other factors that tend to be downplayed in your argument (or supposedly accounted for in weighted advanced stats -- which you like, and that's fine; but I don't).

Could've been that I realized maybe the first chart wasn't adequate. Why would you consider that, though?

The point I was making is that you sought out the problem with the methodology only once you were presented with numbers you didn't like. But when they were numbers you did like (your original chart) -- no problem. I guess it is good you admit your first chart suffered from the same problems though. Not even to mention that this very exchange between you and Silverfish demonstrates the problems with advanced stats to a T -- too many competing variables that can never be fully accounted for (but don't feel a need to respond to this, since this particular argument has been rehashed so many times its exhausting [I'm serious; unless you feel the need to]).

I'm sure you'd trip over yourself in support if they were in Girardi's favor

If you want to believe that, feel free. I don't think there have been many times I've presented stats in G's favor, actually. And the few times when I have looked to stats in any sort of in-depth way to support an argument, I try to look at them in as unbiased a way as possible (see: posts I've made on playoff-Lundqvist and the "Torts-era"; they have their flaws for sure - but they certainly don't present a "this is the answer cuz the numbers say so" perspective). Maybe I'm looking at your post(s) through colored glasses because I disagree with what appears to be a complete disdain for G, but I don't see the same showing through in many of your posts. I see a presentation only of those things that support your point of view.

Elaborate

See above.

 

[Richter Scale]

There was some discussion about G not cheering with Fast on his goal last night. Someone said, maybe somebody pulled a Sharp, what does that mean? (see GDT vs. ANA, post #2, or the PGDT for ANA.)

Google Patrick Sharp, Blackhawks locker room problems. You'll find it.

 

[NYRFANMANI]

Google Patrick Sharp, Blackhawks locker room problems. You'll find it.

Already PMed J and my intuition was right. Well let's just hope that didn't happen ... that's the worst ****.

 

[Raspewtin]

Charts!

Minimum 200 minutes on the Rangers... I'd say G gets some pretty tough competition and zone starts, wouldn't you?

Okay.

Here's a chart with the top four 5v5 Fenwick teams in the league (NYI, LA, NSH, TB)... A lot of red there in Girardi's realm...

Taking off the team filter, but still applying a 200 minute filter, there are 14 defenseman who get tougher zone start %s 5v5 than Girardi.

400 minutes? 11 defenseman

500 minutes? 10

750 minutes? 8

900 minutes? 7

1100 minutes? 4.

Never heard this argument before...

Josi, Seidenberg, Staal, Weber. Among them, only Weber boasts a CF% > 50 (barely, at 50.1). Everyone knows Weber is elite. Nobody is arguing that Girardi is elite.

They are ALL negative CF% relative players. Girardi and Seidenberg tied for the worst at -5.7%. They all range from -3.8% (Staal) to -5.7%.

What do score effects have to say about this?

You've set this barometer very narrowly. You're implying that all of these players, all in similar situations, have unfavorable metrics because of their conditions. So, what if you put every elite defenseman in the NHL into these situations, would they all come out at <50%? Obviously that'd never happen, but you're using a very slim picking, where 5 players all have similar statistics. Josi/Weber are just a weird, weird case. Seidenberg hasn't been worth a damn in years. Staal is a terrible transition player but he's one of the best own-zone players in the NHL. Correlation =/= causation in these instances.

Only Staal and Seidenberg have more TOI/G when leading 5v5 than Girardi.

When trailing 5v5? Girardi has the LOWEST TOI/G among these players. This is very relevant, because in this scoring situation, every player has a CF% > 50%. Josi and Weber jump to 55.9% and 57.4% respectively! Hard to imagine this situation isn't heavily impacting their overall numbers... In fairness, it is important to note that in this situation, Weber and Josi have far worse ozone starts than Girardi. It may also be important to note that only Staal has a positive relative corsi in this situation among these defensemen.

When trailing, I'm thankful Girardi doesn't get a lot of minutes, he's not a threat to score and doesn't drive the play. It affects his stats in some way, but that's something I'm just fine with. How exactly does it affect his stats anyway? Because all this is, are implications with no real evidence. You're not actually giving us a numerical value, you're just saying "here's some puzzle pieces, put them together". Girardi has a score adjusted 47.5% CF%. He has a 52.3 CF% when trailing in any fashion. That's 31st worst in the league out of 126 players that have played while trailing for at least 250 minutes, and he actually gets positive relative zone starts while trailing (Staal though......-24.2% rel zone starts when trailing, most intense in the league).

Girardi leads the way in PK TOI, and boasts the lowest GA/60 Shorthanded among the group.

Cool, but what does this have to do with the above?

And finally, even though I'm still not sure how this is calculated, Girardi has the 2nd highest TOIC% 5v5 among this group, with Weber and Josi at 17.8 and Girardi at 17.7%

Being totally honest, I don't understand that stat at all.

Conclusion:

It's more than apparent Girardi gets some of the toughest assignments, whether it be competition or offensive zone starts in the league. I maintain that these factors, as well as TOI/G in certain situations need to be accounted for when citing possession numbers like they are gospel.

So deltaCorsi impact and UA metrics that I've gone to 1000 times, are we just conveniently forgetting/ignoring them? Because I'm pretty sure I rebut with those EVERY TIME you bring up this exact page of information.

Weber has been in the conversation for Norris trophies, and is considered one of the elite right-handed d-men in the league. Roman Josi has exploded onto the scene as another one of the league's best. Yet, here's Girardi, possession anchor and third-pairing defenseman holding his weight against these guys in similar, if not worse, usage.

I don't think I need to actually describe to you the difference between Weber/Josi and Girardi......

What's funny is, Weber was consistently immaculate in possession impact statistics, until Josi became his full time partner. It's a mystery as to why still.

Once again, I maintain that these metrics have faults in the measuring of stay-at-home positional defenders. I understand the point that if you have the puck, the other team doesn't. The best defense is a good offense. People are saying this like people used to say that if you hit someone, they can't score. Well, if you hit someone, you don't have the puck. The game is evolving, maybe even too fast. These possession metrics are great, but they are faulted because of the variables and fluidity of the game of hockey.

They don't have "faults" in measuring stay at home defenders. The problem is most of these "stay at home defenders" suck, especially in top 4 roles. It's not the stats fault that they aren't elaborated the way you wish them to be. The game like you said, is evolving VERY rapidly. "Stay at home" defensemen are becoming obsolete, especially in top 4 roles. Outlet passing and good puck decisions are more important now than they've ever been.

One team isn't going to have the puck the entire game (unless you're playing the Sabres). Every player in the NHL is going to need to know how to play away from the puck and positionally. JT Miller is a prime example of this. If you're a young kid and you can't play in your own zone or know where to be, you're not going to play. Jesper Fast is the exact opposite of JT Miller. Coming to the show and knowing exactly what to do away from the puck, and it has kept him in the lineup.

Why does it have to be this way though? Have players that excel at both. I hate the "you need to play away from the puck" argument, because it's presented as if it's mutually exclusive with playing good with the puck. Frankly, how I feel is you can't be exceedingly poor in one area, even if you ridiculously outperform the other one. Dan Girardi is this. He's ridiculously poor with the puck, pretty damn good without it. Mike Green comes to mind for the other side of the coin. He doesn't have to play in his own zone much, but he's a positional trainwreck in his own zone. He's so bad in his own zone I'm less inclined to give him big minutes, despite his strong play-driving ability.

I love advanced stats. I want to learn more and more about them every day; but I can admit their faults. Hockey is not baseball. When Shea Weber takes a slap shot, it's not always going to go top-left corner at 100 mph. When Mariano Rivera took the mound, there was what, a 95% chance the batter was going to see a 92mph cutter that broke about 5 inches away from a right-handed batter? And yet, Mariano is still the GOAT (wanted to throw that in there as to make sure everyone knew I wasn't taking a shot at the greatest).

I swear, if I knew anything about baseball, I'd agree or disagree.

So, I'd say, hold off for now on measuring defensive defensemen with these stats. Hopefully, with puck tracking and other technologies, SAP can give us a really in-depth look at exactly what some of the posters who are complaining about Girardi are seeing, or, more hopeful, they give us a better look into just how good G is in his own end, and keeping scoring chances limited, etc... etc... all relative to the completely **** assignments he gets on faceoffs and competition.

I can't get behind this. Every player in every role is fair game, imo.

There are plenty of defensive defensemen that are positively reflected with these stats is the thing. Tanev, Braun, Michalek, Brodin, etc.

On another note, every time I do a "Girardi Analysis" I'm shown how good Marc Staal is 5v5. What a ****ing monster

I'm going to be away from my computer for most of (if not the rest of) the day. I hope this sparks some good conversation, or at least some thought. Will check back in when I can.

I've spelled "install" "instaal" multiple times, I swear.

 

[Ail]

Why does it have to be this way though? Have players that excel at both. I hate the "you need to play away from the puck" argument, because it's presented as if it's mutually exclusive with playing good with the puck.

To which the pro-defensive defensemen crowd will always respond, "You can't have a defense full of McDonaghs or every team would!" As if only elite level defensemen can be good at both.

 

[silverfish]

Okay.

Never heard this argument before...

Because it's an important one that continually goes unnoticed in some people just being like, Girardi's CF% is less than 50% hur-dur.

You've set this barometer very narrowly. You're implying that all of these players, all in similar situations, have unfavorable metrics because of their conditions. So, what if you put every elite defenseman in the NHL into these situations, would they all come out at <50%? Obviously that'd never happen, but you're using a very slim picking, where 5 players all have similar statistics. Josi/Weber are just a weird, weird case. Seidenberg hasn't been worth a damn in years. Staal is a terrible transition player but he's one of the best own-zone players in the NHL. Correlation =/= causation in these instances.

I intentionally made it very granular. I wanted to compare the players most similar to Girardi's zone starts, so I did. I'm not sure why that's an issue. Who knows what would happy to Doughty or Stralman or Muzzin if they were put into similar conditions as Girardi and these four guys have been. I'd imagine their possession metrics would falter a bit. But, they're also your prototypical two-way d-man that do excel at moving the puck, which is something Girardi isn't the best at (but he's not as bad as you make him out to be).

When trailing, I'm thankful Girardi doesn't get a lot of minutes, he's not a threat to score and doesn't drive the play. It affects his stats in some way, but that's something I'm just fine with. How exactly does it affect his stats anyway? Because all this is, are implications with no real evidence. You're not actually giving us a numerical value, you're just saying "here's some puzzle pieces, put them together". Girardi has a score adjusted 47.5% CF%. He has a 52.3 CF% when trailing in any fashion. That's 31st worst in the league out of 126 players that have played while trailing for at least 250 minutes, and he actually gets positive relative zone starts while trailing (Staal though......-24.2% rel zone starts when trailing, most intense in the league).

Hm. Call me skeptical, but if Girardi's 5v5 no adjustment CF% is 46.5%, considering the situations he plays in, I have a hard time believe his score-adjusted CF% goes up just 1 point.

(Tied for) 20th highest TOIC% among those 126 players.

I know. Staal is a monster.

Cool, but what does this have to do with the above?

I don't know, shows that Girardi is better than his peers on the PK? You know, it's pro-Girardi. Hard for you to understand, I guess

Being totally honest, I don't understand that stat at all.

Same. So, my apologies for using something that I don't understand the calculation behind, but it's at my disposal, so, well, yeah, I'm sorry.

So deltaCorsi impact and UA metrics that I've gone to 1000 times, are we just conveniently forgetting/ignoring them? Because I'm pretty sure I rebut with those EVERY TIME you bring up this exact page of information.

Okay, so here's some reading on delta...

Now, I looked on War-On-Ice and couldn't find the delta stat anywhere. What they do have is CorT% and CorC% and Girardi is a +0.2% player on those metrics. His CorT% is 37th among those players (tied with possession God, Nick Leddy).

I don't think I need to actually describe to you the difference between Weber/Josi and Girardi......

Of course not, but it is nice to see how Girardi compares, no? Considering, again, the similar zone starts and competition they receive. Am I wrong here to make this comparison?

What's funny is, Weber was consistently immaculate in possession impact statistics, until Josi became his full time partner. It's a mystery as to why still.

Because Josi is a possession anchor?

They don't have "faults" in measuring stay at home defenders. The problem is most of these "stay at home defenders" suck, especially in top 4 roles. It's not the stats fault that they aren't elaborated the way you wish them to be. The game like you said, is evolving VERY rapidly. "Stay at home" defensemen are becoming obsolete, especially in top 4 roles. Outlet passing and good puck decisions are more important now than they've ever been.

I think you may find that every statistician is of the belief that these metrics can't accruately measure stay-at-home defensemen, or fully explain why a certain player seems to be a "possession anchor" when actually they're a good player. This was outlined pretty well by that full on analysis I posted the other day on Shea Weber, explaining how a few variables can make an elite player seem mediocre on these metrics.

Hockey advanced stats are in their infancy. I think you can agree with that. Maybe in a few years we have a better look at another way to measure on-ice success?

Why does it have to be this way though? Have players that excel at both. I hate the "you need to play away from the puck" argument, because it's presented as if it's mutually exclusive with playing good with the puck. Frankly, how I feel is you can't be exceedingly poor in one area, even if you ridiculously outperform the other one. Dan Girardi is this. He's ridiculously poor with the puck, pretty damn good without it. Mike Green comes to mind for the other side of the coin. He doesn't have to play in his own zone much, but he's a positional trainwreck in his own zone. He's so bad in his own zone I'm less inclined to give him big minutes, despite his strong play-driving ability.

Of course they're not mutually exclusive, but I'd imagine the "elite" guys are the guys who can do both. These guys do not grow on trees, and I don't think there is any team in the league that has six guys suiting up every night doing that.

I think it's more a difference in ideology. I'd rather have 6 Dan Girardi's on my defense than 6 Patric Weircoch's. Maybe I'm a dinosaur. Who knows.

I swear, if I knew anything about baseball, I'd agree or disagree.

I can't get behind this. Every player in every role is fair game, imo.

Of course, but my point was maybe let's slow our roll on deeming Girardi a horrible player when it's only these advanced metrics that are telling us he's horrible. The way he's utilized by his coach says his coach trusts him in TOUGH situations. He's had this same vote of confidence from three different coaches now. He's constantly heralded by announcers and players inside the game.

For that matter, I've never even seen an advanced statistics guy say the things that are said about Girardi by some of the analytics guys here. The only time I see Girardi being mentioned as a bad defenseman are on HFNYR.

Maybe this is a question we can pose to Yost or the guys at the Analytics podcast. Maybe they'll take a dive for us?

There are plenty of defensive defensemen that are positively reflected with these stats is the thing. Tanev, Braun, Michalek, Brodin, etc.

Of those guys, only Michalek gets similar usage than Girardi. Girardi also has double the points Michalek does at even strength. Michalek hasn't even logged 250 minutes TOI while leading 5v5, yet, he gets 0:36 more per game on ice when trailing.

I've spelled "install" "instaal" multiple times, I swear.

That's because he's a beast.

 

[Ail]

Of course they're not mutually exclusive, but I'd imagine the "elite" guys are the guys who can do both. These guys do not grow on trees, and I don't think there is any team in the league that has six guys suiting up every night doing that.

No this is not only something the "elite" guys can do. The elite guys can do it against any competition in the league, that's the difference. You don't need 6 Ryan McDonaghs. You optimally need 1 or two Ryan McDonaghs (2 obviously being a luxury) and the bottom 4 just needs to be guys who can do both against weaker competition since that's what they will be seeing mostly.

 

[silverfish]

No this is not only something the "elite" guys can do. The elite guys can do it against any competition in the league, that's the difference. You don't need 6 Ryan McDonaghs. You optimally need 1 or two Ryan McDonaghs (2 obviously being a luxury) and the bottom 4 just needs to be guys who can do both against weaker competition since that's what they will be seeing mostly.

Name names.

An odd tactic to laugh at another persons opinion when you haven't brought anything to the table.