Injury Report: Derek Stepan (11/6: Will return Saturday)

[Jim Morrison]

When Stepan comes back.

Nash - Brassard - Zuccarello
Duclair - Stepan - St. Louis
Kreider - Hayes - Stempniak
Hagelin - Moore - Glass/Fast

 

[Bulls9220]

Kreider Stepan Nash
Duclair Brassard Zuke
Hagelin Hayes St. Louis
Malone/Glass Moore Stempniak

I like that better

 

[mrhockey193195]

Kreider Stepan Nash
Duclair Brassard Zuke
Hagelin Hayes St. Louis
Malone/Glass Moore Stempniak

I like that better

This is what I would start with. First move would be to swap Hagelin and Kreider if things don't work out. Then to put Nash back with Brass and Zuc, and MSL with Step. But this is the first lineup I'd dress when Step's back.

 

[Blueblood2]

I think they will give Stepan some more time and bring him back Saturday.

 

[Blue Blooded]

Unhealthy team:

Hagelin-Brassard-Nash
Kreider-Miller-St. Louis
Duclair-Hayes-Stempniak
Malone-Moore-Fast

Staal-Kostka
Hunwick-Girardi
Allen-McIlrath

Scratched/Traded: Glass

Healthy team:

Nash-Brassard-Zuccarello
Hagelin-Stepan-St. Louis
Kreider-Hayes-Duclair
Malone/Fast-Moore-Stempniak

McDonagh-Boyle
Staal-Kostka
Hunwick-Girardi

Scratched/Traded: Glass, Moore, Klein

 

[SixGoalieSystem]

Unhealthy team:

Hagelin-Brassard-Nash
Kreider-Miller-St. Louis
Duclair-Hayes-Stempniak
Malone-Moore-Fast

Staal-Kostka
Hunwick-Girardi
Allen-McIlrath

Scratched/Traded: Glass

Healthy team:

Nash-Brassard-Zuccarello
Hagelin-Stepan-St. Louis
Kreider-Hayes-Duclair
Malone/Fast-Moore-Stempniak

McDonagh-Boyle
Staal-Kostka
Hunwick-Girardi

Scratched/Traded: Glass, Moore, Klein

Please tell me these defensive pairings are a joke.

Klein has been the Rangers most consistent d-man all year. Why would you ever bench him while keeping Kostka and Hunwick? And what is minute eater Girardi suddenly doing on the third paring?

 

[Gardner McKay]

Unhealthy team:

Hagelin-Brassard-Nash
Kreider-Miller-St. Louis
Duclair-Hayes-Stempniak
Malone-Moore-Fast

Staal-Kostka
Hunwick-Girardi
Allen-McIlrath

Scratched/Traded: Glass

Healthy team:

Nash-Brassard-Zuccarello
Hagelin-Stepan-St. Louis
Kreider-Hayes-Duclair
Malone/Fast-Moore-Stempniak

McDonagh-Boyle
Staal-Kostka
Hunwick-Girardi

Scratched/Traded: Glass, Moore, Klein

At Boyles age he isn't going to be logging 1st pairing minutes any more. Why on earth would you want Kostka as a full time player over Klein? Klein has been fantastic this year.

 

[Beer League Sniper]

Please tell me these defensive pairings are a joke.

Klein has been the Rangers most consistent d-man all year. Why would you ever bench him while keeping Kostka and Hunwick? And what is minute eater Girardi suddenly doing on the third paring?

He has an inexplicable rage-***** for Klein. It's really baffling.

Klein is a solid RD who can play 2nd or 3rd pair minutes competently, and he's on a good, movable contract. There's almost nothing not to like about the guy, unless you're a corsi jihadist.

 

[Blue Blooded]

He has an inexplicable rage-***** for Klein. It's really baffling.

Klein is a solid RD who can play 2nd or 3rd pair minutes competently, and he's on a good, movable contract. There's almost nothing not to like about the guy, unless you're a corsi jihadist.

I don't hate either Klein or Girardi, I just think they are vastly overrated and overpaid players.

Kostka has made some egregious mistakes, but it is not like Girardi doesn't do that as well.

The fact is that Kostka has been a vastly superior possession player (albeit in a limited sample) over the past two seasons compared to both Girardi and Klein.

Girardi's possession game has been in sharp decline, so I'd like to give him some easier assignments to see if he can be a good contributor there. I've looked into his numbers before and it showed that he is very good against easy competition, but struggles mightily against tough competition (so his current usage is baffling).

 

[Blue Blooded]

At Boyles age he isn't going to be logging 1st pairing minutes any more. Why on earth would you want Kostka as a full time player over Klein? Klein has been fantastic this year.

Klein has been good this season, but his track record ain't great and while Girardi on the 3rd pairing might be unrealistic it is inconceivable that he'd be a healthy scratch.

 

[SingnBluesOnBroadway]

but his track record ain't great

What does this mean exactly?

 

[Gardner McKay]

I don't hate either Klein or Girardi, I just think they are vastly overrated and overpaid players.

Kostka has made some egregious mistakes, but it is not like Girardi doesn't do that as well.

The fact is that Kostka has been a vastly superior possession player (albeit in a limited sample) over the past two seasons compared to both Girardi and Klein.

Girardi's possession game has been in sharp decline, so I'd like to give him some easier assignments to see if he can be a good contributor there. I've looked into his numbers before and it showed that he is very good against easy competition, but struggles mightily against tough competition (so his current usage is baffling).

Klein has been good this season, but his track record ain't great and while Girardi on the 3rd pairing might be unrealistic it is inconceivable that he'd be a healthy scratch.

You do realize you completely contradicted yourself? You will promote Kostka to a top 4 dman based on a limited sample size despite the fact that his history as a hockey player shows that he does in fact, suck. In the next post you will get rid of Klein because even though he has played well this season "in a small sample size" his track record "ain't great".

Kostka's track record hasn't been good either. The guy sucks. Save yourself digging up other stats. I can see with my own eyes that the guy is a ****ing terrible hockey player.

 

[Blue Blooded]

What does this mean exactly?

See the post above, Klein was over 1 standard deviation below the mean among defensemen in driving possession over the past two seasons. That's a bad track record in my book. Add on the fact that it looks just like that for his entire career and I become reluctant to trust a <10 game sample of decent play.

 

[Blue Blooded]

You do realize you completely contradicted yourself? You will promote Kostka to a top 4 dman based on a limited sample size despite the fact that his history as a hockey player shows that he does in fact, suck. In the next post you will get rid of Klein because even though he has played well this season "in a small sample size" his track record "ain't great".

Kostka's track record hasn't been good either. The guy sucks. Save yourself digging up other stats. I can see with my own eyes that the guy is a ****ing terrible hockey player.

I consider Kostka's track record to be promising. He hasn't played enough hockey to be considered good, but apart from his brainfades his metrics suggest that he has been very good so far in his NHL career. I'm willing to believe that the mistakes will become less frequent with experience and consistent ice time.

Girardi and Klein OTOH both have several seasons of mediocre play to base my opinion on.

RE small samples: There is a big difference between a small sample of ~100 minutes (Klein 2014-15) and a small sample of ~800 minutes (Kostka 2012-14).

 

[Guyute]

Unhealthy team:

Hagelin-Brassard-Nash
Kreider-Miller-St. Louis
Duclair-Hayes-Stempniak
Malone-Moore-Fast

Staal-Kostka
Hunwick-Girardi
Allen-McIlrath

Scratched/Traded: Glass

Healthy team:

Nash-Brassard-Zuccarello
Hagelin-Stepan-St. Louis
Kreider-Hayes-Duclair
Malone/Fast-Moore-Stempniak

McDonagh-Boyle
Staal-Kostka
Hunwick-Girardi

Scratched/Traded: Glass, Moore, Klein

i'm sorry and i don;t mean to be rude, but you lose all credibility to me if you sit klein in favor of kostka, who is easily the worst defenseman i've seen wear rangers blue in years.

 

[Blue Blooded]

i'm sorry and i don;t mean to be rude, but you lose all credibility to me if you sit klein in favor of kostka, who is easily the worst defenseman i've seen wear rangers blue in years.

Kostka is clearly better than Bickel no matter what you think of advanced stats.

Also, I don't WANT Kostka in the top-4 but our defense is so terribly constructed that I currently don't see any better options.

 

[Levitate]

Is that controlled at all for quality of competition because if not then it's 100% useless

e: and ultimately it just doesn't pass the eye test. If you really think Girardi and Klein aren't better defensemen than Kostka then you should probably take a step back from advanced stats a bit

 

[Guyute]

how about using the seeing eye test? kostka has great advanced stats if you take out the brainfarts you say. unfortunately he brain farts every other shift, and has done so throughout his career. last night he went with the "slide into home plate" defensive move over a stick check or body check on the tarasenko goal. i've never seen that one before. what was he doing? it was like me attempting defense in NHL09 in college after a few too many beers.

 

[Blue Blooded]

Is that controlled at all for quality of competition because if not then it's 100% useless

e: and ultimately it just doesn't pass the eye test. If you really think Girardi and Klein aren't better defensemen than Kostka then you should probably take a step back from advanced stats a bit

They are adjusted for quality of competition, quality of teammates and zone starts.

For example: Ryan McDonagh has had a pretty poor FF% Rel the past few seasons, but his FD60vsExp has been good as he has had to play with Girardi so much. Since McDonagh improves a lot when away from Girardi (and Girardi becomes worse away from McD) McDonagh's FD60vsExp is good while Girardi's is bad.

 

[Kovalev27]

Are U watching Kostka play or just up to your eyeballs in corsi?

He's horrific and U made him your 4 d?!?!

Stop

 

[Beer League Sniper]

They are adjusted for quality of competition, quality of teammates and zone starts.

For example: Ryan McDonagh has had a pretty poor FF% Rel the past few seasons, but his FD60vsExp has been good as he has had to play with Girardi so much. Since McDonagh improves a lot when away from Girardi (and Girardi becomes worse away from McD) McDonagh's FD60vsExp is good while Girardi's is bad.

I'm sorry, but that's not correct. Girardi's corsi and fenwick gets slightly better when away from McDonagh. This is what happens when you try and explain a very complex game with limited sets of data. You say Girardi drags down McDonagh, and reference that his advanced stats improve dramatically away from him, which they do. But then why do Girardi's advanced stats also improve away from McDonagh? That would seem to run counterintuitive to your argument.

The problem is that you're trying to numerically quantify a game as complex as hockey with a very limited set of data points. Advanced stats are a good tool, but they're not the bible on hockey.

 

[Kovalev27]

Id be shocked if Stepan doesn't go tomorrow

Now I like what was posted having hayes with hags and MSL im all about trying to go mostly with what worked last year so replacing richards with hayes and Duclair for pouliot makes most sense to me

However I can see AV wanting to keep MsL and nash together but I much rather spread it out and keep the 2 rookies separate

So Id definitley run

Kreider Stepan Nash
Duclair Brassard Zucc
Hagelin Hayes MSL
Glass Moore Stempniak

However I can see AV going

Nash Stepan MSL
Kreider Brassard Zucc
Hagelin Moore Duclair
Glass Hayes Stempniak

At least for the short term

I don't like that mix don't like hayes on the 4th line and moore at 3c long term doesn't work ever. But we'll see

 

[Blue Blooded]

I'm sorry, but that's not correct. Girardi's corsi and fenwick gets slightly better when away from McDonagh. This is what happens when you try and explain a very complex game with limited sets of data. You say Girardi drags down McDonagh, and reference that his advanced stats improve dramatically away from him, which they do. But then why do Girardi's advanced stats also improve away from McDonagh? That would seem to run counterintuitive to your argument.

The problem is that you're trying to numerically quantify a game as complex as hockey with a very limited set of data points. Advanced stats are a good tool, but they're not the bible on hockey.

Girardi's stats don't improve away from McD.

2012-14 WOWYs, adjusted for zone starts.

McD with Girardi: 50.4 CF%

McD away from Girardi: 56.6 CF%

Girardi away from McD: 48.9 CF%

 

[Ail]

The way people here have judged Kostka based on a few extremely poor giveaways, and one poor decision last night is all the proof you need that the eyeball test is horrifically biased.

Girardi has made a living off poor decisions and giveaways, yet he is a hero to the eyeball test warriors. Go figure.

Of course yet again no one can justify their position with anything other than attacking the numbers and banal comments regarding "watching the games."

 

[Kovalev27]

hahaha what did I just read the eyeball test is biased?!? Lol

Judging him off his horrible mistakes isn't fair? Lol