Devils 2018-19 team discussion (news and notes) - part Xl
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As Per Cam Johnson.
This offseason we had a similar debate regarding Blackwood, similar in that both guys were putting up some lousy AHL #'s, and some question whether guys with those type #'s can turn it around and have solid NHL careers.
But Blackwood has very good size, good(maybe better then good) athleticism and was 21 years old.
Johnson is below average size(listed as only 3 inches shorter but..... oh nevermind) haven't heard much about his athleticism and is 24.
Now I think that Bing team is pretty hard on goalies, so I'll take their AHL #'s with a grain of salt, but there were reasons beyond that grain of salt to still think Blackwood had potential, with Johnson I'm not sure onto what you can hang that hope.
Not saying he never will, I think as long as a guy is under contract there is no reason to write him off(see Gibbons last year) but he's just not a guy I'm overly optimistic about.
This offseason we had a similar debate regarding Blackwood, similar in that both guys were putting up some lousy AHL #'s, and some question whether guys with those type #'s can turn it around and have solid NHL careers.
But Blackwood has very good size, good(maybe better then good) athleticism and was 21 years old.
Johnson is below average size(listed as only 3 inches shorter but..... oh nevermind) haven't heard much about his athleticism and is 24.
Now I think that Bing team is pretty hard on goalies, so I'll take their AHL #'s with a grain of salt, but there were reasons beyond that grain of salt to still think Blackwood had potential, with Johnson I'm not sure onto what you can hang that hope.
Not saying he never will, I think as long as a guy is under contract there is no reason to write him off(see Gibbons last year) but he's just not a guy I'm overly optimistic about.
Better Call Sal
Salnalysis
Just some fun stuff to enjoy:
Nico is on pace for a 60 point season if he plays all remaining games here on out. He did not have his 10th goal of the season last year until February 13th.
Palms is somehow a +3 on this team that has a -20 goal differential. His next goal will make it 4 straight 20 goal seasons, all with us once he arrived from Anaheim. I sincerely hope he gets an All-Star nod because he deserves it.
Hall is still on pace over an 82 game season to come around his point total of last year amazingly. His goals and shots per game are also right around his career average, so he's still playing as expected even while banged up.
Blake f***ing Coleman - 2 goals and 4 assists away from matching last year's output. This time last year he had 5 goals and 6 assists, he's doubled his goal output in the same span this year and is on pace for 25 goals.
Travis Zajac - Don't look now but Trav is on pace for another 40 point season. It would be the 8th time in his 13 year career that he would have reached this mark.
Nico is on pace for a 60 point season if he plays all remaining games here on out. He did not have his 10th goal of the season last year until February 13th.
Palms is somehow a +3 on this team that has a -20 goal differential. His next goal will make it 4 straight 20 goal seasons, all with us once he arrived from Anaheim. I sincerely hope he gets an All-Star nod because he deserves it.
Hall is still on pace over an 82 game season to come around his point total of last year amazingly. His goals and shots per game are also right around his career average, so he's still playing as expected even while banged up.
Blake f***ing Coleman - 2 goals and 4 assists away from matching last year's output. This time last year he had 5 goals and 6 assists, he's doubled his goal output in the same span this year and is on pace for 25 goals.
Travis Zajac - Don't look now but Trav is on pace for another 40 point season. It would be the 8th time in his 13 year career that he would have reached this mark.
Blender
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For Blackwood, goalie stats in lesser leagues have long since been irrelevant to their NHL potential. We have seen countless examples of guys with terrible numbers in lower leagues carve out good NHL careers.
Coleman is one of the only players on the team exceeding expectations, guy has taken a big jump this season. He's playing with 2nd line production right now.
Coleman is one of the only players on the team exceeding expectations, guy has taken a big jump this season. He's playing with 2nd line production right now.
I find Zajac's story very interesting in that his 5v5 production has actually increased even though he has moved away from top line duties playing with our best offensive players to now playing with more grinder types. at 5v5, his 2.07 pts/60 is actually the best in his career.
Devils Dominion
Now we Plummet
Please provide me with this list of countless examples. I realize that countless implies an infinite list, but I suspect it's finite (and much, much shorter than you think). Yes, I'm aware Brodeur had bad numbers in his one minor league season.
Better Call Sal
Salnalysis
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I think Kinkaid’s career average in the AHL was lower than than NHL, though not by much. Schneider’s in the NHL (with the Canucks) was a bit better than what it was with Manitoba. With the last several declining and decrepit years, his NHL and AHL career save percentages are probably about even though.
I’m not quite sure what the league average is in the AHL compared to the NHL, so perhaps those numbers are about even.
in 16-17 Zajac's most common LW was Hall, 640 minutes with.
That season with Hall he averaged, .19 goals per/60, 1.22 points/60 and 4.21 shots per 60.
Last season Zajacs most common LW was Coleman, 237 minutes with
That season with Coleman he averaged 1 goal, 1.5 points, and 6 shots per 60.
With Hall last year in 103 minutes Zajac averaged .58 goals, .58 points(ie zero assists) and 5.22 shots per 60.
This year Coleman is his most common lw.
In 254 minutes with Coleman Zajac is averaging .94 goals, 2.6 points and 5.9 shots.
In 105 minutes with Hall Zajac is averaging .57 goals 1.14 points and 3.98 shots per 60.
Now some of that is just when Hall is on the ice he is going to dominate the puck which means Zajac will have it less(a debate in itself as to how much of a positive impact Hall has on team mates) but more importantly imo is that with Coleman(and Noesen last year, with whom Zajac' s #'s were even better) Zajac just plays a grinders game which better suits his skill set, but also his mindset.
Travis trying to play a more skilled puck movement game is a square peg in a round hole, not only does he not have the hands for it, but he doesn't think that way, and maybe even becomes too passive given he knows Hall is the dominant offensive player. With guys like Coleman and Noesen, perhaps he gets a bit more Type A, and asserts himself more, but certainly the more simplified straight fwd offensive game is more in tune with Zajac's style of play.
That season with Hall he averaged, .19 goals per/60, 1.22 points/60 and 4.21 shots per 60.
Last season Zajacs most common LW was Coleman, 237 minutes with
That season with Coleman he averaged 1 goal, 1.5 points, and 6 shots per 60.
With Hall last year in 103 minutes Zajac averaged .58 goals, .58 points(ie zero assists) and 5.22 shots per 60.
This year Coleman is his most common lw.
In 254 minutes with Coleman Zajac is averaging .94 goals, 2.6 points and 5.9 shots.
In 105 minutes with Hall Zajac is averaging .57 goals 1.14 points and 3.98 shots per 60.
Now some of that is just when Hall is on the ice he is going to dominate the puck which means Zajac will have it less(a debate in itself as to how much of a positive impact Hall has on team mates) but more importantly imo is that with Coleman(and Noesen last year, with whom Zajac' s #'s were even better) Zajac just plays a grinders game which better suits his skill set, but also his mindset.
Travis trying to play a more skilled puck movement game is a square peg in a round hole, not only does he not have the hands for it, but he doesn't think that way, and maybe even becomes too passive given he knows Hall is the dominant offensive player. With guys like Coleman and Noesen, perhaps he gets a bit more Type A, and asserts himself more, but certainly the more simplified straight fwd offensive game is more in tune with Zajac's style of play.
SpeakingOfTheDevils
Devils Advocate
Bratt scoring at 0.5 PPG pace, bringing his career totals to that same mark... Severson on pace for his best offensive season (by far)...
This team has some very good pieces. This group truly isn't as bad as the standings indicate.
Blender
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Here are some examples from the list of most winning NHL goalies over the last 10 years:
Marc-André Fleury - Save% is all over the place in the QMJHL and AHL before jumping into the NHL.
Henrik Lundqvist - Early seasons he had terrible numbers before carving out a few great seasons in the SHL and jumping to the NHL afterwards.
Pekka Rinne - Similar to the above, his numbers were all over the place before settling into a #1 job in Finland, then jumping to the NHL.
Jonathan Quick - Numbers are all over the place, including a .905 sv% in the ECHL the year before he played 44 games in the NHL.
Roberto Luongo - Never posted a sv% over .903 in a season before landing in Florida.
Carey Price - Was up and down a bit, but probably the most consistent goalie compared with any above.
Craig Anderson - Again all over the place, more often bad than good.
Tuukka Rask - Bounced up and down in Finland, was never a top goalie in sv% in the AHL in his few years there.
Braden Holtby - Some fairly poor AHL and junior seasons in there.
Antti Niemi - Same as above.
Sergei Bobrovsky - Was up and down in Russia before jumping to the KHL.
Just like with Blackwood, all of those guys above have save percentages all over the map. There is little in the way of consistency or a clear trajectory to follow in NHL success. Goalie success relies very heavily on the team in front of them.
Devils Dominion
Now we Plummet
All goalies, at all levels, are at the mercy of the team in front of them. You could be Brodeur but on a very bad team.you would just look average with bad stats.
99% of nhl goalies, regardless of style of play, can stop the shots they can see. The difference is not the goalie, but the d when they screen, deflect or leave guys wide open giving no chance for the goalie. This is why I never ever look at goalie stats as they do not accurately judge a goalie. Way to many variables in the way shots are counted. Also all shots are weighted the same but as we know a shot to the chest with 0 screen is a much easier save then one that is deflected a foot out, but for the most useless stat they are all weighed the same.
One thing I've never really seen is an aging curve for SV%. Either way, Fleury's SV% is going to be one of the hardest to read because of his age, league strength, and changing SV%s in general - league average SV% in 2004 was .908, it was .899 in 05-06, .903 in 06-07, and then back to .906 in 07-08.
He struggled in a men's league at age 18 and 19. This isn't that surprising.
Ditto this, and he didn't play that many games.
There are big luck error bars on everything. He had a .905 in the ECHL but what's league average there? He had a .922 in the AHL the same year. Odds are he overperformed in the A and underperformed in the E - it only takes 5 to 10 post and in versus post and out shots to make that sort of thing happen.
Luongo's probably your best example - what I would say is that quantum leaps in observed goaltending ability happen far more often than to defenseman and forwards. That said, a .904 SV% as a 20 year old on a ludicrously undisciplined Islanders team is probably at least an NHL average goalie performance in the year 2000.
I'll save everyone the reading. These save percentages are not 'all over the map'. Some of them are below-average for a given league, sure. The trouble here is that the more kinda-average-y seasons you dig up in your examples, the less relevant each of them become because it's clear that having an average season doesn't preclude a goaltender from becoming good or even great. Knowing this, that's why I wasn't all that concerned about Blackwood's mediocre SV% in 2016-17 - there's not a lot of goalies who have great save percentages at every level every year (Schneider was one of the rare few). Regardless, very few of these players reached the depths Blackwood did last season - he had one of the worst SV%s in the league, which is something that can't be said for a lot of these players. That said, Blackwood's played very well this year in the AHL and NHL - the more he keeps playing well, the less relevant last season's results are to this season's (and future projections).
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Here comes the tank to stall our brief surge! It was fun while it lasted!
OmNomNom
Taco is Love, Taco is Life
bratt's ranked 15th on the team with 42 shots...
only noesen, seney, dea, and mueller have less shots than he does (>20GP).
note that bratt is also shooting at a measly 4.8%. but it doesn't change the fact that he should be shooting more.
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I am excited about what Blackwood has done so far, but also cautiously optimistic. Because sometimes Scott Wedgewood allows only 2 goals (and 1 regulation goal) in his first 3 starts and has a shutout over the soon-to-be Stanley Cup Champion. And other times Scott Clemmensen has 2 shutouts and a .956% save percentage in his first 4 starts.
That said, Blackwood is already a bit younger than those guys were when they had those streaks. Wedgewood was already 23 years and 7 months old when he debuted in the NHL, Clemmensen was 26.5 years old, while Blackwood just turned 22 only 19 days ago. I didn't consider Wedgewood a good prospect of ours anymore by the time he debuted. He hadn't even had a season as good as Blackwood in the AHL until that very season, even though he didn't have one as bad either. Clemmensen was never really a prospect for us, it was always Ahonen or Damphousse at that time. Clemmensen was only up because Corey Schwab got injured that year.
Blackwood has given us 2 really awesome starts, which we hadn't gotten a good start out of any goalie other than Kinkaid before December 21st.
That said, Blackwood is already a bit younger than those guys were when they had those streaks. Wedgewood was already 23 years and 7 months old when he debuted in the NHL, Clemmensen was 26.5 years old, while Blackwood just turned 22 only 19 days ago. I didn't consider Wedgewood a good prospect of ours anymore by the time he debuted. He hadn't even had a season as good as Blackwood in the AHL until that very season, even though he didn't have one as bad either. Clemmensen was never really a prospect for us, it was always Ahonen or Damphousse at that time. Clemmensen was only up because Corey Schwab got injured that year.
Blackwood has given us 2 really awesome starts, which we hadn't gotten a good start out of any goalie other than Kinkaid before December 21st.
Blender
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Blackwood posted one of the worst sv% in 17-18, but his sv% in 16-17 while mediocre overall, was second best among under-21 players. He was a 20 year old playing in a men's league. He posted one of the best sv% the year before in the OHL with Barrie.
My entire point was that you can't just look at a players stats from a lesser league and jump to a conclusion of their NHL potential either way, there are a lot of variables involved and the team in front of them matters a lot as well.
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I bet if Blackwood keeps churning out even the most average of starts, Cory probably doesn't get dressed into a game any time soon.
They kept Santini out for close to a month after he had been cleared (it had to be 2-3 weeks or so, maybe more with the Bingo conditioning stint), and there's also been other examples of this in recent seasons since Shero has been here.
I think Cory may be eligible for an AHL conditioning stint if he's out for 2 weeks or 5-7 starts, something like that?
They kept Santini out for close to a month after he had been cleared (it had to be 2-3 weeks or so, maybe more with the Bingo conditioning stint), and there's also been other examples of this in recent seasons since Shero has been here.
I think Cory may be eligible for an AHL conditioning stint if he's out for 2 weeks or 5-7 starts, something like that?
No fair, Bratt missed a good chunk of the season.
At 5v5 he is 4th on the team in shots per 60 at 9.06 per. Nearly double his shot out put from last year.
Edit:Conversely his pp shots per 60 are way down. 8.7 last year compared to 4.25 this year, and he has yet to score a pp goal this year. And while I don't have the splits I'm sure his pp #'s were much better earlier last year then they were later on.
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I think Santini has been pretty solid, outside of the last CBJ game, where he looked awful.
I think if you keep him to the bottom pairing and keep him away from top lines at even strength, he'd probably be a decent bottom pairing guy, if not a pretty solid one.
I think if you keep him to the bottom pairing and keep him away from top lines at even strength, he'd probably be a decent bottom pairing guy, if not a pretty solid one.
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