Does the team miss Methot?

[TB1299]

I personally think it was a blessing in disguise to let go of Methot and keep Claesson. A savy move by a management team that is concerned about winning.

Methot has 0 goals and 0 points in 15 games with the stars. Hes turning 33 this year and for a player of his type his best years are behind him.

While he is a steady presence defensively because he was on the team we'd be forced to be on defence more. And as good as he was defensively, he was by no means elite defensively.

On top of that he would just have added to the salary cap troubles.

Karlsson clearly doesn't need him and any set backs he has had have been related to missing the pre season and nothing to do with Methot.

Claesson is younger, faster, cheaper, more skilled and has looked great beside Karlsson the last two games ( as well as last season and better than Oduya this year). He has much better shot and much better hands which is fantastic because it opens up the ice much more for the rest of his linemates since he is a legitimate threat to score a goal or make a play.

There are definitely some things Methot brought to the table but I am very impressed that our management isn't folding to the wants and needs of many of the arm chair GM's.

Sure they may have preferred to move Phaneufs contract more so then Methot because of the cap and future but IMO Claesson is a much better option moving forward.

This looks like a much better, puck controlling, attacking team.

Click to read more...

 

[Pierre from Orleans]

He was a good partner for Karlsson but given time I think most defenceman can adjust to Karlsson's style of play and be a suitable partner. This is even more true now given Boucher's defense first mentality.

 

[starling]

Missing his game but not his cap hit.

 

[TB1299]

There has been a couple articles written about how advanced stats showed that he was actually an anchor (in a bad way) to the team and he made Karlsson worse.

I really do believe that.

Sure he can make a great defensive play at times but if hes causing you to have the puck much less and is 1/5th of the players on the ice that you really cant run the offence through as he has no shot and an inability to distribute the puck effectively means he isn't a threat and its going to really affect your possession of the puck. And since he isnt a shooting or play making threat it allows the other team to close the gap on the rest of the guys on the ice.

 

[Pierre from Orleans]

One thing that always bothered me was his unwillingness to rip a shot from his side of the ice on the point. He would 95% of the time lob it back into the corner.

 

[OmniSens]

It's hard not to miss a player like Methot playing the role he does.

 

[Micklebot]

There has been a couple articles written about how advanced stats showed that he was actually an anchor to the team and made Karlsson worse.

I really do believe that.

Sure he can make a great defensive play at times but if hes causing you to have the puck much less and is basically a 1/5th of the players on the ice that you really cant run the offence through or distribute the puck and that isn't a threat its going to really affect your possession but also close up the ice and allow the other team to close the gap on the rest of the guys on the ice.

Do you have any links to these articles? I'm curious to see them as I suspect they don't control for changes in roles when together vs apart. Prior to last year, Karlsson's numbers were typically much better with Methot, particularly when you control for drastic changes in role (like when we paired Karlsson with Wiercioch in purely offensive roles while trailing, and score effect in full play). Last year, Kalrsson's fancy stats with Methot were down quite a bit relative to other years, but I suspect it was once again a difference in his role while paired with Methot. I haven't dug into it this year, but it appears Boucher is not leaning on him in a defensive role to the same degree as last year.

 

[BondraTime]

Yes, we are a better team with Methot, obviouosly

 

[BonkTastic]

Do we miss Methot? Sure.

Do we miss him more than we would miss the assets that Vegas was demanding from us to "protect" him? No, probably not.

 

[Tuna99]

Yes of course they are. How quickly we forget what a job he did against Crosby in the playoffs.

Methot was the 1 Dman we had who made problems just go away. He just took over situations and stabilized the the team. It's not a coincidence we are getting scored on more this year, Methot isn't there for 20 minutes a night to put out the fires, he is the quintessential shut down Dman and we miss his play.

The biggest thing we miss is how Methot stepped into panic and made it go away. If Oprah ever became a firefighter who played D - she would play hockey like Marc Methot

 

[TB1299]

IMO are we better with Methot in our Bottom 3.. Sure because he is much better than Boro could ever hope to be but I think by him not being on the ice for 24 mins plus that we have actually added to our team by subtraction.

 

[OgieO]

I love Methot, great player and person (seemingly). However, from the business side of hockey its a blessing he's gone. We're replaced him very well with a player making a fraction of his cost.

 

[TB1299]

Yes of course they are. How quickly we forget what a job he did against Crosby in the playoffs.

Methot was the 1 Dman we had who made problems just go away. He just took over situations and stabilized the the team. It's not a coincidence we are getting scored on more this year, Methot isn't there for 20 minutes a night to put out the fires, he is the quintessential shut down Dman and we miss his play.

The biggest thing we miss is how Methot stepped into panic and made it go away. If Oprah ever became a firefighter who played D - she would play hockey like Marc Methot

We are forced to play defence so much more because of him. Its no way to play hockey. It's like sure he's good when we get hemmed in our zone but BECAUSE of him we get hemmed in our zone. So without him we'd be on the offence and putting pressure on the other team and our team would not be expending so much energy defending and they would have much more positive momentum.

 

[50 in 07]

The Senators defence pairing of Fredrik Claesson and Erik Karlsson has controlled more than 59% of the shots when they’ve been together.

Small sample size, but they lead the league in CF%. I think we're just fine without Methot.

Statistically Speaking: The best defence pairs - Article - TSN

 

[Lenny the Lynx]

Pierre Dorion: Flawless

 

[IranCondraAffair]

Love the player, hate the cap hit.

Methot was paid 800K like Claesson I'd take him 10/10. Since he's paid 4.9M, I'd much rather have Claesson.

 

[Gil Gunderson]

Yeah, but it's looking more and more that we'll need his money for other players.

As long as it's not Oduya playing with Karlsson.

 

[UnHappyDude]

There has been a couple articles written about how advanced stats showed that he was actually an anchor to the team and made Karlsson worse.

I really do believe that.

Sure he can make a great defensive play at times but if hes causing you to have the puck much less and is basically a 1/5th of the players on the ice that you really cant run the offence through or distribute the puck and that isn't a threat its going to really affect your possession but also close up the ice and allow the other team to close the gap on the rest of the guys on the ice.

Spot on. Just by proxy of being Karlssons partner he should have been able to put up more than 10-15 points (or whatever it was) a season. Karlsson needs a partner who has some puck skills as well and can be a threat form the LD offensively. That said Methot was a solid dman and this team would be better with him

 

[FormentonTheFuture]

literally have not even thought about him once this season

 

[DrEasy]

If it's a choice between losing Methot or Claesson in the expansion draft, given the budgetary constraints we have, no I'm not missing him. But that also depends on what we do with the money we save.

Purely from the roster perspective, going from Methot to Oduya is a downgrade.

 

[Micklebot]

IMO are we better with Methot in our Bottom 3.. Sure because he is much better than Boro could ever hope to be but I think by him not being on the ice for 24 mins plus that we have actually added to our team by subtraction.

But... he averaged under 20 mins a night last year with us. Why would we play him an extra 4+ mins this year if he were still around?

I'd love to have him back, but his cap hit may end up being better used elsewhere. Obviously, if the choice is between Methot, or somebody like Stone who needs to be re-signed, well, Stone is the guy we'd have a much harder time replacing particularly given our depth at LD.

 

[PoutineSp00nZ]

Do we miss Methot? Sure.

Do we miss him more than we would miss the assets that Vegas was demanding from us to "protect" him? No, probably not.

Kinda sums it up there. Plus it opened the door for Claesson, who looks like he could become a new Methot in the future. Been really impressed with him so far this season, if he continues to develop the way he's showing . . . much rather have held onto him than Methot.

 

[Micklebot]

Small sample size, but they lead the league in CF%. I think we're just fine without Methot.

Statistically Speaking: The best defence pairs - Article - TSN

The 70% OZ starts might also skew things a bit. That's likely in part the result of a large portion of their time together being against a weak team in Colorado.

 

[Masked]

He's currently injured so I don't think he'd be missed at the moment.

 

[2CHAINZ]

I miss hip checks and live finger dismemberment displays. However Cleasson is the stone cold nuts and had Vegas taken him instead, I would've spent the night drunk, riding shot gun with a baseball bat, smashing mailboxes from the moving vehicle.