Confirmed with Link: Douglas Murray signed 1 year deal ($1.5m)

[onemorecup*]

No it doesn't. As a business person, you will take good and bad decisions. Doesn't mean your judgement is flawed. It means that the probability of making a mistake is always there, regardless of judgement. See Steve Jobs. He had, I would say, pretty good judgement on what is a marketable product, wouldn't you say? But he had some duds in his life. Lots of them. Doesn't mean his judgement is 'flawed'. There's a lot going in the world that can influence the result of a decision, most of which isn't under your control.

unless you are like our previous bonehead regimes thinking that Gio, Cammie, Gomez moves would make us great , or DD is worth a signing

those were flawed from day one , anyone can see those

 

[MSLs absurd thighs]

Subban will obviously be the one sent out at the end of a game if we need a goal and if we need to defend a lead. That's why he's our #1 D. Outside that, he's far too important as a tough minute eating 2 way guy to give soft opposition to. Especially when there's nobody else that can be dependable against the strong opposition that is sure to follow.

"Micro stats have huge flaws in them because the leafs d-men are rated as being bad and I don't think they're bad."

Okay.

The Standings, the way they stood up against a very tough Boston team which made it to the Cup finals, the way it was a pain for any of our forwards in their zone, both to get to the net and maintain possession... That's WHAT hockey is. Not this ********.

 

[Andy]

I would swear you and the other stats addicts would know this after spending about as many time analyzing deep analytics as watching games, but apparently not...

Every damn stay-at-home d-man out there have weak statistics. Following these numbers, the Leafs have one of the worst d-group in the league, when in fact I'd consider it one of the best.

The Leafs D is terrible. That is their team's biggest weakness. They won't become a real contender until they fix their backend. They get exposed so many times. My guess is you think they're one of the best because they're tough (which is probably the most flawed way to assess the ability and quality of a player and team), but that doesn't mean they defend well. I catch many leafs games and honestly I'm surprised their fans don't pull out their hair watching that D squad get exposed.

Again, I'm not understanding the irrational hatred you have towards advanced stats, to the point where it reads like you blow a fuse because posters employ them, relax. Teams in the nhl use them, they obviously have a purpose. The Sharks, Kings and Bruins all admit to using them and they have been relatively successful teams. Pheonix is another team that uses advanced stats and for a team that cannot spend much money they've done quite well finding players that fly under the radar to make their team competitive. Scoffing at advanced stats says more about you then it does about their ability to analyze hockey games. Like everything they should be used in moderation, but they're extremely useful, especially when the eyes are biased.

 

[overlords]

Provoking people as a mod? Really? heh... That was the self-admitted goal of your original post no? So why are you surprised?

Still waiting for a valid answer as to how the Leafs have such a terrible defense, and how no freaking stay-at-home D out there in the mold of Murray (Regehr, Smid, etc...) have good statistics to show in those charts.

You would think that THE team who is the most openly admitting they're using micro-stats would be seeing the same thing as you guys if you were doing it correctly. Yet, Murray keeps being used on the PK unit again and again... Ever wondered about YOU being wrong? As I see nobody here being all that vocal about Murray not being and NHL d-man as you and MathMan. (by the way, take a look at this topic on the Pens board, it made your evaluations look... I'd rather not put a qualificative on them, because you're quite clearly trying to ambush me here. It's so obvious it's not even funny).

Then again, I wouldn't expect you to come out and agree with all of the above. You're clearly already too far in your agenda to do so. But I think it's fairly obvious stats such as this taken out of context by some wannabe journalist (in fact, journalists have to watch hockey to become just that. Which doesn't seem to be the case for this moron) are full of holes and flaws.

What provocation? You challenged something with your skill at judging hockey. The only options are that 1) the stats are, as you say, wrong or 2) You're not good at judging hockey. Perhaps even the mix of the two. This is a hockey board, if you can't take your opinions being challenged, maybe it's not the place for you.

I don't think it's a secret that advanced stats don't treat stay at home D very well. I guess that depends on your definition of a stay at home D, though. A stay at home D who doesn't have a good outlet pass like Komisarek, Regehr, Murray etc. need to keep a lot of pucks out of their net to come out on top, because they will contribute very little to putting pucks in the other team's net. That makes sense, right?

I don't have any 'agenda'. You're starting to sound like a conspiracy theorist. I've discussed and debated with quite a few people in this thread in a calm, rational manner. Just look at Grant, our token professional scout.

The Standings, the way they stood up against a very tough Boston team which made it to the Cup finals, the way it was a pain for any of our forwards in their zone, both to get to the net and maintain possession... That's WHAT hockey is. Not this ********.

Kinda like when we brought the cup winning boston bruins to game 7 as well. And actually scored just as many goals as them in that series? Those boston bruins?

And ****, we didn't even have parros, murray or Prust for that matter..

Our toughest players were... uh.. Wizniewski? I remember how badly he blew coverage on that series winning goal, if I'm recalling correctly. There was also mara who played 1 game.

Moen...sopel...


I dunno

 

[Hoople]

The Leafs D is terrible. That is their team's biggest weakness. They won't become a real contender until they fix their backend. They get exposed so many times. My guess is you think they're one of the best because they're tough (which is probably the most flawed why to assess the ability and quality of a player and team), but that doesn't mean they defend well. I catch many leafs games and honestly I'm surprised their fans don't pull out their hair watching that D squad get exposed.

Again, I'm not understanding the irrational hatred you have towards advanced stats, to the point where it reads like you blow a fuse because posters employ them, relax. Teams in the nhl use them, they obviously have a purpose. The Sharks, Kings and Bruins all admit to using them and they have been relatively successful teams. Pheonix is another team that uses advanced stats and for a team that cannot spend much money they've done quite well finding players that fly under the radar to make their team competitive. Scoffing at advanced stats says more about you then it does about their ability to analyze hockey games. Like everything they should be used in moderation, but they're extremely useful, especially when the eyes are biased.

The issue is when people who live and die for advanced stats come on the board and say that signing a very physical DMan (which we are lacking) for a 1 year, $1.5 million dollar contract is a "mistake".

And then other people come along and prop that assessment up.

The Habs have been the softest team in the NHL, especially on defense. You dont need a Corsi stat to see how Ottawa exploited that deficiency in the playoffs.

 

[Andy]

Kinda like when we brought the cup winning boston bruins to game 7 as well. And actually scored just as many goals as them in that series? Those boston bruins?

And ****, we didn't even have parros, murray or Prust for that matter..

Our toughest players were... uh.. Wizniewski? I remember how badly he blew coverage on that series winning goal, if I'm recalling correctly. There was also mara who played 1 game.

Moen...sopel...


I dunno

Lesson 1 of narrative theory: They are constructed by individual or a group of individual actors, all of which have their own motivations and interests to promote.
Lesson 2 of narrative theory: As an interpretation of reality, as opposed to a true representation of reality, narratives only represent parts of an event rather than the whole of it.
Lesson 3 narrative theory: Narratives tend to exclude, overlook and deliberately omit aspects of reality that immediately contradict or challenge it.

 

[Agnostic]

I am not a star watcher but I happened to recently see an article with a pic of Nordegren lounging in a bikini. My lord, if Murray tapped that he deserves respect. That is a beautiful woman.

Tiger had that waiting for him at home and he was playing 19th hole at The Skank Open.

 

[overlords]

The issue is when people who live and die for advanced stats come on the board and say that signing a very physical DMan (which we are lacking) for a 1 year, $1.5 million dollar contract is a "mistake".

And then other people come along and prop that assessment up.

The Habs have been the softest team in the NHL, especially on defense. You dont need a Corsi stat to see how Ottawa exploited that deficiency in the playoffs.

You're the one using a very absolutist approach, this time. Do we just take any 'tough' dman because we 'need' one? Regardless of quality of play? Should we get Scott Stevens out of retirement because he'd still be one tough mother****er who can't follow the play?

( because he's old, not because he was bad. I like scott stevens, don't lynch me) /backpedal

And there's maybe one person who 'lives and dies' for stats in this thread. I just use them as another tool to evaluate the game that I watch. The term and dollar amount hasn't really been disputed all that much either, that's just muddying up the debate.

 

[Lshap]

I don't think the goal of a message board should be to create a coherent hive mind.

Right on. This should be our group mantra.

 

[jedimyrmidon]

I would swear you and the other stats addicts would know this after spending about as many time analyzing deep analytics as watching games, but apparently not...

Every damn stay-at-home d-man out there have weak statistics. Following these numbers, the Leafs have one of the worst d-group in the league, when in fact I'd consider it one of the best.

While I have my reservations about the stats used to describe 'success' in the NHL, I have to disagree entirely with that statement.

Phaneuf, Gunnarsson, Liles, Gardiner, Franson, Fraser, Kostka and O'Byrne as 'one of the vest' in the league? No way. I take Subban, Markov, Gorges, Diaz and Emelin over them any day by a wide margin. For all the hype Franson is getting, I bet Diaz is better than him.

If you look at their usage, I bet you'll see that Kadri and Franson were, more often than not, on the ice at the same time in their sheltered roles. Kadri gets 44pts in 48 games, putting him at the same level of production as Tavares, Kopitar and other such company WITHOUT much PP time and in less average TOI per game. Franson, at the same time, is 5th in Dman scoring. Mark Fraser has one of the highest +/- ratings in the league. Hmmmm.... somethin is going on here. Are they all elite? I don't think so.

The Leafs forward group is legitimately deep with Lupul, Kessel, JVR and now Kadri. People extol Reimer as being a pretty good goaltender (he seemed immune to the side effects of giving out many rebounds) with his high save percentage. If the Leafs' D were among the best then the Leafs should then be legitimate Cup contenders on the order of the Bruins or the Hawks or the Kings.

 

[Andy]

You're the one using a very absolutist approach, this time. Do we just take any 'tough' dman because we 'need' one? Regardless of quality of play? Should we get Scott Stevens out of retirement because he'd still be one tough mother****er who can't follow the play?

( because he's old, not because he was bad. I like scott stevens, don't lynch me) /backpedal

Judging by the jerk fest people once had over Evgeny Artyukhin, people have become so deprived of "toughness" that anyone showing an ounce of it, no matter how bad they are as a hockey player, is jerk worthy.


That being said, Murray is a good pick up for a bottom pairing/depth d-man. Would be cool if he can find his game from a couple of years ago again.

 

[overlords]

Judging by the jerk fest people once had over Evgeny Artyukhin, people have become so deprived of "toughness" that anyone showing an once of it, no matter how bad they are as a hockey player, is jerk worthy.


That being said, Murray is a good pick up for a bottom pairing/depth d-man. Would be cool if he can find his game from a couple of years ago again.

Of course. It would be great if he put his high intellect to use on some sort of anti-aging cream that brought back his top-4 effectiveness, but I wouldn't be the one betting 1.5 million dollars on it.

I'm only just a bit more to the negative (regarding the player) than you. I'd say he's more in the 'depth' d-man mold than 'bottom pairing' if he puts up last year's performance again, or god forbid, gets worse. If he improves a bit on last year's performance, yeah I'd say #6 isn't the end of the world at all. I can't wait to see him destroy kessel.

 

[jedimyrmidon]

I don't think the goal of a message board should be to create a coherent hive mind.

Interesting that this idea is mentioned: a complaint I have with EotP (from which much of the current debate has stemmed from), is that the posters there often seem like a hive mind - for example, with the Murray contract, they are almost unanimously vehemently against it. It's quite unsettling, really. They all agree on almost everything from prospect rankings (they all pretty much like Lehkonen more than McCarron, De La Rose and Fucale for very predictable reasons, and they all seem to predictably object with the assumed reasoning behind drafting guys like McCarron) to refereeing decisions to acquisitions like Murray.

 

[overlords]

Right on. This should be our group mantra.

I'm not sure if you tried to be ironic here, but I lol'd.

 

[Hoople]

You're the one using a very absolutist approach, this time. Do we just take any 'tough' dman because we 'need' one? Regardless of quality of play? Should we get Scott Stevens out of retirement because he'd still be one tough mother****er who can't follow the play?

( because he's old, not because he was bad. I like scott stevens, don't lynch me) /backpedal

And there's maybe one person who 'lives and dies' for stats in this thread. I just use them as another tool to evaluate the game that I watch. The term and dollar amount hasn't really been disputed all that much either, that's just muddying up the debate.

Who's available that we can fit into the Cap?

Name one. And when you name that player, next you have to call Bergevin and tell him that you think we should get this player signed. Tell him you and a few other posters at HFBoards want this player.

Let me know how that turns out.

Meanwhile, I'll sit over here and be thankful that Bergevin addressed one of our biggest needs on this team.

 

[Hoople]

Judging by the jerk fest people once had over Evgeny Artyukhin, people have become so deprived of "toughness" that anyone showing an ounce of it, no matter how bad they are as a hockey player, is jerk worthy.


That being said, Murray is a good pick up for a bottom pairing/depth d-man. Would be cool if he can find his game from a couple of years ago again.

Quoting this post for future reference when Murray stands up for one of our forwards. I'll refer to it also when Murray makes a big hit or two.

Dont be sad when the Habs start playing with an edge.

 

[Kriss E]

Quoting this post for future reference when Murray stands up for one of our forwards. I'll refer to it also when Murray makes a big hit or two.

Dont be sad when the Habs start playing with an edge.

You realize he said he liked the signing?

Who's available that we can fit into the Cap?

Name one. And when you name that player, next you have to call Bergevin and tell him that you think we should get this player signed. Tell him you and a few other posters at HFBoards want this player.

Let me know how that turns out.

Meanwhile, I'll sit over here and be thankful that Bergevin addressed one of our biggest needs on this team.

What does ''call Bergevin and tell him'' have to do with anything?..We can't question any moves now because ''we're not the GM''?

The series turned when Thornton went from a press box player to being in the lineup. He proceeded to hit everyone wearing a Canucks sweater.

Momentum swung quickly after that. And Habaneros is right. The Canucks standing around and watching one of the Sedins get bobble-headed by Marchand with no consequences was affirmation that the Bruins game of intimidation and hard-nosed play worked.

So it worked for 4 games but not for 3? All it took was 5 minutes of Thornton per game to make the Canucks scared to play the 55 others? Don't be ridiculous man.

Thornton was not the MVP of that series okay. Enough of this already. Jesus Christ man..

It was a very close series, HENCE SEVEN GAMES, that was played, like pretty 99% of all other close series, in nets and depth.

Shawn freaking Thornton changed nothing. Nothing.

 

[Lshap]

I'm not sure if you tried to be ironic here, but I lol'd.

I knew you'd get it.

 

[Talks to Goalposts]

What provocation? You challenged something with your skill at judging hockey. The only options are that 1) the stats are, as you say, wrong or 2) You're not good at judging hockey. Perhaps even the mix of the two. This is a hockey board, if you can't take your opinions being challenged, maybe it's not the place for you.

I don't think it's a secret that advanced stats don't treat stay at home D very well. I guess that depends on your definition of a stay at home D, though. A stay at home D who doesn't have a good outlet pass like Komisarek, Regehr, Murray etc. need to keep a lot of pucks out of their net to come out on top, because they will contribute very little to putting pucks in the other team's net. That makes sense, right?

I don't have any 'agenda'. You're starting to sound like a conspiracy theorist. I've discussed and debated with quite a few people in this thread in a calm, rational manner. Just look at Grant, our token professional scout.



Kinda like when we brought the cup winning boston bruins to game 7 as well. And actually scored just as many goals as them in that series? Those boston bruins?

And ****, we didn't even have parros, murray or Prust for that matter..

Our toughest players were... uh.. Wizniewski? I remember how badly he blew coverage on that series winning goal, if I'm recalling correctly. There was also mara who played 1 game.

Moen...sopel...


I dunno

There are a number of stay at home defensemen that the micros love. They just aren't the ones that have zero puck skills and skating ability. What the really show is that a lot of these guys are abso-freaking useless at the 180 feet of the ice that aren't right around their own net.

Guys like Fayne, Vlasic, McDonagh, Hamhuis, Garrison, Sarich, Staal, Alzner, Hamonic, Smid, Mitchell, Jackman Beachemin etc. are stay at home guys. But they are ones that actually get results defensively. The problem with guys like Komisarek et al is that because they can't help push play forward they spend to much time with the other side attacking, which leads to more goals against. And if a "defensive" defenseman is bad at keeping goals from happening when he's on the ice, what's the point of him?

Murray used to be a stay at home guy the advanced stats loved. But that was two years ago and his numbers have cratered. Which co-incides with when he lost the ability to skate.

 

[PricerStopDaPuck]

Moen will bounce back I bet money on that. Torres instead would be ideal but ohwell

 

[Hoople]

You realize he said he liked the signing?

He brought up an odd expression..........."jerk worthy" when it comes to physicality in hockey.

I have never heard that before nor would have ever thought of using that phrase when describing an important aspect of a sport involving male athletes.

I just want to see if I can help him out when Murray plays well.

 

[Kriss E]

He brought up an odd expression..........."jerk worthy" when it comes to physicality in hockey.

I have never heard that before nor would have ever thought of using that phrase when describing an important aspect of a sport involving male athletes.

I just want to see if I can help him out when Murray plays well.

Obviously it was just an exaggeration, but he's not entirely wrong. People have been wanting size and toughness for so long that they don't know how to assess it anymore.
It's gone to the point where they'll go as far as to believe that someone that plays 5min on average is the reason why Boston won the cup a few years back

 

[Habsterix*]

Obviously it was just an exaggeration, but he's not entirely wrong. People have been wanting size and toughness for so long that they don't know how to assess it anymore.
It's gone to the point where they'll go as far as to believe that someone that plays 5min on average is the reason why Boston won the cup a few years back

Who is "they"?

 

[Kriss E]

Who is "they"?

The people that were dying to have Artyu, the guys that wanted us to call up Alex Henry when we played Boston, the people that think Shawn freaking Thornton was the reason why Boston won the damn cup. Those guys.

 

[Dagistitsyn]

what jersey number will Murray wear in Montreal?