Player Discussion Erik Gudbranson

Ducks DVM

sowcufucakky
Jun 6, 2010
51,553
28,519
Long Beach, CA
Seems like a very good bottom pairing and solid middle pairing guy in our system (with limited viewings under less than ideal circumstances). Seems to fit our system, and seems to know and accept his skill set.

I’ll wait until the 10 game trade adrenaline wears off to form a more final opinion.
 

Anaheim4ever

Registered User
Jun 15, 2017
8,824
5,400
He is a 1000 times better than Bieska. Bieska couldn't be trusted to play even 4 minutes a game without blowing it open for the other team.
 

Paul4587

Registered User
Jan 26, 2006
31,162
13,178
He’s a solid third pairing Dman that can play higher up with a complementary partner. Hopefully Lindholm gets healthy and can continue to be the right fit.
 

austropanther

Registered User
Jul 21, 2015
2,826
2,417
Bregenz
Panthers and Gudbranson fan coming in peace.

There is hardly another player like Guds who managed (and still manages) to devide our fanbase.

Most are mad that we drafted him at 3rd overall, advertised as the big hulking shutdown Dman. In the end, they say he is a type of player of a dying breed. Plus he makes way too much money for what a Dman at his salary is SUPPOSED to bring to the table. Every little mistake was surgically dissected to bash him.

Many still see/saw the intangibles he brings plus of course his physicality, decent first pass, good leader and lockerroom presence, great fighter (although not fighting that much anymore).

Bottom points are:
- he needs a good partner. He will never be able to carry the load of his pairing, always be a complementary guy (this is why it could work well with Lindholm)
- he is ideally somewhere between a number 4 to 7 but can occasionally cover some big minutes
- playoff performer - he excels when the games get tighter and more physical (or it shadows his weaknesses more)

Vancouver fans are just more mad than us because he played on really bad team that exposed him even more.
 

Randy Butternubs

Registered User
Mar 15, 2008
29,777
21,310
Morningside
Gudnesh:

8gtN4BP.png


Gudzilla:

gHQB9Mz.png
 

Mathew Barzal

Walk It Like I Tocchet
Jun 5, 2011
5,054
1,545
Vancouver, BC
He's not as bad as certain people on HFBoards said he is.

Certain people = Vancouver fans, it's very strange their obsession with him

Not just Vancouver fans, this entire Hockey Twitter community is kind of obsessed with him. I saw guys trying to dunk on his dad on there lol.

Give it time. I'm trying to do the same with Myers who is still in the honeymoon phase of his tenure with the team. Generally where there's smoke with multiple teams, there's multiple bonfires.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Canucks5551

Trojans86

Registered User
Dec 30, 2015
3,075
2,004
Panthers and Gudbranson fan coming in peace.

There is hardly another player like Guds who managed (and still manages) to devide our fanbase.

Most are mad that we drafted him at 3rd overall, advertised as the big hulking shutdown Dman. In the end, they say he is a type of player of a dying breed. Plus he makes way too much money for what a Dman at his salary is SUPPOSED to bring to the table. Every little mistake was surgically dissected to bash him.

Many still see/saw the intangibles he brings plus of course his physicality, decent first pass, good leader and lockerroom presence, great fighter (although not fighting that much anymore).

Bottom points are:
- he needs a good partner. He will never be able to carry the load of his pairing, always be a complementary guy (this is why it could work well with Lindholm)
- he is ideally somewhere between a number 4 to 7 but can occasionally cover some big minutes
- playoff performer - he excels when the games get tighter and more physical (or it shadows his weaknesses more)

Vancouver fans are just more mad than us because he played on really bad team that exposed him even more.
I like your comment about being a playoff performer. Solid start so far but Hampus will make a lot of players look good.
 

Duck Off

HF needs an App
Oct 25, 2002
20,909
5,287
Oklahoma
In my very little time of watching him, his play is blown way out of proportion. On a contender, he’s probably on the bottom pair with someone like Guhle. However, he doesn’t seem like someone who’s going to drastically drag down a top 4 pair.

He’s basically a mix between Manson and Stoner. That’s a solid hockey player, although definitely one who should be making 2.5 millionish, not 4. If used right, I like the fit.

when everyone gets healthy, we definitely should at least try him with Fowler, but if he struggles, I’d be tempted to roll these pairs:

lindholm-Manson
Larsson-Fowler
Guhle- Gudbranson
 

KyleJRM

Registered User
Jun 6, 2007
5,523
2,695
North Dakota
This is kind of tangential but I think the connection to Gudbranson is clear.

I remember hanging out on analytics-savvy baseball forums in the late 90s and early 00s. At the time, OPS+ was about the state of the art, as people had learned that on-base percentage and slugging percentage were far more effective at measuring offense than batting average and RBIs.

We spent a lot of time frothing about how awful these GMs were for employing certain guys who were near the bottom by this metric. How awful the average baseball executive was for not seeing how they were dragging down the team.

Eventually popular baseball metrics matured, got a lot better at measuring defense and valuing it relative to offense, and when you look back at those guys, it turns out they were mostly perfectly adequate players. Not great, but usually at least replacement level.

I get the impression of popular hockey metrics that they are still young enough and early enough in the development curve to have similar blind spots. That when we're trying to measure the total value of a player, the size of the blind spots is big enough that we should be really, really careful drawing anything more than the most broad of conclusions.

I'm not particularly worried that the current state of popular hockey metrics says Gudbranson is awful. He looks fine to me.
 

platotld

Fly Canucks Fly
Jun 18, 2014
640
577
Fraser valley
Certain people = Vancouver fans, it's very strange their obsession with him

Ed Willes: Today’s game is too fast for Erik Gudbranson, but just right for Quinn Hughes

Fluff piece on how good Quinn Hughes has been for us, and how the game has left Erik behind. Pretty fair I think. And if you want a second opinion
go ask some Pen's fans how they feel he did during the playoffs last year.


This is kind of tangential but I think the connection to Gudbranson is clear.

I remember hanging out on analytics-savvy baseball forums in the late 90s and early 00s. At the time, OPS+ was about the state of the art, as people had learned that on-base percentage and slugging percentage were far more effective at measuring offense than batting average and RBIs.

We spent a lot of time frothing about how awful these GMs were for employing certain guys who were near the bottom by this metric. How awful the average baseball executive was for not seeing how they were dragging down the team.

Eventually popular baseball metrics matured, got a lot better at measuring defense and valuing it relative to offense, and when you look back at those guys, it turns out they were mostly perfectly adequate players. Not great, but usually at least replacement level.

I get the impression of popular hockey metrics that they are still young enough and early enough in the development curve to have similar blind spots. That when we're trying to measure the total value of a player, the size of the blind spots is big enough that we should be really, really careful drawing anything more than the most broad of conclusions.

I'm not particularly worried that the current state of popular hockey metrics says Gudbranson is awful. He looks fine to me.

We said the same thing as you did .... but I digress.
 

Trojans86

Registered User
Dec 30, 2015
3,075
2,004
This is kind of tangential but I think the connection to Gudbranson is clear.

I remember hanging out on analytics-savvy baseball forums in the late 90s and early 00s. At the time, OPS+ was about the state of the art, as people had learned that on-base percentage and slugging percentage were far more effective at measuring offense than batting average and RBIs.

We spent a lot of time frothing about how awful these GMs were for employing certain guys who were near the bottom by this metric. How awful the average baseball executive was for not seeing how they were dragging down the team.

Eventually popular baseball metrics matured, got a lot better at measuring defense and valuing it relative to offense, and when you look back at those guys, it turns out they were mostly perfectly adequate players. Not great, but usually at least replacement level.

I get the impression of popular hockey metrics that they are still young enough and early enough in the development curve to have similar blind spots. That when we're trying to measure the total value of a player, the size of the blind spots is big enough that we should be really, really careful drawing anything more than the most broad of conclusions.

I'm not particularly worried that the current state of popular hockey metrics says Gudbranson is awful. He looks fine to me.
Very well said
 

Deuce22

Registered User
Jun 17, 2013
5,492
7,426
SoCal & Idaho
This is kind of tangential but I think the connection to Gudbranson is clear.

I remember hanging out on analytics-savvy baseball forums in the late 90s and early 00s. At the time, OPS+ was about the state of the art, as people had learned that on-base percentage and slugging percentage were far more effective at measuring offense than batting average and RBIs.

We spent a lot of time frothing about how awful these GMs were for employing certain guys who were near the bottom by this metric. How awful the average baseball executive was for not seeing how they were dragging down the team.

Eventually popular baseball metrics matured, got a lot better at measuring defense and valuing it relative to offense, and when you look back at those guys, it turns out they were mostly perfectly adequate players. Not great, but usually at least replacement level.

I get the impression of popular hockey metrics that they are still young enough and early enough in the development curve to have similar blind spots. That when we're trying to measure the total value of a player, the size of the blind spots is big enough that we should be really, really careful drawing anything more than the most broad of conclusions.

I'm not particularly worried that the current state of popular hockey metrics says Gudbranson is awful. He looks fine to me.
This is a very good point. Most hockey metrics center on possession and shots, not a bad thing on the surface. But the goal of any metric is to eliminate the "noise" or other factors which contribute to said metric. The noise which affects hockey possession/shot metrics are things like quality of opposition and quality of teammates on the ice, zone start rates, time and score of the game, coach/team system and philosophy. Gudbranson could be a guy whose possession/shot rates look bad because some of the noise doesn't work in his favor. It's more nuanced IMO than just "this guys stinks because his possession/shot metrics aren't good."
 
Jul 29, 2003
31,639
5,336
Saskatoon
Visit site
This is a very good point. Most hockey metrics center on possession and shots, not a bad thing on the surface. But the goal of any metric is to eliminate the "noise" or other factors which contribute to said metric. The noise which affects hockey possession/shot metrics are things like quality of opposition and quality of teammates on the ice, zone start rates, time and score of the game, coach/team system and philosophy. Gudbranson could be a guy whose possession/shot rates look bad because some of the noise doesn't work in his favor. It's more nuanced IMO than just "this guys stinks because his possession/shot metrics aren't good."

Possession metrics also only focus on possession and nothing else. A guy with a 60 CF% would be amazing by that stretch and is still playing that 40% in his own end. That's a significant chunk of time that's totally ignored by those metrics.
 
Jul 29, 2003
31,639
5,336
Saskatoon
Visit site

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad

Ad

-->