Fantasy Mock Draft Voting (STL Champion)

[Panda Bear]

I really need that job to start

 

[LT]

you don't need to produce much offence if you're good enough at controlling play.

I think this is where you lose people.

 

[belair]

I would have had your team worse with Green over Bouchard.

I think Green is basically done at this point of his career. Bouchard should be ready to be an Oiler next season and was playing big minutes in Bakersfield.

I have a feeling Green is going to prove this wrong when hockey is back. Green is essentially Benning's ticket out of Edmonton IMO.

 

[Nucker101]

you don't need to produce much offence if you're good enough at controlling play.

there are plenty of Stanley Cup victors who won on the basis of their overall defensive acumen, possession and goaltending

i'm at a point where I've convinced myself that people who've voted Winnipeg are eye test only people

That’s exactly why you need to bump up raw points.

Pure Eye Test People = Box Score Stats > Underlying Stats


I’d also artificially bump up players who have received Selke votes, Norris votes, etc.

 

[LT]

That’s exactly why you need to bump up raw points.

Pure Eye Test People = Box Score Stats > Underlying Stats

I'm actually wanting to try to replicate what Panda's done but solely with simpler, more traditional stats. Planning to use shooting percentages fairly heavily.

 

[BeLeafing]

you don't need to produce much offence if you're good enough at controlling play.

there are plenty of Stanley Cup victors who won on the basis of their overall defensive acumen, possession and goaltending

i'm at a point where I've convinced myself that people who've voted Winnipeg are eye test only people

gotta boost those raw point totals

I think as of now you may be relying too much on your advanced stats though. You need a balance of both to evaluate talent because neither is an exact science no matter how much you want it to be. Advanced stats are excellent, but I do think at times it's better used as an indicator of finding undervalued players as opposed to evaluating who the best players are. There has to be a mix for me, and I think some others agree.

Raw point totals should absolutely be a larger factor though because the thing that's a better indicator of future success is past success for me, not xgoals. So many unmeasurable variables go into sports that a perfect spreadsheet probably doesn't exist.

 

[Joey Moss]

I think as of now you may be relying too much on your advanced stats though. You need a balance of both to evaluate talent because neither is an exact science no matter how much you want it to be. Advanced stats are excellent, but I do think at times it's better used as an indicator of finding undervalued players as opposed to evaluating who the best players are. There has to be a mix for me, and I think some others agree.

Raw point totals should absolutely be a larger factor though because the thing that's a better indicator of future success is past success for me, not xgoals. So many unmeasurable variables go into sports that a perfect spreadsheet probably doesn't exist.

It doesn't exist and to continuously claim that people are wrong based on the spreadsheet numbers is getting a bit exhausting for me.

 

[Panda Bear]

I think this is where you lose people.

I'm beginning to accept that.

I figured people could look at St Louis, see Couturier and Tatar as comparable to O'Reilly and Schwartz, and I would be good. Boston, New York and Nashville made it to the finals without anyone at PPG within the past five cups.

Next time. At least I had Winnipeg at #5 overall on my charts.

 

[Panda Bear]

It doesn't exist and to continuously claim that people are wrong based on the spreadsheet numbers is getting a bit exhausting for me.

I find it exhausting you don't know how to read a chart

 

[Joey Moss]

I find it exhausting you don't know how to read a chart

I don't care about the charts because they are for the most part irrelevant.

 

[McDrai]

I find it exhausting you don't know how to read a chart

 

[Horse McHindu]

I think this is part of your problem. I understand what you are trying to do, but most people just looking at lineups in a sense of who has the better 1st line. Who has a better second line. I don’t think most look at it as if the game was being played out before them. It’s kinda the reason I like LTs idea about brackets. Each team should be able to submit a quick summary about how they think the team would work and how they would counter their opponent in a series.

I agree with you on this and it’s probably how I should have approached it.

It’s just really messed up.

One team had 43 year old Zdeno Chara on his first pairing RIGHT SIDE and qualified for the playoffs. Other teams’ had absolute sieve’s as their back up goalies (perhaps knowing the inside joke that back-up goalies don’t really matter in these drafts), and were able to select better players earlier on.

Again - not to sound like sour grapes, but I just don’t think I’m an ideal fit for these fantasy drafts. I’ll see how I feel next year and if I have time.

 

[Panda Bear]

I don't care about the charts because they are for the most part irrelevant.

 

[Panda Bear]

we're all aware that my excessive whining is because of all the time I spent on a spreadsheet and it's not working out like I thought it would, right

I played the game too hard

 

[LT]

I'm beginning to accept that.

I figured people could look at St Louis, see Couturier and Tatar as comparable to O'Reilly and Schwartz, and I would be good. Boston, New York and Nashville made it to the finals without anyone at PPG within the past five cups.

Next time. At least I had Winnipeg at #5 overall on my charts.

My issue has always been using possession as a proxy for skill.

Possession is obviously important, but you can look at super high possession teams like Carolina and San Jose and wonder why they aren't at the top of the league.

Possession is useless if you don't make anything of it. That's why you need the skill players to go with them. Giroux and Couturier absolutely feed off of each other, and they wouldn't be as strong in the metrics if they weren't together. That's one of many examples.

True skill is much harder to quantify, although I think we'll get better examples once the next-gen stats start coming out. This is where the eye-test makes up for what the metrics currently can't.

 

[Nucker101]

My issue has always been using possession as a proxy for skill.

Possession is obviously important, but you can look at super high possession teams like Carolina and San Jose and wonder why they aren't at the top of the league.

Possession is useless if you don't make anything of it. That's why you need the skill players to go with them. Giroux and Couturier absolutely feed off of each other, and they wouldn't be as strong in the metrics if they weren't together. That's one of many examples.

True skill is much harder to quantify, although I think we'll get better examples once the next-gen stats start coming out. This is where the eye-test makes up for what the metrics currently can't.

Panda’s charts account for shooting skill at least. Also he uses high danger corsi/fenwick so shots from closer to the net have more value than a perimeter shot.

 

[Panda Bear]

My issue has always been using possession as a proxy for skill.

Possession is obviously important, but you can look at super high possession teams like Carolina and San Jose and wonder why they aren't at the top of the league.

Possession is useless if you don't make anything of it. That's why you need the skill players to go with them. Giroux and Couturier absolutely feed off of each other, and they wouldn't be as strong in the metrics if they weren't together. That's one of many examples.

True skill is much harder to quantify, although I think we'll get better examples once the next-gen stats start coming out. This is where the eye-test makes up for what the metrics currently can't.

I don't disagree, which is why I didn't only use possession metrics. They make up about 5-10% of any player's given score, which is why Philip Danault keeps dropping in my charts.

xGoals reward players who get shots off in dangerous areas, and there are some xGoals derivatives on moneypuck.com that look to reward shooting talent and creativity.

My algorithm also weighted goals/60, first assists/60 and second assists/60 against a player's average time on ice per game on top of raw point totals.

There are some tracked stats by Corey Sznajder that track pass types, zone entries, zone exits and others that are correlates to players that display creativity, strong passing and good decision making. For some reason I am debating paying $7 for the 19-20 stats. That's like...two coffees.

Were I to get this access, I'd have some strong proxies for puck skill.

As for the eye test, Tatar is a creative, unpredictable puck-ragging winger. Tatar-Couturier is more than fine. If people are extremely down on Skinner (he's getting less credit for 60/30/10 than I thought, which makes me question why I got so much pushback from people when I worked from this season only last game), then I can understand grievances. But thinking my team wouldn't be able to score goals simply isn't fair, and every statistic out there bears witness to that. They'd be middle of the pack.

 

[Paralyzer008]

My issue has always been using possession as a proxy for skill.

Possession is obviously important, but you can look at super high possession teams like Carolina and San Jose and wonder why they aren't at the top of the league.

Possession is useless if you don't make anything of it. That's why you need the skill players to go with them. Giroux and Couturier absolutely feed off of each other, and they wouldn't be as strong in the metrics if they weren't together. That's one of many examples.

True skill is much harder to quantify, although I think we'll get better examples once the next-gen stats start coming out. This is where the eye-test makes up for what the metrics currently can't.

Not disagreeing with you, but those two teams did make round 3 of the playoffs last year in big part due to their possession.

Boston and St. Louis also had strong possession numbers too.

Like I said in an earlier post, it's the following mix:

Possession, shooting talent, goaltending, luck.

Whoever has the best mix of those 4 things wins the cup more often than not. In Carolina and SJ's case, I think they got did in by goaltending (Martin Jones, Petr Mrazek last year didn't really cut it) and Canes had some trouble converting their possession against another good possession team in Boston with a great goaltender.

If anything is being underrated in this draft, it's goaltending. A team with Devan Dubnyk as the starter isn't going to the final 4 this year. To give Panda credit based on this season, there is quite a gap between Hellebuyck in net and Pekka Rinne.

Sometimes though if a team has really, really elite talent, they can bypass some of that to win (see Crosby, Malkin, Ovechkin).

For example, I don't think the Oilers are that great of a team, their goaltending is okay, their possession stinks - but they have had some luck in 2020, absolutely have shooting talent and they have two incredible elite talents in McDavid and Draisaitl - that gives them a shot.

 

[Panda Bear]

anyone ever seen Upload?

 

[Peter Griffin]

If I may ask, which players specifically?

For me it was your lack of what I would consider legit scoring options on your wing as well as Edler on your top pairing, I don’t think he’s suited for that role at this point in his career. Coleman or Silfverberg being complimentary wingers on a scoring line would be fantastic, but to have them both on a line together, I think you would’ve been better suited to find another scoring winger and spread the offense around. And then your admitted “top line” was flanked by two over the hill wingers whose better days are behind them. Just my opinion.

 

[Nucker101]

For me it was your lack of what I would consider legit scoring options on your wing as well as Edler on your top pairing, I don’t think he’s suited for that role at this point in his career. Coleman or Silfverberg being complimentary wingers on a scoring line would be fantastic, but to have them both on a line together, I think you would’ve been better suited to find another scoring winger and spread the offense around. And then your admitted “top line” was flanked by two over the hill wingers whose better days are behind them. Just my opinion.

You can argue Hornqvist past his prime but Tatar was playing as well as he ever has this year, Habs fans will tell you themselves

 

[Peter Griffin]

You can argue Hornqvist past his prime but Tatar was playing as well as he ever has this year, Habs fans will tell you themselves

I was referencing Minnesota’s wingers, Parise and Dustin Brown.

 

[Horse McHindu]

I was referencing Minnesota’s wingers, Parise and Dustin Brown.

Fair point, but Parise still produced 25 goals while Brown got 17. Edler is still regarded as a top pairing D man around the league. He regularly takes on the tough match-ups and more than holds his own.

 

[BeLeafing]

Fair point, but Parise still produced 25 goals while Brown got 17. Edler is still regarded as a top pairing D man around the league. He regularly takes on the tough match-ups and more than holds his own.

I think this conversation goes back to what I said first about your team though. The subconscious perceived value because of their age/contracts is different to the value they actually provide. I personally think there is a valid case for Parise over Olofsson right now, but Olofsson probably has a more positive perception due to those factors previously mentioned (correct me if I'm wrong).

I think you can make a similar comparison with guys like Edler and say, Chychrun. They are statistically similar, Edler might be better currently, but Chychrun likely is perceived better.

Like it or not, perception is reality in this game. Throw a few too many of these less positively perceived guys together and it hurts you, fair or not

 

[Nucker101]

I was referencing Minnesota’s wingers, Parise and Dustin Brown.

my mistake lol