Glaring need for an Elite D prospect
- Thread starter Duke16
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tooncesmeow
Registered User
Defensemen don't impact scoring chance numbers and percentages nearly as much as possession. They mostly just impact the possession numbers, and that's a substantial part of the game. The team with a better Score Adjusted Corsi percentage in the regular season wins 70% of playoff series', for example. I also didn't call him "elite," I said he was a top pairing guy, and an elite possession guy.
You are looking at one set of facts and ignoring the others yet are indignant that I do not see our number 3/4 defenseman as elite. Clearly my position is unreasonable and yours is infallible. Your "facts" are presented without context so how can I take them seriously ? Who are his match ups ? What are the zone starts etc etc ? Considering he is second pairing PK that suggests he is not facing the toughest competition very much.
I notice you were unable to address any of the valid points I brought forward and clung to stats with no context. That you place your opinion so high above your peers says it all to me. You are the only one calling a number 3/4 D on one of the worst defensive team in the league "elite". That you cannot see the weakness of that position is cause for concern.
Regarding trade offers, which is what I said we would be getting, not trading him (I'll assume you are better at reading stats) . Considering we are told everyone but Rielly is available and no one is interested in Gardiner from what we hear does imply his value is not where you place it. That rebuttal is clearly desperate.
Don't you find it odd no one else seems to have expressed your opinion he is elite when our fan base is famous for overhyping our players ? Ah but you have already made it clear that your opinion has more value than the HF majority so I suppose that would hardly matter.
NHL.com rates the top 17 two way defensemen in the league: http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=729524
You will note Gardiners absence. Interestingly enough they also used advanced stats to calculate them so this suggests you need to work on your context to make better use of your statistics though you would know your error if you actually watched the guy play.
You lost me with this post. They didn't "calculate" anything, they used analytic numbers anecdotally a couple of times in a post that was voted on subjectively. There's not an analytics calculation that's going to rank Shea Weber as the second best defenseman in the NHL.
Just as for adding context, matchups don't make a huge difference, because it's hard to match players up, and so it's really rare that anyone is actually playing a huge percentage of their minutes against elite or very bad opposition. If you separate an individual player's minutes by which line they were up against, they'll have much better numbers against the fourth lines than the first lines (obviously), but if you take a player's whole season of Quality of Competition into account, it's rare that any player is playing genuinely very tough or easy competition.
Now, as for context generally, I'm not like, the biggest on Burtch's model, but dCorsi adjusts for how much every contextual modifier impacts Corsi% and gives a decently consistent predictor (not perfect, mind you) of how much a player will impact a team's Corsi. Gardiner finished 6th among NHL defensemen in total dCorsi impact in 2014, and 9th in 2015.
Again, nobody's saying possession impact is everything, but it means a lot, especially for defensemen, and Gardiner is really, really good at that.
67Cup
Registered User
- Sep 16, 2005
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Small disagreement: Kelly, Mahovlich and Nevin, before he was traded, would probably be considered the first line nowadays. They were the primary offensive line of the Leafs of the era. Mahovlich was the forward who regularly was first or second team all star on the team. It shows the great depth of the Leafs of that era that all three centers ended up in the Hall of Fame. To speak of Kelly as centre of the second line would probably not actually represent his value to contemporary fans.
Keon, Duff and Armstrong were a great line, but they filled some of the functions of a present day third line. They matched up with the big line of the opposite team and usually did a great job of nullifying them. Keon was one of the very few centres who could keep Jean Beliveau in check. Keon was a great pure offensive player in junior but adapted his game in the NHL. You have to wonder what kind of numbers he would have produced with a less defensive minded coach than Imlach. But he was tremendously effective as he was, the best two way centre I have seen on the Leafs. (Though my father enthused about Syl Apps.) To call him third line center would also wildly misrepresent Keon's contributions on those Stanley Cup teams.
Bob Pulford, with Ron Stewart with whoever played the other wing would be the second line equivalent, a two way unit which was defensively responsible but dangerous offensively. Some years Pulford was actually the most dangerous offensively of the three centers. That depth was a large part of what made those Leaf teams great.
In the playoffs, this balance was hard to beat. Keon's line would hold the big line in check and the other two lines would outscore the opposition. Great memories!
By the way, another defense to forward conversion, though on a much lower level of excellence, was Nathan Dempsey.
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Neither do I. I've only ever stated that he's a top-4 defenseman, which the numbers prove. My issue with your opinion is that you believe he is mediocre defensively (he's not; he's great defensively), and that he is (or could potentially be) top-tier offensively (he's not; he's not effective offensively). You're merely perpetuating a trite narrative.
Phaneuf's match-ups lead to Phaneuf's opponents scoring 1.8 more goals per 1200 ES minutes (roughly what elite players play at even-strength over the course of a season) than Gardiner's, and Gardiner's usage statistics (widely believed to be the future of QoC measurements) are fantastic. Gardiner also led the Leafs defense in even-strength minutes this past season, and has averaged top-pairing ES minutes over the last three seasons (which I already brought up). All of the stats I've posted are either directly, or indirectly, adjusted for zone-starts and teammates.
Being a good penalty-killer does not make you a good defensive player at even-strength (y'know, the situation in which the bulk of the game is played). Roman Polak was a perfect example of that this season.
My opinion is no better than anyone else's, I'm simply capable of recognizing my shortcomings (shortcoming that we all inherently suffer from) and adapting accordingly.
Also, you're making **** up, which is far worse than failing to address your 'good points' (which don't actually exist).
Regarding trade offers, which is what I said we would be getting, not trading him (I'll assume you are better at reading stats
That rebuttal is clearly desperate? You're downright flailing at straw men marred in bias. Do you actually know that the Leafs are shopping Gardiner? I'm sure they're listening to offers on everybody, but they're also capable of recognizing his value. You're not actually saying anything. You haven't raised a single point that isn't predicated on a giant leap into a massive abyss.
We're not famous for overvaluing our players, we're famous for improperly valuing our players. We laud the efforts of grinders, and shun the effectiveness of skill players. Proof? Steen, Stralman, Grabovski, Kadri, Gardiner. Those are just the five that immediately come to mind.
First of all, this article is almost a year old. Second of all, they don't actually discuss which advanced metrics they used (I'll go out on a limb and assume they didn't use advanced metrics since Shea Weber is second on that list). Finally, this article is two-way defensemen, not defensive-defensemen.
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http://public.tableau.com/shared/5NK534MD7?:display_count=yes
http://public.tableau.com/shared/STWTQB54X?:display_count=yes
http://public.tableau.com/shared/4FWQ5HF8C?:display_count=yes
http://stats.hockeyanalysis.com/ratings.php?disp=1&db=201415&sit=f10&pos=defense&minutes=300&teamid=28&type=corsi&sort=PCTRelTM&sortdir=DESC
http://stats.hockeyanalysis.com/ratings.php?disp=1&db=201415&sit=f10&pos=defense&minutes=300&teamid=28&type=fenwick&sort=PCTRelTM&sortdir=DESC
http://stats.hockeyanalysis.com/ratings.php?disp=1&db=201215&sit=f10&pos=defense&minutes=1000&teamid=0&type=goals&sort=A60RelTM&sortdir=ASC
http://puckalytics.com/players/#!/?pid=1513
http://war-on-ice.com/WARboard.html
http://war-on-ice.com/hexplayers.html
http://war-on-ice.com/burtch-dcorsi.html
I'm exceptionally skeptical of a WAR model that has Joe Pavelski as the fifth most valuable player over the last decade. Generally not a big fan of using WAR/win shares in any sport, just because I prefer to look at composite numbers.
I didn't like it all when I first discovered it. I actually downright dismissed it when I first brought it up on this forum. I decided to read up on the model (there's an 11 part series), however, and it's actually not that bad. I don't like the weighting they give to some of the variables, but it's much better than the initial reaction would have you believe.
Joey24
Registered User
Don't see anyone calling him a bust... But I do see some teams being concerned about him being able to stay healthy.l
Are these the same scouts that didn't have Giroux in the top 5? or didn't have Tyler Johnson anywhere in their draft rankings?
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Scouting is not an exact science. If you truly believe that Marner is going to be strong enough to win battles down low as a center then good luck. That is what playing center is pretty much all about at the NHL level now, battling down low. Marner's skill set is better suited as a winger at the NHL level, we don't need the little fella to try to play heavy hockey. Just make plays. I'm surprised that they didn't hand him a pair of mickey mouse ears at the draft instead of the Leafs hat.
Exactly, so stop acting like it is. I'm sure many scouts said Tyler Johnson was too small to play in the NHL let alone play centre. In fact, I know they did as he wasn't drafted. But what am I saying, Johnson is just a small, 5'8, .94 ppg centre. It's not like he was a staple in his teams Stanley Cup run. What is Tampa doing leaving him on the wing? Put this small, weak little boy on the wing so he doesn't get hurt down low! In fact while we're at it we better put Datsyuk and Giroux on the wing too!
