Post-Game Talk: GM 2: Vancouver 2 vs. Ottawa 3 | SO Loss

[Melvin]

I dont understand why we can't have nice things

You reap what you sow.

 

[PG Canuck]

Nylander being better then Virtanen has nothing to do with this argument.

Virtanen creating a clean zone entry and taking a shot attempt is almost always preferable to not creating a clean zone entry and NOT taking a shot attempt.

It absolutely does have something to do with this argument. Nylander is a very good producer in the NHL - do you see him taking Virtanen like rushes and shot attempts so consistently? If so, I think you need to watch him, and other top NHL'ers a bit closer. This is why advanced stats/corsi/etc gets a bad rep, honestly, because if they were the end-all, be-all, then you would see every single player taking these shot attempts Virtanen does. It's not any different than just barely getting over the blueline and taking a shot, after all, it could create a chance, yeah? So should every player take a shot as soon as they cross the blueline? No because it's a low percentage shot. It shows up on the stat sheet as a SOG after all.

You stress possession, yet taking low percentage shots from tough angles that time and time again proves to create nothing other than the odd chance is kind of weird. Get the puck, take a low percentage shot, lose possession...maybe get a decent chance.

I am not just strictly putting this one Virtanen, I am saying this for any player that just takes low percentage shots and kills possession in the offensive zone. Virtanen just happens to have a habit of it.

 

[RobertKron]

Was at the game.

Forwards:
Good - Horvat, Granlund, Virtanen. Granlund is really intelligent in his positioning and is able to make creative plays despite being anchored to Sutter. He's better live. Though he did get rocked a few times, he isn't afraid of the boards. Virtanen made minor mistakes but is making the right plays and backing up defensemen with his speed and maneuvering. He's impressed me. A shame he didn't play more especially in OT.

Meh - Baertschi, Vanek, Eriksson, Sedin twins
Baertschi had a free chances to score and made some nifty passes that led to scoring chances but he wasn't getting it done for most of the night. A step behind and lost more battles than one. Not his best game but not for a lack of trying. Vanek made some lazy plays despite his goal. Eriksson does a lot of things right but isn't clicking. Sedin's with some good zone time but man are the getting snuffed out by back checkers and defenders easily. It sucks to see.

Bad - Gagner, Burmistrov, Sutter, Dorsett
Gagner was just ineffective all night and was giving away pucks and leaving his man open a fair bit. Burmistrov wasnt noticeable besides the times he was bodied off the puck, not a good night as he's usually pretty good warding off checks. Sutter was hot garbage oh god. He and Dorsett are worse live. Sutter made one good pass but botched opportunities several times and made lazy clearing attempts. Dorsett runs around accomplishing nothing.

Defensemen:
Tanev and Edler were both really good, Tanev was better though. What a ****ing G. Hutton was aggressive and whenever he was caught he backchecked and tracked really well. Del Zotto was really good as well. Jumped up a lot and was making the right play. Good stick checks and deflections. Stecher was bad. Too many giveaways and couldn't separate himself when skating the puck. Gudbranson was meh. He's a low event player. For a guy praised for physicality he showed very little of it..

Markstrom was amazing. That first one was terrible but he locked down. He's the only reason the Canucks got a point.

I didn't see McDavid score in this game, did you?

 

[Soups On]

I didn't see McDavid score in this game, did you?

Valid point.

Sutter and Dorsett both have huge balls. Prevented McDavid from even entering Rogers Arena.

 

[Melvin]

It absolutely does have something to do with this argument. Nylander is a very good producer in the NHL - do you see him taking Virtanen like rushes and shot attempts so consistently? If so, I think you need to watch him, and other top NHL'ers a bit closer. This is why advanced stats/corsi/etc gets a bad rep, honestly, because if they were the end-all, be-all, then you would see every single player taking these shot attempts Virtanen does. It's not any different than just barely getting over the blueline and taking a shot, after all, it could create a chance, yeah? So should every player take a shot as soon as they cross the blueline? No because it's a low percentage shot. It shows up on the stat sheet as a SOG after all.

Right. It is important not to get the cause-and-effect backwards, here. That higher corsi tends to succeed does not literally mean that all players should just take more shots. It is the other way around. Most established NHLers do not vary greatly in the kind of shots they take, which is why the ones who get more shots off tend to do better. That does not mean you don't have the random outliers who take much more low-percentage shots however, they just get blurred out by the sample.

 

[orcatown]

Nice to see the response to Burrows. Throughly deserved. Would have great, if we were going to lose, to have him score the shoot out winner

Thought Newell Brown was going to get everything straightened out on the Power Play. Can't say that I'm seeing it yet. If anything it is worse.

Good

Tanev - right now the best player on the team. Has more offense than given credit for but willing to hang back and clean up his own zone

Edler - polished performance. When playing like this and he is legit top pairing NHL defenseman

Del Zotto - looks to be our best off season pickup. He is an excellent skater and smart in his end. Needs to get shot on net however.

Gudbranson - got better as the game went on and was overall solid. Moving better than last year and moving puck quicker out of his end.

Thought these top 4 defenseman all were good and had to do a lot in their end to make up for some weak defensive play by forwards

Horvat - was dangerous although his line was not working that well together.

Bad

Lot of forwards were simply meh. Not getting enough out of them

Gagner - looks like we will live to rue this contract. Just a body right now. Not fast, not strong, not particularly skilled. Looked ugly on the PP and was basically a non-factor. Looks a lot like the fringe player we saw in Edmonton and Arizona. If Boeser is to come into the lineup looks like Gagner should be the one to sit.

Baerschi - looks weak and slow. Effort is there but struggling to get anything done

Hutton - prone to the big mistake. Must be better around his net. Play on the tying goal was gross.

Others

Sedins - better. Got into the cycle and created chances. Looked in over their heads in OT. Spotted correctly might be able to add something to the team but need to stop giving away the puck with blind drop passes. (start to see that in vets who are having trouble keeping up.) Thought Henrik was better than Daniel.

Virtanen - provides entertainment with his speed and shot. Making much more intelligent plays. His potential makes living with any mistakes necessary. Think we'd all prefer to lose if necessary to give players like Virtanen experience than poke along with safer yet mediocre vets.

Eriksson - was better but certainly nothing special

Vanek - decent game. Helped produce a couple of goals which is basically what he gets paid for.

Markstrom - somehow has to be more ready for the early shots. Two games - two real bad goals.

Sutter - kind of fell back to earth after an excellent first game. Line with him, Granlund and Dorsett was pretty ordinary. Granlund shold probably be a center. (he showed some skill in the shoot out.)

Would say the team showed some of its warts in this game.

Hope this wasn't double posted

 

[Paulinvancouver]

Valid point.

Sutter and Dorsett both have huge balls. Prevented McDavid from even entering Rogers Arena.

Huh?

McDavid doesn't even play for Ottawa. He plays for Edmonton.

 

[Ryp37]

Maybe it's because I come from the Netherlands and subscribe to Johan Cruijf

"There's only one ball, so you need to have it."

"Without the ball you can't win"

"You can't score if you don't take a shot"

"Soccer is simple, but it is difficult to play simple."

That sort of philosophy can do wonders in hockey too.

Think about it, what prevents the opponents from scoring? Not having the puck! Possession, possession, possession. Virtanen has consistently shown he's good possession forward. Then to critique him for creating offensive opportunities for himself... That's just baffling to me. He makes his own zone entry and gets a shot attempt, what more can you ask for a player. But that move get's criticized, I don't get it...

He gets criticized for it because it's all he does. They're called low% shots for a reason.

Personally I find it weird to praise someone for gaining the zone then blindly firing it towards the net multiple times because corsi but I'm not gonna tell someone how to cheer

 

[MS]

Alright, prove it.

Corsi wins games, that much is confirmed. That's my argument, a corsi event is a +, you are arguing against a corsi event for a superior corsi event. Now the onus is on you to prove that this is in fact the case. Is it better and does it statistically more likely to create a goal to avoid a corsi event to try and gamble for a better chance.

Even if that's the case, is Virtanen a skilled enough player to make that play consistently enough for it to be worth it.

Possession is strongly correlated with winning games.

Corsi is just an imperfect method of measuring possession. In general, taking more shots means you had more possession. But being a player who takes lots of crappy low-percentage shots to inflate your corsi numbers doesn't necessarily mean you're a good possession player or that your possession is necessarily effective.

 

[Askel]

Maybe it's because I come from the Netherlands and subscribe to Johan Cruijf

"There's only one ball, so you need to have it."

"Without the ball you can't win"

"You can't score if you don't take a shot"

"Soccer is simple, but it is difficult to play simple."

That sort of philosophy can do wonders in hockey too.

Think about it, what prevents the opponents from scoring? Not having the puck! Possession, possession, possession. Virtanen has consistently shown he's good possession forward. Then to critique him for creating offensive opportunities for himself... That's just baffling to me. He makes his own zone entry and gets a shot attempt, what more can you ask for a player. But that move get's criticized, I don't get it...

Cryuff philosofi was more to play like the Sedins used to do, if you cant attack right now hold on to ball(or puck in this instance) and tire out the opposition. So your analogy is wrong and misleading.

With your argument you must love Evander Kane, he is the king of low percent shots. Virtanen could as well hold on the puck create possesion in the offensive zone and then create a high level chance. That would be better, than just giving away the pcuk on anothing play.

 

[WTG]

I think that you are confusing two different things.

That a high-percentage shot is better than a low-percentage shot is self-evident; the reason the numbers are what they are is because the meaningful difference in ability to generate one vs. the other tends to be small enough to be indistinguishable by our current evaluation tools from noise.

A clean zone entry, into a shot attempt even at a low-percentage area >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Dump and chase

From inbetween the dots to the goal in a trapazoid forming from the dots to the net, is considered a medium-high danger area. Shooting just outside of that is not that low of a percentage area. Any shot from inside the hashmarks to the goaltender is considered a high danger shot attempt, the area where you are most likely to score from if you are taking attempts from. If you are the 1st man into the zone, taking a low percentage shot is not a bad thing and it shouldn't be considered a bad thing. Especially since Virtanen's shots can be pretty damn close to being considered a medium percentage area.

I've visualized where virtanen takes a lot of his shots

Light color is high danger scoring chance, red is high percentage shot. These are all the shot attempts that Virtanen took this game, at 6 shot attempts. I had to put them on this thing because hockeystats.ca wouldn't highlight all Virtanen shots so this is easier to visualize where Virtanen's shots came from.

http://hockeystats.ca/game/2017020044 if you want to go check it out for yourself and hover over the dots, it's a pain in the ass.

Looking at the shot map, is making me realize more and more that the issue of where Virtanen is taking his shots is a complete facade.

 

[WTG]

It absolutely does have something to do with this argument. Nylander is a very good producer in the NHL - do you see him taking Virtanen like rushes and shot attempts so consistently? If so, I think you need to watch him, and other top NHL'ers a bit closer. This is why advanced stats/corsi/etc gets a bad rep, honestly, because if they were the end-all, be-all, then you would see every single player taking these shot attempts Virtanen does. It's not any different than just barely getting over the blueline and taking a shot, after all, it could create a chance, yeah? So should every player take a shot as soon as they cross the blueline? No because it's a low percentage shot. It shows up on the stat sheet as a SOG after all.

You stress possession, yet taking low percentage shots from tough angles that time and time again proves to create nothing other than the odd chance is kind of weird. Get the puck, take a low percentage shot, lose possession...maybe get a decent chance.

I am not just strictly putting this one Virtanen, I am saying this for any player that just takes low percentage shots and kills possession in the offensive zone. Virtanen just happens to have a habit of it.

Look for yourself where Virtanen is shooting or reference my visualization (It's a little off, but it's pretty close)

http://hockeystats.ca/game/2017020044

Virtanen hasn't been taking as many low-percentage shot attempts as people are making it out to be.

 

[Deeds26]

Meh game, Horvat looked dangerous, D looked decent, other than that awful mistake by Hutt
Marky played well, would like to have that first one back though
Vanek played well enough to stay in lineup, Dorsett did not, so hopefully he sits for Boeser next game
Need to change up PP, or make Horvat unit the #1 unit, looked better than old man unit

 

[WTG]

Cryuff philosofi was more to play like the Sedins used to do, if you cant attack right now hold on to ball(or puck in this instance) and tire out the opposition. So your analogy is wrong and misleading.

With your argument you must love Evander Kane, he is the king of low percent shots. Virtanen could as well hold on the puck create possesion in the offensive zone and then create a high level chance. That would be better, than just giving away the pcuk on anothing play.

Possession is strongly correlated with winning games.

Corsi is just an imperfect method of measuring possession. In general, taking more shots means you had more possession. But being a player who takes lots of crappy low-percentage shots to inflate your corsi numbers doesn't necessarily mean you're a good possession player or that your possession is necessarily effective.

These posts, and @PG Canuck post, I can understand that there is a hole in the philosophy of both losing possession by taking a low percentage shot and preacing for that and preacing for more possession of the puck. I realize that there is a hole there. I'll think about it some more.I'll admit there is flawed logic in my argument there.

But looking at where Virtanen has shot the puck from I don't think it's as bad as people make it out to be. Virtanen hasn't been taking a lot of low-percentage shots its seems. At least not in the way people are describing them.

 

[Ryp37]

Look for yourself where Virtanen is shooting or reference my visualization (It's a little off, but it's pretty close)

http://hockeystats.ca/game/2017020044

Virtanen hasn't been taking as many low-percentage shot attempts as people are making it out to be.

The one to the right of the net looks better than it is, pretty sure that's the one he was kept outside and threw a backhand over the net.

And I'm pretty sure only 1 of those shots from good spots actually hit the net

 

[WTG]

The one to the right of the net looks better than it is, pretty sure that's the one he was kept outside and threw a backhand over the net.

And I'm pretty sure only 1 of those shots from good spots actually hit the net

Yeah it's not perfect, I had like 50 tabs open trying to sort through everything and respond. but still it's not a lot of "low-percentage shot attempts" like people are making it out to be.

The shot attempts are not bad on Virtanen, I think where virtanen is shooting the puck from is quite good actually.

 

[Melvin]

A clean zone entry, into a shot attempt even at a low-percentage area >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Dump and chase

Sure, speaking in general among NHL players (which Virtanen has not established himself to be,) and speaking over a large sample size, which you cannot blunt-force apply to individual situations.

From inbetween the dots to the goal in a trapazoid forming from the dots to the net, is considered a medium-high danger area. Shooting just outside of that is not that low of a percentage area. Any shot from inside the hashmarks to the goaltender is considered a high danger shot attempt, the area where you are most likely to score from if you are taking attempts from. If you are the 1st man into the zone, taking a low percentage shot is not a bad thing and it shouldn't be considered a bad thing. Especially since Virtanen's shots can be pretty damn close to being considered a medium percentage area.

I've visualized where virtanen takes a lot of his shots

Light color is high danger scoring chance, red is high percentage shot. These are all the shot attempts that Virtanen took this game, at 6 shot attempts. I had to put them on this thing because hockeystats.ca wouldn't highlight all Virtanen shots so this is easier to visualize where Virtanen's shots came from.

http://hockeystats.ca/game/2017020044 if you want to go check it out for yourself and hover over the dots, it's a pain in the ass.

Looking at the shot map, is making me realize more and more that the issue of where Virtanen is taking his shots is a complete facade.

Can we take this somewhere else? I don't feel like this is the thread for this. You are moving the goalposts though. Now we are talking about whether or not JV is taking high-percentage shots, which is not the force of your original statement.

 

[WTG]

Sure, speaking in general among NHL players (which Virtanen has not established himself to be,) and speaking over a large sample size, which you cannot blunt-force apply to individual situations.



Can we take this somewhere else? I don't feel like this is the thread for this. You are moving the goalposts though. Now we are talking about whether or not JV is taking high-percentage shots, which is not the force of your original statement.

If you want to talk about this elsewhere you can, but in the context of the game I think that bringing up that Virtanen's shot attempts where not all from low-percentage areas is perfectly relevant to tonights game and evaluation his game.

And I'll fully admit I am moving goalposts. Mostly because what I was arguing for, I am still uncertain about. The arguments you guys bring up are valid and made me reconsider looking at my methods of evaluation.

 

[WTG]

Just realized I would not do well as a politician, I just gave in after like 4 posts

 

[Melvin]

OK that's cool. I didn't watch the game and have no interest in this discussion as it pertains to Virtanen and from where he took his shots.

I would like to discuss your original statement more, but maybe it is better for another thread. Shot Attempts are an indicator of quality, but not necessarily a driver of quality. It is like, I don't know ... sales counts. Suppose all you had to evaluate products was sales counts. Well, all things being equal the product that has sold a ton is probably a better product than the one that didn't sell any, generally speaking. But that doesn't mean that finding ways to increase sales counts is going to increase the quality of the products. That has it backwards. Sales counts can be a (very crude) indicator of quality but not a driver of quality. Similarly, teams finding ways to generate more shot attempts (like by taking more low-percentage shots,) is not likely to improve the quality of the team, only to disrupt the established correlation we have between shot attempts and team quality.

I will leave it at that.

 

[Wo Yorfat]

Just realized I would not do well as a politician, I just gave in after like 4 posts

In fairness to you, you'd taken on a terrible position

 

[Vancouver_2010]

I could see him getting 6M over 3 yrs when his ELC expires.

That's too generous, probably 6 million in 6 years.

 

[DL44]

That was a fun game to watch.. sucks we lost..
Gudbranson was our best Dman... great to see.

Needed much more outta the Horvat line.. the Sedins.. scored!
Markstrom is still waaaaaaaaaay too leaky... he needs to tighten the F up.. his 1st goal against was another shot through the heart... can’t have those back breakers to start a gm..

The D was a gong show to start the game.. fumbling bumbling the puck all over the place...but they recovered as the game went on.

On to Wpg!

 

[Knight53]

Was a snoozefest. Awful, awful product. Might not need one but two lottery wins to get out of this mess.

Burrows tribute was nice. Very loud ovation for him.

Boeser needs to be in for bums like Gagner, Eriksson, and even Baertschi who was a ghost until his breakaway in OT. Feel Sorry for Horvat who was buzzing all night but had to do it all himself. I see other similar centers like Monahan and Wennberg get to play with Gaudreau and Panarin. FFS put Boeser on Horvat's wing.

Virtanen is such a frustrating player. All that speed/power wasted by going down the right wall and shooting it from a bad angle. Did it at least three times. Zero creativity in this player so needs to use his frame and power to drive pucks to the net and create havoc. He was good for the most part tonight.

The defense was solid for the most part. Man oh man what a player Chris Tanev is. Absolute BS that this player has zero offensive ability. If he is ever traded an Elite piece need's to be coming back, not a mediocre package of spare parts. Want to shoot my brains out hearing management wants a Ryan Nugent-Hopkins type back for him.

The pairings need to be Hutton with Tanev and Stecher with Edler from here on out IMO.

Markstrom was great after that weak goal. This team need's top-notch goaltending each night or it's going to be long, long nights.

 

[elitepete]

Reading through idiots on twitter, and a lot of them (our fans and other teams fans) think Tanev is a "middling defender", or a 2nd pairing at best. They think he's worth RNH or some assortment of garbage from Toronto, and that it would help us if we trade him for aforementioned trash.

If you watched the last 2 games and thought Tanev is anything other than a top pairing defensemen, and our best player by far, plz stop watching hockey.