Half-Assed GDT: Half of a Half-Assed GDT

[ChicagoBlues]

Rosen played 21:33

He and Faulk were our two best defensemen last night.

 

[Linkens Mastery]

Faulk has been our best defensemen since early last season. But we need more of Krug from the past 3 games before Covid.

 

[i aint Dunn yet]

walman needs to be sent down .. brings nothing

 

[ChicagoBlues]

i can agree with this

I agree with that 100%. Rosen was good last night, but......why????

Because neither Walman or Mikkola have taken the opportunity. Niko still has time, but I'm done with Walman. He was terrible last night, again.

Mikkola will be given a little bit more of an opportunity and if he can't roll with it, then I think DA gets bottom-pairing help ASAP.

Walman is finished. That he is playing speaks to how bad our D is. Once we get the help we need, Jake is gone.

 

[i aint Dunn yet]

He and Faulk were our two best defensemen last night.

i know but rosen on the top pair ? ... where is colt to pick up the slack ? marco aint getting it done ... bobby b is what he is


edit: dont get me wrong rosen played decent for what you would expect

i wouldnt mind if he stuck around

 

[Linkens Mastery]

i know but rosen on the top pair ? ... where is colt to pick up the slack ? marco aint getting it done ... bobby b is what he is

Colt and Faulk had almost identical ES TOI. 26 minutes a piece

 

[i aint Dunn yet]

Colt and Faulk had almost identical ES TOI. 26 minutes a piece

needs to bring more

 

[ChicagoBlues]

i know but rosen on the top pair ? ... where is colt to pick up the slack ? marco aint getting it done ... bobby b is what he is


edit: dont get me wrong rosen played decent for what you would expect

i wouldnt mind if he stuck around

Fer sher....Parayko had a bad night, maybe a few good plays, but was behind too much. Rosen had great feet last night, so go with the hot skates for a game or two. Not much longer, though. Calle is good, but not good enough.

Scandella has great hands, I'll give him that. He makes great plays here and there and then all of a sudden looks like he was caught daydreaming about his upcoming fishing trip or his favorite oatmeal raisin cookie recipe. "Oh shit! I'm hockeying tonight!!"

On that 2 on 1, Tarasenko should have remembered that Scandella is quite capable down low and could have tipped in that puck.

 

[ChicagoBlues]

Right, but there were three times when we did a reset that we didn’t have to do it. On two of them we had no pressure from Nashville on our pick carrier and we did a reset as one player was making a change. It both wasted time and allowed Nashville to make a swop. The other time we had a guy getting pressured but he has plenty of time to make a pass and he had his other two teammates providing good puck support. The play could have easily continued.

I like our chances in OT a lot more when the opposition is gassed and stuck in their own zone defending.

Yes. Twice in OT we could have pressured them, but pulled back. It was cute against the Jets, but last night it felt forced and looked unnecessary.

 

[i aint Dunn yet]

meh ... d needs a reshuffle

hopefully krug and others are back tomorrow

 

[BlueDream]

Nah, Scandella is fine. Him and Parayko didn't bring their A game last night, but that happens to every player around the league sometimes. The problem is that our top 4 is being asked to do too much because the rest of the guys are unreliable. Scandella is just the scapegoat because I guess all fan bases need some of those. The fact that Rosen played over 20 mins last night shows what bad shape our D corps is in right now. I'm just about done with the Walman experiment, he doesn't bring much to the table.

Scandella is not fine. When a team’s defense is bad, it’s not just because of the 3rd pairing. Walman sucks and is hopefully going to be replaced by Perunovich soon, but you’re kidding yourself if you think Scandella isn’t a problem. He leads the team in giveaways and isn’t particularly strong at offense, possession or skating either. He has basically no redeeming qualities other than maybe blocking shots. It’s not just that he had an off night. His bad games outweigh his good ones.

Walman provides nothing but he’s making a fraction of what Scandella does.

If we want to upgrade the defense we aren’t doing it simply by replacing Walman. The cap doesn’t even allow for that to happen anyways.

meh ... d needs a reshuffle

hopefully krug and others are back tomorrow

They won’t be. Krug and Mikkola will likely miss both weekend games and maybe be back after that.

 

[Reality Czech]

Scandella is not fine. When a team’s defense is bad, it’s not just because of the 3rd pairing. Walman sucks and is hopefully going to be replaced by Perunovich soon, but you’re kidding yourself if you think Scandella isn’t a problem. He leads the team in giveaways and isn’t particularly strong at offense, possession or skating either. He has basically no redeeming qualities other than maybe blocking shots. It’s not just that he had an off night. His bad games outweigh his good ones.

Walman provides nothing but he’s making a fraction of what Scandella does.

If we want to upgrade the defense we aren’t doing it simply by replacing Walman. The cap doesn’t even allow for that to happen anyways.


They won’t be. Krug and Mikkola will likely miss both weekend games and maybe be back after that.

Sounds like confirmation bias to me. Below average d-men don't play 20 mins a night in the NHL. I looked up the usage chart of our defenseman this year and what I found was pretty surprising. Scandella and Parayko have a similarly bad corsi rating but it's also quite clear how heavily Berube relies on that pair in defensive situations (which is going to bring the relative corsi rating down). Scandella has an absurdly low rate of o-zone starts (under 20%), which tells me that the coaching staff is using him on as many d-zone starts as possible. That tells me that the coaching staff regards his defensive skills pretty highly, and if a guy is getting the majority of the toughest minutes on D then he's going to "look bad" much more often than guys who are sheltered from those situations.

Could Scandella play better? Sure he could, but you could say that about most/all of our defensemen? Has Parayko played like a #1 this year? You're allowed your opinion on Scandella but I'm pretty sure that his coaches and teammates would disagree. The guy is absolutely earning his salary considering his ice time and usage. I think if we replaced Walman with an actual NHL defenseman it would at least take some of the pressure of the other guys.

 

[Brian39]

Count me as part of the "Scandella has been much better than his reputation" crowd. Probably an unpopular opinion, but I think that so far this season Scandella has been closer to a #3 D man than Parayko has been to a #1 D man.

I think that our cap situation has somewhat clouded what you should expect out of a $3.25M D man. Scandella is the 106th highest paid D man in the NHL by cap hit this year. He's paid like a #4 D man but we're using him like a high end #3 D man. He is 3rd on the team in EV TOI per game and 1st in SH TOI per game. He's 37th in the NHL in SH TOI per game and 46th in EV TOI per game. We're riding our top 4 really hard this year and using him as a high end #3 D man who receives exclusively tough defensive assignments. I don't think many people realize just how absurdly tough his assignments have been this season. No D man in the league with 5+ games played has started a greater percentage of shifts in the defensive zone. His 75% even strength D zone start rate is ludicrous. Throwing out guys who played 10 or fewer games, no D man has hit that number over a full season since 2012/13. That player was Jay Rosehill, who managed to hit an 80% D zone start rate by playing less than 7 minutes a night over 11 games in the lockout shortened season. 21 minutes a night with a 75% D zone start rate is something that we haven't seen around the league in over a decade. Nick Shultz was at 74.7% playing 20:33 a night in 2008/09. That's it. That's the only guy whose come close. He's not just getting tough defensive usage. He's getting unprecedentedly tough defensive usage.

I doubt that Scandella's usage will be skewed that far to the defensive side by the end of the year, but my point is that Berube is asking him to do some insane heavy lifting right now. He's the #2 shutdown guy at even strength (I say #2 because Parayko is "the man" on that pairing and is getting pretty much all the same hard minutes. He's just also getting a few additional easier minutes).

Despite all of that, he is an actual +1 and has an expected -0.4 for the season. The PK that he's leading is 89%. While I'm on record saying that number is artificially high, the PK has been a noticeable strength after the first few games. I genuinely don't understand the criticism around him right now. He's outplaying his contract so far this year.

 

[Blueston]

Count me as part of the "Scandella has been much better than his reputation" crowd. Probably an unpopular opinion, but I think that so far this season Scandella has been closer to a #3 D man than Parayko has been to a #1 D man.

I think that our cap situation has somewhat clouded what you should expect out of a $3.25M D man. Scandella is the 106th highest paid D man in the NHL by cap hit this year. He's paid like a #4 D man but we're using him like a high end #3 D man. He is 3rd on the team in EV TOI per game and 1st in SH TOI per game. He's 37th in the NHL in SH TOI per game and 46th in EV TOI per game. We're riding our top 4 really hard this year and using him as a high end #3 D man who receives exclusively tough defensive assignments. I don't think many people realize just how absurdly tough his assignments have been this season. No D man in the league with 5+ games played has started a greater percentage of shifts in the defensive zone. His 75% even strength D zone start rate is ludicrous. Throwing out guys who played 10 or fewer games, no D man has hit that number over a full season since 2012/13. That player was Jay Rosehill, who managed to hit an 80% D zone start rate by playing less than 7 minutes a night over 11 games in the lockout shortened season. 21 minutes a night with a 75% D zone start rate is something that we haven't seen around the league in over a decade. Nick Shultz was at 74.7% playing 20:33 a night in 2008/09. That's it. That's the only guy whose come close. He's not just getting tough defensive usage. He's getting unprecedentedly tough defensive usage.

I doubt that Scandella's usage will be skewed that far to the defensive side by the end of the year, but my point is that Berube is asking him to do some insane heavy lifting right now. He's the #2 shutdown guy at even strength (I say #2 because Parayko is "the man" on that pairing and is getting pretty much all the same hard minutes. He's just also getting a few additional easier minutes).

Despite all of that, he is an actual +1 and has an expected -0.4 for the season. The PK that he's leading is 89%. While I'm on record saying that number is artificially high, the PK has been a noticeable strength after the first few games. I genuinely don't understand the criticism around him right now. He's outplaying his contract so far this year.

Part of problem is his usage is so tough that when he makes mistake it is amplified. If Waldman turns puck over to some 4th liner no harm likely results. Scandella does it and opponents star makes you pay, so is more obvious. Which makes his stats all the more impressive in that he is getting this usage against tough opponents.

 

[Blueston]

Count me as part of the "Scandella has been much better than his reputation" crowd. Probably an unpopular opinion, but I think that so far this season Scandella has been closer to a #3 D man than Parayko has been to a #1 D man.

I think that our cap situation has somewhat clouded what you should expect out of a $3.25M D man. Scandella is the 106th highest paid D man in the NHL by cap hit this year. He's paid like a #4 D man but we're using him like a high end #3 D man. He is 3rd on the team in EV TOI per game and 1st in SH TOI per game. He's 37th in the NHL in SH TOI per game and 46th in EV TOI per game. We're riding our top 4 really hard this year and using him as a high end #3 D man who receives exclusively tough defensive assignments. I don't think many people realize just how absurdly tough his assignments have been this season. No D man in the league with 5+ games played has started a greater percentage of shifts in the defensive zone. His 75% even strength D zone start rate is ludicrous. Throwing out guys who played 10 or fewer games, no D man has hit that number over a full season since 2012/13. That player was Jay Rosehill, who managed to hit an 80% D zone start rate by playing less than 7 minutes a night over 11 games in the lockout shortened season. 21 minutes a night with a 75% D zone start rate is something that we haven't seen around the league in over a decade. Nick Shultz was at 74.7% playing 20:33 a night in 2008/09. That's it. That's the only guy whose come close. He's not just getting tough defensive usage. He's getting unprecedentedly tough defensive usage.

I doubt that Scandella's usage will be skewed that far to the defensive side by the end of the year, but my point is that Berube is asking him to do some insane heavy lifting right now. He's the #2 shutdown guy at even strength (I say #2 because Parayko is "the man" on that pairing and is getting pretty much all the same hard minutes. He's just also getting a few additional easier minutes).

Despite all of that, he is an actual +1 and has an expected -0.4 for the season. The PK that he's leading is 89%. While I'm on record saying that number is artificially high, the PK has been a noticeable strength after the first few games. I genuinely don't understand the criticism around him right now. He's outplaying his contract so far this year.

And part of our fab base is still upset that he isn’t jaybo. As if it’s Scandella fault that keyboard has heart attack on bench.

 

[PocketNines]

I agree with Brian about Scandella. He isn’t inherently a problem, it’s his usage. If the Blues had three all-minutes defensemen and the bottom four were Krug Scandella Bortuzzo Perunovich for this playoffs to support them that would be a genuine threat.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

There's a dissonance between the defensive upgrades most of the fanbase wants to see, and the talented AHL player in Perunovich who is ready and likely will be called up at some point in the near future (when the cap situation allows for it).

Does Armstrong trade a defender to make room (cap and roster) for Perunovich? That's not ideal, and gutting the depth doesn't seem wise.

Is there a way to create pairings more creatively that puts Perunovich in this line-up without removing anyone? Is there a chance he could function as Parayko's partner, assuming some adjusted usage for the top 4 pairings? Or more likely, on the 3rd pairing and with PP time? This is where I get stuck, trying to figure out what to do with all these pieces.

We've thought for a long time that cap relief would probably be accompanied by a Tarasenko trade. I'm not so sure about that now. I'm very curious at what things look like after Sundqvist is activated.

 

[Celtic Note]

I think Scandella would be fine as a second or third pairing guy. He is just playing too high up the chart.

 

[ChicagoBlues]

There's a dissonance between the defensive upgrades most of the fanbase wants to see, and the talented AHL player in Perunovich who is ready and likely will be called up at some point in the near future (when the cap situation allows for it).

Does Armstrong trade a defender to make room (cap and roster) for Perunovich? That's not ideal, and gutting the depth doesn't seem wise.

Is there a way to create pairings more creatively that puts Perunovich in this line-up without removing anyone? Is there a chance he could function as Parayko's partner, assuming some adjusted usage for the top 4 pairings? Or more likely, on the 3rd pairing and with PP time? This is where I get stuck, trying to figure out what to do with all these pieces.

We've thought for a long time that cap relief would probably be accompanied by a Tarasenko trade. I'm not so sure about that now. I'm very curious at what things look like after Sundqvist is activated.

Jeez! With so many Batman cliffhangers, I'm not sure where to start.

 

[preds1]

Just wanted to stop by afterwards and credit the Blues Organization. My son’s the same age and rank as LCpl. Schmitz. I try to never say anything. He trained with and knows many who were sent to Kabul. What your organization did for LCpl. Schmitz and his family during the intro was the highlight of the game for me. Again, just wanted to say props to your organization.

 

[ChicagoBlues]

Just wanted to stop by afterwards and credit the Blues Organization. My son’s the same age and rank as LCpl. Schmitz. I try to never say anything. He trained with and knows many who were sent to Kabul. What your organization did for LCpl. Schmitz and his family during the intro was the highlight of the game for me. Again, just wanted to say props to your organization.

Thank you @preds1 ! As a Veteran who went to the sandbox and made it back, I appreciate your support.

 

[simon IC]

New GDT up.