notDatsyuk
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Ten players on the team had a negative goal differential last year.I am more excited about the team goal differential after the deadweight of bozak, jvr and komarov is off of the team
None of them were Bozak, JvR, or Komarov.
PromisedLand
I need more FOOD
Well its not like most of our players are over 30 and have set high marks for a career year. Fact is, we are young enough that 6 or 7 guys could easily have a career year. In the following list, name the players you dont think can break their "career" year. Matthews, Marner, Nylander, Kapanen, Johnson, Hyman, Leivo, Zaitsev, Dermott, etc. As a matter of fact, I will say everyone of those players has their real career year. And most players hit their peak at 22.
A1LeafNation
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Because those 3 were sheltered.
6 of 10 won't be on the team, 2 of 10 were rookies, the remaining 2 get the toughest competition.
notDatsyuk
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Fans always blame them for goals against but as you pointed out the players that were on the ice for the most goals against among Leafs were the ones still here.
Team Goals against by forwards ES + PP (excluding PK goals against).
Hyman (69 GA -19PK = 50 GA) -- Matthews (43 GA) -- Nylander (56 GA)
Marleau (66 GA) --- Kadri (53 GA) --- Komarov (52GA -17PK = 35GA)
JVR (48 GA) -- Bozak (43 GA) -- Marner (57 GA)
Of Leafs top 9 forwards the 4 worst players in terms of being on the ice for goals against were
1) Marleau
2) Marner
3) Nylander
4) Kadri
The 4 lowest GA
1) Komarov
2) Bozak
3) Matthews (in 62 games)
4) JVR
NHL.com - Stats
Liminality
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- Oct 22, 2008
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That's all fine and dandy, but ..
What is going to change this year from last in that regard?
Are you expecting players like Marner and Nylander to face easier QofC this year or be sheltered more than last to reduce their high GA rates?
So instead of JVR and Bozak being sheltered with TOI/g & QofC, it will be players like Johnsson & Kapanen, but the top players that get scored against the most are not the ones changing this year and their QofC nor minutes are likely to decrease either. So same problem different year!!!
Sheltering works as expected for bottom 6 players to reduce team GA, but what if your biggest culprits all play in your top 6?
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Notsince67
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DowntownConnorBrown
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Players who are on the ice more are going to get scored against more. Especially if some players who are on the ice less are also predominantly deployed in the offensive zone.
Your method of assessing also punishes players who are out there with the goalie pulled and other situations.
Looking at it from GA/60 at 5v5, along with quality of competition (via TOI, in percentile) and percentage of DZ starts the Leafs forwards who played 50 or more games last year:
Matthews: 2.00 GA/60; QoC 96th percentile / 50% DZ starts
Bozak: 2.08 / 29th percentile / 42%D
Moore: 2.15 / 0 percentile / 62%D
Hyman: 2.19 / 92nd / 52%D
Komarov: 2.19 / 73rd / 64%D
Nylander: 2.27 / 79th / 52%D
Marner: 2.31 / 64th / 45%D
Kadri: 2.38 / 96th / 60%D
JVR: 2.4 / 32nd / 39%D
Marleau: 2.61 / 94th / 56%D
Brown: 2.66 / 45th / 48%D
Martin: 2.88 / o / 57%D
The 4th line will be sheltered as usual.
The real difference this year is that Babs won't need to shelter the Bozak line - both in terms of very low QoC and very high OZ start.
Kadri will likely continue to be used as a shutdown D, going up against the other team's top forwards.
Last year other teams almost always put their top D out against Matthews. The same thing if they had a shutdown forward line - it would go up against Matthews. This year they have both Matthews and Tavares to deal with.
With the loss of the sheltered Bozak line, and other teams having a more difficult matchup, it makes sense to me to assume that Kadri and the 4th line will be around the same as they were last year, and the Matthews and Tavares lines will fall somewhere on the continuum between what Matthews faced last year and what Bozak faced last year - meaning that both Tavares and Matthews should face a little lower QoC than they both faced last year, but still much harder than Bozak faced, and Matthews should have a higher percentage of OZ starts next year than last year, but not as high a percentage as Bozak had.
Artorius Horus T
sincerety
moon111
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The problem with stats is there are so many variables, they don't tell the whole story. If you put JVR on an offensive zone face-off who would you want facing off against him? Well if he's going to the front of the net, my #1 choice might of been Polak. Damn the stats, Polak had a level of malevolence for players in front of his net. Is Polak's QoC worth a damn? Who cares? At that moment he's the right guy for the job. You look at Kadri, not scoring with Komarov and C.Brown. But his +/- game in, game out doesn't fluctuate very much. But on a line with Marleau and Marner, he's scoring and his +/- is swaying in the wind without consistency. He went from being on the most conservative line to the most risky one. To sum up his stats is only going to give you something in the middle. Personally I think Connor Brown has a great presence to find the open ice around a net and could easily turn into a bigger goal scorer then he's known for. But it's not his role. He's playing how his
coach asks. He's being the defensive presence whether it's Kadri going on a one-man show break-away that has a 90% chance of becoming a turn-over, or he's hanging back because he knows if
Bozak and JVR lose possession, there might only be a chance one can get back into the play. If Babcock put C.Brown on a line with Tavares and Marner on with Kadri for the entire season, there's some stats there that could wildly improve from last year.
coach asks. He's being the defensive presence whether it's Kadri going on a one-man show break-away that has a 90% chance of becoming a turn-over, or he's hanging back because he knows if
Bozak and JVR lose possession, there might only be a chance one can get back into the play. If Babcock put C.Brown on a line with Tavares and Marner on with Kadri for the entire season, there's some stats there that could wildly improve from last year.
Boutette
Been there done that
- Sep 28, 2017
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Why not? Kapanen was on a 15 goal pace on the fourth line on his own last year. Moore was on a 10 goal pace. Brown would have likely scored 10 goals at least if he was on the 4th line all last year. Why would better offensive players than Komarov and Pleckanec and Martin not do as well this year?
Unless you are pencilling in stone handers like Jooris and Ennis , and instead play 2 of Johnsson, Kapanen, Leivo and Brown with Lindholm, 30 goals for the bottom 3 shouldn't be out of the question since each position on the 4th line should get about 100 shots a year, and each of the players I've mentioned haven't had any trouble scoring 10% of the time in the NHL so far (Lindholm excepted) when pulling 4th line duties over their albeit short careers.
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In terms of scoring goals I believe this team is quiet capable of being in top 5 - and believe they can score 275 - 285 goals this coming season
Last year Leafs scored 270 goals and were tied for top 3, they gave up 230 and were 12th in that category. I am too concerned about scoring goals but would love to see some improvement in cutting down goals against
We were not really bad in that goals against category but we need to be even better this year in order to go deep and have a chance to contend - especially in the playoffs
Last year Leafs scored 270 goals and were tied for top 3, they gave up 230 and were 12th in that category. I am too concerned about scoring goals but would love to see some improvement in cutting down goals against
We were not really bad in that goals against category but we need to be even better this year in order to go deep and have a chance to contend - especially in the playoffs
Not really. Goaltending has evolved significantly from the 1980’s. There are also other factors that contributed to more goals.
The 1970-80’s saw a major wave of expansion in the NHL, most notably when the WHA folded and tons of teams joined the NHL.
The massive surge in demand for players in the NHL was too great for the supply, and a lot of players were subpar.
As a rough example of what I mean, imagine we gave players today EA style ratings from 1/100. The gap from best to worst would probably be about 30 points. Back in the 1980’s, the gap was easily 40-45.
Imagine if Crosby and Ovechkin had a stint in the AHL. We’d mistake it as the second coming of sweet baby Jesus.
Brown - Lindholm - Leivo?
I mean, they could certainly reach a combined 30G/82 game pace, but might not get the minutes to do it.
PromisedLand
I need more FOOD
kb
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Doesn't your advanced stat metric still have Bozak and Komarov > Nylander, Marner & Marleau?
So actual # of goals against and GA/60 resulted in the same outcome.
If you remove players that get scored against less and replace them with players that might score more, does that make you better defensively via addition by subtraction as some believe?
Liminality
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- Oct 22, 2008
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Komarov yes. But the problem with Komarov is not that he is bad defensively, but that he is a complete offensive black hole.
Bozak's numbers are misleading. Over his career his GA/60 at 5v5 has been way above team average (over the last nine years the Leafs allow 2.40 GA/60 without Bozak on the ice and 2.89 with Bozak on the ice - which would place him dead last on that list). Last year the other lines were strong enough that Babcock could finally shelter Bozak to an extreme level and that is likely why his GA/60 numbers are good for the first time in career. But that doesn't mean that he was good defensively - he wasn't. Removing Bozak from the lineup takes pressure off the rest of the forward lines as they all had to play harder minutes to make up for the extreme sheltering of Bozak.
A while ago I posted the Leafs' forwards ability to get the puck out of their own zone with possession. JVR, Bozak, Komarov, Martin and Moore were all terrible at it. Among the worst players in the league. Tavares is among the very best. Joris and Ennis are also quite strong at that. I think that is where the real difference will be felt. The Leafs not getting stuck in their own zone for lengthy periods of time because of JVR, Bozak, Komarov, Moore and Martin, will take tremendous pressure off their D and goalies.
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