Love
Registered User
- Feb 29, 2012
- 15,014
- 12,252
Ok I want to stop you right there, Mr. Moderator. I know your itchy trigger finger is dying to move this to the management thread but this isn’t about Benning and management. Hear me out.
Obviously we’ve all been hearing a lot of criticism about Jake Virtanen. Adam Gaudette has gotten some too after having 0 points in 10 playoff games. Satiar Shah, who I normally find to be logical, level headed, and just all around seems to be a nice guy, had a take that inspired this thread for me.
In a tweet the other day, Shah said he thinks one way for the Canucks to improve their bottom 6 would be to trade JV. This is not a new or shocking opinion by any means, but I will attempt to show that it is in fact a logically incorrect opinion. That is, if opinions can in fact be incorrect and you are in fact trying to make the best hockey team possible.
Jake Virtanen is probably our best skating forward on a team that is imo starved for more speed up front. He had 18g 18a 36pts in 69 games this season. That prorates to 21g 21a 42pts over a full 82 game season. Virtanen’s 36 points was good enough for 161st in the NHL in points and 137th among forwards. That puts him, strictly based on math, as a 2nd line player based on his production. There are 31 teams in the NHL and each team has 6 top 6 forwards (duh) meaning there are 186 top 6 forwards.
This isn’t surprising for anyone paying attention. What is surprising, however, is that Virtanen did this while being 312th(!!!) among NHL forwards in ice time per game. What that means is, simply based on math, Virtanen was a 4th liner. Or rather he was given the ice time of a 4th liner.
“Ok, so what? He’s not a responsible player. We’re much better off having Loui in the top 6! Virtanen is a black hole on offence and doesn’t help his linemates!”
Statistically, you are wrong again.
This is from Brian Choi:
“Analytically, the line of Pettersson – Miller – Virtanen was one of the best the Canucks rolled out all season. According to moneypuck.com’s model, their Expected Goals for Per 60 Minutes (xG/60)* of 3.84 was the highest of any Canuck line combination. League-wide, they were no slouch as their 3.84 xG/60 put them at 3rd. Their Corsi* and Fenwick* was also the highest of any Canuck line combination, at a very impressive 58.3% and 59.7%, respectively. For those unfamiliar with Corsi and Fenwick, Corsi measures total shot attempts for, while Fenwick measures unblocked shot attempts for. In other words, 58.3% of the total shot attempts and 59.7% of the total unblocked shot attempts belonged to the Canucks when Pettersson – Miller – Virtanen were on the ice.”
The Breakout Season of Vancouver Canucks Winger Jake Virtanen
You can literally make a statistical argument that Virtanen was the best RW for the Miller-EP line this season. Better than Boeser on that line, better than Toffoli on that line, he was that good. His points per 60 was better than anyone not named Pettersson, Boeser, Miller, and Gaudette, all while playing primarily with 3rd and 4th liners.
Ok so now you’re wondering, so what? “I still think he’s lazy, don’t like him, I’m still crying that he’s not Cam Neely”, etc.
When you compare Jake to someone like let’s say Antoine Roussel, the comparison becomes especially stark. Roussel makes triple what Virtanen makes and is significantly less productive. But this comparison is relevant because of Virtanen is traded, this is the type of replacement we’re looking at.
We can ALL agree that the bottom 6 needs to get better. The problem is, when you have someone like Sat Shah (and many other fans) suggesting we trade Virtanen, all that will do is make the problem worse. If we ditch Virtanen who takes his spot? There’s one of two options: it’s either someone like Zack MacEwen who is significantly worse than Virtanen (sorry guys it’s just unarguable. I like MacEwen too but it’s a shooting gallery against him when he’s out there) or the other option is signing a veteran like Roussel who will cost double what Virtanen will cost while still being a lesser player.
I can see it now. As soon as we trade Virtanen, within the next 6 months Canucks fans will be saying: “We need young cheap players who can contribute! We have way too many old overpaid players!”
So to many of you who want Virtanen gone but also want the bottom 6 to improve, what’s your end game?
Step 1: Trade our most productive bottom 6er.
Step 2: Sign an older, more expensive, worse player to replace him.
Step 3: ????
Step 4: Bottom 6 gets better.
Look I think JV is maybe the most misrepresented and unfairly treated player I’ve seen in this market. Obviously I’m a fan of his and obviously he isn’t perfect. I think so many criticize him relentlessly because they’re still hung up on where he was drafted and had uninformed expectations of what kind of player he is. He can hit but he’s not Bertuzzi. He can fight sometimes but he’s not Jamie Benn. But he is a big, fast, productive young player who continues to get better. There are probably 5-10 other players who deserve the criticism JV gets much more than Jake.
Anyway that’s the end of my rant for now. I know many of you will still light up Jake for some unsubstantiated reason like “hE’s fAT tHo” or “hE SuX dEfeNSivElY”, both of which are untrue. Also I didn’t mention Gaudette much but pretty much all of what I said about JV can also be applied to Gaudette. The worst thing we could do is trade AG and replace him with a more expensive and less productive player.
Obviously we’ve all been hearing a lot of criticism about Jake Virtanen. Adam Gaudette has gotten some too after having 0 points in 10 playoff games. Satiar Shah, who I normally find to be logical, level headed, and just all around seems to be a nice guy, had a take that inspired this thread for me.
In a tweet the other day, Shah said he thinks one way for the Canucks to improve their bottom 6 would be to trade JV. This is not a new or shocking opinion by any means, but I will attempt to show that it is in fact a logically incorrect opinion. That is, if opinions can in fact be incorrect and you are in fact trying to make the best hockey team possible.
Jake Virtanen is probably our best skating forward on a team that is imo starved for more speed up front. He had 18g 18a 36pts in 69 games this season. That prorates to 21g 21a 42pts over a full 82 game season. Virtanen’s 36 points was good enough for 161st in the NHL in points and 137th among forwards. That puts him, strictly based on math, as a 2nd line player based on his production. There are 31 teams in the NHL and each team has 6 top 6 forwards (duh) meaning there are 186 top 6 forwards.
This isn’t surprising for anyone paying attention. What is surprising, however, is that Virtanen did this while being 312th(!!!) among NHL forwards in ice time per game. What that means is, simply based on math, Virtanen was a 4th liner. Or rather he was given the ice time of a 4th liner.
“Ok, so what? He’s not a responsible player. We’re much better off having Loui in the top 6! Virtanen is a black hole on offence and doesn’t help his linemates!”
Statistically, you are wrong again.
This is from Brian Choi:
“Analytically, the line of Pettersson – Miller – Virtanen was one of the best the Canucks rolled out all season. According to moneypuck.com’s model, their Expected Goals for Per 60 Minutes (xG/60)* of 3.84 was the highest of any Canuck line combination. League-wide, they were no slouch as their 3.84 xG/60 put them at 3rd. Their Corsi* and Fenwick* was also the highest of any Canuck line combination, at a very impressive 58.3% and 59.7%, respectively. For those unfamiliar with Corsi and Fenwick, Corsi measures total shot attempts for, while Fenwick measures unblocked shot attempts for. In other words, 58.3% of the total shot attempts and 59.7% of the total unblocked shot attempts belonged to the Canucks when Pettersson – Miller – Virtanen were on the ice.”
The Breakout Season of Vancouver Canucks Winger Jake Virtanen
You can literally make a statistical argument that Virtanen was the best RW for the Miller-EP line this season. Better than Boeser on that line, better than Toffoli on that line, he was that good. His points per 60 was better than anyone not named Pettersson, Boeser, Miller, and Gaudette, all while playing primarily with 3rd and 4th liners.
Ok so now you’re wondering, so what? “I still think he’s lazy, don’t like him, I’m still crying that he’s not Cam Neely”, etc.
When you compare Jake to someone like let’s say Antoine Roussel, the comparison becomes especially stark. Roussel makes triple what Virtanen makes and is significantly less productive. But this comparison is relevant because of Virtanen is traded, this is the type of replacement we’re looking at.
We can ALL agree that the bottom 6 needs to get better. The problem is, when you have someone like Sat Shah (and many other fans) suggesting we trade Virtanen, all that will do is make the problem worse. If we ditch Virtanen who takes his spot? There’s one of two options: it’s either someone like Zack MacEwen who is significantly worse than Virtanen (sorry guys it’s just unarguable. I like MacEwen too but it’s a shooting gallery against him when he’s out there) or the other option is signing a veteran like Roussel who will cost double what Virtanen will cost while still being a lesser player.
I can see it now. As soon as we trade Virtanen, within the next 6 months Canucks fans will be saying: “We need young cheap players who can contribute! We have way too many old overpaid players!”
So to many of you who want Virtanen gone but also want the bottom 6 to improve, what’s your end game?
Step 1: Trade our most productive bottom 6er.
Step 2: Sign an older, more expensive, worse player to replace him.
Step 3: ????
Step 4: Bottom 6 gets better.
Look I think JV is maybe the most misrepresented and unfairly treated player I’ve seen in this market. Obviously I’m a fan of his and obviously he isn’t perfect. I think so many criticize him relentlessly because they’re still hung up on where he was drafted and had uninformed expectations of what kind of player he is. He can hit but he’s not Bertuzzi. He can fight sometimes but he’s not Jamie Benn. But he is a big, fast, productive young player who continues to get better. There are probably 5-10 other players who deserve the criticism JV gets much more than Jake.
Anyway that’s the end of my rant for now. I know many of you will still light up Jake for some unsubstantiated reason like “hE’s fAT tHo” or “hE SuX dEfeNSivElY”, both of which are untrue. Also I didn’t mention Gaudette much but pretty much all of what I said about JV can also be applied to Gaudette. The worst thing we could do is trade AG and replace him with a more expensive and less productive player.
