Ok...so round two. Fight!
This was originally written in response to i think Hammer? Or maybe Hank that wrote that they didn't have confidence that Burmi was going to play for us or that he would be a decent replacement for Fro.
I disagree on both counts. This is what we know about the Burmistrov situation. 1.) his KHL contract is up. 2.) the coach that he took issue with is no longer here. 3.) He always wanted to play in the NHL. 4.) the Russian Ruble is ****. This is what I suspect about Burmistrov. He was sent to the KHL, mostly because we didn't have cap space to actually sign him. I'm not sure how any of that adds up to him not playing for the Jets again. He has to sign with us, or he can walk his russian ass back over to Russia to play there for pennies on the proverbial and literal dollar. That is a fact. He belongs to us, no one else. He can't just sign with whoever the **** he wants and be on his way. No. He's Jet property until he hits 27 or 7 years in the league. The only possible scenario is that Chevy trades him...but this is doubtful. Burmi now has an extra two years of development under him in the second strongest league in the world. Chances are he will never completely find his offensive game like we want him too...but he will continue to be elite offensively. My point here is that there is no way to tell how good Alex will actually be until you see for yourself.
I mean hey...Pavel Datsyuk didn't hit the league until four years after he was drafted...and went undrafted for 2 years before that.
So my guess is that Alex Burmistrov will at least be a Jet next year if not beyond. Now as for him not being able to replace Frolik in terms of offense production, well that remains to be seen. Its not like Fro is a 60pt beast...he has put up a very respectable 42 points in each of his seasons with the Jets with a sustainable SH% in between 7-9% each year.
Disclaimer: Due to laziness...a lot of these numbers are going to be rounded up or down.
However it wasn't always that way. During his formative Chicago years, he posted SH% that ranged between 3-5%. For those that don't know...he was in Chicago for two and a half years before being traded to the Jets. In the years previous he posted a 9% and a 13% in his first two seasons in Florida.
Burmistrov's totals were in between 6-10 for his whole career. 8.5% average.
So I decided that i was going to look into this a bit further. Enter behind the net and my greatest and best Garret impression. The first thing I looked at were zone starts.
This past season, Frolik's best, He started a total of 53.4% of his starts in the Offensive Zone, while finishing 51.8% in the offensive zone. In seasons past, he didn't start nearly as many. In Winnipeg last year he started 51.5% in the Off Zone, and had a Off Zone Finish of 46.9%. His last year in Chicago he had a Off Zone start of 50.4% and an Off Zone finish of 54%...but this year he only posted 10pts in 45 games. This would equal approximately 18pts for a full schedule. In the years previous he had an Off Zone start 50.1, 44.6 with Off Zone finishes of 49.5 and 47.9 respectively.
In Alex Burmistrov's third year he had a Off Zone start of 52% and a Off Zone finish of 56%, which are better numbers then Frolik has ever had while in a Winnipeg Jets or Chicago Black Hawks uniform. They were even better then his best years with the Panthers.
One of the biggest knocks against Alex is his offensive production...so lets explore that shall we?
In Burmi's third year here...he posted a whopping ten points. You know who else did that? Michael Frolik...but this is the difference. Sh%. Burmistrov's may have been a bit low at 7.3, thats 3.2% off of his career best of 10.5%, Fro's was only 3.1%. The big difference? Shots taken. Frolik took almost as many shot in one season as Burmistrov has in his whole career. In Fro's best year in Florida, he took 219 shots...Burmi has only taken 244 for his whole career in the NHL. You may be asking yourself...whats the point sully?
Well I'll tell you...Frolik has a higher on ice sh% at 8.68%, while Burmi has only a 6.43%. What does this prove? If i had to guess, it means that Fro had better line mates and Burmi is a better playmaker then an actual scorer. Another interesting note is that In Frolik's third year in the league, his on ice sh% was eerily similar to Burmi's at 6.85%. Now for the biggest difference. the Corsi. Now i only include this to not be considered to be cherry picking stats to prove my point...and frankly outside of knowing that a negative number is bad and positive number is good...I have no idea what it means or how to apply it in context.It is just there for your reading enjoyment.
I only did each of their third pro year, because thats the last year for Burmi and I didn't think it to be fair to use Fro now as opposed to when he was 23.
Corsi Rel QoC Corsi QoC Corsi Relative Corsi on Ice
......... CRQ .................CQ ................CR....................COI
Frolik:....0.088...............-0.443...............5.7...................12.33
Burmi:....0.043................0.052...............6.54...................3.44
Now, once again...not a ****ing clue what that means. But beat in mind, that Frolik generally had better line mates then Burmi did and he played on a much stronger Blackhawks team that had won the cup the year before. If I was forced to come to a conclusion...Its not as far off as anyone thinks and I would give Burmi pretty decent odds to being a half decent offensive player with a strong defensive game...just like Frolik.
Come at me.