Kris Russell vs Jeff Petry

[XXIV97]

Who's more valuable including contracts?
Kris Russell:

GP	G	A	P	+/-

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

60	4	17	21	-2

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Contract: 3 years @ 4 M
Age: 30

Jeff Petry:

GP	G	A	P	+/-

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

60	10	19	29	-26

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Contract: 3 years @ 5.5 M
Age: 30

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[elitepete]

Petry ainec

 

[VoluntaryDom]

Petry by such a large margin that this poll needs to be locked asap.

 

[Uncle Scrooge]

You mean more valuable ? Contracts have no impact on who is the better hockey player.

I guess Petry.

 

[hockeyguy1967]

Russell is the best shot blocker in the league and has been fine this year.

 

[Trafalgar Sadge Law]

Are you kidding me? This is Petry and it's not even close. Better at everything from offense to defense to skating to intelligence to physicality to pretty much anything. Kris Russell is an abysmal hockey player. He's decent offensively, is alright on the penalty kill, and for whatever reason is good 3v3 and that's about all he has going for him. His 5v5 defensive play is atrocious and advanced stats, traditional stats, and the eye test all confirm this.

Russell is the best shot blocker in the league and has been fine this year.

You have no idea what you're talking about. The "best shot blocker in the league" is NOT the sign of a good player, in fact it's more often the sign of a player that's a liability defensively. The reason players like Kris Russell have such a high volume of shots blocked is that they have a high volume of shots against when on the ice, because they're incapable of breaking up the cycle, have trouble transitioning the puck/getting a clean breakout, and therefore get hemmed in their own zone. This is why someone like Dan Girardi was the NHL's "top shot blocker" during the period of time where every single Rangers fan wanted him and Marc Staal gone.

The only time a high blocked shots count is a good thing is when a player is heavily deployed on the penalty kill, see: Vlasic and his absolutely ridiculous 3+ minutes of SHTOI per game. Kris Russell, averages less SHTOI than 4 other Oilers defensemen.

 

[MessierII]

Russell is underrated because analytics boosters are stuck in 2009 but Petry is the better player here. Montreal is a mess.

 

[olli]

petty

 

[La Bamba]

They're both equally not worth their contracts (if that makes sense)

Petry is the better player so I guess I'd take him for an extra 1.5M per year

 

[Machinehead]

I prefer Petry because he prevents shots.


But I do have to give Russell credit - he prevents goals over large samples.

 

[Trafalgar Sadge Law]

Russell is underrated because analytics boosters are stuck in 2009 but Petry is the better player here. Montreal is a mess.

The eye test and traditional stats confirm Russell to be a defensive liability too, extremely high volume of defensive mistakes compared to other Oilers defensemen not named Matt Benning and early season Oscar Klefbom. The only underrated part about him is that he's decent offensively.

 

[MessierII]

The eye test and traditional stats confirm Russell to be a defensive liability too, extremely high volume of defensive mistakes compared to other Oilers defensemen not named Matt Benning and early season Oscar Klefbom. The only underrated part about him is that he's decent offensively.

So why isn’t he a heavy minus if he’s constantly giving up scoring chances?

Him and Sekera had the lowest goals against of any Oiler D last year.

 

[Trafalgar Sadge Law]

So why isn’t he a heavy minus if he’s constantly giving up scoring chances?

Him and Sekera had the lowest goals against of any Oiler D last year.

Plus minus is a horrible stat. Everyone knows that. Goals against isn't an accurate assessment of a player's ability to play defense considering the variability in goaltender performance. Kris Russell is 3rd on the team in chances against at 996 at last count (probably over 1000 now after today's game), about 20 less than McDavid who has played 150 minutes more, and about 70 less than Nurse who has played nearly 200 minutes more, both of whom face significantly stronger quality of competition than Russell. He has by far the worst chances against per minute on the team among regularly dressing players, including even Matt Benning. And he is second last on the team in chances for %, ahead of only Drake Caggiula who also can't play defense if his life depended on it. I can't find any high danger scoring chance stats that have been updated the past few weeks, but I wouldn't count on Russell performing well by those metrics either.

It's kinda funny that you bring up +/-, because he's actually third last among defensemen on the team, second last being the struggling Oscar Klefbom, and last being Andrej Sekera who has been brutal during his short stint this season, though you can probably attribute a lot of the struggles to injuries. Then again, Eric Gryba is a + player for reasons only Yog-Sothoth knows and every Oilers fan knows how much of a pylon that bum is, so I wont hold a bad +/- against Russell.

 

[MessierII]

Plus minus is a horrible stat. Everyone knows that. Goals against isn't an accurate assessment of a player's ability to play defense considering the variability in goaltender performance. Kris Russell is 3rd on the team in chances against at 996 at last count (probably over 1000 now after today's game), about 20 less than McDavid who has played 150 minutes more, and about 70 less than Nurse who has played nearly 200 minutes more, both of whom face significantly stronger quality of competition than Russell. He has by far the worst chances against per minute on the team among regularly dressing players, including even Matt Benning. And he is second last on the team in chances for %, ahead of only Drake Caggiula who also can't play defense if his life depended on it. I can't find any high danger scoring chance stats that have been updated the past few weeks, but I wouldn't count on Russell performing well by those metrics either.

It's kinda funny that you bring up +/-, because he's actually third last among defensemen on the team, second last being the struggling Oscar Klefbom, and last being Andrej Sekera who has been brutal during his short stint this season, though you can probably attribute a lot of the struggles to injuries. Then again, Eric Gryba is a + player for reasons only Yog-Sothoth knows and every Oilers fan knows how much of a pylon that bum is, so I wont hold a bad +/- against Russell.

If he was defensive mess he would get scored on lots over his career but he hasn’t. If his supposed bad defensive game doesn’t result in goals against then I don’t care about it and question that evaluation. The point of the game is to outscore the opponent. If he was a defensive disaster his whole career he would be well below -5 in 700+ nhl games.

 

[Trafalgar Sadge Law]

If he was defensive mess he would get scored on lots over his career but he hasn’t. If his supposed bad defensive game doesn’t result in goals against then I don’t care about it and question that evaluation. The point of the game is to outscore the opponent. If he was a defensive disaster his whole career he would be well below -5 in 700+ nhl games.

First of all, you're need to back up the claim that Kris Russell doesn't have many goals against when he's on the ice with real stats, otherwise your claim is bogus. I've dug up the numbers and you're wrong about Kris Russell being the lowest Oiler in terms of goals against on ice. According to Corsisca (the stats are a few weeks behind but it's the only site I know that tracks it), Kris Russell has been on ice for 43 goals against behind only Klefbom's 46, Nurse, Larsson and Benning are all below 40, and the other defensemen haven't played enough to get anywhere even close to 30 goals against. Secondly goals against on ice is a horrible way to assess a player's defensive performance due to factors such as goaltender performance, ice time, quality of competition etc. I mean Roman Josi and Shea Weber were top 10 in the league in goals against a few years ago, and you'd be high to consider them bad defensive players.

Lots of players with positive +/- are because of their offensive contributions or just dumb luck sometimes. Jeff Schultz is the poster boy for this, being a career +78 player despite being notorious for being a defensive disaster, simply because he played for a strong Washington team and had absurd goaltender luck during the 2009-2010, where he finished +50. Speaking of that Capitals team, assuming you've been watching the Oilers for a while, Tom Poti is another defensive sieve who we all hated watching on the Oilers who has a +43 on his career due to a pair of lucky years where he nabbed +16 and +26. That there is why +/- is a garbage stat, and if you're using that to claim a player is good defensively, then you have no idea what you're talking about. Kris Russell himself has a high PDO season in 2014-2015 which gave him +18 which would also greatly skew the stat in his favour.

 

[MessierII]

First of all, you're need to back up the claim that Kris Russell doesn't have many goals against when he's on the ice with real stats, otherwise your claim is bogus. I've dug up the numbers and you're wrong about Kris Russell being the lowest Oiler in terms of goals against on ice. According to Corsisca (the stats are a few weeks behind but it's the only site I know that tracks it), Kris Russell has been on ice for 43 goals against behind only Klefbom's 46, Nurse, Larsson and Benning are all below 40, and the other defensemen haven't played enough to get anywhere even close to 30 goals against. Secondly goals against on ice is a horrible way to assess a player's defensive performance due to factors such as goaltender performance, ice time, quality of competition etc. I mean Roman Josi and Shea Weber were top 10 in the league in goals against a few years ago, and you'd be high to consider them bad defensive players.

Lots of players with positive +/- are because of their offensive contributions or just dumb luck sometimes. Jeff Schultz is the poster boy for this, being a career +78 player despite being notorious for being a defensive disaster, simply because he played for a strong Washington team and had absurd goaltender luck during the 2009-2010, where he finished +50. Speaking of that Capitals team, assuming you've been watching the Oilers for a while, Tom Poti is another defensive sieve who we all hated watching on the Oilers who has a +43 on his career due to a pair of lucky years where he nabbed +16 and +26. That there is why +/- is a garbage stat, and if you're using that to claim a player is good defensively, then you have no idea what you're talking about. Kris Russell himself has a high PDO season in 2014-2015 which gave him +18 which would also greatly skew the stat in his favour.

I said LAST year he had the lowest goals against besides his D partner Sekera and if your using relative stats comparing him to teammates then goals against stats are not skewed. Everyone plays with the same goalie. This year he’s had to play over his head. Shot attempts are a terrible way to evaluate defensive play. They are also skewed by team strength and heavily effected by deployment. Goal stats are actually better in every aspect.

Goal-based Metrics Better Than Shot-based Metrics at Predicting Hockey Success

 

[Trafalgar Sadge Law]

I said LAST year he had the lowest goals against besides his D partner Sekera and if your using relative stats comparing him to teammates then goals against stats are not skewed. Everyone plays with the same goalie. This year he’s had to play over his head. Shot attempts are a terrible way to evaluate defensive play. They are also skewed by team strength and heavily effected by deployment. Goal stats are actually better in every aspect.

Goal-based Metrics Better Than Shot-based Metrics at Predicting Hockey Success

Again not true. The lowest player in terms of goals against among regularly dressing Oilers defensemen were Matt Benning and Darnell Nurse (though Nurse was due to being injured for half the season). At least bother to look up your facts. As for playing with the same goalie, goaltenders have different on ice save percentage for different players too.

Good lord I can't believe you actually linked that "article" as a source. There's a reason why absolutely nobody takes that article seriously in the hockey world and if anything, make fun of it.


Just going off Choclatealmondfudge's analysis, among the numerous problems, the most recent reference in this article is from 2013. The author made his own incorrect calculations to skew his own stats via goals per minute instead of using his source, Behindthenet's actual calculations. Completely ignored shot quality, quality of competition, quality of teammates. He purposely chose an arbitrary cutoff for when to stop using data points in the season in order to skew the info towards goals based metrics. I mean I kind of feel bad ripping up a U of A student for what's probably one of their first publications, but this guy legit alters calculations to fudge his stats.

 

[tony d]

Petry.

 

[MessierII]

Again not true. The lowest player in terms of goals against among regularly dressing Oilers defensemen were Matt Benning and Darnell Nurse (though Nurse was due to being injured for half the season). At least bother to look up your facts. As for playing with the same goalie, goaltenders have different on ice save percentage for different players too.

Good lord I can't believe you actually linked that "article" as a source. There's a reason why absolutely nobody takes that article seriously in the hockey world and if anything, make fun of it.


Just going off Choclatealmondfudge's analysis, among the numerous problems, the most recent reference in this article is from 2013. The author made his own incorrect calculations to skew his own stats via goals per minute instead of using his source, Behindthenet's actual calculations. Completely ignored shot quality, quality of competition, quality of teammates. He purposely chose an arbitrary cutoff for when to stop using data points in the season in order to skew the info towards goals based metrics. I mean I kind of feel bad ripping up a U of A student for what's probably one of their first publications, but this guy legit alters calculations to fudge his stats.

Your stats are wrong Sekera and Russell had the lowest goals against per 60 on the team by a good margin. Nurse had the worst so I have no idea where your info is coming from.

Player Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

Ignored shot quality? The point of his article is that shot quality is future. The biggest problem with shot attempts is that it ignores shot quality.

 

[Trafalgar Sadge Law]

Your stats are wrong Sekera and Russell had the lowest goals against per 60 on the team by a good margin. Nurse had the worst so I have no idea where your info is coming from.

Player Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

Ignored shot quality? The point of his article is that shot quality is future. The biggest problem with shot attempts is that it ignores shot quality.

His article brings up nothing about shot quality analysis, the only thing he analyzes are goals (and even concedes in the conclusion section that shot quality needs to be addressed. Also you do realize there's plenty of analytics out there that talk about shot quality right, the most simple being xGF and xGA (expected goals for and against adjusted based on proximity/angle of shots etc), which Kris Russell performs miserably for (2nd last among defensemen for expected goals against, dead last on the team for expected goal differential among players who have played over 20 games).

You keep moving the goalpost when you've been proven factually wrong. You've been saying "lowest goals against" all thread long and now you change it to "lowest goals against per 60". And according to Corsisca, Benning and Nurse had lower goals against last season. Per 60 stats are also incredibly flawed due to it not taking into account quality of competition, quality of teammates, and goaltender performance. If you go with goals against per 60, you have Oscar Klefbom and Adam Larsson being worse defensively than Eric Gryba. Goals against per 60 in 20162-17 also says the following:
-Brandon Mountour is better than Hampus Lindholm and Josh Manson
-Brandon Carlo and Zdeno Chara are the worst defensive players on the Boston Bruins, by far
-Ryan Murphy is better than Noah Hanifin
-Gustav Forsling, TVR, and Michal Roszival are all better than Niklas Hjarlmasson
-Matt Greene, Kevin Gravel, and Brayden McNabb are all better than Drew Doughty
-Christian Folin is better than Ryan Suter
-Matt Irwin is the best defensive dman on the Predators, by far
-Brendan Smith is better than Ryan McDonagh
-Frederik Claessen, Chris Wideman, and Matt Borowiecki are the best defensive players on the Senators, each better than the next by a significant margin and waaaaay better than Marc Methot
-Marc Edouard Vlasic and Paul Martin are the worst defensive players on San Jose
-Robert Bortuzzo is by far the best defensive player in St Louis, almost twice as good as Alex Pietrangelo
-Jake Dotchin, Luke Witkowski, and Braydon Coburn are all better than Victor Hedman and Anton Stralman
-Roman Polak is the best defensive player on Toronto

The only thing it does right is that it consistently correctly identifies Erik Gudbranson as one of the worst defensive dmen in the league on a yearly basis, but pretty much any stat would show that anyway. I think we can safely put the "goals against per 60 stat" in the pile labelled "this stat is never useful, if you cite it you don't know what you're talking about".

 

[spiny norman]

Lopsided result.