Sportsnet: Maple Leafs must add proven defenders, move on from all-offence identity

[Dekes For Days]

In terms of your undying belief in Barrie, we will see how Dubas feels. My belief is if he resigns him, he’s doing it in hopes of trying to at least break even in that horrible trade. If he doesn’t resign him, at least he’s come to his senses on who Barrie really is as a defenceman, which is a 3rd pairing PP specialist.

I don't have an "undying belief in Barrie". He had a down year for sure, but he has historically ranged from a #2-#4 defenseman, and he was not the complete failure here that some make him out to be. I don't want to re sign him, and I don't think Dubas will re sign him. That doesn't mean we can't recognize what Barrie has historically been as a player, or the things that Barrie brought to our team this year, especially through a lot of injuries to the back end, and the necessary upgrade he was over alternatives we had available to us at an organizationally weak position.

 

[Shanwhatplan]

I don't have an "undying belief in Barrie". He had a down year for sure, but he has historically ranged from a #2-#4 defenseman, and he was not the complete failure here that some make him out to be. I don't want to re sign him, and I don't think Dubas will re sign him. That doesn't mean we can't recognize what Barrie has historically been as a player, or the things that Barrie brought to our team this year, especially through a lot of injuries to the back end, and the necessary upgrade he was over alternatives we had available to us at an organizationally weak position.

I guess the proof will be in the pudding when we see what type of defenceman he targets, albeit with limited financial flexibility.

 

[Dekes For Days]

The reason why 80% accuracy is not good enough is simple.

You don't seem to be understanding what that 80% would mean. There are other aspects that determine whether the puck ends up in your net, like goaltending, so there's no reason it should be a 100% match. People seem to be misled by the name of the stat, but it's important to understand what it's actually telling you.

The way I see it; xG is only marginally better at telling you which team played better versus the good old shot counter.

It's significantly better.

 

[GirardSpinorama]

You don't seem to be understanding what that 80% would mean. There are other aspects that determine whether the puck ends up in your net, like goaltending, so there's no reason it should be a 100% match. People seem to be misled by the name of the stat, but it's important to understand what it's actually telling you.

It's significantly better.

80% is how accurate it is at predicting goals. Like you just admitted there are aspects not included. Many of which I have pointed out and you chose to ignore.

There is no 20% variance between goalies to account for all of the bad predictions.

 

[cesareborgia]

For an all offence identity we sure do seem to get shut out and play without much of an attack in a lot of games...

That's because our entitled "stars" take many nights off.

 

[cesareborgia]

No, that's not true. It gives you a plus when you score in certain situations, and a - when you get scored on in certain situations, and it's not very well tied to an individual player or their abilities.

We needed top 4 defensemen. Period. Regardless of what you think about Barrie, it was undeniably an improvement on our other options going into this year. Defensemen also aren't just "offense" or "defense". Barrie provided elements other than production that we lacked, and had been exploited, like an ability to exit the zone from the right side instead of just endlessly icing it.

But it used to be the Capitals, which you mentioned, and they didn't play that way when they won.

His team is alright defensively, but they do give up a decent amount of quality chances. No team wants to spend endless amounts of time in their own zone. That's a horrible strategy.

The other poster is right. We needed defence, not another Gardiner.

And as it turned out, Gardiner is twice the player that Barrie was. Meanwhile, Kadri is ripping it up for Colorado.

Awful, awful trade.

 

[Dekes For Days]

80% is how accurate it is at predicting goals. Like you just admitted there are aspects not included. Many of which I have pointed out and you chose to ignore.

I haven't ignored anything. The things you have pointed out have been addressed and don't change anything. Expected goals is still an extremely useful model. It's designed to measure shot/chance quantity/quality generation. It's not supposed to tell you exactly how many goals will be scored in your specific individual instance. This is the same reason that expecting expected goals against and goals against to match is ridiculous. Variable goaltending exists. That doesn't mean we should choose to ignore how the skaters in front are doing.

 

[Dekes For Days]

The other poster is right. We needed defence

And we got a top 4 defenseman.

Meanwhile, Kadri is ripping it up for Colorado.

Kadri is on a hot streak in a situation that he would not have gotten in Toronto. He would not be playing the 22nd best team in the league here. He would not be playing 2nd line center here. He wouldn't be getting 4 and a half minutes on a stacked PP to rack up the majority of his points here.

 

[The Shrike]

As long as Dubas continues to only believe the first part of the saying, “Offence wins games, defence wins championships”, and ignores the second part, I believe Montreal’s future is brighter than ours. Look at the trend we have been going in the past few seasons.
You can bury your head in the sand if you want, but I’m worried about this team. To me, this is a make or break offseason. It will be interesting to see if Dubas can admit his way of building a team was wrong, and start taking the necessary steps to correct it.

Change that to offense wins championships at least as often as defense and it would be more accurate. Oh, and defense includes a goaltender whose SV% in series deciding games isn't .876.

 

[cesareborgia]

And we got a top 4 defenseman.

Kadri is on a hot streak in a situation that he would not have gotten in Toronto. He would not be playing the 22nd best team in the league here. He would not be playing 2nd line center here. He wouldn't be getting 4 and a half minutes on a stacked PP to rack up the majority of his points here.

Yes and he'd be playing against weaker competition, while lighting a spark for the rest of the team.

And Barrie? A top 4 dman? Lol. He's a #6 dman and a PP "specialist."

 

[Dekes For Days]

Yes and he'd be playing against weaker competition, while lighting a spark for the rest of the team.

Except that's not what he was doing. He played against weaker competition and did worse, showing signs of decline, and seemed lifeless and forgettable for 90% of the time. He had not shown an ability to produce in the playoffs, or even stay in the playoffs.

And Barrie? A top 4 dman?

Yes, Barrie has historically been a #2-#4 defenseman.

 

[Shanwhatplan]

Change that to offense wins championships at least as often as defense and it would be more accurate. Oh, and defense includes a goaltender whose SV% in series deciding games isn't .876.

Agreed!

 

[BertCorbeau]

Yes and he'd be playing against weaker competition, while lighting a spark for the rest of the team.

And Barrie? A top 4 dman? Lol. He's a #6 dman and a PP "specialist."

In the last 6 years Barrie ranks: 8th in total points amongst all defensemen, and 9th in total power play points .. His PP production is no different than any other top offensive defensemen. And #6 d-men PP specialists don't put up that kind of production (3 50-point seasons, 1 49-point season, 5 seasons with 10+ goals).

He had a bad year, simple as that. Good players have poor seasons throughout their career.

Wouldn't surprise me to see him rebound next year, leaving many around this board scratching their head.

 

[lottster14]

Something tells me Barrie played much better for a team that had an actual system, structure, a game plan. A team that had positivity flowing through their locker room and good culture.

 

[ShaneFalco]

In the last 6 years Barrie ranks: 8th in total points amongst all defensemen, and 9th in total power play points .. His PP production is no different than any other top offensive defensemen. And #6 d-men PP specialists don't put up that kind of production (3 50-point seasons, 1 49-point season, 5 seasons with 10+ goals).

He had a bad year, simple as that. Good players have poor seasons throughout their career.

Wouldn't surprise me to see him rebound next year, leaving many around this board scratching their head.

He also started with Mike “reinvent your game” Babcock

 

[TheDoldrums]

Something tells me Barrie played much better for a team that had an actual system, structure, a game plan. A team that had positivity flowing through their locker room and good culture.

He played for a team that had 48 points in a season lol. The Avalanche were not a good team for most of his time there.

 

[Gary Nylund]

I haven't ignored anything. The things you have pointed out have been addressed and don't change anything. Expected goals is still an extremely useful model. It's designed to measure shot/chance quantity/quality generation. It's not supposed to tell you exactly how many goals will be scored in your specific individual instance. This is the same reason that expecting expected goals against and goals against to match is ridiculous. Variable goaltending exists. That doesn't mean we should choose to ignore how the skaters in front are doing.

Goaltending isn't the only reason expected and actual goals don't match, this has already been explained to you, why do you keep ignoring this simple fact? The Leafs CLB series is a good example and if you were able to watch the games with and objective POV, you'd see that the Leafs did a poor job of converting their chances. The most obvious example was perhaps when Tavares shot at the empty net and missed. Great scoring chance, moved the needle on the X goals stat but no goal and the goaltending had nothing to do with it. There were many such instances of chances not resulting in goals for reasons having nothing to do with goaltending and thus this series was a perfect example of why the expected goals stat is flawed.

I know you like to blame our goaltending for the loss but the fact is that our highly paid forwards did a poor job of converting their chances.

You have said that over time, these things tend to even out but even if that's true, a 5 game sample is not enough for that to happen and for these 5 games, expected goals was not an accurate measure of how the "skaters in front" performed.

 

[GirardSpinorama]

I haven't ignored anything. The things you have pointed out have been addressed and don't change anything. Expected goals is still an extremely useful model. It's designed to measure shot/chance quantity/quality generation. It's not supposed to tell you exactly how many goals will be scored in your specific individual instance. This is the same reason that expecting expected goals against and goals against to match is ridiculous. Variable goaltending exists. That doesn't mean we should choose to ignore how the skaters in front are doing.

Have you even looked at the methodology of how they developed the tool? Its building the model using actual goals scored (the training data) and then testing for accuracy of the model predictions using another data set of actual goals scored. The intent is for the model to predict goals as accurately as possible. If you add in more variables, the model will be better at predictions.

The model misses way too much variables with respect to how difficult a shot is for a goalie; which is why its so inaccurate. You are just choosing to make the claim that the inaccuracy is due to the goalie. But the model is way more inaccurate than the variance between the performances of a goalie (the best and the worst goalies have a save percentages that are 1-2% off). And remember, this 80% inaccuracy is over a LARGE sample size; over a small sample size it can be way more inaccurate.

Its a flawed method that is essentially a marginall upgraded version of the shot clock. The highest importance variables is distance and (angle, in a 2D space). And their importance is comically higher than other factors due to lack of accurate data.

 

[Ifittex il Verita]

In the last 6 years Barrie ranks: 8th in total points amongst all defensemen, and 9th in total power play points .. His PP production is no different than any other top offensive defensemen. And #6 d-men PP specialists don't put up that kind of production (3 50-point seasons, 1 49-point season, 5 seasons with 10+ goals).

He had a bad year, simple as that. Good players have poor seasons throughout their career.

Wouldn't surprise me to see him rebound next year, leaving many around this board scratching their head.

When you get the amount of time with the top line in Colorado, your numbers are going to be inflated.
What did that Colorado team ever accomplish with Barrie in that role anyway? I'm guessing management saw him as a big weakness that needed to be upgraded on.

 

[RoadWarrior]

In the last 6 years Barrie ranks: 8th in total points amongst all defensemen, and 9th in total power play points .. His PP production is no different than any other top offensive defensemen. And #6 d-men PP specialists don't put up that kind of production (3 50-point seasons, 1 49-point season, 5 seasons with 10+ goals).

He had a bad year, simple as that. Good players have poor seasons throughout their career.

Wouldn't surprise me to see him rebound next year, leaving many around this board scratching their head.

The problem is that Barrie racked up a lot of 2nd powerplay assists in getting those point totals and defensively he was always a tire fire. Never an asset at even strength. Much like Kevin Shattenkirk.

Fact is the leafs just didn't need him on the roster. He was redundant here and Dubas failed to recognize that in his haste to deal Kadri.

 

[Mickey Marner]

Whatever Barrie was or wasn't previous to becoming a Leaf, he ended up a bottom-pair PP specialist on the worst RD in the league.

 

[Stephen]

The other poster is right. We needed defence, not another Gardiner.

And as it turned out, Gardiner is twice the player that Barrie was. Meanwhile, Kadri is ripping it up for Colorado.

Awful, awful trade.

Gardiner wasn't that good this year in Carolina either, and figured prominently in their late game meltdown in Game 4 vs Boston.

 

[Trapper]

Don’t expect a 2way D out of Barrie.
If you want him to be both O and D, you will be sorry.
If you want to be a regular season team, go with it. If you want to win a Cup, change him and several others. Several others being players that can provide a better 2way game and grind out some wins.

 

[cesareborgia]

Gardiner wasn't that good this year in Carolina either, and figured prominently in their late game meltdown in Game 4 vs Boston.

Not saying Gardiner was good. Just saying he was better than Barrie.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Goaltending isn't the only reason expected and actual goals don't match

It's the main reason.

The Leafs CLB series is a good example and if you were able to watch the games with and objective POV, you'd see that the Leafs did a poor job of converting their chances.

...Because of goaltending...

You have said that over time, these things tend to even out but even if that's true, a 5 game sample is not enough for that to happen and for these 5 games, expected goals was not an accurate measure of how the "skaters in front" performed.

Bigger sample sizes are better, but that doesn't mean expected goals are useless information over smaller sample sizes. It's still a good measure of how the skaters in front performed.