Confirmed with Link: Maple Leafs re-sign Nikita Zaitsev for 7 years, $4.5M per

[Battle Lin]

pretty much watched every second of the boston series just glued infront of tv like most people, and zaitsev played very good for us...like he wasnt amazing, hes not really suppose to, not paid like it...if rielly finally becomes that number 1 next year, cause his offense broke out now his D needs to and become that top 10 D we need

zaitsev and dermott and gardiner and whoever joins the blueline, liljegren, they all gonna look so much better if rielly takes on that 1 D role, play 25min, defend the best players

 

[Randy Randerson]

pretty much watched every second of the boston series just glued infront of tv like most people, and zaitsev played very good for us...like he wasnt amazing, hes not really suppose to, not paid like it...if rielly finally becomes that number 1 next year, cause his offense broke out now his D needs to and become that top 10 D we need

zaitsev and dermott and gardiner and whoever joins the blueline, liljegren, they all gonna look so much better if rielly takes on that 1 D role, play 25min, defend the best players

Personally I think the opposite needs to happen, Rielly's already playing the #1 role with really good results both offensively and...well not defensively in isolation as a suppression specialist, but the balance of our team's offense/defense is solid when he's on the ice and he has a very positive effect on it. If he can maintain the same results with 10% more icetime he's a bonafide top 15 dman already

what I think needs to happen is for him to have someone who's capable of playing the kind of minutes that he gets rather than having to carry a pairing through brutal usage. Rielly's already a #1, if he had a real #2 to play with he'd only get better, and maybe especially if it were a suppression type defender that would let him join the rush more often

 

[Zybalto]

Zaitsev will prove to be a bargain next season and beyond. He is the perfect long term partner for Dermott moving forward. Have you watched Orlov in Washington this playoffs? This is the type of dman Zaitsev will turnout to be. He has some tough injuries this season and personal things he was going through. But in the series against Boston, it was debatable that he was probably the best dman we had out there.

He will be fine. One season doesn't make a career! Relax people.

Here is how Zaitsev's season has gone.

His detractors are correct in that he was awful the first three quarters of the season which was covered up by a super high PDO that covered things up for a while along with a +15 rating but his underlying numbers told the real story:

Start of the season to Feb.19:

Corsi: 44.39% SCF: 48.70% HDCF: 50.97% - Brutal corsi numbers and the scoring chance numbers are not that great when considering relative to the team and QoC.


The final quarter of the season, Zaitsev fought through flu bug and started putting up some real solid numbers as he settled into his role with Gards and had a stable PDO that told us something had changed. Feb 20 - end of regular season:

Corsi: 52.30% SCF: 57.04% HDCF: 52.48% - Huge turnaround in his analytics but he had a bad slump on the PK during this stretch. Overall a great final quarter though. His SCF% was 12th in the league (min 100 minutes played) over this stretch. One wondered if he could keep it up for the playoffs though.


Playoff numbers:

Corsi: 52.21% SCF: 56.14% HDCF: 62.22% - Massive numbers in an expanded role against a top team every night. Turned things around on the PK and was our best PKer. Ultra low PDO masked how effective he was to some. Should have had a few more points and that botched 2 on 1 and a bad first period of game two seemed to matter more to most people than his solid board play and improving transitions and strong net presence. Analytically scraping the top 10 for all dmen in the playoffs taking into consideration QoC and numbers relative to the rest of the team.

Worlds:

Havnt checked analytics but looked a rock for Russia and went PPG in the tourney.



The question now is not whether or not he can bounce back next season but whether or not he can carry his strong play at the end of the season over to next. Still a few too many out there who are have been too busy calling for a buyout or penciling him on the third pairing to realize how good he was at the end of the season.

 

[luvdahattymatty]

Tell me one #1 dman on a playoff team with a worse +/- than Rielly. Folks the #1 dman can't be a brutal defender. In case you forget the +/- stats here they are. Now when i played these WERE the only stats that were important. Remember the Leafs are like a roughly plus 40 team i think on goal differential.
Player NHL Rank STAT
Dermott #27 +16
Hainsey #39 +12
Gards #57 +9
Z #67 +8
Polak #88 +6
Carrick #90 +6
RIELLY #214 -4
It is very hard to win in playoffs when your best dman can't defend. These numbers carry back to junior too. This is not a 1 year wonder here. This is historically what has occured since he started junior hockey.

 

[luvdahattymatty]

Babcock tried last year to make him a strong defender and it did not work. This year he gave up and said ok score us a ton of pp points because we need to get more from you. Even his defence partner Hainsey has much better numbers when he does not play with Rielly. Pointing the finger at hainsey is just flat out wrong. Hainsey is not great but he is a superior defender in every aspect. In fact every other defence on the team is a better defender. Those are the facts.

 

[Nithoniniel]

Now when i played these WERE the only stats that were important.

That's because people then didn't know better. Now it has been evaluated and found to be rather useless, so there's no reason to keep using it.

 

[LeafFever]

Tell me one #1 dman on a playoff team with a worse +/- than Rielly. Folks the #1 dman can't be a brutal defender. In case you forget the +/- stats here they are. Now when i played these WERE the only stats that were important. Remember the Leafs are like a roughly plus 40 team i think on goal differential.
Player NHL Rank STAT
Dermott #27 +16
Hainsey #39 +12
Gards #57 +9
Z #67 +8
Polak #88 +6
Carrick #90 +6
RIELLY #214 -4
It is very hard to win in playoffs when your best dman can't defend. These numbers carry back to junior too. This is not a 1 year wonder here. This is historically what has occured since he started junior hockey.

+/- is a horrible stat to judge DMen by. Rielly plays absolutely brutal QOC minutes that the others do not. Comparing him to sheltered DMen is dumb.

 

[Zybalto]

+/- is a horrible stat to judge DMen by. Rielly plays absolutely brutal QOC minutes that the others do not. Comparing him to sheltered DMen is dumb.

I thought Rielly was a rock that carried a tired Hainsey over the finish line of the season........but Rielly was also a bigtime letdown in the playoffs.

What saved him was Anderson making most of his best saves with him on the ice and the forwards actually scoring him some points (second highest on ice shooting% of all dmen) .

+/- is pretty useless but I wouldnt want to be stuck with these numbers in the playoffs:

Rank out of 64 Dmen who have played 100 minutes in the playoffs so far:

CF: 37.61% Rank 64/64
SCF: 40.32% Rank 64/64
HDCF: 39.47% Rank 58/64

I understand Rielly plays hard QoC numbers and was saddled with a burned out Hainsey but those numbers are so bad you could only conclude he had a bad series.....which he did.

 

[zeke]

Analytics at its finest

Still upset by how wrong you've been about these Leafs, eh?

stop blaming others for your wrongness, and look inward.

 

[luvdahattymatty]

Any stat is only useful if it tells a consistent story. Rielly did NOT play hard QoC minutes his first 3 years in the nhl or his first 2 years of junior BUT his +/- has been TERRIBLE every single year he has played hockey. This stat whether you like it or not has been used in hockey for over 100 years. If it is looked at over a small game stretch yes it is useless but it does tell a story over a season when used comparitatively against your peers on same team. So whether you like it or not your argument holds no water. This is nothing personal it is just fact. Now I was at every Bruins Leafs playoff game live in both Boston and Toronto. Rielly was the worst player on the ice in game 1 and 2 BY FAR. He was also the best player on the ice in game 3 and 4 BY FAR. He is helped and can play his game when the game is a fast paced stretch pass type of a game where he can utilize his top end nhl calibre speed. However here is the issue HE can't control what type of game is played. He can't control whether the game is a half ice or small ice game or a full ice game. When the games get played of that variety (half or small ice) he will be the worst player on the ice. Why you ask? Because he does not have those skill sets. He is not very strong physically. He can't move anyone off the puck with either size or his stick. He also can't shoot it very hard which is also a function of him not being very strong physically. He also plain and simple does not like defending. It is not his love. He will try his hardest for sure which we all saw but he does not have the tools for that type of game and he can't dictate the way the game is played by himself.

Anyways i like him because he gives it everything. Same can't be said for many on the team. But he will never be a #1 dman in the nhl. What he can be if utilized properly is a strong #2-3 guy who needs a very strong defender with him. He needs to play against opposing teams second or third lines where he can outskate them and aviod physical confrontations.

This is not the biggest problem however. The bigger issue is we have too many of the same kinda player. We have no big mean and neasties on our defence who love to make your life miserable going to the net and in the corners. So again when game plays in that variety we have no answers except to take it up the ***. Watch Jets and Vegas they have a good variety. We have all the same.

 

[Nithoniniel]

This stat whether you like it or not has been used in hockey for over 100 years.

No it has not. It started being used in the 1950s, and became an official stat in '68 if I remember correctly.

If it is looked at over a small game stretch yes it is useless but it does tell a story over a season when used comparitatively against your peers on same team.

Such usage would claim that Bergeron has once been the worst player on the Bruins.

So whether you like it or not your argument holds no water.

No, liking the stat holds no water. What holds water is an actual scientific evaluation of the stat.

He needs to play against opposing teams second or third lines where he can outskate them and aviod physical confrontations.

Rielly has had great individual success against top opposition this last season while tilting the ice in our favor, but he can't handle those minutes? That's an interesting take.

 

[luvdahattymatty]

Well again not sure where you come up with your facts but my dad played for the Hershey Bears in the 40s and he always said that +/- was used as the measure to evaluate players. so it was used well before the 50's.

Again stick to the facts. Do not make up stuff please. When i played in 60s it was what was used by every oha and ihl coach.

 

[luvdahattymatty]

Rielly +/- stats are always the same look them up yourself. He is always the worst on his team over a season. And season long stats are very relevant. Ask any hockey guy and they will all tell you the same thing. Even Cherry has said in on air many times. Now whether you want to hear from us older guys that is really the question. Some things have changed no doubt but the basics of a hockey player stand the true test of time.

 

[Nithoniniel]

Well again not sure where you come up with your facts but my dad played for the Hershey Bears in the 40s and he always said that +/- was used as the measure to evaluate players. so it was used well before the 50's.

Again stick to the facts. Do not make up stuff please. When i played in 60s it was what was used by every oha and ihl coach.

Is that so? Because every reference I find online says what I said above. I've checked a few articles on the topic, and they say the same thing. Sorry if I don't trust the hearsay of a random HFBoards poster.

Either way, it doesn't matter how long it's been used. It's a bad stat. It's badly thought out, it's imprecise, and has pretty much zero correlation with anything of worth in individual evaluation.

 

[Trapper]

Is that so? Because every reference I find online says what I said above. I've checked a few articles on the topic, and they say the same thing. Sorry if I don't trust the hearsay of a random HFBoards poster.

Either way, it doesn't matter how long it's been used. It's a bad stat. It's badly thought out, it's imprecise, and has pretty much zero correlation with anything of worth in individual evaluation.

I don't think +/- is a bad stat. It's a tool. And like all tools need to be used for the right job.
Ignoring an existing stat doesn't make it go away. It also doesn't make it the be all end all.
We are always judging players by the +/- stat but perhaps this tool should be used to judge the coach instead. Perhaps his team needs work on line changes, perhaps the 5 man unit assembled is not understanding the assignment. Perhaps the coach needs to make an adjustment to the line. Something could be wrong with a certain element. When you review the tapes after the game, looking at the above problems is also looking at the +/- aspect indirectly. Why are you getting scored on and why are you giving up 4+ goals and how do you correct that. That's a big part of being a coach.

 

[luvdahattymatty]

i stick to the rinks. i talk to everyone at the rinks. i can tell you that even today +/- is used to help on the scouting side. what is does do is give you the big picture about how a guy compares to his team over the course of a year. that is very important to hockey people and always will be. if you want to be a great 2 way player you better have a good +/-. again any 1 year can be explained by many factors most likely injury of quality of team. But when the stat shows the same results every year for like 10 years then you know for sure it is accurate. Rielly numbers have been the model of consistency. now we can all argue about why that is so? i have my thoughts. Babs has his. You have yours. But the numbers are a fact.

 

[zeke]

+/- is worse than useless.

 

[Liminality]

i stick to the rinks. i talk to everyone at the rinks. i can tell you that even today +/- is used to help on the scouting side. what is does do is give you the big picture about how a guy compares to his team over the course of a year. that is very important to hockey people and always will be. if you want to be a great 2 way player you better have a good +/-. again any 1 year can be explained by many factors most likely injury of quality of team. But when the stat shows the same results every year for like 10 years then you know for sure it is accurate. Rielly numbers have been the model of consistency. now we can all argue about why that is so? i have my thoughts. Babs has his. You have yours. But the numbers are a fact.

I agree to a certain point. Rielly defensively needed to improve over his first few years coming into the league. He was on some very bad teams as a young player. At this stage though he faces the toughest competition on the team and we're complaining about a -4? Do you think Gardiner is a much better defender at +9?

 

[Nithoniniel]

sk any hockey guy and they will all tell you the same thing.

Here's the thing. And I see this a lot which is why I want to address it. I am absolutely sure that if I ask any hockey guy, they will talk about the importance of the things that plus/minus is supposed to measure. And they'd likely be right. But whether or not a particular stat is actually good at measuring it is something way out of their expertise. Just like a pilot might know what he'd need from a plane, but you wouldn't want him to build it. That's not his expertise. In this case, the pilot built the plane. And it keeps crashing.

Here's what plus/minus does measure: The goal differential that occurs while a player is on the ice at even strength, plus the offensive contributions of his team when shorthanded, minus the offensive contribution of the opposing team when on the power play.

So, the first part is borderline useful, even though it needs a lot of context. You have better stats for that though. But why would you credit all players with a plus for scoring a goal shorthanded, when it's often only one player driving it? Why would you completely disregard how they perform at their actual job, which is preventing goals against? Similarly, why would you give everyone a minus for a goal against on the PP, which is often due to a d-man fumbling the puck at the blue line? And why would you be interested in how well a team scores at even strength, but have no interest in how they score at the PP, which is their actual job there?

It's an extremely poorly thought out stat.

Plus/minus correlates to:
1) How strong the team is.
2) What kind of linemates the player has.
3) What kind of usage the player has.
4) Noise. (factors out of the players control)
5) Player impact.

Just to give an example. A large part of the motivation to move out Taylor Hall was driven by plus/minus. The thing is that his plus/minus was only bad due to:
1) Playing on a really bad team who was often behind, so he was often on the ice with the net empty towards the end of the game.
2) Shorthanded goals scored against him on the PP, of which very few came as a result of him in any way.

Without those two factors, Taylor Hall was a plus player on one of the worst teams in the league for many, many years. And that misconception drove one of the worst trades in many years.

I don't think +/- is a bad stat. It's a tool. And like all tools need to be used for the right job.

Sure. The problem with plus/minus is that there is no clear purpose to it as a tool. It tries to be a tool that can do everything, yet is not actually a good choice for anything.

 

[zeke]

Zaitsev Yr 1: -22
Zaitsev Yr 2: +8

in which year did he play better?

 

[Trapper]

Here's the thing. And I see this a lot which is why I want to address it. I am absolutely sure that if I ask any hockey guy, they will talk about the importance of the things that plus/minus is supposed to measure. And they'd likely be right. But whether or not a particular stat is actually good at measuring it is something way out of their expertise. Just like a pilot might know what he'd need from a plane, but you wouldn't want him to build it. That's not his expertise. In this case, the pilot built the plane. And it keeps crashing.

Here's what plus/minus does measure: The goal differential that occurs while a player is on the ice at even strength, plus the offensive contributions of his team when shorthanded, minus the offensive contribution of the opposing team when on the power play.

So, the first part is borderline useful, even though it needs a lot of context. You have better stats for that though. But why would you credit all players with a plus for scoring a goal shorthanded, when it's often only one player driving it? Why would you completely disregard how they perform at their actual job, which is preventing goals against? Similarly, why would you give everyone a minus for a goal against on the PP, which is often due to a d-man fumbling the puck at the blue line? And why would you be interested in how well a team scores at even strength, but have no interest in how they score at the PP, which is their actual job there?

It's an extremely poorly thought out stat.

Plus/minus correlates to:
1) How strong the team is.
2) What kind of linemates the player has.
3) What kind of usage the player has.
4) Noise. (factors out of the players control)
5) Player impact.

Just to give an example. A large part of the motivation to move out Taylor Hall was driven by plus/minus. The thing is that his plus/minus was only bad due to:
1) Playing on a really bad team who was often behind, so he was often on the ice with the net empty towards the end of the game.
2) Shorthanded goals scored against him on the PP, of which very few came as a result of him in any way.

Without those two factors, Taylor Hall was a plus player on one of the worst teams in the league for many, many years. And that misconception drove one of the worst trades in many years.


Sure. The problem with plus/minus is that there is no clear purpose to it as a tool. It tries to be a tool that can do everything, yet is not actually a good choice for anything.

Ah but who is using it as a tool that can do everything?
HF Boards? Some guy sitting in a studio?
Or the actual coach himself. Plus GM. I would hope these 2 are using it as it is intended. The beginning of knowledge not the end.
The problem with +/- is people who want to use it to say Franson is better than Rielly because one is a +12 and the other is a -15.

 

[Nithoniniel]

Ah but who is using it as a tool that can do everything?

But since it's a blunt instrument, it can't really be used as anything else. Any time you try to use it on something smaller, you introduce so much noise that the number becomes unusable.

I can take GF% and look at how a player performs in a certain situation, and then include contextual factors to modify it. I know what I get then.

If I do that with +/-, I might claim that a player is bad when facing top competition, but the number is actually driven by lousy goaltending while shorthanded.

In the end, it's not a good stat because there is really nothing you can use it for where it is not a much less effective tool than a number of others. Tools like that should get retired.

 

[Trapper]

But since it's a blunt instrument, it can't really be used as anything else. Any time you try to use it on something smaller, you introduce so much noise that the number becomes unusable.

I can take GF% and look at how a player performs in a certain situation, and then include contextual factors to modify it. I know what I get then.

If I do that with +/-, I might claim that a player is bad when facing top competition, but the number is actually driven by lousy goaltending while shorthanded.

In the end, it's not a good stat because there is really nothing you can use it for where it is not a much less effective tool than a number of others. Tools like that should get retired.

I'm going to have to disagree but leave it at that.
But I think it's a coaches stat and not a players.
Like how can one coach have player A with a 48% possession and another coach have the same player with a 52%?
It's like Dubas getting pigeon holed as just an analytics guy. It's only one tiny part of the whole. When dropped in with 100 other measurements, it's there for maybe the one or 2 times you might need it.
Which goalie is better? One with a .925 save percentage or one with a .915? With prejudice, you can direct most stats to fit your agenda. Alone, without context many stats can be lousy. True that tool might just bang one piece in but now you can stand back and look at the whole.
Just my opinion anyway right or wrong.

 

[rent free]

+/- is a horrible stat to judge DMen by. Rielly plays absolutely brutal QOC minutes that the others do not. Comparing him to sheltered DMen is dumb.

So he can't handle high quality of completion? He can't be a number 1 then.

 

[Nithoniniel]

I'm going to have to disagree but leave it at that.
But I think it's a coaches stat and not a players.
Like how can one coach have player A with a 48% possession and another coach have the same player with a 52%?
It's like Dubas getting pigeon holed as just an analytics guy. It's only one tiny part of the whole. When dropped in with 100 other measurements, it's there for maybe the one or 2 times you might need it.
Which goalie is better? One with a .925 save percentage or one with a .915? With prejudice, you can direct most stats to fit your agenda. Alone, without context many stats can be lousy. True that tool might just bang one piece in but now you can stand back and look at the whole.
Just my opinion anyway right or wrong.

Yeah, but there's a difference there. Possession is a very distinct stat. It measures shot attempts at even strength only. Save percentage is a very distinct stat. It measure the percentage of shots that a goaltender saves only. They have a specific thing they measure, which frees them up to be used just as the quote from you below.

Plus/Minus is more like a WAR-stat. I think a key here is this quote from you:

True that tool might just bang one piece in but now you can stand back and look at the whole.

This is how you want stats to be. Let's go back to save percentage. If you judge a goaltender, you start with save percentage. That's one piece. Now you have that basis and nothing else. It's clear what you have and what you don't. Then you look at effects on that from quality of shots. You go on to look at how many good starts the goaltender offer. You might even want to look at something like the timeliness, though I wouldn't myself.

But let's say you want to do that with a player. You start with Plus/Minus. But you can't add what they do on the PP, because +/- already has taken part of that into account. You can't add PK measurements, because +/- has already stolen a part of that. You can't adjust it for QoC or zone starts, because that would impact parts of the number that these factors doesn't touch. Same with linemates. I don't even know how you'd smoothly adjust for all the empty net goals.

You touch on something perfectly, and that is that stats need to have a clear purpose so they can fit very well to "bang one piece in". But you underestimate how unclear that purpose is when it comes to +/-.

Basically, you bash in a piece that says "This ONE number is a measurement of how this players team has done at even strength with him on the ice, plus how many times his team screwed up on the PP with him on the ice, as well as how many times someone stole the puck and went the other way while shorthanded, but also including all the times that he was on the ice as the team desperately tried to equalize but ended up conceiving an empty netter instead. All of it together."

That's a quite big and deformed piece to fit in.