Salary Cap: Might not Rise as much as First Projected

[detredWINgs]

Greene hasn't played well in a while. He's lost a step that he couldn't afford to lose in the first place. But with that said, I'd take him in a heartbeat over Lashoff or Kindl.

 

[Winger98]

Greene hasn't played well in a while. He's lost a step that he couldn't afford to lose in the first place. But with that said, I'd take him in a heartbeat over Lashoff or Kindl.

That's a low bar to set, though. We shouldn't be looking to sign the best 15 minute a night guy in the league - we should be looking to grab a guy who we can send out there for 20+ minutes every night. If we can't get that, we'd be better off just promoting Marchenko or XO (or even Almqvist) because 15 minutes a night isn't the hardest thing to fill, and at least they'd have a higher ceiling and more of a future ahead of them..

 

[JmanWingsFan]

Because a guy has six years of accumulated mop up minutes doesn't elevate the quality of those six years. You want to keep pimping Greene, drop an email to the Kings, let'em know your break through.

A). Don't be ridiculous. These aren't mop up minutes. Matt Greene has been averaging 17 min TOI since 2007. Even if it were, we've already established that quality of competition has little correlation to performance.

B). Blatantly ignoring six years of data is the height of delusion. Actually, blatantly ignoring that Matt Greene ranks 4th amongst all Dmen who've logged at least 300 minutes of ice time in zone start adjusted GA20 is just being absurdly foolish.

 

[detredWINgs]

That's a low bar to set, though. We shouldn't be looking to sign the best 15 minute a night guy in the league - we should be looking to grab a guy who we can send out there for 20+ minutes every night. If we can't get that, we'd be better off just promoting Marchenko or XO (or even Almqvist) because 15 minutes a night isn't the hardest thing to fill, and at least they'd have a higher ceiling and more of a future ahead of them..

Personally I think we should be looking for both a 15-16 minute guy and a 20+ minute guy. So I wouldn't mind Greene, but certainly not as the only adjustment to our blueline. I think this team needs to upgrade on at least 2/3 of Quincey, Kindl, and Lashoff if we want to get the most out of our insane yet aging forward group.

 

[Flowah]

I can't believe anyone would argue that Smith is the team's best defenseman.... Hockey stats aren't yet at the caliber of baseball stats (and might never be) and to use them as such seems like a very foolish endeavor.

 

[JmanWingsFan]

Personally I think we should be looking for both a 15-16 minute guy and a 20+ minute guy. So I wouldn't mind Greene, but certainly not as the only adjustment to our blueline. I think this team needs to upgrade on at least 2/3 of Quincey, Kindl, and Lashoff if we want to get the most out of our insane yet aging forward group.

I would trade Kindl for a pick(s) and sign both Henrik Tallinder and Marek Zidlicky. There's a top pair right there for approximately $7m in cap space.

I put this together on Capgeek:

CAPGEEK.COM ARMCHAIR GM ROSTER
CapGeek Armchair GM Roster
FORWARDS
Henrik Zetterberg ($6.083m) / Pavel Datsyuk ($7.500m) / Justin Abdelkader ($1.800m)
Johan Franzen ($3.955m) / David Legwand ($4.500m) / Gustav Nyquist ($0.950m)
Tomas Tatar ($1.500m) / Riley Sheahan ($1.500m) / Tomas Jurco ($0.709m)
Mason Raymond ($2.500m) / Stephen Weiss ($4.900m) / Daniel Alfredsson ($4.500m)
Luke Glendening ($0.605m) / Landon Ferraro ($0.870m)

DEFENSEMEN
Henrik Tallinder ($3.000m) / Marek Zidlicky ($4.000m)
Niklas Kronwall ($4.750m) / Jonathan Ericsson ($4.250m)
Danny DeKeyser ($2.750m) / Brendan Smith ($1.263m)
Brian Lashoff ($0.725m) /

GOALTENDERS
Jimmy Howard ($5.292m)
Petr Mrazek ($0.595m)

BUYOUTS
Carlo Colaiacovo ($0.000m)
Jordin Tootoo ($0.000m)
------
CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter)
(estimations for 2014-15)
SALARY CAP: $71,100,000; CAP PAYROLL: $68,496,212; BONUSES: $410,833
CAP SPACE (23-man roster): $2,603,788

Traded: Helm, Kindl

 

[Winger98]

Personally I think we should be looking for both a 15-16 minute guy and a 20+ minute guy. So I wouldn't mind Greene, but certainly not as the only adjustment to our blueline. I think this team needs to upgrade on at least 2/3 of Quincey, Kindl, and Lashoff if we want to get the most out of our insane yet aging forward group.

I don't see a big enough difference between Lashoff and Greene to pay a premium for it. If Kindl/Lashoff become a problem in such a role, I'd look internally for that fix before I look anywhere else. This season, we could still give XO an extended look there. Or Almqvist. Next year, bring Backman over for a look in training camp. Open the spot up to Marchenko.

We won a cup with Lebda/Lilja as our last pair. another cup with Dandeneult/Duchesne. These guy we throw out there for a handful of minutes and just ask them to not screw up, a lot of guys end up being able to handle that.

A). Don't be ridiculous. These aren't mop up minutes. Matt Greene has been averaging 17 min TOI since 2007. Even if it were, we've already established that quality of competition has little correlation to performance.

B). Blatantly ignoring six years of data is the height of delusion. Actually, blatantly ignoring that Matt Greene ranks 4th amongst all Dmen who've logged at least 300 minutes of ice time in zone start adjusted GA20 is just being absurdly foolish.

The last time Matt Greene averaged 17 minutes a game was 09/10. The guy gets mop up minutes for a club that's consistently been among the top10 for the past five years in goals and shots allowed. You want to know why not a lot of goals are scored when he's on the ice? Look at the team around him. There are not a lot of goals scored against LA when anyone is on the ice, and that's been true for his entire career there. You could revive the hockey corpse of Andreas Lilja's NHL career and he'd look like a incredible #6 on those Kings teams for the past five years.

 

[Flowah]

I'd rather trade Weiss over Helm if he's going to be playing bottom line minutes. Just the thought of paying some guy 4.9M a season to play 10 minutes a night is sickening. I also don't see the value of having him play wing. The entire reason his acquisition happened is so he could play center. We have enough top6 wingers without him, and bottom6 wingers come way cheaper.

Legwand + Sheahan's emergence has made Weiss very expendable. Add to that we're still carrying Andersson and Helm next year and possibly Glendening.

I guess the only question is, can Weiss be traded? I doubt it.

 

[InjuredChoker]

2 injury riddled season, that contract, modified NTC and NMC and on pace for 12 points or so... yeah, he ain't going anywhere. would have to bounce back and/or retain salary.

don't know how clauses work with expansion drafts but the best hope is he establishes himself as useful player again and DRW leave him unprotected and expansion team takes him. think henkka brought up that scenario.

 

[glovesaves35]

I would let Alfie walk. Nothing to do with his play, that has been fine. But we need considerable help on the blue line and the money has to come from somewhere. I like Legwands grit so I think he has good value to this team. Weiss we wouldnt be able to move after the season he has had. We have an abundance of forwards so, for me its Alfie who needs to go. Going into another season without retooling our D would be painful to see.

 

[joe89]

I'd rather trade Weiss over Helm if he's going to be playing bottom line minutes. Just the thought of paying some guy 4.9M a season to play 10 minutes a night is sickening. I also don't see the value of having him play wing. The entire reason his acquisition happened is so he could play center. We have enough top6 wingers without him, and bottom6 wingers come way cheaper.

Legwand + Sheahan's emergence has made Weiss very expendable. Add to that we're still carrying Andersson and Helm next year and possibly Glendening.

I guess the only question is, can Weiss be traded? I doubt it.

They will surely give Weiss plenty of time to reinvent himself before making any further decision. All of next season for sure. If it's not happening it's not happening. A buyout beyond next season isn't the end of the world, when the cap reaches north of $75M.

 

[Flowah]

don't know how clauses work with expansion drafts but the best hope is he establishes himself as useful player again and DRW leave him unprotected and expansion team takes him. think henkka brought up that scenario.

That would just be the stars aligning for Holland. He'd be great for an expansion team.

I've never wanted to see a team in Seattle so badly.

 

[JmanWingsFan]

The last time Matt Greene averaged 17 minutes a game was 09/10.

The last time Matt Greene averaged 17 minutes a game was 11/12. Get your facts straight.

The guy gets mop up minutes

Again, this is irrelevant. On top of that, your words are meaningless because you have provided no sort of evidence that he is actually receiving mop up minutes.

for a club that's consistently been among the top10 for the past five years in goals and shots allowed. You want to know why not a lot of goals are scored when he's on the ice? Look at the team around him. There are not a lot of goals scored against LA when anyone is on the ice, and that's been true for his entire career there.

This argument is terrible, and it shows your utter lack of understanding and refusal to use any kind of substance to argue with. Once again, I point you to Matt Greene's statistics

In his entire career as an LA King, Matt Greene has had many more seasons where is on ice GA20 and GF% are greater than the Team GA20 and GF% than the opposite. Ergo, his team performs better than average when he is on the ice than when he is not. Matt Greene probably is a third pairing defenseman. Saying he isn't good flies directly in the face of factual data, and subsequently the truth.

You could revive the hockey corpse of Andreas Lilja's NHL career and he'd look like a incredible #6 on those Kings teams for the past five years.

Yeah, no, it doesn't work that way.

 

[Winger98]

Matt Greene: 16:40 TOI/G

 

[InjuredChoker]

It doesn't work that way. Fenwick and Corsi measure exactly what they want to measure- offensive events that lead to scoring goals. Shot differential, if you will. You've provided absolutely no evidence to the contrary that these stats are inaccurate.

well i can describe situations which can lead them to being inaccurate/misleading. but you can always say, well stats disagree .

while there is correlation with corsi/fenwick and winning % and with it's reliability but there is still room for improvement. i've neither yet to see that differences like what smith and kronwall have in their corsi, makes smith the better player considering their usage, ice time, track record etc.

like when comes time to back check, the other F goes for a change and the other backchecks his ass off. the former will get have corsi and his teammates who jump in for him have worse. or for dman who chips the puck out of the zone and giving it to opposing team will have better corsi relative to his teammates than one who takes control of possession before going for a change, allowing his own team to have possession. as the ones jumping in have the puck in latter situation but not in the former. not that these situations happen awfully often but things like that could influence corsi.

You mean to tell me that sometimes in probability, events don't always go the way of general trends?

there has been quite a big difference in pdo between teams like this discussed here or here, or little related here and what david johnson wrote at hockeyanalysis.com in article 'Why corsi/possession should not be the goal' iirc.. site ain't working for me right now. and more between individual players.

i think corsi and fenwick, in general tells what teams/players are good or bad but not in every case.

and not in small samples like with smith as just a while ago he didn't have the best corsi in the team. weber has worse corsi than ryan ellis, suter than some meh wild dman, OEL and schlemko or with pens F's, hawks D etc.

and the difference isn't that big that it wouldn't be possible that scoring chances are for kronner's way.

and fwiw the differences are very small,almost non-existent in road stats. little closer in fenwick than corsi. at road you can't decide matchups nearly as well. zs. adjusted stats, there is noticeably larger difference again but as smith has only 0.3% more d-zone starts and 4.8% less o-zone starts, i'm not sure about their reliability/relevance. play 10 secs after the faceoff is also important. i'm not convinced on them esp. in this instance as smith has more favorable zone starts. eliminating first 10 secs should help him but it does otherwise.

too bad that one can't quickly look up what kind of linemates and what kind of players one was up against in different zone starts to see if that could explain the difference. that is another thing that can't be measured or looked up statistically. hopefully some day.

the difference between smith's normal and oz-start is interesting though. but as he doesn't have brutal zone starts, i wonder where the difference comes from. some could be on icings. smith has had fairly many of them. so dzone face-off, and if wings fin the faceoff they just get it out of the zone and go for a change. i'm not convinced that would explain all of it, though. or is it just randomness. and there could be also some of that when player A gets the puck, he just dumps it out when he's at the end of the his shift and player B suffers. and player B keeps the possession and thus helps player A.

Says you, failing to explain what precisely they don't measure.

Wait... You can measure that with Fenwick and Corsi. People do measure that with fenwick and Corsi. So you're actually contradicting your own point.

no they, measure shot differentials and over large sample sizes and in most cases, scoring chances. they don't measure what lead to that situation, what did the player(s) do/not do, was it the right play and why etc. or what kind of player one is and i think that is fairly important part of player evaluation.

one can explain why datsyuk, crosby are great players by just watching them. or doughty or subban and shane'o brien or bouillon are lot worse than them. it can be confirmed with stats quite easily.

i don't really see the same smith being better than kronner. and i haven't heard or read arguments that what they do on the ice that results in better corsi. it is easily visible on-ice in karlsson above andrew macdonald case but not in smith above kronner.

and i think that difference in corsi is explained by reasons already mentioned and as smith does have slightly higher GA despite better corsi it could also come from that with kronner he has prevented the higher quality chance, while not so with smith and it has ended up in net. in smith's case there's no second chances or possession for the opposition. probably some others too that are escaping me or am not smart enough to come up with.

i'd expect there to be some regression. and though QOC metrics are not be the most reliable ones imo, i definitely think that kronner's job (playing against better players and having more ice time) is way harder than smith's. reasons why corsi and pdo are not telling are imo that coaches mostly play they better players against better players. and use them correctly. not always but mostly so those numbers tend to regress to mean. and the league is fairly close so that's why we have less andrew macdonald's.

Confirmation Bias: YOUR STATS DON'T COUNT BECAUSE THEY FACTUALLY CONTRADICT WHAT I SAY.

umm, no. quincey's and smith's wowy stats aren't relevant because of timing. smith (and quincey too) played bad at the start of the season. they were mostly together back then. smith started play better after he came back from injury (and ironically learned from watching kronwall) and they have been away a fair amount since then. they were mostly together at the start.

so i don't see reason why smith's stats away from quincey and quincey's stats away from smith would work as a fact that smith wasn't bad defensively at the start of the season as those happened much later. some was on quincey, but smith made a lot of mistakes there and many were quite down on him... fwiw. and had been until he came back from this late injury, though his corsi was never bad.

i don't think one can statistically measure who made more mistakes at the time. smith's stats since then hint that he wasn't at fault but it's not conclusive.

Except, according to the analysis provided in that article, the opposite is true.

it doesn't about scoring this season.

now i don't think bozak will maintain that or is very good player but so far

kessel with bozak: 588:00 min, GF/20: 1.258, GF%: 59.7, 31 points
without bozak: 464:55, GF/20: 0.731, GF%: 48.6, 15 points

from hockeyanalysis as of now (upd. mar 5th)

don't have pp numbers but just a while ago read tweet from (reliable) leafs beat writer that kessel was on something like 95 points pace with bozak and 65 without.

and bozak definitely does benefit playing with him. and bozak's stats away from kessel are lol-worthy but don't know the usage and context in those situations, in addition to small sample size.