More irritating argument? Icetime or quality of teammates?

[daver]

Which argument grinds your gears more?

If X player got Y player's icetime they would score more points!

Put X player on Y player's team and they would score more points!

Click to read more...

 

[Leonhard Euler]

Give Daniel Sprong 3 more minutes of ice every night but he plays with Cullen or Grant as his center
or
Give Daniel Sprong no extra minutes but during the minutes he's on ice Crosby or Malkin are his centers

Which Sprong produces more?

 

[StoneHands]

Icetime. A player can earn more icetime by playing the game the right way and earning the coach's trust. We're also talking about a couple extra shifts a game when players are already tired and pretending like it would have some huge impact. If a player plays for a bad team and has crap linemates that's obviously going to affect his numbers.

 

[LT]

The type of ice-time matters a lot. Asking for a few more shifts a game probably won’t do anything. Asking to be on a PP or PK unit could be a significant change that leads to better results.

The linemates argument has almost always proven to never work. Rick Nash and Marian Gaborik are prime examples. Within a team, it probably happens more (e.g. Couturier).

 

[StoneHands]

The type of ice-time matters a lot. Asking for a few more shifts a game probably won’t do anything. Asking to be on a PP or PK unit could be a significant change that leads to better results.

The linemates argument has almost always proven to never work. Rick Nash and Marian Gaborik are prime examples. Within a team, it probably happens more (e.g. Couturier).

Of course getting more PP time would result in more points but you earn PP time. No team has their best offensive weapons on the bench during the PP. Prove to your coach you can produce and prove you work well on the PP in practice and you'll get your shot.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

Context irritates you?

 

[snipes]

Icetime.

Especially when people infer that it would lead to a linear increase in production without thinking about more ice time means less rest per shift and more energy exerted leading to less energy per shift.

The worst though is the P1/60 5 v 5 is more important than a 30+ point raw point differential crowd from a certain group out east because it’s the one stat that favours their guy.

 

[daver]

Context irritates you?

When it is used to try to move a player up to the level of another player, especially when talking about the very elite, than I find these arguments have very little merit.

 

[The Moose is Loose]

The ice time argument is unbelievably embarrassing when you're arguing the benefits of the jump from 19 to 23 minutes a night.

I think it has some merit for a talent guy who is stuck on the 3rd line getting 13 min a game.
But I voted ice time because of fans who think their star players will also score more with more time when if anything, its a negative.

 

[TheMule93]

When it is used to try to move a player up to the level of another player, especially when talking about the very elite, than I find these arguments have very little merit.

why do you care so much about people's opinions on players to the point where it frustrates you? Their opinions change absolutely nothing

 

[Cup or Bust]

Ice time easily because there is nothing to back up the argument at all. Of course if we talk extremes it will have a big impact like if a guy was only playing 10 minutes a game, but for anyone playing about the league average for a first liner, it pretty is pretty much eliminated. The players who score more play on better teams and better offensive teams. Pittsburgh didn't score 15 goals in 2 games recently because Malkin and Crosby played more minutes. Kopitar, Scheifle, and Barkov are playing 22 minutes a night, they are not scoring at a special rate. They certainly aren't leading the league at the moment, do people think they are inferior players? Kopitar had 92 points last season, but the Kings were a much better team last season, he still is playing a lot of minutes but only has 4 points in 10 games so far. The Boston line has only been playing about 18-19 minutes a night the last few seasons and racking up points, is it because of their minutes played or the chemistry and quality of the linemates? Landeskog is having an amazing start to the season. He played 20 minutes a night last season and had 62 points and had 33 the year before in just under 19 minutes a game. So his minutes played has not changed that much, but he is scoring at a far greater pace this season, probably due to playing with great linemates on a team that is scoring a lot of goals. There is far more involved in players offensive success than how many minutes they play.

 

[Filthy Dangles]

Per 60 makes me cringe.

It's such a simple and indisputable truth that efficiency goes down as volume goes up. When someone uses P/60 to try and pump up a clearly inferior player because they are supposedly more efficient is annyoing af.

 

[Volica]

P/60, Icetime easily outweighs Quality of Teammates in terms of annoyance on this board.

 

[bobholly39]

Icetime.

Its up to you to earn more icetime. It shouldnt be used in comparing players

 

[IPS]

If the ice-time that's missing is PP time, you'd be pretty stupid not to think that the player's production wouldn't increase with increased PP time.

Linemates argument though? It's subjective in every aspect.

 

[North Cole]

If the ice-time that's missing is PP time, you'd be pretty stupid not to think that the player's production wouldn't increase with increased PP time.

Linemates argument though? It's subjective in every aspect.

The reverse is true if its even strength time that's missing. Or PK time...Linemates is about chemistry, some stars just don't play well together because they each need to drive the play. Problem is both arguments are technically subjective. Subjectively, would a guy player better with a better linemate, or subjectively, would a guys increased ice-time be guaranteed to be PP time? In both cases you have to make assumptions.

Problem I have with the second scenario, is that you are assuming that a coach doesn't know to a pretty good estimate, what a players optimal ice-time is. A coach should probably be questioned if he's playing a guy 18 minutes a night who is a star player, but would produce more at 23 minutes a night. That's really poor utilization of a player, my only conclusion must be that he knows the player will not produce more, or will produce more in the short term and then be utterly useless by game 70.

The thing about a hockey season is that the best a player can hope to do is maintain his weight and muscle mass. They cannot gain mass throughout the season unless they are eating poorly, because the strength training aspect of their regiment is largely eliminated when they practice/condition everyday and play 3-4 times a week. You can't lift heavy weights and be recovered in time for games, this is why offseason training is so important. So where is the precedent for players who should have a lot of trouble physically improving themselves throughout the season, to suddenly begin taking on 15-20%+ more physical wear during games (toi)?

EDIT - It took Klefbom 4 years to become comfortable with his current ice time. They spoke about it in the game last night, he said he used to feel gassed after 19 minutes of ice time, now he is playing ~25mins per night (he's also not running and gunning like a forward). Evidence suggests that any increase in this department is gradual, or not at all.

NOTE - I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT ANY PLAYERS IN PARTICULAR, ice-times are just estimates.

 

[qqaz]

Which argument grinds your gears more?

If X player got Y player's icetime they would score more points!

Put X player on Y player's team and they would score more points!

They're both valid arguments, depending on how they're used. What's the problem?

 

[Varan]

ice-time easily

 

[JaegerDice]

Linemates.

Quality of linemates is essentially cancelled out by quality of competition. The best players generally draw the best competition over the course of 82 games and/or playoff series, whatever benefit a player gets by playing further up the lineup is met with the challenge of doing so against the obstacle of stiffer competition facing them every shift.

Which is generally why the guys getting the best linemates are usually also the guys drawing the toughest matchups, with some edge cases made for teams that have so much depth they can spread out matchups and give opposition a catch-22 in trying to contain their best players. Meanwhile, the guys getting softer matchups get worse linemates. Any time a fan complains 'player X always has to make due with trash linemates', they might want to check how much player X is getting sheltered. The guy with the easier job, relatively speaking, generally gets less help to do said job.

 

[tony d]

Icetime for me.

 

[Not My Tempo]

Icetime.

Especially when people infer that it would lead to a linear increase in production without thinking about more ice time means less rest per shift and more energy exerted leading to less energy per shift.

The worst though is the P1/60 5 v 5 is more important than a 30+ point raw point differential crowd from a certain group out east because it’s the one stat that favours their guy.

Icetime doesn’t lead to a linear increase, but disregarding icetime means you are assuming if a player was given more ice time he would get zero points in that additional ice time. Which sounds more reasonable to you. Assuming a player will continue scoring at their current rate, or assuming his producing falls down to zero in his additional ice time?

 

[Not My Tempo]

Linemates.

Quality of linemates is essentially cancelled out by quality of competition. The best players generally draw the best competition over the course of 82 games and/or playoff series, whatever benefit a player gets by playing further up the lineup is met with the challenge of doing so against the obstacle of stiffer competition facing them every shift.

Which is generally why the guys getting the best linemates are usually also the guys drawing the toughest matchups, with some edge cases made for teams that have so much depth they can spread out matchups and give opposition a catch-22 in trying to contain their best players. Meanwhile, the guys getting softer matchups get worse linemates. Any time a fan complains 'player X always has to make due with trash linemates', they might want to check how much player X is getting sheltered. The guy with the easier job, relatively speaking, generally gets less help to do said job.

That’s not true, quality of linemates has been shown to contribute around 5 times as much as quality of competition.

Model Description: Magnus

It might matter in terms of shift by shift basis, but over an entire season, there’s so much more variance in QoC than QoT that QoT just tells us a lot more

 

[WetcoastOrca]

Icetime.
The idea that a player’s points should be discounted because he is a workhorse that plays huge minutes is absurd.
As is the idea that a player’s points should automatically be increased because he plays fewer minutes and therefore is better rested when he does play.
It’s way more complicated than just looking at minutes played. For example, you need to look at how many of those minutes are on the PK? How many on the PP? Etc.

 

[bambamcam4ever]

The ice time argument is unbelievably embarrassing when you're arguing the benefits of the jump from 19 to 23 minutes a night.

I think it has some merit for a talent guy who is stuck on the 3rd line getting 13 min a game.
But I voted ice time because of fans who think their star players will also score more with more time when if anything, its a negative.

A 20% increase in ice time is pretty significant. If a player misses 20% of the season no one is going to say their point totals weren't affected.

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

c) People who pretend that neither of them matter, because they obviously do