Prospect Info: Morgan Barron

[Kovalev27]

So you're saying a 21-year old prospect can still improve his skating?

barron probably runs faster than lias can skate. That’s how bad lias is lol

 

[LokiDog]

Do you have some evidence of this? The Rangers moved Dubinsky pretty much because they wanted Rick Nash so bad. Brandon was a good player--Anisimov was a good player. Neither of them could or would ever carry a team's offense or even be a legit 1st liner. They've also gotten older and more injury prone. It happens. Stepan is also a good player but his game kind of caught up to him and his offense has tumbled--his issue is he was always a mediocre skater. That hurts more now than 3/4 years ago. Some guys also fit better with certain teams as well. He's a heady player and good defensively and smart with the puck.

I don't know whether Barron walks into an NHL job and if he does he'll be in the bottom 6. He's likely to spend at least some time in Hartford.

So Duby’s last year as a Ranger he put up 34 points in 77 games. The year prior he’d put up 54 in 77. The next year, as a Blue Jacket was the lockout shortened season. In true Duby fashion he missed 19 games, but he posted 20 points in 29 games which was actually his best point per game statistically of his career. The following year he had 50 points and he had another 48 point year in Columbus as well, so this narrative is not accurate. He was injury prone, played a hard style and always missed a handful/bunch of games. The only years in which he wasn’t a 40-50 point player, with or without missing time, were that one 34 point season before he was traded and the final two as a Blue Jacket when injuries had just destroyed his game.

 

[aufheben]

I would like to see Barron at center. If Chytil has any chance of being a center, his faceoff % better go way up next year. You can't be an NHL center and win around 40% of your draws.

McDavid won an Art Ross with a face off percentage 3 points better than Chytil.

 

[eco's bones]

So Duby’s last year as a Ranger he put up 34 points in 77 games. The year prior he’d put up 54 in 77. The next year, as a Blue Jacket was the lockout shortened season. In true Duby fashion he missed 19 games, but he posted 20 points in 29 games which was actually his best point per game statistically of his career. The following year he had 50 points and he had another 48 point year in Columbus as well, so this narrative is not accurate. He was injury prone, played a hard style and always missed a handful/bunch of games. The only years in which he wasn’t a 40-50 point player, with or without missing time, were that one 34 point season before he was traded and the final two as a Blue Jacket when injuries had just destroyed his game.

I don't know if you're critiquing my post or the post I was commenting on but your post is curiously similar to mine. I liked Dubinsky--I liked him better than Callahan or Anisimov in fact. He played a hard, gritty game. Occasionally he'd lose it a bit but I can live with that. The reason he was moved more than anything was that Rick Nash was a big time scoring winger--a legit 1st liner and expected to automatically become our best player outside of Lundqvist. Now I have some reservations about how well Nash lived up to the expectations we had of him but we were clearly seen to be getting the best player in the deal. Dubinsky and the 1st were the pieces that hurt--Anisimov (a good player) and Erixon not so much. But in any case I was a Dubinsky fan. I still like him....but yeah he seems to be finished.

 

[eco's bones]

I would like to see Barron at center. If Chytil has any chance of being a center, his faceoff % better go way up next year. You can't be an NHL center and win around 40% of your draws.

If there is an issue that Barron might have it's his skating. Chytil's skating is excellent (speed, grace, power, mobility/agility whatever metric you want to use) and personally I'd rather have a center that skates well and is so/so on face-offs than a center who is so/so on skating and good on face-offs. I see Chytil eventually becoming at least a very good NHL 2C with a decent chance of becoming a legit 1C. I see Barron whether he's a center or wing most likely becoming a bottom 6 forward. Keep in mind that Chytil is a couple years younger than Barron with two full NHL seasons. He doesn't hit legal drinking age until next season. Div. 1 college hockey is very competitive. It's not the NHL.

 

[LokiDog]

I don't know if you're critiquing my post or the post I was commenting on but your post is curiously similar to mine. I liked Dubinsky--I liked him better than Callahan or Anisimov in fact. He played a hard, gritty game. Occasionally he'd lose it a bit but I can live with that. The reason he was moved more than anything was that Rick Nash was a big time scoring winger--a legit 1st liner and expected to automatically become our best player outside of Lundqvist. Now I have some reservations about how well Nash lived up to the expectations we had of him but we were clearly seen to be getting the best player in the deal. Dubinsky and the 1st were the pieces that hurt--Anisimov (a good player) and Erixon not so much. But in any case I was a Dubinsky fan. I still like him....but yeah he seems to be finished.

You asked someone else if there was any

I don't know if you're critiquing my post or the post I was commenting on but your post is curiously similar to mine. I liked Dubinsky--I liked him better than Callahan or Anisimov in fact. He played a hard, gritty game. Occasionally he'd lose it a bit but I can live with that. The reason he was moved more than anything was that Rick Nash was a big time scoring winger--a legit 1st liner and expected to automatically become our best player outside of Lundqvist. Now I have some reservations about how well Nash lived up to the expectations we had of him but we were clearly seen to be getting the best player in the deal. Dubinsky and the 1st were the pieces that hurt--Anisimov (a good player) and Erixon not so much. But in any case I was a Dubinsky fan. I still like him....but yeah he seems to be finished.

You asked someone else if they had any evidence of Duby being lazy after getting paid by NY and becoming a bum. I was just chiming in that that narrative wasn’t correct. I loved Duby. It’s too bad he’s done, but it’s very similar to Callahan. They played their asses off until they couldn’t play at a high level anymore but both were super enjoyable as Rangers.

 

[usekakkorightquinn]

Do you have some evidence of this? The Rangers moved Dubinsky pretty much because they wanted Rick Nash so bad. Brandon was a good player--Anisimov was a good player. Neither of them could or would ever carry a team's offense or even be a legit 1st liner. They've also gotten older and more injury prone. It happens. Stepan is also a good player but his game kind of caught up to him and his offense has tumbled--his issue is he was always a mediocre skater. That hurts more now than 3/4 years ago. Some guys also fit better with certain teams as well. He's a heady player and good defensively and smart with the puck.

I don't know whether Barron walks into an NHL job and if he does he'll be in the bottom 6. He's likely to spend at least some time in Hartford.

Go ask Rangers fans who remembered what he looked like when he signed his first major contract. He came into a camp a fat pig.

 

[eco's bones]

Go ask Rangers fans who remembered what he looked like when he signed his first major contract. He came into a camp a fat pig.

I remember a little more about Dubinsky than perhaps you do. It seems like you're almost mistaking him for Pavel Brendl. Dubinsky played junior for the Portland Winter Hawks of the WHL and when the Rangers drafted him in the second round of whatever year that was way back when he was like 5'10 and 175 lbs. and the main comparison I remember for him was Darcy Tucker who was kind of that generation's version of Brad Marchand. A smallish very gritty agitator with skill. Dubinsky in his draft year in fact was voted most hated player in his WHL conference because that was the kind of game he played. He was a for real asshole to play against and it's always better to have that kind of player if he's any good on your team than not. A couple years laters he shows up at the Rangers camp (after having a major growth spurt one summer) at 6'2. Dubinsky wasn't fat--his problem was adapting to being a much larger player at the same time he was making his jump from the CHL to the pros. So you have a player learning how to play a bigger man's game and I think that was part of the reason the Rangers put Dubinsky with Jagr so Jagr could tutor him on how to use his size. But if you look at the second round of that draft--whatever year it was--you'll also find the Rangers had two first rounders--Montoya and Korpikoski and 4 2nd rounders (Bruce Graham, Dane Byers and someone else I forget--his dad was a college coach though and a friend of Glen Sather) the last of whom was Dubinsky who easily turned into the best player out of all 6 of them. We also had two 3rd rounders (Zdenek Bahensky was one of them) that busted and Ryan Callahan who either went in the 4th or 5th--I forget which exactly.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

Matthew Barzal: 41.6%
Elias Pettersson: 41.8%
Nathan MacKinnon: 43.1%
Evgeny Kuznetzov: 43.3%

A lot of young players are bad at faceoffs. Barzal and Pettersson get passes. MacKinnon and Kuznetzov having a percentage that low is extremely alarming. Top centers should not have a face off percentage under 49%.

 

[aufheben]

A lot of young players are bad at faceoffs. Barzal and Pettersson get passes. MacKinnon and Kuznetzov having a percentage that low is extremely alarming. Top centers should not have a face off percentage under 49%.

I disagree, 48% is sufficient.

 

[TheDirtyH]

A lot of young players are bad at faceoffs. Barzal and Pettersson get passes. MacKinnon and Kuznetzov having a percentage that low is extremely alarming. Top centers should not have a face off percentage under 49%.

I feel like everytime I watch the Avs it's Landeskog taking the faceoff anyway. That's getting more and more common, with the first big example being Jamie Benn taking faceoffs for Seguin in Dallas when he first got there and hadn't played much center in the NHL yet. Chris Kreider takes a bunch of faceoffs for us even.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

I disagree, 48% is sufficient.

Haha

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

Haha

Face offs are overrated

 

[The Crypto Guy]

Face offs are overrated

I disagree. Especially for a player who is playing 20+ minutes a game and is taking those big draws at the end of the game to try and score a game tying goal, or the guy taking that OT face off.

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

I disagree. Especially for a player who is playing 20+ minutes a game and is taking those big draws at the end of the game to try and score a game tying goal.

I'm not saying they are not important at all. But their impact on the game is overrated. In certain situations, sure. You need to win a face off. But 90% of the time the face off only determines the next 5-10 seconds of possession

 

[usekakkorightquinn]

No, you don't remember more about Dubinsky than I do. If you could read which is debatable, I said when he got his first big contract he turned into a blimp. In 2011, they signed him to a 4 year, 16.8 million dollar contract coming off his first 50+ point season. The next year the blimp had 34 points in 77 games and the Rangers smartly got rid of the dough boy. I can remember like it was yesterday people talking before camp how Dubinsky looked fat. They were not wrong. For a guy that got as much ice time as he did, he was not that productive. Any Rangers fan could tell you he also had absurdly long stretches of games where he did absolutely nothing each season. Callahan was a much better Ranger.

 

[Leetch3]

all faceoffs are not created equal...the ability to bare down and win a draw when it matters is way more important than overall winning %. obviously the assumption is that those are related and if you are good overall, you are more likely to win that important draw. but if you are really good overall but then get beat on the key faceoffs you suck lol

 

[nyr2k2]

Yeah, I've seen studies talking about how the impact of face-offs is minimal on overall possession or goal scoring. It doesn't imply that it's not important, just that it's not as important as it is often portrayed.

Of course, we've often seen the Rangers lose a draw in the defensive zone and then get hemmed in for 1:30. The takeaway there, however, is that the defense sucks, and an average defense would be able to regain control or at least make a clear well before our inept group would.

Why faceoffs aren't as important as they're made out to be - TheHockeyNews
Do Faceoffs Really Make A Difference?
https://www.si.com/nhl/2017/03/03/illustrated-review-importance-nhl-faceoff

These are just a few articles about face-offs and their importance. There are plenty more. Some make less-conclusive arguments, but in general, the conclusions are about the same. What happens immediately after the face-off and the ability of the players beyond face-offs has a much bigger impact on goals and wins.

 

[Leetch3]

Yeah, I've seen studies talking about how the impact of face-offs is minimal on overall possession or goal scoring. It doesn't imply that it's not important, just that it's not as important as it is often portrayed.

Of course, we've often seen the Rangers lose a draw in the defensive zone and then get hemmed in for 1:30. The takeaway there, however, is that the defense sucks, and an average defense would be able to regain control or at least make a clear well before our inept group would.

Why faceoffs aren't as important as they're made out to be - TheHockeyNews
Do Faceoffs Really Make A Difference?
https://www.si.com/nhl/2017/03/03/illustrated-review-importance-nhl-faceoff

These are just a few articles about face-offs and their importance. There are plenty more. Some make less-conclusive arguments, but in general, the conclusions are about the same. What happens immediately after the face-off and the ability of the players beyond face-offs has a much bigger impact on goals and wins.

It is interesting info but I think it is a partially flawed argument though if you are looking at all faceoffs. how many of those faceoffs were in the neutral zone so logically they won't directly lead to a shot...also need to separate defensive and offensive zone draws...if you are in the defensive zone and your win doesn't result in a shot attempt that is a good thing.

the argument reminds me of the MLB theory that strikes don't matter and therefore its ok for the yankees to have 6 guys with 300+ strikeouts in the lineup...like faceoffs, not all strike outs are the same. over 162 games, yes the majority of strike outs don't matter...but come playoff time, late in the game of a close game, bases loaded with no outs. whether or not the pitcher can bare down and get the K or a hitter can put the ball in play to push a run across matters alot. but you are skewing the data by including all of them and not just isolated situations.

 

[nyr2k2]

It is interesting info but I think it is a partially flawed argument though if you are looking at all faceoffs. how many of those faceoffs were in the neutral zone so logically they won't directly lead to a shot...also need to separate defensive and offensive zone draws...if you are in the defensive zone and your win doesn't result in a shot attempt that is a good thing.

the argument reminds me of the MLB theory that strikes don't matter and therefore its ok for the yankees to have 6 guys with 300+ strikeouts in the lineup...like faceoffs, not all strike outs are the same. over 162 games, yes the majority of strike outs don't matter...but come playoff time, late in the game of a close game, bases loaded with no outs. whether or not the pitcher can bare down and get the K or a hitter can put the ball in play to push a run across matters alot. but you are skewing the data by including all of them and not just isolated situations.

I definitely understand your point. And I have seen studies that do take into consideration the location of the draw.

I know one of the things I've read is that over a career, there's not really any difference between a guy's ability to win an offensive zone face-off or one in the d-zone. So whatever team success with O vs NZ vs D is limited to how they deploy their face-off takers. But, even that evens out--your face-off ace may usually take the big D draws, but over the course of a season will also be out for lots of O draws. So the differentiation between success at offensive zone face-offs and defensive zone face-offs becomes minimal.

http://statsportsconsulting.com/main/wp-content/uploads/FaceoffAnalysis12-12.pdf

That's an older study. It takes kind of a different tack, and is focusing like you said on the difference in face-off types (including special teams), to determine is an adjusted FO% is something that's warranted. They use all sorts of fancy math to find that in the season they studied, the best face-off team earned 6.1 goals per season, or basically one win, from face-offs. And the worst team lost 5.3 goals, which was also about equal to one win.

There are obviously a number of situations where a won or lost draw makes a big difference in the outcome, but in the grand scheme of things it's minimal. That seems to be more or less the consensus of all the objective analyses.

 

[ecemleafs]

If faceoffs were so important, would it not be reflected in the players possession statistics and points? Like if they lost the faceoff and weren't good enough to get the puck back and create offense, than those stats would suffer. If a player has strong possession statistics and produces points despite a poor faceoff percentage than the totality of their game more than compensates for their faceoff ability.

 

[GAGLine]

If faceoffs were so important, would it not be reflected in the players possession statistics and points? Like if they lost the faceoff and weren't good enough to get the puck back and create offense, than those stats would suffer. If a player has strong possession statistics and produces points despite a poor faceoff percentage than the totality of their game more than compensates for their faceoff ability.

The faceoff is only one variable that goes into a player's possession time and point production. It's impossible to quantify how much faceoffs contribute to a player's success, but the idea that they don't matter at all is nonsense. Analytics people like to look at large volumes to establish trends and they dismiss small sample sizes, but with faceoffs, it's at the smallest sample sizes where they matter the most. Who cares if it all averages out over the course of a season? What matters is winning this game, this period and this shift. When the game is on the line, you'll be glad there's a guy in the circle who can win a faceoff.

 

[nyr2k2]

The faceoff is only one variable that goes into a player's possession time and point production. It's impossible to quantify how much faceoffs contribute to a player's success, but the idea that they don't matter at all is nonsense. Analytics people like to look at large volumes to establish trends and they dismiss small sample sizes, but with faceoffs, it's at the smallest sample sizes where they matter the most. Who cares if it all averages out over the course of a season? What matters is winning this game, this period and this shift. When the game is on the line, you'll be glad there's a guy in the circle who can win a faceoff.

I have never seen anyone who produced a study on this topic who concluded that face-offs don't matter at all. They generally conclude that face-offs have been over-emphasized over time, that other things a player can or cannot do are far more important, and that the difference between a good face-off team and a bad face-off team might be a couple points over the course of the season. And I disagree that you can't quantify how much a face-off contributes to a player's success--as do the numerous write-ups on this topic.

That one point, about a few points over the season, is important--of course a few points matter. It can be the difference between not making the playoffs or a WC spot, a WC spot vs top 3, winning the conference, whatever. But, like one article I shared noted, you can have a guy like Jarrett Stoll--when we acquired him, he was a great face-off guy, but was a horrible possession player otherwise. So he may have won draws, but everything else he did far outweighed what he was doing on the dot. Maybe a great face-off guy is out there at the end of a game, wins the draw, you score, and then win in OT. That's awesome. If that guy sucks at everything else, does that one won draw outweigh his otherwise crappy play, which may cost you in multiple other games?

Moreover, these studies, including the math-heavy one I posted just a couple posts up, will tell you that even the best face-off guys will earn you around 4 goals per season (cumulative, on both ends). And 4 goals is great--but are there other things that can be targeted that make you better? If you find a decent face-off guy who is great driving play, he's almost certainly going to be worth more GAR than someone who is great at face-offs but decent driving play.

Face-offs matter. I think everyone agrees. They just don't matter as much as some people seem to believe.

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

Face-offs matter. I think everyone agree. They just don't matter as much as some believe.

 

[LokiDog]

Barron intrigues me. What my tempered expectation or hope is, is that he becomes a solid fourth line guy in the new NHL mould, where he can actually play hockey and be an asset, along the lines of your Sean Kuraly’s, or whoever you wanna use as a comparison.

My optimism goads next into saying he has the motor and smarts to be a step above that. A guy who can play anywhere in your bottom six and be the kind of guy that any team would love to have there.