News Article: News & Notes XXXIII: hockey pending

[Lempo]

When George R.R. Martin next has Theon Greyjoy pull a massive heel-face turn and take the Iron Throne in The Winds of Winter, you'll see kraken everywhere.

 

[DougieSmash]

According #NHLTopPlayers: Top Centers, Nos. 10-1 Aho is not top 10 center. But Zibanejad is lol.

From CompleteHockeyNews:

Most Takeaways - Forwards - 2017/18-2019/20 (TkA/60)
1. Connor McDavid - 263 (3.18)
2. Mark Stone - 259 (3.89)
3. Aleksander Barkov - 233 (2.85)
4. Ryan O’Reilly - 228 (2.82)
5. Mitch Marner - 227 (3.21)
6. Mikael Backlund - 223 (3.19)
7. Sebastian Aho - 211 (2.89)
8. Evgeni Malkin - 209 (3.27)
9. Leon Draisaitl - 209 (2.52)
10. William Karlsson - 205 (2.88)
11. Mathew Barzal - 201 (2.81)
12. Auston Matthews - 194 (3.02)
13. Jonathan Toews - 183 (2.40)
14. Reilly Smith - 179 (2.80)
15. Mark Scheifele - 178 (2.33)
16. Jeff Skinner - 177 (2.75)
17. Filip Forsberg - 176 (3.05)
18. Nick Schmaltz - 173 (3.22)
19. Sean Monahan - 172 (2.49)
20. Vincent Trocheck - 171 (2.65)

Most Takeaways - Defencemen - 2017/18-2019/20 (TkA/60)
1. Jaccob Slavin - 244 (2.74)
2. Brent Burns - 212 (2.15)
3. Mike Matheson - 173 (2.32)
4. Erik Karlsson - 166 (2.17)
5. Shea Theodore - 162 (2.20)
6. Mark Giordano - 159 (1.78)
7. Dmitry Orlov - 156 (1.79)
8. Seth Jones - 155 (1.76)
9. John Carlson - 155 (1.62)
10. Alex Pietrangelo - 152 (1.68)
11. TJ Brodie - 150 (1.90)
12. Kris Letang - 147 (1.67)
13. Noah Hanifin - 138 (1.78)
14. Nate Schmidt - 135 (1.88)
15. Brett Pesce - 134 (1.91)
16. Justin Faulk - 134 (1.62)
17. Victor Hedman - 125 (1.45)
18. Aaron Ekblad - 124 (1.37)
19. Mattias Ekholm - 121 (1.35)
20. Colton Parayko - 120 (1.39)
Moral of the story is that if you are a defenceman and want to get really, really good at stripping people of the puck, head to Carolina.

 

[bleedgreen]

I think Hanifin is capable of growing into a marginal defender, which is better than what most think of him.

I did not expect to see him between Slavin and Pesce in any defensive stat column.

 

[Navin R Slavin]

I think Hanifin is capable of growing into a marginal defender, which is better than what most think of him.

I did not expect to see him between Slavin and Pesce in any defensive stat column.

When you look at takeaways/60, he's not.

Also, Slavin isn't just #1 in that regard, he's way ahead, shockingly ahead.

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

Guys.

I said it will soon be dated, not obscure. Those are two completely different things.

Neither Raptors nor Mighty Ducks are obscure, but both are extremely dated. Nobody would even haves considered them as team names outside of a 3-year window. Kraken isn’t quite to that extreme, but it’s close.

Yeah they lived 65,000,000 years ago. But they are still very cool.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Also, Slavin isn't just #1 in that regard, he's way ahead, shockingly ahead.

That’s outlier-level domination. Holy shit.

 

[Navin R Slavin]

Guys.

I said it will soon be dated, not obscure. Those are two completely different things.

Neither Raptors nor Mighty Ducks are obscure, but both are extremely dated. Nobody would even haves considered them as team names outside of a 3-year window. Kraken isn’t quite to that extreme, but it’s close.

It's not.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

According #NHLTopPlayers: Top Centers, Nos. 10-1 Aho is not top 10 center. But Zibanejad is lol.

Why LOL?

Aho is one of my favorite players, but I would rank Zib ahead of him at C right now. Zib is also 27 and has been playing C for years, Aho is 22 and this is his 2nd season at the position.

 

[bleedgreen]

Yeah I’m not always convinced I even like Aho at center yet, let alone call him top ten in the league. Zibs might’ve scored 50 goals this season had it not stopped. He’s earned it.

 

[Svechhammer]

You know that will be the unofficial nickname around the league; and Krakheads for the fans!

BreakingTs is already selling a Krak Heads shirt....

And have been piled on by internet warriors calling them racists over it, because apparently that is a slur against African Americans. I'm not joking it's all over Twitter.

 

[MrazeksVengeance]

BreakingTs is already selling a Krak Heads shirt....

And have been piled on by internet warriors calling them racists over it, because apparently that is a slur against African Americans. I'm not joking it's all over Twitter.

PEOPLE SHOULD REALISE THAT THEY ARE DOING THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT THEY TRY TO ACHIEVE.

 

[SlavinAway]

That’s outlier-level domination. Holy shit.

Pretty equivalent to Stone for forwards. I knew he was good but that's impressive.

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

BreakingTs is already selling a Krak Heads shirt....

And have been piled on by internet warriors calling them racists over it, because apparently that is a slur against African Americans. I'm not joking it's all over Twitter.

Anyone guess it wasnt Nuclear warheads that will do us in, its social media

 

[Canes]

Yeah I’m not always convinced I even like Aho at center yet

Two of his most productive seasons have been at center, so I wonder what exactly he has to do to answer the "is Aho a center" question. He's led the team to the playoffs in consecutive seasons as the #1 center. Do we think he would be a 50 goal scorer and/or the first winger to win the Selke since Jere Lehtinen if he moved back to wing or something? I'm honestly wondering what the argument is.

 

[Lempo]

BreakingTs is already selling a Krak Heads shirt....

And have been piled on by internet warriors calling them racists over it, because apparently that is a slur against African Americans. I'm not joking it's all over Twitter.

Well. It's been long acknowledged that there's a serious disparity in the prison sentences for crack cocaine and powder cocaine, and that the reason for it would be that crack is more of a black people drug while powder coke is more of a white people drug.

So the Seattle Hockey Team obviously is not going to embrace this, and they probably will ban any Krak gear and Krak references from the Climate Pledge Arena.

 

[emptyNedder]

Pretty equivalent to Stone for forwards. I knew he was good but that's impressive.

Home (2017-2020)
Slavin 115 Games 173 Takeaways
TVR 100 Games 63 Takeaways
Pesce 99 Games 94 Takeaways
Faulk 80 Games 90 Takeaways

Away (2017-2020)
Slavin 117 Games 71 Takeaways
TVR 106 Games 23 Takeaways
Pesce 100 Games 40 Takeaways
Faulk 78 Games 20 Takeaways

Columbus the difference is about 1.2 for Home v. Away
Minnesota the difference is about 1.05 for Home v. Away

 

[DaveG]

Nah it's in the zeitgeist at this point. I've never seen Clash of Titans, but I know the Kraken is a cephalopodic monster. It's like saying "Godzilla is era specific." Nah, even if you've never seen any iteration of Godzilla movies you know he's a big dino. Kraken is even more generic at this point though. I've played board games that reference him, TV shows mention him. I honestly couldn't have told you the exact origin of "release the Kraken" (having never seen the movie) but I know him as a generic sea monster.

Doesn't really change the point though, naming a team after a pop culture reference, ESPECIALLY one without local historical relevance is just an atrociously bad move. Even going on the mythology angle... OK? It's not the regional mythology. This isn't the Trondheim Kraken or Copenhagen Kraken... it's f***ing SEATTLE. Much like the Raptors or Mighty Ducks this is going to become dated pretty damn fast. One of the biggest questions that any team needs to ask before deciding on a name is "what's the relevance?" if there is no relevance to the area and the only reason to go with it is "it sounds cool" then CHOOSE ANOTHER f***ING NAME. "It sounds cool" is how we nearly ended up with the Avs being called the "Rocky Mountain Extreme" before sanity prevailed.

 

[Joe McGrath]

According #NHLTopPlayers: Top Centers, Nos. 10-1 Aho is not top 10 center. But Zibanejad is lol.

From CompleteHockeyNews:

Most Takeaways - Forwards - 2017/18-2019/20 (TkA/60)
1. Connor McDavid - 263 (3.18)
2. Mark Stone - 259 (3.89)
3. Aleksander Barkov - 233 (2.85)
4. Ryan O’Reilly - 228 (2.82)
5. Mitch Marner - 227 (3.21)
6. Mikael Backlund - 223 (3.19)
7. Sebastian Aho - 211 (2.89)
8. Evgeni Malkin - 209 (3.27)
9. Leon Draisaitl - 209 (2.52)
10. William Karlsson - 205 (2.88)
11. Mathew Barzal - 201 (2.81)
12. Auston Matthews - 194 (3.02)
13. Jonathan Toews - 183 (2.40)
14. Reilly Smith - 179 (2.80)
15. Mark Scheifele - 178 (2.33)
16. Jeff Skinner - 177 (2.75)
17. Filip Forsberg - 176 (3.05)
18. Nick Schmaltz - 173 (3.22)
19. Sean Monahan - 172 (2.49)
20. Vincent Trocheck - 171 (2.65)

Most Takeaways - Defencemen - 2017/18-2019/20 (TkA/60)
1. Jaccob Slavin - 244 (2.74)
2. Brent Burns - 212 (2.15)
3. Mike Matheson - 173 (2.32)
4. Erik Karlsson - 166 (2.17)
5. Shea Theodore - 162 (2.20)
6. Mark Giordano - 159 (1.78)
7. Dmitry Orlov - 156 (1.79)
8. Seth Jones - 155 (1.76)
9. John Carlson - 155 (1.62)
10. Alex Pietrangelo - 152 (1.68)
11. TJ Brodie - 150 (1.90)
12. Kris Letang - 147 (1.67)
13. Noah Hanifin - 138 (1.78)
14. Nate Schmidt - 135 (1.88)
15. Brett Pesce - 134 (1.91)
16. Justin Faulk - 134 (1.62)
17. Victor Hedman - 125 (1.45)
18. Aaron Ekblad - 124 (1.37)
19. Mattias Ekholm - 121 (1.35)
20. Colton Parayko - 120 (1.39)
Moral of the story is that if you are a defenceman and want to get really, really good at stripping people of the puck, head to Carolina.

Or the stat counter in Raleigh is more generous than elsewhere.

 

[DaveG]

Or the stat counter in Raleigh is more generous than elsewhere.

I've seen people make that argument before, but it's a league employee.

 

[Joe McGrath]

I've seen people make that argument before, but it's a league employee.

Is it the same league employee every night? Can still be more likely to give out takeaways than others. Just being a league employee doesn’t stop you from interpreting something subjective differently. See: every referee ever.

 

[DougieSmash]

I mean, it's not like Slavin is not crazy good, so what?

 

[DaveG]

Is it the same league employee every night? Can still be more likely to give out takeaways than others. Just being a league employee doesn’t stop you from interpreting something subjective differently. See: every referee ever.

Same guy for the past decade+ from what I recall. I mean you're not wrong on that but I can't recall any major complaints about stat counting here over the years. You'd think if there had been then he would be out of work pretty fast.

 

[Lempo]

Doesn't really change the point though, naming a team after a pop culture reference, ESPECIALLY one without local historical relevance is just an atrociously bad move. Even going on the mythology angle... OK? It's not the regional mythology. This isn't the Trondheim Kraken or Copenhagen Kraken... it's f***ing SEATTLE. Much like the Raptors or Mighty Ducks this is going to become dated pretty damn fast. One of the biggest questions that any team needs to ask before deciding on a name is "what's the relevance?" if there is no relevance to the area and the only reason to go with it is "it sounds cool" then CHOOSE ANOTHER f***ING NAME. "It sounds cool" is how we nearly ended up with the Avs being called the "Rocky Mountain Extreme" before sanity prevailed.

Wrong.

Please state me the chronologically latest relevant pop culture appearance of Kraken? Some film from 2010? You know what else was relevant in 2010? FarmVille.

Kraken may have gotten some, ha, resurgence to the surface of the popular lore as of lately, but it's been there for centuries with some friggin Victorian poet cred to it. I fought one as Indiana Jones in a sunken temple under Istanbul in a 2003 video game. The 1990 source material book for the recent Amazon Prime series Good Omens had one making a cameo.

It may've been laying deep and dormant, but it's been there. If (passive) you know it in 2020 only from a Hollywood film, it may be that possibly it's just that you're a poorly-red moron.

The local relevance of a sports team name is a two-edged sword IMO. Are you such a crappy locality known for only one thing that you want to further underline it by naming your sports team the Seattle Space Needles? That's sure recipe for boooo-ring!

Branch out boldly, claim a thing, make it yours, force it to relevancy!

 

[Joe McGrath]

Same guy for the past decade+ from what I recall. I mean you're not wrong on that but I can't recall any major complaints about stat counting here over the years. You'd think if there had been then he would be out of work pretty fast.

Since the stat came into existence officially from the NHL the Canes have just under 1,000 more takeaways than any other team in the league. 1,000 in 10 years.

What’s more likely, the Canes are the best pick pockets over the last decade by an absolutely ridiculous margin, or the stat guy is a bit generous with them compared to the rest of the league?

 

[Navin R Slavin]

Seems like the Canes have built their entire philosophy around hounding the puck for a long time. Perhaps there's some degree of home/away difference, but that also could be attributed in part to having the ability to line match -- which may be why we see positive ratios for other home teams.

Anyway, with Slavin in particular, it matches the eye test.