Player Discussion Nikolay Goldobin Pt. II

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

Yeah I'm pretty sure Green is fed up with Goldy as Goldy is with him.....how about all the crap that Pouliot gets away with and Guddy...don't see them sitting and eating popcorn from the press box . Just feel bad for the kid.Because when he gets it all together..it will be on another team...

He will probably get another shot after the All Star break....

 

[whoshouse]

I think everyone is pulling for Goldobin to put it together but he just hasn't this season. Even at the beginning of the season, he was a complimentary piece on EPs line. Goldobin didn't bring anything specific to that line. He hasn't shown any finish and he needs to have possession of the puck to be effective. But when playing on a line with EP, EP is better suited to have the offence run through him. I think Petterssons line is better served with a grinder/forechecker. Someone that can create space and get EP the puck. That's the opposite of Goldobin.

Everyone keeps mentioning that he's 4th in team scoring. That isn't something to write home about. The offence on this team is sorely lacking. And he got most of those points riding shotgun with EP at the beginning of the season while Boeser was hurt.

If I were to criticize Green, it would be about the deployment of Goldobin. He should have really tried Goldy next to Horvat before scratching him. I get Baertschi is back but I do remember Baertschi Horvat and Goldobin being a decent fit in the past. Or maybe dropping Baertschi to the third line and running a duo of Goldobin and Horvat for at least a few games.

Either way, Goldobin hasn't shown anything to make me believe he's anything more than a complimentary piece that isn't better than the ones this team already has. And I'd be open to trading him.

 

[BenningHurtsMySoul]

He’ll be traded soon.

Green just doesn’t trust him out there, and for good reason. The guy is a flat out defensive liability, despite the occasional flash of talent and secondary scoring.

 

[kanuck87]

He’ll be traded soon.

Green just doesn’t trust him out there, and for good reason. The guy is a flat out defensive liability, despite the occasional flash of talent and secondary scoring.

Agreed. I want to believe in Goldobin so bad, but it's pretty clear that he's not the answer and I'm surprised he's still getting so much support here. Eriksson is producing at ES about the same rate as Goldobin and is a much better defender, yet no one seems to be clamoring for Eriksson to be put on the 1st line.

 

[BROCK HUGHES]

He’ll be traded soon.

Green just doesn’t trust him out there, and for good reason. The guy is a flat out defensive liability, despite the occasional flash of talent and secondary scoring.

And he is the only one who is.....the target has been on Gody all season..TG needs to open his eyes a little bit wider...

 

[Canucks1096]

Goldobin is actually not that bad defensively.

That being said, since Green doesn't want to use him. I think he will get traded at the deadline. Goldobin is not worth a top 4 D. Maybe there is a 5th/6th D out there that has a potential to be a top 4 D That is available. If there isn't just get the best draft pick you can get for him

 

[rocketchu]

I hope I am wrong but I think he has essentially zero trade value. Maybe can fetch another failing/failed prospect but that would be it. Would any playoff bound team watch him and think he would be useful in the playoffs?

 

[member 290103]

I hope I am wrong but I think he has essentially zero trade value. Maybe can fetch another failing/failed prospect but that would be it. Would any playoff bound team watch him and think he would be useful in the playoffs?

Goldobin for Puljujarvi?

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

Goldobin for Puljujarvi?

Wont happen..only for the reason that Puljijarvi is only three years away from being a very high draft pick..I would do that in a New York minute, the Oilers would not.

 

[Melvin]

Goldobin is one of the more interesting situations in recent memory. I really can't recall another player who was simultaneously treated so unfairly while also at the same time so hilariously overrated by much of the fanbase. Maybe kassian is the closest.

Like it's pretty stupid thst he gets benched for multiple games because he took a penalty once, and the standards are clearly applied differently for him than for others. Him being sat for worthless trash like Tim Schaller is clearly a joke and he should be given every opportunity to succeed.

But.

Dude also has five freaking goals on the year and people constantly going on about him being "fourth on the team in points" are being deliberately obtuse about the fact that his point totals are both unimpressive given the context and made up by an unusually high pct of secondary assists.

It's really an interesting case.

 

[Canucks1096]

Goldobin is one of the more interesting situations in recent memory. I really can't recall another player who was simultaneously treated so unfairly while also at the same time so hilariously overrated by much of the fanbase. Maybe kassian is the closest.

Like it's pretty stupid thst he gets benched for multiple games because he took a penalty once, and the standards are clearly applied differently for him than for others. Him being sat for worthless trash like Tim Schaller is clearly a joke and he should be given every opportunity to succeed.

But.

Dude also has five freaking goals on the year and people constantly going on about him being "fourth on the team in points" are being deliberately obtuse about the fact that his point totals are both unimpressive given the context and made up by an unusually high pct of secondary assists.

It's really an interesting case.

Goldobin has 9 primary assists and 9 secondary assists

"Points are unimpressive given the context" can you explain this part, what do you mean?

 

[Zarpan]

"Points are unimpressive given the context" can you explain this part, what do you mean?

Probably that Goldobin has a lot of assists due to PP time and/or Pettersson's finishing skills.

 

[Bubbles]

The truth of the matter is, the Canucks as an organization do not value Russians. It's borderline racist they way we treat them. We expect Russians to be Canadians, and we expect them to be 200 feet players. It's just a bad mentality.

Did we ever ask Pavel Bure, Igor Larionov or Krutov to backcheck? No, we just let them play and stuck good defensive players with them to compensate.

We stick offensively talented forwards on 3rd/4th lines and expect them to produce. There's always an obsession to make every forward a "complete" player. You can somewhat teach defense, but you can't teach skills. That's why Russians like Fedor Fedorov, Shirokov and soon to be Goldobin will always fail in Vancouver.

 

[Melvin]

Probably that Goldobin has a lot of assists due to PP time and/or Pettersson's finishing skills.

Primary points, 5v5:

Pettersson 25
Horvat 14
Boeser 14
Roussel 14
Virtanen 13
Eriksson 11
Granlund 9
Goldobin 8
Motte 6

All the stuff about not backchecking or whatever, but he would get a longer leash if he produced more. He has barely ok overall production based only on leading the team in secondary assists.

 

[Melvin]

The truth of the matter is, the Canucks as an organization do not value Russians. It's borderline racist they way we treat them. We expect Russians to be Canadians, and we expect them to be 200 feet players. It's just a bad mentality.

Did we ever ask Pavel Bure, Igor Larionov or Krutov to backcheck? No, we just let them play and stuck good defensive players with them to compensate.

We stick offensively talented forwards on 3rd/4th lines and expect them to produce. There's always an obsession to make every forward a "complete" player. You can somewhat teach defense, but you can't teach skills. That's why Russians like Fedor Fedorov, Shirokov and soon to be Goldobin will always fail in Vancouver.

. Yes remember that time Pavel Bure had five goals in January.

 

[4Twenty]

Primary points, 5v5:

Pettersson 25
Horvat 14
Boeser 14
Roussel 14
Virtanen 13
Eriksson 11
Granlund 9
Goldobin 8
Motte 6

All the stuff about not backchecking or whatever, but he would get a longer leash if he produced more. He has barely ok overall production based only on leading the team in secondary assists.

Do you think primary vs secondary is overly simplistic?

Even if you just look at his last 2nd assist, it's a really good play. He get's the puck on the left wing, pushes back the D, then nutmegs the D with an area pass to EP, who then slides it cross ice to Brock. The primary assist doesn't happen if Goldobin doesn't make that key needle threading pass to EP.

We can sit here all day and discuss the merits of primary vs secondary and I don't want to do that, but Pettersson has better numbers with Goldobin than without. So if we're making an analysis, Goldy helps more than he hurts, but I totally agree with you, and Botchford has said the same thing that he wouldn't be sitting if he were producing more.

 

[Melvin]

Do you think primary vs secondary is overly simplistic?

Even if you just look at his last 2nd assist, it's a really good play. He get's the puck on the left wing, pushes back the D, then nutmegs the D with an area pass to EP, who then slides it cross ice to Brock. The primary assist doesn't happen if Goldobin doesn't make that key needle threading pass to EP.

We can sit here all day and discuss the merits of primary vs secondary and I don't want to do that, but Pettersson has better numbers with Goldobin than without. So if we're making an analysis, Goldy helps more than he hurts, but I totally agree with you, and Botchford has said the same thing that he wouldn't be sitting if he were producing more.

There are lots of good plays that don't result in any points. To award an equivalent point for secondary as primary is as arbitrary as not awarding a point for tertiary.

But we know from research that seoncdary assists have almost no predictive value for forwards which means they are more noise than signal. And while you can credit Goldy for some good plays you have to do the same for everyone else on the roster to keep it in context.

But yes he should be playing and yes he would be playing if he produced more. As I said, it's an interesting situation.

 

[4Twenty]

There are lots of good plays that don't result in any points. To award an equivalent point for secondary as primary is as arbitrary as not awarding a point for tertiary.

But we know from research that seoncdary assists have almost no predictive value for forwards which means they are more noise than signal. And while you can credit Goldy for some good plays you have to do the same for everyone else on the roster to keep it in context.

Well you're not using it to predict, you're using it to discredit.

Why don't we just keep the context that he has 18 assists. That's the way the leagues done it for a long time.

There's a guy on twitter called daryl keeping who tracks shot assists and primary shot contributions, I think when you look at that context it paints a better picture than "racks up 2nd assists", but I don't really want to debate that.

I want to agree that he needs to score more, and honestly, I've never really thought much of Goldobin even dating back to his draft year. But I think a team in this position needs to exhaust all the avenues to see whether this guy is a player. Ultimately, he's probably just another guy who is really talented but not talented enough to be on a good NHL teams top 2 lines, but he'd be really good in the KHL.

 

[Melvin]

Well you're not using it to predict, you're using it to discredit.

Why don't we just keep the context that he has 18 assists. That's the way the leagues done it for a long time.

It's the same thing. If you don't realize why it's the same thing, I would encourage you to think about it.

The "way the leagues done it" is not necessarily the "correct" way to do it and it's closed-minded to assert that it has to be.

Any goal, could be broken down by its primary, secondary and tertiary assists. You could then weight those three events an infinite number of ways. The NHL decided, completely arbitrarily and backed by zero research, that the weightings are:

primary - 1.00
secondary - 1.00
tertiary - 0.00

you could weight it any number of ways - 1/0.5/0.25; 1/1/1; 1/0/0, etc. and it would be just as valid but at the very least the actual research into this topic has shown that a secondary assist is not worth the same as a primary assist on average. Regardless, my only point with regards to this discussion is that Goldobin's production is not good and is even worse when you realize that it is propped up by an unusually high ratio of secondary:primary assists.

You don't NEED to weight his secondary assists at 0 to show that his production is bad. The point is that it's bad.

EDIT - I should have probably expanded this as the NHL (completely arbitrary) definition of points being:

Goals - 1.00
Primary - 1.00
Secondary - 1.00
Tertiary - 0.00

When it's probably more valid to weight goals more than assists and primary more than secondary, etc.

 

[4Twenty]

All of the plays should be ranked then. The primary assist off of someones ass standing out front should not be the same as a beautiful 60 ft back hand saucer pass for a tap in, but it is.

 

[Melvin]

One of the biggest misunderstandings about statistics and analytics in general is the belief that because something has a high predictive value, that it only applies to predictions and not to evaluation of current performance. But the reason WHY a metric has a high predictive value is EXACTLY because it does a better job of evaluating current performance. So yes, it is completely correct to "discredit" someone if their numbers are inflated by a component that has a very poor predictive value!

 

[Melvin]

All of the plays should be ranked then. The primary assist off of someones ass standing out front should not be the same as a beautiful 60 ft back hand saucer pass for a tap in, but it is.

Sure, in theory we can do this but in practice we cannot, because we lack the data on "ass goals." Maybe one day we will have better data but until then we have to make do with what we have; it's not valid to necessarily default to the worst system only because we lack a perfect system.

 

[Peen]

Goldobin is one of the more interesting situations in recent memory. I really can't recall another player who was simultaneously treated so unfairly while also at the same time so hilariously overrated by much of the fanbase. Maybe kassian is the closest.

Like it's pretty stupid thst he gets benched for multiple games because he took a penalty once, and the standards are clearly applied differently for him than for others. Him being sat for worthless trash like Tim Schaller is clearly a joke and he should be given every opportunity to succeed.

But.

Dude also has five freaking goals on the year and people constantly going on about him being "fourth on the team in points" are being deliberately obtuse about the fact that his point totals are both unimpressive given the context and made up by an unusually high pct of secondary assists.

It's really an interesting case.

I think you're misinterpreting a lot here. I think the common belief is he'd be better in a passenger role alongside pettersson or horvat than one of the completely out of place forwards that they try playing there.

While I do realize his primary point/60 is about the same as Granlund's (10th among regular skaters) his overall points per 60 is 3rd among regulars.

I think everyone is conscious of the fact that Goldobin has a virtually non-existent effort level. He doesn't seem to want to skate that extra mile, even though his skill doesn't allow for him to do this.

But, he's a better passenger than the other options. I'd rather have him and Baertschi on top two lines and as options for the awful second unit PP than I would with trying to pigeonhole Granlund, Roussell, Leivo etc. into that role.

I'm not even a fan of his. I just don't like watching Green pigeonhole shit players into a role that Goldobin is objectively more capable to play.

Goldobin either needs to up his skill level to make up for his lack of high intensity or up his effort level to offset for the fact that he doesn't have 1st line level talent, but rather 2nd line level talent.

 

[Melvin]

I think you're misinterpreting a lot here. I think the common belief is he'd be better in a passenger role alongside pettersson or horvat than one of the completely out of place forwards that they try playing there.

While I do realize his primary point/60 is about the same as Granlund's (10th among regular skaters) his overall points per 60 is 3rd among regulars.

I think everyone is conscious of the fact that Goldobin has a virtually non-existent effort level. He doesn't seem to want to skate that extra mile, even though his skill doesn't allow for him to do this.

But, he's a better passenger than the other options. I'd rather have him and Baertschi on top two lines and as options for the awful second unit PP than I would with trying to pigeonhole Granlund, Roussell, Leivo etc. into that role.

I'm not even a fan of his. I just don't like watching Green pigeonhole **** players into a role that Goldobin is objectively more capable to play.

Goldobin either needs to up his skill level to make up for his lack of high intensity or up his effort level to offset for the fact that he doesn't have 1st line level talent, but rather 2nd line level talent.

Read my first post; I'm not misinterpreting anything. He absolutely must be in the lineup over Schaller and Granlund and they are completely in the wrong to be sitting him for dumb shit like taking penalties.

My only point is that he would get a longer leash if his production was not so poor, and the people bleating "4th on the team in points!" are also off the mark IMO.

 

[Peen]

Read my first post; I'm not misinterpreting anything. He absolutely must be in the lineup over Schaller and Granlund and they are completely in the wrong to be sitting him for dumb **** like taking penalties.

My only point is that he would get a longer leash if his production was not so poor, and the people bleating "4th on the team in points!" are also off the mark IMO.

I know, but I'm saying that I think you saying that he's overrated and people don't understand his defects and only see his positives is wrong. I think people are well aware.