CaptDenisPotvin
The Tampa Bay Astros are your 2021 Champions
- Jun 20, 2007
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So you attack me for 'cherry picking' stats, then cherry pick your entire argument with what ifs and qualifiers?
So Nielsen only outproduced Bailey by 7 points at ES, so they are essentially the same then, right? Nielsen was promoted to the top line last season when Tavares went down, so that's why he racked up those 7 extra points. Also, he played 200 more minutes.
I'm pretty sure Bailey played the whole season last year on the RW, so, he was a RW last year. And notice how you say ES points puts Bailey at 150th among forwards...what happens when we sort those forwards by position? Bailey finishes 39th in ES points out of RW. If you want to look at LW, like you want to, he finishes 42nd next to Rick Nash. Again, that puts him clearly in the top half of production for 2nd line wingers.
You're going to play the injury game? Guys get injured, it happens, but it's impossible for you to accurately calculate what those players would've done if they were healthy. The fact is that Bailey finished in the top half of production for wingers.
Kulemin is supposed to be a solid player, and I'm really pleased we have him, but don't pretend as if Bailey isn't tasked (along with Nielsen and Grabner) to play a shutdown role. Bailey excels defensively and has one of the highest corsi numbers on the team. Kulemin is definitely more physical than Bailey, but I don't think that makes him leaps and bounds better.
I just hate it when the Bailey haters go around, in every thread, and talk about how he needs to go blah blah blah and ramble off a bunch of useless jibberish that isn't quantified at all. I've broken it down, time and time again, Bailey is in the top half of production for wingers in the NHL. He's defensively responsible. He's good at the PK. He's very versatile up front in terms of what position he can play. So if your gripe is that he isn't physical or shouldn't be on the top PP unit (which he's not), then fine, those are fair arguments. Harping on his not scoring a goal in 30 whatever games and how he doesn't produce, well, even without scoring a goal in that set number of games he still produced well enough to be in the top half of the NHL for wingers. It's a ridiculous argument. Argue consistency, not lack of production.
I completely agree with the bolded, to have someone tell me Bailey is a top flight 2nd line winger in the NHL after they watch him play even a hand full of games is very much....a ridiculous argument.
In fact, its close to incoherent and nonsensical