Observations XXVII

[Porter Stoutheart]

I'm pretty damn glad we didnt throw in the towel on Saros like some people advocated earlier in the season (or the post prior to this).

It is worth noting that Saros has now played more minutes this season than Rinne.

Deservedly so, of course. We've been speculating for a couple years about when the balance would shift and Saros would trend toward taking over as #1. It looks like that is happening. Somewhat bittersweet, because of course we'd also all like it if Rinne was playing better too. But just as an observation, there it is.

 

[Byrddog]

I'm pretty damn glad we didnt throw in the towel on Saros like some people advocated earlier in the season (or the post prior to this).

Yes his .910 and 2.80 is really worrying the entire league right now.

 

[drwpreds]

A few thoughts:

Excellent win- we had to have that game, no doubt about it.

Great to see the special teams script flipped for a change- anytime you are +2 on power play goals in a game you stand a pretty good chance to win.

We have now killed off 11 straight opponent power plays and 17 of the last 18. (And are 5/19 on the power play last 5 games after going 3/33 in the previous 11)

Having said that, our offense remains a problem- even on a night with 2 power play goals, it was yet another home game with 2 or fewer goals scored. We just cannot score at home, it is absolutely crazy.

While it was great to get power play goals, at 5 on 5 last night we generated very little offense. Forwards did almost nothing at 5 on 5. That is not going to cut it.

It basically was another game that easily could have been a loss were it not for the great play of Saros.

We are tied in points for WC2, but for a change we actually are not in a playoff position because Vancouver has a game in hand on us. 1 point separates 5 teams battling for 2 wild card slots.

Brutal road trip coming up- I feel like at the very least, we have to win 3 of the 5- that will be a tall task.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

Yes his .910 and 2.80 is really worrying the entire league right now.

The cool thing is his SvPct is .930 in February and .957 so far in March. GAA 2.18? That's the sort of thing I think we needed to see by handing the ball to him down the stretch. Nobody will argue that he had a rough start to the season. But we needed to find out what he could do with top billing. He's showing us. 15 games left, he should be starting 10-12 of them. If it wasn't for all the back-to-backs, it could have been even more.

 

[Byrddog]

Ottawa sells because the owner is too cheap to pay his players when they hit their prime. The Rangers admitted they were in rebuild mode so I will give you that. I wouldn’t call Vancouver a “gut” job. They drafted well and their older core aged out. Montreal hasn’t really sold off and rebuilt either. They have drafted poorly and tried to add pieces. Edmonton has been beset with horrible management for over a decade. It was never a rebuild.

I also am not sure this market could tolerate several seasons of basement hockey. Though we may get it anyway, with this group.

I agree that the market will take a hit will it look like Florida has???? Poor attendance until they started winning? Maybe but you are correct with the current roster it is closer to basement hockey than contending hockey. And like you say even if they don't rebuild they are going to get it anyway.

Edmonton started there rebuild in 06-07 When they Traded the heart of that team Ryan Smyth. From that team they moved Sykora, Hemsky, Horcoff, Stoll, Torres and Roloson. While that was not a Team that set the woods on fire It was a team that was competing to get in the post season and very similar to this Preds team. You are also right that the Management has been horrid there ever since and I do not even want to guess at the number of coaching and GM changes. Back then I followed them as one of my teams as well and when they canned Craig MacTavish I lost all respect for the organization.

 

[Predsanddead24]

Yes his .910 and 2.80 is really worrying the entire league right now.

It's funny you say that because his stats are about the same as Binnington and Georgiev yet those are the guys you say we need to replace him with. I guess we should also ignore the fact Saros has been a top 10 goalie in 2020 as well.

 

[Byrddog]

He has

The cool thing is his SvPct is .930 in February and .957 so far in March. GAA 2.18? That's the sort of thing I think we needed to see by handing the ball to him down the stretch. Nobody will argue that he had a rough start to the season. But we needed to find out what he could do with top billing. He's showing us. 15 games left, he should be starting 10-12 of them. If it wasn't for all the back-to-backs, it could have been even more.

had a good 5 or 6 weeks and your correct it has been the thing that has convinced everyone that has been the thing that will earn him the opportunity to be the number 1 for the rest of the season. He also has a few impressive wins in that period Cap's on Jan 29 the Blues win and last nights Stars win. The Calgary win was ok also. But he has also allowed 3 or more goals in 6 of those games including allowing 4 to the Caps in that big win. His three shootouts have skewed his numbers a little in this block of games but he has earned the chance to start the lions share the rest of the season. And it is possible with this anemic offense we will still not know by years end if he is going to be the guy or not.

 

[Predsanddead24]

had a good 5 or 6 weeks

If you look at his career it's more reasonable to say he had a bad month to start the season and has gone back to being his normal self since then. You're honestly going to try and argue that shutouts have skewed his results too? So the argument is he's been bad except when he's been really good?

 

[Byrddog]

It's funny you say that because his stats are about the same as Binnington and Georgiev yet those are the guys you say we need to replace him with. I guess we should also ignore the fact Saros has been a top 10 goalie in 2020 as well.

I have not mentioned Binnington because I think he will be the next Hammonds in the league.

As to top 10 what league are you referring to? Saro's is currently 30th in GAA and 29th in save percentage in the league. You can not cherry pick the last four weeks numbers as good as they have been and make a valid point otherwise one could say Rinne's 3 shutouts and 3 more wins make him a better choice.

 

[Predsanddead24]

I have not mentioned Binnington because I think he will be the next Hammonds in the league.

As to top 10 what league are you referring to? Saro's is currently 30th in GAA and 29th in save percentage in the league. You can not cherry pick the last four weeks numbers as good as they have been and make a valid point otherwise one could say Rinne's 3 shutouts and 3 more wins make him a better choice.

Here's a quote from you literally saying that Saros is no Binnington in the past:

He is what he is he is no Binnington

Since January 1 of this year Saros is a top 10 goalie in the league. If we really don't want to cherry pick stats how about this one: Since entering the league more or less full time in 16-17 Saros is 12th in sv% and 19th in GAA. That's pretty damn good for a guy we supposedly ruined.

 

[Kat Predator]

Let's not get too carried away. Nashville is not a Canadian hockey market. Hockey is the national sport in Canada. Those franchises know they can trot just about anything out on the ice and draw good attendance. They have solid attendance at high school hockey games.

 

[NoNecksCurse]

A few thoughts:

Excellent win- we had to have that game, no doubt about it.

Great to see the special teams script flipped for a change- anytime you are +2 on power play goals in a game you stand a pretty good chance to win.

We have now killed off 11 straight opponent power plays and 17 of the last 18. (And are 5/19 on the power play last 5 games after going 3/33 in the previous 11)

Having said that, our offense remains a problem- even on a night with 2 power play goals, it was yet another home game with 2 or fewer goals scored. We just cannot score at home, it is absolutely crazy.

While it was great to get power play goals, at 5 on 5 last night we generated very little offense. Forwards did almost nothing at 5 on 5. That is not going to cut it.

It basically was another game that easily could have been a loss were it not for the great play of Saros.

We are tied in points for WC2, but for a change we actually are not in a playoff position because Vancouver has a game in hand on us. 1 point separates 5 teams battling for 2 wild card slots.

Brutal road trip coming up- I feel like at the very least, we have to win 3 of the 5- that will be a tall task.

yep i will echo what you just said.

it's nice to see the special teams win us a game.

and you can read this and everyone else ignore it since it's a hotly debated topic but i do refer to it sometimes to "see if i am seeing the game right" if that makes sense. moneypuck has dallas winning that game 66% of the time in 500 simulations.

saros won us that game combined with the PP stepping up. but honestly with this team at this point in the season, saros is going to have to get hot and stay hot till June if we have any cup hopes.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

If you look at his career it's more reasonable to say he had a bad month to start the season and has gone back to being his normal self since then. You're honestly going to try and argue that shutouts have skewed his results too? So the argument is he's been bad except when he's been really good?

Exactly what I was going to say. He had a dismal October and December, say. Which skew his stats. But outside of that, he's had 7 pro seasons of overall excellent performance. So which is the outlier? A bad month or two would be a couple drops in the ocean for his career thus far.

The rest of March is going to be important for him (and our team in general), of course. But I think we got enough of a showing from him that nothing really changes on our goalie plans for next season now. Rinne is more of a worry at this point than Saros. Hopefully Rinne can at least hold it together to be a respectable backup/mentor next season. Bonus points if he can get his game back on track too and be more than that again. But at least I think we have the answer that we don't need to go goalie-shopping in the summer now.

 

[Armourboy]

They had on the broadcast that since Thanksgiving Saros is basically a .920 and 2.18 GAA. He had a rough start, but over the last 3 months his been pretty dang good.

Almost every goalie has a rough patch in the season and generally those that don't are up for the Vezina.

 

[GoldOnGold]

Big section about the Preds in this Filipovic article:

Fixing the biggest player-usage mistakes on NHL playoff contenders

Of all the things to nitpick about Hynes' handling of various players, the most egregious has been the way he's used Forsberg. He has been the biggest victim of Hynes' reshuffling, quickly becoming the new poster boy for the most underused star in the league now that Auston Matthews is being properly deployed by Sheldon Keefe. Forsberg is playing just 12:41 per game at 5-on-5 and 16:27 total under Hynes, which represents a notable dip from the 13:12 and 17:57 he had been seeing under Laviolette.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

Big section about the Preds in this Filipovic article:

Fixing the biggest player-usage mistakes on NHL playoff contenders

Of all the things to nitpick about Hynes' handling of various players, the most egregious has been the way he's used Forsberg. He has been the biggest victim of Hynes' reshuffling, quickly becoming the new poster boy for the most underused star in the league now that Auston Matthews is being properly deployed by Sheldon Keefe. Forsberg is playing just 12:41 per game at 5-on-5 and 16:27 total under Hynes, which represents a notable dip from the 13:12 and 17:57 he had been seeing under Laviolette.

Hm.... that's 31 seconds less at 5-on-5... one short shift. And a whopping 1:30 less overall. So basically 1 min less on PP? Which you'd think was pretty justifiable given how bad our PP has been for the past two years.

I don't really have any issue with Hynes giving the "star" players less icetime. They earned it. The stats will probably show some forthcoming uptick in icetime - and I hope/expect an uptick in production - from those same players the rest of the season. But the correlation isn't direct. They earned the decrease by playing like crap. And they will earn an increase if they start playing better.

 

[GoldOnGold]

Hm.... that's 31 seconds less at 5-on-5... one short shift. And a whopping 1:30 less overall. So basically 1 min less on PP? Which you'd think was pretty justifiable given how bad our PP has been for the past two years.

I don't really have any issue with Hynes giving the "star" players less icetime. They earned it. The stats will probably show some forthcoming uptick in icetime - and I hope/expect an uptick in production - from those same players the rest of the season. But the correlation isn't direct. They earned the decrease by playing like crap. And they will earn an increase if they start playing better.

Forsberg is the only top-6 forward still on pace for a career-average season, to be fair. And I have been much happier with his play than Arvidsson's or Johansen's. It just seems like a needlessly inflicted self-wound.

 

[Predsanddead24]

A couple thoughts regarding Forbserg's ice time questions and that article in general:

1.) The general idea that the writer is putting forth is that you should play your best players more minutes to get more production out of them, and while that sounds reasonable at the surface level I'm not actually sure how true it is.The logical end to that idea would be to play your best players the entire game, which obviously is an insane thing to consider. I think its pretty clear that there is a point of diminishing returns on ice time for all players, and it almost certainly is different between players.

2.) If we look at Forsberg in particular over his career prior to this season his best season from a P/GP persepctive came in 17-18 when he had the second lowest average TOI of his career. Just looking at this season his production rates don't appear to be tied to his as he has an average TOI of around 17:20 regardless of how many points he puts up.

3.) At the team level in games we've won Forsberg has gotten an average of 16:45 TOI versus an average TOI of 17:52 in games we lose. Obviously a ton of caveats with trying to tie those two stats together, but it at least suggests that lowering his ice time isn't hurting our chances at winning.

 

[GoldOnGold]

A couple thoughts regarding Forbserg's ice time questions and that article in general:

1.) The general idea that the writer is putting forth is that you should play your best players more minutes to get more production out of them, and while that sounds reasonable at the surface level I'm not actually sure how true it is.The logical end to that idea would be to play your best players the entire game, which obviously is an insane thing to consider. I think its pretty clear that there is a point of diminishing returns on ice time for all players, and it almost certainly is different between players.

2.) If we look at Forsberg in particular over his career prior to this season his best season from a P/GP persepctive came in 17-18 when he had the second lowest average TOI of his career. Just looking at this season his production rates don't appear to be tied to his as he has an average TOI of around 17:20 regardless of how many points he puts up.

3.) At the team level in games we've won Forsberg has gotten an average of 16:45 TOI versus an average TOI of 17:52 in games we lose. Obviously a ton of caveats with trying to tie those two stats together, but it at least suggests that lowering his ice time isn't hurting our chances at winning.

Fair points.

 

[drwpreds]

On a side note, just a comment on our late game, empty net goal situations.

It has always been a pet peeve of mine with this team and something I always notice- we can’t score an empty net goal to put a game away to save our lives.

If my math is correct, we have now gone 8 straight games where we had a late lead and were playing in a 5 on 6, empty net situation without scoring a single empty net goal.

8 straight times- that is a total time of almost 19 minutes playing without an opposing goalie and we have not been able to score a goal- that is just mind boggling. We had 3 full minutes last night and still couldn’t do it.

And to make it even crazier- our last empty net goal was scored by PEKKA RINNE- lol.

And what makes it so frustrating for me is how quickly we always seem to allow an empty net goal when the situation is reversed and we have our goalie pulled. I mean, it took about 5 seconds Saturday against Colorado.

 

[GoldOnGold]

On a side note, just a comment on our late game, empty net goal situations.

It has always been a pet peeve of mine with this team and something I always notice- we can’t score an empty net goal to put a game away to save our lives.

If my math is correct, we have now gone 8 straight games where we had a late lead and were playing in a 5 on 6, empty net situation without scoring a single empty net goal.

8 straight times- that is a total time of almost 19 minutes playing without an opposing goalie and we have not been able to score a goal- that is just mind boggling. We had 3 full minutes last night and still couldn’t do it.

And to make it even crazier- our last empty net goal was scored by PEKKA RINNE- lol.

And what makes it so frustrating for me is how quickly we always seem to allow an empty net goal when the situation is reversed and we have our goalie pulled. I mean, it took about 5 seconds Saturday against Colorado.

Imagine how many more points our players would have if we could actually get ENs lol

 

[Kat Predator]

The solution is obvious. Get Pekka out there as a second goalie playing winger and have him score more EN goals!

 

[Enoch]

I can’t believe I just read that giving your best players more ice time might not be a good idea.....

 

[101st_fan]

I can’t believe I just read that giving your best players more ice time might not be a good idea.....

There is a strong case that Smith and Granlund have been our best wingers for the past few months. Forsberg is amazingly talented but he has only two even strength goals this calendar year and just went without a goal in February in what was his second highest TOI month this season.

 

[Enoch]

101 I have watched Craig Smith for years. I’m pretty confident I know how he fits offensively. If you think he deserves more ice time than Forsberg, more power to you.

if that is not what you are implying, then I have no arguments.