Confirmed with Link: Oilers re-sign Ryan Strome (2 years $3.1 m AAV)

Aceboogie

Registered User
Aug 25, 2012
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Actually I have been having discussion with many of the individuals that started advanced stats and hockey analytics for decades, some here, some elsewhere. I know the backgrounds of several of the individuals that started hockey analytics as is known today. Several posted formerly on this site. Some have even described their work as hobby or passion. Some have been subsequently hired by NHL clubs and have put a hold on their actual career plans and or worked in their planned careers only part time and doing the NHL gig freelance or contractually in the meantime. ALL of them state they hadn't really intended that this would lead to gainful NHL employment. I have more background in this than I let on.

Just because I occasionally feign idiocy don't read too much into that. I might be shadow punching. ;)

Ok, but doing it for hobby is a lot different than your comment about doing it for hobby and not having a background in statistics. If your regular job is as a statistician and you do hockey analytics as a hobby, I am not sure how that reflects badly on the practice. The fact that its leading to NHL employment is just another indication that there is validity and the practice will continue to grow and improvee
 

McDNicks17

Moderator
Jul 1, 2010
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Why is this about strome though?

Probably a good call at this point.

The reason I brought up zone starts was to show Strome's usage wasn't an extreme as far as how easy it was. So let's say we disagree on that. We're back at his very good defensive results were because of his usage, so I guess the next question is "Is his usage from last season repeatable?".

1) Quality of Competition - I think we can all agree that the days of the big, physical match-up #3C are long gone. Most teams go power vs. power(i.e. #1C vs. #1C) or rely on their #2C for match-ups(RNH, as an example, the past few seasons). The third line is basically just a team's third best scoring line now. Combine that with having McDavid and Drai/RNH ahead of him and I think he'll likely continue to face third line competition the majority of the time.

2) Defensive Zone Draws - If we know anything about McLellan, it's that Brodziak will likely be his new favorite son. Like Letestu, he'll likely see a large share of the defensive zone draws. Strome will be a bit of a liability out there with his lackluster face off ability, but it won't be often.

3) Short Shifts - Coaches aim for 45 second shifts in today's NHL. Strome having an average shift length of ~43 seconds may have played into how well he prevented goals and scoring chances over the course of the season. I think that's easily repeatable and likely a good quality to have in a #3C when you have far better players playing ahead of him.


So in the end, if we disagree that Strome's low goals and scoring chances against rates are because of his soft usage, can we at least agree that Strome will likely be playing the same role again next season and has a good chance to match those plus defensive results in that same role?
 
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BoldNewLettuce

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Dec 21, 2008
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Probably a good call at this point.

The reason I brought up zone starts was to show Strome's usage wasn't an extreme as far as how easy it was. So let's say we disagree on that. We're back at his very good defensive results were because of his usage, so I guess the next question is "Is his usage from last season repeatable?".

1) Quality of Competition - I think we can all agree that the days of the big, physical match-up #3C are long gone. Most teams go power vs. power(i.e. #1C vs. #1C) or rely on their #2C for match-ups(RNH, as an example, the past few seasons). The third line is basically just a team's third best scoring line now. Combine that with having McDavid and Drai/RNH ahead of him and I think he'll likely continue to face third line competition the majority of the time.

2) Defensive Zone Draws - If we know anything about McLellan, it's that Brodziak will likely be his new favorite son. Like Letestu, he'll likely see a large share of the defensive zone draws. Strome will be a bit of a liability out there with his lackluster face off ability, but it won't be often.

3) Short Shifts - Coaches aim for 45 second shifts in today's NHL. Strome having an average shift length of ~43 seconds may have played into how well he prevented goals and scoring chances over the course of the season. I think that's easily repeatable and likely a good quality to have in a #3C when you have far better players playing ahead of him.


So in the end, if we disagree that Strome's low goals and scoring chances against rates are because of his soft usage, can we at least agree that Strome will likely be playing the same role again next season and has a good chance to match those plus defensive results in that same role?

We can agree he would look better in long hair.
 

PerformanceMcOil

Registered User
Aug 2, 2005
474
227
Probably a good call at this point.

The reason I brought up zone starts was to show Strome's usage wasn't an extreme as far as how easy it was. So let's say we disagree on that. We're back at his very good defensive results were because of his usage, so I guess the next question is "Is his usage from last season repeatable?".

1) Quality of Competition - I think we can all agree that the days of the big, physical match-up #3C are long gone. Most teams go power vs. power(i.e. #1C vs. #1C) or rely on their #2C for match-ups(RNH, as an example, the past few seasons). The third line is basically just a team's third best scoring line now. Combine that with having McDavid and Drai/RNH ahead of him and I think he'll likely continue to face third line competition the majority of the time.

2) Defensive Zone Draws - If we know anything about McLellan, it's that Brodziak will likely be his new favorite son. Like Letestu, he'll likely see a large share of the defensive zone draws. Strome will be a bit of a liability out there with his lackluster face off ability, but it won't be often.

3) Short Shifts - Coaches aim for 45 second shifts in today's NHL. Strome having an average shift length of ~43 seconds may have played into how well he prevented goals and scoring chances over the course of the season. I think that's pretty easily repeatable and likely a good quality to have in a #3C when you have far better player playing ahead of him.


So in the end, if we disagree that Strome's low goals and scoring chances against rates are because of his soft usage, can we at least agree that Strome will likely be playing the same role again next season and has a good chance to match those plus defensive results in that same role?

I think this underlies what we can say definitively about Strome. He was a fairly vanilla 3rd line C, which has some value in the NHL. Depending on what things you put weight on, you could adjust that up or down to reflect potential, bad/good luck, usage etc. So sure, if you can replace him with a better player for a similar price, that would be great. But dropping him for nothing would create a hole that would need to be filled. It's not a massive irreplaceable-player type hole, but if you replace a decent 3rd line NHLer with a player that is something less than that, it will create problems. My opinion is that Strome is fine for what he is, and there is no reason to drop him until someone else pushes him down the depth chart.
 

Drivesaitl

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Oct 8, 2017
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Probably a good call at this point.

The reason I brought up zone starts was to show Strome's usage wasn't an extreme as far as how easy it was. So let's say we disagree on that. We're back at his very good defensive results were because of his usage, so I guess the next question is "Is his usage from last season repeatable?".

1) Quality of Competition - I think we can all agree that the days of the big, physical match-up #3C are long gone. Most teams go power vs. power(i.e. #1C vs. #1C) or rely on their #2C for match-ups(RNH, as an example, the past few seasons). The third line is basically just a team's third best scoring line now. Combine that with having McDavid and Drai/RNH ahead of him and I think he'll likely continue to face third line competition the majority of the time.

2) Defensive Zone Draws - If we know anything about McLellan, it's that Brodziak will likely be his new favorite son. Like Letestu, he'll likely see a large share of the defensive zone draws. Strome will be a bit of a liability out there with his lackluster face off ability, but it won't be often.

3) Short Shifts - Coaches aim for 45 second shifts in today's NHL. Strome having an average shift length of ~43 seconds may have played into how well he prevented goals and scoring chances over the course of the season. I think that's easily repeatable and likely a good quality to have in a #3C when you have far better players playing ahead of him.


So in the end, if we disagree that Strome's low goals and scoring chances against rates are because of his soft usage, can we at least agree that Strome will likely be playing the same role again next season and has a good chance to match those plus defensive results in that same role?

Good post, a better direction for the thread as myself and others requested.

QOC-Yes, teams generally do often match strength with strength but where they see an opportunity to doubleshift strength agains weakness, like playing the Oilers they do. McLellan is guilty of allowing this to ever occur off faceoffs on home ice.

Brodz, yeah, agreed. I wish this was 28yr old Brodz. For sure McLellan will love him.

Good point on short shifts which I did not know of or recognize generally. Although I did often note Drai would stay out longer to finish a shift it the two were paired with each other. Strome did seem to peel off at responsible times while Drai would shadow chase puck dump momentarily just to prevent quick breakout pass (while line change is ensuing) and then hit the bench ala Kopitar who has this as a regular role and befitting an all zone C.

Maybe simplistic but I would like to see Strome at least outscore on the basis of EV usage and his relative QOC vs QOT. Shouldn't he be floating with the matchups he see's? Maybe its not fair thinking that but if so then his QOC bottomsix here isn't as good as people like to think it might be.
 

McDNicks17

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Jul 1, 2010
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Good post, a better direction for the thread as myself and others requested.

QOC-Yes, teams generally do often match strength with strength but where they see an opportunity to doubleshift strength agains weakness, like playing the Oilers they do. McLellan is guilty of allowing this to ever occur off faceoffs on home ice.

Brodz, yeah, agreed. I wish this was 28yr old Brodz. For sure McLellan will love him.

Good point on short shifts which I did not know of or recognize generally. Although I did often note Drai would stay out longer to finish a shift it the two were paired with each other. Strome did seem to peel off at responsible times while Drai would shadow chase puck dump momentarily just to prevent quick breakout pass (while line change is ensuing) and then hit the bench ala Kopitar who has this as a regular role and befitting an all zone C.

Maybe simplistic but I would like to see Strome at least outscore on the basis of EV usage and his relative QOC vs QOT. Shouldn't he be floating with the matchups he see's? Maybe its not fair thinking that but if so then his QOC bottomsix here isn't as good as people like to think it might be.

Hopefully that part bounces back a bit since even though he was doing well preventing goals, it was kind of counteracted by the anemic offense.

He and his most common line mates from the second half(Khaira, Pulju, Lucic) were all actually doing pretty well as far as generating scoring(and even high danger scoring) chances, but their on-ice shooting % was almost flat lining.

I'd have to chalk at least some of that up to bad luck since a ~5 onSH% is so insanely low.
 

BoldNewLettuce

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Dec 21, 2008
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Hopefully that part bounces back a bit since even though he was doing well preventing goals, it was kind of counteracted by the anemic offense.

He and his most common line mates from the second half(Khaira, Pulju, Lucic) were all actually doing pretty well as far as generating scoring(and even high danger scoring) chances, but their on-ice shooting % was almost flat lining.

I'd have to chalk at least some of that up to bad luck since a ~5 onSH% is so insanely low.

I was going to ask you if you think a team full of Eberle's would beat a team full of Strome's and then thought of the;

...drop pass
....drop pass....
.....drop pass..
drop pass...
turnover goal against eberle special it would produce. The reverse flying V.

I digress.
 

Bryanbryoil

Pray For Ukraine
Sep 13, 2004
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IMO Strome is an important piece with Nuge bumped up the lineup. If some of our young wingers take the next step, Strome could have a quality winger or two on his line and hopefully they can chip in every so often when the going gets tough for the top 6. With Strome and Brodziak anchoring our bottom 2 lines we should not have the same black hole of suck in the bottom 6 that we did last season IMO.
 
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Drivesaitl

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Hopefully that part bounces back a bit since even though he was doing well preventing goals, it was kind of counteracted by the anemic offense.

He and his most common line mates from the second half(Khaira, Pulju, Lucic) were all actually doing pretty well as far as generating scoring(and even high danger scoring) chances, but their on-ice shooting % was almost flat lining.

I'd have to chalk at least some of that up to bad luck since a ~5 onSH% is so insanely low.

Agree that the GA numbers in any facet of play for Strome are good. It is the GF that is most of the problem, and thus more GA than GF in toi.

Where we differ is in thinking that this might correct. Maybe to an extent. But a large part of the problem is we have guys finishing like Khaira, Caggs, Strome, Pulju etc that might never be that adept at finishing at this NHL level. The only outlier season result found is Lucic, who should finish better than he did this season. The rest are largely unknowns that may actually just have chronic bad shooting percentage.
 

Drivesaitl

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IMO Strome is an important piece with Nuge bumped up the lineup. If some of our young wingers take the next step, Strome could have a quality winger or two on his line and hopefully they can chip in every so often when the going gets tough for the top 6. With Strome and Brodziak anchoring our bottom 2 lines we should not have the same black hole of suck in the bottom 6 that we did last season IMO.

The presence of the player, and personality of Brodz may inject Kassian with some more enthusiasm as well so the possibility of a 4th line resurrection of sorts is there. For Strome it might mean slightly better line mates as our depth is slightly improved over last season.

I have questions about Letestu I won't go into but I think Brodziak will just be better in this bottomsix configuration and more of a fit. More of a gritty physical fit too. Strome should benefit from the Oilers now having 4 other strong Centers on the team and affording him and Nuge some freelancing around the lineup. Strome possesses talent sufficient to go up and down, but not up for long.
 

Bryanbryoil

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The presence of the player, and personality of Brodz may inject Kassian with some more enthusiasm as well so the possibility of a 4th line resurrection of sorts is there. For Strome it might mean slightly better line mates as our depth is slightly improved over last season.

I have questions about Letestu I won't go into but I think Brodziak will just be better in this bottomsix configuration and more of a fit. More of a gritty physical fit too. Strome should benefit from the Oilers now having 4 other strong Centers on the team and affording him and Nuge some freelancing around the lineup. Strome possesses talent sufficient to go up and down, but not up for long.

Agreed. A line of say Caggiula/Khaira-Brodziak-Kassian should be a damn good one for us as a 4th line. I see Strome's fit as the 3C going forward as he is the 4th best center on the team and can chip in some offense. IMO 2nd line is not a good fit for him unless our other wingers crap the bed and they move Jujhar to center.

I'll also add that Brodziak should be a good mentor to our younger centers.
 
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Drivesaitl

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Agreed. A line of say Caggiula/Khaira-Brodziak-Kassian should be a damn good one for us as a 4th line. I see Strome's fit as the 3C going forward as he is the 4th best center on the team and can chip in some offense. IMO 2nd line is not a good fit for him unless our other wingers crap the bed and they move Jujhar to center.

I'll also add that Brodziak should be a good mentor to our younger centers.
Remember the times when Brodz, Stoll, Cogs were mentioned as good center mentors to have in the lineup and would be ongoing good influences? Alas, theres a whole trajectory we missed out on that other clubs benefitted from. I wish the Brodz chapter was never discontinued here. Always a favorite. Stoll lost his way, nothing corrupts like success in LA ;)

I do hope Strome gets more comfortable in his own perception as a hockey player. I do fear he's as frustrated with his play as anyone, that his upset with his play is genuine, I just hope he gets on a track where it doesn't impact his play. I think he gets rattled, unconfident, questions, and that is difficult for any player.

The value in a Brodziak or a Cogliano is they know exactly who they are as players and bring that resolutely shift after shift. Brods for two decades now. Hard work is never hard to look at from a fan pov.
 

Jamin

Registered User
Aug 25, 2009
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Nah you tried to make it about you. It’s what you do.

The discussion about analytics was good before you hijacked it.

Anyway, go Strome, go Oilers.
To an outsider it wasnt good at all. Boring page after page of 2 posters spatting over stats.

Weird to single out a poster who wasnt even part of the initial 2 who derailed the thread

It's a lot more cordial on the last 2 pages lol
 
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Tobias Kahun

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Oct 3, 2017
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I was going to ask you if you think a team full of Eberle's would beat a team full of Strome's and then thought of the;

...drop pass
....drop pass....
.....drop pass..
drop pass...
turnover goal against eberle special it would produce. The reverse flying V.

I digress.
What would the toe drag/60 stat look like with a team full of eberles
 
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CupofOil

Knob Flavored Coffey
Aug 20, 2009
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Some people just don't watch hockey for entertainment anymore. Which is sad.
If there were a team full of Stromes playing for free in my back yard I'd pull the curtains.

How many bottom 6ers are highly entertaining?
 

booyakasha

Registered User
Oct 11, 2007
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Some people just don't watch hockey for entertainment anymore. Which is sad.
If there were a team full of Stromes playing for free in my back yard I'd pull the curtains.

It's the new NHL attitude it seems.
Offensive players are lauded in how well they play defence, and defencemen are lauded on well they play offence.

pure offensive forwards are pigeonholed as "one dimensional"
and defenseman that play defence are "just stay at home Dmen"
 
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Drivesaitl

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It's the new NHL attitude it seems.
Offensive players are lauded in how well they play defence, and defencemen are lauded on well they play offence.

pure offensive forwards are pigeonholed as "one dimensional"
and defenseman that play defence are "just stay at home Dmen"

Its the salary cap. Its always what it is. IN any pro sport with a salary cap the top paid players get most of the dough by a huge magnitude and whatever else is left is basically fill. Few teams to with the deep model approach and spread it around and have a solid lineup throughout. Vegas did that, but basically because they had to. Teams should actually try this out as an approach. You might go further with a no superstars deep lineup. But everybody wants the stars. More because of the economics. Most NHL markets need star and marquee players and they pay the kings ransom to have those. Peons get whatever is left.
 

CupofOil

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Aug 20, 2009
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Hey, it wasn't me who set up the team of Eberles vs team of Stromes story. I'd rather watch entertaining hockey, that's all I'm saying.

Eberle wasn't all that entertaining his last few seasons here either but I get your point.
 

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