Salary Cap: Penguins Salary Cap Thread: End of an era?

[Peat]

I didn't even click on the original NST link. Just took @Tom Hanks word.

Anyways, thanks. That makes sense.
1/4 shots blocked seems pretty significant. Then you have to factor in all the misses too.

It looks pretty significant compares to the other Penguins.

Filter out all the misses by subtracting shots from iFF. Geno has 44 shots off of 56 unblocked chances. Since Rust and Guentzel are at 49 out of 72 and 59 out of 86 respectively, that feels good.

Of course, you could just go by goal per iCF. Geno had 9 from 77. Rust had 9 from 82. Then it keeps going down - Crosby 8 from 87, Jake 7 from 103, ERod 7 from 66... Geno was our most efficient goalscorer going by raw chances.

He looks even more efficient when you compare his tally to individual expected goals. Rust was expected to score 9.78, Guentzel 11.31. Crosby 7, ERod 5.18...

Geno was expected to score 5.03 goals, and scored 9.

So from that angle, Geno was our most ruthlessly efficient goalscorer compare to his chances by a country mile. And while I know people doubt chance location metrics' reporting values, I think this is a case where their usefulness and correlation to the eye test seems pretty obvious. We all knew Guentzel and Rust were getting a ton of in close chances, and that Geno was taking a lot of shots from the point already. We also all know it's generally easier to score from in close than from the point, and making a mockery of that assertion requires talent (or gross unsustainable luck).

And we also all know that blasting from the point/circles will get you blocked a lot, and that happens less with in close chances but getting the elevation hard is right so missing a lot is to be expected.

Which means that while this was a good comparison for how much the PP relies on Geno, it's bad for whether Geno gets blocked a lot for what he does.

So the obvious answer is to find players around the league who have a similar shots and ixG rate to Geno and look at how often they get blocked. Kyle Connor is by far the closest match for that I can find. Connor had 145 chances, 108 unblocked chances, for 25.5%. McDavid is also a close match, and closer if you consider individual high danger chances. 24.4% of his shot attempts were blocked.

I should do more matches before declaring this to be definitely true, but I am lazy, so I'm going to say it looks like there's a solid chance that Geno's block rate is just the price of doing business when you shoot from Geno's position and given how many goals he scored doing it, it was good business. I am also too lazy to fix that run on sentence. Sorry.

 

[AuroraBorealis]

It looks pretty significant compares to the other Penguins.

Filter out all the misses by subtracting shots from iFF. Geno has 44 shots off of 56 unblocked chances. Since Rust and Guentzel are at 49 out of 72 and 59 out of 86 respectively, that feels good.

Of course, you could just go by goal per iCF. Geno had 9 from 77. Rust had 9 from 82. Then it keeps going down - Crosby 8 from 87, Jake 7 from 103, ERod 7 from 66... Geno was our most efficient goalscorer going by raw chances.

He looks even more efficient when you compare his tally to individual expected goals. Rust was expected to score 9.78, Guentzel 11.31. Crosby 7, ERod 5.18...

Geno was expected to score 5.03 goals, and scored 9.

So from that angle, Geno was our most ruthlessly efficient goalscorer compare to his chances by a country mile. And while I know people doubt chance location metrics' reporting values, I think this is a case where their usefulness and correlation to the eye test seems pretty obvious. We all knew Guentzel and Rust were getting a ton of in close chances, and that Geno was taking a lot of shots from the point already. We also all know it's generally easier to score from in close than from the point, and making a mockery of that assertion requires talent (or gross unsustainable luck).

And we also all know that blasting from the point/circles will get you blocked a lot, and that happens less with in close chances but getting the elevation hard is right so missing a lot is to be expected.

Which means that while this was a good comparison for how much the PP relies on Geno, it's bad for whether Geno gets blocked a lot for what he does.

So the obvious answer is to find players around the league who have a similar shots and ixG rate to Geno and look at how often they get blocked. Kyle Connor is by far the closest match for that I can find. Connor had 145 chances, 108 unblocked chances, for 25.5%. McDavid is also a close match, and closer if you consider individual high danger chances. 24.4% of his shot attempts were blocked.

I should do more matches before declaring this to be definitely true, but I am lazy, so I'm going to say it looks like there's a solid chance that Geno's block rate is just the price of doing business when you shoot from Geno's position and given how many goals he scored doing it, it was good business. I am also too lazy to fix that run on sentence. Sorry.

Good overview. The expected goals for stands out. Credit to him there.
The PP definitely took off when he got inserted back into the lineup. There was more fluidity, coordination, zone time and of course...goals. Everyone just looked more comfortable.
Was tracking it at the time and he was wayyy ahead of anyone's PPP/P60, including Sid's. We pole vaulted up the NHL rankings.

Then it hit a wall for no apparent reason. Suddenly our point men were sloppy as hell, choking on zone entries and standard lateral passes. We became predictable and lame as hell.
Wasn't even a matter of bad fortune. It's like there was some mental block. And this shit went on for a good while.

If we're looking at ways to improve the PP, I think Reirden getting a HC job will bring the most change. Geno can clearly still do it. His hands and vision haven't gone anywhere. Shot power's still quite good. Sid's been great on the PP the last 2 years and should be again. I liked Jake's decision making down low very much. Not sold on personnel or their tendencies being the problem. Maybe they just need a new voice.
And if Letang doesn't return then who takes over? Matheson?

But getting back to the shot comparisons, Kyle Connor gets the right wall assignment. That means it's easier for him to execute with his shot.
An opponent's much less likely to be in the lane because the box needs to stretch out. Plus because of the angle, the goalie needs to move more laterally and Connor is more likely to have openings.
So in that respect, Geno did really well in his assignment. I have always felt he should be on the right wall. That makes him way less likely to have costly giveaways and he'd score more goals.

Our biggest problem strategically is we don't have a left wall shooting threat. We don't make PK's guess enough. Sid's not too keen on one-timing from the right wall either. So the opponents know where it's going for the ranged threat. Even if Geno doesn't get blocked, the opponents are well in position when he slapshots and we have to score there with a deflection, the heat of the shot or a really good screen. But it's rare that we have the goalie and opponent box on the run.
When the guys feel it, they get it down low and tear PK's apart. The point men are moving their feet and changing shot lanes. When everyone stops it falls apart.

 

[Peat]

The goal is to be an all-around player. To outscore your opposition. That's the objective of hockey, is it not? If a player is taking all kinds of chances offensively and yet still outscoring the opposition, they must be pretty talented defensively to make up for what the chances they are taking.

No Penguins defenseman consistently does this except Letang. Dumoulin I guess. But he plays with Letang.

This is just another one where the analytics crowd is outsmarting itself; granularity for its own sake.

That's a different argument though. Maybe we are being overly granular, but in terms of whether we are right about the issue in the granularity, goal share is measuring too many variables other than individual defensive ability to be worth considering. xGA against and all the other associated metrics is measuring a lot of other stuff too, but to nowhere near the same extent.

And that said - I don't see why we wouldn't talk the granularity of "how good is he defensively". It seems incredibly key to perceptions of who he is and how much we should value him. You yourself said:

A #1D is vital in all zones, supports the offensive attack and plays the most minutes. If you're choosing between a #2C and a Legit #1D it isn't even a question of which you pick.

Your definition of Letang's value rests on his vitalness in all zones. Empoleon is disagreeing with you because he doesn't think Letang is vital in all zones, specifically their own zone. How are we meant to discuss that disagreement without getting granular about how good he is in is own zone? It's the very crux of the disagreement.

I am uneasy saying his chance location stats are absolute proof he is not the player he was defensively. But they are definitely proof we should double check whether our assumptions about him are correct. He has none of the traditional excuses of a player who's not doing fantastic statistically - his zone usage is kind, any man getting that much time with Crosby is blessed, and his level of competition is not as ferocious as it could be.

Still, lets double check those too. Playing with Sid is a blessing but can you make an argument that's encouraging him to sell out on defence knowing that'll make a bigger difference to the team and distorting his stats? Maybe. You split him from Sid and Geno on line stats, and you see that Letang without them is given abysmal zone starts. How does that work out for him?

19-20, he has better xGA away from Sid despite getting hammered. His unit does get absolutely ravaged here though. That's because he spent a lot of his non-elite C time with Jack Johnson. That went badly. That said, the difference between Jack Johnson's not-elite C time, and Letang's non-elite C time, is minimal in terms of possession shares and zone starts. Letang does a lot better on the scoreboard as his units still generate a ton of offence

20-21, he had better xGA with Sid, but his zone starts away from the Cs is awful. Letang got hammered possession wise away from Sid. He had a better effect on the scoreboard due to massively outscoring his expected goals for, but he was still a negative. Marino's zone starts were 10% better although still bad, but that resulted in better xGA, better xGF% share, and better GF% share.

21-22, he has better xGA away from Sid in his hammered minutes. He does poorly on xGF% but outperforms it a little on GF%, despite still being a slight negative. However, he does this by receiving better goaltending than expected, which may or may not be him, rather than offence. The Marino comparable is very close on on zone starts, and Marino outperforms him on xGA and xGF%, but he has poor PDO so Letang has better GF%.

So I think there's definitely a case that Letang's defensive metrics are misleading, but if you consider him as a guy who's murderous with Sid, but kinda just on a level in terms of pure defence with noted stalwarts Jack Johnson and John Marino, it definitely raises questions about his value. You can never replace his chemistry with Sid but you've got to think finding a guy who can contribute in those minutes is not impossible, and finding a guy to play defence to the JJ/Marino level when not with Sid is not impossible. Maybe you'll get better. Of course, Letang's ability to transcend those minutes due to his superior offence is very valuable... but that waned last season. Coincidence, or the sound of inevitability?

Another good comparison is vs empty net. Letang was our most used dman in those situations - he and Dumo logged 20+ minutes, Marino logged 10, nobody else over 10. Letang's xGA is quite a bit higher than Marino's, and his GA is by far the worse. We also scored the most with him, but his GF% is still the lowest of the three. Now there's probably an element of trade-off there and he can be better but, even so, it's hard to believe he is vital and special and elite when he's getting those results in pure defensive situations. Probably quite good, yeah, maybe so, but not vital.

edit: Which I also find roughly consistent with the eye test.

 

[Zirakzigil]

We will create a new thread after the playoffs are finished and the off season officially starts. There is no page limit on the new forum.