Provorov or Adam Fox?

[LuckyBoeser]

The impacts QoC has on players is quite overrated since the competition doesn't vary (QoT is 3-4x more impactful than QoC). A player consistently plays with the same quality of linemates more than you are to verse the same quality of competition since a coach has more direct control over who a player play with and indirect control over who a player play against. Coaches tend to be able to consistently control what teammates a player plays with compare to getting the ideal matchups a player should get over the course of a full season. Studies show that the quality of competition does not vary that much from player to player. Most likely a player who faces higher quality of competition will also players with stronger linemates. As JackFR pointed out earlier, Provorov's most frequent linemates may be stronger as a whole than Fox's:

Provorov's most frequent linemates:

1. Matt Niskanen
2. Sean Couturier
3. Claude Giroux
4. Travis Konecny
5. James van Riemsdyk

Fox's most frequent linemates:

1. Ryan Lindgren
2. Artemi Panarin
3. Jesper Fast
4. Pavel Buchnevich
5. Ryan Strome

Provorov does play stronger competition than Fox, but he has a stronger core of linemates which will most likely have a bigger impact on their on-ice impacts. I think the small variance in QoC is not enough to offset the fact Fox has Provorov beat in totals of many different analytics despite playing much fewer minutes and Provorov seems to play with stronger linemates.

 

[Sasso09]

I think this thread is revealing about a lot of how we generally evaluate defencemen. With forwards, even people who don't like "analytics" use stats to back up their arguments - points, goals, etc. With defencemen (with a few exceptions) they don't, because there aren't back-of-a-hockey-card stats that measure defence. So people just use minutes played, deployment, coach's trust, and reputation to fill in those blanks.

Minutes played is not an adequate measure of how good a defenceman is, and neither is "just trust me on this, he's good", and neither is "he has a reputation for being good." People can scoff at analytics users all they want, but there really is not a way to argue productively about the relative merits of a defenceman without using them to at least some extent - otherwise it's just two sides bickering over hearsay.

Why is Provorov elite? Because Vigneault is generally considered a good coach and he plays him a lot. Now, I think Provorov has been quite good this year - not elite, but very good. A major bounceback from 18-19 for sure. I think that better goaltending and a hell of a lot of puck luck is making him (and the Flyers in generally) look better than they actually are, but I digress. By the only means we have of actually comparing defencemen's play directly, Fox had a better season than Provorov this year. Now, that may sound wrong, it might seem ridiculous that a rookie on a crummy team had a better year than the #1 defenceman on a good team, but it's true.

The argument for Provorov over Fox, aside from ice time and that he's played more seasons, is that people say that Provorov is better than Fox. For a defenceman that's usually enough - why is Doughty better than Hamilton? Because people say Doughty is better than Hamilton. Don't blame analytics users for saying "that's not enough for me."

Incredibly ignorant post. Provorov is Elite, he faced more TOI last year under a different coach as well. He's used in all situations and excels in all. Fox isn't even close to the same level, he's currently being used as a 4D. He legit has the 4th most TOI in his own team.. Provorov is 8th in the entire league with much tougher usage.

 

[Sasso09]

You seem to not be very knowledgeable about Fox's game. He's much more of a two way defenseman than an offensive defenseman. He's not even the best PP defenseman on his own team and his worst zone is probably the offensive zone.

No, no he's not. He's average at best defensively.

 

[Fantomas]

Who in their right mind thinks Adam Fox is better than Provorov now.

 

[LuckyBoeser]

Incredibly ignorant post. Provorov is Elite, he faced more TOI last year under a different coach as well. He's used in all situations and excels in all. Fox isn't even close to the same level, he's currently being used as a 4D. He legit has the 4th most TOI in his own team.. Provorov is 8th in the entire league with much tougher usage.

Why is Ivan Provorov elite? You only explained his situation which doesn't reflect if he is elite or not.

No, no he's not. He's average at best defensively.

How do you come to that conclusion? Fox's ability to breaks up zone entries and his awareness in his own zone is great and his on-ice results reflect that he does bring great impacts in the defensive zone.

 

[YEM]

Who in their right mind thinks Adam Fox is better than Provorov now.

people who write things like this:

Fox for me, Provorov's career has been a little bit of a disappointment to me.

 

[Sasso09]

Question is does he make everyone around him better. Over the last 3 years the Flyers control a larger share of the 5-on-5 goals that get scored with Provorov on the bench than the goals that get scored when he is on the ice. So that's debatable.



Couturier was arguably the best player in the league under Hakstol.

I don't know why you keep bringing up goaltending either. Were these guys using the force on Provorov to make him suck at his job last year? Nobody is using goals against here.



If the Flyers are so good, and Provorov is better than Adam Fox, why are the Rangers a better team with Adam Fox on the ice than the Flyers with Provorov on the ice? I want you to respond to this one specifically.

They just recently played head to head twice. 2-0 Flyers, 5-2 and 5-3, complete domination.

 

[YEM]

Who in their right mind thinks Adam Fox is better than Provorov now.

people who write things like this:

Fox for me, Provorov's career has been a little bit of a disappointment to me.

 

[Sasso09]

Question is does he make everyone around him better. Over the last 3 years the Flyers control a larger share of the 5-on-5 goals that get scored with Provorov on the bench than the goals that get scored when he is on the ice. So that's debatable.



Couturier was arguably the best player in the league under Hakstol.

I don't know why you keep bringing up goaltending either. Were these guys using the force on Provorov to make him suck at his job last year? Nobody is using goals against here.



If the Flyers are so good, and Provorov is better than Adam Fox, why are the Rangers a better team with Adam Fox on the ice than the Flyers with Provorov on the ice? I want you to respond to this one specifically.

They just recently played head to head twice. 2-0 Flyers, 5-2 and 5-3, complete domination.

No.



Definitely no.



23 > 21

Ok sure. And we're back to "Provorov plays more" being the entire argument.

IF you don't think Provorov is better defensively than Fox you're not worth talking to.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

FOXAINEC Prolomorv is a scrub

 

[JackFr]

Incredibly ignorant post. Provorov is Elite, he faced more TOI last year under a different coach as well. He's used in all situations and excels in all. Fox isn't even close to the same level, he's currently being used as a 4D. He legit has the 4th most TOI in his own team.. Provorov is 8th in the entire league with much tougher usage.

Jesus Christ enough with the time on ice. It is so telling that all you guys can say is "he plays a lot." Jack Johnson played a lot. Dan Girardi played a lot. Playing a lot doesn't make you elite.

It's just being taken as self evident in this thread that Provorov is an elite defensive defenceman, and yet nobody can come up with any evidence at all except his time on ice! The only evidence that's actually been posted here shows that Provorov doesn't actually excel in all situations, he's just okay at even strength.

 

[TomasHertlsRooster]

They just recently played head to head twice. 2-0 Flyers, 5-2 and 5-3, complete domination.

Adam Fox and Ivan Provorov have played 16:49 against one another at 5-on-5 this season.

In those minutes, neither team scored a goal, but the Flyers have 33.33% CF and 16.20% xGF.

 

[JackFr]

Arguing about defencemen is a fundamental waste of time. Nobody in this thread is equipped to make this argument based on the eye test, because nobody has watched the number of Flyers and Rangers games while isolating on the two players and having a trained enough eye to notice subtle things like positioning and zone exits and account for visual biases like goaltending. So instead they're just deferring to reputation and hearsay that's based on very little

One side is saying Provorov is elite because I say so, because he has a reputation for it, and because his coach plays him a lot. You do not have any tools to talk about defencemen other than vague buzzwords and time on ice, which isn't even a stat that measures how a player performs!

The other side is bringing actual information to the table - about how Provorov actually isn't very good at preventing chances against or driving offence in any way, about how his teammate quality outweighs the impact of facing "tough competition", etc. But it doesn't matter at all because all that matters is reputation.

 

[TomasHertlsRooster]

IF you don't think Provorov is better defensively than Fox you're not worth talking to.

You have a very strong opinion here - so strong that you believe anybody who disagrees with this opinion is not worth talking to.

Surely, some evidence must have led you to this very strong opinion.

Why don't you share it with us?

 

[Sasso09]

OK before this thread gets closed just one last case to be made for Fox over Provorov.

Here's a visualization that compares them. It uses xWAR, which is a stat that measures how many wins a player is expected to provide over a season compared to a replacement-level player, and accounts for teammates, competition, etc. It has no relation to goaltending (uses expected goals instead of goals against).

Adam Fox had a truly remarkable season this year. He was significantly better offensively, one of the best defensive defencemen in the league, and productive as well. And keep in mind that these stats aren't rates, they're totals, so Fox did far more in 19 minutes a night than Provorov did in that plus six extra minutes. The only case for Provorov over Fox is ice time. That's it.

One last thing, since people are grousing about Quality of Competition.

Provorov's most frequent linemates:

1. Matt Niskanen
2. Sean Couturier
3. Claude Giroux
4. Travis Konecny
5. James van Riemsdyk

Fox's most frequent linemates:

1. Ryan Lindgren
2. Artemi Panarin
3. Jesper Fast
4. Pavel Buchnevich
5. Ryan Strome

I would be very curious whether Flyers fans would prefer to have the second group of players than the first?

This breakdown loses all credibility in claiming Provorov's market value is 6.3 and #4D Fox is 6.8.

Here's the facts:

ATOI:
Provorov 24:51 (1st on Flyers by over 3 minutes, 8th in entire league)
Fox: 18:54 (4th D on his own team, 176th in the league)

PP TOI:
Provorov: 3:03
Fox: 1:51

PK:
Provorov: 2:45 (most on his team by significant margin)
Fox: 0:08 (doesn't PK unless emergency shift is needed)

CF:
Provorov: 52.4
Fox: 51.7

OZ/DZ starts:
Provorov: 46.1O/53.9D
Fox: 55O/45D

Points:
Provorov: 69GP 13G 23A 36P
Fox: 70GP 8G 34A 42P

Provorov is entrusted in all situations and performs better with much tougher usage. He's facing a top 10 most difficult usage deployment in the NHL and is a clear cit #1D on one of the best teams in the league. Fox is being used as a 4th defenseman on a non-playoff team and isn't trusted in defensive assignments whether it be PK or ZS.

Rangers fans trying to make up this 2-way beast, "he's better defensively than he is offensively" crap are just out to lunch. If that were the case he wouldn't be a 4th defenseman, he'd PK a ton more and he'd be a top 10 defenseman in the NHL.

 

[JackFr]

Provorov is entrusted in all situations and performs better with much tougher usage. He's facing a top 10 most difficult usage deployment in the NHL and is a clear cit #1D on one of the best teams in the league. Fox is being used as a 4th defenseman on a non-playoff team and isn't trusted in defensive assignments whether it be PK or ZS.

Rangers fans trying to make up this 2-way beast, "he's better defensively than he is offensively" crap are just out to lunch. If that were the case he wouldn't be a 4th defenseman, he'd PK a ton more and he'd be a top 10 defenseman in the NHL.

You literally cannot help yourself.

1. As I have said over and over again, time on ice is not a sufficient way to compare two players. The coach does not decide who the better player is, unless you think that Chabot is the league's best defenceman. The coach of the Rangers deciding not to run a rookie into the ground and preferring the high-priced player with pedigree in Trouba doesn't mean anything about the relative quality of the players.

2. Fox is a rookie, it is not a fault of his if Quinn would rather play Staal and Trouba on the penalty kill than a rookie.

3. Provorov is a shitty penalty killer, so AV probably shouldn't trust him there.

4. I'm not a Rangers fan.

If the only way we have to compare defencemen is "whose coach thinks he's the best" then we truly don't know how to talk about hockey.

5. I'm just telling you what the evidence says.

 

[Dooble08]

Currently, I'll take Fox because there is no NHL and I'm playing NHL 20. When the actual NHL starts up again, Provorov.

 

[Jason MacIsaac]

This breakdown loses all credibility in claiming Provorov's market value is 6.3 and #4D Fox is 6.8.

Here's the facts:

ATOI:
Provorov 24:51 (1st on Flyers by over 3 minutes, 8th in entire league)
Fox: 18:54 (4th D on his own team, 176th in the league)

PP TOI:
Provorov: 3:03
Fox: 1:51

PK:
Provorov: 2:45 (most on his team by significant margin)
Fox: 0:08 (doesn't PK unless emergency shift is needed)

CF:
Provorov: 52.4
Fox: 51.7

OZ/DZ starts:
Provorov: 46.1O/53.9D
Fox: 55O/45D

Points:
Provorov: 69GP 13G 23A 36P
Fox: 70GP 8G 34A 42P

Provorov is entrusted in all situations and performs better with much tougher usage. He's facing a top 10 most difficult usage deployment in the NHL and is a clear cit #1D on one of the best teams in the league. Fox is being used as a 4th defenseman on a non-playoff team and isn't trusted in defensive assignments whether it be PK or ZS.

Rangers fans trying to make up this 2-way beast, "he's better defensively than he is offensively" crap are just out to lunch. If that were the case he wouldn't be a 4th defenseman, he'd PK a ton more and he'd be a top 10 defenseman in the NHL.

What about P1/60? I will do it for you.
Fox: .88 P1/60
Provorov: .45 P1/60

What about Rel CF%
Fox: 7.24%
Provorov: 1.26%

Maybe Rel GF%
FoxL 13.42%
Provorov: -2.27%

 

[LuckyBoeser]

ATOI:
Provorov 24:51 (1st on Flyers by over 3 minutes, 8th in entire league)
Fox: 18:54 (4th D on his own team, 176th in the league)

PP TOI:
Provorov: 3:03
Fox: 1:51

PK:
Provorov: 2:45 (most on his team by significant margin)
Fox: 0:08 (doesn't PK unless emergency shift is needed)

CF:
Provorov: 52.4
Fox: 51.7

OZ/DZ starts:
Provorov: 46.1O/53.9D
Fox: 55O/45D

Points:
Provorov: 69GP 13G 23A 36P
Fox: 70GP 8G 34A 42P

Your point here mostly consist entirely around coaches usuage not how a player performs beside CF% and points. I think it reasonable to conclude that points wise Provorov is close because he played approxiamtely 70 more minutes on the power play than Fox and about 100 more minutes at even-strength, but still gets outproduced by Fox at even-strength and only a 2 points difference on the power DESPITE playing about 70 minutes less than Provorov in pp usage. The fact that Fox outproduces Provorov in all situations with 400 less toi is worth noting if you want to use raw production. Fox drives corsi better. I find it interesting that you didn't mention that Flyers is a far better CF% team than the Rangers. When looking at 5v5 relative to teammates corsi impacts, Fox RelTM C±/60 is 10.65 whereas Provorov tops out at a whooping 0.68. Huge difference! As I mentioned earlier in this thread, quality of competition is quite overstated in term of its impact on a player's results and quality of teammates has about 3-4x the impact on a player's results compare to QoC. Which leads to something else I want to point out, I love how you go on and on about the competition Provorov face but completely ignore that he has a stronger group of linemates... it just doesn't fit your narrative I guess.

Provorov is entrusted in all situations and performs better with much tougher usage. He's facing a top 10 most difficult usage deployment in the NHL and is a clear cit #1D on one of the best teams in the league. Fox is being used as a 4th defenseman on a non-playoff team and isn't trusted in defensive assignments whether it be PK or ZS.

I don't deny Provorov face tough competition, but where your evidence that he face the top 10 most difficult usage deployment in the NHL?

 

[UnSandvich]

For all the people saying that Provorov is better than Fox because his coach plays him more...yep. You're right. He does.

Of course, he absolutely ran Dan Girardi and Marc Staal into the ground when they were (and in Staal's case, still are) 7th defenseman level, at best. Vigneault's TOI distribution and defensive "system" were serious handicaps on the Rangers cup hopes during his tenure in NY, as good as his win/loss record was. So just be careful, as you may find yourselves turning on him at some point in the not so distant future.

 

[Finlandia WOAT]

Jaccob Slavin went from playing ~22 minutes a game in spring 2019 to ~25 minutes a game spring 2020.

Is this because he got that much better in those 12 or so months, or because the Hurricanes went from having 4-5 top four defensemen to one after trades and injury?

 

[TomasHertlsRooster]

This breakdown loses all credibility in claiming Provorov's market value is 6.3 and #4D Fox is 6.8.

Here's the facts:

ATOI:
Provorov 24:51 (1st on Flyers by over 3 minutes, 8th in entire league)
Fox: 18:54 (4th D on his own team, 176th in the league)

PP TOI:
Provorov: 3:03
Fox: 1:51

PK:
Provorov: 2:45 (most on his team by significant margin)
Fox: 0:08 (doesn't PK unless emergency shift is needed)

CF:
Provorov: 52.4
Fox: 51.7

OZ/DZ starts:
Provorov: 46.1O/53.9D
Fox: 55O/45D

Points:
Provorov: 69GP 13G 23A 36P
Fox: 70GP 8G 34A 42P

Provorov is entrusted in all situations and performs better with much tougher usage. He's facing a top 10 most difficult usage deployment in the NHL and is a clear cit #1D on one of the best teams in the league. Fox is being used as a 4th defenseman on a non-playoff team and isn't trusted in defensive assignments whether it be PK or ZS.

Rangers fans trying to make up this 2-way beast, "he's better defensively than he is offensively" crap are just out to lunch. If that were the case he wouldn't be a 4th defenseman, he'd PK a ton more and he'd be a top 10 defenseman in the NHL.

You were in another thread telling people that they refused to use relative metrics because the relative metrics would show the truth. Why don't you show us the relative metrics for Fox and Provorov, considering Fox is on a tire fire Rangers team and Provorov is on a strong Flyers team?

 

[Nabrules]

Jesus close this thread up, load sided a can be. Only ppl making this drag on is the bias PITS fool and analytical nerds who don’t base their opinions on anything but numbers. Both are great young blue liners but as of right now only complete fools would take Adam Fox over Ivan Provorov

 

[TomasHertlsRooster]

Jesus close this thread up, load sided a can be. Only ppl making this drag on is the bias PITS fool and analytical nerds who don’t base their opinions on anything but numbers. Both are great young blue liners but as on right now only complete fools would take Adam Fox over Ivan Provorov

You don’t base your opinion on anything but coach’s decisions and “keeping opponents honest with a physical presence” which is entirely impossible to quantify but looks pretty false when we try.

 

[Nabrules]

For all the people saying that Provorov is better than Fox because his coach plays him more...yep. You're right. He does.

Of course, he absolutely ran Dan Girardi and Marc Staal into the ground when they were (and in Staal's case, still are) 7th defenseman level, at best. Vigneault's TOI distribution and defensive "system" were serious handicaps on the Rangers cup hopes during his tenure in NY, as good as his win/loss record was. So just be careful, as you may find yourselves turning on him at some point in the not so distant future.

AV aLsO rUiNs YOuNG PLaYErS!!!!!!!!!