Continuing a discussion that ended in the last thread, that I am unable to properly quote.
Originally Posted By: MessierII
Like anything you need context. Larsson and Klefbom shared the ice in 2016-17 at even strength the majority of the time yet the difference in on ice save % is substantial. With a guy like Larsson it’s no coincidence his goalies have ridiculously high save %’s consistently spanning different teams and different goalies.
Here’s Larssons even strength on ice save %’s last 5 years.
.920
.938
.941
.923
.921
You think that’s a coincidence? Larsson is ridiculously good at defending. He limits chances against and it helps the goalies not get scored on.
Klefbom on the other hand often makes bad turnovers and bad reads in his own end. It’s not just chance his on ice save % is consistently worse than the rest of our top 4 D (exception of Sekera on one leg this year).
Yes, context is important. But you've utterly failed to provide proper context in every regard. For starters, on-ice save percentage is maybe only useful (if it is useful at all, and there is debate on that) as a measure against the teams average and with the proper context of player usage. Matt Benning is not the best defenseman on the team, and could be argued as the best with naked on-ice save percentage.
For another, it stands to reason that Klefbom and Larsson have identical on-ice save percentage when they are together. So what is the context of their ice-time when apart that creates this disparity? Why do other teams have significant defensive players consistently, or sporadically, at the low-end? Who was Klefbom playing with? Who was Larsson playing with? Against? In how big of a sample?
Either way, your conclusion depends on the idea that Klefbom on-ice means more scoring chances and high danger scoring chances against. This is demonstrably not true. We can see that in spite of big visual errors, the Oilers do not face more chances in general. This is in large part because when Klefbom is not making visible errors, the Oilers are moving the puck better and attacking more than with other defenseman. This was apparent when Klefbom was playing with Justin Schultz on the top pair of a significantly worse Oilers team.
Originally Posted By: Aerchon
Klefbom fails the eye test very very obviously defensively and outside of maybe a total of 82 games has ALWAYS failed the eye test very very obviously. A full on defensive defensman like Larsson is required to make up for his poor defensive play. As well as stellar goaltending.
Further proof that the eye test, particularly when it comes to defenseman, is worthless. Particularly among lay-men who vent on forums.
The frustration of people who key in on obvious errors weighed on the far more subtle reality that the Oilers, since Klefbom walked into the league in 2013, win more with him on the ice than they lose.
