Player Discussion Ryan Nugent-Hopkins '17-18 Season

[Asiaoil]

I addressed this before but you did not respond.

I looked at the link you posted to Woodguy's comments and if it is the one I checked out I did not see much of a detailed analysis to be honest. It was more of a summary of the content of PuckIq's data. On the surface it looks compelling as you stated but a more detailed look at these numbers was done by the guy who runs PuckIq here: (Thanks to tempesti2i for pointing this out).

https://oilersnerdalert.wordpress.com/2017/08/19/comparing-nuges-oranges-and-draisaitls-oranges/

He points out a significant quirk in these numbers which I had also noted before and that is the impact of the combination of Nuge and Russell on the numbers that Woodguy quotes. It's actually somewhat freaky and quite remarkable how much the pair seemed to be oil and water. I have pointed out that with Larsson statistically Nuge looks like a completely different player. In fact with anyone other than Russell and things do look very different.

Beyond that Nuge's numbers vs the elite in the west are also very different. I know you like the using GF/60 and GA/60 which I have issues with when comparing players in different roles. But what is striking is that vs the West Nuge's GF/60 is 2.2 and his GA/60 is an extremely low 1.3. Yet vs the east they are respectively an anemic 0.70 and 2.70. The respective TOI are West 269 minutes and East 175 minutes so there is no doubt some small sample size issues here. But on the surface this suggests that the overall the numbers are skewed by some truly bad games vs a few eastern teams. And if I recall Nuge played some of the worst hockey of his career during an Eastern swing early in the year. The team was also terrible during that stretch, really the only extended period of poor defensive play the whole year.

You have also recently acknowledged that the stats that are often used don't isolate the player in suggesting that Nuge's successful results in the playoffs had him "helping" his unit. So is this terrible stretch indicative of the player or is it a statistical quirk due to a match-up that was for a brief time a disaster. Is there a case to be made that his much better performance over a larger sample size against the type of teams he is suppose to struggle against more representative of the player that his coach seems to speak of frequently. Hopefully this year makes this more clear.

http://puckiq.com/players/8476454

Hi Fourier – thanks for taking the time to respond. Always a pleasure to debate with you as you’re so detailed. A lot of what you point out is perfectly correct, but as woodguy admits in the article, you can’t really ex-post take out a small portion of the results that show RNH in a negative light, accept the rest, and call it good. The results are obviously interesting, could be real, could be simple luck, might be completely opposite this year. GF% of a full season is, as you know, not a sample. It’s the population. It is what it is. Carving out pieces of that small population and trying to say anything statistically meaningful is almost impossible unless your sample is almost the same size as the population (kind of pointless). The analytics community hates the stat for this reason, but that doesn’t reduce its importance since out-scoring is the entire point of the game. Of course you can look at trends in GF% during the season, ponder possible causes etc etc etc. But these musings are always highly speculative given our crude tools and very limited data.

A lot of what the so-called analytics community focuses on is secondary data (like corsi) that does not have a demonstrable, direct correlation with results (GF%) at the individual level. That is why the analytics community hates Russell so much. He’s a guy who creates positive outcomes in spite of what their simple models suggest should happen. It drives them crazy, but instead of pondering why their models are not working, they attack the player and anyone who suggests that their simple little models have issues. They simply ignore results they don’t like and keep doing the same old thing. Pouliot is is a bargain - maybe not. Fayne is a stud - whoops. Russell is awful - hmmmmm. They have also created an area of inquiry that not only ignores the measurability logical fallacy (i.e., suggesting that anything that cannot be measured or quantified is anecdotal or unworthy of serious consideration) but has enshrined the fallacy as a core operating assumption. The entire enterprise would be laughed out of any social science department. Well maybe not economics but that’s another issue


But back to RNH – here is my take on the player:

Pros: skating, passing, intelligence, power play, defensive work ethic, coachability
Cons: lack of strength, lack of aggressiveness, follower not leader, inflexibility, out-scoring
Deployment: low-end 1st line center / high end 2nd line center / elite 3rd line center
Salary Range: $4.0 million (low end) to 6.0 million (high end)

RNH has a lot of solid skills but some pretty serious flaws as well which tend to be in the “intangible” category but also in the demonstrable result (GF%) as well. As discussed above, intangible does not mean unimportant or even unmeasurable, quite the opposite as many of the best NHL coaching and management professionals state openly. RNH’s intangibles aside from coachability and defensive work ethic are not really an asset. He’s pretty timid and not at all physical, very much a follower and not a leader. By inflexibility I refer to his very poor results when paired with many players who he simply does not gel with. He seems like a hard guy to play with to me, maybe even stubborn in his approach. That said he’s a very good 2nd line center and PP guy and I would consider him an elite 3C if you have the luxury of playing him there (which we do this season). But he’s not value as a 2C or 3C in my books and that will mean he’s traded next year when cap space becomes very scarce. We may not replace his points on the 3rd line but we certainly might be able to upgrade intangibles and GF% results. A goal prevented is just a valuable (but less demonstrable) that a goal for, and if the change in the team over the past 2 years tells us anything, it should be very clear that shots and offensive boxcars do not in and of themselves determine success.

Sorry for the essay but felt like your reply deserved some thought.

 

[Fourier]

Hi Fourier – thanks for taking the time to respond. Always a pleasure to debate with you as you’re so detailed. A lot of what you point out is perfectly correct, but as woodguy admits in the article, you can’t really ex-post take out a small portion of the results that show RNH in a negative light, accept the rest, and call it good. The results are obviously interesting, could be real, could be simple luck, might be completely opposite this year. GF% of a full season is, as you know, not a sample. It’s the population. It is what it is. Carving out pieces of that small population and trying to say anything statistically meaningful is almost impossible unless your sample is almost the same size as the population (kind of pointless). The analytics community hates the stat for this reason, but that doesn’t reduce its importance since out-scoring is the entire point of the game. Of course you can look at trends in GF% during the season, ponder possible causes etc etc etc. But these musings are always highly speculative given our crude tools and very limited data.

A lot of what the so-called analytics community focuses on is secondary data (like corsi) that does not have a demonstrable, direct correlation with results (GF%) at the individual level. That is why the analytics community hates Russell so much. He’s a guy who creates positive outcomes in spite of what their simple models suggest should happen. It drives them crazy, but instead of pondering why their models are not working, they attack the player and anyone who suggests that their simple little models have issues. They simply ignore results they don’t like and keep doing the same old thing. Pouliot is is a bargain - maybe not. Fayne is a stud - whoops. Russell is awful - hmmmmm. They have also created an area of inquiry that not only ignores the measurability logical fallacy (i.e., suggesting that anything that cannot be measured or quantified is anecdotal or unworthy of serious consideration) but has enshrined the fallacy as a core operating assumption. The entire enterprise would be laughed out of any social science department. Well maybe not economics but that’s another issue


But back to RNH – here is my take on the player:

Pros: skating, passing, intelligence, power play, defensive work ethic, coachability
Cons: lack of strength, lack of aggressiveness, follower not leader, inflexibility, out-scoring
Deployment: low-end 1st line center / high end 2nd line center / elite 3rd line center
Salary Range: $4.0 million (low end) to 6.0 million (high end)

RNH has a lot of solid skills but some pretty serious flaws as well which tend to be in the “intangible” category but also in the demonstrable result (GF%) as well. As discussed above, intangible does not mean unimportant or even unmeasurable, quite the opposite as many of the best NHL coaching and management professionals state openly. RNH’s intangibles aside from coachability and defensive work ethic are not really an asset. He’s pretty timid and not at all physical, very much a follower and not a leader. By inflexibility I refer to his very poor results when paired with many players who he simply does not gel with. He seems like a hard guy to play with to me, maybe even stubborn in his approach. That said he’s a very good 2nd line center and PP guy and I would consider him an elite 3C if you have the luxury of playing him there (which we do this season). But he’s not value as a 2C or 3C in my books and that will mean he’s traded next year when cap space becomes very scarce. We may not replace his points on the 3rd line but we certainly might be able to upgrade intangibles and GF% results. A goal prevented is just a valuable (but less demonstrable) that a goal for, and if the change in the team over the past 2 years tells us anything, it should be very clear that shots and offensive boxcars do not in and of themselves determine success.

Sorry for the essay but felt like your reply deserved some thought.

Normally small sample sizes are a red flag if you try to extrapolate from them. But this is not what is happening here. Woodguy, who I generally like, looked at the raw numbers from the puckiq site to conclude that while Nuge did indeed play very tough minutes that he was not successful. On the surface the data seems to support this to the degree that Corsi based stats can isolate the individual.

But then there is the Nuge/Russell phenomenon. The sample size of the two playing together is small so based solely on those numbers it would not be wise to extrapolate that either player was "terrible". But that does not change the fact that the numbers that they had together, most of which resulted from a roughly 15 game streak against mainly eastern teams where, Nuge, Russell and in fact the whole team were awful, were so bad that they skewed the picture the data painted over the whole season. In fact for the majority of the year Nuge's numbers were fine. And if you isolate is play vs the top end big centers in the West, the precise group that people often say he is not built to handle, they show that he actually did very well.

To give an admittedly very exaggerated illustration of how a conclusion based on aggregate data without context can be very wrong if there is an extreme anomaly consider the situation of a goalie asked to play 80 games in a year. This guy has 3 shutouts in every four games but because of exhaustion lets in an average of 12 goals in the other game in the set of 4. At the end of the year all that is published is his GAA which in this case is 3. Comparing this with other starters in the league based on only summary data you would conclude that the goalie had a rather poor year. After all a GAA of 3 would have put him in 31st place amongst goalies playing 40 or more games last year. But the goal is to win games and in this respect it was actually a remarkably successful year.

Of course this example was extreme but so was the statistical anomaly from the Nuge/Russell combo last year. It really was a freakish combination.

Again, there is a lot of noise in all of this data because none of it isolates the player explicitly. My point was simply that Woodguy's assessment that Nuge was not up to the role of playing against top opposition based on only the data from the puckiq site was at least suspect because of this rather change circumstance.

 

[Asiaoil]

Normally small sample sizes are a red flag if you try to extrapolate from them. But this is not what is happening here. Woodguy, who I generally like, looked at the raw numbers from the puckiq site to conclude that while Nuge did indeed play very tough minutes that he was not successful. On the surface the data seems to support this to the degree that Corsi based stats can isolate the individual.

But then there is the Nuge/Russell phenomenon. The sample size of the two playing together is small so based solely on those numbers it would not be wise to extrapolate that either player was "terrible". But that does not change the fact that the numbers that they had together, most of which resulted from a roughly 15 game streak against mainly eastern teams where, Nuge, Russell and in fact the whole team were awful, were so bad that they skewed the picture the data painted over the whole season. In fact for the majority of the year Nuge's numbers were fine. And if you isolate is play vs the top end big centers in the West, the precise group that people often say he is not built to handle, they show that he actually did very well.

To give an admittedly very exaggerated illustration of how a conclusion based on aggregate data without context can be very wrong if there is an extreme anomaly consider the situation of a goalie asked to play 80 games in a year. This guy has 3 shutouts in every four games but because of exhaustion lets in an average of 12 goals in the other game in the set of 4. At the end of the year all that is published is his GAA which in this case is 3. Comparing this with other starters in the league based on only summary data you would conclude that the goalie had a rather poor year. After all a GAA of 3 would have put him in 31st place amongst goalies playing 40 or more games last year. But the goal is to win games and in this respect it was actually a remarkably successful year.

Of course this example was extreme but so was the statistical anomaly from the Nuge/Russell combo last year. It really was a freakish combination.

Again, there is a lot of noise in all of this data because none of it isolates the player explicitly. My point was simply that Woodguy's assessment that Nuge was not up to the role of playing against top opposition based on only the data from the puckiq site was at least suspect because of this rather change circumstance.

Sure the numbers are interesting and something to think about, but it could just as easily be random, hard to say much looking at a short stretch of games in a single season. If the trend persists over multiple seasons then something may be going on - but still - the causation issue remains unsolved without much more highly specific data. You're assume it's Russell effecting RNH, but you can't dismiss that RNH is doing something that doesn't mesh with what Russell, or it's some combination of the two, or it's injuries, or something else. I could be wrong (hockey stats going dark is crippling) but it seems like RNH does not mix well with a lot of guys. It's not like you can throw anyone on his line and they blossom - like McDavid - quite the opposite in my totally unsubstantiated personal opinion.

In any case - been watching a lot of Lehkonen in MTL and I would not mind a deal of RNH for Lehkonen plus with some other mix of players tossed in. That kid would score a ton with McDavid and he's signed for another season after this one for under $1 million.

 

[Fourier]

Sure the numbers are interesting and something to think about, but it could just as easily be random, hard to say much looking at a short stretch of games in a single season. If the trend persists over multiple seasons then something may be going on - but still - the causation issue remains unsolved without much more highly specific data. You're assume it's Russell effecting RNH, but you can't dismiss that RNH is doing something that doesn't mesh with what Russell, or it's some combination of the two, or it's injuries, or something else. I could be wrong (hockey stats going dark is crippling) but it seems like RNH does not mix well with a lot of guys. It's not like you can throw anyone on his line and they blossom - like McDavid - quite the opposite in my totally unsubstantiated personal opinion.

In any case - been watching a lot of Lehkonen in MTL and I would not mind a deal of RNH for Lehkonen plus with some other mix of players tossed in. That kid would score a ton with McDavid and he's signed for another season after this one for under $1 million.

I am not assuming that it was Russell's fault at all. I will say that if you look at the pair it is less surprising to me that they would not match. Defensively, Nuge is very good in the offensive zone and in the neutral zone. Where he is also good up high in the defensive zone. Where he can struggle is down low in the defensive zone particularly if the puck is in zone for an extended period of time. With Russell this tends to happen a lot compared with some of the other defensemen on the team. So this may partly explain why the combination does not work. Some of it may well be just a random blip.

That said even this misses my point. Regardless of why the pair had such atrocious numbers together...fluke or not...the point is that their short time together skews the stats that Woodguy was using in the post you quoted. Normally small sample size blips, either positive or negative, get absorbed in the broader sample size. But this was strange enough anomaly that the small sample size component significantly impacted the full data set. This is always a danger with these sorts of stats but such an extreme example is actually quite rare.

I actually don't agree (surprising as it might seem ) that Nuge is hard to play with. He's actually had a fair bit of success with a relatively broad set of line mates going back to even his first year. He and Hemsky for example had almost immediate chemistry and Hemsky was one of the toughest guys the Oilers have had to play with.

It's hard to really get much out of stats in this regard since his TOI has been dominated by playing with a combination of Hall, Eberle and to a lesser degree Pouliot. With Hall he tended to be more passive but they had success together. That said Hall's numbers tended to be up when they played together while Nuge's numbers actually were personally better away from Hall. The combination of Nuge, Pouliot and Eberle was very good for good parts of two years but was less successful last year.

Nuge also worked well with Yak early in Yak's career (2013-2014) but they were admittedly like oil and water Yak's last year. Nuge also had success over short period playing with guys like Purcell, Lander, Smyth, Perron. He also had a lot of success when Schultz was on the ice even when Schultz was struggling and has had very good success with Klefbom right from the get go for Oscar.
.

 

[AM]

Nugent Hopkins is 24.

I think he will outplay his salary this year, and give the Oilers a hard decision in the off season.

 

[Spawn]

Nugent Hopkins is 24.

I think he will outplay his salary this year, and give the Oilers a hard decision in the off season.

You think he's going to outplay a $6M salary from the 3rd line? There's no chance.

 

[belair]

You think he's going to outplay a $6M salary from the 3rd line? There's no chance.

Not that I agree he'll 'outplay his salary'--do you honestly think HFBoards would agree on something like that --what are the odds he'll play all 82 games on the third line this year? I'd be surprised to see him play a third of the season there.

 

[Mr Positive]

You think he's going to outplay a $6M salary from the 3rd line? There's no chance.

I don't think it matters if there is a chance of it or not.

Chia is not going to trade RNH this year, and will make this a show-me year for him.

McLellan is not going to do RNH any favours if it means less wins, and Chiarelli's not going to tell him how to arrange his depth chart.

So it's all up to RNH. If he truly is a top 6 player he will force his way up the depth chart. McLellan has shown that he won't do anyone any favours, but he will help those who truly deserve it. If RNH can do that and get 60 points, or play at a high point pace later in the season and in the playoffs, then there's a good chance we keep him. If he bounces around the lineup all year and gets mixed reviews, getting a 50-ish point pace, he's gone.

 

[Spawn]

Not that I agree he'll 'outplay his salary'--do you honestly think HFBoards would agree on something like that --what are the odds he'll play all 82 games on the third line this year? I'd be surprised to see him play a third of the season there.

It doesn't matter where he plays honestly. He spent all of last season as the 2nd line C and wasn't close to outplaying his contract.

 

[nabob]

It doesn't matter where he plays honestly. He spent all of last season as the 2nd line C and wasn't close to outplaying his contract.

You say that like it's a fact

 

[MinimaMoralia]

You say that like it's a fact

It's pretty close to it. You'll be hard-pressed to find more than a dozen people who thought he 'out-played his contract.'
He was an alright second line center, all-in-all, not great, but good. If what you're trying to argue is he's okay in that role, you'd have a leg to stand on, but you chose to be pugnacious in a post arguing he's 'out-playing' a six million dollar salary, in which case, frankly, you better have some pretty darn good supporting arguments.

 

[Spawn]

You say that like it's a fact

lmao it is a fact.

Surely even the blindest of Nuge fan boys can see last season was far and away the worst of his career both offensively and defensively.

But, he had a good pre-season game tonight, so he's for sure gonna have a GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEAT season this year. Just like how the World Cup last year was going to translate

 

[Del Preston]

He looked like rookie Nuge tonight. Excellent game for him and his line (Jokinen & Yamamoto).

 

[Mr Positive]

lmao it is a fact.

Surely even the blindest of Nuge fan boys can see last season was far and away the worst of his career both offensively and defensively.

But, he had a good pre-season game tonight, so he's for sure gonna have a GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEAT season this year. Just like how the World Cup last year was going to translate

I agree. For Nuge to stay, he needs to be worth 7 million. Last season he was worth 5

That's the standard for our team now with the cap, and really, with the great talent he's surrounded with there's no excuse not to put up the numbers. And yes, he needs to put up numbers, and MUCH better than numbers than he did last year. I believe he can do it.

 

[Aerchon]

Nugent Hopkins is 24.

I think he will outplay his salary this year, and give the Oilers a hard decision in the off season.

This just needs to be repeated in this thread over and over until at least the season is done and hopefully right through the playoffs.

Nuge is criminally undervalued by so many on our boards. The main board is having a field day dreaming up every conceivable offer to pick up Nuge in the eventuality we can't afford him next year.

That's not saying Nuge is elite super awesome. Just that even as a average second line center, which Nuge certainly qualifies as, those are hard to get and a big piece many organizations need, those not already sporting Mcdavid and Leon...

Nuge in our line up is Huge. Can't be understated IMO. If we have to move on for cap reasons, we have to, but I hope we don't have to.

 

[nabob]

Nuge did not play all of last season as 2nd line center. Only his biggest hater on here would make a claim like that and back it up by saying "lmao it is a fact".

Great to see Nuge lead the B squad to a decisive victory over the Jets A squad. Not surprised that someone would try to find a negative in there somewhere though.

 

[KarmaPolice]

I think that's 5 assists in 2 preseason games so far. Yeah it's preseason, but it's also a better sign that he's leading the team in points thus far (I believe) than having 0 points and struggling out of the gate. It's a good start, and let's hope he can build on it going forward. That's all that can really be said thus far.

 

[McFlyingV]

Saw some vintage RNH tonight, especially on the PP. Had a few beautiful seam passes that he was well know for early in his career. I think if he's utilized as the 2nd PP QB and either on a soft minutes 3rd line scoring line, or on the wing with McDavid or Draisaitl then we could see a very solid season out of him. He's not an elite offensive player, but the skill is definitely still there and especially the playmaking. If there ends up being more PPs in the league this year he's going to get more of an opportunity on the PP.

Im excited to see how he does, but he looked great tonight.

 

[belair]

lmao it is a fact.

Surely even the blindest of Nuge fan boys can see last season was far and away the worst of his career both offensively and defensively.

But, he had a good pre-season game tonight, so he's for sure gonna have a GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEAT season this year. Just like how the World Cup last year was going to translate

Actually, it was neither.

Last season was certainly lacklustre but he was still an integral part of the first Oilers team to break the 100 point mark in aeons.

 

[Belieber]

He's looking great, hopefully this is the year... like every year, where he puts it together.

 

[Spawn]

Actually, it was neither.

Last season was certainly lacklustre but he was still an integral part of the first Oilers team to break the 100 point mark in aeons.

Oh please.

He was a drain on last seasons team. By a significant margin the worst staple player in the top 6. The Oilers had their best season in decades in spite of RNHs ineptitude.

As for it being neither his worst season offensively nor defensively. It was very clearly his worst season offensively. His point per game rate was well below any other season in his career. He lacked any semblance of offensive creativity and became an even more one-note player than usual. Its tougher to quantify his defensive. In relation to the rest of the team though it certainly was his worst season in that regard as well. In the past he got away with being subpar defensively because the rest of the team was as bad or worse and we were all desperate to see positives in his pedestrian game. But last season the Oilers improved leaps and bounds defensively. Even a traditionally 1-way player in Eberle made significant strides in his defensive game. Nuge didn't improve one iota. Still had no clue how to defend below his hashmarks. Still caught standing around missing defensive assignments. Still weak along the boards. Still garbage on faceoffs.

 

[belair]

Oh please.

He was a drain on last seasons team. By a significant margin the worst staple player in the top 6. The Oilers had their best season in decades in spite of RNHs ineptitude.

As for it being neither his worst season offensively nor defensively. It was very clearly his worst season offensively. His point per game rate was well below any other season in his career. He lacked any semblance of offensive creativity and became an even more one-note player than usual. Its tougher to quantify his defensive. In relation to the rest of the team though it certainly was his worst season in that regard as well. In the past he got away with being subpar defensively because the rest of the team was as bad or worse and we were all desperate to see positives in his pedestrian game. But last season the Oilers improved leaps and bounds defensively. Even a traditionally 1-way player in Eberle made significant strides in his defensive game. Nuge didn't improve one iota. Still had no clue how to defend below his hashmarks. Still caught standing around missing defensive assignments. Still weak along the boards. Still garbage on faceoffs.

He was leaned on for much of last season to faceoff against other team's top offensive threats. We ran a 1-2, 2-1 match-up and for much of last season, if not all of it, RNH was the 2C. If last season was his poorest defensively, Todd McLellan wouldn't have given him those match-ups. And if you force Draisaitl off of McDavid's wing last season, there's no question it negatively effects the team's offense. RNH was a necessity last year.

And his worst offensive season without question was his 4 goal campaign. He couldn't buy a goal and for much of the season he wasn't much of a scoring threat either. His shoulder injury rendered him useless.

 

[Spawn]

He was leaned on for much of last season to faceoff against other team's top offensive threats. We ran a 1-2, 2-1 match-up and for much of last season, if not all of it, RNH was the 2C. If last season was his poorest defensively, Todd McLellan wouldn't have given him those match-ups. And if you force Draisaitl off of McDavid's wing last season, there's no question it negatively effects the team's offense. RNH was a necessity last year.

And his worst offensive season without question was his 4 goal campaign. He couldn't buy a goal and for much of the season he wasn't much of a scoring threat either. His shoulder injury rendered him useless.

Not sure how many times I have to say this. But just because he played the role doesn't mean he did well in the role. Shawn Horcoff proved that for years. Nuge is continuing in his name I guess.

And your right, Nuge couldn't buy a goal in his sophomore season. But even with a bum shoulder and a shooting percentage at 5% he managed to put up points at a better rate than last seasons version of RNH.

 

[belair]

Not sure how many times I have to say this. But just because he played the role doesn't mean he did well in the role. Shawn Horcoff proved that for years. Nuge is continuing in his name I guess.

And your right, Nuge couldn't buy a goal in his sophomore season. But even with a bum shoulder and a shooting percentage at 5% he managed to put up points at a better rate than last seasons version of RNH.

And you can say it until the cows come home. Did he play Selke level defense? No. But he and his linemates were effective in limiting high-end opponents' opportunities.

Shawn Horcoff played some important minutes as well in his time--unfortunately it was for a team who won half as many games--probably because he was relied upon to do the scoring as well--but he's not a bad comparison at this point. RNH will ultimately have a better offensive career, but they shared a similar role.

And if you're going to be as choosy as using an average to determine how poor of an offensive season he had, you should probably factor in the fact that this was the first time he didn't have icetime on the primary PP unit. His 5v5 production was considerably better this year than it was in 2013.

 

[Tarus]

He looked like rookie Nuge tonight. Excellent game for him and his line (Jokinen & Yamamoto).

He looks good every preseason, and disappears for 90% of the regular season until there is some stat padding to be had towards the end.

RNH is only effective in less competitive games