Team of the Decade: 3rd Pair LD

[East Coast Bias]

If longevity is a heavy factor for you, I understand Skjei. He's clearly been here for years, spanning 2 eras (competing vs tanking).

But if we're talking about peak output? Yandle for me. Yandle played about 4-5 mins less here than Phoenix or Florida. He put up a 47 pt season as a dman, on the smallest TOI since he was 21. People are losing their minds over Tony D potentially hitting 50 pts. Yandle has done it routinely, for a decade across several teams, and almost did it here despite not getting top time.

 

[Edge]

If longevity is a heavy factor for you, I understand Skjei. He's clearly been here for years, spanning 2 eras (competing vs tanking).

But if we're talking about peak output? Yandle for me. Yandle played about 4-5 mins less here than Phoenix or Florida. He put up a 47 pt season as a dman, on the smallest TOI since he was 21. People are losing their minds over Tony D potentially hitting 50 pts. Yandle has done it routinely, for a decade across several teams, and almost did it here despite not getting top time.

But based on that approach, Skjei had a season where he had just as many goals, and only 8 less points (all assists), while playing two-and-a-half minutes less per game (or roughly 13 percent less), and two less games overall. I believe the advanced stats show them to be pretty close as well.

So isolated "peaks" while playing for the Rangers are not really night and day. They're actually really close. Probably as close as a 5 goal/47 point season for Yandle's best vs. a 6 goal/45 point season for Skjei's best if we even out the ice time and games played.

But if we go beyond just a one season isolation, Yandle only played 21 additional regular season games for this team. Skjei has played nearly 200 more beyond that peak season.

 

[Fitzy]

If this stays within five votes I'll do a tiebreaker. Enough mdz votes to justify it.

 

[Hi ImHFNYR]

I don’t get why we’d vote based on what could’ve should’ve happened lol
I vote Skjei

People dont want to admit to themselves they were wrong about yandle.

It helps that they have AV and his abject imbecility to lean on. They also get to see skjei exposed by being forced into a role well above his talent level which we didn't get to see with yandle

 

[EdJovanovski]

People dont want to admit to themselves they were wrong about yandle.

It helps that they have AV and his abject imbecility to lean on. They also get to see skjei exposed by being forced into a role well above his talent level which we didn't get to see with yandle

Yea and we could use the same argument that Skjei is playing over his head and not in a position to succeed because of his deployment and an incompetent Ruff as well

 

[Machinehead]

People dont want to admit to themselves they were wrong about yandle.

It helps that they have AV and his abject imbecility to lean on. They also get to see skjei exposed by being forced into a role well above his talent level which we didn't get to see with yandle

He put up 47 points playing third pair minutes.

If people were wrong about Yandle, what exactly were they saying?

 

[Edge]

I still think Skjei's best season more or less matches Yandle's, and that's before we get into tenure.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

Sorry, not voting for a guy who only played 100 games for us, and not even at a high level for most of it.

 

[Filthy Dangles]

I don't even like Skjei but I guess it has to be him.

 

[Machinehead]

Yandle is a better hockey player. Full stop.

Skjei hasn't done enough for this organization to vote on tenure.

 

[Rangerfan4life90]

People dont want to admit to themselves they were wrong about yandle.

It helps that they have AV and his abject imbecility to lean on. They also get to see skjei exposed by being forced into a role well above his talent level which we didn't get to see with yandle

Wrong about what? That AV had misused a proven 50-60 point offensive d-man?

Because that did happen.

 

[LokiDog]

Yandle’s stint here is just too short to really consider him on a team of the decade for me. People will forget Yandle ever played in NY when looking at his career. Skjei is only losing because he’s trending down recently and has become a whipping boy that people want to ship out. I’m fine with moving him as well, but when looking at the last decade Skjei gets my vote pretty easily.

 

[East Coast Bias]

But based on that approach, Skjei had a season where he had just as many goals, and only 8 less points (all assists), while playing two-and-a-half minutes less per game (or roughly 13 percent less), and two less games overall. I believe the advanced stats show them to be pretty close as well.

So isolated "peaks" while playing for the Rangers are not really night and day. They're actually really close. Probably as close as a 5 goal/47 point season for Yandle's best vs. a 6 goal/45 point season for Skjei's best if we even out the ice time and games played.

But if we go beyond just a one season isolation, Yandle only played 21 additional regular season games for this team. Skjei has played nearly 200 more beyond that peak season.

Yeah that's fair. I didn't realize Skjei had that many points that year.

Skjei just has the feel of a tenure guy more than anything. I just don't think he's been good in a couple years now. But maybe some of that has to do with playing on teams that were way worse than Yandle, McD, G, etc played on here.

 

[DanielBrassard]

Captain Keith.

 

[Sayba]

Yandle is a better hockey player. Full stop.

Skjei hasn't done enough for this organization to vote on tenure.

Yandle was bad as a ranger! People forget so easily. I'll take Skjei for the decade and now vs. Yandle. The hate on Skjei is crazy on this board.

 

[Machinehead]

Yandle was bad as a ranger! People forget so easily. I'll take Skjei for the decade and now vs. Yandle. The hate on Skjei is crazy on this board.

Yandle was not bad here by any stretch

 

[Sayba]

Yandle was not bad here by any stretch

The same reason he was left off 2014 Team USA, and a career minus player is because he is and was a liability on defense. He did not live to the expectations offensively either running our pp.

 

[Edge]

Yeah that's fair. I didn't realize Skjei had that many points that year.

Skjei just has the feel of a tenure guy more than anything. I just don't think he's been good in a couple years now. But maybe some of that has to do with playing on teams that were way worse than Yandle, McD, G, etc played on here.

For me, revisiting certain players has been an interesting experience.

For example, I was shocked that Hagelin’s numbers and Miller’s numbers were as close as they were.

Ditto for when I looked at Skjei’s best season vs. Yandle’s best season.

Our brains have a way of remembering things, categorizing information and then processing it. It’s strange when you “double check” things and find it’s not quite as clear cut as you thought. Sometimes you discover you may have a bias or two in the mix as well.

 

[bl02]

Sucks Yandle had a messed up shoulder in the 2015 playoffs (along with most of our d). Give him credit for toughing it out like he has most of his career.

 

[Maximus]

Yandle was not bad here by any stretch

Your memory is failing you bud. Yeah AV miss used him no question but he severely underachieved here and didn't produce as expected especially on the PP.

Now he wasn't as bad as Shattenkirk but Yandle is in that zip code of busts. For him to be leading Skjei in this poll is a joke to be honest!

 

[Machinehead]

The same reason he was left off 2014 Team USA, and a career minus player is because he is and was a liability on defense. He did not live to the expectations offensively either running our pp.

Yeah 2014 Team USA that took Paul Martin and Brooks Orpik instead. Good luck with that one.

Here's a fun fact: Yandle is a career plus at 5-on-5. I absolutely kid you not. 619 goals for, 589 goals against. +30.

How is that? Well, traditional +/- arbitrarily counts shorthanded and empty net goals. For a guy like Yandle, who plays a ton of PP, he's starting the year -10 to -15 before he even hits the ice.

Brian Leetch was once -18 in a year he had one of the best 5v5 goal differentials in the league.

 

[Sayba]

Yeah 2014 Team USA that took Paul Martin and Brooks Orpik instead. Good luck with that one.

Here's a fun fact: Yandle is a career plus at 5-on-5. I absolutely kid you not. 619 goals for, 589 goals against. +30.

How is that? Well, traditional +/- arbitrarily counts shorthanded and empty net goals. For a guy like Yandle, who plays a ton of PP, he's starting the year -10 to -15 before he even hits the ice.

Brian Leetch was once -18 in a year he had one of the best 5v5 goal differentials in the league.

Paul Martin and Brooks Orpik could both play defense.

 

[Rangerfan4life90]

The same reason he was left off 2014 Team USA, and a career minus player is because he is and was a liability on defense. He did not live to the expectations offensively either running our pp.

His "bad defense" is way overblown. And sure, he's been successfully running a PP everywhere he's been, and then he comes here and can't do it all of a sudden? Yeah, AV had nothing to do with that...

The fact is, AV completely misused a 50-60 point proven offensive d-man. No two ways around that. That's when I started realizing that AV, as good as he is/was, got completely clueless at times.

 

[Machinehead]

Paul Martin and Brooks Orpik could both play defense.

The first one, sure.

Orpik couldn't defend a toddler.

 

[Fitzy]

The first one, sure.

Orpik couldn't defend a toddler.

He defended plenty of good players in 2000. Tough nut then. His resume beyond that is debatable.