News Article: The Leafs have four 2.5 D (GaZa and RiHa)

[HamiltonNHL]

Why I’m not worried about Jake Gardiner and Nikita Zaitsev

Interesting article.

LOL at ....

....but you can’t just order up a star 1D from IKEA, even if seems like they’re all manufactured in Sweden these days.

Click to read more...

 

[Duke Silver]

Brevity is a lost art.

 

[zeke]

Only problem I have with that article is that it describes it as "defense by committee" when in fact that Rielly-Hainsey are one of the top pairs in the league when it comes to quality of competition. That's not really defending by committee - the Rielly-Hainsey are a clearcut matchup defensive pair, with the jake-zaits pairing getting strong but still secondary matchups, even though they are getting more ice time.

 

[Ziggdiezan]

Only problem I have with that article is that it describes it as "defense by committee" when in fact that Rielly-Hainsey are one of the top pairs in the league when it comes to quality of competition. That's not really defending by committee - the Rielly-Hainsey are a clearcut matchup defensive pair, with the jake-zaits pairing getting strong but still secondary matchups, even though they are getting more ice time.

A lot of these articles seem to be recalling the early season games when Zaitsev and Gardiner were taking the majority of the hardest matchups. As most teams seem to spread out their elite talent the Leafs top 4 are all facing a high level of completion (Hainsey + Rielly the highest).
The bottom pairing is horrible, really think the Leafs should let Borgmamn develop a bit in the AHL and bring a very good bottom pairing defender on like a 2 year deal.

Edit: one thing I have found interesting is Gardiner and Zaitsev have more defensive zone starts than Rielly and Hainsey at even strength

 

[zeke]

A lot of these articles seem to be recalling the early season games when Zaitsev and Gardiner were taking the majority of the hardest matchups. As most teams seem to spread out their elite talent the Leafs top 4 are all facing a high level of completion (Hainsey + Rielly the highest).

True - but even more it's still just that the analytics guys are still really hesitant to embrace quality of competition as meaningful after mostly dismissing it up until recently.

The bottom pairing is horrible, really think the Leafs should let Borgmamn develop a bit in the AHL and bring a very good bottom pairing defender on like a 2 year deal.

Bottom pairing is fine, really. Especially the Borgman-Carrick pairing.

w/both Borgman-Carrick: 10gms, 8-2-0, 2.90gaa
w/one of Polak/Rosen in: 9gms, 4-5-0, 3.78gaa

 

[Brobust]

I don't get it. Same site would call Gardiner a 1D last season when he was playing sheltered minutes with Carrick. Now they are calling Rielly a '2.5D' because he is playing slightly easier minutes than last season?

 

[Ziggdiezan]

True - but even more it's still just that the analytics guys are still really hesitant to embrace quality of competition as meaningful after mostly dismissing it up until recently.



Bottom pairing is fine, really. Especially the Borgman-Carrick pairing.

w/both Borgman-Carrick: 10gms, 8-2-0, 2.90gaa
w/one of Polak/Rosen in: 9gms, 4-5-0, 3.78gaa

Fair enough. PPP seem to put a lot of analytical analysis in their articles. Always an interesting read at the least.

Ya but their QOC and zone starts % are probably one of the easier in the NHL putting a ton of pressure on the top 4. If the 3rd pairing were able to carry a little more responsible it would free up Zaitsev and Gardiner to be a little more offensive.
I also think that stat you put there shows why Carrick is back in the line up rather than the two Swedes/Polak.

 

[zeke]

Fair enough. PPP seem to put a lot of analytical analysis in their articles. Always an interesting read at the least..

PPP is great, but they're still stuck in the mode of mostly ignoring quality of competition, like most analytics people are.

 

[pheasant]

I hope I never, ever, have to read "GaZa and RiHa" again.

Even on a mobile device, there is just no excuse for why you can't just type their names.

 

[HamiltonNHL]

GaZa

I like JZ (pronounced JayZ).

 

[HamiltonNHL]

I hope I never, ever, have to read "GaZa and RiHa" again.

Even on a mobile device, there is just no excuse for why you can't just type their names.

I prefer cannot.

 

[meefer]

For me, the most useful takeaway was, "With the exception of some players not yet NHL-ready, and perhaps Kasperi Kapanen, no one is competing for the top jobs. There is a lot of depth, too much of it likely, but four fourth lines is not really an abundance of prospects, it’s just an abundance."

Our top prospects are now on the team. Our next group of prospects are less talented. We need to continue the draft process to secure an abundance of high level talent. Should we decide to move some of our prospects for an upgrade today, we cannot include our draft picks (ok, maybe once) in the hopes of moving forward in leaps and bounds the way we did last year.

 

[PromisedLand]

Why I’m not worried about Jake Gardiner and Nikita Zaitsev

Interesting article.

LOL at ....

....but you can’t just order up a star 1D from IKEA, even if seems like they’re all manufactured in Sweden these days.

what you talking about.... we just got 3 Ds from sweden. Borg, Rosen and Timmy L

 

[PromisedLand]

Only problem I have with that article is that it describes it as "defense by committee" when in fact that Rielly-Hainsey are one of the top pairs in the league when it comes to quality of competition. That's not really defending by committee - the Rielly-Hainsey are a clearcut matchup defensive pair, with the jake-zaits pairing getting strong but still secondary matchups, even though they are getting more ice time.

Precisely! Any kind of rating without the QoC compoenent is substantially lacking in its analytical power to examine the results

 

[Legendary]

We're starting to see that our goaltending has been the bigger issue IMO. But it finally looks like Andersen we know and love is back.

 

[Bluelines]

People keep confusing numbers with depth, just because we have A LOT of talented one zone wingers does not mean we have depth at wing, it means we have a lot of one zone players.

I've been saying for a while now we have 2 #3 dmen and 2 #4 dmen and then a bunch of interchangeable parts after that.

 

[Ryan Michaels]

LOL at ....

....but you can’t just order up a star 1D from IKEA, even if seems like they’re all manufactured in Sweden these days.

Yep this was pretty solid.

 

[Bluelines]

Precisely! Any kind of rating without the QoC compoenent is substantially lacking in its analytical power to examine the results

... you cant stop there, you have to factor in QoT and systems used by the coach. If you have a coach like Boucher your defensive numbers would look better than if you played for a coach that likes to play run and gun. If one is looking to assess a player you really have to watch the player play, understand how he is deployed, systems used, is the team chasing the game or defending the lead, etc. just looking at numbers won't tell you his ability to play the game.

 

[zeke]

... you cant stop there, you have to factor in QoT and systems used by the coach. If you have a coach like Boucher your defensive numbers would look better than if you played for a coach that likes to play run and gun. If one is looking to assess a player you really have to watch the player play, understand how he is deployed, systems used, is the team chasing the game or defending the lead, etc. just looking at numbers won't tell you his ability to play the game.

Not sure you have to factor those in really. The Relative stats do a decent job of accounting for teammates, while all percentage numbers account for the team's system by including both For and Against numbers. (when you see someone just comparing two players by CF or just by CA, then you get into the problem of not adjusting for team system - but if we're looking at CF%, then the system is pretty much factored in already).

And of course we always score-adjust the numbers so we know whether the player is chasing the game or defending the lead, and we always zone adjust the numbers to understand how he is deployed.

The one adjustment that we don't have a good handle on yet is quality of opponent, IMO. That's the big one that we need to account for separately still at the moment.