TOI for star players

[greasysnapper]

NHL teams track hard toi and soft toi. Playing 23 minutes with 5 soft minutes is a lot easier on the body then playing 20 minutes of hard minutes total. McDavid and Drai aren't playing a lot of hard minutes.

But I will say this:

It's too physically taxing to play lots of minutes that for long periods of time. Because those hard minutes are going to add up even if you do have higher soft minute counts. Very few humans are capable of handling those loads over the long haul. The human body just can't recover or handle that. There are people who have genetic mutations (lots of long distance runners for example), or are just freaks of nature, and who knows one of these NHL players could be that, but it wouldn't surprise me if that the teams burning their stars early with these hard minutes won't be burning anything in May and June besides their cheeks on the beach in Jamaica.

I think the other big issue with playing your stars a lot in the regular season is you don't give your other players as many reps as they could use to get better, and thus you're not developing your depth. Depth is so key in the playoffs.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Pretty much any player can play those type of minutes. These are elite athletes in peak physical condition. I don't know where the completely unsubstantiated myth that players fall apart when passing the 20 minute mark came from.

Some teams have more depth or different ideas of how to distribute ice time, which is why it's critically important to consider context including minutes when comparing players.

 

[bottomofthefoodchain]

They are 22 years old. They shouldnt get burned out from playing 75 minutes of hockey every week

 

[Spartachat]

Couldn't they just play them like crazy during the games and have really light practices. This way they would not burn out. It is dumb to have hardcore practices that tax the bodies and then lower their actually game time.

 

[PG Canuck]

Well powerplay minutes aren’t exactly hard fought minutes. Zibanejad is playing 5 minutes a game on the PP so he’s essentially playing 17 hard mins a game. Top players just get fed huge PP mins that I think inflate TOI.

McDavid plays 4mins on the PP a night on average and plays 22mins, so basically 18mins a night of hard mins. He doesn’t PK.

I think looking at whether players start in their defensive zone or offensive zone are factors too. Bo Horvat had very high defensive zone starts last year and took the most draws in the league - that’s the kind of factors that tax a player and burn them out

 

[Trap Jesus]

Star forwards have been getting more time on ice in general over the last few seasons.

Season	23+	22+	21+	20+
2018/19	1	7	12	28
2017/18	0	2	6	19
2016/17	0	0	5	11
2015/16	0	0	2	11
2014/15	0	0	0	8

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

 

[Khelandros]

Last night was McDavids least amount of TOI this season and he had 5 points.

It's easy to limit his ice time when you are winning 6-1. Not so much when you are losing, tied, or up by one.

 

[Ducks in a row]

People said McD and Leon would burnout near the end of the year last year and they produced more actually..

"Burnout" is just a myth and BS concept that HF uses for whatever reason

Just because McDavid and Draisaitl handled the minutes they were given doesn't prove anything because not everyone can handle those minutes. Everyone has their own unique limit for how much work they can handle. I don't know how someone can think Burnout from being overworked doesn't exist when it has been proven to exist many times in the real world.

 

[KlefDown]

yeah I don't see it either. I'm sure the players aren't complaining and won't be surprised when more and more teams start doing it

better than playing them for 17 mins, non on the PK and not putting them out in the last two minutes when down a goal

 

[Conway96]

Let's hope your right. Ethan Bear is putting up ridiculous minutes on the Oil right now as a rookie. Curious to see how that plays out for him. We'll probably revisit this if one of the star players gets an injury at the end of the season

 

[JFHockey]

Every NHLer still looks like dog crap once they've been skating for over a minute. The more tired you are, the worse you are and more vulnerable to injury you are, no way around it. Coaches aren't dumb, they are probably all intimately aware of how ice time affects the performance of their star players.

It is interesting to see star player ice times have gradually been increasing, but I would find it very surprising to see star forwards all over the league regularly play 22+ minutes a night

 

[joe dirte]

The only thing I can think of is the obvious, the more a player is on the ice, the higher the chance an injury can occur.

But in terms of wear and tear? Maybe they’ll be burned out near the tail-end of the season or god-willing beginning of their playoff run. If any of the players can handle the work-load it’ll obviously be those two, but I think they’ll see minute management come into play when they aren’t coming from behind in games.

Hitchcock did thime same thing last year. He came in and played mcd 25 minutes a night.

Mcd scored like crazy. For about 20 games. Then he wore down and hisbscoring dropped. And the oilers were worse off than they started

It doesnt work for more than a couple of months.

 

[holy]

Babcock is an embarrassment, how do you not just play Matthews 60 mins a game?

 

[Akrapovince]

Hitchcock did thime same thing last year. He came in and played mcd 25 minutes a night.

Mcd scored like crazy. For about 20 games. Then he wore down and hisbscoring dropped. And the oilers were worse off than they started

It doesnt work for more than a couple of months.

How did the team play for those 20 games? I rather McDavid torch the league for a quarter of the season, then take a couple games off to get back into it.

Him being “average” or playing average minutes throughout an 82 game season is how we could potentially be outplayed all 82 games.

That’s my thinking anyway.

 

[joe dirte]

How did the team play for those 20 games? I rather McDavid torch the league for a quarter of the season, then take a couple games off to get back into it.

Him being “average” or playing average minutes throughout an 82 game season is how we could potentially be outplayed all 82 games.

That’s my thinking anyway.

I think id rather just play him 21 or 22, finiah last, and collect another good player to finally make a second line.

 

[Just Linda]

Pretty easy for me, fatigue = injuries.

There's a lot of data out there that shows the ideal games played by star goalies is around 50-55 games per year if I'm not mistaken. We can track how goalies perform based on their usage overall. We know that anything over 55 drastically increases the injury rates especially for joint and hip injuries.

There's also a lot of information about optimal saves and moves during practise a goal needs to make in order to be at peak.

I see no reason not to expect the same to be true for players.

I'm pretty sure I've seen the data for defencemen or at least the theory behind the data. I'd imagine 21 minutes for a forward and 23 minutes for a D would be optimal.

 

[Akrapovince]

I think id rather just play him 21 or 22, finiah last, and collect another good player to finally make a second line.

I also agree, the goal at the end of the day is to not just make the playoffs, it’s to win the Stanley Cup.

 

[Connor McConnor]

Both of their defensive play got sloppier last year near the tail end after having played so much early on so yes I think the Oilers need to do a better job at limiting them moving forward. Also, Drai sometimes takes extremely long shifts and gets caught for it.

 

[BahlDeep]

That's nothing, call me when they take 7 minute shifts.