News Article: TOI Winners and Losers Since the Coaching Change

[Rich Nixon]

I decided to do an excruciating analysis of player icetime trends since Hakstol's firing. It's here:

Flyers Ice-Time Winners Under New Coach

...

Winners: Among the winger group, the greatest beneficiary under Gordon has been Scott Laughton. Drafted as a two-way center, Laughton has mostly settled into a shotgun role but is able to supplement his minutes playing center on the penalty kill. By moving himself firmly off the fourth line and onto Patrick’s wing, his TOI has increased by more than two minutes per night since Hakstol’s firing.

...

Losers: Despite the fact that Hakstol had frequently buried Travis Konecny, his usage has fallen slightly under Gordon....

The whole roster is in there, charted out by biggest gains and losses per position. Most interesting is just how little Gordon plays Folin, when he breaks the lineup, compared to how much Hakstol did. Some players are obvious, like Sanheim. Others, like Lindblom, are harder to chart: He was playing ~15 at the start of the season, then Hakstol dropped him to the fourth and he stayed there through the coaching change, but hung up 18 in two of the last three games.

Tons of good nuggets in there, so, as is tradition, give her a click and let's talk about it.

Click to read more...

 

[Beef Invictus]

Make sure you click the link from a few IPs

 

[deadhead]

Basically the only significant changes have been Laughton playing fulltime with Patrick (due to Giroux moving to center), Sanheim moving up to the first pair with Provorov and Ghost being taken off PP1. Whether it's Lehtera and Weise or Varone and Vorobyev, meh.

The defense has been worse under Gordon, not just Corsi but scoring chances against and high danger chances against.

The difference has been Hart.

But his great play shouldn't obscure the fact that this is the same mediocre team that it's been the last 7 years, Mason got them to the playoffs twice, and somehow an awful coach got this team to the playoffs despite his goalies going down like flies last year.
With good goaltending a 95-100 point team, with bad goaltending, except last year, an 85-90 point team.

The good news is the young players are starting to mature and more are arriving. Not surprising, players like Lindblom, Patrick, TK and Provorov have been up and down, but more up lately, that's why HCs don't like playing young players. They're like a box of chocolates.

The rebuild is almost finished.

 

[Beef Invictus]

Ah yes, minimizing a series of minor improvements as if those things don't add up. Typical refusal to accept obvious truths because they aren't compatible with what you want to believe.

 

[ajw12]

Lol @ the Facebook comment there at end of the article...

 

[CanadianFlyer88]

Lol @ the Facebook comment there at end of the article...

From the picture, it could be JJ's dad, so maybe not that surprising.

 

[Rich Nixon]

Basically the only significant changes have been Laughton playing fulltime with Patrick (due to Giroux moving to center), Sanheim moving up to the first pair with Provorov and Ghost being taken off PP1. Whether it's Lehtera and Weise or Varone and Vorobyev, meh.

The defense has been worse under Gordon, not just Corsi but scoring chances against and high danger chances against.

The difference has been Hart.

But his great play shouldn't obscure the fact that this is the same mediocre team that it's been the last 7 years, Mason got them to the playoffs twice, and somehow an awful coach got this team to the playoffs despite his goalies going down like flies last year.
With good goaltending a 95-100 point team, with bad goaltending, except last year, an 85-90 point team.

The good news is the young players are starting to mature and more are arriving. Not surprising, players like Lindblom, Patrick, TK and Provorov have been up and down, but more up lately, that's why HCs don't like playing young players. They're like a box of chocolates.

The rebuild is almost finished.

This is mostly true, to be honest. The dropoff in Hagg usage is significant though, and don't sleep on the significance of a minute or two per night up, in terms of players wearing down and that sort of thing.

The team is not necessarily playing better, but I find they're getting jumped less often. As in, they're better prepared for the game. The redistribution of ice time, I think, has spread out the (little) scoring that they have had, so Giroux's point totals have tailed despite more minutes and team success.

There's a lot in there and it could be a 5,000 word analysis, but I really just wanted to look at the base numbers before jumping off the deep end (because I'd taken all that time to gather and calculate all the numbers, and they'll be slightly wrong five hours from now anyway).

 

[Curufinwe]

My TOI watching the games on TV has gone way up.

The slop Hak was serving up was unwatchable.

 

[BringBackHakstol]

Laughton and sanheim getting bigger roles was a no brainer and seems to be paying off.

Hak never had an eye for which guys were in a groove and deserving of more time

 

[Rich Nixon]

Tonight's game pretty much in line with the numbers in the article, though Provorov saw over 30 minutes. Raffl might just dissolve completely before our eyes, he saw just a hair over 7 minutes...if the team has intentions of trading him, at this point, you've got to wonder if there's any value.