Player Discussion Tom Wilson, NHL All-Star (Part 3)

[g00n]

Oh I get it. Troll the Wilson thread because you're still mad about the analytics thread.

Moving on.

 

[g00n]

All star starter.

Scores on his first shot, 13 seconds in.

Legend.

 

[twabby]

Seriously can we get Tom Wilson: All Star MVP?

 

[Devil Dancer]

Kid wanted to watch the all star game, and it's surprisingly entertaining.

Willy going down on one knee to block a shot made me laugh.

 

[txpd]

Fringe opinions among armchair NHL coaches…..don’t mean jack except to like-minded people.


I take this with a grain of salt….many of the same people criticizing Wilson, called him ruined, a bust, and if you watch GDTs, they criticize him anytime anything physical happens.

Hathaway too

 

[TheLegendOfPatPeake]

Kuzy and Wilson remind me of the Caps OT play,

 

[HecticGlow]

I thought it was rather interesting that Rod Brind'amour went with Kuzy and Wilson to start both periods, and to finish the final. This is the first ASG I can remember in a while where you got the sense the team actually wanted to win, and for the most part Kuzy, Wilson and Werenski were actually pretty sold defensively given the nature of the event.

To me they both looked like they belonged there, in terms of their play vs the competition. That was pretty nice to see, and a sweet win.

 

[Alexander the Gr8]

I'm really pleased with the evolution in Wilson's game. He's kept it relatively clean this year, and he can do it all. Scores goals, makes nice passes, he hits like a truck, he defends well and he's one of the best fighters in the league.

All 31 other GMs wish they had him, no question about it.

 

[txpd]

600 NHL games at 27

 

[YippieKaey]

The stupidest thing with expected goals stats is that it doesn't take into account which 5 players the player is lining up against. There's a difference scoring against the Bergerons and Danaults vs scoring against the Roslovics (or whomever)

 

[bacchist]

Been watching some of Wilson's greatest hits tonight. It's amazing how often they have to stop the game for a few minutes because of something he did.

 

[Ridley Simon]

Reading the last few pages of this thread made me think of one thing, and one thing only.

I miss @txpd.

Sigh

 

[twabby]

Posting here since the Brouwer thread was rightfully closed:

Brouwer and Wilson were different players (Brouwer was a stronger PP player and Wilson stronger at ES) and certainly one is more adored by the fanbase than the other.

But in terms of on-ice impact as measured by GAR they were relatively equal. Here are their 3 year player cards for comparison. In the interest of fairness I’ll ignore Wilson’s 22-23 campaign because of his recovery from injury. Brouwer from 2012-13 to 2014-15 and Wilson from 2019-20 to 2021-22:

And then Brouwer fell off a cliff:

I fear this is the type of player card we’ll be seeing from Tom Wilson over the next 3 years. Even if it’s not quite this bad, a merely average Tom Wilson in 3 years signed to an 7-8 year contract could get really ugly really fast. And an ugly contract and missing out on significant trade value would be a disaster.

I hope MacLellan looks back on the Brouwer trade and how it helped the team when deciding what to do with Wilson. But I doubt he will. The path of least resistance by far is to just sign Wilson and make everyone happy for the time being.

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

Why have you hated Tom Wilson since he was drafted? It’s sad.

 

[AlexBrovechkin8]

Brouwer wasn’t anywhere near the skater or player Wilson is. His main value was being the bumper man on one of the best PPs in the league. Brouwer was a maddening player: he wasn’t good enough offensively to offset his lack of speed. He was your average, run of the mill middle six winger with size.

And in the playoffs the production isn’t even close. Brouwer had 3 goals and 9 points in 35 playoff games for Washington while Wilson, if you discount his first few seasons when he was playing 5 minutes a night as a face puncher on the fourth line, has 14 goals and 29 points in 52 games, or double the points per game average of Brouwer’s production. Two of Wilson’s 29 points were on the PP while three of Brouwer’s nine were on the PP.

Maybe Wilson falls off hard twabby but what you’re consistently not taking into account is how good a skater Wilson is. He’s way better than Brouwer, Lucic, or Simmonds ever were even at their peaks. If he loses a step he’ll still be able to keep up while once those guys lost a step they were out of their league.

 

[g00n]

Jesus f***ing christ.

 

[Calicaps]

Why have you hated Tom Wilson since he was drafted? It’s sad.

Because fighting and hitting are bad for hockey... or something.

 

[HTFN]

Posting here since the Brouwer thread was rightfully closed:

Brouwer and Wilson were different players (Brouwer was a stronger PP player and Wilson stronger at ES) and certainly one is more adored by the fanbase than the other.

But in terms of on-ice impact as measured by GAR they were relatively equal. Here are their 3 year player cards for comparison. In the interest of fairness I’ll ignore Wilson’s 22-23 campaign because of his recovery from injury. Brouwer from 2012-13 to 2014-15 and Wilson from 2019-20 to 2021-22:

View attachment 719982

View attachment 719983


And then Brouwer fell off a cliff:

View attachment 719980

I fear this is the type of player card we’ll be seeing from Tom Wilson over the next 3 years. Even if it’s not quite this bad, a merely average Tom Wilson in 3 years signed to an 7-8 year contract could get really ugly really fast. And an ugly contract and missing out on significant trade value would be a disaster.

I hope MacLellan looks back on the Brouwer trade and how it helped the team when deciding what to do with Wilson. But I doubt he will. The path of least resistance by far is to just sign Wilson and make everyone happy for the time being.

Are you even looking at these charts before you post them?

Wilson is a head and shoulders better player at even strength both offensively and defensively. The only place Brouwer matches up is in xGAR, but still managed to underperform his expected average over three years while Wilson far exceeds his and works out to "significantly better". He actually contributes on defense, and draws/takes penalties at roughly the same rate instead of just taking them like Brouwer does because he sucks and could never skate.

The only thing Brouwer did better, the thing that is buoying him here, is being the original powerplay bumper guy, but something tells me the system being unique at the time and a healthy Nick Backstrom did a lot of the lifting here and I really don't see how this model is going to adequately isolate Troy Brouwer's individual contribution to that powerplay. He took zero percent of that PP dominance with him, so it makes you think... usually even half-cooked players can still work a powerplay, so how did he get so bad so fast?

Even the numbers don't say these are similar players except the big overall one at the top, and if you for real think that's a number you can just point to and go "see?" then, I don't know what else to say. Anybody with eyes would see Wilson is leaps and bounds better than Brouwer was and if your stat has them equal, it's a bad stat.

 

[kicksavedave]

When TJ Oshie finally moves on from DC, in a year or whenever, I expect Wilson to fill that PP1 bumper roll full time and see a significant boost in his total numbers.

The best is yet to come with Willie. He's not falling off a cliff just because Brouwer did.

 

[StrikingDistance]

Lawd! hahaha

I think if you took a poll of every NHL player who has played against Wilson since joining the league: All of them would rather play and take a hit from Brouwer vs Widowmaker Willy. This could be displayed in a bar graph, pie chart, heat map, regression line, or funny gif of my choosing which I know you love and cherish.

 

[HTFN]

Lawd! hahaha

I think if you took a poll of every NHL player who has played against Wilson since joining the league: All of them would rather play and take a hit from Brouwer vs Widowmaker Willy. This could be displayed in a bar graph, pie chart, heat map, regression line, or funny gif of my choosing which I know you love and cherish.

Here's a venn diagram displaying people who pay attention to hockey and people who think Troy Brouwer and Tom Wilson have "relatively equal" impact to the game.

 

[twabby]

Are you even looking at these charts before you post them?

Wilson is a head and shoulders better player at even strength both offensively and defensively. The only place Brouwer matches up is in xGAR, but still managed to underperform his expected average over three years while Wilson far exceeds his and works out to "significantly better". He actually contributes on defense, and draws/takes penalties at roughly the same rate instead of just taking them like Brouwer does because he sucks and could never skate.

The only thing Brouwer did better, the thing that is buoying him here, is being the original powerplay bumper guy, but something tells me the system being unique at the time and a healthy Nick Backstrom did a lot of the lifting here and I really don't see how this model is going to adequately isolate Troy Brouwer's individual contribution to that powerplay. He took zero percent of that PP dominance with him, so it makes you think... usually even half-cooked players can still work a powerplay, so how did he get so bad so fast?

Even the numbers don't say these are similar players (except the big overall one at the top, and if you for real think that's a number you can just point to and go "see?" then, I don't know what else to say. Anybody with eyes would see Wilson is leaps and bounds better than Brouwer was and if your stat has them equal, it's a bad stat.

xGAR isn’t "expected GAR" despite the confusing name. It’s a completely separate model from GAR that uses a different regression technique, at least from my understanding.

I don't think these players are the same. But I do think that Brouwer is (yet another) warning sign that things have a good chance of going south for Wilson quickly given his age. It probably won't be the extreme drop that Brouwer had immediately as that's not what usually happens. But decline usually happens. I haven't really heard a convincing case to suggest that Wilson will buck this trend. Being able to skate well doesn't hold off a decline, especially since most of the league skates very well nowadays.

 

[g00n]

Are you even looking at these charts before you post them?

Wilson is a head and shoulders better player at even strength both offensively and defensively. The only place Brouwer matches up is in xGAR, but still managed to underperform his expected average over three years while Wilson far exceeds his and works out to "significantly better". He actually contributes on defense, and draws/takes penalties at roughly the same rate instead of just taking them like Brouwer does because he sucks and could never skate.

The only thing Brouwer did better, the thing that is buoying him here, is being the original powerplay bumper guy, but something tells me the system being unique at the time and a healthy Nick Backstrom did a lot of the lifting here and I really don't see how this model is going to adequately isolate Troy Brouwer's individual contribution to that powerplay. He took zero percent of that PP dominance with him, so it makes you think... usually even half-cooked players can still work a powerplay, so how did he get so bad so fast?

Even the numbers don't say these are similar players (except the big overall one at the top, and if you for real think that's a number you can just point to and go "see?" then, I don't know what else to say. Anybody with eyes would see Wilson is leaps and bounds better than Brouwer was and if your stat has them equal, it's a bad stat.

Plus wrt Brouwer's hits they were made of cotton. They were technically hits, in that his body made contact with the player who hat the puck, but if we're being honest they were move "bumps".

Wilson otoh will truck you into space.

 

[HTFN]

xGAR isn’t "expected GAR" despite the confusing name. It’s a completely separate model from GAR that uses a different regression technique, at least from my understanding.

I don't think these players are the same. But I do think that Brouwer is (yet another) warning sign that things have a good chance of going south for Wilson quickly given his age. It probably won't be the extreme drop that Brouwer had immediately as that's not what usually happens. But decline usually happens. I haven't really heard a convincing case to suggest that Wilson will buck this trend. Being able to skate well doesn't hold off a decline, especially since most of the league skates very well nowadays.

Really? What do you think the words "relatively equal impact" are supposed to convey in this context then?

You aren't going to backpedal this one all the way to "all players eventually decline at some point" because we already know there aren't any 62 year old men out there dominating. You've actually heard a lot of cases to suggest that Wilson will buck the trend of immediately being terrible right after 30, but you don't want to listen to them. He's bigger, faster, better, and visibly unique in a lot of standout ways that make him difficult to project but don't scream "will be overwhelmed as soon as he loses a step".

Wilson is a freak like that the way Pronger was a freak. Not from a "best in the league" sense but Pronger losing a step didn't instantly make him terrible because he was a f***ing monster who played with more talent than his frame should allow and also liked bodying people.

This is the exact same rationale we used to hear from dipknobs who were certain Ovechkin was done scoring goals after 26.

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

Lawd! hahaha

I think if you took a poll of every NHL player who has played against Wilson since joining the league: All of them would rather play and take a hit from Brouwer vs Widowmaker Willy. This could be displayed in a bar graph, pie chart, heat map, regression line, or funny gif of my choosing which I know you love and cherish.

“Widowmaker Willy”…that might stick……very nice.