Toronto Maple Leafs vs Tampa Bay Lightning Offense/Forwards

Toronto Maple Leafs vs Tampa Bay Lightning Offense/Forwards


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Sidney the Kidney

One last time
Jun 29, 2009
55,517
46,232
This is the way i see it as a neutral. Neither leafs or lighting fan
Point= Matthews
Kucherov> Marner
Tavares= Stamkos
Johnson>Nylander (until nylander proves it)
Gourde>Kapanen
Palat=Johnsson
Cirelli>Kerfoot

The rest who cares

I think the flaw in this type of evaluation is it's putting the same value on the difference between an elite player and the difference between a depth guy. The elite players tend to have a bigger impact on overall offense than the depth guys do.

For instance, Kucherov finishing with 120 points compared to Marner finishing with 95 points will have a bigger impact on total offense than Johnsson scoring 50 points and Palat only scoring 45 points will, even though with the above evaluation they'd be seen as even impact (Kucherov > Marner, Johnsson> Palat).
 
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Pyrophorus

Registered User
Jun 1, 2009
26,197
2,905
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Tampa has the better top 3, and the better depth, so IMO Tampa clearly (and before someone is pissed, clearly doesn't mean AINEC, it just means there is separation)

Matthews >= Point (Matthews is better offensively for sure, but Point is also much better defensively)
Kucherov >> Marner (This is the only one that isn't close)
Stamkos = Tavares (Stamkos is a better shooter, but Tavares is probably a better playmaker and play driver)

Depth I would give to tampa now that Kadri is gone. Nylander is better than any of Tampa's depth players, but we have a large number of 20g/40p guys on the second and third lines

Show your work-or you're talking out your ass.
You're not alone many talk this way, when they mention defense.
 

Krewe

Registered User
Mar 12, 2019
1,676
1,917
Show your work-or you're talking out your ass.
You're not alone many talk this way, when they mention defense.
That was easy. Maybe you should look these things up yourself before talking out of YOUR ass

Matthews is a defensive liability. Most star forwards (kucherov, mcdavid, MacKinnon, etc) are, but their offense outweighs it obviously. Point is much better in his own zone than Matthews is

We can go into stats like dWAR, xGA, etc, but they all tell the same story

Also, typical leafs fan only pointing out the part where I mentioned someone being better at something than Matthews. Should I also be required to back up my statement about Matthews being better offensively as well? That is actually less of a clear cut difference than the defensive argument is
 

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Critical13

Fear is the mind-killer.
Feb 25, 2017
12,617
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Sitting at a desk.
That was easy. Maybe you should look these things up yourself before talking out of YOUR ass

Could this be at all tainted by linemates? One played most the season with Kucherov, the other had Johnsson and Hyman. I feel like that will affect shot metrics...not saying Point isn't good, but I have a feeling there are holes to these charts we're also posting.
 
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Krewe

Registered User
Mar 12, 2019
1,676
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Could this be at all tainted by linemates? One played most the season with Kucherov, the other had Johnsson and Hyman. I feel like that will affect shot metrics...not saying Point isn't good, but I have a feeling there are holes to these charts we're also posting.
Both those charts adjust for teammates. They are isolated impacts. Also point never had a line-mates as good as Matthews before this year, as he was our 2C the last two years, so that argument is kinda moot as it would balance out over these sample sizes. Kucherov is also at best only average defensively, so he would not be boosting points defensive metrics
 

Hunter368

RIP lomiller1, see you in the next life buddy.
Nov 8, 2011
26,934
23,503
Both are good teams, but I'm not sure how it's a debate......it's clearly TBL.
 

Lshap

Hardline Moderate
Jun 6, 2011
27,274
24,853
Montreal
Tampa's clearly the best.

Toronto's up there, probably in the top-six, depending how Washington ages, and how other potential top offences do, like Colorado, Calgary, Winnipeg.
 

Sky04

Registered User
Jan 8, 2009
28,956
17,898
The forwards that helped their team actually win a playoff game against a better opponent

The same team that the better forwards beat in a series the year before while one group keeps losing in round 1.
 

bambamcam4ever

107 and counting
Feb 16, 2012
14,302
6,344
Don't worry, I don't understand it either.
I know TB fans like to blame their coach for their teams falling short in the playoffs, but have you considered that their coach may be helping his players produce more than their talent level would suggest in the regular season, and that finally catching up to them in the postseason when other teams actually focus in on TB?
 

Menzinger

Kessel4LadyByng
Apr 24, 2014
40,973
32,364
St. Paul, MN
The same team that the better forwards beat in a series the year before while one group keeps losing in round 1.

If you have to go back longer than last season, you're entering borderline ancient history at that point.

Tampa and the Leafs have the same amount of cups in the past decade. Not much bragging rights to be had between the two teams in the grand scheme of things
 

TomasHertlsRooster

Don’t say eye test when you mean points
May 14, 2012
33,360
25,417
Fremont, CA
Show your work-or you're talking out your ass.
You're not alone many talk this way, when they mention defense.

I'm not the guy who was asked to show his work, but I've gone into detail on this before.

You can post however many laughing emojis you want, but it is absolutely not a stretch to stay Point has maintained his performance under a higher level of accumulated fatigue when Point has played 3,103:25 in the past two regular seasons and 398:25 in the past two playoffs, while Matthews by comparison has played 2,385:41 in the past two regular seasons and and 261:18 in the past two playoffs. That adds up to 3,501:50 for Point and 2,646:59 for Matthews. Point has played 851:51 more over the same time frame, or 32% more minutes. Point has obviously accumulated more fatigue through this sample and been on the ice for far longer, which makes any per minute metrics more impressive for Point than it does for Matthews.

In 2019, defensive play actually can be accurately proven or pretty close. And pretty much all defensive metrics, no matter how you look at them, have Point performing FAR better than Matthews over their ELCs.

Matthews: 60.69 CA/60, 2.61 xGA/60, 2.6 GA/60
1.71 Rel CA/60, 0.26 Rel xGA/60, 0.15 Rel GA/60

Point: 55.23 Rel CA/60, 2.18 xGA/60, 2.28 GA/60
0.95 Rel CA/60, 0.12 Rel xGA/60, 0.04 Rel GA/60

Matthews allows far more shots, expected goals, and goals. He does play on a weaker defensive team, but even relative to their respective teams, Point does a better job defensively. Clearly, just the raw "against" metrics have Point well ahead of Matthews.

Or, if you'd rather visualize the data, look at their respective splits between their teams with and without them on the ice throughout their careers:


(Just click on the images to enlarge them. Each image represents one season.)

As we can see, Toronto is a significantly worse defensive team with Matthews on the ice in every season of his career, and the threat level of shots they allow with Matthews on the ice is at least 10% higher than league average in every season. This supports what the Corsi, expected goal, and goal against metrics have to say. Now let's compare this to Brayden Point:


And lastly, this is probably not the best statistic for properly judging defensive play, but it's still worth noting their A3Z comparison tools, which show that Brayden Point is far better at getting the puck out of the zone than Matthews.

View attachment 253415

As you can see, when Brayden Point attempts a zone exit, the rate at which he does so while maintaining possession is in the 99th percentile of the NHL.

There is a HUGE difference between these two defensively, and there has been in every season of their careers. 2018-2019 was the first season where Point did poorly relative to his team, but he still did significantly better than Matthews, just like in every other season of his career.

Obviously, there are plenty of other factors that go into these metrics that are not just the individual defensive performance of these players. But there are metrics out there which quantify for all of this information, and those metrics are in line with the conclusion that Brayden Point's defensive play is miles ahead of Auston Matthews' defensive play.

For example, Micah McCurdy, the creator of those heat maps, also has a player impact isolation model that attempts to account for every factor: teammates, competition, zone usage, score usage, etc. and isolate a player's impact on offense and defense.




As you can see, through Micah McCurdy's model, Brayden Point is significantly above average defensively, with an individual impact of a 9% reduction of threat coming from opponent shots, while Auston Matthews is below average, with an individual impact of a 4% increase of threat coming from opponent's shots. McCurdy's model only includes the past two seasons, though.

There are similar models out there, such as Evolving Hockey's regularized adjusted plus-minus, which also attempts to account for all variables and then isolate a player's impact on what is happening.

View attachment 253409

According to this model, Matthews' impact on expected goals against is over 2 standard deviations above average, and his impact on shot attempts against is more than one standard deviation above average. By comparison, Brayden Point is above average in both metrics.

If you look at something like Corsica Hockey's GAR model over this 3-year sample, and isolate DWAR, Matthews' DGAR is at -1.71, meaning his defensive performance is slightly below replacement level. By comparison, Brayden Point's DWAR is at 4, meaning Point has contributed significantly more than a replacement level player on the defensive side of things.

It is clear as day that Brayden Point is a far, far better defensive player than Auston Matthews. Every single defensive metric supports this. The fact that you would say this can't accurately proven is just hilarious, and shows how out of touch that you are with the metrics that are available today. When the gap between them is this massive, it can be accurately proven quite easily.

Of course, according to all of these metrics, Matthews is also the better offensive player.

Corsica Hockey GAR:

Matthews: 42.98 GAR, 15.79 GAR/82, 0.63 GAR/60
Point: 40.19 GAR, 13.46 GAR/82, 0.54 GAR/60

Slight edge to Matthews on this one.

Evolving Hockey GAR:

Matthews: 24.5 EV GAR, 6.5 PP GAR, 38.8 GAR
0.46 EV GAR/60, 0.77 PP GAR/60, 0.61 GAR/60
Point: 28 EV GAR, 15.5 PP GAR, 50.3 GAR
0.5 EV GAR/60, 1.52 PP GAR/60, 0.71 GAR/60

Slight edge to Point on this one.

Evolving Hockey even strength Regularized Adjusted Plus/Minus:

Matthews: +10.34 Goal Impact, +4.69 Expected Goal Impact, +19.8 Corsi Impact
0.193 GPM/60, 0.088 xGPM/60, 0.37 CPM/60 (These are just goal/xgoal/corsi impacts per 60)
Point: +20.53 Goal Impact, +13.03 Expected Goal Impact, +165.5 Corsi Impact
0.37 GPM/60, 0.233 xGPM/60, 2.96 CPM/60

Micah McCurdy's Isolated Impact:

Matthews: +8% net impact, +24% PP impact, +25% shooting, +114% penalty impact
Point: +16% net impact, +24% PP Impact, +17% shooting, +77% Penalty Impact

And then, going back to more rudimentary metrics:

5-on-5:

Matthews: 51.50% CF, 51.54% xGF, 55.30% GF
1% CF Rel, 1.3% xGF Rel, 2.83% GF Rel
Point: 52.19% CF, 53.72% xGF, 58.72% GF
1.04% CF Rel, 1.52% xGF Rel, 4.66% GF Rel

Point's team controls a larger share of the shot attempts, expected goals, and actual goals that occur while he is on the ice than Matthews' team does when he is on the ice. Not only that, but despite playing on a superior team to Matthews, Point's control of the shot share, expected goal share, and goal share, relative to Point's teammates are all higher than Matthews' relative to his teammates.

And before you mention competition, Point literally has a higher TOI% QoC (29.37%) than Matthews (29.35%). Before you mention linemates, Point has a lower TOI% QoT (30.44%) than Matthews (30.46%).

As much as you've convinced yourself that there is no way that anybody besides McDavid might be on par with lord Matthews, the reality is that simply isn't the case. Brayden Point is an excellent center, and he has been a huge part of his team's regular season success over the past 3 seasons. There is nothing easy about this comparison, but given their performance in the most recent season, I'd say that Brayden Point is the better player right now.

It's therefore valid to ask, as that Tampa fan did, why Brayden Point won't be paid anywhere near what Auston Matthews is paid. The answer is that they are signing with two different GMs who have two different internal salary structures, and that the area where Point is so much superior to Matthews is defensive play, which is a major market inefficiency that centers in particular are not adequately compensated for.
 

Tad Mikowsky

Only Droods
Sponsor
Jun 30, 2008
20,857
21,557
Edmonton
Show your work-or you're talking out your ass.
You're not alone many talk this way, when they mention defense.

That was easy. Maybe you should look these things up yourself before talking out of YOUR ass

Matthews is a defensive liability. Most star forwards (kucherov, mcdavid, MacKinnon, etc) are, but their offense outweighs it obviously. Point is much better in his own zone than Matthews is

We can go into stats like dWAR, xGA, etc, but they all tell the same story

Also, typical leafs fan only pointing out the part where I mentioned someone being better at something than Matthews. Should I also be required to back up my statement about Matthews being better offensively as well? That is actually less of a clear cut difference than the defensive argument is

Some say, Pyrophorus to this day is still trying to come with a retort.
 
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Do Make Say Think

& Yet & Yet
Jun 26, 2007
51,157
9,904
Just the forwards? I take Toronto quite easily. Matthews and Marner are better than any forward Tampa has, Kutcherov being not far behind of course.

Tampa is a much, much better team however.
 

Krewe

Registered User
Mar 12, 2019
1,676
1,917
Just the forwards? I take Toronto quite easily. Matthews and Marner are better than any forward Tampa has, Kutcherov being not far behind of course.

Tampa is a much, much better team however.
Lol what in the world? Kucherov is massively better than both those players. It is one thing to argue about matthews vs point vs tavares vs marner vs stamkos.... but you can't really be serious can you? Kucherov is the one player between the two teams that doesn't have a good comparable on the other. Matthews is a great player and a top 5-10 center in the league, with potential to be a consistent top 5, but kucherov is a top 3 player in the league.

I am pretty sure this is the first time I have ever said this, but Kucherov > any other player on either team, AINEC
 
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