Confirmed with Link: [VAN/DAL] Canucks acquire F Jason Dickinson for 2021 3rd Round Pick

[Melvin]

None of the horrible WAR stuff, ever.

Everything else is about context, context, context. I'm happy to use any singular advanced stat if I feel I understand the context in which that stat was generated and it's saying something significant.

As I've said a bunch of times over the years, I find it ridiculous that people mock +/- as a stat for being useless without context and then are running to take stats which are essentially just +/- in bigger sample sizes (with scoring chances/shots) completely out of context like it's gospel.

In Dickinson's case he has some nice-looking defensive stats but the context of that is 1) most of it is on the wing, or as a #4C and 2) Dallas' team/system seems to generate those sorts of numbers for almost everyone, including old average journeymen like Comeau and Cogliano. Using those numbers to project that he'll be 'excellent' in a different role as a #3C in a far worse system is a very dangerous game.

3) Those stats were generated in a small sample and his career numbers in the same metrics are nothing special.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

Ticks all the boxes for me...
Further analyzing Jason Dickinson’s game and how he’ll help the Canucks

 

[MS]

Ticks all the boxes for me...
Further analyzing Jason Dickinson’s game and how he’ll help the Canucks

An entire article that treats Dickinson as a C while seemingly not realizing that the series of stats they're listing are generated mostly at wing seems totally credible.

Also, again, those are the same stats that have apparently determined that a 37 y/o Joe Pavelski overnight became the NHL's top defensive forward last year for the same team.

 

[Melvin]

2018-19: 67 GP, 47.59 CF% ... meaningless
2019-20 65 GP, 46.78 CF% ... meaningless
2020-21 51 GP, 55.97 CF% ... OMG This is the most meaningful number in the history of existence. Nothing weird going on with last NHL season or anything, was a totally normal, full NHL season with a normal schedule and context. No other numbers are of any value and we should base our entire projections and expectations off this one number and only this number PLEASE DONT LOOK AT ANY OTHER NUMBERS OMG PLEASE.

 

[bandwagonesque]

2018-19: 67 GP, 47.59 CF% ... meaningless
2019-20 65 GP, 46.78 CF% ... meaningless
2020-21 51 GP, 55.97 CF% ... OMG This is the most meaningful number in the history of existence. Nothing weird going on with last NHL season or anything, was a totally normal, full NHL season with a normal schedule and context. No other numbers are of any value and we should base our entire projections and expectations off this one number and only this number PLEASE DONT LOOK AT ANY OTHER NUMBERS OMG PLEASE.

As far as I know no one only cited this statistic or suggested only it and not other statistics should be considered, so it seems like you're misrepresenting other poster's positions for effect. However you might value them, Dickinsons's defensive advanced stats in general have been solid for several years.

 

[Melvin]

As far as I know no one only cited this statistic or suggested only it and not other statistics should be considered, so it's hard to know what you mean by this. However you might value them, Dickinsons's defensive advanced stats in general have been solid for several years.

it’s the core stat upon which the others are built.

I have yet to see a single person reference anything that uses data beyond last season, even though it’s been long established that this data only becomes meaningful with about 2 full seasons (that’s NORMAL NHL seasons, not weird covid half seasons where you only face 7 opponents.)

 

[Peen]

@MS

I don’t share your overall hatred of WAR.

Let’s do the Myers example.

He has shit defensive results playing against other team’s bottom sixes. His WAR in his role isn’t good because of that.

I don’t think WAR insinuates that a guy like Stecher - who has had a good third pairing WAR - is better than a guy who had a marginally worse WAR in a top pairing role. I think it just gives a decent picture into how good a player is in the role they play.

Obviously, that doesn’t mean there’s flaws:
- Shooting percentages can skew ratings
- Systems (Tanev looked average here but then posted some of the best results in the NHL in Calgary)
- Endless list of other factors

But, I don’t have the hatred for it that you do. If you apply it with context, I find the ratings correlate pretty well with what I’ve seen

 

[bandwagonesque]

it’s the core stat upon which the others are built.

I have yet to see a single person reference anything that uses data beyond last season, even though it’s been long established that this data only becomes meaningful with about 2 full seasons (that’s NORMAL NHL seasons, not weird covid half seasons where you only face 7 opponents.)

Except no one in this thread has even mentioned Corsi that I've seen. One thing a few people have cited is an article that talks about Expected Goals For, a more advanced model with better predictive qualities, and it suggests Dickinson has been consistently above average defensively for several years. That model has its own flaws, of course. And if you talked about them rather than Corsi you would be addressing something another poster has actually said, so we'd be killing two birds with one stone.

 

[Melvin]

Except no one in this thread has even mentioned Corsi that I've seen. One thing a few people have cited is an article that talks about Expected Goals For, a more advanced model with better predictive qualities, and it suggests Dickinson has been consistently above average defensively for several years. That model has its own flaws, of course. And if you talked about them rather than Corsi you would be addressing something another poster has actually said, so we'd be killing two birds with one stone.

His xG% is 49%, 51%, 57% the last 3 years. My point remains the same.

like, he seems like he’s a decent player and good value if under $2M, but we need to stop acting like data from the last season is the be all end all instead of tearing it with the grain of salt with which it should be treated.

 

[bandwagonesque]

His xG% is 49%, 51%, 57% the last 3 years. My point remains the same.

Those are relatively good defensive statistics for a player with his usage. If your point is that he doesn't have good defensive statistics, how can your point remain the same in the presence of evidence that he has good defensive statistics?

We can go back to just complaining about the fact that he's going to arbitration and try to tackle this later if you like.

 

[bandwagonesque]

but we need to stop acting like data from the last season is the be all end all instead of tearing it with the grain of salt with which it should be treated.

Again, no one's doing this -- the only article anyone cited covered several years -- and no one's even using the statistics you implied they were using.

 

[flying v 604]

I don't think Makar or Heiskanen really represent raises. There hasn't been young defencemen with their pedigree who has played so well, so fast since Doughty. Elite players get paid and everyone else will fight over the scraps.

Hughes' play last year was clearly a tier down from those two.

Did you even see one game Miro played? He struggled almost the entire season. People seem to think he's the guy from the bubble, he's not and his 3 seasons clearly show that.

 

[Melvin]

Again, no one's doing this -- the only article anyone cited covered several years -- and no one's even using the statistics you implied they were using.

this is the article I have seen linked to.

 

[bandwagonesque]

this is the article I have seen linked to.

While the article does dwell mainly on last season. it includes xga% charts and figures from each of his 6 seasons and concludes he's been good at suppressing chances throughout his career.

 

[Melvin]

While the article does dwell mainly on last season. it includes xga% charts and figures from each of his 6 seasons and concludes he's been good at suppressing chances throughout his career.

He’s been pretty good. That’s not the same as calling him a “defensive ace” and saying he’s going to be an elite 3C next year.

he’s a decent player who seems like a good gamble if he costs not very much, but not someone I’m expecting to be elite at anything and not someone I’d be comfortable giving more than 2m to on longer than a 2 year deal.

 

[bandwagonesque]

He’s been pretty good. That’s not the same as calling him a “defensive ace” and saying he’s going to be an elite 3C next year.

he’s a decent player who seems like a good gamble if he costs not very much, but not someone I’m expecting to be elite at anything and not someone I’d be comfortable giving more than 2m to on longer than a 2 year deal.

No one in this thread actually said he was going to be an elite 3C next year. One or two people said he'd be elite defensively, which I suppose is a possibility, and it seems like everyone recognizes he might be limited or average offensively.

 

[MS]

@MS

I don’t share your overall hatred of WAR.

Let’s do the Myers example.

He has shit defensive results playing against other team’s bottom sixes. His WAR in his role isn’t good because of that.

I don’t think WAR insinuates that a guy like Stecher - who has had a good third pairing WAR - is better than a guy who had a marginally worse WAR in a top pairing role. I think it just gives a decent picture into how good a player is in the role they play.

Obviously, that doesn’t mean there’s flaws:
- Shooting percentages can skew ratings
- Systems (Tanev looked average here but then posted some of the best results in the NHL in Calgary)
- Endless list of other factors

But, I don’t have the hatred for it that you do. If you apply it with context, I find the ratings correlate pretty well with what I’ve seen

Per the bolded, absolutely nobody does this.

Myers plays too far up the lineup on a bad team with a terrible system. When you play an OK #4 in #1-2 minutes, he's not going to do well. But it doesn't mean he's the '3rd pairing scrub' that those numbers indicate. If you put Myers in softer appropriate #4 minutes in Dallas' system, the results would be *completely* different.

When those WAR numbers try telling you that Joe Pavelski is the best defensive forward in the NHL or that 19-20 Bo Horvat was sub-replacement level, I have zero use for them. They're crap. I'll find other better ways to evaluate hockey players.

 

[Peen]

Per the bolded, absolutely nobody does this.

Myers plays too far up the lineup on a bad team with a terrible system. When you play an OK #4 in #1-2 minutes, he's not going to do well. But it doesn't mean he's the '3rd pairing scrub' that those numbers indicate. If you put Myers in softer appropriate #4 minutes in Dallas' system, the results would be *completely* different.

When those WAR numbers try telling you that Joe Pavelski is the best defensive forward in the NHL or that 19-20 Bo Horvat was sub-replacement level, I have zero use for them. They're crap. I'll find other better ways to evaluate hockey players.

But he doesn’t play far up the lineup. He just plays too many minutes at es/pk. And he’s bad in those minutes - except at rush offense and goal scoring.

The Horvat stuff is an outlier. I don’t care what his defensive results show, he’s had corpses strapped to him every year and isn’t prone to consistent lapses. I don’t think he’s a particularly good defensive player either but that’s a good example where I’d say - yeah the war graphs get that one wrong.

I think our systems suck and they lead to worse results, but that doesn’t negate that someone like Stecher posted far better defensive results than Myers on the same team in a higher leverage role.

 

[MS]

But he doesn’t play far up the lineup. He just plays too many minutes at es/pk. And he’s bad in those minutes - except at rush offense and goal scoring.

The Horvat stuff is an outlier. I don’t care what his defensive results show, he’s had corpses strapped to him every year and isn’t prone to consistent lapses. I don’t think he’s a particularly good defensive player either but that’s a good example where I’d say - yeah the war graphs get that one wrong.

I think our systems suck and they lead to worse results, but that doesn’t negate that someone like Stecher posted far better defensive results than Myers on the same team in a higher leverage role.

Myers was playing a ton of minutes and has spent the last two years mostly either playing shutdown minutes next to Edler or babysitting a defensive disaster in Quinn Hughes. On a terrible team.

WAR graphs consistently highlight the 'worst' defenders as being the guys who have too much responsibility on bad teams. I don't find them being any different than looking at +/- and ending up with almost the same results.

Troy Stecher is very good and was getting badly underplayed here.

 

[Hit the post]

Myers was playing a ton of minutes and has spent the last two years mostly either playing shutdown minutes next to Edler or babysitting a defensive disaster in Quinn Hughes. On a terrible team.

WAR graphs consistently highlight the 'worst' defenders as being the guys who have too much responsibility on bad teams. I don't find them being any different than looking at +/- and ending up with almost the same results.

Troy Stecher is very good and was getting badly underplayed here.

He seemed to play his best with paired up with Hutton. It's like each of them were better together or greater than the sum of their parts. Or am I remembering it wrong?

 

[MS]

He seemed to play his best with paired up with Hutton. It's like each of them were better together or greater than the sum of their parts. Or am I remembering it wrong?

Hutton definitely looked better with Stecher than with Gudbranson.

Edler-Stecher was always a good pairing and excellent in the bubble.

 

[AppleHoneySauce]

The Horvat stuff is an outlier. I don’t care what his defensive results show, he’s had corpses strapped to him every year and isn’t prone to consistent lapses. I don’t think he’s a particularly good defensive player either but that’s a good example where I’d say - yeah the war graphs get that one wrong.

I mean is it? His war profile seemingly shows that he is mostly just miscast as the shutdown guy 5v5. Give him softer minutes with a 3 C that can take some of the Defensive load and he could easily rocket up the war chart.

Also that his line mates (pearson) aren't suited to being on his wings if thats the roe a team wants horvat to do.

 

[MS]

Great — then dispute those claims instead of making up ones no one made, and do it with stuff that actually exists.

This has been exactly what I've been doing. There is absolutely nothing dishonest in any of my arguments here.

You've apparently taken issue with saying that an 'excellent shutdown center' equates to one of the better 3rd line Cs in the NHL when in your words it means he's 'one of the most valuable 3rd liners in the NHL'. It's the exact same f***ing thing.

This is pathetic. It's one thing to follow people around constantly making stupid pedantic arguments on technicalities, but it's another to be so comically wrong about it basically every time. It's embarrassing. And annoying for everyone. I'm reporting the posts in this thread as trolling and will continue to do the same when presented with this sort of garbage in the future.

 

[VanJack]

An entire article that treats Dickinson as a C while seemingly not realizing that the series of stats they're listing are generated mostly at wing seems totally credible.

Also, again, those are the same stats that have apparently determined that a 37 y/o Joe Pavelski overnight became the NHL's top defensive forward last year for the same team.

Exactly. And I find it interesting that in recent interviews, Green isn't ruling out the possibility of moving Miller to center permanently. So that would push Dickinson to the wing, since he isn't likely to be replacing Sutter as the fourth line C.

But that's what the addition of another top six winger like Garland does to the mix. It will enable them to play Miller at center and not sacrifice any offense. Actually, with Pettersson, Horvat and Miller down the middle, it's hard to find a team in the Pacific that has a better group of pivots.

Obviously McDavid and Draisaitl are far better, but they often end up on the same line in Edmonton, and it's a bit of drop off to RNH down the middle.

 

[MS]

Exactly. And I find it interesting that in recent interviews, Green isn't ruling out the possibility of moving Miller to center permanently. So that would push Dickinson to the wing, since he isn't likely to be replacing Sutter as the fourth line C.

But that's what the addition of another top six winger like Garland does to the mix. It will enable them to play Miller at center and not sacrifice any offense. Actually, with Pettersson, Horvat and Miller down the middle, it's hard to find a team in the Pacific that has a better group of pivots.

Obviously McDavid and Draisaitl are far better, but they often end up on the same line in Edmonton, and it's a bit of drop off to RNH down the middle.

After seeing the way Green works for a long time, I cannot imagine he's comfortable with a 44% faceoff guy as his main matchup C. I think it's somewhat dinosaur thinking, but it is what it is and I wouldn't be surprised at all to see Dickinson largely on the wing.