The other conclusion you could make is that the adjusted metrics do a poor job quantifying defense, throwing false positives like “Trevor van Riemsduk is better than Jaccob Slavin” or “Aho is one of the worst players in the league”. Those conclusions are completely unsupportable in a real-life context, and both have a very strong smell of not properly weighting TOI or matchups.
I think there’s a large difference between me personally holding an opinion, and the entire world holding a consensus. This isn’t just one guy’s eye test we’re talking about, it’s the collective analysis of everyone who has an opinion on the player, and none of them have this dramatic view of Aho as a purely one-way player.
I can sit here and put the kind of time into a TSN-quality presentation that should command a paycheck, but why? The idea that you should re-consider your position should flow naturally from the fact that your position only exists as the result of one website’s proprietary formula, with zero supporting evidence elsewhere.
Then this metric is unreliable. I don’t know how the heck else to demonstrate it than simply pointing out the absurdity of this false positive. Nobody, literally nobody, thinks TVR is in any way better defensively than Slavin.
I just noticed two more that are unsupportable and bordering on completely insane: this metric has Nino Niederreiter better defensively than Teuvo Teravainen, and Jake Gardiner better defensively than Brett Pesce. If that last one doesn’t send a massive red flag, what ever could?
Well, first off, the adjusted metric is
not saying that Aho is one of the worst players in the league. The fact that you've said that, despite Jeff going out of his way to
emphasize that Aho is indeed a good player due to his offensive impact, and me also going out of my way to emphasize that he is an excellent offensive player, is rather telling that you're either being disingenuous or just not taking the time to listen to the perspective of the other side.
Don't get me wrong, I love Aho and he's one of the most talented (offensively) players in the league, and still one of the most valuable players in the league too.
As you can see, he is an excellent offensive player, but he really struggles to suppress expected goals against. This is pretty consistent with his results in the 3-year sample prior to this season.
Keeping the theme consistent, you're further inaccurately characterizing the argument that is being presented to you by suggesting that this position only exists as the result of one website's proprietary formula, with zero supporting evidence anywhere. Again, I don't know if you're taking the time to actually read these posts or not, but here is some of the non-proprietary supporting evidence that has been provided:
How Aho's goals against look relative to his teammates:
the Hurricanes allow 3 goals per hour at 5v5 when Aho is on the ice and 2.36 goals per hour when he is on the bench.
How Aho's expected goals against - the superior measure of defensive play that isn't skewed by goaltending variance - look relative to his teammates:
It still suffers from the issue that it can be skewed goaltending, but that can generally be solved by using expected goals against instead of goals against. When we do, Aho's defensive metrics don't look much better than it did when we looked at actual goals against; he is still 3rd worst among Hurricanes forwards, behind rookie Martin Necas, and noted defensive drag Ryan Dzingel.
The opposing matchups that Aho is facing:
At 5v5, Aho's most common forward opponents this year were Kuznetsov, Kreider, and Buchnevich, while Staal's were Panarin, Couturier, and Strome. Staal is facing, in my opinion, two of the very best players in the game. Also at 5v5, using PuckIQ's quality of competition metric, Aho spends 33.41% of his minutes against "elite" competition, 41.82% of his minutes against "middle" competition, and 24.77% of his minutes against "gritensity" (~4th line/replacement level) competition. By contrast, Staal spends 46.6% of his ice time against "elite" competition, 27.73% of his ice time against "middle" competition, and 23.63% of his ice time against "gritensity" competition. As you can see, Staal is clearly Carolina's matchup center
So, let's review the information here...
1. The Hurricanes allow 5-on-5 goals at a significantly higher rate with Aho on the ice than they do with any other forward.
(This is not proprietary.)
2. The hurricanes allow 5-on-5 expected goals at a higher rate with Aho on the ice than they do with any other full-time forward besides Ryan Dzingel, Erik Haula, and Martin Necas.
(This is not proprietary.)
3. Aho is not the Hurricanes matchup center. That is Jordan Staal, who plays against the highest quality of competition of any Carolina forward, and he and Aho play practically no minutes together. Despite this, Jordan Staal's defensive metrics are all
far stronger than Aho's.
(This is not proprietary.)
4. The best regression model we have, which accounts for competition, teammates, usage, and other factors, shows that Aho's per-minute defensive impact on expected goals against at even strength is 15th worst out of the 330 forwards who have played at least 500 minutes.
(This is proprietary, but the results to this proprietary model have been shared here, as well as the calculations behind the model.)
Now, let me add just a few more things that are not proprietary.
5. Among 329 forwards who have played at least 500 minutes at 5-on-5, Aho's rate of goals against (3) ranks 51st. (16th percentile) His rate of expected goals against (2.66) ranks 48th. (15th percentile) His relative-to-teammate rate of goals against (+0.5) ranks 31st. (9th percentile) His relative-to-teammate rate of expected goals against (+0.17) ranks 49th. (15th percentile).
(This is not proprietary.)
6. The rate of 5-on-5 expected goals which the Hurricanes allow with Aho on the ice (2.66) is 9% higher than the rate of 5-on-5 expected goals which they allow when Aho is on the bench (2.44).
(This is not proprietary.)
7. With Aho on the ice, the rate at which the Hurricanes allow 5-on-5 expected goals is higher than that of every other team besides the Chicago Blackhawks, the Winnipeg Jets, and the New York Rangers. With Aho off the ice, the rate at which the Hurricanes allow 5-on-5 expected goals ranks 15th.
(This is not proprietary.)
8. While zone starts have a fairly minimal impact on all on-ice metrics, Aho's shift start deployment is very soft. Among full-time Hurricanes forwards, only Jordan Martinook is starting a lesser percentage of his 5-on-5 shifts in the defensive zone.
(This is not proprietary.)
I have provided plenty of supporting evidence. Aho's team is allowing goals and dangerous shots at a far higher rate when he is on the ice than they are when he is on the bench. Other Hurricanes forwards are generally allowing goals and expected goals at a lesser rate. The raw and relative-to-teammate rate at which he is allowing goals and expected goals are all no higher than 16th percentile among full-time forwards. He is not his team's matchup center. He is given very soft zone deployment.
There is a huge gap between Aho's raw, non-proprietary/regressed results, and those of a forward who is even half-decent defensively. In order to show us how Aho is
good defensively, despite the raw results, you're going to need to provide a ton of contextual factors which show that Aho's deployment is burying him, and you're going to need to explain why the proprietary models - the methodology behind and the results of which have been provided to you - are not properly accounting for these factors.
So far, everything that you have provided has been entirely subjective, based on nothing but your
feelings about his defensive play, and the fact that those
feelings are generally shared by the general public. Now that you've been provided with the results of these models, I'm looking forward to you
objectively shooting these results down; I'm not sure why you haven't already.