Who Stays: Loui Eriksson or Reilly Smith?

[CJDolan]

He keeps referring to trending down from 36 goals even though his points trended up and stabilized for 3 subsequent years. He also includes a strike season (ridiculous) and a 2 concussion season (doubly ridiculous). Talk about sound reasoning......

Oh so he's using a season with a 20% shooting % as a baseline? Sounds about right.

 

[Ice Nine]

Earlier in this thread you said Loui will go down to 15-20 goals because he is declining. Here's his totals the last 4 seasons.

2011-2012: .963 goals/60 minutes played
2012-2013: .745 g/60
2013-2014: .595 g/60
2014-2015: .881 g/60

Starts at almost a goal per 60, drops down during the lockout year, where plenty of people had off years. He then drops way off in a season where he got two concussions. Then this past season he shoots way back up there, pretty damn close to where he was in 2011-2012.

Oh yeah, he was playing with the likes of Mike Ribiero and Jamie Benn in 2012, and he was only .08 g/60 higher than he was with Kelly and Soderberg.

Please, keep telling me about this steep drop off that loui has been trending to for years.

"Steep drop off"?

Please point me to the post. Any post Anywhere. that I predicted a "steep drop off" in Eriksson's production. I'll save you the time and effort of an exhaustive search: such a post doesn't exist.

So now that we set aside the strawman, let's return to what I actually said: Louis Eriksson's raw scoring output has been declining for years. I predict further decline this year in terms of goals scored: 15-20.

Thanks for providing some numbers, but there are problems. First, you've only given stats for the last four years; this is odd, as I've said Eriksson's peak was in 2008/09. The last four years are skewed due to two anomalous non-standard seasons: strike shortened season and Eriksson's concussion year. As you said, many players had worse than normal output that strike year, after having taken half a season off, and were rusty. And the concussion year -- well that's not fair to Eriksson to take into account. I've said before, its an aberration. Second, you're using a stat (goals scored per 60 minutes) which is not an accurate measure of final scoring output of players over time. Why? Because per 60 minutes doesn't tell us what those 60 minutes constituted -- is it powerplay time? Is it even strength? Does the player sit two games and then come back and plays 15 minutes scoring more, while another player plays 15 hard minutes in both games, but scores less due to wear and tear?

Goals per 60 ends up with weird results where Brandon Pirri and Jason Zucker (has anyone even heard of Jason Zucker?), with the G/60 stat, end up being better scorers than Tarasenko, Corey Perry, and Stamkos. Or Pascal Dupuis rated far higher than Patrick Kane, even though Dupuis played 266 minutes last year. It's an interesting stat, but not a helpful one if your concern is predicting how many goals someone will score in a season.

So, since that's what we're talking about-- how many goals will Eriksson score next season, a better measure is goals scored per game. Here are the numbers:

2008/09 - 0.439 goals per game (peak)
2009/10 - 0.3537 GPG (decline)
2010/11 - 0.3418 GPG (decline)
2011/12 - 0.3171 GPG (decline)
2012/13 - 0.25 GPG (steeper decline - strike shortened season)
2013/14 - 0.1639 GPG (steeper decline - concussion season)
2014/15 - 0.2716 GPG (increase but a decline from last regular season in 2011/12).

The strike shortened season and the concussion seasons were anomalies, leading to steeper declines in Eriksson's production compared to his regular but constant decline in other years. I think its unfair to Eriksson to use either of these years. To his credit, he's essentially recovered and, as of last season, is back to his regular contributions (taking into account his constant and annual rate of decline). His 22 goals over 82 games is roughly what you would have expected for his output in 2012/13 if not for the strike shortened season. And then if not for concussions in 2013/14.

Now, if you average out the decrease in GPG in the remaining years, excluding those two anomalies, it comes out to an average decline of -0.04075 or -0.041 GPG per season.

So, 0.2716 (GPG in 14/15) minus 0.041 = 0.2306 goals per game next season.

That is 18.9 over 82 games, at 0.2306 GPG.

I predicted a range of 15-20, taking to account for different TOI, perhaps different linemates, etc. The numbers are quite consistent.

In other words, I'm not predicting a "steep" decline at all. A steep decline would be his output in the strike shortened season and the concussion year, which were anomalies. I'm predicting a continuation of Eriksson's natural decline since his peak in 2008/09, something that the vast majority of players experience. It's nothing against Eriksson, just the reality of a tough physical game.

 

[Ice Nine]

He keeps referring to trending down from 36 goals even though his points trended up and stabilized for 3 subsequent years. He also includes a strike season (ridiculous) and a 2 concussion season (doubly ridiculous). Talk about sound reasoning......

This post is hilariously wrong. Read my post above. I explicitly exclude the two anomalous seasons--strike shortened and concussion season-- in making my prediction.

 

[CJDolan]

"Steep drop off"?

Please point me to the post. Any post Anywhere. that I predicted a "steep drop off" in Eriksson's production. I'll save you the time and effort of an exhaustive search: such a post doesn't exist.

So now that we set aside the strawman, let's return to what I actually said: Louis Eriksson's raw scoring output has been declining for years. I predict further decline this year in terms of goals scored: 15-20.

Thanks for providing some numbers, but there are problems. First, you've only given stats for the last four years; this is odd, as I've said Eriksson's peak was in 2008/09. The last four years are skewed due to two anomalous non-standard seasons: strike shortened season and Eriksson's concussion year. As you said, many players had worse than normal output that strike year, after having taken half a season off, and were rusty. And the concussion year -- well that's not fair to Eriksson to take into account. I've said before, its an aberration. Second, you're using a stat (goals scored per 60 minutes) which is not an accurate measure of final scoring output of players over time. Why? Because per 60 minutes doesn't tell us what those 60 minutes constituted -- is it powerplay time? Is it even strength? Does the player sit two games and then come back and plays 15 minutes scoring more, while another player plays 15 hard minutes in both games, but scores less due to wear and tear?

Goals per 60 ends up with weird results where Brandon Pirri and Jason Zucker (has anyone even heard of Jason Zucker?), with the G/60 stat, end up being better scorers than Tarasenko, Corey Perry, and Stamkos. Or Pascal Dupuis rated far higher than Patrick Kane, even though Dupuis played 266 minutes last year. It's an interesting stat, but not a helpful one if your concern is predicting how many goals someone will score in a season.

So, since that's what we're talking about-- how many goals will Eriksson score next season, a better measure is goals scored per game. Here are the numbers:

2008/09 - 0.439 goals per game (peak)
2009/10 - 0.3537 GPG (decline)
2010/11 - 0.3418 GPG (decline)
2011/12 - 0.3171 GPG (decline)
2012/13 - 0.25 GPG (steeper decline - strike shortened season)
2013/14 - 0.1639 GPG (steeper decline - concussion season)
2014/15 - 0.2716 GPG (increase but a decline from last regular season in 2011/12).

The strike shortened season and the concussion seasons were anomalies, leading to steeper declines in Eriksson's production compared to his regular but constant decline in other years. I think its unfair to Eriksson to use either of these years. To his credit, he's essentially recovered and, as of last season, is back to his regular contributions (taking into account his constant and annual rate of decline). His 22 goals over 82 games is roughly what you would have expected for his output in 2012/13 if not for the strike shortened season. And then if not for concussions in 2013/14.

Now, if you average out the decrease in GPG in the remaining years, excluding those two anomalies, it comes out to an average decline of -0.04075 or -0.041 GPG per season.

So, 0.2716 (GPG in 14/15) minus 0.041 = 0.2306 goals per game next season.

That is 18.9 over 82 games, at 0.2306 GPG.

I predicted a range of 15-20, taking to account for different TOI, perhaps different linemates, etc. The numbers are quite consistent.

In other words, I'm not predicting a "steep" decline at all. A steep decline would be his output in the strike shortened season and the concussion year, which were anomalies. I'm predicting a continuation of Eriksson's natural decline since his peak in 2008/09, something that the vast majority of players experience. It's nothing against Eriksson, just the reality of a tough physical game.

He was also playing between 1:00-1:30 more per game in Dallas, including 1:00+ more powerplay time per game.

Your Pascal Dupuis point is meaningless, since that is an obvious small sample size. Also, g/60 is much like +/- in that it is good in context. I'm not comparing player a to player b. I am comparing Loui Eriksson to Loui Eriksson, and all of the seasons have a hell of a lot more minutes than 260 or whatever Dupuis played. Common sense would say that a player with 1 goal in 5 minutes TOI getting a 12.0 g/60 is a misleading stat. When looking at players with large amounts of minutes, it is very relevant.

Also, did you really think that shooting 20% is sustainable for a career? That is a terrible season to base things on, as a 20% shooting percentage is clearly a statistical anomaly and will likely never be replicated by him again. Out of the top 100 career shooting %, only two of those players are from this generation: Stamkos (17.3%) amd Alex Tanguay (18.9%). There are 4 players in NHL history with % over 20%. Of the top 250 single season shooting %s ever, ranging from 32.75% to 21.57%, 9 of those have been in this millennium.

So yes, going by goals per game, basing on a historically high shooting % season, Loui has declined. I don't really think anyone would expect a player to replicate that season. If I'm comparing a single player's production year by year, using g/60 would make the most sense, since it factors in TOI when simple goals per game does not. Again, common sense would say a player will score more with more ice time. I haven't even mentioned the quality of his linemates, since that is difficult to measure and put a number on.

If you are basing things off a historically high shooting season, yeah, Loui is going to decline. I don't think any of us were really expecting that kind of performance in Boston.

Edit: again, your whole comparison of when the player played, how he played, how tough it was, etc is meaningless. We are talking about the same player with the same responsibilities. He's not taking games off then coming back fresh. I'm not comparing him to any other players. I am only comparing season to season, even though he gets less PPTOi in Boston, so that would hurt his case.

Edit 2: I said "steep" drop off because you said 15-20 goals (nice wide open window there btw). That is anywhere from a 10-33% drop off in a single season, that's pretty steep. Not exactly a straw man. And your raw numbers are terrible. Once you look at the entire picture, adding more context, you get an accurate representation of how his increase/decrease in production really is. Raw numbers are awful to use if you actually have more variables on hand, if you want a clearer picture that accurately portrays the situation. You, however, don't seem to want anything that goes against "loui drops off every year"

 

[SanDogBrewin]

I'm talking about sound prediction of Eriksson's output based on stats and his record over the last seven seasons.

It's funny Sodaberg in this thread has all of a sudden transformed into a "black hole" comparable to Chris Kelly. Like playing with Soda is some horrific hell that Eriksson will "explode" out of if played with other Bruins.

Oh then correct everyone that saw Soderberg having an awful season along with Kelly's pitiful season. That is who Eriksson played with, two players playing terribly.

You can't have sound prediction based numbers, now one does. Eriksson has never gotten to play with really good centers, with any consistency, in Boston. You don't have anything to base LouI on playing with Krejci or even Bergeron in Boston. Except for parts of his 1st concussion filed season in Boston.

Continuing to say that you can use Eriksson's numbers with Benn, In Dallas, as next seasons predictive numbers playing with Krejci is baseless. Benn and Krejci are totally different players.

 

[CJDolan]

Oh then correct everyone that saw Soderberg having an awful season along with Kelly's pitiful season. That is who Eriksson played with, two players playing terribly.

You can't have sound prediction based numbers, now one does. Eriksson has never gotten to play with really good centers, with any consistency, in Boston. You don't have anything to base LouI on playing with Krejci or even Bergeron in Boston. Except for parts of his 1st concussion filed season in Boston.

Continuing to say that you can use Eriksson's numbers with Benn, In Dallas, as next seasons predictive numbers playing with Krejci is baseless. Benn and Krejci are totally different players.

He's taking raw numbers because it furthers his agenda. Anyone that has taken any sort of statistics class knows that you should use all available data in order to form a conclusion. He doesn't know how the hell to use g/60, evidenced by the Dupuis example. He's comparing apples and oranges and thinking that is accurate.

 

[BNHL]

If by "explode" you mean 15-20 goals, then yes.

I appreciate Eriksson's contributions, but people thinking he's going to recapture his peak of 2008/2009, 7 years later, after seven straight seasons of decline, are out to lunch. Eriksson didn't play with Soda and Kelly in Dallas for four seasons after that peak. He played on the top line. What's the excuse for those seasons?

I look forward to returning to this thread next spring to remind all the starry eyed predictors who foretold 35+ goals. By then, the goalposts will be moved again. "But he missed a few shifts with Krejci".

I think you included them here.

 

[BNHL]

30G potential? Come on, man.

He has scored 30+ goals ONCE in his entire career, and that was almost a decade ago (2008/09). His production has declined every. single. year. since then, including his last four seasons in Dallas after reaching 30 goal plateau ONCE.

He is in line 15-20 goals this coming season, which is consistent with his decline in production in EVERY SEASON since 2008/09.

That decline, as I said, included four seasons of decline at Dallas. Not playing with Chris Kelly. Or Soda. Or under Claude. In wide open offense. That was also pre-concussion.

This is why our offense sucks. And precisely Chiarelli's approach all year: cross our fingers and hope that a bunch of declining forwards would recapture some magic of 2011. Now we're hoping Eriksson to recapture his scoring touch of 2008. Seven seasons ago.

I think Sweeney had a different take during his presser -- he was clearly aware that our offense blew last year, and it needs to be improved.

Again, I will keep Eriksson 9 times out of 10 over Reilly Smith.

But we need to add a legit top line scoring talent that we lost when Seguin/Iginla left.

Eriksson could have done the job if this was 2008. It's not.

And here

 

[GloveSave1]

Who do you consider an upgrade over Eriksson that would be available ?

And please be serious, don't bring up TJ Oshie

People must be confusing me with someone else when it comes to Oshie...you're the second in two threads. I don't think I've ever mentioned him. The guy is a nice player, would make a good Bruin/addition...but he's no finisher. Def not that guy, at all.

The Bruins don't have the resources to make extra moves, so Oshie doesn't spend much time on my mind.

I think a lot of the problem is we fence ourselves in to who we believe is available...those guys tend to cost a lot because they are obvious and everyone throws in a bid. Everyone is available. The Rich Peverley kind of deal is a lost art.

I don't know Vrbata's situation...and while he isn't everyones' dream player, I think he is the kind of guy Sweeney should dig for...certified vet...certified finisher...

I don't think old age is a problem for the Bruins at forward...adding a sure bet veteran finisher, and fixing L1 RW and being done with it would be awesome IMO...

It's not a matter of who is a better player than Loui...it's who is a better fit for this team and that roster spot.

 

[Ice Nine]

He was also playing between 1:00-1:30 more per game in Dallas, including 1:00+ more powerplay time per game.

Your Pascal Dupuis point is meaningless, since that is an obvious small sample size. Also, g/60 is much like +/- in that it is good in context. I'm not comparing player a to player b. I am comparing Loui Eriksson to Loui Eriksson, and all of the seasons have a hell of a lot more minutes than 260 or whatever Dupuis played. Common sense would say that a player with 1 goal in 5 minutes TOI getting a 12.0 g/60 is a misleading stat. When looking at players with large amounts of minutes, it is very relevant.

Also, did you really think that shooting 20% is sustainable for a career? That is a terrible season to base things on, as a 20% shooting percentage is clearly a statistical anomaly and will likely never be replicated by him again. Out of the top 100 career shooting %, only two of those players are from this generation: Stamkos (17.3%) amd Alex Tanguay (18.9%). There are 4 players in NHL history with % over 20%. Of the top 250 single season shooting %s ever, ranging from 32.75% to 21.57%, 9 of those have been in this millennium.

So yes, going by goals per game, basing on a historically high shooting % season, Loui has declined. I don't really think anyone would expect a player to replicate that season. If I'm comparing a single player's production year by year, using g/60 would make the most sense, since it factors in TOI when simple goals per game does not. Again, common sense would say a player will score more with more ice time. I haven't even mentioned the quality of his linemates, since that is difficult to measure and put a number on.

If you are basing things off a historically high shooting season, yeah, Loui is going to decline. I don't think any of us were really expecting that kind of performance in Boston.

Edit: again, your whole comparison of when the player played, how he played, how tough it was, etc is meaningless. We are talking about the same player with the same responsibilities. He's not taking games off then coming back fresh. I'm not comparing him to any other players. I am only comparing season to season, even though he gets less PPTOi in Boston, so that would hurt his case.

Edit 2: I said "steep" drop off because you said 15-20 goals (nice wide open window there btw). That is anywhere from a 10-33% drop off in a single season, that's pretty steep. Not exactly a straw man. And your raw numbers are terrible. Once you look at the entire picture, adding more context, you get an accurate representation of how his increase/decrease in production really is. Raw numbers are awful to use if you actually have more variables on hand, if you want a clearer picture that accurately portrays the situation. You, however, don't seem to want anything that goes against "loui drops off every year"

You keep using the word "meaningless". I do not think it means what you think it means. Anyways, lots of hyperbole in here, but the analysis isn't persuasive.

First off, it's funny to me that as an Eriksson booster, you're arguing really really hard to take away his greatest accomplishment: 36 goals in 2008/09. Sure his shooting percentage was high, that's precisely why I averaged out the rate of decline across all of these seven seasons. But I'm not analyzing shooting percentage. I'm analyzing goals per game. And the point, is that he declined from that peak in 2008/09. This is a relevant data point.

Second, but even if we take away Eriksson's peak in 2008/09, and we pretend-- as you seem to want-- that 2008/2009 didn't happen (which makes your suggestion in your separate post above that "you should use all available data" hilariously ironic) that doesn't erase the fact that Eriksson's numbers declined from 2009/10 to 2010/11 and then again from 2010/11 to 2011/12 and, discounting the two anomalous seasons in which his number steeply declined, declined again in 2014/15 as compared to 2011/12. You pretend my analysis seems to rise and fall on 2008/09. It doesn't. The decline continued for several years after that.

Third, you've entirely missed the point of my critique of the G/60 stat. Its not about comparing players, although that does make the stat seem loopy as a way of arguing about goal scoring outputs. But my point was about understanding a player's output over time -- G/60 is not reflective of actual scoring production over the course of their career, because its based on a bunch of factors that influence actual outputs -- powerplay time, penalty killing time, even strength time. As a player ages, he may get less PP time. As a player ages, he will also get less TOI. He may marginally improve his G/60 (likely because playing less TOI, means less wear and tear, so more efficiency) but if his TOI decreases more than his marginal increase in G/60, then his production in a full season and in goals per game is naturally going to decline. I mention Dupuis because he's a great example of the problem with this stat -- he has a fantastic G/60 last year, but only scored 6 goals. Dupuis was highly efficient in his minutes. Great. But it's obviously not a great predictor of his output next year. If a guy has a great G/60 stat but is too injured to play regular TOI, it's useless.

Goals per game cuts through all the crap. It's powerful because it simple. It asks: how many goals will he score? It's simple and provides us what we want.

My range of 15-20 is like a confidence interval based on my 18.9 projection, acknowledging there are variables that might impact output. Since you've indicated how well you understand statistics, you'll know what a confidence interval is, and why people use them.

But since you've gotten all high and mighty about it -- my "raw numbers are terrible"-- fine. My prediction/projection is 19 goals, within that confidence interval that I've outlined. That's a 15% decline.

What do you predict? Put your numbers where your mouth is.

We can end the discussion. And we'll return here next year and compare results.

 

[Ice Nine]

And here

Oh, BNHL. Try to keep up.

Those posts were not elaborating my prediction. That was done above. Those posts were criticizing predictions like this one, predicting a return to 2008/09 form:

Put me down for 28-32 if he gets a center in the caliber of 08 Richards or 09-11 Ribeiro. Krejci is that center.

Eriksson reached 30 goals ONCE in his entire career. Seven years ago.

Of course, your prediction is contingent upon a Brad Richards of "2008" playing with Eriksson.

What's next? Predicting Eriksson scores 50 if he plays with a 1984 version of Gretzky?

 

[Mr. Make-Believe]

Eriksson reached 30 goals ONCE in his entire career. Seven years ago.

Of course, your prediction is contingent upon a Brad Richards of "2008" playing with Eriksson, rendering it basically useless.

What's next? Predicting Eriksson scores 50 if he plays with a 1984 version of Gretzky?

He's not predicting anything Ike 84 Gretzky. He specifically said Dave Krejci.

Which is pretty safe, seeing as though he realizes (or should by now) that that combo won't happen.

 

[CJDolan]

You keep using the word "meaningless". I do not think it means what you think it means. Anyways, lots of hyperbole in here, but the analysis isn't persuasive.

First off, it's funny to me that as an Eriksson booster, you're arguing really really hard to take away his greatest accomplishment: 36 goals in 2008/09. Sure his shooting percentage was high, that's precisely why I averaged out the rate of decline across all of these seven seasons. But I'm not analyzing shooting percentage. I'm analyzing goals per game. And the point, is that he declined from that peak in 2008/09. This is a relevant data point.

Second, but even if we take away Eriksson's peak in 2008/09, and we pretend-- as you seem to want-- that 2008/2009 didn't happen (which makes your suggestion in your separate post above that "you should use all available data" hilariously ironic) that doesn't erase the fact that Eriksson's numbers declined from 2009/10 to 2010/11 and then again from 2010/11 to 2011/12 and, discounting the two anomalous seasons in which his number steeply declined, declined again in 2014/15 as compared to 2011/12. You pretend my analysis seems to rise and fall on 2008/09. It doesn't. The decline continued for several years after that.

Third, you've entirely missed the point of my critique of the G/60 stat. Its not about comparing players, although that does make the stat seem loopy as a way of arguing about goal scoring outputs. But my point was about understanding a player's output over time -- G/60 is not reflective of actual scoring production over the course of their career, because its based on a bunch of factors that influence actual outputs -- powerplay time, penalty killing time, even strength time. As a player ages, he may get less PP time. As a player ages, he will also get less TOI. He may marginally improve his G/60 (likely because playing less TOI, means less wear and tear, so more efficiency) but if his TOI decreases more than his marginal increase in G/60, then his production in a full season and in goals per game is naturally going to decline. I mention Dupuis because he's a great example of the problem with this stat -- he has a fantastic G/60 last year, but only scored 6 goals. Dupuis was highly efficient in his minutes. Great. But it's obviously not a great predictor of his output next year. If a guy has a great G/60 stat but is too injured to play regular TOI, it's useless.

Goals per game cuts through all the crap. It's powerful because it simple. It asks: how many goals will he score? It's simple and provides us what we want.

My range of 15-20 is like a confidence interval based on my 18.9 projection, acknowledging there are variables that might impact output. Since you've indicated how well you understand statistics, you'll know what a confidence interval is, and why people use them.

But since you've gotten all high and mighty about it -- my "raw numbers are terrible"-- fine. My prediction/projection is 19 goals, within that confidence interval that I've outlined. That's a 15% decline.

What do you predict? Put your numbers where your mouth is.

We can end the discussion. And we'll return here next year and compare results.

I am not downplaying his 36 goal season at all. I am simply saying that his 36 goal season is not something that I would count on under normal circumstances. If Loui shoots around 275-300 shots, then sure, I would expect around 35-39 goals, since his career shooting percentage would put him around those numbers. Do I expect him to shoot that much? No way in hell. I am using all available data and coming to a conclusion that a 20% shooting season probably won't happen again. There is a difference between that and completely disregarding the season that he had.

Again, the g/60 is being used because under a new coach, I think Loui would play more minutes (not many coaches spread their minutes so evenly throughout the top 3 lines) with better linemates, and his g/60 would be much higher. Quality of linemates will help him a lot, in both goals and assists. Your raw numbers being simple is all well and good, but it is useless to compare his goals per game in Dallas and here when he is being used differently, with different quality linemates.

Again, you are using A PLAYER THAT WAS INJURED AND PLAYED 1/5 THE MINUTES as an indicator in how g/60 is a bad stat. I don't know why you keep mentioning Dupuis, since I completely agree. I'm not sure how you don't see that when a player plays 81 games with 18 minutes a night, it is vastly different from someone that played 300 minutes. I don't think taking all of his seasons with a high number of minutes played is a bad way to measure his output, but you seem to disagree.

As far as numbers, I honestly have no idea what is going to happen this season. I don't think his linemates will be worse than Kelly/Soderberg, and I do think he can definitely improve on last season because of that. Same system, same coach, playing with meh players on the third line, he will finish around the same, I don't see him going under 20 in any circumstance (barring injury of course). If he plays on a different line with legitimate offensive threats, I don't think 30 goals is out of the question by any means.

Same role as this past season: 22 goals
Bigger role with better linemates: 25 goal minimum, somewhere around 40 assists.

Pretty much all depends on who he plays with, but again, I really don't see him finishing below 20 even if he gets stuck with Kelly again. One good thing right now that I think will help him is that he is either going to be playing with Spooner, Krejci, or Bergeron, who are all better offensively than Soderberg and most definitely Kelly. I really think that he would shine on a Loui Spooner Pastrnak line, Marchand-Berg-Loui, or anything involving Krejci

Edit: the assists going up is due to the fact that he was on a line with Kelly (6%) and Soderberg (8%), who were our 2 worst shooting forwards on the team this season. When Loui was struggling goal wise in the beginning of the season, he was still getting assists because Soderberg was playing pretty well. When Loui finished the season with 13 goals in the last 44 games, he only had 13 assists in that time frame, and that is when Soda went on his 23 game goalless drought and Kelly was just being typical Kelly. We all know that Loui is not exactly a volume shooter, so I don't see him finishing on a 1:1 g:a ratio again.

 

[FRANK CANNON]

Who cares.

Loui Erikkson and Riley Smith have never and never will receive an MVP vote. Guys like this just don't matter, even the worst of the worst have players like this on the roster.

If you want to see another cup guys like this have to go for picks and/or prospects and you need to put them to good use. Fungible players are filler after the stars.

 

[CJDolan]

Who cares.

Loui Erikkson and Riley Smith have never and never will receive an MVP vote. Guys like this just don't matter, even the worst of the worst have players like this on the roster.

If you want to see another cup guys like this have to go for picks and/or prospects and you need to put them to good use. Fungible players are filler after the stars.

Well, might as well just sell off the entire team then since none of these guys have received an MVP vote. You do realize that 95% of the NHL hasn't gotten an MVP vote right? Who on the cup team had MVP votes?

This post is something else, good lord.

 

[LaGu]

Since scoring is down lately (not necessarily total amount of goals, but scoring from high-end players who are being more effectively shut down), I always take a look at where players are compared to their peers. I am not sure how relevant it is but I find it interesting and often telling.

A quick look at Loui Eriksson's career from 08/09 to today in goals and total points as compared to RWs in the league:

08/09: 3rd in goals, 17th in points (this was his famous 36 G season).
09/10: 13th in goals, 7th in points.
10/11: 15h in goals, 5th in points.
11/12: 19th in goals, 8th in points.
12/13: 32nd in goals, 29th in points.
13/14: 61th in goals, 36th in points (in points pace he was actually 27th overall).
14/15: 20th in goals, 25th in points.

There has been a decline for sure, but it does not look that dramatic to me, at least not if looking at goals scored (except 13/14 obviously where his SH% was very low). The decline is more noticeable when looking at total points really, which is a bit more team-mate-related, although not completely.

Anyway, he has been a top 30 winger every single year of his career so far (I count pace the year where he missed 20+ games), top 10 a times. Not something that is very easy or cheap to find imo, so for Boston's sake I hope they keep him around.

 

[Man Rocket]

Originally Posted by Ice Nine View Post
30G potential? Come on, man.

He has scored 30+ goals ONCE in his entire career, and that was almost a decade ago (2008/09). His production has declined every. single. year. since then, including his last four seasons in Dallas after reaching 30 goal plateau ONCE.

saying 7 years is almost a decade is a big stretch. 3 years is a lot. i know thats not the point, but that bugged me lol

 

[BNHL]

Oh, BNHL. Try to keep up.

Those posts were not elaborating my prediction. That was done above. Those posts were criticizing predictions like this one, predicting a return to 2008/09 form:



Eriksson reached 30 goals ONCE in his entire career. Seven years ago.

Of course, your prediction is contingent upon a Brad Richards of "2008" playing with Eriksson.

What's next? Predicting Eriksson scores 50 if he plays with a 1984 version of Gretzky?

Of course he'd score 50 with Gretzky as he scored 22 with Soderberg,36 with Richards and 29 with Ribeiro. He'd score 50 with Lemieux and 15 with Chris Kelly and 30 with Krejci. The more you post,the sillier it gets. You should move along to your favorite thread and we all know what that is. You're the smartest guy you know but the rest of us are too dumb to agree.

 

[Ice Nine]

I am not downplaying his 36 goal season at all. I am simply saying that his 36 goal season is not something that I would count on under normal circumstances. If Loui shoots around 275-300 shots, then sure, I would expect around 35-39 goals, since his career shooting percentage would put him around those numbers. Do I expect him to shoot that much? No way in hell. I am using all available data and coming to a conclusion that a 20% shooting season probably won't happen again. There is a difference between that and completely disregarding the season that he had.

Again, the g/60 is being used because under a new coach, I think Loui would play more minutes (not many coaches spread their minutes so evenly throughout the top 3 lines) with better linemates, and his g/60 would be much higher. Quality of linemates will help him a lot, in both goals and assists. Your raw numbers being simple is all well and good, but it is useless to compare his goals per game in Dallas and here when he is being used differently, with different quality linemates.

Again, you are using A PLAYER THAT WAS INJURED AND PLAYED 1/5 THE MINUTES as an indicator in how g/60 is a bad stat. I don't know why you keep mentioning Dupuis, since I completely agree. I'm not sure how you don't see that when a player plays 81 games with 18 minutes a night, it is vastly different from someone that played 300 minutes. I don't think taking all of his seasons with a high number of minutes played is a bad way to measure his output, but you seem to disagree.

As far as numbers, I honestly have no idea what is going to happen this season. I don't think his linemates will be worse than Kelly/Soderberg, and I do think he can definitely improve on last season because of that. Same system, same coach, playing with meh players on the third line, he will finish around the same, I don't see him going under 20 in any circumstance (barring injury of course). If he plays on a different line with legitimate offensive threats, I don't think 30 goals is out of the question by any means.

Same role as this past season: 22 goals
Bigger role with better linemates: 25 goal minimum, somewhere around 40 assists.

Pretty much all depends on who he plays with, but again, I really don't see him finishing below 20 even if he gets stuck with Kelly again. One good thing right now that I think will help him is that he is either going to be playing with Spooner, Krejci, or Bergeron, who are all better offensively than Soderberg and most definitely Kelly. I really think that he would shine on a Loui Spooner Pastrnak line, Marchand-Berg-Loui, or anything involving Krejci

Edit: the assists going up is due to the fact that he was on a line with Kelly (6%) and Soderberg (8%), who were our 2 worst shooting forwards on the team this season. When Loui was struggling goal wise in the beginning of the season, he was still getting assists because Soderberg was playing pretty well. When Loui finished the season with 13 goals in the last 44 games, he only had 13 assists in that time frame, and that is when Soda went on his 23 game goalless drought and Kelly was just being typical Kelly. We all know that Loui is not exactly a volume shooter, so I don't see him finishing on a 1:1 g:a ratio again.

Okay. No need need to go back through and haggle over various minor points. I get why you're defending G/60 as a stat, and your point about contextualizing the numbers with linemates, etc, I just think this will have less of an impact than you think.

So, we disagree on some central points. That's fine, the projections are in. Thanks for the good debate.

 

[BB88]

Who cares.

Loui Erikkson and Riley Smith have never and never will receive an MVP vote. Guys like this just don't matter, even the worst of the worst have players like this on the roster.

If you want to see another cup guys like this have to go for picks and/or prospects and you need to put them to good use. Fungible players are filler after the stars.

So you are saying that we don't need strong depth players/top 6 players to win the Cup? Depth is pretty important and I would love to have Lou and his 2way game on game 7 in the finals.

 

[kdog82]

To those fans who think Eriksson is not a good player are clueless about hockey.

I'd rather trade Smith any day of the week before I entertain trading Loui. Smith gets to play alongside Bergeron and Marchand on a nightly basis.

Loui needs to play on the top 2 line, and not for 10 games and call it a failure. He needs to play all 82 games on either top line. His hockey IQ is through the roof and he is exceptionally skilled.

Smith on the other hand, decent player perhaps a 2nd liner but better suited for 3rd line duties imo. His contract was a direct result of Chia's incompetence and should have never been handed such a raise.

To be quite honest I expected a lot more from Smith considering what a surprise he was in his 1st year as a Bruin, however, this past season was a massive disappointment and Julien seemed to reward him for whatever reason with constant PP time.

That being said, Smith does have trade value and would be a good fit on many teams. Perhaps Sweeney can parlay Smith + 14th pick to move into the top 10.

 

[Fenian24]

Can't believe I voted for Eriksson to stay, shows how far Smith has fallen and how overpaid he is because I still can't stand Loui.

 

[EverettMike]

What do people think Eriksson's next contract will look like?

Would you rather keep Loui or Looch?

 

[Mr. Make-Believe]

What do people think Eriksson's next contract will look like?

Would you rather keep Loui or Looch?

Lucic without question.

 

[Mr. Make-Believe]

...

Chill the **** out.