Quoting: AustonMatthews3443
I'm aware of the stats and I'm an advanced stat guy myself but I simply don't just base my player evaluations off of them. I'm aware Barrie's underlying numbers aren't great but I'm also not going to take a guy out of the lineup who has played in the Top 4 on every team he's played for, why? Because NHL coaches and executives know a lot more about hockey then you and I. Based on my eye test Bouchard is a liability every time he is stuck out against any of the opponents top 6 forwards. Bear played his way off of the top pairing where Barrie played his way onto it. Why is this relevant? Because again there's a reason he's playing on the top pairing, Tippet likes him there and again he knows way more about hockey then you and I. IDK why I'm trying cuz I can tell by your smug thanks for coming at the end you think advanced stats is the answer to everything and you think you know more then everyone else but here we go anyway.
Barrie was a bottom-pairing option for the Leafs for most of his tenure and he's been rotated up and down the lineup in Edmonton until he found a hot streak with Nurse. That streak has since evaporated. Tippett defaults to Nurse-Bear for the back halves of games. If he can't trust Barrie where he is now during the regular season, why should he be an option for the playoffs? Those games matter, these ones much less so.
Get the hell out of here with the "Bear played his way off the top pair" nonsense. The kid had his brain blown in by a dirty hit and was out for weeks. He came back too soon, had a couple bad games, and has been one of Edmonton's best defencemen since returning to form.
I absolutely will not believe that anyone in Edmonton's management system knows more about hockey than the majority of Oiler fans. We invented the hockey blogosphere and the majority of the advanced stats we use today. Shoutout Tyler Dellow. The Oilers make moves in bad faith (see: the Chiarelli Era, burning assets on AA, being afraid to make moves to bring in a top-six forward this deadline) more often than they make good moves. Almost none of the front office beyond Chiarelli has been overhauled. It's the same scouts, same opinions, and the Oilers have the same outcome year over year.
I was only smug because of how you approached the AGM. It's more than apparent you don't watch Oilers games, and I find it borderline impossible to believe that you subscribe to analytics if you still think Bear is a poor option for the top pair. Feel free to have an opinion, you're entitled to it, but it doesn't mean you can't be wrong. The numbers are very objective. With the context I have from having seen the game (my heart sinks literally whenever Russell touches the puck) I can confidently use them to establish how I'd run my lines.
Quoting: AustonMatthews3443
Bouchard has too small of a sample size for me to really evaluate his advanced stats against Barrie's. If Bouchard were to play top pairing minutes against better competition like Barrie I'm almost positive he would be more of a liability on d then Barrie. He's been burned several times by opponents top players. He's played in a 1/3 of the games and never plays more then 15 minutes. He has 4 pts in 12 games, too small of a sample size to say he's better then one of the NHL's better offensive dman.
Bear is better defensively, although he's still not great and I don't think he makes up the Offensive gap there. Sure put him with Nurse at the end of games when you have the lead but playing him more then 18-20 minutes a night isn't a good idea.
The only reason why Bouchard hasn't been playing is because neither Holland or Tippett know how to adjust their plans to the modernity of the NHL. Tippett values veterans that often repeat poor performances because they have tenure (or something). He refuses to rotate guys in/out on back-to-backs. He's an absolute dinosaur and the game has passed him by. Holland's just as guilty for sitting his top prospect in the pressbox for the majority of the season. Koskinen fails to make two long-distance saves and he hasn't seen any icetime since. They're afraid of the 7 days he'd need to quarantine and won't send him down because of it, despite his currently being the "#8 defender" on this team.
Yes it's a small sample size, but until he shows that he can't be used in that role, he should have every shot at it. Bouchard is an upgrade to Barrie, or at the very least breaks even with him, at essentially every facet of the game. If Tippett had more than a double-digit IQ and decided to play Bouchard in every game Edmonton had left this season, I'm certain his numbers would not dip to Barrie's.
Why is playing Bear for more than 18 minutes per night a bad idea? The sample size says he's more than comfortable eating 20, especially if paired with Nurse.
Quoting: AustonMatthews3443
Barrie has been good and I agree he is getting more credit then he deserves the advanced stats show that but taking him out of your lineup is preposterous for someone who has been good for the oilers. Those defensive advanced stats numbers are to be expected. He's an Offensive Dman playing against the other teams top two lines most shifts. I would take those numbers for him, they're not great, but not terrible As for the PP's they are still huge in the playoffs. There are less of them, but it makes them more meaningful. There have been very few teams who win the Cup with poor special teams, they are so crucial in the playoffs. In terms of metrics Dallas and Tampa were fairly even last year at 5on5, Tampa was slightly better. Dallas had no chance in that series tho because Dallas went 1/19 on the PP.
Barrie's been decent. He's a secondary assist machine and a healthy portion of those don't actually impact the play. Bouchard developed a very similar skillset in junior, the AHL, and in the Allsvenskan to what Barrie provides offensively, but has a booming shot to boot. If Edmonton's top three forwards continue to generate the powerplay offense that they do, it really doesn't matter if it's Barrie or Bouchard on the point.
At the end of the day, I even admit none of this setup would ever happen. It requires the two men in charge of this roster to think outside the box, which is a skill they've shown to lack. All Oilers fans can do is hope for the best against the Jets, then pray they don't get humiliated by the Leafs should they make it that far.