Quoting: STL9992
Sorry it was 3 in the first game one was called back, and one was 5 on 4 with goalie pulled not 5 on 6. But if Krug isn’t doing better this year why does he have a PPG pace right now. He’s looking like he did with Boston when he put up 50 plus points. He was at least a 40 point player for them every year except 14-15. He seems more comfortable with knowing the guys he’s skating with and his production is going to continue especially on the PP.
As for perunovich stepping in the blues organization pretty much runs the same thing in the minors. Bring up perunovich would be easier for him to get going than someone who spent the last 8 years with a different organization. If you can single out Krug for being irresponsible on every goal that was given up while he was on the ice than I can see what you’re talking about him defensively but so far I have yet to see anything where he was main contributor for goal being scored. Look at yotes game, last goal scored by them he was stuck out there with bortz, kostin, bozak, ROR, the play became a scramble for the puck found it’s way to the slot and was put in, he was covering his guy in the front of the net, the other time he was out there was against the kings Clifford seem to be the one who screwed up his coverage when Krug pressed his guy and that took him up high so Clifford was slow in rotating to cover Krug a spot. The Avs game he was on the ice for their first goal where Thomas was slow to get back and left the Cross ice pass for the one timer across which was played well by our D, Thomas gets back a little quicker he’s able to disrupt the cross ice pass, the last goal he was on the ice for was the 6 on 5 goal. So like I said the eye test must be done because I don’t see how you can say he is playing bad. Go watch him highlight him in every game they’ve played he’s been pretty damn responsible and compare his play to scandella. Stats don’t take other players mistakes into factoring the numbers. Think about how many time the blues pulled their goalie then gave up the empty net, faulk and Krug were killed last year because the blues gave up goals damn near every time when they pulled the goalie.
Points aren't everything, especially with defensemen. Tyson Barrie led the league in points last year, but everyone knows that he isn't one of the best defensemen out there because he's also one of the worst defensemen in the league at defending. And that's not to say that there isn't a role for those kinds of players, but you have to use them correctly or you're going to be exposed.
And I think the eye test is a very flawed way of evaluating defensemen. JFresh, one of the best in the game at explaining advanced stats, breaks it down this way in an
analysis of Drew Doughty:
"Analysts argue that it is impossible to analyze defence using the eye test alone for a variety of reasons. For one thing, oftentimes the things that matter on defence are the things that don’t happen - a defender has his stick blocking a lane, forcing a forward outside; a close gap limits a puck carrier’s options. Most of our casual viewing eyes are drawn to things like body checks, shot blocks, steals, and puck battles in front of the net, but these don’t necessarily add up to “good defence.” What if a player throws checks and blocks shots so much because they’re always stuck in their own end? What if a player steals two pucks a game but is bad positionally?
The core object of defence, we’d argue, is to limit the quantity and quality of chances that your goalie has to face. All those little events and non-events (the poke checks, the battles, the blocked lanes, etc.) are just ways to try to make that happen. Fortunately, we now have access to statistics that not only measure how good a player is at achieving that goal, but isolate that impact from his teammates, opponents, and other context factors."
He goes on to list Expected Goals (xGF/xGA) as one of these stastics, and yes analysis in this way does isolate from the mistakes of individual players. Expected goals models can break up a game into sequences, from when a team gains possession of the puck to when a team loses it, about 250 sequences per game. From there, you can create a mathematical decision tree for each player involved in the sequence to determine an expected goals number- usually a very small decimal number. This is something that is admittedly complicated but is all laid out in an article such as this
this one: It's not just about the actual goals that happened while Krug was on the ice. Obviously that's what matters in the game, but big picture it's what happens in all of these sequences when the other team has possession.
And I'm not saying it's a perfect analysis and in small sample sizes like this Krug's numbers are bound to be volatile, but Krug had very low xGA numbers during his time in Boston (high of 2.22) and that climbed when he was in St Louis (high of 2.54). That might not seem like a lot, but elite shooters can take advantage of that. This all works out if Krug can outperform those numbers with high expected goals for- as you noted, he has a PPG and he is primarily known as an offensive defenseman. He did this often in Boston, with his xGF > xGA during his entire time there. It's been the opposite in St. Louis.
I do think he'll be better than we've seen, but we just haven't seen it yet and we don't need to pretend like we have. We need to adjust accordingly, and shelter his minutes more and allow him to get his game going and then increase accordingly as he does. You mention that Krug and Faulk got burned all the time last year with the goalie pulled, yet you don't think that's indicative of players who are best suited for the second pair routinely playing 20 minutes a night? I think that's pretty obvious. Shelter his minutes, let him cook offensively, and get guys who can handle the defensive assignments and the Blues and Krug will have a lot more success.