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The_Ultimate_Pielord

I put math in hockey
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Forum: Armchair-GMJul. 9, 2021 at 7:17 p.m.
Thread: Tight fit but doable - with explanations
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>joshelkin</b></div><div>For sure, and the trade of course is going to come down to his medicals. If he's fine? It's a home run for NYI. If the rumors are true and NYI has at least made the preliminary call to STL, that tells me Lou at least is open to the idea. From a cap perspective it's close, but not quite, a wash. So if NYI it's confident on his medicals and can squeeze the extra 10-15 goals from Tarasenko over keeping Eberle the trigger needs to be pulled</div></div>

Thing is I'm not sold that Tarasenko is gonna lead to more goals as a team than Eberle. At even strength Eberle's produced 10.6 offensive GAR to Tarasenko's 5.8 over the last three seasons, in about 1.5 times as many minutes. Senko's very clearly an upgrade on the powerplay, but Eberle's a much more sure thing, and Hockeyviz's model views him as one of the league's top wingers.
Forum: Armchair-GMJul. 9, 2021 at 7:10 p.m.
Thread: Tight fit but doable - with explanations
Points to you, this is really thoroughly thought out and all the deals are reasonable. I'm not sold on the Isles side though.

Trade 1: This seems like a big overvaluing of Leddy. Keep in mind what happened with Vegas: the teams that lost the most from just letting guys get picked were the Preds, Blues, and Capitals. Worked out ok for St.Louis and Washington. There's also a lot of good UFA dmen available this year, Jamie Oleksiak or Jake McCabe could provide an upgrade from Leddy at a fraction of the cost. Which brings me to point 3 here: Leddy isn't actually a good dman. In his heyday he was a very good 2-way blueliner, but Hockeyviz's isolates haven't had him substantially above average since 2014-15, and he hasn't even been average since 17-18. If Seattle's gonna take him that's a win, not something you give up pieces to prevent.

Trade 2: Jordan Eberle is probably a better player than Vladimir Tarasenko at this point in time, and will most likely be in the future barring a catastrophic injury. In Tarasenko's last full(ish) season (18-19), hockeyviz estimates he provided 5% more offence and 5% less defense than a league average player, along with strong shooting impact. In Eberle's last season, he provided 19% more offence and 6% more defense than a league average forward, with slightly below-average finishing. Yes the Isles need shooting talent more than defence, but Eberle's too important to their offence to be the piece they sacrifice, and Tarasenko definitely shouldn't pull a player of that caliber given that there's at least a 1 in 3 chance that he's just completely done and will provide nothing of value after the trade.

Trade 3: Sensible move on paper, but saying "ehh, we have enough depth, we don't need these picks" has gotten many a franchise in trouble. One of the biggest strengths of the Bolts over the years has been their ability to cycle players through their lineup, allowing them to survive excellent players like Jonathan Marchessault getting poached by other teams. Maintaining a good base of pick capital is really important to that, I'd try to avoid paying a first to dump Ladd if at all possible. It might not be, I don't remember exactly how much he costs, but if the Kraken take Leddy it definitely is.

Trade 4: I'd probably keep the pick, for the reasons outlined above. Having lots of picks is always good.

"Trade" 5: Evolving-hockey currently estimates Parise to command 1.45 million on a UFA deal. Might take a discount to work with Lou.

Outside of losing Eberle this grades as a pretty good offseason, but Eberle is a really big loss and in the very feasible event Senko busts the Isles just lost their 2nd best forward for nothing with no real way to replace him. That's not good.
Forum: Armchair-GMJul. 9, 2021 at 12:01 a.m.
Thread: Edmonton says fck it and goes all in
I respect any Armchair GM with no cap space and no picks left, but I'm not honestly sure how much better the Oilers actually get with this approach.

Here's the list of players the Oilers have employed in the last 3 years with worse GAR than Duncan Keith in that timespan: Mike Green, Toby Rieder, Kyle Turris.

Tarasenko is a super risky bet, bear in mind there's probably at least a 1 in 3 chance he does absolutely nothing, which would be pretty much fatal with how all-in this team is.

I don't love Hyman with McDavid, Hyman's forechecking is more valuable when a team is doing some dumping and chasing, and if the McDavid line is dumping and chasing the Oilers need to throw the whole franchise away.

The individual members of the third line have combined for 4 seasons with a GAR above 0.5 over the last three years. Three of those were Killorn. He'll certainly have his work cut out for him.

This team hasn't really solved the main issue of the McDavid era, which is that as soon as the top -6 and top pair leave the ice the rest of the team gets utterly destroyed. With 2 above-replacement players in the bottom-6, a boat anchor on the 2nd pair and nothing spectacular elsewhere, this seems like just another McDavid Oilers team to dominate with McDavid and Drai, get caved without them, and end either out of the playoffs or out in the first round. Hamilton and McDavid would be a spectacular tandem and this team can definitely score like hell when the big guys play, but the rest of the team is getting caved and using Hamilton to prop them up means struggling to find an exit passer to take advantage of McDavid's rush skills.
Forum: Armchair-GMJul. 8, 2021 at 11:27 p.m.
Thread: Tarasenko Gamble
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>HabsRafiki</b></div><div>You have to know that Ducharme is coming back, right? The metrics were terrible in large part because of the Covid-compressed schedule that had the Habs play 25 games in 42 nights (or something like that). The playoff "miracle" has made him the coach of the future and I guess Tatar a player of the past.</div></div>

I mean the prior on Ducharme should have been that he was probably the worst head coach in the NHL, right? He wasn't a particularly well-regarded assistant, he'd never been an NHL head coach before, and was selected for being the best french-speaking assistant on the Habs staff instead of a competitive hiring process. The Habs goal differential didn't really rebound in the playoffs after the schedule became more typical, and that was with dramatic improvement from Price to boot. I dunno what's on his resume that indicates he's a capable NHL head coach, beyond "correctly recognized Philipp Danault is good at defending" and "happened to be head coach while Carey Price had a very well-timed run of looking like a star again".
Forum: Armchair-GMJul. 8, 2021 at 11:21 p.m.
Thread: Tarasenko and Summer
Over the last 3 seasons, Brandon Saad has provided approximately the same amount of overall value, per Evolving-hockey's GAR, that Jesse Puljujarvi has, in nearly 3 times as many minutes. He is also nearing 30. Why give him a 5.5 million dollar deal?

EH projects Goodrow and Yamamoto to cost about a million more each than you gave them and McCabe about a million less.

The goaltending decisions seem iffy to me but goalies are voodoo so *shrug*

My three main complaints:

The list of skaters who have played for Edmonton over the past 3 years and have put up a worse GAR value than Duncan Keith in that time is as follows: Mike Green, Tobias Rieder, and Kyle Turris. Caleb Jones and Mikko Koskinen are pretty insubstantial losses, but Keith has been a major negative for years now and having him on the team actively makes it worse. If you want veteran leadership and cup experience, why not just delegate that to Saad and Goodrow?

I'm honestly not sure why St. Louis would want Kassian or Benson. There'll probably be better specs than Benson available if the Blues want to rebuild, even with the risk Tarasenko comes with, and Kassian's a super-replaceable bottom-sixer, there's a better version of him available in UFA every offseason. Broberg and a second seems like a pretty crappy return for a player with Senko's resume, even if his health might keep him out.

I also dunno if Tarasenko even makes sense for the Oil. In the very possible sense that the injuries keep him from being a major contributor, this team isn't really any better than last year's, and they'll have to shed pieces next offseason anyway to make cap space for Bear and Puljujarvi's extensions. Trying to add actual good players on the blueline and bolstering the bottom-6 with strong playdrivers is almost certainly a better use of cap space and assets.
Forum: Armchair-GMJul. 8, 2021 at 10:59 p.m.
Thread: Balance
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>Rob88</b></div><div>Well he was rumoured to be available in the past. If they are doing a major rebuild then I think a 1st (in 2022), a player, and a prospect is a respectable offer. Make it our top prospect Amirov, it doesn’t really matter. When have 30 yo players garnered significantly larger returns than this?

I wasn’t too sure about Coleman, you might be right here too, but I think he’ll want to play for a winning team, so I personally expect him to take a little less. In the event he doesn’t, I’d probably target Bonino next, and shift Foligno to the wing.</div></div>

Matt Duchene springs to mind. The issue is that "Leafs top prospect" doesn't equal "Leaguewide top prospect". An Ellis deal should mean a bidding war, and I dunno if it's one the Leafs can win, especially in a scenario where teams like Ottawa might start trying to push for the playoffs in the hopes of being next year's Habs.

Bonino'd be a good add, yeah. He fell off a lot last year though, and at 33 a bounce-back is far from a sure thing.
Forum: Armchair-GMJul. 8, 2021 at 10:52 p.m.
Thread: Tarasenko Gamble
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>HabsRafiki</b></div><div>Unless there was some mystery ailment that kept him out of the last three rounds of the playoffs, Tatar won't be back even if the Habs wanted to keep him. Given that he's 31, that's probably not terrible news for the Habs.

Danault has upped his value in the playoffs, but I doubt he gets a $42M package. I'd wager it's closer to the $30M (6x$5M) he was offered at the beginning of the season. There will be other suitors, but the market for a checking centre is fairly well established in the $3M to $5M range.

Unless you were getting a third year out of KK, that's too much for a bridge. Given his performance, he'll be much closer to $2M, maybe even a shade under.

I won't comment on the rest as I don't think the Blues need Weber and I know Price would never accept a trade to Ottawa. I suspect both will have some weird surgery on the eve of training camp, allowing the Habs to eclipse the salary cap by oh, hmmmm, $18M or so.</div></div>

I feel like Tatar would be willing to come back if the Habs promised Ducharme wouldn't be making lineup decisions anymore. Given that the team was substantially worse by nearly every metric after Ducharme took over, that seems like a good idea anyway.

Danault's the top UFA centre in the league this year, which'll drive up his value a good chunk. As I said, I actually have him under the evolving-hockey projection, and the Younggrens have never been accused of overvaluing being the 1C on a Finals team.

I just gave KK the EH projection under the premise that on a deal that small the specifics don't matter much. Your mileage may vary.

As for the Blues getting Weber, I dunno how much immediate help they can get for Tarasenko given his health. Weber might actually be the (perceived) best player available in a Tarasenko deal, and it makes the money work nicely. If nothing else, given that the Oilers reportedly want to pay real assets for Duncan Keith, I feel confident that the Habs could shed Weber's salary and potentially acquire Tarasenko for futures.

As for Price, maybe. The Habs can always functionally end his career if he doesn't waive by refusing to play him, so they've got a whack of leverage to work with there. Even if they can't, moving either Anderson or Drouin and Edmundson or Byron can always free up the cap space anyway, so it's still feasible to do this if Price sticks around.
Forum: Armchair-GMJul. 8, 2021 at 10:41 p.m.
Thread: Gotta Add Depth
Adding Tarasenko makes a ton of sense for the Habs, but I'd be hesitant to move a first to get him. This team barely made the playoffs the last couple years, if this backfires the Habs could end up like Ottawa or San Jose after the Duchene and Karlsson deals.

Beyond that:

Who are you paying the Kraken those picks to protect?

Why are you scratching Kulak, who's better than Edmundson in every way other than having Carey Price play well with him on the ice?

Evolving-hockey's contract projections estimate Danault to command an AAV slightly over 6 million, and I can't really see that moving downwards, given that he was just the 1C on a team that made the finals. EH also only projects Savard to take about 1.6 million, but there are probably better options available: his offense has been declining for the last couple of years and it was abysmal enough last year to cancel out the benefit of his defence.

Why split Danault and Gallagher? They were crazy useful erasing opposing stars last year.
Forum: Armchair-GMJul. 8, 2021 at 10:28 p.m.
Thread: Tarasenko Gamble
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>kams</b></div><div>That’s a big overpay for both Danault and Tatar. Danault at $5 mil per (and that’s still slightly overpriced) and Tatar at $3 mil per, then you don’t have to sign Mrazek and trade Price (who was mostly why the Habs made it to the finals)</div></div>

I actually had them both slightly under Evolving-hockey's contract projections, they were both leaned upon as top-line players for most of last year and Danault's shutdown ability was a huge part of them making it to the finals, especially in the Vegas series.

Keeping Price is still totally doable, moving Anderson and one of Edmundson/Byron and replacing them with cheaper alternatives can still provide easily enough cap space, but Price's subpar regular seasons have been a major issue for the Habs for a while now. Over the last 3 seasons, Carey Price's -14.69 GSAx ranks 31st among the 46 goalies that have faced at least 3000 unblocked shots in that timeframe, and those goaltending issues are a big chunk of why the Habs missed the playoffs in 18-19, and came close each of the past two years. (For comparison, Allen ranks 24th with -5.41, and Mrazek actually ranks 4th with 18.46, though he barely makes the cutoff and the timeframe contains a career year for him)

Price's hot run in the postseason was a huge part of getting them to the finals, but any goalie can get hot for a playoff run, like the time Jaroslav Halak carried the Habs all the way to the conference finals. Mrazek is perfectly capable of being the best goalie in the world for a month, and this probably improves the regular season netminding and frees up a whack of cap space.

It does bear repeating, though, that it is absolutely possible to make all the skater moves and keep Price, it's probably also easier given his NMC. I just felt this made the team better and the ACGM simpler, since I can just assume the Sens are dumb and I don't have to figure out what Josh Anderson's value is.
Forum: Armchair-GMJul. 8, 2021 at 10:15 p.m.
Thread: Balance
Ok, so Nashville doesn't even come close to considering that deal for Ellis, GAR has him as their best player over the past 3 years, and I'd be astonished if their internal evaluation had him any lower than their 3rd best player. He's only 30, there isn't tons of pressure to move him yet, and if they wanted they could almost certainly get a better offer than that. One of the big four would probably be my minimum if I were in charge, and I'd be surprised if they do the deal without multiple first rounders or a legit top prospect.

Evolving-hockey's contract projections have Coleman about 1.1 million/year higher than you put him, and given his playoffs that could be even higher. Doubt he takes that deal.

Pretty bold bet to assume that Robertson can handle 2LW duties, though I suppose the roster's other stars make up for it if the Leafs manage to somehow pull this off.

Rakell's more shooter than playmaker, so I dunno about his fit on the top line. Might make more sense to put Galch up there and use Rakell to give the bottom-6 some more offensive bite. That Holl for Rakell deal is clever, I gotta say. Fairly even value, reorients things nicely after the Ellis deal and I wouldn't have thought of it at all. Nice work there.
Forum: Armchair-GMDec. 1, 2019 at 6:50 p.m.
Forum: Armchair-GMDec. 1, 2019 at 6:50 p.m.
Thread: Pitt
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>Pensfan89</b></div><div>Cap space is important but any free agent defenseman that’s worth a damn is going to cost a bit of cap and probably want a longer term contract.
All this stuff you guys are saying about Risto was also said about Schultz when the pens traded for him. And that trade was even riskier. Schultz is just a power play specialist, he’s atrocious at even strength, yada yada yada. And look how that trade turned out?</div></div>

That's... not actually accurate. Schultz was never particularly good on the PP in Edmonton, his highest year by PPO GAR was 2012-13 with a 1.6, and no other year even broke 1. His GAR at evens was a LOT better than Risto's: Between every year of their careers, the top 5 EVO GARs are: 1.Pittsburgh Schultz 2. Pittsburgh Schultz 3. Edmonton Schultz 4. Edmonton Schultz and 5 Edmonton/Pittsburgh Schultz. Even strength defence is more even, with Risto generally grading out as a bit better than Schultz, but it isn't exactly equivalent. Schultz had shown evident growth over the previous few years in Edmonton, with his offence making up for his atrocious defence (this hasn't changed, either, he's only had 1 year above replacement level defensively). And Schultz is very evidently better than Ristolainen now, after his improvement in Pittsburgh.

If Risto had a year with the Sabres similar to Schultz's 14-15 season (the year he jumped forward and became a solid 5v5 player) I might be willing to call them comparables. But so far Risto's only above-replacement year offensively seems to be entirely the result of his team shooting 12.9% with him on the ice (his career average is a big 7.4). His RAPMs for xGF and CF are still very bad, so it's almost certainly just a momentary boost of PDO.

Schultz was an all-offence no-defence guy who could play the PP a bit. Risto's a PP star with no strengths at 5v5 outside of penalty differential. They aren't the equivalent.
Forum: Armchair-GMDec. 1, 2019 at 10:16 a.m.
Thread: Pitt
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>Pensfan89</b></div><div>What good player are the pens trading to get Risto? They are trading a guy that hasn’t fit, been bad, and that’s a pending UFA and a dime a dozen bottom 6 that’d be a 4th liner at best if everyone was healthy and much easier to replace than a top 4 RHD.

And as for it not being that great, who in house can we afford that would make it any better. Ruhwedel? A bunch of journeyman ahl players and rookies.</div></div>

The player they're giving up is "hypothetical 5 million dollar UFA defenceman" or "the defenceman they can get for bjugstad after replacing Bjugstad with a 5 million dollar UFA forward". Cap space is helpful, which is why not having the Risto contract is super important. ZAR might also be able to anchor a spot higher in the lineup, he's shown the odd flash of legit talent, and he was originally gonna end up at 1LW instead of Conor Sheary IIRC.
Forum: Armchair-GMDec. 1, 2019 at 12:11 a.m.
Thread: Pitt
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>Pensfan89</b></div><div>Trading for someone and the risk of them being bad is always a risk when trading for a player. Galchenyuk hasn’t been great the last few years.
What wiggle room do you need? It’s not like there is going to be anyone really worth getting in free agency that the pens could afford that would be worth anything.

Crosby, Malkin, Guentzel, Rust, McCann, Tanev, Hornqvist, Kahun, Blueger, Simon, Lafferty, Johnson, and Blandisi are capable of being your 13 forwards. Trade Bjugstad for a pick for 4.1 million in cap space. ZAR trades in this scenario gets another million off. Trade DeSmith for a pick or ahl goalie and there’s another 125k off. And they are replaced by cheaper forwards. The defense is taken care of by Letang, Dumo, Risto, Petterson, JJ, Marino, Riikola, and your choice of Ruhwedel, Trotman, POJ, Addison, etc

Wouldn’t really need anyone in free agency.</div></div>

So, that D corps you mentioned has combined for a GAR of 76.8 since the start of the 16-17 season (Toronto's corps, for reference, has a total GAR of 88.9). Not exactly a super established group of performers. Making things worse is that 49.4 of that is between just Letang and Dumoulin, with Letang contributing 32 on his own. Risto's actually 3rd in that group by GAR over that timeframe, despite an EV GAR of -0.1. The defense is very much not taken care of by that group, not even close. I also don't get the logic of trading a good player to get cap space when you could just not acquire a terrible contract. Nobody is forcing them to acquire Risto instead of an actually good 5v5 defenceman.
Forum: Armchair-GMNov. 30, 2019 at 11:47 p.m.
Thread: Pitt
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>Pensfan89</b></div><div>I agree with that last sentence 100% ?.
But my whole point is basically, this is a buy low/sell low type of trade.
I mean look at the Pearson for Gudbranson trade last year. Everyone said Gudbranson was an absolute dumpster fire and keeping an overrated Pearson who was always invisible was better. Then Guddy comes here and plays extremely well. He was overpaid for sure, but still played well for the pens. And ended up making it a win for the pens. And Pearson has been solid for Vancouver.</div></div>

With Pittsburgh during the 18-19 season he put up a GAR of -0.1, or about the same as you'd expect any given AHL team's top dman to do at the NHL level. It was a big improvement from his time with the Canucks, but it's not like he could've gotten much worse. He probably felt ok due to his solid defensive play, but he hurt Pittsburgh's offence every bit as badly as he hurt the opposition's. In 7 games in Pittsburgh this year he managed a pretty solid GAR of 0.6 and he's kept it going in Anaheim, but plenty of crummy players have enjoyed brief flashes of effective play followed by regressing hard back to what they'd always been. Pearson, meanwhile, hasn't really changed a ton from his time with the Kings. A little above average on offence and a little below average on D. If he's seemed impressive in Vancouver, that's because Vancouver's depth represents Jim Benning's attempt to redefine the word terrible.

In terms of buy-low sell-low, it's not clear that either player is redeemable by a change of scenery. If anything, joining the Pens might hurt Risto as Letang monopolizes the PP minutes that are Risto's only chance to shine, and while Buffalo is probably more likely to play Galchenyuk at center than most teams, I don't think Galch's talent is salvageable at this point.
Forum: Armchair-GMNov. 30, 2019 at 11:33 p.m.
Thread: Pitt
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>hockeyfanatic05</b></div><div>I stopped reading after the 1st sentence. Comparing Laine to these players and using his stats is completely irrelevant. The whole point of trading for a guy like Risto is points. He's an offensive dman that plays more of an offensive game than defensive, which is perfectly fine if he was actually producing on offense, which he isn't. My side is why trade for a guy making over 5 mill when theres option internally and the team can use the cap space on other positions of need</div></div>

Please read beyond the 2nd sentence: There's good stuff there. Laine isn't being compared to any player discussed in this thread, the whole argument was from a Blackhawks thread about a Debrincat for Laine deal, which is why I used Laine as an example. The actual meat of the argument (points are super heavily dependent on luck and usage, which players can't control, while also saying nothing about defense) stands whether it's Laine or Risto or Phil Kessel or Mikko Koivu.

Amusingly, Risto's driving goals for his team at the best rate of his career, for the first time doing something at an above-average level at 5v5. It isn't real, the shooting will regress and he'll almost certainly return to the Risto we all love or love to hate or love to argue incessantly about on this site at some point, but still. You are correct that Risto sucks, but points are a terrible measure of that suckitude.
You don't acquire Risto, or any player for that matter, so that they'll put up points: you acquire them to help the team put up goals. There are better ways to measure that than points!
Forum: Armchair-GMNov. 30, 2019 at 11:18 p.m.
Thread: Pitt
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>hockeyfanatic05</b></div><div>Yet you've not given one reason how he's not overrated. The guy is an offensive dman with 9 points. Thats his job. Score points. He's currently getting outproduced by John Marino. John Marino moves up and replaces Schults. Dumo, Letang, Pettersson, Marino, JJ. Last spot can be battled in the offseason between JOP, Rikkola, and Addison. If neither of them work out, find a cheap 3rd pairing dman, like they just did this year. Zero reason to trade for a guy with a 5.4 cap hit when there are cheaper options that are getting better every year. Everything you said is wrong. Look at Petterson last year. Look at Marino this year.</div></div>

Sure, why not, let's have the points are a useless stat argument too. It's Saturday, I don't have to get up tomorrow!

Here are some arguments using Patrik Laine as an example:

1. Points say precisely nothing about defense. This one's pretty self-explanatory: points only occur on goals scored by your team and are unmodified by goals, shots or chances against your team. In Laine's case, points miss that before this year he had yet to have had a year above replacement-level defensively, per EvolvingWild's GAR metric.

2. Points are EXTREMELY usage dependent. 6 of Laine's points came on the powerplay, which means a different coaching decision could nix 1/4 of his points production, without him doing anything different. And that's without factoring in how playing with elite teammates and seeing large amounts of icetime can bias the results as well. Laine's scoring rate at 5v5 (he has 13 5v5 points) could this year have produced: 15 (Schiefele's TOI), 11 (Roslovic's TOI), or 5 points (in 16 games, Bourque's TOI). All that changed between these scenarios is TOI, which player's can't directly control. NHL coaches are USUALLY smart about TOI allocation, but I doubt you could find someone who says they're perfect. No reason to punish a player for their role. And that's before accounting for teammate impacts (spoiler alert, they're pretty big).

3. Points are VERY luck-dependent. Shooting percentage is one of the most volatile stats in the NHL and forms a huge part of goal numbers, (and goals aren't even the least
predictive part of points, secondary assists have even more variance, to the point where they are essentially useless in skater evaluation). In Laine's case, the 20-point drop he experienced from 17-18 to 18-19 is entirely explained by his shooting percentage dropping by 6 percentage points (from 18% to 12%) and by his secondary assists falling from 14 to 3 (11 points right there). He wasn't really playing differently, but his points were way worse. Not really what you want from a stat.

Points work better when restricted to primary points (goals+primary assists) and used as a rate (e.g. P1/60). Even then, there's an argument to be made that advancements in regression models like EvolvingWild's RAPMs and Micah McCurdy's Magnus 2 more firmly measure individual offence by accounting for things like teammates, competition, score effects, etc. While using them in concert makes sense, it can lead to a tendency to double count offence, especially when using something like GAR, which is based off of the RAPMs.

Stop using unmodified points. Please. Use better stats.
Forum: Armchair-GMNov. 30, 2019 at 11:14 p.m.
Thread: Pitt
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>Pensfan89</b></div><div>He’s not overrated though. We’ve already been through that. You can spout it all you want, doesn’t make it true. And who do we have that could replace Schultz? Ruhwedel as our 3rd pair RD? Yeahhhhhh that would make for great use of that space. And Galchenyuk is the overrated one in this trade. The pens don’t get anything better for Galchenyuk. I’m willing to bet. They will have to trade him in a buy low/sell low trade soon.</div></div>

Risto's overrated, I went into this.

Tbh Galch is pretty overrated too. The argument with hims was always that playing him at centre could bring back some of his early-career success, including his 14.7 GAR year in 15-16, but since that year he's now in his 4th straight sub-replacement seasons in 3 different organizations. Tocchet was a coach of the year candidate last year and Galch still put up a putrid -3.2 GAR with the Coyotes. Sucks to say, but Galch is pretty much done at this point, and his rep as an underrated and incorrectly used player is pretty much the only reason he's still in the league.

At 5v5 ZAR is pretty clearly the best player in this deal. Even after accounting for Risto's PP excellence and terrific penalty differential, ZAR might still have the edge, especially after an 18-19 season in which he drove play very well in limited usage. This entire thread and argument is over a trade where the best 5v5 player is Zach Aston-Reese.

There's something wrong with us.
Forum: Armchair-GMNov. 30, 2019 at 11:03 p.m.
Thread: Pitt
Must... not... get... into... another... Risto fight... AAAAAHHHH!

Risto has been useless at 5v5 his entire career, and there isn't a clear way the Sabres could have covered that beyond "literally never play him at 5v5", which isn't really a good solution.

Why do I say he's useless at 5v5? His even strength goals above replacement (EVDGAR+EVOGAR, essentially a measure of how well a player drives results for his team at 5v5) has been negative every year of his career until this one. Has he turned a corner? Well, his defense has dramatically improved from utterly apocalyptic to league average, but his offence is responsible for double the impact of his defence, and that's been the result of his goals numbers dramatically outperforming his expected goals numbers. For some guys, generally elite shooters like Patrik Laine, that can be sustainable, but over a small sample (small here meaning less than about 3 seasons) it can pretty much entirely be checked up to good luck. The defensive improvements MIGHT be real, but it's a small sample, we have plenty of data on Risto sucking defensively, it isn't evident that he's patched his biggest defensive problem, and he's at an age where players generally are what they are, without any major improvements. So yeah, Not sold.

The argument then goes, "well, maybe he's been in a bad situation". First off, crummy GAR numbers aren't the results of any of the following: Quality of teammates, quality of competition, zone starts, score effects or venue effects (and I've almost certainly missed some). All of this stuff is accounted for in the regression model that the metric is based off of. But, just to be EXTRA sure it's Risto sucking, we can look at hand-tracked microstats, courtesy of Corey Sznajder. There are 2 areas that are VITAL for defensemen that these stats track: zone xits and entry defense. Let's see how Risto does!

Zone exits:
Possession exits/60: 35th percentile (fewer exits than 65% of the league)
Possession exit percentage: 18th percentile (lower percentage of exit attempts resulting in an exit with possession than 82% of the league)
Well that isn't impressive. Maybe he can redeem himself with entry defense!
Entry defense:
Breakups/60: 14th percentile (fewer breakups than 86% of the league)
Possession Entries Allowed/60: 37th percentile (allows more entries with possession than 63% of the league)
Possession Entry % Allowed: 14th percentile (allows a higher percentage of entry attempts against him to succeed than 86% of the league)
Welp, that isn't impressive.

Risto's pretty boxcars and occasional good season by GAR are pretty much entirely driven by 2 things: his legitimately elite powerplay ability, and his ability to avoid taking penalties. Those aren't invalid, but they can be inconsistent, the value of penalty differential has been contested with how frequently NHL refs award make-up calls, and it's long been demonstrated that 5v5 is the most important strength state. Tons of people defend Risto on here for flashy hits and pretty boxcars, but a defenseman who constantly causes his team to get shelled whenever he's on the ice fundamentally isn't anything that you can build around. Buffalo should be trying to dump his contract ASAP, as Dahlin taking PP time from him could make that a LOT harder to do.
Forum: Armchair-GMNov. 30, 2019 at 3:03 p.m.
Thread: Honka update
Idk how much the Habs really need Julius Honka. His main talent is zone exits: an exceptionally useful specialty, but one that only really shines at even strength. His entry game has historically been pretty meh, and his PP numbers are ugly. The Habs don't really need more 5v5 talent at RD, if they acquire one, he needs to work on the PP. That generally means an entry specialist, which is the opposite of Honka.

Beyond that, the Habs' biggest problem is the fact that, since the start of the 17-18 season, their 10 million dollar starter ranks 37th in total GAR among goalies that have faced 500 or more unblocked attempts in that span, right behind Brian Elliott. If we switch to GAR/60, he's at 52nd, between Matt Murray and Anders Nilsson. In the same timespan, with the same cutoff, his dFsv% (the difference between his sv% and the sv% we would expect from a league average goalie) is a hearty -0.59. For context, that means Price has been less effective than a league average goalie over this span. His neighbours are Steve Mason and Anders Nilsson. He's sitting below the likes of Aaron Dell and Tristan Jarry. Montreal's biggest issue isn't anything about its skaters, it's that even after spending 12.25 million dollars on goaltending, the team doesn't have a starting-caliber goalie. If this team wants to be relevant, they need a starter who is not Carey Price.

This is why the team shouldn't bother with a Honka deal. If they can't contend until Price's contract ends, they'll waste Honka's good years and be better off with the pick. If they want to try and contend now, all assets need to be available in the quest to dump the Price contract and fix the goaltending situation. That might well take their entire 2020 draft plus a couple firsts.
Forum: Armchair-GMNov. 30, 2019 at 11:52 a.m.
Thread: Big Jets trade
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>Hawksince71</b></div><div>Observing DeBrinicat this season, it seems his timing is off bit. I don’t think he shoots enough when he has the puck. His hesitates and the opportunity is missed. His shots have missed the net a lot this season.</div></div>

Cat's cut down on the shot volume a bit this year compared to last, but he's been trending down in that metric since his rookie year. He's actually missing the net less this year, averaging 0.35 more shots/60 despite averaging 0.88 fewer unblocked attempts/60, for a total of 1.23 fewer misses/60 if my math is correct. The bigger difference is that his sh% has fallen dramatically, from 18.64% last year to 7.14% today, despite his expected fenwick sh% (expected goals/unblocked attempt as a percentage) only having dropped by 0.07 percentage points. It's a lot like Laine's down year, actually, an elite shooters shot goes on holiday for a while and they're left flapping in the wind. Dunno if there's a confidence thing going on, but if there's one thing analytics tells us, it's never to bet on a sudden change in sh% being real, because 95% of the time it isn't.
Forum: Armchair-GMNov. 29, 2019 at 10:10 p.m.
Thread: Big Jets trade
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>Spleenmaster1002</b></div><div>Don’t really see the point in this for the Jets. I don’t think Määttä is enough for the Jets to want to swap Laine and Debrincat.



I don’t think you’ve watched him this year. He’s noticeably better defensively and has been passing and setting up guys really well. He’s been using his body more and giving a lot more effort while forechecking and backchecking. He’s over a PPG and leading the Jets in points.</div></div>

Points remain an EXTREMELY poor stat when quoted unmodified. Let's use Laine as an example to run through a few reasons. It'll be fun! :)

1. Points say precisely nothing about defense. This one's pretty self-explanatory: points only occur on goals scored by your team and are unmodified by goals, shots or chances against your team. In Laine's case, points miss that before this year he had yet to have had a year above replacement-level defensively, per EvolvingWild's GAR metric.

2. Points are EXTREMELY usage dependent. 6 of Laine's points came on the powerplay, which means a different coaching decision could nix 1/4 of his points production, without him doing anything different. And that's without factoring in how playing with elite teammates and seeing large amounts of icetime can bias the results as well. Laine's scoring rate at 5v5 (he has 13 5v5 points) could this year have produced: 15 (Schiefele's TOI), 11 (Roslovic's TOI), or 5 points (in 16 games, Bourque's TOI). All that changed between these scenarios is TOI, which player's can't directly control. NHL coaches are USUALLY smart about TOI allocation, but I doubt you could find someone who says they're perfect. No reason to punish a player for their role. And that's before accounting for teammate impacts (spoiler alert, they're pretty big).

3. Points are VERY luck-dependent. Shooting percentage is one of the most volatile stats in the NHL and forms a huge part of goal numbers, (and goals aren't even the least
predictive part of points, secondary assists have even more variance, to the point where they are essentially useless in skater evaluation). In Laine's case, the 20-point drop he experienced from 17-18 to 18-19 is entirely explained by his shooting percentage dropping by 6 percentage points (from 18% to 12%) and by his secondary assists falling from 14 to 3 (11 points right there). He wasn't really playing differently, but his points were way worse. Not really what you want from a stat.

Points work better when restricted to primary points (goals+primary assists) and used as a rate (e.g. P1/60). Even then, there's an argument to be made that advancements in regression models like EvolvingWild's RAPMs and Micah McCurdy's Magnus 2 more firmly measure individual offence by accounting for things like teammates, competition, score effects, etc. While using them in concert makes sense, it can lead to a tendency to double count offence, especially when using something like GAR, which is based off of the RAPMs.

Laine's defence has improved this year, but it's still not a strength of his game. He's mostly what he's always been, a great shooter that struggles to drive play at 5v5. That's arguably worth enough to make the deal make sense, since Laine's shot is one of if not the single best in the league, but still.

Stop using points. I don't care what Sportsnet says.