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The_Ultimate_Pielord

I put math in hockey
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Jun. 1, 2018
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Carolina Hurricanes
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Forum: Armchair-GMNov. 17, 2019 at 1:35 p.m.
Thread: best plyr on every team
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>mhockey91</b></div><div>GAR is a horrible analytic. Jack Johnson has one of the best GAR on Pittsburgh. Defend that one. Analytics aren’t everything buddy. They’re a great tool, but so is common sense. You’re over thinking this

<a href="https://twitter.com/gunnerstaal/status/1192556564353302528?s=21" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/gunnerstaal/status/1192556564353302528?s=21</a>

<a href="https://twitter.com/gunnerstaal/status/1131903178109325312?s=21" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/gunnerstaal/status/1131903178109325312?s=21</a></div></div>

GAR is designed to work with 3-ish years of data. When using the correct sample size, Johnson ranks 7th-worst among everyone who's played for the penguins since the start of the 16-17 season. If we go from the start of last year, Johnson's 4th-wprst among Penguins from that span. Seems about right.

<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>Dylan1995</b></div><div>Bro are you dumb Jones is a top 5 top 10 d man lmao stfu</div></div>

Going from the start of the 17-18 season, Jones ranks 50th in GAR among all dmen with &gt; 3000 minutes in this span, and 25th among all dmen with over 4000. That's not bad, he's right next to Shea Theodore in the 3000 cutoff and right under Ryan Suter in the 4000 cutoff. Certainly not top 5 to ten though, there are plenty better defensemen. (Savard's 27th in the 3000 example and misses the TOI cutoff for the 4000 example).
Forum: Armchair-GMNov. 17, 2019 at 1:24 p.m.
Thread: best plyr on every team
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>kopiino</b></div><div>highly doubt walker is sustainable lmao, but like, LA is just a trash team all around and i feel theres no real "right" answer for them.

savard actually has a better 2016-19 GAR than PLD. i think the only thing that changes when you factor in their GAR totals for this season in that is that PLD has a slightly better EVO GAR, but savards EVD GAR is so much better (i think by about 16)

arizona is weird, i had raanta over hammer last year, but injuries are weird and goalies are also weird. id def say that he, kuemper, and raanta are arizonas top-3 players

and shhhhh, just let me believe nylander is better (do i even think he is? i dont know) in peace</div></div>

Damn, I have been sleeping on David Savard. Those are some nice numbers.

Still, he's only got an edge of 0.5 GAR with 2 thousand more minutes of TOI in the timeframe on PLD. I'm willing to bet PLD'd be higher if the TOI were even.

Respect the refusal to evaluate goalies. Richardson's been sneakily really good for the Coyotes as well, though.
Forum: Armchair-GMNov. 17, 2019 at 1:19 p.m.
Forum: Armchair-GMNov. 17, 2019 at 1:13 p.m.
Forum: Armchair-GMNov. 17, 2019 at 1:05 p.m.
Thread: best plyr on every team
This is a good list. I like this list. Good job.

Disagreements: I like Nylander as much as the next guy (well, I guess unless you're the next guy) but he isn't better than Matthews. He defends better, but Matthews provides a lot more offence thanks in part to his elite shot, along with just generally generating more chances than Nylander by most models. He is better.

Pettersson is really, really, really good. He would be Toronto's best player if he keeps up his pace from his rookie season. Like, he could possibly make the Death Incarnate line better good. Boeser's good, but he isn't that good.

There's definitely a decent argument for Hammer as Arizona's best skater, even with his utter lack of offense. I wouldn't put him as a top-10 D in the league just because of how little he provides on offence or in transition, but he is really good. Thing is, Raanta and Kuemper have both put their names in the convo for best goalie in the league (Raanta whenever he's not injured). I'd probably have at least one if not both ahead of Hjalmarsson, good as he is.

Savard's numbers this year have actually been a lot better than I was expecting when I looked him up. PLD's still 2.5 GAR ahead of him though.

I love the Sean Walker inclusion, he's been on an absolutely insane tear to start this year. Is it sustainable? No idea, but holy crap has he been good.

Well-made list. Points for having one in there I thought was wrong off the cuff but realized was right after I looked it up a bit.
Forum: Armchair-GMNov. 17, 2019 at 12:34 p.m.
Thread: Vaguely realistic moves
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>palhal</b></div><div>This is bad for the Leafs. Losing two NHL RHD and only get one in return. Now Barrie has been the worse Dman. Put this urban legend how bad Ceci is kinda nonsense. PieLord mentions his minus four....well that's mostly because he has played with the terrible (this year) Reilly.</div></div>

GAR is built off a regression model that factors in, amongst other things, quality of teammates, competition, zone starts, and score effects. Barrie's also seen significant time with Muzzin.

The Leafs have a good chunk of NHL RD (Ceci, Barrie, Marincin, Holl, even Liljegren can probably fit the bill). The issue is that Ceci seems fairly likely to return to his senators form (below replacement overall, -2.6 GAR at evens) and Barrie has always leaned heavily on his powerplay production to even out his problems at 5v5. The Leafs don't need more RD, they need one who can provide reliable top-4 play for them, which TVR can.

<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>JimCarrey</b></div><div>Toronto would definitely rather trade Johnsson. He's older, more expensive, and a UFA after this contract (Kapanen is an RFA). Also Kapanen has a better shot than him, i thought that was obvious. As for Barrie, he had the most 5v5 primary points for a Dman last year. I get he's not great defensively, but to say hes bad at 5v5 is lunacy.
ps I like Lowry quite a bit and think he would be a nice add.</div></div>

Over the last 3 years, Johnsson has outperformed his xFsh% (expected fenwick shooting percentage, essentially what percentage of his unblocked shot attempts would result in goals with a league average shot) by 1.44 percentage points, while Kapanen has outperformed his by 1.14. Not a massive gap, but noticeable. They drive play pretty comparably, but Johnsson's greater shooting talent has given him an edge in goals. Kapanen's not likely to jump past either, he is already 23. Overall, you'd probably rather have Johnsson IMO.

From the start of the 17-18 season to today, Barrie's combined GAR at even strength is -2.1. He is legitimately elite offensively, but he gives it all back on D, with an EVD component of -9.3, last among all defensemen. He makes some of it back on the powerplay, which the Jets need, but in Toronto he'll be judged on his 5v5 work, and his defensive issues are too big to ignore.

<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>MisstheWhalers</b></div><div>You lose that Johnsson trade badly and that Barrie trade is wierd, as a Jets fan who can't stand Lowry I'd be cool with it but I can't see the Jets trading Lowry, they love and massively overvalue him.</div></div>

TVR isn't a dominant defender, but he's consistently put up solid defensive results in Carolina, even when asked to play his off side. His numbers from last year are a little bit misleading simply because regression models don't factor in the impact of defenders being put on their off sides, which is pretty major, especially if they aren't super experienced with it. He's nice for the PK as well. As its stands he'd easily be the best RD on the team, and one of its better penalty killers. His GAR since 17-18 is above Johnsson, though in a bunch more games. Johnsson's been better overall since 18-19, but TVR's had to spend most of that time on his off side.

Lowry's good! He's useless offensively but more than makes up for it with his defense, like a less extreme Mikko Koivu. The Jets do have a massive, glaring need at RD and their powerplay is currently 20th in the league. This is a team that needs Tyson Barrie.
Forum: Armchair-GMNov. 17, 2019 at 3:54 a.m.
Thread: just try something new
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>pharrow</b></div><div>you are clueless. Go see the chinese "immigrants" who are communist party members in china and their rich kids run around canada in their $200,000 cars waiving Chinese flags.

Real canadian immigrants.

This is what happens when you open doors to anyone, allow anyone to buy citizenship and the rest.
You clearly are not educated enough on the subject which is why you hold such ignorant opinions.

Go educate yourself.</div></div>

Gotta feel for lucas having his thread hijacked. Ah well, onwards.

Canada doesn't even crack the top-5 countries for buying citizenships, a bunch of EU nations have more valuable passports and more explicit citizenship by investment laws. There also isn't a ton of incentive for a rich, loyal Chinese citizens to come to Canada, China treats them well and there are plenty of more welcoming countries for the super-wealthy. And Chinese people who can get their kids 200 grand cars isn't exactly a massive group.

You get the odd bad apple, it happens. Plenty of 'em born naturally, too. On the whole though, I haven't seen much evidence that mass immigration has caused Canada any major issues.
Forum: Armchair-GMNov. 17, 2019 at 3:14 a.m.
Thread: just try something new
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>pharrow</b></div><div>you can keep trying to justify your comment and view of the issue, but you already outed yourself.
There was nothing racist about it, you can stop trying to spin it that way to fit your narrative.

I'm really sure all the chinese nationals are donating, while they kill the kids in hong kong, steal technology from universities, and are more patriotic to a government that constantly threatens canada and the whole rest of the world.
Maybe you should pull your head out your backside and realize there is a lot of truth to what he said. That your ignorant comments should not be tolerated. And that silencing someone who states the truth is suppression of freedom of speech and business tear. This comes from the same parent company who has no issue letting people make all kinds of other political statements. It justifies it as commentary and yet seems fit to target people who speak truth that doesn't fit the narrative.

When you paid a person for commentary, you got it. It does not give you the right to fire them because you didn't like it.
It starts to look like ABC news trying to fire the person who brought up the fact that ABC buried the Epstien story. Tell me, does that sound like reporters who are given freedom of press to actually be journalists to you?

It's a slippery slope world you live in. You should be careful what stupid opinions you hold.</div></div>

"Silencing someone is suppression of freedom of speech" "Your ignorant comments should not be tolerated" ?????

None of the Chinese immigrants I have met were involved with the killings in Hing Kong. I would be willing to bet that this extends to the vast majority of Chinese immigrants in Canada. They chose to leave China to come to Canada, so I'd assume it's safe to say that they approve of Canada's government more than China's, given that staying in China would have been easier. The people of China aren't responsible for their government's actions, since they have no control over that government. In many cases, that's why they left, I know I'd sure as hell rather live under Canada's government than China's.

ABC is within their rights to try and kill stories as they see fit : however it does undermine their credibility as an organization. There's a lot of difference between trying to bury a major story about a child sex ring and between firing someone for insensitive comments that generated a large amount of backlash.

IMO the more dangerous slope is mandating platforms for certain viewpoints/stories. A story getting killed can pop back up from another organization (if it's a major one, it probably will, news orgs love getting scoops), but saying "you have to air this guy" is a slope straight to state-mandated propaganda segments, which would obviously be very bad. It's a tricky trade-off, giving private individuals control of what gets broadcast means that they can suppress things they dislike, but mandating certain coverage gives a TON of power to the government in terms of what people see. The best way to do it is probably what Canada has right now: a major public broadcaster that can ensure important viewpoints and stories get airtime, and a wide range of private organizations that prevent the government from taking full control of what people see.

Best way to deal with a slippery slope is a good icepick: anyone can decide what they want to show us, but none of them can fully decide what we see.
Forum: Armchair-GMNov. 17, 2019 at 2:55 a.m.
Thread: Vaguely realistic moves
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>Leafs_fan13</b></div><div>Sorry about that. Ceci trade is great. Johnsson trade is there I get what your hinting at but I feel like we could trade Kapanen over mango, that barrie trade isn’t what the leafs need at all.</div></div>

Toronto would definitely rather deal Kapanen than Johnsson but I don't think it makes sense from Carolina's side: they need shooting talent more than anything and Kapanen doesn't have nearly as much in that regard as Johnsson.

Barrie's GAR on the year is a beautiful -4.1, he has not been effective. He is probably going to bounce back, but he hasn't historically been good at 5v5 in his career. He does most of his damage on the powerplay and the Leafs don't want to use him there. Winnipeg's a natural fit for him, Lowry's a good player who helps the PK and drives play well at 5v5. He's actually had double Barrie's GAR over the last 3 years, in nearly 1700 fewer minutes.
Forum: Armchair-GMNov. 17, 2019 at 2:31 a.m.
Thread: just try something new
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>pharrow</b></div><div>you can just stop right there. What he said was not racist. Period.
It was nationalistic. There are many people who do not look like Don Cherry who go and buy Poppies.
His point was clearly that people come into the country and don't care about the country. That isn't racist. It's a fact. Believe me, the Chinese nationals coming into the country don't give a crap about canada. And neither do a lot of other migrants who go there. And that's his point. It had nothing to do with race.

You are frankly just rambling at this point with incoherent nonsense. Where you hear what you want to hear and not what was said.
If you bothered to listen the point was people died so they could live in a free country that is safe and that the least they could do is support them....like the many other life long Canadian citizens do. You know, actually be Canadian. Adopt canadian pride, support the military members who died and were injured for the country. But instead you live in a fantasy world where everything is about skin color and you scream racism on everything.

Grow up.

You wrote a 1000 word essay that fails to under stand the point from the beginning.</div></div>

Friendly reminder that the Royal Canadian Legion itself called Cherry's comments "hurtful, divisive and in no way condoned by the Legion": <a href="https://twitter.com/RoyalCdnLegion/status/1193999991557312515" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/RoyalCdnLegion/status/1193999991557312515</a>. We can argue the ins and outs of the r-word all night long, but it's tough to call comments patriotic, nationalistic or supportive of veterans when they get condemned by the Legion. Similarly, when the organization you're trying to drum up support for distances itself from the comments you made trying to get that support, something isn't right.

I can say I didn't wear a poppy November 11th, in the interests of not accidentally dropping a poppy into someone's burger. Still donated, just didn't wear the poppy. Wouldn't surprise me if most of the people who weren't wearing poppies were in the same boat, those things are a pain in the neck. Falling off, pricking you in the chest, blowing away in the wind, easy to see why you wouldn't need one. The support's what matters, not the badge that says you did it.

Seems like we've met pretty different immigrants, most of the ones I've met are pretty on board with the whole Canada thing. Well-thought out views on who to vote for to make the country better, buying poppies, helping fundraisers, etc. Immigrants pretty much by definition care about the country: they cared enough to uproot their lives to join it.

The point of the post was that Sportsnet has the right to decide what it wants to broadcast, and it doesn't want to broadcast Don Cherry anymore, which is justified. In retrospect, probably shouldn't have led with the r-word, but the point stands regardless of what his point was.
Forum: Armchair-GMNov. 17, 2019 at 1:54 a.m.
Thread: just try something new
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>pharrow</b></div><div>wrong.

They put him on the air for commentary. They know he will speak his mind, that's why they put him on the air. Lets not pretend Sportsnet has not benefited from his lose cannon commentary before. It has.
He gave commentary, as he always does, as per his job, it was just commentary they didn't want to hear. It didn't fit the PC narrative they want to push down your throat that people like you happily swallow.
For that they fired him. Wrongly.

It would be one thing if he was treated equally for all his other commentary. But he wasn't and there lies the problem and why your narrative falls apart. He has always been given a position where he's free to comment. He has never been treated such ways before for any comments he has made. Lets not pretend none of them couldn't be taken as offensive.
When you hire for commentary you get commentary. And there in lies the problem for your argument. Ask yourself, would he have been fired for the exact opposite commentary. When you realize he wouldn't have, then you realize why it's business terror. Because if he's free to comment about a situation one way and nothing happens, but not the other, then it is indeed a violation of freedom of speech.

Your point on these platforms not being government owned is also false. All cable, radio etc.. requires an license. In the US it's the FCC. There is also a Canadian version. Simply stating it's not government owned does not account for how that really works. You would never be allowed to broadcast 24/7 isis recruitment simply because you are a business, you would be thrown off the air. It's why things like RT news are no longer allowed on TV.

The truth of the matter is it is an attack on free speech. When a person who is paid for commentary is somehow treated different because his commentary is only offensive in that it disagrees with a political view point. Such acts are what china, USSR, or nazi germany does. It is not what the free world does. To constantly have a "get them we disagree with them" attitude is the very opposite of the values that any free country holds.

The whole point about free speech is that even if it is offensive, you still have the right to do it. Much like players kneeling in the NFL doesn't mean they should be fired and kicked out their contracts and bared from the game for life.
Such actions would be wrong.
It is clearly a double standard in the way in which things are treated. It is terror. And it does in fact violate freedom of speech.

You may not pick and choose how you wish to apply things based on your personal narrative. Which is exactly what you want to do.</div></div>

Alright, so your argument is (if I'm understanding this correctly)

1) Sportsnet is at fault for removing him after this specific monologue instead of his other racist monologues, which indicates that he was given an infinite editorial mandate. In essence, it's a labour issue: Sportsnet fired Cherry for something Cherry would have understood was part of his job.
Now, I have no inside information here, but I'd be surprised if Sportsnet hasn't talked to Cherry before about avoiding racial/political discussion on his segment before. With how much (predictable) backlash the Cherry firing brought, it doesn't make sense for Sportsnet to do it if there was a way to make him stop being racist without firing him. That's probably what happened after his other controversies, closed door meetings and requests to stop doing this. When he did it again, Sportsnet reacted like any sane employer would when an employee keeps causing problems by doing things that the employer has specifically told them not to do. There's not really much of a convenience argument here: all the blowback suggests this really wasn't a very convenient time to can Cherry.

2) He wouldn't have been fired for saying the exact opposite, in this case some form of "wow, it's great to see all these immigrants wearing poppies, cool to see the Canadian patriotism" except not sounding sarcastic, or possibly "why are none of these 8th-generation Canadians wearing poppies, come on guys". Thing is, the factor at issue here is how much Sportsnet wants to give these ideas a platform. While you're correct that there are limits to what ideas broadcasters are allowed to put on their platforms, there aren't requirements for what ideas broadcasters have to represent. Yestv (I think that's the channel with the Christian news program) doesn't have a mandated Muslim news program, for example. This is where the argument falls apart, the opposite (at least the first version, probably not the second one) viewpoint would fall into the category of stuff Sportsnet wants to broadcast, while the one he put forth didn't. It's like how Fox News doesn't break any rules despite muzzling interviewees and heavily weighting the viewpoints on their program in order to make right-wing views seem more appropriate.

3) This is more similar to the Third Reich or the USSR than to a democracy. First off, did you see what happened with Deadspin? The firing that led to the mass resignations was because Deputy Editor Barry Petchesky put out a viewpoint that Great Hill Partners didn't want on the site. And the CBA they were operating under even guaranteed editorial independence! This isn't super uncommon. Private broadcasters doing this is actually probably more common than it would be in the USSR, though that's mostly due to the USSR's lack of private broadcasters in general than anything else.

The thing you come back to is the double standard argument, but here's the thing: some speech is more deserving of an audience than others, and it's up to the broadcasters to determine what speech deserves an audience and what speech doesn't. That's why sportsnet doesn't give a show to any idiot with a Capfriendly account and time on their hands (like, say, me). The audience said "hey, we don't ant to watch Don Cherry anymore". Sportsnet, like any smart business, said, "ok, if you don't want to watch this guy then we won't give him a segment, because why would we give a segment to somebody nobody wants to watch".

This is the main difference between Cherry and an NFL player. The players' job is to play good football, and the protests are secondary. If a player is fired for their protests, they aren't being fired because of their job performance, they're being fired because of a political statement. Cherry's job, meanwhile, is to make an intermission segment that people want to watch. If he says something people find offensive, they won't want to watch his segment anymore, and he has therefore failed in his job. Getting fired for failing in your job is pretty much standard procedure, unless you're the GM of the Vancouver Canucks.
Cherry isn't being punished for his speech or his beliefs, he's being punished for saying things that got Sportsnet involved in a big cintroversy, and for jeopardizing the audience of not only Coach's Corner, but also Hockey Night in Canada. That's pretty much justified.

Put another way, if the government forced Sportsnet to make its intermission segment feature a 20-minute Trudeau ad, would that be ok? Then why would mandating a Cherry segment be different? That's ultimately what this comes down to: Sportsnet has the right to choose what it broadcasts. It doesn't want to broadcast Cherry anymore, so it doesn't. That's the long and the short of it. No freedom of speech violated, it's an otherwise standard programming change being blown up because culture war.
Forum: Carolina HurricanesNov. 16, 2019 at 11:42 p.m.
Thread: We Do Not Need A Number One Goalie
The point of having one good goalie vs 2 mediocre goalies is that come playoff time rest isn't a major issue, so you only use one goalie and the better that goalie is the better the team is. The ideal goaltending situation is something along the lines of Arizona or Anaheim, where you have an elite goaltender and a good enough backup to only play them 45 times a year (my argument would work better if either of those teams could make the playoffs, but Carlyle and the Arizona injury bug have decided that I can't have nice things.)

Let's say we have 2 teams. One team has one goalie worth one win per 10 games (very very good) and one goalie worth -0.5 wins every ten games (less good). That comes to +0.5 wins per 10 games from goaltending with an even workload over the regular season for maximum rest, about +4 wins on the year. The other team has 2 goalies each worth 0.3 wins per 10 games, for 0.6 wins per ten games from goaltending, or 4.8 per year. Which team would you rather be?

The answer is the 1st one, for 2 reasons. For one, you can adjust the usage to make the 1st one get more wins. If you change it to a 50-30 split (using round number for easier mathing), suddenly that's +4.5 wins, or almost even. At a 60-20 split you've got +5 wins, with a 0.2 win cushion to account for diminished performance due to lack of rest. The coach can ride a #1 goalie hard to get a bad team into the playoffs, and can give some rest if the team is good enough to survive it, while a team without one is left in a trickier spot, even with a goalie tandem that's better overall.

The 2nd answer is playoffs. Teams pretty much never use their backups in the playoffs, even when the dropoff is pretty small, and rest generally isn't a factor in the playoffs thanks to the lack of travel. With that in mind, over a 7-game series, team #1 will get 0.7 wins from goaltending (1 win times 7/10ths of a ten game stretch), while team 2 will get 0.21 (3 tenths times 7 tenths) in that series. Half a win might not sound like a ton, but in a tight series it means everything.

Investing a ton in a number one goalie isn't a great idea with how inconsistent and difficult to project goalies are, but there's no denying you'd rather have a #1 than a platoon.
Forum: Armchair-GMNov. 16, 2019 at 11:23 p.m.
Thread: just try something new
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>pharrow</b></div><div>I was just going to comment that ceci wasn't very noticeable in the game.
I'm not saying he had a relatively strong game, but in general, I never really heard his name and for a defense man that's usually a better sign than sticking out for playing bad.

On the other hand, that Dbag hockey night in canada coward not sticking up for Don Cherry was really noticeable.
This isn't china. Business terror has no business in a society with free speech. Which is exactly what happened to Don.</div></div>

Free speech doesn't mean people have the right to a platform, it means they have the right to say what they want to say. It also gives people the right to decide what speech they want to give a megaphone to.

Let's say you have a twitter account with 8947298471984718974281 followers and I have one with like 10, and I say something you disagree with, which you somehow see. Do you retweet it? No, you don't, because why would you? My free speech rights aren't violated here, you decided that my random ramblings about Ceci sucking don't merit you giving me a platform.

It's a similar situation with Don. He can say whatever he wants, but it's Sportsnet's right to decide what to air. For a better analogy, would my free speech rights be invalidated by Sportsnet refusing to give me an intermission segment where I break down Dougie Hamilton and Andrei Svechnikov for half of it and spend the other half campaigning for Jaghmeet Singh? No, it wouldn't.

Don's free speech allows him to say whatever he wants. Sportsnet's free speech (or that of the people that own it) gives them the right to stop airing it if they don't agree with the speech or don't like the reaction it generates or don't like his suit or decide to run 20 minutes of ads instead or whatever. People have the right to say what they want, the right to amplify whatever voices they choose, and the right to grant/deny platforms as they see fit if these platforms aren't government owned.

To quote Randall Munroe:
"The right to free speech means the government can't arrest you for what you say. It doesn't mean anyone else has to listen to your bull****, or host you while you share it.[...] If you're yelled at, boycotted, have your show cancelled, or get banned from an internet community, your free speech rights aren't being violated. It's just that the people listening think you're an asshole, and they're showing you the door."
Forum: Armchair-GMNov. 16, 2019 at 1:15 p.m.
Thread: Kyle Palmieri Shooting talent specialist
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>Subbanator7667</b></div><div>He has already said he plans to sign at the end of his college season, wants to get to the NHL as soon as possible.</div></div>

Yeah, but that's still one year he's not helping. With Petry, Weber, and Price all past 30, time is definitely of the essence.

<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>GMs</b></div><div>I think Caufield will have the same impact DeBrincat had with the Hawks</div></div>

Debrincat's overall scoring in his draft year was a LOT better than Caufield's in a comparable league, and he was asked to be a driver a lot more. Much better involvement percentages, etc. They aren't super comparable except for both being small goal scorers. I wouldn't bet on Caufield becoming Debrincat any time soon.
Forum: Armchair-GMNov. 16, 2019 at 12:07 a.m.
Thread: this coach and this team
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>palhal</b></div><div>I'll disagree. The Leafs didn't have to overpay anyone. It's league comparable. And what options to the players have? Does anyone really think players would forgo 6m NHL contracts and play in the KHL for 2m? I'll agree the Leafs/media set up these players as the next group of superstars, still the Leafs if they had wanted to, didn't have to pay "hometown premium".</div></div>

In this scenario, the players are forgoing 4 million the year they sit out. On an 8-year deal, the sit-out has to yield an extra $500 000 AAV to break even in overall earnings. That's not all that much. Meanwhile the Leafs lose a year off their contending window every year they have a player sitting out. It pretty quickly becomes the org's best bet to trade their rights in order to recoup some value, and with leaguewide valuations as high as some of what was rumoured for Matthews/Marner, their new home feasibly gives them what the Leafs did. Most teams are in the market for star players entering their primes. They had more leverage than you'd think, kudos to the agents for figuring that out.
Forum: Armchair-GMNov. 16, 2019 at 12:03 a.m.
Thread: this coach and this team
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>mondo</b></div><div>yes, there are a number of reasons why toronto hasn't been great on the ice. doesn't overcoming these challenges fall on the coach? toronto has played a ton of games this season where they don't look like a team that's motivated to win. i'm guessing that babcock has lost the room.</div></div>

If we assume that Babcock was coaching as well as he possibly could previously (which, why wouldn't he?), then it follows that the situation becoming worse will make the team worse, since Mike's impact is already at maximum.

What specific things are the players doing differently where they don't look motivated?

<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>TMLSage</b></div><div>Do not know.</div></div>

Word of advice: don't type the new words in between the quote tags. Took me a minute to see all the stuff about the players.

Barrie: at 5v5 last year he put up a 1.37 P/60 and a 1.00 P1/60, while this year he's down to a .047 on both, all of which comes from primary assists. That seems like a big dropoff, but keep in mind that so far this year he's played less than a third of his total icetime last year (about 380 mins at 5v5 vs, 1300 total last year). Points are REALLY noisy, so it's reasonably likely he's just dealing with some snakebite right now. Another indicator of snakebite is that his primary assist rate has only fallen from 0.5 to 0.47. Research has shown that primary assists are the most predictive aspect of points. He'll probably regress upwards soon.
Hutch: He hasn't been good this year, but it's a fairly small sample and goalies are voodoo. He also just generally hasn't been good at the NHL level. I wouldn't read too much into it.
Spezza: How has this affected the product on the ice? The overall consensus I've heard is that Spezza's been really good this year, so maybe it's just how Babs motivates Spezza and it's working.
Petan: Again, how has this affected his results on the ice? He hasn't been particularly bad this year IIRC.
Kapanen: How would you adjust his role in order to fix this?

I would not advise hiring a head coach who hasn't coached before. That isn't gonna end well for anybody.
Forum: Armchair-GMNov. 15, 2019 at 11:44 p.m.
Thread: this coach and this team
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>palhal</b></div><div>It started with Nylander. In what world was he entitled to 7m X 6? Larkin had signed in August at 6.15m X 5. Nylander really had no leverage...he was RFA. Leafs were on 120 point pace on November 30 BEFORE Nylander signed his extension. No the Leafs should have held firm and if Nylander didn't sign with the Leafs (what were his options) so be it.
What a joke to think Matthews is worth to be paid the second highest paid player in the league, especially on a mid length term contract. What other teams would have offered more.
Marner. Aho and Marner had identical stats in the past two seasons. Aho 8.5m X5. What is the justification of a 11m Marner? Sorry there is none.
Not that overpaying these guys by 4.5m isn't crippling. But geez it has caused the Leafs not having cap to spend elsewhere. I'm sure other Leafs players are pissed the big 3 got so much. It squeezes them their deals or at least it hampers the Leafs acquiring needed players due to cap restraints.
I wish folks would look at the entire news conference on the "we can and we will". It certainly didn't have to mean that the Leafs would have to sign and retain these players. I just can't understand why fans belleve anything a coach, manager or player says in front a microphone. What they is just for public consumption....it's meaningless.</div></div>

Thing is, a lot of the comps were on deals that were really team-friendly. Larkin was and is worth a lot more than 6 x 5, Aho probably a chunk more than 8.5 by 5 (IMO that was arguably the best team value of the last RFA class, which is hilarious given that it was a matched offersheet). They are all relative overpays, but Toronto wasn't going to take a swing at Boston without Nylander and it does seem like fan reaction was part of the thinking on Marner.

Credit to the agents of the Leafs RFAs, they've done well for their clients. Part of that's on how the org set itself up, but the PR for the RFAs has been good too, Matthews being set up as the Ovie to McD's Crosby, Marner hailed as the team's best player after a good year on the powerplay. They've made themselves tough to avoid overpaying.