Elliotte Friedman 31 thoughts

[Bloody Brian Burke]

^^Kind of odd that he didn't mention Ryan Murray. That contract is up in 2015. It will never get there - he will be extended long before then (I hope).

I think he's referring solely to UFA's. Murray will (doubtfully) be RFA.

 

[forty_three]

I think he's referring solely to UFA's. Murray will (doubtfully) be RFA.

Ah. That would indeed explain it.

Cranial flatulence on my part.

 

[puckhead]

9. One exec on the Oilers: “They are making (fewer) trade calls than you would think.”

 

[dash]

Good stuff (as usual from Elliotte)

30 Thoughts: Financial woes not unique to Johnson - Sportsnet.ca

 

[tducey]

Friedman's a great analyst for sure. As to hockey players going bankrupt and other athletes. Each team should hire 2 financial guys to tell these guys how to best spend and invest their money. Also each player should be able to save 100,000 a season at least. These guys make millions, no reason for anyone to go bankrupt. (Though the Johnson situation is different but he could have helped by an investor)

 

[puckhead]

lol

19. Adam Lowry had a terrific story about lining up for a faceoff against Eric Nystrom. “He turned to me and said, ‘Are you (Dave’s) son?’” Lowry said. “I told him I was, and he said, ‘(Bleep), I’m old.’” Dave Lowry coached Nystrom in Calgary.

 

[puckhead]

30 Thoughts: Analytics say Oilers luck should turn - Sportsnet.ca

Friedman brings me comforting words from JD the Wizard:
Blue Jackets president John Davidson spoke to team majority owner John P. McConnell on Sunday. “He understands the situation,” Davidson said Monday. “When you’re not winning, people want you to sacrifice things to put on a Band-Aid. This is a full-fledged open wound, a Band-Aid doesn’t help.”

So, don’t expect Columbus to make silly, short-term moves. “There’s nothing you can do,” Davidson added. “The analogy I use is it’s like building a wall, one brick at a time. Now the wall is knocked over…is it doctors, trainers, conditioning, the coach? When you break down the injuries, none of these people are to blame. All of a sudden a tsunami hit us.”

If Davidson has one concern, it’s that the Blue Jackets “slipped with their work habits,” particularly in last Friday’s 5-0 loss to Vancouver. “We don’t want or like that. You could see how deflated we were when they made it 2-0. No matter where this goes, you have got to deal with it. You have to enjoy the battle.”

They did, gritting out a 2-1 home victory over Florida, a team that came in with only two regulation road losses.

Davidson had some great lines in this conversation. “We’re not in this position because we are a bad hockey club, but because everyone is hurt. We’ve been kicked right in the teeth. We’ll wait for them to heal, and then we’ll eat again.” I’m going to steal some of these.


I love that guy

the problem with expecting everyone's PDO to revert to 100, is that if you have consistently shitty goaltending (save%), you would need consistently above-average shooting% to make up for it.

sometimes shitty goaltending just is.
and sometimes it's because an exceptionally shitty defense allows for exceptionally high percentage scoring chances (see coffee table book).
PDO is a symptom, not a full diagnostic.


/ I assume you meant to put this into the Freidman thread, so I'm moving the quote over

 

[juliansteed]

the problem with expecting everyone's PDO to revert to 100, is that if you have consistently shitty goaltending (save%), you would need consistently above-average shooting% to make up for it.

sometimes shitty goaltending just is.
and sometimes it's because an exceptionally shitty defense allows for exceptionally high percentage scoring chances (see coffee table book).
PDO is a symptom, not a full diagnostic.


/ I assume you meant to put this into the Freidman thread, so I'm moving the quote over

Yup, same thing with shooters. Some just aren't very good shooters or maybe there is no problem with their shot but they aren't good at getting themselves into high scoring opportunities and take a lot of low percentage shots. And then you would have guys that are the exact opposite. Not really buying this whole "luck" thing. At least not as a team. I suppose individual players could be lucky in the sense that they are lucky to have stronger teammates than others that could also impact these numbers.

And even if we were to assume that it is luck, that doesn't mean it's going to even itself out. Going forward you can expect most players to have even "luck". But past luck has no impact on future luck, unless your superstitious then I suppose it could go either way depending on what you believe. So yeah, the whole "bounce back" thing and trying to guess when a player's luck is going to change, don't really make sense to me (even if I actually agreed that these numbers are all luck which I clearly do not).

 

[KennyBanyeah]

Yup, same thing with shooters. Some just aren't very good shooters or maybe there is no problem with their shot but they aren't good at getting themselves into high scoring opportunities and take a lot of low percentage shots. And then you would have guys that are the exact opposite. Not really buying this whole "luck" thing. At least not as a team. I suppose individual players could be lucky in the sense that they are lucky to have stronger teammates than others that could also impact these numbers.

And even if we were to assume that it is luck, that doesn't mean it's going to even itself out. Going forward you can expect most players to have even "luck". But past luck has no impact on future luck, unless your superstitious then I suppose it could go either way depending on what you believe. So yeah, the whole "bounce back" thing and trying to guess when a player's luck is going to change, don't really make sense to me (even if I actually agreed that these numbers are all luck which I clearly do not).

This is essentially a philosophical conundrum in stats in general.

The thinking here is that PDOs (game-wise) are a random distribution. The idea is that over a sufficient sample size (say 82 games) a team will have roughly as many high PDO games as it does low ones. Therefore if a team has a high PDO through 20 games the assumed random distribution would mean that low PDO games are in the offing to make the population (of games in this case) more consistent with a random distribution. This is likely a FAIRLY reasonable assumption.

As you point out, though, in the first paragraph (and puck as well), these events are NOT random so some goalies will just stop more pucks. Some players, and teams, will give up higher quality chances, etc.

I think a more reasonable way to look at it is players, and teams, whose PDOs are outliers (I'd say <970 and >1030) are likely to see some drift towards the 1000 mark. I say this because the disparity in talent in the NHL just isn't that large, IMO.

 

[dash]

Brandon Sutter to the Oilers - Elliotte says maybe, but more likely the Pens keep him.

30 Thoughts: Possible trade fits for Oilers - Sportsnet.ca

 

[Bloody Brian Burke]

Brandon Sutter to the Oilers - Elliotte says maybe, but more likely the Pens keep him.

30 Thoughts: Possible trade fits for Oilers - Sportsnet.ca

4. Here’s another Boston possibility, albeit on a smaller scale: Vancouver’s Zack Kassian. Kassian currently is injured, but I can see the Bruins taking a shot when he returns. Jim Benning knows Boston’s prospects, it probably doesn’t cost Chiarelli a ton and Kassian has the edge Boston is looking for, although he hasn’t shown enough of it yet.

Late note: Boston may have cooled on this one.

"Hey, Freedge? It's Pete. Just read the 30, and I thought it was pretty obvious that I was completely fucking around when I said I wanted Zach Kassian. Might wanna adjust that lest Jimmy start hounding my phone with Kassian + Matthias for Lucic proposals. Thanks."

 

[evolver115]

Brandon Sutter to the Oilers - Elliotte says maybe, but more likely the Pens keep him.

Sure, the Coil can have Sutter, as long as RNH is coming the other way

But, that's not going to happen. Pittsburgh cannot afford to be without Sutter. Outside of Evgeni Malkin and Fleury, I don't think there is a Penguin playing better than Sutter has the past few months, and pretty much all of the previous post-season. Heck, he was their best player last spring.

 

[dash]

Elliotte Friedman with a good write-up on Evander Kane.

Why 'fiercely independent' Kane must change ways - Sportsnet.ca

 

[Dacks]

Sure, the Coil can have Sutter, as long as RNH is coming the other way

But, that's not going to happen. Pittsburgh cannot afford to be without Sutter. Outside of Evgeni Malkin and Fleury, I don't think there is a Penguin playing better than Sutter has the past few months, and pretty much all of the previous post-season. Heck, he was their best player last spring.

Sutter had a great post season, but other than that, he's garbage. He fails both the eye test (especially weak on puck battles) and the stats test (by just about any measure, he's way below average as a third liner, offensively, but defensively as well). He's the biggest reason the pens have some of the worst bottom six production in the league.

He has to go, and if another team wants him, hallelujah.

 

[Bloody Brian Burke]

Sutter had a great post season, but other than that, he's garbage. He fails both the eye test (especially weak on puck battles) and the stats test (by just about any measure, he's way below average as a third liner, offensively, but defensively as well). He's the biggest reason the pens have some of the worst bottom six production in the league.

He has to go, and if another team wants him, hallelujah.

Sutter for Bozak.

 

[evolver115]

Sutter had a great post season, but other than that, he's garbage. He fails both the eye test (especially weak on puck battles) and the stats test (by just about any measure, he's way below average as a third liner, offensively, but defensively as well). He's the biggest reason the pens have some of the worst bottom six production in the league.

He has to go, and if another team wants him, hallelujah.

I wrote that about him back in mid December when he was being fairly productive. Obviously, he has struggled since, but I still have faith in Sutter. Johnston gives him a whole bunch of defensive responsibilities, and given the turnstile that has been his wingers since about the time I wrote my comment about him, I'm not surprised to see that he has struggled to produce. Just about every forward has missed time the past two and a half months, and Sutter has been asked to skate with a laundry list of wings.

I just go back to how he performed for them against the Jackets and NYR's last post-season. He was arguably the best forward they had, and when he elevated his play for those games, it really stood out. I think he can do it again.

 

[Bloody Brian Burke]

Regarding Matt Puempel:

Finally, he told a good story about the 2011 draft, where the Senators took him 24th overall.

“Toronto had told me if I was there they would grab me. They traded for the 22nd pick, so I was anxious and excited, but they didn’t take me. Then Ottawa moved up… and they were interested, too. My agent (Pat Morris) winked at me, and I knew.”

Suffice it to say Puempel, who grew up a Leaf fan, switched allegiances very quickly.

The Leafs used that pick on Tyler Biggs.

Honestly, from the bottom of my heart, fuck you Brian Burke.

 

[dash]

Honestly, from the bottom of my heart, fuck you Brian Burke.

Either Burkie has seen the light, or he's truly stepped back into the shadows and is letting Brad Treliving make the bulk of player personnel decisions. Doesn't really matter that much to me at this point.

 

[Bloody Brian Burke]

Either Burkie has seen the light, or he's truly stepped back into the shadows and is letting Brad Treliving make the bulk of player personnel decisions. Doesn't really matter that much to me at this point.

I want him to resign so I can feel healthier about cheering for the Flames. He's such a stain.

I didn't see this, but I heard on the radio at lunchtime that he apparently did an interview where he basically admitted making the Kessel trade because "he felt season ticket holders weren't getting a draw for their money". Given that he had 100% final say on all hockey matters during his tenure here, Brian Burke basically decided to play owner and appease the season ticket base instead of looking out for the best interests of his hockey team. That's some fucked up shit right there.

 

[puckhead]

all about the coaches
(and some euro players ready to make the jump)