2016-17 Centennial Leafs General Team Discussion

[herman]

For some reason, the red line splits the team between most of the players I want to keep, and all the players I wanted us to trade.

 

[disco]

https://twitter.com/markhmasters/status/841297076239683589

 

[TBLeafer]

The Leafs have a really solid record against the teams they have left on their docket for the remainder of the season.

They are a cumulative 15-4-3 against them so far this season. Those numbers are encouraging enough to remain optimistic that playoffs remain a very strong possibility for us.

GO LEAFS GO!!!

 

[Zee]

https://twitter.com/markhmasters/status/841297076239683589

The tribute to Pat Quinn is awesome:

 

[herman]

https://twitter.com/thrubeniuk/status/842745364771995654
www.twitter.com/thrubeniuk/status/842745364771995654

https://theathletic.com/44762/2017/03/17/dellow-nobodys-gaming-corsi-except-claude-giroux-and-nine-other-arguments/
Tyler Dellow takes a spin at jotting down some random thoughts, a la Friedman. This picture refers to one of them specific to the Leafs.

Note Rielly's line being kind of rather okay to good for someone who is routinely swamped with the hardest match up. Willy's the forward Gardiner.

 

[herman]

https://theathletic.com/45668/2017/03/21/what-is-the-deal-with-leafs-forward-james-van-riemsdyk-and-his-bright-green-mouthguard/

Large Chewie on why he chews.

TL;DR: he doesn't know why.

 

[WhatIfGodWasALeaf]

Bracco signed to an ELC.

 

[bustaheims]

Bracco signed to an ELC.

Excellent news. Hopefully, Stephen Desrocher is next.

 

[herman]

https://theathletic.com/45410/2017/03/22/dellow-in-defence-of-morgan-rielly-as-a-no-1-defenceman/

There's a lot to like. What's looked bad this year has not been a pattern throughout his career, and he's been deployed like Chara and Lidstrom as a 22/23 year old. Throw him back into a softer slot and he immediately excels. I think there is still room to grow to hone his instincts.

 

[ZBBM]

https://theathletic.com/45410/2017/03/22/dellow-in-defence-of-morgan-rielly-as-a-no-1-defenceman/

There's a lot to like. What's looked bad this year has not been a pattern throughout his career, and he's been deployed like Chara and Lidstrom as a 22/23 year old. Throw him back into a softer slot and he immediately excels. I think there is still room to grow to hone his instincts.

Since this is behind a paywall I can only react to the title of the piece and your reading.  It's very simple: if somebody only excels in "a softer slot" he's not a #1 defenseman.

 

[herman]

Since this is behind a paywall I can only react to the title of the piece and your reading.  It's very simple: if somebody only excels in "a softer slot" he's not a #1 defenseman (yet).

He's clearly not Lidstrom or Chara.

 

[Bender]

It says he's had most difficult matchups vs all D in last 2yrs

 

[Coco-puffs]

https://theathletic.com/45410/2017/03/22/dellow-in-defence-of-morgan-rielly-as-a-no-1-defenceman/

There's a lot to like. What's looked bad this year has not been a pattern throughout his career, and he's been deployed like Chara and Lidstrom as a 22/23 year old. Throw him back into a softer slot and he immediately excels. I think there is still room to grow to hone his instincts.

Since this is behind a paywall I can only react to the title of the piece and your reading.  It's very simple: if somebody only excels in "a softer slot" he's not a #1 defenseman.

Well, based on the information you have in front of you I don't blame you for saying what you've said.

The article points out he's facing the TOUGHEST COMPETITION in the league this year.  (49.3% Star-percentage.  The average for the best defensemen on each team is 36.7%).  He goes on to analyze Left Handed Defensemen who faced high levels of stars (above 45%) in any one season and finds 56 times that's occurred.  (He says there is a structural advantage for RHD so he excluded them.  Didn't explain what that advantage was though)

If you exclude Chara and Lidstrom from the analysis, on the basis that there?s considerable room between ?Top 10 defenceman in NHL history? and ?Not good enough to be the No. 1 defenceman on a Cup contender,? the average for the group falls to 48.2 per cent and a relative Corsi percentage of minus-1.9 per cent.  In terms of possession, Rielly (50.4%, +0.7%) looks fairly good when contrasted with guys who are fed into the wood chipper like he is.

And he's had terrible luck:

This year is a mess, with both his on-ice shooting and save percentages being drastically lower than that of the team when he?s not on the ice.

And here's the kicker:

If the save percentage when a given defenceman is on the ice is awful, it?s because he?s inept defensively, right?  Surprisingly, there isn?t really a lot of evidence that this is the case. Over the course of their careers, defencemen tend to end up with on-ice save percentages that are pretty close to what their team does when they?re not on the ice.  And a lot of guys have years where their save percentage is much worse than their team who end up being fine for their career.

Dellow ends it like this

The bottom line is that Rielly is a very good player playing obscenely difficult minutes, without a high-end partner, and not having much luck while doing so. There?s no reason to expect the misfortune part to continue.

He just turned 23 years old and, even if he doesn?t get much better, he?s already a fine cornerstone for a first pairing.

 

[LuncheonMeat]

I don't think we'll see just how good Rielly is until he's paired with a defenceman who's better than he is.

 

[Coco-puffs]

I don't think we'll see just how good Rielly is until he's paired with a defenceman who's better than he is.

You mean like when he was paired with Ekblad on Team North America at the World Cup?  Or when he'll be on Team Canada in 2018.

Don't laugh at that last suggestion.  Almost all of Canada's star defensemen are right handed.  Only Duncan Keith and Vlasic-pickles stand out as better than Rielly among left-handed Canadian defensemen.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

The article points out he's facing the TOUGHEST COMPETITION in the league this year.  (49.3% Star-percentage.  The average for the best defensemen on each team is 36.7%).  He goes on to analyze Left Handed Defensemen who faced high levels of stars (above 45%) in any one season and finds 56 times that's occurred.  (He says there is a structural advantage for RHD so he excluded them.  Didn't explain what that advantage was though)

I've always been a little sceptical of something like "star percentage". We heard the same thing during the Phaneuf era, except it was using QoC at that time. But it was the same idea: our defenceman plays the absolute toughest minutes in the NHL. I know that Rielly gets matched up against top line competition game in and game out. But I just have a hard time believing that a Doughty or a Keith or a Weber or a Vlasic or a Suter or a Hedman don't get that same exact type of treatment from their coaches.

 

[Beowulf]

https://twitter.com/thrubeniuk/status/842745364771995654
www.twitter.com/thrubeniuk/status/842745364771995654

https://theathletic.com/44762/2017/03/17/dellow-nobodys-gaming-corsi-except-claude-giroux-and-nine-other-arguments/
Tyler Dellow takes a spin at jotting down some random thoughts, a la Friedman. This picture refers to one of them specific to the Leafs.

Note Rielly's line being kind of rather okay to good for someone who is routinely swamped with the hardest match up. Willy's the forward Gardiner.

https://theathletic.com/45410/2017/03/22/dellow-in-defence-of-morgan-rielly-as-a-no-1-defenceman/

There's a lot to like. What's looked bad this year has not been a pattern throughout his career, and he's been deployed like Chara and Lidstrom as a 22/23 year old. Throw him back into a softer slot and he immediately excels. I think there is still room to grow to hone his instincts.

Since this is behind a paywall I can only react to the title of the piece and your reading.  It's very simple: if somebody only excels in "a softer slot" he's not a #1 defenseman.

Well, based on the information you have in front of you I don't blame you for saying what you've said.

The article points out he's facing the TOUGHEST COMPETITION in the league this year.  (49.3% Star-percentage.  The average for the best defensemen on each team is 36.7%).  He goes on to analyze Left Handed Defensemen who faced high levels of stars (above 45%) in any one season and finds 56 times that's occurred.  (He says there is a structural advantage for RHD so he excluded them.  Didn't explain what that advantage was though)

If you exclude Chara and Lidstrom from the analysis, on the basis that there?s considerable room between ?Top 10 defenceman in NHL history? and ?Not good enough to be the No. 1 defenceman on a Cup contender,? the average for the group falls to 48.2 per cent and a relative Corsi percentage of minus-1.9 per cent.  In terms of possession, Rielly (50.4%, +0.7%) looks fairly good when contrasted with guys who are fed into the wood chipper like he is.

And he's had terrible luck:

This year is a mess, with both his on-ice shooting and save percentages being drastically lower than that of the team when he?s not on the ice.

And here's the kicker:

If the save percentage when a given defenceman is on the ice is awful, it?s because he?s inept defensively, right?  Surprisingly, there isn?t really a lot of evidence that this is the case. Over the course of their careers, defencemen tend to end up with on-ice save percentages that are pretty close to what their team does when they?re not on the ice.  And a lot of guys have years where their save percentage is much worse than their team who end up being fine for their career.

Dellow ends it like this

The bottom line is that Rielly is a very good player playing obscenely difficult minutes, without a high-end partner, and not having much luck while doing so. There?s no reason to expect the misfortune part to continue.

He just turned 23 years old and, even if he doesn?t get much better, he?s already a fine cornerstone for a first pairing.

Sent from my MotoG3 using Tapatalk

 

[Coco-puffs]

The article points out he's facing the TOUGHEST COMPETITION in the league this year.  (49.3% Star-percentage.  The average for the best defensemen on each team is 36.7%).  He goes on to analyze Left Handed Defensemen who faced high levels of stars (above 45%) in any one season and finds 56 times that's occurred.  (He says there is a structural advantage for RHD so he excluded them.  Didn't explain what that advantage was though)

I've always been a little sceptical of something like "star percentage". We heard the same thing during the Phaneuf era, except it was using QoC at that time. But it was the same idea: our defenceman plays the absolute toughest minutes in the NHL. I know that Rielly gets matched up against top line competition game in and game out. But I just have a hard time believing that a Doughty or a Keith or a Weber or a Vlasic or a Suter or a Hedman don't get that same exact type of treatment from their coaches.

They do!  Here are the top 20 and bottom 20 "star percentage" players.

https://twitter.com/dellowhockey/status/844596693198946311

Dellow does indicate that the bottom 20 matters much less... clearly we see Jake Gardiner get tougher matchups than Hunlak, but they are both bottom 20 in terms of time spent against the other teams best forward mostly because Rielly and Zaitsev have been hard-matched a ton to that player on the opposition.

Here's my take on it.  Rielly isn't getting killed in the shot battle even though he's facing very tough competition.  That's a good sign.  However, he's getting killed in the actual results column (ie GF%).  As dellow pointed out- that is mostly to do with PDO.  As we already know, PDO tends to even itself out in the long term.  Take a look at a guy like Hamonic (who, like Rielly this year, has a terrible GF% and terrible PDO).  Almost every other year in his career was much better- almost entirely due to average PDO.

Thats not to say Rielly doesn't have room for improvement (and Zaitsev too).  In particular, with boxing out in front of the net where they haven't done much to help their goalie out.  Too many goals against from screens, rebounds, and tip-ins. 

 

[herman]

Here's my take on it.  Rielly isn't getting killed in the shot battle even though he's facing very tough competition.  That's a good sign.  However, he's getting killed in the actual results column (ie GF%).  As dellow pointed out- that is mostly to do with PDO.  As we already know, PDO tends to even itself out in the long term.  Take a look at a guy like Hamonic (who, like Rielly this year, has a terrible GF% and terrible PDO).  Almost every other year in his career was much better- almost entirely due to average PDO.

Thats not to say Rielly doesn't have room for improvement (and Zaitsev too).  In particular, with boxing out in front of the net where they haven't done much to help their goalie out.  Too many goals against from screens, rebounds, and tip-ins.

That's pretty much where I'm at with this as well.

I don't think Rielly is a premiere 1D, but I think he is capable of being a decent average 1D (but a really really awesome 2nd pairing D), and it'll be really nice if he was supplanted the way Kadri will be by Matthews.

 

[Kin]

You mean like when he was paired with Ekblad on Team North America at the World Cup?  Or when he'll be on Team Canada in 2018.

Don't laugh at that last suggestion.  Almost all of Canada's star defensemen are right handed.  Only Duncan Keith and Vlasic-pickles stand out as better than Rielly among left-handed Canadian defensemen.

Giordano and Muzzin too.