Leafs trade for Dave Bolland

[CarltonTheBear]

Somebody else also dug up the fact that Patrick Kane's corsi rating with Bolland on the ice too was 44%. When he played without Bolland that number skyrocketed up to 56%.

While that may be true I can't help but feel as though that has a lot to do with the fact that the center that Kane played the most with other than Bolland was Toews. That's a tough comparison for any center.

At even-strength the centre that he played the second most with was actually Kruger. He played probably roughly twice as much with him than with Toews.

 

[Kin]

At even-strength the centre that he played the second most with was actually Kruger. He played probably roughly twice as much with him than that Toews.

Ah. I see that now. Fair enough.

 

[OldTimeHockey]

At the time of the trade Nonis talked about how Bolland's role with Chicago last season was more of a third line role. Carlyle said the exact same thing yesterday. The idea here is that Bolland hasn't been given an opportunity to play in a top-6 role so there's some untapped potential there. The problem is that statement is completely not true.

I met Dave Nonis yesterday, he was standing in front of my building.

Did you ask him why he and Carlyle keep saying that Bolland was a third line centre last season when his most common linemates were Kane and Sharp?

Probably because he averaged the 7th most even strength time on ice among Chicago forwards. I'm just guessing of course.

This exchange was taken from the useless thread where I was just being a little cheeky. If I'm going to elaborate a little bit on that I wanted to move it here. I'm sure you'll find it here OTH.

The fact that Bolland was 7th in even-strength ice-time with the Hawks is really the fault of his own. He played about 92% of his even-strength ice time with Patrick Kane. He played about 43% of his even-strength ice time centring a line of Patrick Kane and Patrick Sharp. His 8 most frequent line combinations had Patrick Kane on them. To put these numbers into context a little bit, Bolland with with Kane more frequently than Bozak played with Kessel last season. If you have Kane on your wing that often you aren't playing on the third line. He centered Chicago's 2nd line essentially from the beginning to the end of the regular season. He was only bumped off in the playoffs in favour of Michael Handzus.

Why it took so long for Chicago to take him off that line is beyond me, because all the numbers show that he was brutal in that role. Patrick Kane had 38 even-strength points last season. The league leader was Eric Staal with 43. Bolland had a measly 10 points at even-strength while spending 92% of his ice time with one the highest scoring players in the league. Somebody else also dug up the fact that Patrick Kane's corsi rating with Bolland on the ice too was 44%. When he played without Bolland that number skyrocketed up to 56%.

I'm not trashing Dave Bolland here. I liked the trade a lot. I didn't like some of the things that it meant for our roster, but I do like the idea of having Bolland on our 3rd line. It's just amazing that Nonis and Carlyle can stand there and say that he was a third liner last season. It makes me question how much they even watched him play, if they did at all. It also makes me worried that they might be comfortable playing him on the 2nd line, particularly if Kadri has an extended hold-out. Because if it didn't work in Chicago it certainly work here. Bolland needs to be on the third line to be effective.

Hope you didn't think I was challenging you. I just offered a guess at your query. 

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Hope you didn't think I was challenging you. I just offered a guess at your query. 

Don't worry, I just needed to get that off my chest.