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The Everything NHL Thread

oh shit he moved too didn't he...my mistake!

The oilers still won't get him though, they don't have much to offer that they won't need in the immediate future (ie young guys and draft picks), unless the ducks are stupid enough to take eric cole.
 
Honestly I'm not even sure I'd buy the defensive liability argument with the defensemen - it's a team that's allowed fifteen more goals than it has scored with subpar goaltending - you're not going to put up gaudy +/- scores with that. I mean, Souray is a career minus player but is actually putting up one of his better scores on a team with a negative goal differential - that doesn't really indicate that he isn't playing defense to me. But don't make any mistake Visnovski should be the #1 D there now and not having him there makes everyone else play more time than they should in situaitons they shouldn't be in. That D has been banged up all year.
 
Oh I was just using the +/- to illustrate that he is defensively liable with some stats, compared to the rest of his team.

IMO, the number 1 and 2 defensemen should be leading the team in +/-, or at least be stacking up in a positive way. See, Visnovski is just about leading the team in +/-, but Souray certainly isn't.
 
To be honest I'm not really a fan of the +/- rating. It admittedly has a high correlation with defense, but it really judges + good offense - bad defense more than it judges good defense.

I don't really enjoy using examples as "proof" (more explanation) but the Devils always seem to be a good example. Their D is usually not in the top of the league in +-, and many would argue the Devils easily have a top 5 defense. (this shoud probably be in a past tense)
 
Mormoopid said:
Oh I was just using the +/- to illustrate that he is defensively liable with some stats, compared to the rest of his team.

IMO, the number 1 and 2 defensemen should be leading the team in +/-, or at least be stacking up in a positive way. See, Visnovski is just about leading the team in +/-, but Souray certainly isn't.
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That depends largely on what you want your number 1 and 2 D to do though, I mean, as is the issue with Souray, even with Vish he is probably 2 but he wont be plus anything either. He is really effective on the power play and suffers more so even strength, how will he ever really LEAD in +/-?
 
Well you'd just assume that your core defensemen would be adept at defending, psycho. Maybe I ask too much.

+/- isn't the best, but at least it isn't as stupid as goalie wins.


Overall the devils defense probably isn't the best, but as far as their best defensemen go? Well,

Scott Stevens was one of their top two for a while, check this (from wikipedia):

After another season leading all Devils defencemen in scoring,[22] Stevens stepped up his offensive game in 1993-94. He posted 18 goals and 60 assists totaling 78 points, good enough for the team lead.[13] He won the NHL Plus-Minus Award, finishing with +53
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Seems pretty clear to me that there is at least some correlation with defensemen being good at defense and having a good plus minus.
 
Hmm, looks like the New Jersey Devils were a bad example. I can't recall what I was referring to.

Even now Colin White has a +18 is which is really good.

I'll do some research and get back on that.
 
Mormoopid said:
Well you'd just assume that your core defensemen would be adept at defending, psycho. Maybe I ask too much.

+/- isn't the best, but at least it isn't as stupid as goalie wins.


Overall the devils defense probably isn't the best, but as far as their best defensemen go? Well,

Scott Stevens was one of their top two for a while, check this (from wikipedia):



Seems pretty clear to me that there is at least some correlation with defensemen being good at defense and having a good plus minus.
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You would think so but there are a multitude of factors that can alter a plus minus with no real relation to your ability to defend...

Also since we were talking about those we know personally in the NHL, Steve MacIntyre actually, I hung out with the guy for 2 years straight pretty much. I also have many more stories and stuff but right now isnt really the time to rattle them off...
 
Unfortunately for your side, it seems right now that the number one factor affecting +/- is actually defending well or scoring well. +/- is something that I find to be most useful when comparing across a team, not a league. As was already pointed out, a team with a negative goal ratio will have lower +/- inherantly, so the only fair comparison is between teammates that have played reasonable amounts of games (so, the rookie that plays like 5 games might not be reliable for those stats).


Also, cool about MacIntyre...is he really as stupid as I assume everyone that plays for the Oilers are? (just kidding)
 
Mormoopid said:
Unfortunately for your side, it seems right now that the number one factor affecting +/- is actually defending well or scoring well. +/- is something that I find to be most useful when comparing across a team, not a league. As was already pointed out, a team with a negative goal ratio will have lower +/- inherantly, so the only fair comparison is between teammates that have played reasonable amounts of games (so, the rookie that plays like 5 games might not be reliable for those stats).


Also, cool about MacIntyre...is he really as stupid as I assume everyone that plays for the Oilers are? (just kidding)
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To me +/- is about the dumbest stat ever invented, but as far as it goes, like the case with Souray or other power play D, you can score as much as you want on a power play and it obviously wont effect your +/-. The issue I find with D is that, as I play it myself collegiately(is that a word), is that when you are a good D for example and you can defend whatever, and you get paired with a shitty forward combo and cant get the puck out, or when your goalie has an awful game, there are multiple factors that effect it. And while played out over the whole season you "should" be able to keep it resectable, a lot of it is luck based too. When you are out for 3, 4 PP goals a night and have primary assists on all of them, and then your goalie lets in 2 from outside the blue line regular strength, you end up -2, whatever. But in my own example, as has been the case for my team lately, we possess the puck well, drawn penalties, our PP is like 45%, however, our goalies are shitting the bed so everyones +/- is like within -10 to 5 or so. Also our goal differential is like 160 for, 90 against. Go figure that one out.

MacIntyre is actually a pretty smart guy and I remember him actually hitting someone with their own helmet in a fight once.
 
Let's not forget a team's defensive Ds will usually get more ice time against the other team's top lines while they might not necessairly get as much ice time with their own top offensive lines.
 
Vineon said:
Let's not forget a team's defensive Ds will usually get more ice time against the other team's top lines while they might not necessairly get as much ice time with their own top offensive lines.
Click to expand...

I can't really tell which side you're supporting; if a good defensive duo racks up a good +/- while not playing with their own top line and playing against other teams top lines, would that not suggest that they are doing something right?

I would counter you psycho by pointing out that good defense can even bolster a mediocre goaltender to looking reasonable...Ty Conklin anyone? Again, for the third time, I'll say that +/- is really at its best use when comparing against teammates, not across the league. So, if a teammate is -13 when the rest of the team is like +9, you know someone isn't doing something right. Can you guess who that player would be? It would almost certainly be the one with -13.
 
I guess I'd take Stajan right now, but it is a toss-up and I'd keep an eye on the line assignments. Right now Atlanta is running

Atlanta line combos
Ilya Kovalchuk Todd White Bryan Little
Slava Kozlov Marty Reasoner Rich Peverley

but if Peverley were to spend some time with Kovalchuk, or even White and Little, he'd probably be the better option.




In other vaguely fantasy related news, Ducks trade Kunitz for Pens Whitney and random prospect.

I kind of don't like this trade for either team, which is strange, since someone should be winning...

With the Pens they're obviously trying to deal for someone to flank Crosby since Fedetenko and Satan have been the mediocre players they are. I'm not really sure why they feel Kunitz is the answer, though, since he's also a medicore player that has soaked up points riding shotgun on the Getzlaf-Perry train. I guess at least he has experience leeching players that are better than him...

I don't like them moving Whitney, exactly, either since they don't have a stellar blue line. This gives more ice time for Goligoski, assuming they still think he is the Gonchar of the future, but he and the rest of the blue line really didn't look very impressive while Gonchar and the aforementioned Whitney was hurt (although they were winning more games), so this is a pretty strong leap of faith in some of their younger guys, especially since veteran penalty committing extraordinaire Boucher is still injured. From a fantasy perspective, this in theory would raise the value of said Goligoski and scrubby friends, but considering they weren't really worth owning when Gonchar was out of the line up anyway... probably a slight boost to Kunitz too, but like I said before, he was already riding a gravy train.



The Anaheim side makes even less sense in the short term, but there's a big element of not knowing everything here because acquiring Whitney pretty much seals the deal that at least one of Pronger and Niedermayer will be finishing the season elsewhere. If that doesn't happen, it sure looks silly to trade from the weakness (forwards, specifically secondary scoring) to the strength (defenseman)...

The thing that gets me about moving Kunitz is that they have so little scoring outside of Getzlaf-Perry already. Morrison has done very little and isn't a long term solution, Selanne already faux-retired once and can't have more than a year or two left in him, they traded McDonald for basically nothing last year to make cap room for someone else (Schneider) they traded away for nothing, and now they get rid of Kunitz as well... they're rapidly turning into those Ottawa Senators they beat two years ago.

Of course, the Senators have three forwards, whereas I've only mentioned the Ducks with two, but the Duck this trade really affects should be that third stud forward - Bobby Ryan. He should have been called up years ago but Burke can't manage the cap to save his life, and he's sure proven he is a stud this year, producing in spite of the fact his line assignment and ice time are about as random as the Thrashers offense. Moving Kunitz should clear up L1 time for him for the rest of the season barring another move, that's a line that could stick together for many years.
 
Fuck Columbus, stop being good.
Besides that, Rollie is definately in playoff form; let's hope we get some good defencemen by the deadline because our GA is pretty bad compared to the the other guys in the western clusterfuck.
 
Was pretty busy last night and forgot to check which goalies were playing. Thank me later Synre for having Brodeur benched on a SO.
 
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