All this talk about Alex Edler and Chris Tanev, What about Erik Gudbranson??

[JamesB]

5 hours ago, 73 Percent said:

What guddy brings can't be measured by numbers. Opponents just play different when he'son the ice, timid if you will. You can also tell that he's a great leader in the room. I know most (including myself) have horvat labelled as the next captain, but guddy is an underdog candidate for me. 

 

I'm not an advanced stat fan at all but I'd bet you that webers aren't great either. But Montreal is far better when he is in the lineup. That's how i feel with gudbranson as well. 

 

Now I wasn't claiming that he can be as good as tanev or Edler, so i hope you don't think that. I'm claiming that there is no reason to trade him in my eyes. Worth every penny. 

 

Let me ask you this. Would you trade him to Edmonton for a mediocre return?

 

2 hours ago, iinatcc said:

Well except Weber actually puts up points. We cant say the same about Gudbranson

 

1 hour ago, mll said:

 

This is from last season.  Berkshire uses a video tracking software for those numbers.  That company has over 2/3rds of the teams under contract.  

 

There's a bit of contradiction - if teams are intimidated by his physicality why would they target their zone entries against him.  With more and more teams now using video tracking softwares to game plan, it might not just be a coincidence.  

 

 

1. I did not actually propose trading Guddy. As with any player, whether you should make a trade depends entirely on what you get in return. We all like Boeser but, if we could trade him for Matthews or McDavid, I think we would.  But I don't think we should be particularly looking to trade Guddy.

 

2. I agree that Guddy brings something the Canucks are short of -- size, toughness, and physical play. 

 

3. However, the Hutton/Guddy pairing over their time together in Vancouver has gotten torched. They just are not good enough as a second pairing. And, based on what opposing coaches do and on the numbers, Guddy appears to be the weak link. Therefore, I favor shifting him to the third pairing where he would spend less time against top 6 forwards and more time against bottom 6 forwards. And he is okay on the PK, where his reach helps and where zone exits are not an issue as you generally just want to ice the puck when you get it.

 

4. I would also like to see Guddy use his size and toughness more -- particularly in going out of his way to make hits on guys who take liberties with EP and Boeser.

 

5. As for the comparison with Weber, the problem is that Guddy looks like Weber -- big, strong, pretty good skater for his size. But, he is actually nowhere near as good as Weber. Weber does the things that are most central to winning -- he puts up points AND he stops the opponents from scoring. Even playing tough minutes on  a weaker team he puts up good plus/minus numbers. (Among other things, Weber has a great shot.)

[IBatch]

1 hour ago, JamesB said:

 

 

1. I did not actually propose trading Guddy. As with any player, whether you should make a trade depends entirely on what you get in return. We all like Boeser but, if we could trade him for Matthews or McDavid, I think we would.  But I don't think we should be particularly looking to trade Guddy.

 

2. I agree that Guddy brings something the Canucks are short of -- size, toughness, and physical play. 

 

3. However, the Hutton/Guddy pairing over their time together in Vancouver has gotten torched. They just are not good enough as a second pairing. And, based on what opposing coaches do and on the numbers, Guddy appears to be the weak link. Therefore, I favor shifting him to the third pairing where he would spend less time against top 6 forwards and more time against bottom 6 forwards. And he is okay on the PK, where his reach helps and where zone exits are not an issue as you generally just want to ice the puck when you get it.

 

4. I would also like to see Guddy use his size and toughness more -- particularly in going out of his way to make hits on guys who take liberties with EP and Boeser.

 

5. As for the comparison with Weber, the problem is that Guddy looks like Weber -- big, strong, pretty good skater for his size. But, he is actually nowhere near as good as Weber. Weber does the things that are most central to winning -- he puts up points AND he stops the opponents from scoring. Even playing tough minutes on  a weaker team he puts up good plus/minus numbers. (Among other things, Weber has a great shot.)

Agree with most of this, I liked the quote that showed how many players approach Gudbranson when coming in (third most in the league after Seabrook and Schenn, this has a lot to do with the extra space they get as he’s more likely to just back up while keeping good position then try and get the puck or check the guy, which gives up space to make a play), Gretzky wrote about how when he came into the NYI zone he would always avoid Potvin and go to the weaker side, partially due to the fact he’s stated Potvin was one of two guys he most feared in the league, and that he was so good he could stop when he tried.  It doesn’t mean he’s a patsy either, I used Murzyn as a comparison (although again he was much slower and not a great fighter although he’d be the first in there to protect anyone no matter what) because he was the weak link on his pairing to, he did have some excellent years as a defensive defenseman, and that’s what I’m hoping for Gudbranson too.  He’s young still, his best years are ahead still, and he’s 6’5”...size still matters and without him our defense would be too small.  

 

He would be great as a third pairing guy, adding Myers would be a solid move by Benning this summer, despite some injury concerns he’s an upgrade, and would help OJ and Hughes by taking some load off when they come in.  

[oldnews]

5 hours ago, iinatcc said:

Well except Weber actually puts up points. We cant say the same about Gudbranson

What a bizarre comparable wadr.

 

Err, but Hedman actually puts up points.  We can't say the same about Tanev.

 

Shea Weber is a Norris quality, two-way beast with few peers in the NHL.

He gets over 3 minutes a night of powerplay time (with 52% ozone starts 5 on 5) - and has one of the heaviest, most lethal slap shots in the NHL.

 

He's also the owner of a 14 year x 8 million contract.

 

Getting real might help a little.  No one ever expected Gudbranson to produce like a Weber - he plays an entirely different role.

You may as well ask why Tanev doesn't come up with Hedman's production.

 

 

 

[Gurn]

7 minutes ago, oldnews said:

Shea Weber is a Norris quality, two-way beast with few peers in the NHL.

Shea was a Norris quality guy, now he is "just' a two way beast, imo. Age gets everyone eventually.

[oldnews]

14 hours ago, JamesB said:

 

And, interestingly, Pouliot and Guddy have not been too bad together. Not great but, in the numbers, Pouliot looks like a better match for Guddy than Hutton. Hutton, on the other hand, does much better with anyone other than Guddy.

 

what a crock

 

Hutton's ozone starts are 49.2%, 2.2 higher than Gudbranson's.  His corsi is 45.5%, 2.7% higher than Gudbranson's.   The shot differential alone is a small enough margin that it could be explained by when Hutton elects to change, alone.

You're splitting ridiculous hairs to come up with a false narrative - a differential/margin of 0.5%  - without looking at the situational differences = Hutton does not do better without Gudbranson, period.  

 

And to illustrate how absurd your claim is, Hutton has played only 14.3% of his ice time this year with anyone other than Gudbranson.   Troy Stecher - with whom he's played easier minutes with higher ozone starts has been his only other partner, and the results are nothing like you suggest.  Do the math - 1/5th the ice-time resulting in a 2.2% overall ozone start diffential = a range of 10% higher ozone starts in those minutes with Stecher - and Green not utilizing them in the same role.   Context matters, period.

 

This is the problem when pseudo-analysts choose pet favorites, don't look at all the actual data, and seek cherry-picks to qualify a  biased narrative.

 

Equally absurd is the claim that Gudbranson and Hutton are the NHL's worst pairing this season.

Again, these are cherry picks based on overblowing single metrics and failing to look at anything in context (in this case, on ice goals against).

Ivan Provorov leads the NHL in on-ice goals against this season (76) - ermagerd, Hagg and Provorov are the NHL's worst defensive pairing, herpaderp.  Kindly let us know when either of them are available.  The absurd analyticz lag remains in place - and there's no excuses - it's just a plain lack of rigour.

 

Hutton and Gudbranson have played a secondary - and at times principal shutdown role - in the absence of the team's top 2 shutdown centers through most of the season.

They've also stepped into the absences of Tanev and Edler, further compromising their ability to produce what would otherwise be better outcomes.  Likewise, guys like Horvat, or Granlund, who have stepped up on a depleted roster / absences of key shutdown players  - have also taken considerable hits to particular outcomes.  This should be patently obvious to people that pretend to be 'analysts'.

Leave it to the Vancouver analtyicz pretender community to continue to attempt to sandbag their players.  Sbisa story V2.0.

 

All stuff that actual NHL franchises understand on a fundamental level and thankfully, pay no attention to the noise published out of Vancouver.

[oldnews]

41 minutes ago, gurn said:

Shea was a Norris quality guy, now he is "just' a two way beast, imo. Age gets everyone eventually.

No - it's his knees, not his age, that have held him back.

Even a 'rusty' (ie coming off injury), 'old' Shea Weber (33) is a 50 pt defenseman that no one wants to play against.

 

And btw, the guy I'd consider the Norris front-runner and possibly even the Hart is a 35 yr old mere 'two way' defenseman.

[oldnews]

At least the absurd tendency to make a whipping boy of Edler over the past three or four years has finally clammed up.

[beni]

5 hours ago, IBatch said:

We don’t have anything like Gudbranson on the team, to me he’s our Dana Murzyn except a much better skater and fighter.  It’s one article, doesn’t make it true but believe what you want.

Much better skater than Murzyn? Comparing a slug and a sloth perhaps. Fighter? The guy has 2, maybe 3 fights a season.

 

He does hit, that is basically all he is bringing to the table at this point. 

[Smashian Kassian]

Gudbranson has size, can hit, can fight & he's a pretty good skater (for his size). But he doesn't play mean consistently enough to make up for how bad he is at moving the puck. He's a bottom 3 guy, probably better suited to a bottom pair. We'll need to replace his size & brawn (I think we need to add in that area anyways) but I agree with looking for a trade. 

 

For me it comes down to this: We are still far from a playoff team, this defense needs an overhaul & how many of the current guys are part of the solution long term? 

 

Gudbranson is in his prime right now, but is he a key player in 3+ years when we hope to contend? Do we have the pieces yet (currently or coming along) to be a top contender? I'd lean towards no for both questions. 

 

If you can get good assets back (I believe 2nd+4th was floated as possible at last year's deadline for example) then do it.  Need to keep the long term view in mind for another season or two. Our young core still needs ALOT of help going forward, get as many lottery tickets as we can while prime aged players still have good value. The draft is how you get good players & drafting has been this regime's clear strength. 

[Boeserker]

19 hours ago, oldnews said:

At least the absurd tendency to make a whipping boy of Edler over the past three or four years has finally clammed up.

Edler has been finally been playing to his potential but don't forget, he is in a contract year and this is his chance to set his family up for generations to come.

 

The real Edler will be revealed next season.

 

 

[Duodenum]

16 hours ago, Smashian Kassian said:

Gudbranson has size, can hit, can fight & he's a pretty good skater (for his size). But he doesn't play mean consistently enough to make up for how bad he is at moving the puck. He's a bottom 3 guy, probably better suited to a bottom pair. We'll need to replace his size & brawn (I think we need to add in that area anyways) but I agree with looking for a trade. 

 

For me it comes down to this: We are still far from a playoff team, this defense needs an overhaul & how many of the current guys are part of the solution long term? 

 

Gudbranson is in his prime right now, but is he a key player in 3+ years when we hope to contend? Do we have the pieces yet (currently or coming along) to be a top contender? I'd lean towards no for both questions. 

 

If you can get good assets back (I believe 2nd+4th was floated as possible at last year's deadline for example) then do it.  Need to keep the long term view in mind for another season or two. Our young core still needs ALOT of help going forward, get as many lottery tickets as we can while prime aged players still have good value. The draft is how you get good players & drafting has been this regime's clear strength. 

Agreed except I don't think it's just meanness that he lacks. He's best used as an in and out of the lineup 6th dman with pk duty - kind of like Andrew Alberts.

His main issue is he can't play defense or offense. Can't give him ozone starts as he handcuffs his teammates, can't give him dzone starts because he can't defend or get the puck out of the zone properly. 

 

He's down on the 3rd pairing today, finally. Hopefully we can have Hutton and Stecher be the 2nd pairing for an extended period of time. Both more effective dmen than Gudbranson.

 

[70seven]

Idk.  Guddy may suck, but he’s our most intimidating player.  Personally I think this team needs more bruisers.

[aGENT]

18 hours ago, Smashian Kassian said:

If you can get good assets back (I believe 2nd+4th was floated as possible at last year's deadline for example) then do it.  

The odds of that 2nd or 4th even being an NHL player ....oh NVM... Yeah! all the picks! 

[oldnews]

2 hours ago, Boeserker said:

Edler has been finally been playing to his potential but don't forget, he is in a contract year and this is his chance to set his family up for generations to come.

 

The real Edler will be revealed next season.

 

 

Edler made 30 million over the past 6 seasons.  This is not his "chance to set his family up" wadr - if he's not 'set up' after making over 43 million in his career, his last contract aint gonna change a thing.

The "real" Edler has been here for a dozen years = 854 games.

[Boeserker]

Just saying. Edler's motivations will be clear after he signs his next contract.

 

Either he will revert to the mean (lackadaisical, inconsistent play with flashes of brilliance) or he will continue playing like the Edler everyone has hoped for all this while.

 

He surely wouldn't be the first player to regress after signing a big contract. Come to think of it, how did Edler's stats and play look the last time he was in a contract year?

[73 Percent]

Pretty quiet on the gudbranson front after last night's game...

[Gurn]

On ‎1‎/‎12‎/‎2019 at 3:30 PM, beni said:

Much better skater than Murzyn?

Yes, a much better skater, in a much faster league.

[oldnews]

I like the changes in the pairings last night.

I think both Pouliot - Gudbranson and Hutton - Stecher may be better fits for each and bring a bit more balance to the pairings.

Hutton brings a bit more size to Stecher's pairing - and in that role can be a bit more of a two-way play driving D - while Stecher I think benefit, particularly down low.

Likewise for Pouliot - having a heavier partner might/should help alleviate some of the battle/pressure down low.   I think he can probably handle a shift to more of a shutdown partner.

For whatever reason I don't think either Gud or Hutton are optimized playing with each other - they've had some good games together and you'd think on paper/theoretically should work well together, for whatever reason there seems to be a greater sum of parts than the whole there.  It seemed like a natural pairing when Gud was acquired - but now that Hutton has regained some confidence I think it's a positive move to play him with a different, but very competent Stecher.  I also think that Pouliot has looked better in the past when paired with Gudbranson, so hopefully that will serve him in regaining more of his game/confidence.

[Smashian Kassian]

On 1/13/2019 at 10:31 AM, aGENT said:

The odds of that 2nd or 4th even being an NHL player ....oh NVM... Yeah! all the picks! 

Well you gotta get good players somewhere. More picks you have the more chances you got. There's a chance you can get a good player (better than Gudbranson), in the 2nd round. I mean just look at the pick we traded to get Guddy, could have used that to take Alex Debrincat. 

 

This team isn't going to contend for a few years, and we still need more pieces to even get to that point. Might aswell recoup assets for Gudbranson while he still has decent value so you can get players that can potentially help Pettersson & this team contend for a cup. 

 

His toughness & ability to stand up for guys would be a loss, but I think that could be addressed in free agency. 

 

 

 

[Rob_Zepp]

On 1/8/2019 at 5:17 PM, Shift-4 said:

OP posted his own tweet  lol

Hopefully he liked it too then.

 

 

Problem is when you trade a player like Guddy, as soon as you do you need to start finding another one.