Jump to content
The Official Site of the Vancouver Canucks
Canucks Community

Higgins vs Matthais


baumerman77

Recommended Posts

Ever heard of the phrase "don't buy high and don't sell low"? Well that seems to be the thinking of a lot of people when it comes to Higgins and Matthais.

Looking at points and more specifically goals we can see that Matthais has scored 18 times this year and Higgins only 12. However, as analytics has demonstrated, goals are greatly influenced by random variation. Let's look at each players shooting percentage this year vs their career (which they will likely regress to in future seasons).

Matthais Shooting Percentage

This season: 13.6%

Career: 10.3%

Higgins Shooting Percentage and Shots per game

This season: 7.1%

Career: 9.8%

As we can see Matthais is having a up "lucky" season and Higgins is having a down "unlucky" season. Not too mention that Higgins averages 2.44 shots per game in his career where Matthais only averages 1.64 in his career.

But is it really random variation (essentially luck) or is it because Higgins is older and he is declining and Matthais is entering his prime. No.

Shooting percentage doesn't drop dramatically when a player enters his early thirties rather every season their is natural random variation in shooting percentage among other things. Ever heard of the Madden Curse or perhaps the Sports Illustrated Curse? For those who haven't athletes who are put on the cover of these games/magazines tend to have a worse season the following year? Why is this the case? Random variation. For a player to be so good they are selected to represent the sport (either on a game or a magazine) they likely had a "lucky" season where their statistics were artificially high and subsequently regressed to their career averages.

Same thing is happening here with points and goals. This is why in analytics circles points (goals and assists) are viewed with intense skepticism when it comes to evaluating a player. The better metrics to measure a player (possession, shot quality, situational stats, etc) all show that Higgins is a more valuable player even this year.

Don't buy high with Matthais and sell (trade) low with Higgins.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i'll take higgins any day...benning has said that willie told higgy, not to let go of his defensive game, in order to add more offense...higgy is the defensive conscience of what ever line he is on...willie likes to keep one man high, to act almost like a third d-man...matthias looks go at times, but other times, like kassian, you never see him.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, people like to hate on Higgins but he is what he is, and that's a tweener. Expecting him to consistently produce at a top six rate is unreasonable and kind of unfortunate for him. What he definitely IS is an elite third liner, and has a much higher hockey IQ than Matthias. In certain scenarios you take the bigger body for your third line, but Matthias has yet to show that he's interested in taking on that bruiser role. And I think we've seen enough of him to know he never will.

Keep Higgins.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, people like to hate on Higgins but he is what he is, and that's a tweener. Expecting him to consistently produce at a top six rate is unreasonable and kind of unfortunate for him. What he definitely IS is an elite third liner, and has a much higher hockey IQ than Matthias. In certain scenarios you take the bigger body for your third line, but Matthias has yet to show that he's interested in taking on that bruiser role. And I think we've seen enough of him to know he never will.

Keep Higgins.

I agree. Too bad we didn't trade Matthias at the deadline.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would like to see someone on CDC ask Matthais to his face why he isn't giving maximum effort, and then cry once they get punched in the face.

Then again Matthais has probably too much character to do dat

Still want JB to re-sign him.

7 points against the west this year.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They're likely both gone next year IMO.

Yeah, you may be right. Of the two, my preference would be Higgy as he offers a more complete game and is fabulous role model for the youngins. Versatile, reliable, hard working, one of the best pk guys and cheap to boot.

Matthias will want the moon after seeing the Dorsett contract. I think JB is waiting to see how he performs in the playoffs. We don't need another big guy that plays like he's 175lbs.

Imo, the greater question is Higgy or Hansen. Sadly, I'm leaning more towards Hansen. I would prefer that neither are traded, at least not until after the break next year.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I see the things completely differently. In my book i let Higgins go (to the islanders) and re-sign matthias.

Every time i see Higgins with the puck or next to it, i know that he will bubble it and lose control.

He's not fast (although his 2-3 firsts steps aren't that bad), doesn't have a great shot, he's not famous for his puck protection skill nor his physicality.

costs 2.5M and he is 31 years old.

On the other hand Shawn Matthias is a speedy power forward, who like to crash the net, could finish with some really good hands, protect the puck so well... he's what Kassian supposed to be. He's 27 years old.

Give him a 2- 2.5M range.

so for me, Higgins out, Matthias stays.

too bad we have to get rid of Richardson too, to make room for some youngsters. i do believe that a line composed of Matthias-Richardson-Dorsett may (and will) do some damage in the playoffs, and give us headache about who are we letting go.

Note : just saw the dorsett's signing at 2.65M. i like Dorsett, i'm not against his new contrat, but you can't pay all your bottom 6 guy 2.5M+. So i do hope that Benning will offer a low 2M to Matthais, but i can't see Matthais agreer with that, especially with that new contract at 2.65M.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...