(discussion) With stats/facts to back it up, explain where you think our d group ranks.

[ilduce39]

Great thread if all it does is throw some water on the narrative / perception that we have the worst defence in the league. 
 

I agree with the idea that they’re overpaid - but I’m not sure it’s not as extreme as some of the figures say.  Sure looks like D aren’t going for a bargain these days.
 

Hoping that this group can keep it up with maybe a little boost from a healthy Poolman and adding Rathbone.  Then a more consistent year from our deeper forward group.  

Edited July 17, 2022 by ilduce39

[JM_]

2 minutes ago, Viper007 said:

Nope, not broken, but the thread wanted real stats.  Using a stat that even you agree is flawed should not really be posted.  Especially when the Canucks weren't doing very well at the beginning of the season.  They really didn't provide alot of offense in the beginning of the season so of course the stats would be skewed for Rathbone.  Would have been nice to see some stats under Boudreau to compare, but a new season bring renewed hope.

some of that is here:  https://canucksarmy.com/2022/03/12/what-each-canucks-statline-look-played-whole-season-bruce-boudreau/

 

OEL had the biggest expected production/82 games of all the d under Bruce. 

 

[hammertime]

14 minutes ago, SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME said:

All very true, but in Rathbone’s defence (no pun intended), the entire team sucked when he was up, so even as shockingly bad as some of his stats look, he wasn’t close to the worst performing defenceman on the team during that part of the season.

 

The team was a complete ****show while Rathbone was up, and he has the numbers to show for it. But compared to his teammates, and given the overall situation during those dark days, his NHL underlying stats for 2021-22 aren’t really all that concerning to me (and many provide reasons for some optimism).

I totally agree and I said that in the post directly above the post you quoted. I wasn't crapping on Rathbone I was infact furious he didn't get another call up later in the season. 

 

This being said. As much as I am a huge fan of Bones he is going to have a hard time cracking the roster unless Hughes OEL get injured because our 3rd pairning needs to be able to PK and take hard defensive matchups off our top 4's plate. 

 

 

1 minute ago, Viper007 said:

Nope, not broken, but the thread wanted real stats.  Using a stat that even you agree is flawed should not really be posted.  Especially when the Canucks weren't doing very well at the beginning of the season.  They really didn't provide alot of offense in the beginning of the season so of course the stats would be skewed for Rathbone.  Would have been nice to see some stats under Boudreau to compare, but a new season bring renewed hope.

Totally missed the part where you added anything constructive to the thread. Care to do some research and come back when you have some stats to post for us all to critique.  

[SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME]

2 minutes ago, hammertime said:

I totally agree and I said that in the post directly above the post you quoted. I wasn't crapping on Rathbone I was infact furious he didn't get another call up later in the season. 

 

This being said. As much as I am a huge fan of Bones he is going to have a hard time cracking the roster unless Hughes OEL get injured because our 3rd pairning needs to be able to PK and take hard defensive matchups off our top 4's plate. 

Sorry if I gave the impression I was arguing with you or that I felt you were unfairly “crapping on” Rathbone. That wasn’t my intention.

 

Your post just seemed like a natural jumping off point to offer some context to his poor numbers, and to remind everyone how bad the whole team was when Rathbone was up, and how this can negatively skew his 2021-22 statistics, unless they’re viewed in context and considered relative to his teammates and the team situation at that time.

[hammertime]

2 minutes ago, JM_ said:

some of that is here:  https://canucksarmy.com/2022/03/12/what-each-canucks-statline-look-played-whole-season-bruce-boudreau/

 

OEL had the biggest expected production/82 games of all the d under Bruce. 

 

Thats 3+m over paid OEL lest we forget. 

 

OEL is a beauty I really appreciate his contributions at both ends of the ice and sticking up for team mates. When Hughes went down and he got to play some "O" he stepped right up. He was our best D last year and that is not intended as a slight to Hughes who I felt really grew his game. Just that OEL was a more complete player and did everything that was asked of him and still this fanbase will hang him to dry. 

[Viper007]

14 minutes ago, JM_ said:

some of that is here:  https://canucksarmy.com/2022/03/12/what-each-canucks-statline-look-played-whole-season-bruce-boudreau/

 

OEL had the biggest expected production/82 games of all the d under Bruce. 

 

Oops shoulda made myself more clear.  Would of been nice to see some stats for Rathbone under Boudreau.  To compare the differences between the 2 coaches.

[hammertime]

2 minutes ago, SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME said:

Sorry if I gave the impression I was arguing with you or that I felt you were unfairly “crapping on” Rathbone. That wasn’t my intention.

 

Your post just seemed like a natural jumping off point to offer some context to his poor numbers, and to remind everyone how bad the whole team was when Rathbone was up, and how this can negatively skew his 2021-22 statistics, unless they’re viewed in context and considered relative to his teammates and the team situation at that time.

Oh no I had absolutely no issue with your post whatsoever I felt it was very constructive to the discussion. I probably should have separated my reponses in to 2 separate posts. I've got high hopes for Rathbone I just don't now how its going to work for him if Hughes and OEL have to shelter him. 

[hammertime]

1 minute ago, Viper007 said:

Oops shoulda made myself more clear.  Would of been nice to see some stats for Rathbone under Boudreau.  To compare the differences between the 2 coaches.

Hey guy go look em up and report back.

[Baggins]

19 minutes ago, SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME said:

All very true, but in Rathbone’s defence (no pun intended), the entire team sucked when he was up, so even as shockingly bad as some of his stats look, he wasn’t close to the worst performing defenceman on the team during that part of the season.

 

I definitely agree that he should have been sent down and that the AHL was the best thing for his development.

 

But I can remember at the time that his stats, compared to the other Ds, weren’t even that bad (relatively speaking).

 

You can tease some of this out by looking at relative rates for last season:

 

http://www.naturalstattrick.com/playerteams.php?fromseason=20212022&thruseason=20212022&stype=2&sit=5v5&score=all&stdoi=oi&rate=r&team=VAN&pos=D&loc=B&toi=0&gpfilt=none&fd=&td=&tgp=410&lines=single&draftteam=ALL

 

You will still see Rathbone on the lower end of many purely defensive metrics, like scoring chances against and expected goals against (relative rates), but he’s not at the bottom, and still ahead of guys like Hamonic and Hunt.

And when you add in his offensive impacts, you suddenly see him vault to the top of the entire D, in metrics like xGF%Rel (2nd on D), SCF%Rel (1st on D), HDCF%Rel (1st on D), etc.

 

The team was a complete ****show while Rathbone was up, and he has the numbers to show for it. But compared to his teammates, and given the overall situation during those dark days, his NHL underlying stats for 2021-22 aren’t really all that concerning to me (and many provide reasons for some optimism).

Here's the flipside. When Rathbone was sent down there were only three D-men with no points and they were the only three sitting on the wrong side of plus/minus. Burroughs actually had the worst at -8, Rathbone at -5 and Hunt at -3. Everybody else was on the plus side of life. But what I "saw" was Rathbone get beat to the outside often. It was like a rerun of Hughes the year before. Plus he had a tendancy to leave his man to pursue the puck carrier who already had a Canuck in pursuit. Not a good idea to leave a man all by himself around the net. You didn't need stats at all to see Hughes playing poorly defensively in 20/21, and you didn't need to see the same with Rathbone last fall. He just wasn't very good and it was plain to see..Burroughs isn't great defensively either imo, although a coaching change certainly helped. The big difference between Burroughs and Rathbone is Rathbone could be sent down without clearing waivers. 

 

Rathbone certainly has some offensive talent. It will be up to him to show he's improved the defensive side and make the team this fall. 

[JM_]

13 minutes ago, Viper007 said:

Oops shoulda made myself more clear.  Would of been nice to see some stats for Rathbone under Boudreau.  To compare the differences between the 2 coaches.

yeah I did want to see him up here, not really clear on why he didn't get a couple of games? but camp should tell us if jack is ready. 

[Baggins]

53 minutes ago, Viper007 said:

We can all agree that Boeser didn't have the greatest season last year.  But using +/- as a defensive metric is not good.  Especially for a forward.  Defenseman it's a bit more of an indicator, but still a flawed stat.  It would be better to show all the PP goals that was scored too while he was on the ice to make this stat better.  From what I see, Boeser was on the ice for more goals for total than against.

It's not a perfect stat on it own to look at one player. But you do have to question his play when he's the ONLY top 6 forward on the minus side. To me that's a clear indicator he's a weak link defensively. Here's the top six forwards in ES ice time per game. In order from highest to lowest ES time with their +/-...

 

Miller +15

Horvat +3

Boeser -5

Pettersson +1

Garland +18

Pearson +9

 

How do you explain Boeser being the only minus with the third most ES time per game? To me it shows he was a defensive handicap to whoever he played with.

[JM_]

18 minutes ago, hammertime said:

Thats 3+m over paid OEL lest we forget. 

 

OEL is a beauty I really appreciate his contributions at both ends of the ice and sticking up for team mates. When Hughes went down and he got to play some "O" he stepped right up. He was our best D last year and that is not intended as a slight to Hughes who I felt really grew his game. Just that OEL was a more complete player and did everything that was asked of him and still this fanbase will hang him to dry. 

I like him a lot too. What I appreciate about the Athletic info is at least it gives us a common framework to talk about. I don't agree that he is overpaid that much because the model doesn't take into account how much he improves Myers. 

 

If we could find a way to move Myers for a guy like a Rutta e.g. that would really help OEL put up more offence. 

 

It seems to me that Myers really is the guy we need to swap out. I don't see him as a fit with Rathbone, e.g. so not sure where he'd be in the lineup if we move him away from OEL. 

 

I really thought Dallas would be a natural landing spot for him but clearly they figured Colin Miller would provide as much ability at 1/3 the price. 

[SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME]

9 minutes ago, Baggins said:

Here's the flipside. When Rathbone was sent down there were only three D-men with no points and they were the only three sitting on the wrong side of plus/minus. Burroughs actually had the worst at -8, Rathbone at -5 and Hunt at -3. Everybody else was on the plus side of life. But what I "saw" was Rathbone get beat to the outside often. It was like a rerun of Hughes the year before. Plus he had a tendancy to leave his man to pursue the puck carrier who already had a Canuck in pursuit. Not a good idea to leave a man all by himself around the net. You didn't need stats at all to see Hughes playing poorly defensively in 20/21, and you didn't need to see the same with Rathbone last fall. He just wasn't very good and it was plain to see..Burroughs isn't great defensively either imo, although a coaching change certainly helped. The big difference between Burroughs and Rathbone is Rathbone could be sent down without clearing waivers. 

 

Rathbone certainly has some offensive talent. It will be up to him to show he's improved the defensive side and make the team this fall. 

Oh, for sure. I wouldn’t want to suggest otherwise.
 

Rathbone wasn’t good in his own end. He was a liability at times. Just not the only (or worst) defensive liability on that D corps. Several Dmen last season were shockingly poor, on both eye test and stats, in the defensive zone. And the overall team situation, in terms of performance, systems implementation, player confidence, team cohesion, puck luck, etc, was just a mess. 

 

Jack wasn’t fully NHL ready playing in his own end. And the team around him was also so bad that keeping him up in that environment may have done more harm than good, in terms of his development. After the coaching change, it would have been informative to see how Rathbone’s play measured up, under better conditions, but there’s no question he was best served by getting sent down when he was.

 

Rathbone himself freely admits that his defensive play wasn’t good enough and that he has a lot to learn and plenty of room to grow in that area. To his credit, he’s taken this on freely, showed no ego or resistance, understands the work he needs to do, by all reports is highly coachable, and has worked hard to improve his defence (and continues to to do).

 

On the other side of the puck, he’s already clearly NHL level offensively, and this shows in both eye test and stats. There’s no question he tilts the ice favourably on offence, and should only get better as he gains reps and confidence playing at the NHL level. He just needs to stay clean in his own end and not hurt the team on defence, and his offensive abilities should easily make him a net positive NHL player, and a significant one, both in terms of his individual contributions and team on-ice effects.

[hammertime]

3 minutes ago, Baggins said:

It's not a perfect stat on it own to look at one player. But you do have to question his play when he's the ONLY top 6 forward on the minus side. To me that's a clear indicator he's a weak link defensively. Here's the top six forwards in ES ice time per game. In order from highest to lowest ES time with their +/-...

 

Miller +15

Horvat +3

Boeser -5

Pettersson +1

Garland +18

Pearson +9

 

How do you explain Boeser being the only minus with the third most ES time per game? To me it shows he was a defensive handicap to whoever he played with.

This is a very good question. Especially when you take into account his deployment.  

[iceman64]

3 hours ago, JM_ said:

So I'm seeing a lot of comments about our defensemen - some say maybe it could be OK or average with better coaching, others say its complete crap. What are the best measures of where the group is really at?

 

One of the best measures imo is high danger chances allowed. On that measure we allowed 973 - puts us middle of the pack at 16th oa. (https://www.naturalstattrick.com/teamtable.php)

 

NHL stat page provides a listing of outshoot/outshot. We won 22 games last year being outshot by opponents, putting us at 8th worst (https://www.nhl.com/stats/teams?report=outshootoutshotby&reportType=season&seasonFrom=20212022&seasonTo=20212022&gameType=2&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,1&sort=winsOutshotByOpponent&page=0&pageSize=50) Interestingly, NYR, Minni, Nashville also had similar stats being outshot in wins. 

 

Goals against, we were 8th best in the league at 231. Goals for, 18th at 246. (https://www.nhl.com/stats/teams?reportType=season&seasonFrom=20212022&seasonTo=20212022&gameType=2&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,1&sort=goalsFor&page=0&pageSize=50).

 

 

So clearly we need more production, but is the d as bad as many are saying? how much is Demko bailing them out? how good/bad is the group?

 

Also, these are full season stats - Green and Bruce combined. 

 

 

Please back up with stats/facts. 

Honestly, Elite teams have the best 200' games from everyone on the team. 

 Just saying it's just the D is a mistake, sure it's great to have a awesome D corps but if the team is that bad at the 200' game as a whole, I sure wouldn't be putting any $ down on bets on it. 

 

Last year's early problems were a sign of that, seldom did we see a fast short passes out of the zone or even in it as players opted for the stretch pass with forwards trying to get open up ice instead of staying back and working it out. 

 That was my biggest slam on Green and it got him fired, and we turned it around when BB kept it simple which we needed out of the gate. 

 Anyway, forwards need to be positioned better for back checking and not get caught up ice. 

 Will BB get this sorted out? Sure as long as he keeps it simple and continues it. 

 We are a faster team this year but that's not so big of an D issue when players play simple great positional hockey. 

 Hearing JT say early in the year with Green, we don't know what we're doing was disturbing and how Green got the team (not just (Demmer) to over perform in the bubble is beyond me but keeping a simple game with a team that has new players is the only way to go, a year or so with experience we can move on from that but in the meantime if JR wants to upgrade D that's great but if not because the right deal doesn't show then we have to work extra hard  on forwards being in position for easy passes or it's going to be a long year as Demko can't bail us out ALL the time. 

 This has the reason for the goalie graveyard with past rosters that has to stop or we'll have the same result(ish)

 We don't need to be hanging our G out to dry by that or getting penalties from being out of position.  

 Personally I like how JR is getting things done the right way and not listening to fan/media pressure that changes like the wind from game to game. 

 We are a better team already, so much so that it's going to be a long couple of months waiting for puck drop but it will be fun to watch once it does and I think we're going to surprise a lot a people.

 

 

 

[Viper007]

31 minutes ago, Baggins said:

It's not a perfect stat on it own to look at one player. But you do have to question his play when he's the ONLY top 6 forward on the minus side. To me that's a clear indicator he's a weak link defensively. Here's the top six forwards in ES ice time per game. In order from highest to lowest ES time with their +/-...

 

Miller +15

Horvat +3

Boeser -5

Pettersson +1

Garland +18

Pearson +9

 

How do you explain Boeser being the only minus with the third most ES time per game? To me it shows he was a defensive handicap to whoever he played with.

To make the +/- even better you can add +10 to most of those guys.  That's how many EN goals were scored against them.

[Viper007]

49 minutes ago, hammertime said:

Hey guy go look em up and report back.

I'm sorry, but I wasn't talking to you, I was responding back to JM_.  Thanks!  Just because you seem offended that I question your +/- stats.  I'm just stating that it's the worst stat in the league.  It's not a true indicator of defensive play.  Was Boeser really bad 5v5?  I don't believe so.  The only real goal that I remember him being bad on was against Toronto where he gave up a pizza to Matthews.

[JM_]

6 minutes ago, iceman64 said:

Honestly, Elite teams have the best 200' games from everyone on the team. 

 Just saying it's just the D is a mistake, sure it's great to have a awesome D corps but if the team is that bad at the 200' game as a whole, I sure wouldn't be putting any $ down on bets on it. 

 

Last year's early problems were a sign of that, seldom did we see a fast short passes out of the zone or even in it as players opted for the stretch pass with forwards trying to get open up ice instead of staying back and working it out. 

I can't believe that the players aren't capable of this, I think Bruce changed what he could on the fly with getting more dangerous chances but Rutherford righty pointed out we need to see a better job of this kind of thing. 

 

6 minutes ago, iceman64 said:

 That was my biggest slam on Green and it got him fired, and we turned it around when BB kept it simple which we needed out of the gate. 

 Anyway, forwards need to be positioned better for back checking and not get caught up ice. 

 Will BB get this sorted out? Sure as long as he keeps it simple and continues it. 

 We are a faster team this year but that's not so big of an D issue when players play simple great positional hockey. 

 Hearing JT say early in the year with Green, we don't know what we're doing was disturbing and how Green got the team (not just (Demmer) to over perform in the bubble is beyond me but keeping a simple game with a team that has new players is the only way to go, a year or so with experience we can move on from that but in the meantime if JR wants to upgrade D that's great but if not because the right deal doesn't show then we have to work extra hard  on forwards being in position for easy passes or it's going to be a long year as Demko can't bail us out ALL the time. 

 This has the reason for the goalie graveyard with past rosters that has to stop or we'll have the same result(ish)

 We don't need to be hanging our G out to dry by that or getting penalties from being out of position.  

 Personally I like how JR is getting things done the right way and not listening to fan/media pressure that changes like the wind from game to game. 

 We are a better team already, so much so that it's going to be a long couple of months waiting for puck drop but it will be fun to watch once it does and I think we're going to surprise a lot a people.

 

 

 

agreed totally on the team d aspect. Looking at our potential new look PK1 e.g,: Lazar Mikheyev OEL Myers, I'm quite hopefully that we won't be the league embarrassment on this again. 

 

 

[Ilya Mikheyev]

2 hours ago, hammertime said:

This is so redoinkulous. Schenn is not a 3.3m D Myers is not a 2.1m D Bahaha if we had him for 2.1 that would be one of the best deals in the league. OEL is far better than 4.4m who makes this stuff up whats more who gobbles it up. 

 

 

 

He's not saying that's how much they're making, he's saying that's how much they're worth compared to comps. across the league in a specific formula. The model basis can be found here:

Quote

 

It’s mostly outlined here in this FAQ posted before our 2017-18 projections, but basically it’s built at the player level using Game Score – a stat I adapted from basketball a few years ago. Working at the player level rather than the team level is one way that my model differs from others that are scaled via team performance only. It offers some challenges in terms of allocating proper credit, but has the advantage of being able to instantly factor for injuries and trades in ways a team-level model cannot.

Game Score is a linear weight model with the weights for each stat within it being derived according to the frequency of goals occurring from them and are as such:

 

Goals: 0.75
Primary Assists: 0.7
Secondary Assists: 0.55
Shots: 0.075
Blocks: 0.05
Penalty Differential: 0.15
Faceoff Differential: 0.01
5-on-5 Corsi Differential: 0.05
5-on-5 Goal Differential: 0.15

 

It uses data from each player’s last three seasons, with each component weighted by recency and regressed to the mean individually. That means that the weight for each prior season is different for goals than it is for shots or blocks (and different for forwards and defencemen), as is the regression factor. On top of that, there’s an age adjustment (using methods outlined here) performed at the start of each year that slowly lessens until the end of the season, as well as a small usage adjustment that factors in a player’s teammates and competition based on 5-on-5 Game Score.

From there, each player has a projection for each component going forward and that’s plugged into the Game Score formula to get a projected Game Score going forward. That’s then transformed into a wins above replacement rate (with replacement level being the 372nd forward and 186th defenceman) to create Game Score Value Added, or GSVA. That value is added up for each team based on the players in their starting lineup, and voila: team strength projections.

 

Sure, you can critique his model but it's not a subjective amount of $ that he's posting.

Edited July 17, 2022 by Ilya Mikheyev

[Viper007]

Just now, JM_ said:

I can't believe that the players aren't capable of this, I think Bruce changed what he could on the fly with getting more dangerous chances but Rutherford righty pointed out we need to see a better job of this kind of thing. 

 

agreed totally on the team d aspect. Looking at our potential new look PK1 e.g,: Lazar Mikheyev OEL Myers, I'm quite hopefully that we won't be the league embarrassment on this again. 

 

 

I blame the PK formation.  I don't understand why they lined up 2 guys in front of 1 shooter.  It was really bad.