WJC: 2019 WJC U20 D1A in Füssen, Germany (9/12 - 15/12 2018)

[su24]

Points mean little precisely because of what happened with Sushko. First of all, the bolded is hilarious. You can't just erase a down part of the season because it doesn't fit your narrative. That's hilariously dumb. He started the season on Owen Sound's 3rd line, that's why he started with 2 in 9. So clearly, when tasked with being the best player on his own line, no bueno. Since then he was moved to Hancock's line, but sometimes has played with Dudas or Suzuki. Then suddenly 20 points in 20 games. What a coincidence. It's almost like when you're slapped onto a line with two of the top players in the OHL who can do all the work for you, your point totals will suddenly rise. The fact that you even try to throw in luck there as a way to erase part of the season that doesn't fit your narrative. What about this fact for you bro!! Dominik Bokk went on a 12 game "unlucky" streak in the SHL. Outisde of those games, he has had 10 points in 9 games. Over PPG in the SHL!! CHECK YO FACTS BRO! You must be wrong in the head or something. Lmao.

Your story is hilarious because it means absolutely nothing. First of all, you accuse me of using a sample of four but your story is by definition a sample of one. So you should be laughing at yourself, but of course you'd never do that.

Also, the fact that you try to use draft position as proxy is hilarious and you know it. Being drafted in 2017 in the 4th was a projection on Philly's part of where he'd be when he reached maturity, it's not an up-to-date ranking of where he is as a player now. Dozens of players drafted after him turned out to be better prospects than him. You could, in fact, use the same argument for Mathias Emilio Pettersson being worse than Sushko, and I dare you to go to the main boards with a poll like that and see how many people agree with you because both you and I know you'd get trampled. Furthermore, you call him a center, hilariously, though he doesn't project as a center, doesn't play center for Owen Sound, didn't even play Center for Belarus last season. He's not a center, I don't know who you're trying to fool with that. I assume you know he's not a center so you're lying, not ignorant, but when he was drafted Philadelphia didn't think "this guy is going to be a center one day for us."

He plays at center RIGHT NOW at THIS tournament we are talking about.
You're the one who really wrong in the head. 22 points in 29 games is "significantly worse" than 60 points in 60 games last year? You don't even understand that Bokk example doesn't fit the bill: you take off 12 games and count only 8. I took away only 9 games at beginning of the season and counted the last 20. I don't know what to say to explain you the difference. LMAO, LOL and LGBT.
That's 5th World Championship for Sushko (U18, U20 and main), 2 of them where in elite division. He scored 8 points in 6 gamse and was a captain of the team in elite U20 division last year. He has faced hundreds of NHL players already in the NHL camps and at the WHC, but you tell me how that recent 5th round pick is more experienced and better ? Did he ever see an NHLer? Could you stop driveling?

 

[su24]

Two days later:
Pretty much sums this guy up. He called Sushko a center and accused somebody else of stretching things in the same sentence. Class act.

That's nice to see someone reading my posts. He's a first line center right now at this U20 WJC. He wasn't a week ago. He was sliding to the wing for the 1st half of the first game. When he adjusted they scored 5 goals in 21 minutes. Your problem?

 

[kabidjan18]

He plays at center RIGHT NOW at THIS tournament we are talking about.
You're the one who really wrong in the head. 22 points in 29 games is "significantly worse" than 60 points in 60 games last year? You don't even understand that Bokk example doesn't fit the bill: you take off 12 games and count only 8. I took away only 9 games at beginning of the season and counted the last 20. I don't know what to say to explain you the difference. LMAO, LOL and LGBT.
That's 5th World Championship for Sushko (U18, U20 and main), 2 of them where in elite division. He scored 8 points in 6 gamse and was a captain of the team in elite U20 division last year. He has faced hundreds of NHL players already in the NHL camps and at the WHC, but you tell me how that recent 5th round pick is more experienced and better ? Did he ever see an NHLer? Could you stop driveling?

First of all let's revisit your quote.

Also saying that 2018 6th round pick winger is already better than 2017 4th round pick center is...

It's strongly underdetermined by your words that what you mean, or would mean, by this phrase is that all considerations are only with respect to this tournament, not generally speaking. The very least we could say is that the crucial modifier is missing.

You don't know what to say because there really is nothing for you to say because I'm mocking you on the account of a principle. If you want to establish parameters for eliminating parts of seasons for considerations, first of all they would be arbitrary, ad hoc, and subject to the sorites paradox. You can go to the dictionary to look up what each of those mean. In principle, no one thinks it is ok to simply detract parts of a season, especially if "luck" is your excuse. Especially when there's a much more obvious explanation for the data set.

Furthermore, a decrease of .24 PPG is generally considered significant. Of course, you could try to set the parameters ad hoc to whatever pleases you, but no one reading this will think "oh, 1 PPG one year, .75 the next, no significant difference," especially when players should be improving as they age.

Also, it's unclear what having "seen an NHLer" actually does for a kid's career. Yes, Sushko was on the crap team that got relegated from the WC last year. More power to him. Schutz's team will actually still play in the Top Division this year, amazingly enough. Philly chose to bring in all of their forward picks from the top 4 rounds in 2017, as well as their group from 2016 and earlier. That's their choice. Florida didn't. They only brought in Serron Noel and Owen Tippett, as well as 22-yo Sebastian Repo. That's their choice. No one would argue that because Sushko went to camp and say, Grigori Denisenko didn't, that Sushko is better. It's not at all apparent that having seen NHL players makes you a better player.

 

[su24]

First of all let's revisit your quote.

It's strongly underdetermined by your words that what you mean, or would mean, by this phrase is that all considerations are only with respect to this tournament, not generally speaking. The very least we could say is that the crucial modifier is missing.

You don't know what to say because there really is nothing for you to say because I'm mocking you on the account of a principle. If you want to establish parameters for eliminating parts of seasons for considerations, first of all they would be arbitrary, ad hoc, and subject to the sorites paradox. You can go to the dictionary to look up what each of those mean. In principle, no one thinks it is ok to simply detract parts of a season, especially if "luck" is your excuse. Especially when there's a much more obvious explanation for the data set.

Furthermore, a decrease of .24 PPG is generally considered significant. Of course, you could try to set the parameters ad hoc to whatever pleases you, but no one reading this will think "oh, 1 PPG one year, .75 the next, no significant difference," especially when players should be improving as they age.

Also, it's unclear what having "seen an NHLer" actually does for a kid's career. Yes, Sushko was on the crap team that got relegated from the WC last year. More power to him. Schutz's team will actually still play in the Top Division this year, amazingly enough. Philly chose to bring in all of their forward picks from the top 4 rounds in 2017, as well as their group from 2016 and earlier. That's their choice. Florida didn't. They only brought in Serron Noel and Owen Tippett, as well as 22-yo Sebastian Repo. That's their choice. No one would argue that because Sushko went to camp and say, Grigori Denisenko didn't, that Sushko is better. It's not at all apparent that having seen NHL players makes you a better player.

Just to show you how stupid you look taking the 24% decreasing in scoring as a proof that a player couldn't get better.
2015-16: 99 points in 62 games.
2016-17: 18 points in 20 games.
That guy stayed in the same league and played for the same CHL team. Following your logic he became much worse as a player. But in real life he was just told by his NHL team to get better defensively after the 1st season.
Trivia question: who is that guy and where he plays right now? You gonna feel yourself really stupid when you find the answer.

 

[kabidjan18]

Just to show you how stupid you look taking the 24% decreasing in scoring as a proof that a player couldn't get better.
2015-16: 99 points in 62 games.
2016-17: 18 points in 20 games.
That guy stayed in the same league and played for the same CHL team. Following your logic he became much worse as a player. But in real life he was just told by his NHL team to get better defensively after the 1st season.
Trivia question: who is that guy and where he plays right now? You gonna feel yourself really stupid when you find the answer.

Ok, two very obvious problems here with your logic.

First. I don't believe I ever claimed Sushko became a worse player, so that's a strawman. What I claimed is that his success is dependent on his linemates, who are superior to him, and so he is not a line-driver. This, by the way, was not even remotely ambiguous if you read my post. Therefore, his value as a player is less, generally, than someone who is a line-driver. His general value is independent of fluctuations of his skill level from year to year. So, your entire post is one huge strawman, but I will allow you to claim english as a second language here if you like...

Ok, second problem. Sample size of one. You picked out a single exception. I could take this many wonderful places. A defenseman was drafted out of the Czech U20 league with only 3 points in 15 games in his draft+1 year. You'll be embarrassed to find out who he is. Therefore...(insert claim about another player). You can clearly see the faulty logic here.

Also, grammatically speaking. I think what you're going for with the "as a proof that a player couldn't get better" is actually "as proof that a player couldn't have gotten better."

 

[su24]

You say Sushko got better. It's funny how he got better and now scores significantly less than he did last season.

I don't believe I ever claimed Sushko became a worse player, so that's a strawman.

You did connect his scoring and his development as a player! And that was funny for you. The guy who I'm talking about has dropped much more in scoring and that has nothing to do with my English. I picked up that example from the top of my head, I could find many examples like that if I wanted to. Decreasing in scoring after draft is a pretty common thing. And you still don't know who he is.
That "driving a line" argument is a complete BS: Sushko was driving his line last year at the WJC against elite teams and he's doing it right now. Who was driving that Schutz guy? Some Austrian bums to a pub?

 

[kabidjan18]

You did connect his scoring and his development as a player! And that was funny for you. The guy who I'm talking about has dropped much more in scoring and that has nothing to do with my English. I picked up that example from the top of my head, I could find many examples like that if I wanted to. Decreasing in scoring after draft is a pretty common thing. And you still don't know who he is.
That "driving a line" argument is a complete BS: Sushko was driving his line last year at the WJC against elite teams and he's doing it right now. Who was driving that Schutz guy? Some Austrian bums to a pub?

It's funny...precisely because of what I say next, quote below

It's funny because he's been the 4th-5th best forward on his team the last two years, and whenever the center who is driving his line, be it Kevin Hancock (usually), or Aidan Dudas or Nick Suzuki (occasionally) decide not to pass it to him. Mhm, the points go down.

The very next post

He started the season on Owen Sound's 3rd line, that's why he started with 2 in 9. So clearly, when tasked with being the best player on his own line, no bueno. Since then he was moved to Hancock's line, but sometimes has played with Dudas or Suzuki. Then suddenly 20 points in 20 games. What a coincidence. It's almost like when you're slapped onto a line with two of the top players in the OHL who can do all the work for you, your point totals will suddenly rise.

So yeah. It's abundantly clear and completely unambiguous that what I'm getting at there. I don't think I could have been more clear because I literally spell it out. No superstar teammates -> point drop. Ergo, he's not driving his own line. Something I say repeatedly. I never claimed he was driving his line in 17-18 but not in 18-19, in fact I'm claiming he didn't in either. I never argued he regressed because he didn't regress, he was never a line-driver. And this year he had a stint where he wasn't with linemates who could do the work for him. Clear and simple.

Also, Sushko didn't drive his line last year. Let's go back to a quote from the first post which I quoted which was also getting at the fact that his points depend on who is driving his line.

Well daddy Kevin ain't here. Big daddy Egor isn't either.

Who is Egor? That's right. Egor Sharangovich. I was arguing that Egor Sharangovich drove that line in the last WJC. Sushko got more points, and that's probably enough for the stat watchers, but that really mostly only amounted to him being a good passer on the PP. Sharangovich was the one who drove possession on that line. In the offensive zone, zone entries, breakouts. If we're speaking candidly, when Drozdov played with that line also probably had more puck possession than Sushko. Drozdov certainly was the go-to guy for breakouts and zone-entries.

It's also pretty clear you're missing the point of the line-driver argument because, while your Austrian joke was a real knee-slapper it also conveyed that you missed the point. No one drives Schutz. He is a line driver. He can carry the puck on breakouts, he can get in, he can cycle it in the offensive zone, he can move around in the offensive zone almost at will, he creates his own chances by his own possession and when his linemates get chances its often because he has the vision to dish it to them. In the modern game, which is possession oriented, guys who can drive a line are invaluable.

 

[yrmj3]

su24, less emotions) kabidjan18 says the right things about playing Sushko in this season. His stats became much better when he back to line with Suzuki and it's a fact

 

[ozo]

Just watched the game and yet again saw proof that Belarus should have tried to lock down Shostak for NT. How such a huge goalie manages to avoid stopping pucks just by sheer luck is beyond me. Yes, Shostak might be no better, but just for the future get another goalie in the system and maybe down the road he is the best of the bunch. As of now I don't trust neither Grischecnko nor Tolopilo to make a real save. Has there ever been a Belarussian roster where G position is a strength of theirs?

 

[Garl]

Replace Ukraine with Belaruse and you have someone very familiar

 

[su24]

That was so refreshing to learn that players' numbers go up when they get a chance to play with a star partner.

Just watched the game and yet again saw proof that Belarus should have tried to lock down Shostak for NT. How such a huge goalie manages to avoid stopping pucks just by sheer luck is beyond me. Yes, Shostak might be no better, but just for the future get another goalie in the system and maybe down the road he is the best of the bunch. As of now I don't trust neither Grischecnko nor Tolopilo to make a real save. Has there ever been a Belarussian roster where G position is a strength of theirs?

Tolopilo made a couple saves in the 3rd ))) Grischenko did worse. Look at Belarus NT goalies over the past decade: Mezin, Lalande, Koval. Neither of them is a real Belarusian. Unlike Latvia we can't produce any decent goalies. The only hope right now is Kulbakov, who was very inconsistent this year.
Today the Russian Minister of sports said that Belarusians won't be counted as a legionaries any more in Russia. Kodola probably knew something, he expressed desire to play for Belarus a couple weeks ago and scored 2 goals in his next 2 KHL games (that's what homeland can do for you, he couldn't score as a Russian citizen for 2 years). So there's no reason for Shostak or any other youngster in Russia not to play for Belarus.

 

[kabidjan18]

Lol, Pusnik on the PK. Tell me a funnier joke please.

 

[kabidjan18]

I WISH WE HAD TWO LARGE, RANGY, EXPERIENCED PENALTY KILLERS!! PLEASE TELL ME WHERE (*cough*, Salzburg) WE COULD HAVE FOUND TWO EXPERIENCED PENALTY KILLERS...

 

[SoundAndFury]

Well if there was any doubt (there was a slight one) Latvia isn't getting relegated.

 

[ozo]

This is good for my mental health, surely we can't blow this one.

 

[Marky1999]

Looks like the relegation battle will be between Norway and Austria.

 

[kabidjan18]

Lol, to quote Steve Dangle, "this team is ruining my life"

 

[kabidjan18]

I'm hearing the 2014 World Cup Announcers for the Brazil-Germany game in my head.

"Four-nil! Four-nil!"

 

[BalticWarrior]

Welp. We won. Whooop-deee-dooo. In other news - this is probably the least talented bunch of players weve had in years.

 

[su24]

If the Belarus U20 was a "сrар team" last year (that's how you get called when you lose 5:6 to Czechs or 2:3 to Swiss), I'm wondering how should we call a U20 team that loses 1:4 to some high school kids from Latvia? Harijs Brants should've been taking a biology or math classes right now instead of scoring goals against the powerful team with "reincarnation of the Laine-Aho-Puljujarvi line" on the roster.

 

[kabidjan18]

If the Belarus U20 was a "crap team" last year (that's how you get called when you lose 5:6 to Czechs or 2:3 to Swiss), I'm wondering how should we call a U20 team that loses 1:4 to some high school kids from Latvia? Harijs Brants should've been taking a biology or math classes right now instead of scoring goals against the powerful team with "reincarnation of the Laine-Aho-Puljujarvi line" on the roster.

Lol wtf are you talking about? I never said Belarus' U20 team was a crap team. I said their senior team was, because you were talking about the "WHC", quote below

That's 5th World Championship for Sushko (U18, U20 and main), 2 of them where in elite division. He scored 8 points in 6 gamse and was a captain of the team in elite U20 division last year. He has faced hundreds of NHL players already in the NHL camps and at the WHC, but you tell me how that recent 5th round pick is more experienced and better ? Did he ever see an NHLer? Could you stop driveling?

WHC stands for "World Hockey Championship" not "World Junior Championship. I simply used "WC" in my post (look above), which also means "World Championship" and not "World Junior Championship", so clearly both you were referring to the senior team and I was referring to the senior team so why the silliness now? And they were a crap team. That's why they got relegated by Austria in the 4:0 game and lost to France.

Meanwhile, your ignorance has no clue that we actually have the 2nd youngest team to Latvia and only by .09 years (18.09 to 18.00), so it was high school kids against high school kids. The rest, including my reasoning behind the clickbait title I used three years ago, I've already discussed but of course you probably have incompetent memory to go along with incompetent logical skills so that's that.

And the bolded. Why? So extra. Truly, I have to say, I was in an awful mood. However, it puts me in a better mood being reminded of how lucky I am that I'm not you.

 

[kabidjan18]

Wow. That game was ass. Let's discuss why.

There was no puck movement. I would be shocked if our pass completion percentage was over 50%. Players couldn't gain the zone on the breakout. Mid-way into the third Maier just gave up trying to complete breakout passes to our wingers and just started going end to end himself, worked every time too. If we accidentally did gain the zone there was nothing resembling a forecheck going on. The few times a legitimate puck-handler like Baumgartner or Zitz was able to gain the zone and chip it in, try to cycle it around, or get tied up along the boards, no one was there. Shots were awful, poor placement both in this game and last game. Also shot distribution. Last game we had 8 shots from the D, 12 shots from the forwards in regulation. That comes out to 40% for the Dmen, 60% for the Forwards, given that at any given time there are 2 defensemen and 3 forwards on this ice the defensemen and forwards had the same shots per player, which is incredible because I thought the point of having forwards was to be more offensive than the defensemen. Well, this game was even worse. 17 shots on goal, 8 of them came from defensemen, 9 from forwards, so defensemen are actually over-represented in the shot count by 7%, which only affirms the whole "offense from the blue line" mantra that I've been going with. Then the giveaways. Lukas Piff had a couple huge giveaways, but who is surprised because we knew that about him coming in. Julian Payr, still a great player, had one great end-to-end but also had one bad giveaway. Lanzinger had the huge giveaway on the only ES goal in the 3rd period. Defense still wasn't bad, penalty killing is what killed us. Speaking of penalty killing, penalty killing was awful, but what do you expect when your penalty killers are Alex Maxa and Julian Pusnik. Only goal was, surprise surprise, offense from the blue line in the form of a Niklas Wurschl shot and Fabian Hochegger got the rebound. Wurschl's linemate Stuckler was surprisingly amazing against Germany. Well, he had to regress to the mean today didn't he. There was no other option was there. You have to square to face the puck when screening the net, but of course no one did because then you might block the opposing goalie's vision and we wouldn't want that would we. Looking at you Wallenta. But who is even surprised by that, he basically never plays at the front of the net at his club because the players who were the above-mentioned penalty killers in his club are also the ones who play in front of the net and we couldn't possibly bring someone who could do those tasks could we. Then there was the board battles, though the word "battle" makes it sound more highly contested than it was.

Funny thing was, every weakness of every player on this roster was known coming in. Yet the coaching staff insisted on this team. Well, we could be the ones going down this year, it's absolutely not out of the realm of possibility.

 

[ozo]

Wow. That game was ass. Let's discuss why.

There was no puck movement. I would be shocked if our pass completion percentage was over 50%. Players couldn't gain the zone on the breakout. Mid-way into the third Maier just gave up trying to complete breakout passes to our wingers and just started going end to end himself, worked every time too. If we accidentally did gain the zone there was nothing resembling a forecheck going on. The few times a legitimate puck-handler like Baumgartner or Zitz was able to gain the zone and chip it in, try to cycle it around, or get tied up along the boards, no one was there. Shots were awful, poor placement both in this game and last game. Also shot distribution. Last game we had 8 shots from the D, 12 shots from the forwards in regulation. That comes out to 40% for the Dmen, 60% for the Forwards, given that at any given time there are 2 defensemen and 3 forwards on this ice the defensemen and forwards had the same shots per player, which is incredible because I thought the point of having forwards was to be more offensive than the defensemen. Well, this game was even worse. 17 shots on goal, 8 of them came from defensemen, 9 from forwards, so defensemen are actually over-represented in the shot count by 7%, which only affirms the whole "offense from the blue line" mantra that I've been going with. Then the giveaways. Lukas Piff had a couple huge giveaways, but who is surprised because we knew that about him coming in. Julian Payr, still a great player, had one great end-to-end but also had one bad giveaway. Lanzinger had the huge giveaway on the only ES goal in the 3rd period. Defense still wasn't bad, penalty killing is what killed us. Speaking of penalty killing, penalty killing was awful, but what do you expect when your penalty killers are Alex Maxa and Julian Pusnik. Only goal was, surprise surprise, offense from the blue line in the form of a Niklas Wurschl shot and Fabian Hochegger got the rebound. Wurschl's linemate Stuckler was surprisingly amazing against Germany. Well, he had to regress to the mean today didn't he. There was no other option was there. You have to square to face the puck when screening the net, but of course no one did because then you might block the opposing goalie's vision and we wouldn't want that would we. Looking at you Wallenta. But who is even surprised by that, he basically never plays at the front of the net at his club because the players who were the above-mentioned penalty killers in his club are also the ones who play in front of the net and we couldn't possibly bring someone who could do those tasks could we. Then there was the board battles, though the word "battle" makes it sound more highly contested than it was.

Funny thing was, every weakness of every player on this roster was known coming in. Yet the coaching staff insisted on this team. Well, we could be the ones going down this year, it's absolutely not out of the realm of possibility.

All is not lost, although it does look grim right now. As you said it, this is a super young team and the better days of your junior NT is ahead even though this rise will probably have to start from 1B next year.

 

[ozo]

Damn, I really love this arena. It has that intimidating historic European sports feel going for it and I would never change it for platic copy/paste modern arenas. When it is full, it is some atmosphere with people standing on the players heads. When it is empty, it looks no worse than half empty 10+k arena. All my opinion, but I for one can't stand, for example, HK Sochi games in KHL due to arena being half empty.

 

[Namejs]

Yeah, what a bunch of unworthy bums, could be beaten by a team of 1 region of gloroius Belarus.
They do not deserve to breath the same air as the mighty Belorus!

Please enlighten me, how it happened, that a hockey program of such unbelivable quality is playing with this worms?

The guy just doesn't have a very good grasp of the English language.

It's a common expression in Russian, and I guess he thinks everyone can understand him if he just translates all the words directly into English.

Actually, it's one of the reasons why Belarus is so stagnant, and not just in hockey. Barely anyone speaks English there.