- Apr 25, 2006
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Everyone. Not long ago being PPG was rare. You want me to list 200+ players?
2024/2025 Around the League
- Thread starter forsbergavs32
- Start date
dahrougem2
Registered User
- Aug 25, 2006
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Goalies' SV% will continue to fall down until the return of the very exciting two-pad-stack style. 
It's kinda clear rule changes have helped and other factors. Freaking Benn won Art Ross with 87 points 2014-2015. Scoring isn't as hard as it used to be.
87 points for elite player is meh today. Or not amazing at least.
I just have a hard time putting it all on the equipment change. It just feels like goalies are cheating too much nowadays. They don't want to play based fundamental hockey anymore.
dahrougem2
Registered User
Sure rule changes have helped. Players also improve their shooting year after year. The year Jamie Benn won the Art Ross, Cody McLeod was playing on our 4th line. That guy has one of the worst shots I've ever seen from an NHL player.
Fast forward 10 years and we've got Logan O'Connor on our 4th line who is capable of sniping any goalie in this league if he has time and space to get a shot off.
There has been a HUGE shift towards more skill in the game.
- I would say we got worse off goalers because this crop just isn't as good as the crop around 2009, but also because analytics are destroying goalers as well. I've played the position for multiple decades, I def have weaknesses in my game and if a goaler like AV88 is getting destroyed because he has a weak high glove, then he's going to get destroyed there more often as the numbers back it up. He's HOF-worthy easily, but even he's getting abused the last couple of seasons with the rise of analytics.
- This NHL version reminds me a lot of the modern NBA and its transformation the past decade. A lot of mistakes and a lot of offensively-focused players coming into the league.
- This NHL version reminds me a lot of the modern NBA and its transformation the past decade. A lot of mistakes and a lot of offensively-focused players coming into the league.
Bill Peckerskull
Fargin' Icehole
Yes, they are better. Even when guys like MacKinnon were just starting out I had never heard of concepts like "disguising your shot," that term became commonplace when Auston Matthews showed up. Since then we've seen a sea change when it comes to how players shoot, to the point where the one-timer is no longer near as ubiquitous as it once was. It's pinpoint wristers that get the job done for most elite scorers.
For example, look how many bad-angled goals get scored nowadays. I'm willing to bet it's a much higher number than it used to be. Shooters can pick spots better than ever before.
I don't think that's true. I don't think goalies are necessarily worse, they're just trying to adapt to the smaller equipment and the advent of better shooters. Used to be goalie coaches pushed the "reverse VH" to guard the post, but that left the top of the net vulnerable, and shooters can now bank it off the mask. Now they're telling goalies to just wrap the pad around the post like before. It leaves them more vulnerable to wraparound chances since they can't push off anymore but they're less vulnerable to a bad-angled bank shot.
Also, and this is my speculation, I think teams hate the reverse VH because it can lead to injuries.
- Apr 25, 2006
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Look at this:
NHL Scoring Leaders 2023-2024
NHL scoring leaders and demographics breakdown in the 2023-2024 season. Player stats, nationality and age distributions, draft rounds of players in the 2023-2024 NHL season.
www.quanthockey.com
Then this:
NHL Scoring Leaders 2015-2016
NHL scoring leaders and demographics breakdown in the 2015-2016 season. Player stats, nationality and age distributions, draft rounds of players in the 2015-2016 NHL season.
www.quanthockey.com
and tell me that the difference is mainly because NHLers got better in 8 years.
Yes, I literally just said that and pointed out why.Look at this:
NHL Scoring Leaders 2023-2024
NHL scoring leaders and demographics breakdown in the 2023-2024 season. Player stats, nationality and age distributions, draft rounds of players in the 2023-2024 NHL season.
Then this:
NHL Scoring Leaders 2015-2016
NHL scoring leaders and demographics breakdown in the 2015-2016 season. Player stats, nationality and age distributions, draft rounds of players in the 2015-2016 NHL season.
and tell me that the difference is mainly because NHLers got better in 8 years.
Again, the equipment changes also have had a significant effect as well.
Bill Peckerskull
Fargin' Icehole
Best of luck to Helleson, if he pans out as projected he's precisely the type of player they need the most.
Helleson was one that I wish we never traded away. Always felt like there was more there. I'm shit at evaluating young players, though.
- Apr 25, 2006
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Disregarding scoring eras and saying the change is skill based is the same as saying Matthew Tkachuk and JT Miller are as skilled offensively as prime Patrick Kane and significantly better than prime Crosby.
Or that players in the 90's weren't as good as players in the 80's.
What changed in the last 5 years is not that tons of players magically became all star shooters, it's the way the defensemen are playing and the coaches' systems that are different.
I'm sure there are a number of factors at play, not just one in particular, I just think those factors played significant parts.
Chiarelli
Registered User
- Jan 27, 2019
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Nah, if players are better at shooting then goalies are better at saving too.
- Apr 25, 2006
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I'm not. No one wants to watch hockey on a Friday night.
The best hockey days are Tuesday, Thursday and of course Saturday.
You're basing that assumption off literally nothing, and it's wrong, especially since goalies have had their equipment heavily regulated and downsized in recent years.
Me too. None of the other "big" sports want anything to do with it, prime opportunity for them to take it over, and they just refuse to do so.
LOFIN
Registered User
- Sep 16, 2011
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I just find it stupid that NHL is going over all this effort in marketing towards Europe and even playing games here, yet they refuse to play games on Fridays when that's 50% of what most people here are able to watch. Take few games from tomorrow to today, and play 1 or two more b2b games, and you've got a good set.
Speak for yourself. Not only are there no major sporting events on Fridays, there's nothing really on TV either. It'd be the easiest thing in the world to put on a couple games around that time.
