A look back at Sidney Crosby's defense over the past decade

[MartinS82]

I give Pens fans a hall pass in this department .
They have never seen a two way forward before.
Who in their history is the best they have had? Billy Guaren? I honestly can't remember one ,Stall?

Those guys were pretty good, but Ron Francus probably their best. He even won a Frank Selky trophy one year too.

 

[GreatGonzo]

Interesting how none of those players have an Art Ross or a PPG close to Crosby which is why their moderately better defensive skills mean Jack ****.

Considering this is a thread about defensive play, His PPG and Art Ross don’t mean jack shit in this discussion. No need to jump to conclusion, get all emotional and feel the need to change the topic to protect Crosby You really need to chill.

 

[GreatGonzo]

I give Pens fans a hall pass in this department .
They have never seen a two way forward before.
Who in their history is the best they have had? Billy Guaren? I honestly can't remember one ,Stall?

Ron Francis?....I mean, really?

 

[TheAngryHank]

Ron Francis?....I mean, really?

Totally spaced that one ,

 

[GreatGonzo]

Totally spaced that one ,

It’s all good. Sorry if my comment came off as rude. I was more thinking, I hope they don’t consider Crosby the ONLY two way forward the Pens have had, or even their best. Because I mean, come on....Ron Francis!

 

[MakeTheGoalsLarger]

lol yeah Crosby sucks defensively for the same reason that Price sucks as a goalie : stats

why lose 2 hours of your time watching a hockey game when you can appreciate all the subtleties and nuances of the game by taking a minute or 2 to read stats.

 

[Midnight Judges]

The article discusses issues with this method and proposes adjustments, although I'm not sure if they're used on Evolving-Hockey. One notable issue discussed is the "team effect", where a good player on an other really bad team will fare better in relative metrics than a player who's technically just as good but playing on a much better team. For instance, just continuing with the fictitious example you provide, while a 1.2:1.0 ratio versus a 1.15:1.0 ratio (Bruins with Bergeron vs Bruins without Bergeron) might not appear as good as a 1.0:1.0 ration versus a 0.8:1.0 ratio (Stars with Benn vs Stars without Benn), it might in reality be harder to achieve.

That's a good point. You could probably get a decent sense for it by analyzing Bruins w/o Bergeron vs Team X without player Y. But even that would be problematic if their deployments weren't similar in nature (matching up against other team's top line, offensive zone starts %, etc).

 

[Turin]

This doesn’t look at Sidney Crosby’s individual defense. You might as well have posted plus minus.

 

[Midnight Judges]

This doesn’t look at Sidney Crosby’s individual defense. You might as well have posted plus minus.

Well no, because plus minus obscures pure defense by mixing in offense.

 

[Midnight Judges]

I’d be more curious to see how Crosby matches up defensively against guys like Backstrom, Giroux, Marchand, and even Barkov. I do believe Crosby’s defensive game is greatly over exaggerated and overrated in general, but Using the best players in terms of defensive play to compare only proves what Crosby lacks unfairly.

Are you suggesting that comparing actual on-ice results for the #4 Selke player to the #2 Selke player from last season is somehow unfair?

 

[Midnight Judges]

Interesting how none of those players have an Art Ross or a PPG close to Crosby which is why their moderately better defensive skills mean Jack ****.

It's fairly obvious that they aren't moderately better defensively than Sid, they are massively better. But you knew that, which is why you are talking about offense - which is irrelevant to this thread.

 

[GreatGonzo]

Are you suggesting that comparing actual on-ice results for the #4 Selke player to the #2 Selke player from last season is somehow unfair?

One season doesn’t make Crosby equal to any of those players. Toews, Kopitar, Bergeron, and Datsyuk were/are all more consistent defensively at a high level and better defensively overall.

besides you didn’t do it for one year, you did it for a 10 year span. Of course those players are going to have better defensive stats.

that’s why I mentioned those players, players that might be more fair to compare Crosby to, not the best of the best over the last decade, and Ovechkin.

 

[BillyOcean]

Am I the only one wondering why we're comparing Crosby's defensive play for an entire decade? Seems odd. Wasn't it around 2015 or so that Crosby really upped that aspect of his game? Crosby right now is a much better defensive player than he was in 2010. Seems like y'all should just say his two-way play has gotten stronger as he's gotten older.

It's like a player breaks out for three straight 100-point seasons but had 20 pts in the previous 3 years so I guess he's really a 60 point a year player?

Edit: hey look, no surprise. He has finished in the top 10 in Selke voting the past few seasons after barely getting any throughout a large portion of his career. Seems like the voters have noticed his defense improving.

 

[Flying Dego]

Man thanks guys! I'm so glad fans of other teams could enlighten me on Crosby's defensive ability or disability. I hope he doesn't handicap us too badly with his 'one way' mentality come playoff time. Thanks for the heads up!

I'm sure other teams are licking their chops knowing how they can exploit Crosby's defensive game.

 

[Turin]

Well no, because plus minus obscures pure defense by mixing in offense.

Just straight up goals against doesn’t really tell a better story than plus minus. And nobody compared Crosby’s individual defense to the Bergeron/Datsyuk/Toews/Kopitars of the world until last season. People did say his offense made up the gap and then some, which is true.

 

[KoozNetsOff 92]

Am I the only one wondering why we're comparing Crosby's defensive play for an entire decade? Seems odd. Wasn't it around 2015 or so that Crosby really upped that aspect of his game? Crosby right now is a much better defensive player than he was in 2010. Seems like y'all should just say his two-way play has gotten stronger as he's gotten older.

It's like a player breaks out for three straight 100-point seasons but had 20 pts in the previous 3 years so I guess he's really a 60 point a year player?

Edit: hey look, no surprise. He has finished in the top 10 in Selke voting the past few seasons after barely getting any throughout a large portion of his career. Seems like the voters have noticed his defense improving.

No. It's around this time that Crosby began falling further and further from the ross winner so the media began to spin it into "wow what an amazing leader, he's sacrificing his pts for D!", etc. Kind of like what happened to Yzerman in his 30s. Is he better defensively than his early years? Of course, but he's no Selke candidate. It's just media hype to keep his name in the spotlight because he's no longer relevant in ross or rocket races.

 

[BillyOcean]

No. It's around this time that Crosby began falling further and further from the ross winner so the media began to spin it into "wow what an amazing leader, he's sacrificing his pts for D!", etc. Kind of like what happened to Yzerman in his 30s. Is he better defensively than his early years? Of course, but he's no Selke candidate. It's just media hype to keep his name in the spotlight because he's no longer relevant in ross or rocket races.

Didn't Crosby win the rocket a year later? Hahaha. Guess NHL goalies just wanted to keep him relevant. League must have given them a memo!
Oh, and two Stanley Cup championships and two Conn Smythe's?

I don't think Crosby needs the media to keep him relevant, bitter Capitals fan.

Didn't he also have a 100-point season just last year?

Such an easy counter argument! It's like they don't even try!

 

[Hockey Outsider]

I'm doing an analysis of the top ES performers from the 2010's. Will post the results later tonight or tomorrow (I want a chance to check my numbers).

Based on what I have so far, Connor McDavid is clearly the best ES performer of the past decade (with the important disclaimer that he only played 3.5 years worth of games). Among players who played the entire decade, it's close between Bergeron and Crosby as the best ES performer.

 

[paragon]

Glad someone finally ran these numbers as an unbiased party. Been waiting for this type of in depth analysis since we proved goals are worth 2 st dev more than an assist and Ovechkin is the king of all.

It shouldn't and doesn't matter who post the numbers as long as they are correct.

 

[KoozNetsOff 92]

Didn't Crosby win the rocket a year later? Hahaha. Guess NHL goalies just wanted to keep him relevant. League must have given them a memo!
Oh, and two Stanley Cup championships and two Conn Smythe's?

I don't think Crosby needs the media to keep him relevant, bitter Capitals fan.

Didn't he also have a 100-point season just last year?

Such an easy counter argument! It's like they don't even try!

If you actually read what I wrote, I said "Crosby began falling further and further from the ROSS winner". Yes he won a rocket, but he didn't challenge for it in any of the 6 prior or 3 next seasons so that's clearly an outlier. The pens won 2 cups, not Crosby. Also the 16 smythe was a joke and perfect proof of media hype. Let me know when a player won the smythe despite being a minus and below PPG?

Not bitter about anything.

Yes he did, but was still 30pts behind the ross winner and double digits behind the other contenders, which is exactly what I said. He's not relevant in that race anymore so y'all hyping up his "defense".

 

[Gurglesons]

It shouldn't and doesn't matter who post the numbers as long as they are correct.

Guess what. They aren’t. If you have a hypothesis that Crosby is a bad defensive forward compared to elite defensive forwards you can find data that convinces you of such.

 

[paragon]

Guess what. They aren’t. If you have a hypothesis that Crosby is a bad defensive forward compared to elite defensive forwards you can find data that convinces you of such.

Compared to the elite defensive forwards he is way worse defensively. That shouldn't even be a debate.

 

[Gurglesons]

Compared to the elite defensive forwards he is way worse defensively. That shouldn't even be a debate.

Well, it shouldn’t be a debate. It is raw data, the issue is the poster used on ice data and goals against which shows nothing. Goals are scored randomly. The data should be showing expectations not results if we are trying to determine Crosby versus his peers.

 

[paragon]

Well, it shouldn’t be a debate. It is raw data, the issue is the poster used on ice data which shows nothing.

It shows something even if it is not definitive.

 

[Gurglesons]

It shows something even if it is not definitive.

It shows a poster with a known bias trying to argue a point he spends his existence on this forum arguing.

Once again. You can arrange data to tell any story you want. The importance of statistics is showing without bias a proof. Not validating a statement with numbers.