News Article: Alex Burmistrov bitter that Olli Jokinen got more ice time with Winnipeg Jets

[surixon]

Burmistrov was a highly scouted Russian forward that left home to play for the Barrie Coits in his draft year. He was directly quoted as having no interest in playing in the KHL, considering it "an old mans league" & his move to billet in Barrie sent a strong message to NHL scouts that he was committed NHL hockey.

Drafted 8th overall he made the Atlanta Thrashers out of training camp & had a very strong rookie campaign before making the move in his second season to Winnipeg.

He was instantly viewed as one of the Jets most talented players, having incredible puck possession skills, but was always hesitant to play dump & chase hockey, preferring highlight reel plays that never resulted in goals. Much of this can honestly be attributed to a lack of quality line mates to play with. Unlike Kane who forces play with his speed & north/south, Burmi's plays requires quality line mates who understand his creativeness. Despite this he played great defensive hockey & advanced stats clearly show he was a positive influence on the team. He was an outstanding penalty killer & anyone playing with him benefited with strong puck possession stats.

Enter the lockout season. Burmi wanted to play in the KHL & instead went to the AHL where his salary dropped from $900,000 to $67,000. He played 22 games for St. Johns & was the Ice Caps best forward every night, making a pro rated $15 000 during his 3 months there.

Alex didn't have to go. The money wasn't there, but was told it would further his development & also be in the teams best interest. The bottom line is he could have made considerably more in Europe & took a heavy hit to his wallet (likely $300 000) for towing the line.

That's ALOT of money to be lost for being a "team" player & from Alex's perspective likely believed (& was likely promised in return) quality NHL minutes & a bare minimum 3rd line centre role once the lockout ended.

15 games in it had become apparent that Jokinen had no chemistry will Kane, was a shadow of his former self & that Chevy's 4.5 million dollar acquisition was a bust. Still Jokinen, a newbie to the organization, continued receiving more ice time than Burmi despite clearly inferior play. He was rewarded with linemates Wright, Tangradi, Mietennen, Thorburn & at best Wellwood.

Little was moved briefly to RW creating a 1st/2nd line role experiment. Burmi dropped the ball. No quality scoring chances & a tremendous amount of turnovers from plays that had potential, but ultimately went nowhere. The best that could be said about his game at this point was "he had no puck luck."

Relegated back on the 3rd line, his offensive mindset tendencies weren't leading towards basic team goals, get the puck in deep so Wheeler, Little & Ladd can get on the ice. Noel sat him, he clearly didn't understand 3rd line responsibilities.

During the off season leading into the lockout, the #2 centre's spot was Burmi's by default, but along came Jokinen & 4.5 million. Now he's 3rd line, benched & lastly a healthy scratch after taking a $300 000 hit to his personal wallet & he's not entitled to honestly feel slighted? All while outplaying Jokinen?

Moving into the future he has to outperform Little & Scheifele, Jokinen's got a year left, O'Dell is pressing for a spot on the big club.....Burmi has to be wondering when, if ever he'll play top 6 minutes.

Let's move forward to his RFA status. Chevy was clearly signing in order of contract size, going smallest to most. The fact Burmi wanted out so early into negotiations clearly shows an early offer was made & the timing suggests it was paltry, likely miles apart. Looking at the final 23 man roster, the Jets only have 2.3 million at most to have bargained with. He could have stayed in the NHL for 2 years & went to arbitration, received certainly less than 2 million a year & been in a no better situation once that contract expired.

Why not Russia then? An offer from your hometown for millions in tax free money after this seasons wallet hit?

Hopefully he will & rejoin the team in 2 years, after Jokinen is gone, but with Scheifele likely at #2 by then (if not this year), that puts Burmistrov back at #3 centre, a position & role he clearly has no passion for.

It's a shame. I had high hopes that Burmi & Frolik would have been great line mates & the leagues best penalty kill unit. This could have been his year to shine!

Instead, I doubt he'll be back. Hopefully he puts up some solid #'s in AK Bars so we have a tradeable asset in 2 years.

Interesting post. My counter would be that he was quite good defensively and that he was quite lost offensively. The problem I had with Burmistrov offensively was that he always tried to over complicate things, he would turn what would have been simple plays into non-opportunities. I really don't blame the Jets coaching staff on trying to get him to remodel his game to one that was more simpler. I feel that had he continued to stick with it he would have eventually found himself into the top 6 on a more permanent basis but he seemed to want to fight against coaching every chance he got and went back home this summer instead of sticking it out. Its his right but I can't help but wonder where we might be today if he had been willing to listen to Noel from the beginning not after he was sat for 4 games.

 

[Hobby Bull]

Jets are a lesser team for losing Burmistrov. Imagine Burmistrov on this roster or converted into a useful piece.

Regardless if you think Burmistrov is a ****** for calling out the coach(or is paraphrased calling out he coach by this article) it sucks to lose him and his talent level. This is a young team with young talent. It benefits the Jets if they are able to develop their young talent and not simply rely on the ones that came with the team at point of sale.

Obviously Bogo, Kane and Wheeler are studs to build around. I would have included Burmistrov. I would also include Scheifele and Trouba on that list. I hope the latter are not subjected to a coach who thinks he has to "set the tone" for the team by proving his point to the pro's that's it's his way or a transcontinental flight to Mother Russia. It's not that this approach is wrong in and of itself..but it can be when it's handled by a coach who is willing to criticize certain players but not all. That's not a tough coach that's a rather weak coach.

Not sure what is debatable about Noel's responsibility. There's a player leaving (sorry, taking a two year hiatus) the team on account of Noel. Noel has done many good things as coach but this is a deficiency and a major one. This year will be very telling.

I'm a big fan of Burmistrov, myself, but the text of the article doesn't "call out" Noel. The language/translation are obscure from the original article, and we're left to interpolate what was meant.

 

[knorthern knight]

I gotta agree. But you got to think that maybe there is a possibility that Noel played Jokinen because he was making $4.5mil and had another year on contract. Wouldn't look good on Chevy to have his biggest FA signing average around 15 minutes of ice time and still be on the books for one more season.

It wouldn't look as bad as finishing out of the playoffs

 

[knorthern knight]

That is a bit of an odd perspective in my own view. You will find that in the world of employment that the most senior employees are those most often entrusted with the key roles/files, as they've a demonstrated wealth of experience that enables the employer to trust them more with such assignments.

And in all but the most heavily unionized outfits, anyone screwing up as majorly and consistently (as Jokinen on 2C) would've been out the door so fast it wouldn't be funny.

How bad is Jokinen? We could could probably shuttle him down to St Johns if we ever get tight for roster space, and even shelter $925,000 of his cap hit. Absolututely no worries about another team claiming him. Face it Jokinen == Gomez or Redden. At least their coaches had the brains not to play them. Noel didn't.

 

[Skidooboy]

Yawn. Why are we still talking about a player with 158 games experience who played up and Dow the lineup in all kinds of situations who only has a .3 ppg avg? Seriously. Advanced stats don't tell all of the story. Difficult to play with. Argues with coach,Easily replaceable production.
Enjoy the K Burmi, I won't miss you.

 

[Whileee]

Yawn. Why are we still talking about a player with 158 games experience who played up and Dow the lineup in all kinds of situations who only has a .3 ppg avg? Seriously. Advanced stats don't tell all of the story. Difficult to play with. Argues with coach,Easily replaceable production.
Enjoy the K Burmi, I won't miss you.

21 years old.

Plays Centre.

Already a high level penalty killer.

Usually played with 4th liners.

When he played with others, they were more productive than they were with other (including the $4.5 million / yr Jokinen).

I would not be quite so cavalier about giving up on young assets.

 

[Howard Chuck]

It's so strange to see 3 pages of comments on an article that has almost no basis in fact. There are a few links to 'sources' that are poorly translated and easily misunderstood and a link to a tweet.

All I got out of any of that is that Alex went to the A when asked, at a huge pay reduction and returned to find that the move didn't do him any good at all.

The other interesting thing is that Alex still doesn't seem to understand where things went wrong with Noel. Either we are being fed ******** by Noel, or the level of communication/understanding between Alex and Noel was very poor, which would be pretty sad given the level of management we are talking about here.

I have a very hard time believing anything in that article.

 

[Gump Hasek]

And in all but the most heavily unionized outfits, anyone screwing up as majorly and consistently (as Jokinen on 2C) would've been out the door so fast it wouldn't be funny.

How bad is Jokinen? We could could probably shuttle him down to St Johns if we ever get tight for roster space, and even shelter $925,000 of his cap hit. Absolututely no worries about another team claiming him. Face it Jokinen == Gomez or Redden. At least their coaches had the brains not to play them. Noel didn't.

And yet a group of NHL coaching and management personnel chose to play Jokinen over Burmistrov. Jokinen was that bad, yet he was still the best option in their view. That speaks to something about Burmistrov that most of his supporters seemingly refuse to admit.

 

[Grind]

And yet a group of NHL coaching and management personnel chose to play Jokinen over Burmistrov. Jokinen was that bad, yet he was still the best option in their view. That speaks to something about Burmistrov that most of his supporters seemingly refuse to admit.

Well...it certainly speaks something about said managements perceived value/ability of burmistrov.

Management isn't infallible, and i personally think this is something they whiffed on.

Now i'm not a pro, and there's no reason to believe what I said is right and management was wrong, but that doesn't eliminate the possibility that they made a mistake.

Honestly, from some of the interviews Noel gave I legitimately got the feeling he actually resented some players that didn't have to "do there time" in the AHL. Now Bogo and Kane didn't and seemed to be treated just fine (though there was some obvious heated exchange between Kane and Noel a couple times) so i wouldn't blame anyone for saying that's all in my head, but his tone and language really sounded like he was frustrated that he "had" to have Schiefele and Burmi on the squad.

That added with the Jokinen thing.... Even though management's "eyes" clearly told them Jokinen was the better choice over Burmistrov (wether correctly or incorrectly), there's almost no quantitative evidence to support the decision. It just rubs me the wrong way.

Maybe the detractors are right. Maybe Burmistrov never will develop into a more then a third/4th liner who can't score and has a bad attitude, but he'd be one of the very few players who've had similar career numbers at his age that flamed out.

 

[surixon]

Well...it certainly speaks something about said managements perceived value/ability of burmistrov.

Management isn't infallible, and i personally think this is something they whiffed on.

Now i'm not a pro, and there's no reason to believe what I said is right and management was wrong, but that doesn't eliminate the possibility that they made a mistake.

Honestly, from some of the interviews Noel gave I legitimately got the feeling he actually resented some players that didn't have to "do there time" in the AHL. Now Bogo and Kane didn't and seemed to be treated just fine (though there was some obvious heated exchange between Kane and Noel a couple times) so i wouldn't blame anyone for saying that's all in my head, but his tone and language really sounded like he was frustrated that he "had" to have Schiefele and Burmi on the squad.

That added with the Jokinen thing.... Even though management's "eyes" clearly told them Jokinen was the better choice over Burmistrov (wether correctly or incorrectly), there's almost no quantitative evidence to support the decision. It just rubs me the wrong way.

Maybe the detractors are right. Maybe Burmistrov never will develop into a more then a third/4th liner who can't score and has a bad attitude, but he'd be one of the very few players who've had similar career numbers at his age that flamed out.

I do agree with you about Noel and his seemingly lack of trust in young players and having them on the roster. This view seems to be in stark contrast to those held by his boss Chevy who has continually stated that they will find space for a younger player on the roster when they are ready and that he fully expects Mark and Jacob to push for roles. I will be very interested in seeing what happens with both this year as I have to think Chevy expects both to be on this team and contributing. If we see the same old reluctance Noel he may find himself out of a job very quick as I have always believed that he was Heisinger and Chipman's guy, not Chevy's and if he stands in the way of Chevy's long term plan then he is walking on borrowed time.

In the case of Burmistrov, I think Burmie was just as much of a problem as Noel.

 

[Positive]

And was rewarded with more ice time.

And then down the stretch for the final half-dozen games, given 20-27 shifts a game, produced 0 pts and was a -6. Yay Burmi. Jokinen was awfulbad, but Burmi is the most overrated 2.0 Jet ever.

 

[Gump Hasek]

And then down the stretch for the final half-dozen games, given 20-27 shifts a game, was produced 0 pts and was a -6. Yay Burmi. Jokinen was awfulbad, but Burmi is the most overrated 2.0 Jet ever.

*ding ding ding*

This guy gets it.

 

[james10011]

*ding ding ding*

This guy gets it.

This guy does not "get" sample space.

 

[Gump Hasek]

This guy does not "get" sample space.

No, he clearly gets what I am saying. You mistakenly apparently believe that I care about group opinion though. I understand that Burmistrov was a popular player here and am more than comfortable with expressing the occasional personal opinion that flies in the face of prevailing group-thought. To each their own.

 

[sully1410]

No, he gets what I am saying. You mistakenly apparently believe that I care about group opinion though. I understand that Burmistrov was a popular player here and am more than comfortable with having the occasional personal opinion that flies in the face of prevailing group-thought.

but you have absolutely nothing to back that up. Its just what you think, which is fine, but you cant count as as wrong when the evidence supports that Burmi was a valuable member of the team, and really good defensively.

 

[Gump Hasek]

This guy does not "get" sample space.

BTW. I do advanced technical analysis for a living, behavioral and advanced quantitative analysis to be precise. Thanks for the laugh.

 

[Gump Hasek]

but you have absolutely nothing to back that up. Its just what you think, which is fine, but you cant count as as wrong when the evidence supports that Burmi was a valuable member of the team, and really good defensively.

My backup is that after 194 games in the NHL this veteran player was unable to advance himself up the depth chart of a team with essentially sub-par talent at his position. I also don't need to rely upon "advanced stats" to tell others what happened yesterday. As an aside, "advanced hockey stats" guys are great at telling us what happened in the past but I've yet to see any decent predictive modelling come out of that genre, probably since they are attempting to tightly model a game of what is essentially a series of random events. Since they are largely random events in my view, they are unable to be properly modeled as such. I view it as an art versus a science. All I've seen from the advanced stats crowd here is a bunch of data mining that gives one a bunch of explanatory models but little in the way of any predictive help, which is my sole interest personally.

 

[Positive]

This guy does not "get" sample space.

Alright. What else should I discuss then? His 10pts this season, a full-season pace of 19 pts? His (IMHO) decent 15:38 avg of ice-time? Being out-produced by Grant Clitsome? The 4 goals in 44 this season? The 2 goals he scored in 22 games in the AHL while being a -2? He wasn't even the best player on the IceCaps during his stint there.

Being out-produced by Kyle Wellwood (12:58 avg ice-time) who had 15 points in 39 games with about the same PP time/game?

The awful Jokinen (17:07 avg ice-time) had 14 points in 45 games. Their avg ice-time is only about 90 seconds apart. Now Jokinen got a whopping 2:20 pp time while Burmi got :53 (about the same as Wellwood and Clitty), so that is an argument in Burmi's favor. But both Joki and Burmi had 0 PP goals. While it's possible to argue that Burmi would have been better...you can also argue he might have been equally useless.

Also if you're going to criticize me about sample size, maybe we should look at the samples that supposedly proves Burmi's greatness, or how he 'made his 3rd/4th line linemates better'. It's incredibly tiny. I mean people are talking about how Eric Tangradi was 'so much better with Burmi', when Tangradi scored...4 points. But hey, Burmi was on the ice for two of those! People talk about how 'Burmi was the 6th-leading goal scoring forward on 5 on 5 per per 60 min' when we're talking about...4 goals. One of which was a mad scramble, and another which was a deflection...

 

[garret9]

I don't take management choosing Jokinen over Burmistrov as a proxy for Burmistrov's value/faults...
Management also already show some poor decision making in choosing Miettinen/Wright/Thorburn over Wellwood/Antropov... and other poor decisions.


Also with the whole "predictive model thing" is a pretty big strawman.
One that isn't all "advanced" statistics needs to do to be worth wile to take into consideration. The logic in having the puck more often than the other team and that having more scoring chances than the other team isn't new, advanced, or anything difficult to follow.
Besides, if you want to get into it it has been able to predict future success more so than anything currently including goal differentials and standings.

 

[Arthur Fonzarelli]

I'm agreeing with you. McCambridge said frequently that Burmi was their best player throughout his time in St. Johns.

The point is Burmi's future with the Jets pointed towards a third line role. If he wasn't happy at 21 playing behind Jokinen, will he happier at 23 playing behind Scheifele & Little?

For the record I like Burmi. He's a quality player with a bright future & I was shocked he decided to leave, but one has to speculate why someone who said point blank "I hate the KHL" did a 180 in 3 years & left to play in "the old mans league."

His recent comments regarding Jokinen clearly show he felt he deserved the 2nd line centre role (which he did) but even once Ollie's contract expires, the job seems destined for Scheifele, so what then? His future role with the team was uncertain & the money wasn't there.

Further despite all the positives, I'll remind you of another direct quote from Burmi. Following his 4 game stint in the press box & week of being coached on what his role should be, he was surrounded by reporters upon his return, all asking what he'd learned & what changes he'd be applying to his game.

"I'm not going to change" was his response. We all should have known from that day forward that his days were numbered.

 

[Positive]

ding ding

You're a good poster Garret, but if I remember correctly, for a long time you were effectively vaunting Burmi's goal production, (using per 60 on 5-on-5) vs other Jets, based on a....4 goal total. So now people are knocking me on sample size. Ok, sure.

 

[Gump Hasek]

I don't take management choosing Jokinen over Burmistrov as a proxy for Burmistrov's value/faults...
Management also already show some poor decision making in choosing Miettinen/Wright/Thorburn over Wellwood/Antropov... and other poor decisions.


Also with the whole "predictive model thing" is a pretty big strawman.
One that isn't all "advanced" statistics needs to do to be worth wile to take into consideration. The logic in having the puck more often than the other team and that having more scoring chances than the other team isn't new, advanced, or anything difficult to follow.
Besides, if you want to get into it it has been able to predict future success more so than anything currently including goal differentials and standings.

It is not a strawman at all. What you are describing is more intuitive logic versus useful analysis. I don't watch the weatherman to hear what happened yesterday but rather seek an accurate forecast for tomorrow and beyond, as least as accurate as their models can forecast, and this is also dependent upon which forecasting model they choose to use.

Perhaps you could point me toward the wealth of predictive analysis that has stemmed from advanced statistical analysis of the game of hockey? I'm not seeking a review of past history mind you but rather am seeking accurate predictive models generated from same. If not, then all you are doing is data mining explanatory evidence and are presenting your own (artful) analysis of what happened in the past and describing your own view of such, from within your own prism. Tell me what will most probably happen in the future though and that work will then have some merit, and explain how you arrived at your forecast. Thanks in advance.

 

[garret9]

You're a good poster Garret, but if I remember correctly, for a long time you were effectively vaunting Burmi's goal production, (using per 60 on 5-on-5) vs other Jets, based on a....4 goal total. So now people are knocking me on sample size. Ok, sure.

My point was to show how TOI and Sh% can be a more dominant factor than skill, also I did points at the time not goals. It wasn't to extrapolate that if Burmistrov had the same icetime he'd keep the same pace but to show the problem with comparing boxcar statistics when you have sampling space issues.

In Burmi's case it's multiple facets:
He is not a major offensive asset at all and I have always understood and admitted to that; I do however think he is under-appreciated. In both basketball and soccer we see players who are important to the flow of the game who still do not receive much offensive production. This is always why I never thought of Burmistrov as a future 1st liner. Not everyone can be like Evander Kane where you can plop him with the Jokinens and Miettinens of the world and only take a semi-step back.

On-ice and off-ice are two different things to me. I tell people what the results were and how players played, trying to dismiss misconceptions.

However, I'm not blind to the fact that it is not as simple for management. I understand that there is more involved than what I can tell.

So when people say stuff like "Burmistrov was useless", I say "nay, he helped here and there". But, I still understand more may be going on, thus why management may be 100% ok with him gone.

 

[garret9]

It is not a strawman at all. What you are describing is more intuitive logic versus useful analysis. I don't watch the weatherman to hear what happened yesterday but rather seek an accurate forecast for tomorrow and beyond, as least as accurate as their models can forecast, and this is also dependent upon which forecasting model they choose to use.

Perhaps you could point me toward the wealth of predictive analysis that has stemmed from advanced statistical analysis of the game of hockey? I'm not seeking a review of past history mind you but rather am seeking accurate predictive models generated from same. If not, then all you are doing is data mining explanatory evidence and are presenting your own (artful) analysis of what happened in the past and describing your own view of such, from within your own prism. Tell me what will most probably happen in the future though and that work will then have some merit, and explain how you arrived at your forecast. Thanks in advance.

It is a strawman. You are suggesting that advanced statistics only looks in the past and can't/doesn't have predictive values... which is completely not true and also a miscast of what many attempt to use it for. Also, you are treating said statistics as if they are the model for future predictions, when in-fact they are the tools and pieces that can be used for modelling.

The whole weather analogy is actually a great one and I'm not sure why you don't see the connection.
Weather forecasting involves looking at how multiple dynamic variables (temperature, pressure, moisture, etc) interacted in past causing particular events to unfold and then extrapolating the likelihood of reoccurrence. It involves with weighted probabilities, not fortune telling. Weather forecasting is more predictive as they get the privilege to continuously rerun data consistently as each variable changes.

For the most part, the advanced statistical community has not used these analytics for their predictive nature, but instead debunk some of the traditional narratives and misconceptions that are frequent in the hockey world, especially the media.

However, that isn't to say that they are never used as of such. There are those that do forecast the NHL, most of whom now work for NHL teams either on consistent payroll or freelance. Some forecasting is still performed in the community and has been done decently well. No, not in just a review manner. If you want it is out there if you wish to find and not hidden at all.

 

[Gump Hasek]

It is a strawman. You are suggesting that advanced statistics only looks in the past and can't/doesn't have predictive values... which is completely not true and also a miscast of what many attempt to use it for. Also, you are treating said statistics as if they are the model for future predictions, when in-fact they are the tools and pieces that can be used for modelling.

I didn't say any of that; what I did was state that I've seen no accurate predictive models from that genre as of yet and asked you to provide them. Instead of giving me flowery talk of how your data mining has been used to debunk past theories, why not put that data to predictive use? Simple question, really. I didn't state that it can't be used as predictive but rather stated my own personal suspicions. Rather than conversely stating it has been already done, just point me toward the work then please. If not, all you are really doing is presenting yesterday's weather details in a different package.