Alex Edler - Part II

[MS]

Edler didn't even really bleed goals against last year, or the year before. His numbers have been right in line with Bieksa's. Not good numbers by any stretch, but not exactly standing out compared to some others on the team either in Bieksa, Higgins, Kesler etc...

Kesler is the guy that has bled goals against over the last 2 seasons - though he does take on very tough minutes.

Edler's 'CorsiRelQoc' also hasn't been that bad at all over the last couple years.

Wouldn't be surprised to see Edler have a major bounce back season in terms of plus/minus. Especially if he gets to lineup with a good defensive defenseman like Tanev.

Bieksa bleeds goals too, but also drives the play offensively.

Edler has had a brutal GA/60 for three straight years. It isn't an accident. Being +/- even on a President's Trophy team is nearly as bad as being -39 on a 25th place team. He's been a terrible defensive player since his back injury.

 

[Drop the Sopel]

Bieksa bleeds goals too, but also drives the play offensively.

Edler has had a brutal GA/60 for three straight years. It isn't an accident. Being +/- even on a President's Trophy team is nearly as bad as being -39 on a 25th place team. He's been a terrible defensive player since his back injury.

Bieksa has had a near identical GA/60 for the last 3 years. He's been a poor defensive player for the majority of his career, not unlike Edler.

Like I said, Edler certainly doesn't stand out in this regard. His terrible plus/minus was a result of never being on the ice for goals for for the first time in his career. I don't expect that to happen again next year and that will be the reason his plus/minus takes a huge leap forward.

Can't say I have much more confidence in Bieksa than Edler moving forward. Both guys should be on the block if the season goes south.

 

[TheWanderer]

At least Bieksa can offer some thoughts and leadership when he's not playing well. Edler is such a drag to watch most of the time, I'm just sick of him being here at this point.

 

[MS]

Bieksa has had a near identical GA/60 for the last 3 years. He's been a poor defensive player for the majority of his career, not unlike Edler.

Like I said, Edler certainly doesn't stand out in this regard. His terrible plus/minus was a result of never being on the ice for goals for for the first time in his career. I don't expect that to happen again next year and that will be the reason his plus/minus takes a huge leap forward.

Can't say I have much more confidence in Bieksa than Edler moving forward. Both guys should be on the block if the season goes south.

Edler's 11-12 and 12-13 seasons are nearly identical to last years, except he scores more points on the PP and has a bit more luck in terms of on-ice shooting percentage. And the team was heaps better so his poor defensive play was better hidden.

 

[Verviticus]

"a bit more luck" is one way to put it

 

[TheWanderer]

I'm sick of people acting like luck has anything to do with his bad season. IMO, he's been lucky enough to have been playing in front of elite goaltenders and behind elite defensive forwards his entire career. On any other team, he would be compared to Gonchar or Green as a player who is completely useless defensively.

The only difference in the last three years is that the team's offense collectively dried up, and his only positive is gone... Oh yeah, and his back injury turned him into a marshmallow...

I would be except if we managed to put together a system that actually made use of a Gonchar/Green type defenseman lie we had in 2010/11 so we can stop watching this guy founder around like it's Disney on Ice.

 

[CloutierForVezina]

I'm sick of people acting like luck has anything to do with his bad season.

I'm sick of people acting like luck doesn't exist.

Sometimes players get the right bounces. Sometimes they don't. That's just how life works.

If you want to ignore luck, go ahead. But don't act like it's ridiculous for people to examine a player's luck and draw conclusions from that.

 

[TheWanderer]

I'm sick of people acting like luck doesn't exist.

Sometimes players get the right bounces. Sometimes they don't. That's just how life works.

If you want to ignore luck, go ahead. But don't act like it's ridiculous for people to examine a player's luck and draw conclusions from that.

Did you read the rest of my post? Or even the very next sentence at least?

 

[CloutierForVezina]

Did you read the rest of my post? Or even the very next sentence at least?

Yes. You're talking about being put in the right situation to succeed and calling it lucky. That's not lucky, that's a smart use of assets by the team.

And your assessment isn't even correct. He's been lucky to be playing with elite defensive forwards his entire career.... what? At this best, Edler was rolled with Ehrhoff and lined up with the Sedins for most of his even strength time - are the Sedins now elite defensive players?

Being put in the right situation has nothing to do with puck luck and simply writing off his unbelievably bad puck luck last year by saying "yeah, well, he was lucky before because he wasn't misused" is ridiculously silly.

 

[MS]

I'm sick of people acting like luck doesn't exist.

Sometimes players get the right bounces. Sometimes they don't. That's just how life works.

If you want to ignore luck, go ahead. But don't act like it's ridiculous for people to examine a player's luck and draw conclusions from that.

When you stink defensively every year, it isn't 'luck'.

He was somewhat unlucky offensively last year in terms of on-ice sh% but a few more goals going in wouldn't change that he was a terrible player and an absolute boat anchor for this team. Biggest reason we stunk last year. We were actually a pretty good team when we didn't have the misfortune of having Edler on the ice.

And the eye test confirms this. If I didn't see a single statistic related to last season, I could still tell you that Edler was utterly horrific.

 

[opendoor]

Yeah, you give Edler his normal on-ice shooting percentage from recent years and he's still in the -20 to -25 range for last season. His 44% scoring chance F/A ratio also doesn't speak well of his play.

I honestly just don't think he can handle normal top 4 defensive minutes. If they're going to get him back to being useful they're going to have to shelter him a bit more. Which makes swapping Garrison for Sbisa even more odd.

 

[TheWanderer]

Yes. You're talking about being put in the right situation to succeed and calling it lucky. That's not lucky, that's a smart use of assets by the team.

And your assessment isn't even correct. He's been lucky to be playing with elite defensive forwards his entire career.... what? At this best, Edler was rolled with Ehrhoff and lined up with the Sedins for most of his even strength time - are the Sedins now elite defensive players?

Being put in the right situation has nothing to do with puck luck and simply writing off his unbelievably bad puck luck last year by saying "yeah, well, he was lucky before because he wasn't misused" is ridiculously silly.

Sedins are smart in their own zone and get possession players, and burrows in his prime absolutely was elite. He also had Kesler playing in front of him often as well.

The only difference is how our offense died up and our goalies stopped shutting the door quite like they used to. As soon as that happens, Edler looks like hot garbage.

You want to call it bad luck that the whole team sucking exposed him, well that's equally as silly as me wanting to call it good luck that he played on a good enough team to hide it.

Edler is only a key component to this team's success when the whole team is ticking. If anything goes awry like it has in the last three seasons, Edler makes the problem worse instead of better.

The only bad luck Edler had was suffering from Tortorella's coaching for a year - and that spans the entire team, but no one, not Burrows nor Booth, looked as terrible at all times like Edler did.

 

[Rotting Corpse*]

It is possible for a player to be terrible *and* have bad luck. This is a key point that some seem to be missing.

 

[CloutierForVezina]

When you stink defensively every year, it isn't 'luck'.

He was somewhat unlucky offensively last year in terms of on-ice sh% but a few more goals going in wouldn't change that he was a terrible player and an absolute boat anchor for this team. Biggest reason we stunk last year. We were actually a pretty good team when we didn't have the misfortune of having Edler on the ice.

And the eye test confirms this. If I didn't see a single statistic related to last season, I could still tell you that Edler was utterly horrific.

I never claimed Edler was ever some sort of defensive stalwart, only that he wasn't as bad as his -39 indicated last year.

He's never going to be an elite shutdown guy. And that's OK. Pair him with another puck mover (Ehrhoff worked absolute wonders in the past), or pair him with a mobile defensive defenseman to cover his mistakes (I have a feeling Tanev could be good here, but maybe that's an experiment doomed to failure) and allow him to play his game and you'll get results out of him.

Expect him to play 27 minutes a night against the other team's best players and you're going to be disappointed. He's not an elite #1 like a Doughty or Keith or Weber or Chara and he's not going to produce results like them.

Yeah, you give Edler his normal on-ice shooting percentage from recent years and he's still in the -20 to -25 range for last season. His 44% scoring chance F/A ratio also doesn't speak well of his play.

I honestly just don't think he can handle normal top 4 defensive minutes. If they're going to get him back to being useful they're going to have to shelter him a bit more. Which makes swapping Garrison for Sbisa even more odd.

Right. Edler isn't that great defensively and early on he was asked to carry a lot more of the load than he actually can. You could tell he was struggling hard when Torts was trying to force him into becoming a #1, all purpose defenseman early on in the season.

Give Edler his normal sh% and normal sv% and he would have been around even last season. A .902 EV sv% is unbelievably bad - even if Edler is defending in front of you.

You want to call it bad luck that the whole team sucking exposed him, well that's equally as silly as me wanting to call it good luck that he played on a good enough team to hide it.

There seems to be some disconnect here. I'm not calling it bad luck that he got exposed while being overplayed by Torts last year. That was misuse, but not bad luck.

What I'm calling bad luck was his atrocious on-ice sh% and on-ice sv%. That's it. If you want to offer an explanation for both of these numbers suddenly dropping for him (and not the rest of the team), other than bad luck, I'm all ears.

 

[kanucks25]

It is possible for a player to be terrible *and* have bad luck. This is a key point that some seem to be missing.

Yes. But I would say he was just bad and then had bad luck on top, which downgraded him to terrible

 

[Addison Rae]

Edler's 11-12 and 12-13 seasons are nearly identical to last years, except he scores more points on the PP and has a bit more luck in terms of on-ice shooting percentage. And the team was heaps better so his poor defensive play was better hidden.

Love how mention it as a "little more luck" Edler has amongst the worst luck in the league this year, I don't know how many times it has to be said if Edler's on ice shooing% was anywhere around his career average we're talking about another 40 point season and a much higher (lower in this case) +/-. Edler drove the play more then any Canucks d-man this year while playing against top notch comp. +/- is a terrible statistic when you aren't putting it into context.

 

[opendoor]

Love how mention it as a "little more luck" Edler has amongst the worst luck in the league this year, I don't know how many times it has to be said if Edler's on ice shooing% was anywhere around his career average we're talking about another 40 point season and a much higher (lower in this case) +/-. Edler drove the play more then any Canucks d-man this year while playing against top notch comp. +/- is a terrible statistic when you aren't putting it into context.

Yeah, his 44% scoring chance ratio was really indicative of him driving the play. Compare that to guys like Tanev (52%) and Hamhuis (51%) in much tougher minutes.

 

[Addison Rae]

Yeah, his 44% scoring chance ratio was really indicative of him driving the play. Compare that to guys like Tanev (52%) and Hamhuis (51%) in much tougher minutes.

I wasn't aware of that metric I was simply basing it of Corsi. Corsi is pretty indicative of driving play. I think we all know that Alex Edler is better then what showed up on HockeyDB this year. I'd look long and hard at running an Edler/Tanev pairing this year, although the sample size is small they had a CF% of 55 when playing together last year.

 

[opendoor]

Right. Edler isn't that great defensively and early on he was asked to carry a lot more of the load than he actually can. You could tell he was struggling hard when Torts was trying to force him into becoming a #1, all purpose defenseman early on in the season.

Give Edler his normal sh% and normal sv% and he would have been around even last season. A .902 EV sv% is unbelievably bad - even if Edler is defending in front of you.

That .902 doesn't sound right. Extra Skater and hockeyanalysis.com both have it as .916 for 5-on-5 which is pretty standard for him, especially when you consider the downgrade in net when they traded Schneider.

IMO there are really only two unlucky factors that drove Edler's +/- last season. A low on ice shooting percentage and being on for a lot of empty net goals against. Other than that he had a pretty awful year at both ends of the ice. And in terms of scoring chances, it was his 3rd poor one in a row. 13-14 makes that 3 years in a row where the Canucks allowed at least 20% more chances than they generated at even strength with Edler on the ice. And that's despite him generally getting softer minutes and zone starts than his teammates, minutes in which you'd expect him to at least saw off the chances.

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

Luck isn't really quantifiable though. You cant say edler had 3 bad luck shots last year that should have went in. Truth is, he isn't as bad as the numbers indicate. He isn't willie mitchell, but he wasn't the hot garbage on ice he was last year.

 

[opendoor]

I wasn't aware of that metric I was simply basing it of Corsi. Corsi is pretty indicative of driving play. I think we all know that Alex Edler is better then what showed up on HockeyDB this year. I'd look long and hard at running an Edler/Tanev pairing this year, although the sample size is small they had a CF% of 55 when playing together last year.

Yeah, Corsi is generally a good proxy for possession but some guys are outliers when you compare it to goals and scoring chances even over larger samples. David Booth has had a great Corsi but a 43% GF/GA ratio and a 6.35% on ice shooting percentage over the last 5 seasons for a reason.

 

[Addison Rae]

Yeah, Corsi is generally a good proxy for possession but some guys are outliers when you compare it to goals and scoring chances even over larger samples. David Booth has had a great Corsi but a 43% GF/GA ratio and a 6.35% on ice shooting percentage over the last 5 seasons for a reason.

That's fair enough, man. Next year should be huge for Edler, Willie D's system on the surface fits him to a tee. Hopefully Willie isn't daft enough to try and kindle magic between Bieksa and Edler those two players will never play well together. I'd start the year with these D pairings.

Hamhuis - Bieksa
Edler - Tanev
Stanton - Corrado/Weber

Torey Krug is really intriguing to me apparently he was a Benning find and is coming off a lights out season. Yes, I realize that he's fairly sheltered but he could really help our power play. Boston fans are suggesting that if they were to move him they'd want a NHL ready right winger with 2nd line upset. Maybe we could do something around Krug and Jensen? In most cases it seems like we're fleecing Boston, but they aren't exactly in a great cap situation and we may be able to work something out around those player.

 

[Vankiller Whale]

That .902 doesn't sound right. Extra Skater and hockeyanalysis.com both have it as .916 for 5-on-5 which is pretty standard for him, especially when you consider the downgrade in net when they traded Schneider.

IMO there are really only two unlucky factors that drove Edler's +/- last season. A low on ice shooting percentage and being on for a lot of empty net goals against. Other than that he had a pretty awful year at both ends of the ice. And in terms of scoring chances, it was his 3rd poor one in a row. 13-14 makes that 3 years in a row where the Canucks allowed at least 20% more chances than they generated at even strength with Edler on the ice. And that's despite him generally getting softer minutes and zone starts than his teammates, minutes in which you'd expect him to at least saw off the chances.

There's obviously some sort of discrepancy between the sites.

Behind the Net has:

Tanev - .923
Hamhuis - .921
Garrison - .919
Bieksa - .916
Stanton - .915
Edler - .902

Extra Skater has:

Tanev - .931
Hamhuis - .927
Garrison - .923
Bieksa - .921
Stanton - .919
Edler - .916

Given that Luongo/Lack had .926, .925 at ES last year and .919, .912 overall, I think it makes sense to assume that Behind the Net's numbers for on-ice sv% were for all situations, not just ES(despite what they reported)

That said, a PDO of 938 is a pretty strong indicator of bad luck.

 

[CloutierForVezina]

That .902 doesn't sound right. Extra Skater and hockeyanalysis.com both have it as .916 for 5-on-5 which is pretty standard for him, especially when you consider the downgrade in net when they traded Schneider.

IMO there are really only two unlucky factors that drove Edler's +/- last season. A low on ice shooting percentage and being on for a lot of empty net goals against. Other than that he had a pretty awful year at both ends of the ice. And in terms of scoring chances, it was his 3rd poor one in a row. 13-14 makes that 3 years in a row where the Canucks allowed at least 20% more chances than they generated at even strength with Edler on the ice. And that's despite him generally getting softer minutes and zone starts than his teammates, minutes in which you'd expect him to at least saw off the chances.

I'm honestly curious which numbers are right. My numbers were from behindthenet:

http://www.behindthenet.ca/nhl_stat...v5&f5=VAN&f7=40-&c=0+1+3+5+29+30+31+32+33+34#

Not sure which numbers are correct, though.

Luck isn't really quantifiable though. You cant say edler had 3 bad luck shots last year that should have went in. Truth is, he isn't as bad as the numbers indicate. He isn't willie mitchell, but he wasn't the hot garbage on ice he was last year.

PDO is a pretty good metric for quantifying luck. Edler's was abysmal. It's not perfect, but most players fall close to 1000. If a player has a season where their PDO is *significantly* off from 1000, it's usually a strong indication that they're in for a big regression to the mean season.

 

[MS]

That .902 doesn't sound right. Extra Skater and hockeyanalysis.com both have it as .916 for 5-on-5 which is pretty standard for him, especially when you consider the downgrade in net when they traded Schneider.

IMO there are really only two unlucky factors that drove Edler's +/- last season. A low on ice shooting percentage and being on for a lot of empty net goals against. Other than that he had a pretty awful year at both ends of the ice. And in terms of scoring chances, it was his 3rd poor one in a row. 13-14 makes that 3 years in a row where the Canucks allowed at least 20% more chances than they generated at even strength with Edler on the ice. And that's despite him generally getting softer minutes and zone starts than his teammates, minutes in which you'd expect him to at least saw off the chances.

Yeah, Corsi is generally a good proxy for possession but some guys are outliers when you compare it to goals and scoring chances even over larger samples. David Booth has had a great Corsi but a 43% GF/GA ratio and a 6.35% on ice shooting percentage over the last 5 seasons for a reason.

Cheers for saving me a bunch of research and typing.