Speculation: Another year of this Bluc **** (The 2024-25 season thread)

[King'sPawn]

If there are high shots against but low goals against, especially on the PK, it suggests a penalty killer is at least very effective in helping their goalie face stoppable shots.

Of course, more factors get played into it. But I at least agree that Lewis is an effective fourth liner and depth player. And as someone who values playing prospects but hates "all-kid" lines, I think he provides good value to the team.

Teams win on depth for sure, but Lewis (or anyone who replaces him) won't be the difference maker in offensive statistics.

 

[Chazz Reinhold]

If there are high shots against but low goals against, especially on the PK, it suggests a penalty killer is at least very effective in helping their goalie face stoppable shots.

Of course, more factors get played into it. But I at least agree that Lewis is an effective fourth liner and depth player. And as someone who values playing prospects but hates "all-kid" lines, I think he provides good value to the team.

Teams win on depth for sure, but Lewis (or anyone who replaces him) won't be the difference maker in offensive statistics.

You only have to look several posts back to see that goalies face many more shots from the middle of the ice with Lewis on the PK than when he's not out there. Shots from the middle are bad.

Correct
View attachment 912045

 

[johnjm22]

Kopitar (who should not be killing penalties)

Absolutely. Been saying this for awhile.

Not opposed to it occasionally, but he hasn't been good at it for awhile and it's burning him out even more.

 

[Chazz Reinhold]

Including the previous year when Lewis wasn't on the team and the PK as a whole was a nightmare doesn't make a lot of sense.

Sorting by GA/60 for looking at PK numbers isn't ideal since it doesn't account for goaltending variance (among several other factors), but I'll play. Here's last year:
View attachment 912109

- Lewis did not lead the team in GA/60 at 5 on 4. This includes an on ice save percentage of 93.57%, which was highest among all forwards except for Lizotte. A number that also doesn't seem realistically sustainable on the penalty kill especially. Seeing that, it looks like he prevented a lot of scoring chances/high danger chances, right? Trevor Moore gave up FAR more goals/60 on the PK, but less scoring chances against. Why? Because the on ice save percentage for him was 86.29%. There wasn't a significant difference in high danger chances against/scoring chances against/or xGA between the two, even with Moore being slightly better in some categories. It came down to goaltending variance. You can see that in the HDGA/60 column.

- Kopitar (who should not be killing penalties) and Danault were the only two forwards with worse SCA/60 data.

In xGA/60, only forward that was worse was Kopitar.

There is no data to support that Lewis was particularly good, and saying "eye test" is just handwaving away what actually happened. At best you can say Lewis was a replacement level penalty killer.

To follow up on this, I just looked at all penalty killers in the NHL with at least 125 minutes at 4-v-5 PK: Trevor Lewis had the second highest* on-ice save percentage in the NHL. You didn't make the point expressly, but on-ice save percentage is something that is highly dependent on fortune and is something that's generally not a repeatable skill year over year.


* The top four were all Kings! Doughty, Lewis, Kempe, Anderson (Kopitar was 7th). That definitely suggests some luck being involved.

On a frustrating note, it looks like the current GM of the Hurricanes did some research on this back in the day when he was just a private citizen but it appears it's all been scrubbed from the internet:

Over at Broad Street Hockey, Eric Tulsky has already shown in three excellent articles that a player is unable to control a team's Sh% and Sv% when they are on the ice (as shown here, here and here). This means that, although they may be affected by skill, over the context of a NHL season variables outside of a player's control (ie: "luck") play a larger factor in the difference between being above or below league averages. The volatility of these percentages is due to the extremely low-occurrance events they represent. This causes percentages to be almost random in nature when reviewing at season's end. This also means that these percentages can relate to values that are beyond where any NHL player's "true value" would lie.

Percentages and Probabilities: Does luck exist and how do you factor for it?

There are a few related topics that have been tossed around involving statistics and their predictive abilities, predominately in the area of percentages and their regression to the mean.

www.arcticicehockey.com

 

[King'sPawn]

You only have to look several posts back to see that goalies face many more shots from the middle of the ice with Lewis on the PK than when he's not out there. Shots from the middle are bad.


View attachment 912128

Ah, I missed that. I still believe there's more to the story than the graphics suggest.

You still see the expected goals against/60 with is 7.71 versus 7.54 without. That's a difference of 17 goals per 600 minutes on the PK, which is marginal.

I mentioned there's more to it. Lewis is only on one part of that unit. Lewis plays more on the right side, where you see the biggest, darkest blue circle. The zone he usually works is best contained.

I'm not arguing he's a defensive savant, but he does his job well enough. There is compelling but incomplete data that doesn't get captured.

Edit: also, I see nothing in that shot chart about 5-on-3 or 5-on-4 penalty kill. Lewis usually gets a heavy load of 5-on-3, does he not?

 

[tbrown33]

Absolutely. Been saying this for awhile.

Not opposed to it occasionally, but he hasn't been good at it for awhile and it's burning him out even more.

Yep, exactly. It’d be one thing if he was an elite PKer, but he hasnt been, at least for several years. Common sense says to use a younger player/bottom 6er instead. There is no point wasting your late 30s 1C’s legs on the PK.

 

[Surf Nutz]

Yep, exactly. It’d be one thing if he was an elite PKer, but he hasnt been, at least for several years. Common sense says to use a younger player/bottom 6er instead. There is no point wasting your late 30s 1C’s legs on the PK.

Ex-1C

 

[Statto]

DD has had successful surgery…

Day 16 Camp Primer – Final QC Practice + Doughty Surgery Successful, Defensive Pairings Take Shape - LA Kings Insider

Day 16, Insiders. Will this story publish on the homepage of the website? Feels unlikely. However, as I continue to look into that problem, let’s talk about the trip thus far, as the team hits practice today. The first start from last night’s game? Quinton Byfield. The second star? This guy...

lakingsinsider.com

 

[Schrute farms]

I'm trying to remember, when was the last time a professional athlete had an announced 'unsuccessful surgery'

Maybe if they don't announce that it was successful, then the lack of info means it was unsuccessful