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Around the NHL — Episode XLXVII

bicboi64 said:

Mollie Walker (@MollieeWalkerr)

#NYR Calvin de Haan walked past us as he was about to get on the ice and commented on how it’s all finally over. He said something to the effect of, ‘How about the way I’ve been treated here? It’s f***ed.’ We asked if he wanted to talk, he said yes and that he would be “very transparent.”
xcancel.com xcancel.com

C'mon home next season Calvin.

De Haan at league minimum wouldn't be a bad option as a 7th D
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Can't be worse than Hamonic.
 
Xspyrit said:
Yes so that's why I look at facts.

- They made the SCF just 4 years ago in 2021. Many of their fans wanted a rebuild already but it was one last kick at the can with Price/Weber and it worked. The following season they fell apart, similar to us in 2017-18 so they decided to rebuild (again, similar to us) and they traded several vets plus revamped the whole management and coaching. Comparatively, the current season for them was like our 2020-21 season, the 4th season of both rebuilds.

- If you compare them in 2024-25 vs Ottawa in 2020-21, they look way ahead. our leading scorer had 36 pts in 56 games and Connor Brown was our best goal scorer and 2nd best forward. Suzuki is currently 12th in points league wide, Caufield is 10th in goals and Hutson is 6th in points among D-men and will win the Calder despite the fact that Celibrini is a stud. They have a 0.550 P% while we had 0.455 P% in the weak North division. They will make the playoffs in a much harder set up.

So that's the thing, if you're comparing with Ottawa, you need to have this in mind. Note that I was not trying to compare (only compare the shooting % of some players)



I just mentioned that their rebuild was trending well and that they would start breathing down our necks, which they did almost all season. I didn't predict that they would make the playoffs this season, I thought they were going to be a threat more next season. They are outplaying their own expectations sure, but the problem as I said is more that some of their players are emerging as better than expected. Suzuki is better than I thought, I used to laugh at people who would compare him to Patrice Bergeron and even argued with Habs fans that we had Josh Norris and now it looks silly. Lane Hutson is a rookie and is breaking all-time records. Caufield is close to 40 goals and I thought he would be very unidimensional but it seems that his defense also improved big time. Etc



Career year? Same argument that some Leafs fans were having with Stutzle and his 90 pts season, I was like "do you realize the guy was just 20-21 y/o?". Suzuki is 25 y/o and had 77 pts last year, safe to say he has entered his prime and it will look like this. Thankfully Staios was faster and went after Cozens because a #2 C is what they are missing right now. They have a plethora of 3rd line centers (Dvorak, Newhook, Dach, Evans) and will have the luxury to choose who to keep. They have a promising young pivot developing in Hage and some other good C prospects like Kapanen and Beck

And please, a size argument regarding Hutson? It must suck to have guys like Makar and Quinn Hughes too.



ok not going to reply to all points but my point was this :

Suzuki (25) : 12th in scoring among NHL forwards
Caufield (24) : 10th in goals among NHL forwards
Slafkovský (21) : compare his 19 and 20 y/o seasons with Tkachuk and Stutzle
Demidov (19) : seen as the best prospect not in the NHL yet
Hutson (21) : 6th in points among NHL D-men, will win the Calder
Guhle (23) : seen as a top defensive guy already
Fowler (20) : probably the best goalie prospect in the world

Some solid vets like Anderson, Gallagher, Matheson, Carrier, Montembeault and a top prospect pool too with Demidov, Hage, Fowler, Reinbacher, Beck, Roy, Mailloux, Engström, etc

The point is they have developed some pretty good young players, still have an excellent pool so all this needs to stop because they might become a big problem for us to get out of the Atlantic.
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Them being in the cup final 4 years ago has nothing to do with their rebuild. It's irrelevant.

Again, all of the metrics that typically correlate to a WL record are awful. Address that. The cup final 4 years ago is irrelevant. Should they have the points they have given the underlying data? Do you think it's repeatable?

Hutson. Can you win with a 160 pound 1D? What do you think about that? What other D do they have? Guhle is a 2/3. Any other prospects trending towards top 3? The couple of first rounders they have have disappointed

What other prospects? Roy? Beck? They're not trending to high end players.

They've got Suzuki, caulfield, slafkovsky, Hutson and Demidov who's never played a game in the league. The rest of the roster is nothing to write home about. And 2 of the guys I mentioned aren't just small. They're tiny.

I don't think that stacks up against what we have.
 
Masked said:
What's the red number? Average number of Leaf fans arrested per home game?
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buffalo bill.gif
 
L'Aveuglette said:
They're actually really good and have an excellent shot at winning the cup.
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I think the sentiment that Tampa sucks comes from how they're playing vs their last cup run. They're not as strong as that team. But like, they're still gonna be a difficult out for whoever they face, and they have one of the best goalies in the league.

Gonna be a fun set of first round matchups from the looks of things:

- Battle of Ontario
- Battle of Florida
- Canes / Devils
- Washington / Columbus
 
Flames casually making a playoff push themselves. Could have the makings for another all Canadian opening series Flames vs. Jets.

They're sorta like us in the sense of the other team in the province getting way more attention. Which I suppose is understandable since the Oilers have world class players.
 
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C'mon Bedard, go beast most against the Scabs.

On a side note, Brandon Hagel is looking like the best value contract in the league. Dude has 90 points in 80 games. I thought he'd be a 30g30a type guy, but he's playing lights out for TBL. Friggin Kucherov going to win his 3rd Art Ross trophy while playing in the McDavid era
 
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Sens of Anarchy said:
2 40+ goal scorers
+ top scorer in the NHL
+ a 35 goal 90 pt 2nd liner
+ excellent top 4 D
+ Vasilevsky a top3 goalie
+ great role players Cirelli, Paul, Gourde

Suck, they do not
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They have the best goal differential in the east, 2nd best in the league and they added Gourde and Bjorkstrand. There's a good argument to be made they are the best team in the east right now,
 
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TBL has one of the best forward groups in the league but their defense is a bit slow. They won't score too much from the blueline, but Hedman is still a force and their D don't need to be flashy. If they slip Vasilevsky is still good enough to shut the door.

Really glad we don't play TBL in the first round
 
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I'll start by saying this :

In the mainboards poll "Asset Value - where does Nick Suzuki rank in the NHL?", I see that you voted "Nick Suzuki is outside the top 50 most valuable assets in the NHL" which indicates a CLEAR bias so I think people should take what you're saying on the subject with a grain of salt.

JD1 said:
Them being in the cup final 4 years ago has nothing to do with their rebuild. It's irrelevant.
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Irrelevant? It's just a chronological reference, similar as to when Ottawa made the ECF in 2017 and then we realized we had to rebuild the following season. A chronological point to refer to the last time they were trying to compete.

JD1 said:
Again, all of the metrics that typically correlate to a WL record are awful. Address that. Should they have the points they have given the underlying data? Do you think it's repeatable?
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The underlying data for a team that just started rebuilding (Kent Hughes became GM in January 2022, just a bit over 3 years ago) is not that important. I actually find it worse that some of their players can impact the game enough to outplay the expectations. Suzuki, Caufield and Hutson carried that team all season while some vets like Evans, Armia, Gallagher, etc also played a big role. Plus, Montembeault and Dobes had a lot of games where they played lights out.

JD1 said:
Hutson. Can you win with a 160 pound 1D? What do you think about that? What other D do they have? Guhle is a 2/3. Any other prospects trending towards top 3? The couple of first rounders they have have disappointed
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Why do I have to repeat? Size arguments in 2025 are outdated to me. Can they win the Cup? Well that's another story but Canucks don't seem to complain much about having Quinn Hughes as their #1D (The Vancouver Canucks are 45-45-12 without and 214-166-51 with Quinn Hughes all-time).

Hutson just turned 21 y/o. Guhle might be a #2/3 but he's only 23 so he can still improve. Matheson just turned 31 and Carrier is 28 so they could still help them for years. Reinbacher is 20, Mailloux and Engström are 21, Struble is 23. Konyushkov is not a sure thing to cross over but he is 22 and has good potential.

JD1 said:
What other prospects? Roy? Beck? They're not trending to high end players.
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Well, something else that was already answered... Did you even read my post? lol

Outside of the Ds I just named, they mainly have Ivan Demidov (seen as the best prospect in the world), Michael Hage and Jacob Fowler. Beck will be a good 3rd line C, Roy is still unknown but the guy has talent. Kapanen and Heineman are also interesting and then there's several others who have a chance.

But seriously, just Demidov, Reinbacher, Hage and Fowler could really make their team much better in the next few years.

JD1 said:
They've got Suzuki, caulfield, slafkovsky, Hutson and Demidov who's never played a game in the league. The rest of the roster is nothing to write home about. And 2 of the guys I mentioned aren't just small. They're tiny.

I don't think that stacks up against what we have.
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Well, that's a bit chauvinist. I used to say that Stutzle >> Suzuki but right now, Nick has 6 more goals and 12 more points... He never misses a game and is as clutch as you can be. I hope it changes as soon as next year but right now Tim doesn't have the edge.

Stutzle vs Suzuki
Tkachuk vs Slafkovsky
Batherson vs Demidov
Zetterlund vs Caufield
Cozens vs Dach
Pinto vs Hage
Greig vs Beck
Halliday vs Newhook

Sanderson vs Hutson
Chabot vs Matheson
Kleven vs Guhle
Zub vs Carrier
Yakemchuk vs Reinbacher
Donovan vs Engström
Eliasson vs Mailloux

Merilainen vs Fowler
Sogaard vs Dobes


Dorion sabotaged our rebuild as much as he could, we don't have much if any young talent infusion coming up. I tried to give the edge to Sens players as much as I can here so it looks good right now but considering the progression of some of their guys plus the fact that Demidov, Slafkovsky, Hage, etc have a lot of room to grow, it could change and that is the point : the risk is there

Boston declined, Buffalo and Detroit are spinning wheels, Tampa and Toronto could decline in the next few years, Florida look like they could be good for a while but I see a path/opportunity for Ottawa to become the best team in the Atlantic. I think that the biggest threats for us might be the Panthers and Habs. Well, the Lightning too because even if you think they are due for a decline, their management is so smart (look how they moved on from Stamkos to Guentzel) so unpredictable.
 
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It will be interesting to see what happens over the long term with Mtl, that top line has been getting a lot of praise, but is it sustainable?

GF% is running at 61% for Slaf-Suzuki-Caufield, but xGF% is 48.1%. so

To put that into perspective, that xGF% is 66th out of the top 78 lines in TOI (200+ mins), but 24th in GF%. The Detla between expected and actual is 13.2 above expected, so maybe they are talented guys, perhaps but Hyman-Draisaitl-Mcdavid are +3.9, Knies-Matthews-Marner are +1.6, Lehkonen-Mackinnon-Rantanen were +1.8. That got me interested so I checked the correlation on individuals year over year for beating their xGF and there is very little correlation from one year to the next, and what little there is would likely be attributable to goaltending quality.

Long story short, I think that line is likely to regress, which probably shouldn't surprise anyone. They are still pretty talented offensive players, so they'll continue to be effective, but they simply aren't likely to be among the best lines in hockey over the long term. .
 
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