Player Discussion Brady Tkachuk (LW) - Part XI

[Agent Zuuuub]

Brady's scoring pace going down but he's actually started playing defence and hustling on backchecks so he's not getting criticism and coincidentally the team is winning because everyone is playing a team game now.

Weird how that works.

 

[umma gumma]

Brady's scoring pace going down but he's actually started playing defence and hustling on backchecks so he's not getting criticism and coincidentally the team is winning because everyone is playing a team game now.

Weird how that works.

What is even stranger is how solid goal tending is a contributor as well. Never expected that. Not at all.

 

[Agent Zuuuub]

What is even stranger is how solid goal tending is a contributor as well. Never expected that. Not at all.

Hmm maybe like a team playing a cohesive team game and defence helps goalies.

Could they all be related?

 

[umma gumma]

Hmm maybe like a team playing a cohesive team game and defence helps goalies.

Could they all be related?

You mean it helps when goalies make saves they should be making? Yes I agree.

 

[Agent Zuuuub]

You mean it helps when goalies make saves they should be making? Yes I agree.

And the captain of the team backchecking and playing basic defence.

 

[umma gumma]

And the captain of the team backchecking and playing basic defence.

And the goalie making the saves when the captain is on the bench for 40 minutes of the game.

 

[Knave]

I thought he didn't have a great night defensively. But neither did a lot of players like Stutzle or Pinto.

In terms of offense he was creating for others tonight despite not getting on the score sheet.

 

[PlayersLtd]

I would certainly hope a player who played more games and took 500 more shots in his first 6 seasons would have more goals.

10 more goals on 557 more shots for some context.

And we don't have to imagine how Matthew Tkachuk would have done on his next 500 shots. He scored 40 goals (not 10 goals) on 324 shots which is better than Brady Tkachuk's career year and a better 82 game pace than what Brady Tkachuk is doing right now.

What would other Ottawa players have done if those 557 shots were distributed among Stutzle, Batherson, Norris, Giroux, DeBrincat and others? I think it's very fair to question what this team would look like if Brady Tkachuk took fewer shots and was closer to players like Matthew Tkachuk and Jamie Benn with his shot selection where he still takes a large amount but he's not Top 5 for the time period of his career with elite superstars such as MacKinnon, Pastrnak and Matthews.

Everyone seems to be taking the default approach of "oh the team would be worse". I'm not convinced.

So you're holding Brady's shooting frequency against him? What a weird argument. Brady's shooting is a characteristic of his style of play. He scores the goals he does because he shoots a lot, that's a good thing. I'll just leave it at that and not even unpack the positive reasons as to why he is able to get so many shots on net.

Did you hold high shooting frequency against Hossa? Because he also racked up shots while having somewhat pedestrian goal totals for a star.

Anyway, in a winner take all game, all things being equal, give me the guy with the high shot totals over the guy with the high shooting percentage, all day long.

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

Brady's defensive game is a work in progress. His defensive commitment has been better lately though not without a couple of bumps.

Moving slooooowly in the right direction. If he embraces it like Stu, Norris and Bath have, the pace of improvement will pick up

His play from the top of the circles in in the ozone is much better than in any other zone.

 

[Golden_Jet]

I thought he didn't have a great night defensively. But neither did a lot of players like Stutzle or Pinto.

In terms of offense he was creating for others tonight despite not getting on the score sheet.

Pinto didn’t have a great game defensively?
Everyone on his line was +3, in a 3-0
game.