GDT: Canes @ Sabres - Certain To Be Postponed - Date TBD

[Anton Babchuk]

Regarding the point about how he's taking direct lines to the net now, I can't say that I have seen the same thing. For example, if you'll watch the first goal that Buffalo scored tonight you'll notice a few things that AJJ alluded to earlier, and that I outlined in my post, about Semin's habits.

http://video.nhl.com/videocenter/console?id=2013020759-85-ingame-h

1. He has his back to goal and is curling back towards the neutral zone. He passes the puck so hard that Tlusty can't field it properly. Part of a cycle, yes, but a dangerous pass and an "east-west" play as the puck is not moving towards the opposition net.

2. Watch Semin's skates and notice the direction that would be natural for him to skate when the puck is turned over and where he ends up when the goal is scored.

3. By virtue of his skating and Tlusty coming down, Semin became the F3 on this play. Instead of backchecking to be safe, he assumes that Harrison is going to be able to get there and chip the puck back up the boards to where Semin is literally standing and waiting. As the F3. Standing and waiting. I didn't notice this during the broadcast as most of us were rightly focused on Harrison for falling down, but Semin's job there is to support the reload and most importantly, backcheck. As the high forward, there is zero reason he shouldn't be over the half ice line when the puck enters the net. His momentum alone would have given him a chance to break up that play had he not stopped skating.


Yes, this is only one play. I understand that. But I can't rightly pull up every example of Semin playing the way he has all year without it being part of a scoring play and have it available for everyone to see. Unfortunately, we're limited in that aspect. But Semin's shooting percentage has been unsustainable, just as Skinner's was during his streak. It's not that Skinner has stopped playing hard, it's just that at some point the results are going to stop coming. What gets you through those times is not better shots, but better outcomes. You grind through. You wait for the better outcomes to arrive. You don't modify your game. You don't change things up that have worked for you, especially as a veteran, when you know those things will make you successful. Semin is getting better outcomes, and I fear when those outcomes start falling more infrequently that people will attribute it to some kind of "let up" on his part.

good thing he scored 2 goals on 3 shots or we'd be hearing more about that play. it's amazing how people see pucks ending up in the opposition net and create some absurd narrative about effort, style of play, etc.

i'm looking forward to seeing the inevitable shift once he stops scoring on every third shot. "semin is back to his old ways, omg lazy"

 

[What the Faulk]

That last bit has been my concern as well. What happens when the pendulum swings back? It's not him going back to being "lazy" or "unfocused" or "east/west" or anything like that. He can't keep scoring on every fourth shot, just as Skinner couldn't.

Also who cares if he buttonhooks at the line? If he enters the zone with control almost 75% of the time (best on the team), and generates shots on those entries, that's going to lead to goals more often than not. Dump and chase is a dying strategy. There's a reason that the Los Angeles Kings seek out good possession players, and it's no coincidence that they are one of the better teams in the league.

When talking about analytics in hockey, the most basic category/philosophy that has an extremely high correlation to winning is puck possession.

One of the best tools for measuring possession that we have at our disposal right now is Corsi, a plus-minus metric named after Buffalo Sabres goalie coach Jim Corsi that simply counts total shot attempts (goals, saves, misses and blocks) for and against. It's named after Corsi because he helped develop it while looking for a way to measure the workload that his goalies had to face. The thought was that every shot attempt -- whether it's on net, wide or blocked -- resulted in some sort of action from the keeper.

Studies have shown that Corsi is a pretty accurate representation for offensive-zone time.

Naturally, having a lot of offensive-zone time usually leads to more goals and more wins. Teams that score high on possession metrics like Corsi make the playoffs far more often than teams that don't, while most of the recent Stanley Cup champions have been among the best teams in the league when it comes to attempting more shots (four of the past six champions finished the regular season in the top four in their championship season when it comes to Corsi).

It's not about a participation medal. It's about playing a style of hockey that, over time, will yield results. Semin plays that style, and always has.

 

[DaveG]

Honestly, law of averages had to take effect at some point with Semin. His shooting percentage, especially when compared to his career percentage, was unsustainable. If he were 35-36 then yeah I can see him falling off a cliff in that regard, but he's still not even 30 yet.

Odds are he'll probably normalize over the next while to about what his season average shooting percentage is now. Just a matter of when, and a matter of if his shots that start becoming saves again are going to turn into prime scoring chances and goals for Eric who's shooting well below his career average right now.

 

[Vagrant]

Oddly enough, that was Semin's 82nd game as a Hurricane. 25 goals and 43 assists for 68 points with a +18 rating and a 9.3% shooting percentage. Not wholly dissimilar to his last season in Washington. 4 more goals and 10 more assists in 5 more games.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

Oddly enough, that was Semin's 82nd game as a Hurricane. 25 goals and 43 assists for 68 points with a +18 rating and a 9.3% shooting percentage. Not wholly dissimilar to his last season in Washington. 4 more goals and 10 more assists in 5 more games.

But I thought the narrative was that he was playing with grinders his last year in Washington so that's why his stats were down. Are we saying that playing on the top line here in Carolina is equal to playing with grinders in Washington?

 

[Blueline Bomber]

yeah, not really. he had an 8 shot game, then down to 5, 1, and 3 (and over the last "couple games" he's scored 3 goals on 4 shots). he's taken a lot of shots and shot attempts all season. he had an 8-game stretch recently where he took more shots on goal per game as he has in this stretch.

you don't go from scoring 6 goals on 100 shots to scoring 6 goals on 17 shots because you are "shooting more". it does not make sense.

Except that's not at all what I claimed. I said he seems to be shooting more in these past couple games compared to games in the past couple weeks. Nowhere did I state that he's scoring more because he's shooting more.

And I'll stand by that initial assessment. This past week:

Buffalo - 6 shot attempts
3 shots on goal
2 attempts blocked
1 missed shot

Philly - 4 shot attempts
1 shot on goal
3 attempts blocked

Tampa - 14 shot attempts
5 shots on goal
5 attempts blocked
4 missed shots

Florida - 12 shot attempts
8 shots on goal
3 attempts blocked
1 missed shot

Or 36 shot attempts in 4 games, an average 9 shot attempts per game. 17 of those attempts were on goal. Compare that to last 2 weeks.

Calgary - 5 shot attempts
1 shot on goal
2 attempts blocked
2 missed shots

Columbus - 8 shot attempts
5 shots on goal
1 attempts blocked
2 missed shots

Toronto - 2 shot attempts
1 shot on goal
1 missed shot

Nashville - 6 shot attempts
3 shots on goal
2 attempts blocked
1 missed shot

21 shot attempts in 4 games, or about 5 shot attempts per game. 10 attempts were on goal.

So he's attempting more shots, he's getting more shots on goal (though the percentage of shots he gets on goal compared to the amount of shots he attempted remained about the same), and without getting too advanced statistic...y, I believe the attempted shots are coming from higher quality chances.

Now do I think that's the reason he's scored 6 goals on 17 shots? No. That's way too simplistic. And obviously, it's unreasonable to expect that kind of sustainable shooting percentage. But Vagrant asked what appears to be different about his game, and I responded with my observations. Observations that appear to be backed up by the stat column.

Feel free to continue being your usual sarcastic, dismissive self though.

 

[golfpro827]

Gritty win. Never felt like the whole night we were gonna win and boom, we do.

TEA line looks great. Love our top player stepping up on a so-so night.

And this team has 0 confidence in Peters right now.

 

[rocky7]

there was a play at the end of the game, Muller had Semin on the ice and the Sabres were pressing hard. Semin got the puck on the boards and had one defender to beat for an open shot at an empty net and a hat trick. instead he simply flipped the puck up ice out of danger. it was quite obvious. if that had been Skinner, he would have probably tried to beat the guy. maybe more of an indication of Semins awareness and experience than a swipe at Skinner. maybe..

 

[rocky7]

Gritty win. Never felt like the whole night we were gonna win and boom, we do.

TEA line looks great. Love our top player stepping up on a so-so night.

And this team has 0 confidence in Peters right now.

I don't think they have much confidence in Ward either.

 

[the halleJOKEL]

Except that's not at all what I claimed. I said he seems to be shooting more in these past couple games compared to games in the past couple weeks. Nowhere did I state that he's scoring more because he's shooting more.

And I'll stand by that initial assessment. This past week:

Buffalo - 6 shot attempts
3 shots on goal
2 attempts blocked
1 missed shot

Philly - 4 shot attempts
1 shot on goal
3 attempts blocked

Tampa - 14 shot attempts
5 shots on goal
5 attempts blocked
4 missed shots

Florida - 12 shot attempts
8 shots on goal
3 attempts blocked
1 missed shot

Or 36 shot attempts in 4 games, an average 9 shot attempts per game. 17 of those attempts were on goal. Compare that to last 2 weeks.

Calgary - 5 shot attempts
1 shot on goal
2 attempts blocked
2 missed shots

Columbus - 8 shot attempts
5 shots on goal
1 attempts blocked
2 missed shots

Toronto - 2 shot attempts
1 shot on goal
1 missed shot

Nashville - 6 shot attempts
3 shots on goal
2 attempts blocked
1 missed shot

21 shot attempts in 4 games, or about 5 shot attempts per game. 10 attempts were on goal.

So he's attempting more shots, he's getting more shots on goal (though the percentage of shots he gets on goal compared to the amount of shots he attempted remained about the same), and without getting too advanced statistic...y, I believe the attempted shots are coming from higher quality chances.

Now do I think that's the reason he's scored 6 goals on 17 shots? No. That's way too simplistic. And obviously, it's unreasonable to expect that kind of sustainable shooting percentage. But Vagrant asked what appears to be different about his game, and I responded with my observations. Observations that appear to be backed up by the stat column.

Feel free to continue being your usual sarcastic, dismissive self though.

if you throw out the 14 and the 2 as outliers, you get 22 shot attempts in the first set and 19 in the second set

doesn't seem too outlandishly different, especially over such small sample sizes

 

[What the Faulk]

He attempted 17 on NYE.

5v5 attempts per 60 minutes (team rank):

2013-14: 19.428 (2)
2012-13: 20.113 (2)
2011-12: 18.015 (2)
2010-11: 22.386 (2)
2009-10: 22.580 (2)
2008-09: 22.533 (2)
2007-08: 19.568 (2)

Top 15 in the NHL most years. This year he's 13th. Last year 6th.

 

[Anton Babchuk]

i'm sorry for not understanding your use of the word "couple". it appears that "couple games" means 4 games, while "couple weeks" also means 4 games. you can see where i get confused. you should have just said "these 4 games compared to the prior 4 games", then i could have understood that you were cherrypicking a sample size that fit your conclusion and simply ignored you.

what about the 4 game segment immediately prior to these 4 game segments? 18 shots on goal and 41 total shot attempts. more shot attempts and more shots than this stretch. but he only scored 1 goal on those 41 attempts so east-west style etc.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

if you throw out the 14 and the 2 as outliers, you get 22 shot attempts in the first set and 19 in the second set

doesn't seem too outlandishly different, especially over such small sample sizes

Like I said, Vagrant asked for what appears to be different in Semin's game recently. I posted my observations. Since JR's comments were such a hot button issue, I ended the first set there and then went for the previous number of games as that first set. So yes, only 8 games, but over a 3-week span. Blame the polar vortex. Plus, that's about as far back as my memory goes in terms of "Ok, who played well and who didn't", unless something really striking happened in a particular game. Since the question was about the observations and not some advanced stats war, I didn't feel comfortable going much farther back than that.

And it's kind of hard to throw out two games out of the eight and then complain about a small sample size, yeah? But for the sake of argument, how far do you want to go back? I mean, obviously, any comparison to a 4-game span is going to look more and more flawed the more games you go back. And then, of course, the more games we go back, the closer we get to the concussions, so any data put up in the negative could easily be attributed to his recovery from said concussion.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

And it's kind of hard to throw out two games out of the eight and then complain about a small sample size, yeah?

Not really. Outlier datapoints have a much larger influence on a small sample size than they do on a large sample size. A sample can be small and still require the removal of outliers.

 

[geehaad]

good thing he scored 2 goals on 3 shots or we'd be hearing more about that play. it's amazing how people see pucks ending up in the opposition net and create some absurd narrative about effort, style of play, etc.

Also incredibly true about pucks that end up in the good guys' net. So as to not dredge up any LaRose-like debates, I won't name names, but many Hurricanes were blamed for a goal against that had little/nothing to do with the player's effect/ineffect. In fact, I dare say the problem is much worse there than in judgment after goals for.

I will no longer say that Tripp Tracy is the worst color guy ever (I feel sorry for Predators fans), but good lord it shouldn't be difficult to find better options than Tripp Tracy. Is Darren Eliot too expensive or something? I thought Aaron Ward was in the pipeline? What is Bates Battaglia up to, for chrissakes? I sure as **** hope Tripp Tracy gives the Hurricanes the epitome of a hometown discount on his salary demands. Ok, as per usual, now let's hear from the usual gang about how he isn't *that* bad...

Semin? Yeah, a slight difference to his attacking style, but enough to claim that he's gone from east-west to north-south? Sorry, that's not at all what's happened here. Even in last night's game, he made many plays that would not please a meat-and-potatoes coach. He is what he is, and he does need to focus on playing a less risky game, but if you take the Semin out of Semin, you're not left with a $7M/year player. So why would you want to do that?

 

[Joe McGrath]

I would think those who were looking for a correlation between the specific criticisms from JR you would be looking at his 2nd goal where he started the play with a pass straight up the ice and finished it by going to the front of the net where I can't remember him scoring a goal from this season. Those wristers that he's all of a sudden scoring on could be the result of better focus but that piece could easily be a coincidence or just general hot streak.

 

[Incubajerks]

I really liked the play of the 2nd line yesterday, and i think saturday we'll see Murphy in and Harrison out.

 

[skillhockey]

This north-south is most unbeliavable piece of crap i've heard. Yeah why not just throw puck at net after center. take no risks, try not to make plays. Sometimes you turn puck over, it might be your fault or target fault but unless you don't try to make plays, nothing happens. Semin plays puck control, he doesn't wanna give puck away and his teammates should be more aware of this in own zone also. if he sees there's no option to move forward, he might turn back and take another try or in own zone he moves the puck to the other side of the pressure so own d-man or forward would pick it up instead of throwing it out aimlessly hoping it will pass the opponent blueliner waiting for it. It's not the north-south passes that make plays untill it's breakaway, it's the ****ing east-west passes that create the real scoring chances, btw.

 

[toastmasterbone]

 

[rocky7]

if Forslund ever writes a book the truth about Tracy may come out some but the guy must have a tremendous amount of patience, that's for sure. and while Tracy kisses JR's ass he's probably not enduring himself too much to the players though they may not take him all that seriously anyway.

 

[rocky7]

I really liked the play of the 2nd line yesterday, and i think saturday we'll see Murphy in and Harrison out.

you may be right and I like Murphy a lot, but jumping on Harrison and Komi by some at the first opportunity is hilarious. they have, perhaps somewhat unexpectedly, been a great bottom pairing. so Harrison wasn't able to corral a bouncing puck there.....the bum.

 

[Navin R Slavin]

Toasty asserts himself. WITH AUTHORITY. Good to see you, dude.

--hank

 

[Ole Gil]

Regarding the point about how he's taking direct lines to the net now, I can't say that I have seen the same thing. For example, if you'll watch the first goal that Buffalo scored tonight you'll notice a few things that AJJ alluded to earlier, and that I outlined in my post, about Semin's habits.

http://video.nhl.com/videocenter/console?id=2013020759-85-ingame-h

1. He has his back to goal and is curling back towards the neutral zone. He passes the puck so hard that Tlusty can't field it properly. Part of a cycle, yes, but a dangerous pass and an "east-west" play as the puck is not moving towards the opposition net.

2. Watch Semin's skates and notice the direction that would be natural for him to skate when the puck is turned over and where he ends up when the goal is scored.

3. By virtue of his skating and Tlusty coming down, Semin became the F3 on this play. Instead of backchecking to be safe, he assumes that Harrison is going to be able to get there and chip the puck back up the boards to where Semin is literally standing and waiting. As the F3. Standing and waiting. I didn't notice this during the broadcast as most of us were rightly focused on Harrison for falling down, but Semin's job there is to support the reload and most importantly, backcheck. As the high forward, there is zero reason he shouldn't be over the half ice line when the puck enters the net. His momentum alone would have given him a chance to break up that play had he not stopped skating.


Yes, this is only one play. I understand that. But I can't rightly pull up every example of Semin playing the way he has all year without it being part of a scoring play and have it available for everyone to see. Unfortunately, we're limited in that aspect. But Semin's shooting percentage has been unsustainable, just as Skinner's was during his streak. It's not that Skinner has stopped playing hard, it's just that at some point the results are going to stop coming. What gets you through those times is not better shots, but better outcomes. You grind through. You wait for the better outcomes to arrive. You don't modify your game. You don't change things up that have worked for you, especially as a veteran, when you know those things will make you successful. Semin is getting better outcomes, and I fear when those outcomes start falling more infrequently that people will attribute it to some kind of "let up" on his part.

That's some weird analysis. The defensman is in perfect position as he's handling the puck. It's tough to say what exactly happened prior to the play, but if it was hard around, and he's just coming underneath the puck, as part of cycling, this is pretty unrelated to the discussion. Even if he received the pass, there is nothing there for him. It's pass to the point, or try to get it to Tlusty for the one-timer. Nobody is saying those things are bad. I think the pass to Tlusty was a bit optimistic, but there are worse things in the world. The idea that all hockey is going to be towards the net, particularly during extended possessions, is a bit disingenuous.

And who cares about the rest. It was a super ridiculous fluke goal as Jay couldn't handle a non-contested slow rolling puck, then practically fell over as he failed to hit it again. The Canes don't want their top scoring line playing uber safe defensive hockey to protect against the most unlikely of double flubs.

Skinner's problem is that he went from playing with Staal and Semin to Ruutu and Lindholm. Eric Staal's game has been much maligned, but he's been pretty effective in a different way. On the boards in particular, he's been unstoppable. When you have someone controlling the puck on the boards and winning every battle like he has, the wingers are going to see some benefits.

 

[Incubajerks]

you may be right and I like Murphy a lot, but jumping on Harrison and Komi by some at the first opportunity is hilarious. they have, perhaps somewhat unexpectedly, been a great bottom pairing. so Harrison wasn't able to corral a bouncing puck there.....the bum.

I am not jumping on Komi at all, i think somewhere you have to put Murphy in and in the last games we played i liked a lot Komi more than Harrison.

 

[toastmasterbone]

Toasty asserts himself. WITH AUTHORITY. Good to see you, dude.

--hank

Been a while, Hank. Good to be seen.