Canucks & NHL News, Rumours, & Fantasy GM | Every Day We Hiring

[ProviesGhost]

Ernie, Hoglander is not the hill to die on.

 

[kanucks25]

Friendly reminder that public scoring chance / expected goals stats absolutely suck

 

[Ernie]

I've looked into these things *constantly* in the past. I have no idea whether I've looked into each one individually at this point but as soon as I see the same predictable errors replicating I can be pretty sure they're doing the same things.

The methodology you're referring to doesn't seem to mention proper adjusting for usage and context at all, for the record.

Actually, it does. It tracks every single shift and who was on the ice for that shift and runs a ridge regression algorithm on it. He goes into quite a bit of detail if you care to look again.

Nobody is saying that there is One Number that describes a player and everthing they bring to the ice. But at the same time, calling Hoglander a replacement level when the data shows that it's so obviously not true is also dumb.

You're SO CLOSE here to getting what's happening.

If a better player is generating worse numbers than a worse player due to usage ... the model sucks.

Don't be a jackass. Horvat was playing leverage minutes AND getting destroyed in those minutes. If he's an elite player or a shutdown specialist, he should be sawing them off.

 

[Ernie]

Alluded to this on a previous page, but it was actually Dom last summer who admitted the models weren't working for the context on usage.

NHL’s 10 worst contracts, 2025 edition: Jonathan Huberdeau, Ivan Provorov and more

According to each player’s projected value over the remainder of their deals, these are the league’s 10 worst contracts.

www.nytimes.com

And as someone who has been screaming this exact thing from the rooftops for the last decade seeing one of these guys treat this like a Big Revelation was just . NO f***ING SHIT!

The thing with a model is that no matter what you do most of it will be the same. No matter what you do, you won’t be able to design a model that makes Connor McDavid look bad or Luca Sbisa look good. And the vast majority of middling players will probably always be somewhere in the middle. So superficially if most players seem like they’re mostly in the right spots, the immediate reaction from people tends to be ‘well, this is good stuff!’

The problem comes with the outliers. And the problem is that it’s the same patterns all the time. Go through a team and pick out the biggest 5 outliers or ‘interesting results’ in terms of WAR and it’s always the same thing – soft minute guys on the good end, hard minute guys at the bottom. Always.

hockeystats.com was mentioned here as a 'good statistic' and looking through their WAR numbers from last year it's just all the same thing. Pick a team – good players + soft minute skill players at the top, bad players + leverage guys at the bottom. Context still hasn’t been adjusted for correctly.

Dom is not a statistician. Full stop. You won't find anyone on these boards more critical of his models than I am. He's a content creator and the way that The Athletic uses his models is ridiculous.

All models also have their biases, and misses, nothing's perfect. There are edge cases where the context misses. But the context here is that Hoglander puts up 54% GF in 4000 EV minutes over his career on a team that has mostly sucked during that period, and that's simply not a replacement level player.

 

[VanillaCoke]

Friendly reminder that public scoring chance / expected goals stats absolutely suck

I have yet to see any model, player card, stupid jfresh chart, that's worth a damn. Hockey is too dynamic with more variables, you have to watch the games to see the context, which also changes constantly during the game depending on situation.

The private models I have seen/heard of do seem to be rather impressive and very comprehensive, I am not sure how some of that data is tracked tbh, especially every player, every game, every shift.

Also I am sure most of not every team has access to similar inside data, likely some teams are way way behind.
The issue is of course no matter what the analytics department submits, you still have many imbeciles like holland, bowman, bergevin, treliving etc making the decisions / interpreting the results.

Slowly as certain teams keep winning and others look like monkeys could do a better job, the old boys GM carousel will come to an end.

 

[thecupismine]

Using GF% for this is not real stats and I know you know better. As I showed earlier his GF% is actually well above his CF% over a large sample size, the noise in this GF% should immediately be obvious to anyone looking.

Fair point about using average CTOI% but as you've shown he's always been in the middle of the pack, aside from last season. Are we going to pretend that good decisions were made last season surrounding deployment?

I mean, he’s been in the bottom 33% the last 3 years, and the year before that was so bad they sent him down to the AHL. Last season was a continuation of a 4 year trend, even if Foote is a complete moron.

Re: the GF%, are we supposed to use his DFF%? I’m not looking directly at the data, but I’m sure he’s consistently in the top 50% on the team. A guy who’s consistently in the top at that end, but also fairly consistently in the bottom on GF%, and has likely played over half his career at this point - what is that supposed to tell us?

Do we believe it’s a statistical anomaly, or is there a different explanation?

If you want to believe the anomaly story and that we should keep pushing, that’s your right. To me, I’ve seen enough with my own eyes over the year to believe this discrepancy just is who he is - a high motor player with very little IQ that drives coaches crazy, and gets punished against high end competition for his inability to play within the teams defensive structure.

I’m not on the pay to dump him train, but I also don’t see him ever being a valuable piece either.

 

[RobsonStreet]

Dom is not a statistician. Full stop. You won't find anyone on these boards more critical of his models than I am. He's a content creator and the way that The Athletic uses his models is ridiculous.

All models also have their biases, and misses, nothing's perfect. There are edge cases where the context misses. But the context is that Hoglander puts up 54% GF in 4000 EV minutes over his career on a team that has mostly sucked during that period, and that's simply not a replacement level player.

I’m of the opinion that Hoglander lies somewhere in the gulf between your two opinions.

I will say that models seem to struggle with what I think is a multicollinearity problem*. Players that are deployed with specific teammates for specific reasons (hypothetically a defensive liability being babysat) seems to be hard for these models to handle. We saw this with Hronek; a lot of public models indicated he wasn’t very good while he was partnered with Hughes because Hughes was (correctly) identified as very (very) good and then the models seemed to disproportionately weight Hughes’ impact and minimize Hronek’s. I’ve seen models shift on Hronek this year, which I figured would happen.

Anyway, Hoglander has a lot of minutes with Pettersson over the past three seasons.

*not an expert, not an expert, not an expert, etc.

 

[Ernie]

I mean, he’s been in the bottom 33% the last 3 years, and the year before that was so bad they sent him down to the AHL. Last season was a continuation of a 4 year trend, even if Foote is a complete moron.

Re: the GF%, are we supposed to use his DFF%? I’m not looking directly at the data, but I’m sure he’s consistently in the top 50% on the team. A guy who’s consistently in the top at that end, but also fairly consistently in the bottom on GF%, and has likely played over half his career at this point - what is that supposed to tell us?

Do we believe it’s a statistical anomaly, or is there a different explanation?

If you want to believe the anomaly story and that we should keep pushing, that’s your right. To me, I’ve seen enough with my own eyes over the year to believe this discrepancy just is who he is - a high motor player with very little IQ that drives coaches crazy, and gets punished against high end competition for his inability to play within the teams defensive structure.

This last year has been by far his worst year, so your eyes probably aren't lying. He spent half of it injured. The previous year he struggled pretty badly for the first half. This doesn't wipe out his full body of work.

I'm not sure how the DFF% is calculated but his actual GF% over a large sample is actually well above his CF%, his FF%, and various xGF% models. Either it's exactly the opposite against elite competition or this is just noise.

 

[Ernie]

I’m of the opinion that Hoglander lies somewhere in the gulf between your two opinions.

I will say that models seem to struggle with what I think is a multicollinearity problem*. Players that are deployed with specific teammates for specific reasons (hypothetically a defensive liability being babysat) seems to be hard for these models to handle. We saw this with Hronek; a lot of public models indicated he wasn’t very good while he was partnered with Hughes because Hughes was (correctly) identified as very (very) good and then the models seemed to disproportionately weight Hughes’ impact and minimize Hronek’s. I’ve seen models shift on Hronek this year, which I figured would happen.

Anyway, Hoglander has a lot of minutes with Pettersson over the past three seasons.

*not an expert, not an expert, not an expert, etc.

I don't think you're wrong, but here's the thing: Pettersson is actually better when he's with Hoglander (I've noticed this with the eye test as well - they have chemistry). A big brain move would be to cement Pettersson, Karlsson, and Hoglander together for a season and then trade all of them at the end of the season for $$$$.

 

[MS]

Actually, it does. It tracks every single shift and who was on the ice for that shift and runs a ridge regression algorithm on it. He goes into quite a bit of detail if you care to look again.

Nobody is saying that there is One Number that describes a player and everthing they bring to the ice. But at the same time, calling Hoglander a replacement level when the data shows that it's so obviously not true is also dumb.



Don't be a jackass. Horvat was playing leverage minutes AND getting destroyed in those minutes. If he's an elite player or a shutdown specialist, he should be sawing them off.

What do you think would have happened to Hoglander if he was playing Horvat's minutes?

What do you think would have happened to Horvat if he was playing Hoglander's minutes?

How would their numbers look if they were playing equal minutes?

The data doesn't show that Hoglander isn't a replacement-level player. It doesn't show anything. It isn't properly adjusted for context. Literally the only thing it's telling you is that the team has a slight shot advantage when he's on the ice. It isn't telling you why, it isn't telling you that he's a good player, it isn't telling you anything. All it is is a data point. Then when you incorporate the context of that data point into everything else ... the obvious conclusion (that 4 NHL head coaches have also reached) is that he's a replacement-level player.

Dom is not a statistician. Full stop. You won't find anyone on these boards more critical of his models than I am. He's a content creator and the way that The Athletic uses his models is ridiculous.

All models also have their biases, and misses, nothing's perfect. There are edge cases where the context misses. But the context here is that Hoglander puts up 54% GF in 4000 EV minutes over his career on a team that has mostly sucked during that period, and that's simply not a replacement level player.

None of these guys are statisticians and even if they were, it doesn't mean they'd 'get it'. I mentioned earlier the critically flawed EN study conducted by actual mathematicians who still couldn't get things right.

The issue that all models have EXACTLY THE SAME biases. Every single model I've ever seen does literally exactly the same thing to consistently overrate soft minute skill players and consistently underrate hard-minute defensive players. Dom is the only person I've seen who at least clued in at some point that his model was hugely flawed.

The bolded is absolutely not 'context'. It's just raw data.

 

[Just A Bit Outside]

Delorme next hopefully

Just move him to the basement.

 

[Bleach Clean]

But in this case, the “exceptions” are like 25% or whatever of the model, so it really makes you wonder how good the model is. Like @MS , so much of the results of the model appear to be driven by deployment and quality of competition even if the model is designed to try to take those into account.

Generally, the best players predominately produce the best shot differentials. This holds with variations in Ozone% and QualComp. As in, unfavourable usage doesn't render them to replacement player status.

If this is instead was about Ozone% and QualComp not being weighted properly, so as to disproportionately favour marginal players getting cushy minutes, I'm here for it. I just don't think that accounts for 25% of all players, nor does that render the model itself as useless.

 

[Ernie]

What do you think would have happened to Hoglander if he was playing Horvat's minutes?

What do you think would have happened to Horvat if he was playing Hoglander's minutes?

How would their numbers look if they were playing equal minutes?

The data doesn't show that Hoglander isn't a replacement-level player. It doesn't show anything. It isn't properly adjusted for context. Literally the only thing it's telling you is that the team has a slight shot advantage when he's on the ice. It isn't telling you why, it isn't telling you that he's a good player, it isn't telling you anything. All it is is a data point. Then when you incorporate the context of that data point into everything else ... the obvious conclusion (that 4 NHL head coaches have also reached) is that he's a replacement-level player.

Data is meaningless, just go by your eye test, which is infallible and would never get a player wrong. mkay.

Hoglander and Horvat play a very different position so it's dumb to try to play this game, but if you want to know why Horvat's numbers are low, it's because he's bad at playing a shutdown role head to head against high end players. He was miscast as a defensive player when he is actually a high end shooter. He should have been put in more offensive situations with better players who distribute pucks. I'm not hating on Horvat here in the least.

None of these guys are statisticians and even if they were, it doesn't mean they'd 'get it'. I mentioned earlier the critically flawed EN study conducted by actual mathematicians who still couldn't get things right.

The issue that all models have EXACTLY THE SAME biases. Every single model I've ever seen does literally exactly the same thing to consistently overrate soft minute skill players and consistently underrate hard-minute defensive players. Dom is the only person I've seen who at least clued in at some point that his model was hugely flawed.

The bolded is absolutely not 'context'. It's just raw data.

The hockeystats guy, Patrick Bacon, actually is a statitician. Like his previous job was literally a VP at an investment firm. He has a finance degree. The Canucks should try to hire him for $$$.

The methodology description on his website is top notch, better than the vast majority of PHd thesis I've read.

There's a reason I'm pumping his tires and it's because he's actually doing the stats right and presenting them in a way that is coherent. I've generally hated everything that's come before this that has attempted to do this; check my post history if you don't believe me.

And I'm sure he'll continue refine his models as time goes on.

 

[Bleach Clean]

I’m of the opinion that Hoglander lies somewhere in the gulf between your two opinions.

I will say that models seem to struggle with what I think is a multicollinearity problem*. Players that are deployed with specific teammates for specific reasons (hypothetically a defensive liability being babysat) seems to be hard for these models to handle. We saw this with Hronek; a lot of public models indicated he wasn’t very good while he was partnered with Hughes because Hughes was (correctly) identified as very (very) good and then the models seemed to disproportionately weight Hughes’ impact and minimize Hronek’s. I’ve seen models shift on Hronek this year, which I figured would happen.

Anyway, Hoglander has a lot of minutes with Pettersson over the past three seasons.

*not an expert, not an expert, not an expert, etc.

Interesting. How have you seen the models themselves shift to account for the difference for Hronek?

I think the big difference for Hronek is that he is initiating zone exits/rushes more himself, and not deferring.

 

[pitseleh]

I’m of the opinion that Hoglander lies somewhere in the gulf between your two opinions.

I will say that models seem to struggle with what I think is a multicollinearity problem*. Players that are deployed with specific teammates for specific reasons (hypothetically a defensive liability being babysat) seems to be hard for these models to handle. We saw this with Hronek; a lot of public models indicated he wasn’t very good while he was partnered with Hughes because Hughes was (correctly) identified as very (very) good and then the models seemed to disproportionately weight Hughes’ impact and minimize Hronek’s. I’ve seen models shift on Hronek this year, which I figured would happen.

Anyway, Hoglander has a lot of minutes with Pettersson over the past three seasons.

*not an expert, not an expert, not an expert, etc.

The teammate problem is a much tougher one than the competition / usage problem. A guy getting tough minutes might play 35% of his ice time against elite comp vs 20% for a guy who gets soft minutes. Ditto zone starts generally meaning a couple more advantages a game. Whereas with Hronek he was playing 75% of his minutes with Hughes, so the “not with Hughes” sample was small and made him look bad.

Hoglander has played a bunch with Pettersson but it’s still only about a third of his ice time the last three years, so there’s plenty to compare against. Pettersson also has better results with Hoglander than without so it’s not like Hughes being awesome whether he played with Hronek or not.

The tougher question is untangling the Hughes effect more generally. Basically everyone looked awesome with him and bad without him. From 23/24 to 24/25, Blueger for instance had a 57% xGF rate with Hughes versus 49% without; Hoglander was 56% and 50%.

 

[MS]

Data is meaningless, just go by your eye test, which is infallible and would never get a player wrong. mkay.

Bolded is a strawman, but yes - my eye test is absolutely better than nhlstats.com's data.

Hoglander and Horvat play a very different position so it's dumb to try to play this game, but if you want to know why Horvat's numbers are low, it's because he's bad at playing a shutdown role head to head against high end players. He was miscast as a defensive player when he is actually a high end shooter. He should have been put in more offensive situations with better players who distribute pucks. I'm not hating on Horvat here in the least.

Again, this feels like you're almost getting it.

If Horvat is a good player generating worse WAR stats than Hoglander because he was used in sub-optimal minutes relative to his skills while Hoglander was not ... then the model is bad. And it isn't measuring WAR, either. It's literally just a glorified +/- stat that does a rough approximation of effective relative to usage.

The hockeystats guy, Patrick Bacon, actually is a statitician. Like his previous job was literally a VP at an investment firm. He has a finance degree. The Canucks should try to hire him for $$$.

The methodology description on his website is top notch, better than the vast majority of PHd thesis I've read.

There's a reason I'm pumping his tires and it's because he's actually doing the stats right and presenting them in a way that is coherent. I've generally hated everything that's come before this that has attempted to do this; check my post history if you don't believe me.

And I'm sure he'll continue refine his models as time goes on.

I mean, he's not a very good statistician then. This shit is a total mess.

This is 23-24 Hoglander.

First thing that stands out is that this 'model' (and I use that term generously) has rated Hoglander as THE BEST DEFENSIVE FORWARD ON THE TEAM when he was actually probably the 2nd worst after Kuzmenko. It's also saying EP40 was the worst defensive player on the team. This is egregious stuff. It's worse than randomly just throwing darts.

But worse than that is the 'Shoot WAR' stat which is basically doubling down on rewarding a player for being a lucky outlier. It's an attempt to say 'this player has more value than average because his actions in the offensive zone are more efficient' but it fundamentally can't do that with consistency, and the effect is totally backward. If an average player goes on a fluke unsustainable run he should be rated *down* for it, not up. And the insane thing is that this unsustainable bit of luck literally increased his WAR by 300%! This is absolutely freaking terrible math. It's like rewarding an MLB player for having a high BABIP. It makes zero sense.

And pop back to 19-20 and you see Jake Virtanen ranked as one of the best players on our team by the exact same metrics as a soft-minute guy on a SH% bender while (predictably) Chris Tanev is rated as the single worst player on the team.

And in the context of those 23-24 stats, I haven't even mentioned yet that it rates Filip Hronek that year as sub-replacement level, the worst player on the team, and substantially worse than Noah Juulsen.

When your model generates results that are this f***ing horrible and obviously wrong ... it's not a good model. It's not carrying value. It isn't helping evaluate anything relative to the eye test, and is instead doing the exact opposite. Anyone using this data to make transactions would end up making Mike Milbury look like Sam Pollock.

Like, there is no eye test in the world that could come up with a hockey evaluation as bad as saying that Chris Tanev was the worst player on the 19-20 Canucks and Jake Virtanen was a top-5 player on that team.

 

[RobsonStreet]

Bolded is a strawman, but yes - my eye test is absolutely better than nhlstats.com's data.




Again, this feels like you're almost getting it.

If Horvat is a good player generating worse WAR stats than Hoglander because he was used in sub-optimal minutes relative to his skills while Hoglander was not ... then the model is bad. And it isn't measuring WAR, either. It's literally just a glorified +/- stat that does a rough approximation of effective relative to usage.



I mean, he's not a very good statistician then. This shit is a total mess.


View attachment 1252254

This is 23-24 Hoglander.

First thing that stands out is that this 'model' (and I use that term generously) has rated Hoglander as THE BEST DEFENSIVE FORWARD ON THE TEAM when he was actually probably the 2nd worst after Kuzmenko. It's also saying EP40 was the worst defensive player on the team. This is egregious stuff. It's worse than randomly just throwing darts.

But worse than that is the 'Shoot WAR' stat which is basically doubling down on rewarding a player for being a lucky outlier. It's an attempt to say 'this player has more value than average because his actions in the offensive zone are more efficient' but it fundamentally can't do that with consistency, and the effect is totally backward. If an average player goes on a fluke unsustainable run he should be rated *down* for it, not up. And the insane thing is that this unsustainable bit of luck literally increased his WAR by 300%! This is absolutely freaking terrible math. It's like rewarding an MLB player for having a high BABIP. It makes zero sense.

And pop back to 19-20 and you see Jake Virtanen ranked as one of the best players on our team by the exact same metrics as a soft-minute guy on a SH% bender while (predictably) Chris Tanev is rated as the single worst player on the team.

And in the context of those 23-24 stats, I haven't even mentioned yet that it rates Filip Hronek that year as sub-replacement level, the worst player on the team, and substantially worse than Noah Juulsen.

When your model generates results that are this f***ing horrible and obviously wrong ... it's not a good model. It's not carrying value. It isn't helping evaluate anything relative to the eye test, and is instead doing the exact opposite. Anyone using this data to make transactions would end up making Mike Milbury look like Sam Pollock.

Like, there is no eye test in the world that could come up with a hockey evaluation as bad as saying that Chris Tanev was the worst player on the 19-20 Canucks and Jake Virtanen was a top-5 player on that team.

You’re going to love this: I’m not sure if this is still the case, but for awhile JFresh’s visualizations were of Patrick Bacon’s model (back when he was topdownhockey).

 

[MarkusNaslund19]

Just going to swing by to say that I think a lot of the views on Hoglander are too polarized.

He's not 'replacement level junk'.

He's got the sort of tools where one could absolutely see him go to Carolina or Florida and become a 'doh why can't we have one of those!' kind of players.

People say 'well 4 coaches didn't trust him' which is true, but there's also a possibility that the variable moves in the other direction.
Malhotra will be his 5th coach in 7 years. He clearly needed to have somethings coached into/out of his game and there's been zero continuity to do so.

He gets benched because there's a particularly form of direction that he has followed egregiously badly thus far.

It's game state hockey sense. We've all seen him decide to make a neutral zone drop pass after a 2 minute shift in our end when he needed to dump it in.
That's a costly error and one that coaches will forgive maybe once.

But if a good coach can get through to him, and he isn't injured, there's a guy with tools there who can be a first man in forechecker/disruptor with enough skill to be a useful and unique tool in the middle six.

I'm certainly not calling him untouchable, but I think it's worth the new braintrust seeing if they can get through to him.
-
I noticed and hypothesized around K'Andre Miller's sudden glow up that he was being coached better and playing in a system that fit him better and then I heard Cam Robinson talk about how Miller's game reads aren't great, but if you get him to play in straight lines and use his size, speed, and range, while giving him direction so there is some pressure taken off of his in-game decision making...well suddenly you have a guy who is an elite shut down/puck transport D man.

Why not see if you can get through to Hoglander in a similar way and help him extract his gifts?

If we can get something good for him, fine. But dealing him for like a 5th instead of doing this seems dumb.

 

[RobsonStreet]

The teammate problem is a much tougher one than the competition / usage problem. A guy getting tough minutes might play 35% of his ice time against elite comp vs 20% for a guy who gets soft minutes. Ditto zone starts generally meaning a couple more advantages a game. Whereas with Hronek he was playing 75% of his minutes with Hughes, so the “not with Hughes” sample was small and made him look bad.

Hoglander has played a bunch with Pettersson but it’s still only about a third of his ice time the last three years, so there’s plenty to compare against. Pettersson also has better results with Hoglander than without so it’s not like Hughes being awesome whether he played with Hronek or not.

The tougher question is untangling the Hughes effect more generally. Basically everyone looked awesome with him and bad without him. From 23/24 to 24/25, Blueger for instance had a 57% xGF rate with Hughes versus 49% without; Hoglander was 56% and 50%.

Re: Pettersson and Hoglander - you can think of this as both an additive and synergistic effect (aka: interaction). Fundamentally, there’s who gets credit in the model for chemistry (the interaction) plus who contributes more to the line (“main effects”).

FWIW, I try to think of five men units as indivisible when using models. That leads to different problems (sample size), but avoids some problems related to weird edge cases by saying “figure it out by watching game footage”.

 

[MS]

Just going to swing by to say that I think a lot of the views on Hoglander are too polarized.

He's not 'replacement level junk'.

He's got the sort of tools where one could absolutely see him go to Carolina or Florida and become a 'doh why can't we have one of those!' kind of players.

People say 'well 4 coaches didn't trust him' which is true, but there's also a possibility that the variable moves in the other direction.
Malhotra will be his 5th coach in 7 years. He clearly needed to have somethings coached into/out of his game and there's been zero continuity to do so.

He gets benched because there's a particularly form of direction that he has followed egregiously badly thus far.

It's game state hockey sense. We've all seen him decide to make a neutral zone drop pass after a 2 minute shift in our end when he needed to dump it in.
That's a costly error and one that coaches will forgive maybe once.

But if a good coach can get through to him, and he isn't injured, there's a guy with tools there who can be a first man in forechecker/disruptor with enough skill to be a useful and unique tool in the middle six.

I'm certainly not calling him untouchable, but I think it's worth the new braintrust seeing if they can get through to him.

4 of his last 5 seasons have been replacement level.

Is he a player who if everything is right and he's feeling it *could* have a season that's better than replacement level? Sure. But same goes for Daniel Sprong.

On the balance of probabilities, this has been a replacement level player a majority of the time for the last 5 years and is most likely to continue being a replacement level player going into the future.

-
I noticed and hypothesized around K'Andre Miller's sudden glow up that he was being coached better and playing in a system that fit him better and then I heard Cam Robinson talk about how Miller's game reads aren't great, but if you get him to play in straight lines and use his size, speed, and range, while giving him direction so there is some pressure taken off of his in-game decision making...well suddenly you have a guy who is an elite shut down/puck transport D man.

Why not see if you can get through to Hoglander in a similar way and help him extract his gifts?

If we can get something good for him, fine. But dealing him for like a 5th instead of doing this seems dumb.

To be clear : I am absolutely not suggesting we trade Hoglander or pay to get rid of Hoglander.

There is no advantage to doing so unless some team does something remarkably stupid and players like this (and Chytil) are great tank commanders. And if somehow he can be pump/dumped to a 15 goal season next year, great.

But the problem with Hoglander is that he's just not a very smart player, and his game has not developed or evolved one iota since his NHL debut, despite a lot of competent people trying to find ways to get more out of him.

 

[RobsonStreet]

Interesting. How have you seen the models themselves shift to account for the difference for Hronek?

I think the big difference for Hronek is that he is initiating zone exits/rushes more himself, and not deferring.

It’s a bit hard because when the models themselves update, the output from all seasons generated from the old model tends to disappear. So for example, Micah McCurdy (whose stuff I really like) updates his model each summer. I recall up until around 24-25, Hronek didn’t fare well under the model, but the update, followed by the year he had without Hughes has him looking better (and yes, relative to where I think he was rated before this is better). He may still have a post on X about Hronek’s contract extension which should speak to where he was at that time, but I’m not about to check.

Not to nitpick this model (I’m the most familiar with it because Micah does the best work in the public domain IMO), but there are quirks. Young D can get savaged to a degree that makes me think the model is doing something weird when there aren’t prior seasons to weight (yes, it hates Willander and likes Benson, if you care to wonder where some folks might be getting their takes).

The other general gripe I have about public models is they need to protect their code and data in order to remain financially viable but don’t have the resources to employ folks to go looking for errors. Model code has bugs and sometimes these get missed. The black box around the code makes it tough to catch these errors as a fan.

 

[lawrence]

Tony Stretcher from Richmond time to come home and guide the kids. I'm not kidding. I'm down with him playing with the Canucks for next year as a mentor.

 

[mriswith]

People are coming around on how shocking the new salaries and signings are going to be.

People still have a ways to go on how there aren't going to be negative value contracts anymore as long as the player can still play above replacement. Not saying this is Hog, I'm biased against this player since the second half of the '24 season and playoffs.

In flat cap, talent moved around for shockingly cheap prices.

In cap hyperinflation, talent will move around for shockingly high prices.

I expect a decent return for EP once reality sinks in for GM's as long as he rebounds at least a little bit and doesn't continue to slide.

Makes me wonder - if we feed Marco Rossi 1st line and PP1 minutes next season, what could he bring in at the deadline?

Pumping EP40's value with all the prime ice time so we can sell him at a decent price should probably be the #1 priority, Rossi's pump ideally would wait until after.

 

[sting101]

Hoglander has failed as a top6 scorer the production is not good enough.
He's ghastly as a 3rd liner on a line that is expected to play high leverage minutes. It's a non starter
He's a 4th line energy player that when on can move into a top6 for a short burst. No Pking hurts what little value he has.

He doesn't have long speed enough to be a F1 in a top3 line capacity. He does not get on the forecheck with consistency and the puck often dies off his stick when he should be deferring instead of forcing plays. He still sucks at the lines which is gonna nuke his career pretty quick if he can't pull his head out of his ass and is not a good defensive player. A play driving athlete but with a sub-standard hockey IQ

He is a fun player when the games are track meets and 2 teams are going after each other. When it tightens into a press or neutral zone trap he's a mess and ends up fairly useless outside of some energy blasts and being a bull below the circles if he can get into a cycle.

I was advocating we keep Podkolzin over Hog because he plays the type of game that is conducive to being an F1. Heavy straight line player with long speed who can drive the net strong enough to separate defenseman from pucks and smart enough to defer instead of overhandling. And even if he wasn't that guy then he was gonna be better than PDG and Sprong in quick fashion which was as predictable as the sun rising tomorrow.

Hoglander and Pettersson were 2 of the worst value to production contracts in the entire league the last 2 yrs. Hopefully we don't keep that kind of thing around for long. Shape up or ship out. It hasn't been good enough