Confirmed with Link: Canucks sign F Ilya Mikheyev to 4-Year Deal ($4.75M AAV)

[MS]

I don't disagree with this but they key to this deal is definitely his offensive production. If he's scoring anything close to the 21 goals in 53 games pace he put up last season while providing that two way play you are talking about then yes he'll be full value. If he was playing anything like he did in 20-21 and scoring at a 7 goals in 54 game pace then f***...

For sure.

Although keep in mind that a) he should have better linemates here than in Toronto and b) in that 20-21 season he was coming back from a severe skate cut to his wrist.

For his career he's averaged about 20-20-40/82 and if he does that with limited PP time, this contract will be a win. If he scores at a 30+ goal clip again, it's an absolute monster win.

 

[Bojack Horvatman]

They're absolute garbage.

Every player who plays soft offensive minutes is great. Every player who plays for a good team is great.

Every defender who plays high leverage minutes for a bad team is one of the worst players in the NHL.

All they do is measure effectiveness in a player's role. They're a more advanced +/- stat.

That guy thinks he's measuring WAR and the overall quality of the player. What he's actually measuring is whether a player sank or swam given the situation they were put into. They're absolutely useless without context.

Tyler Myers is a solid mid-pairing NHL defender. When he's over-leveraged and playing above his station as a top-pairing shutdown guy, he's going to struggle in those minutes on a bad team. If you put him in #5 minutes on TB, his JFresh card would looked like a goddamned superstar.

I like math and stats, and I hate these charts. It's pretty much comparing grades of every level of education. If I went back to Kindergarten like Billy Madisson, Im sure I would rank great. Likewise, I failed a grade 8 level spelling test in grade 5. Compared to other 8th graders I would of ranked terribly, but I was a more than capable 5th grade student. And if these rankings correct for difficulty of education and and an A student in Kindergarten is smarter than someone going for their PhD who gets a C, then it is obviously flawed. This is the problem with stats and analytics is the need to directly compare everyone and everything with a number, even when it makes no sense to do so.

 

[CherryToke]

Mikheyev plays a heavy game? Seems unlikely for a guy that had less hits than Marner last year

 

[MS]

I like math and stats, and I hate these charts. It's pretty much comparing grades of every level of education. If I went back to Kindergarten like Billy Madisson, Im sure I would rank great. Likewise, I failed a grade 8 level spelling test in grade 5. Compared to other 8th graders I would of ranked terribly, but I was a more than capable 5th grade student. And if these rankings correct for difficulty of education and and an A student in Kindergarten is smarter than someone going for their PhD who gets a C, then it is obviously flawed. This is the problem with stats and analytics is the need to directly compare everyone and everything with a number, even when it makes no sense to do so.

I love math and stats, which is why it drives me bonkers when I see people using math and stats badly.

These guys creating WAR stats in their basement are pretty much right in line with the anti-vaxxers proving science wrong in their basement.

 

[Vector]

I love math and stats, which is why it drives me bonkers when I see people using math and stats badly.

These guys creating WAR stats in their basement are pretty much right in line with the anti-vaxxers proving science wrong in their basement.

What’s with your obsession with using basements as a negative? Basements are a key part of northwestern culture. I will not allow this basement slander to stand.

 

[TruGr1t]

This is still such a tough signing for me to get behind. The team needed a player or two like this, so I get it.

On the other hand, I hate spending this kind of money on middle-six wingers. I also won't ever get behind giving term to depth guys that we haven't seen in the city/system/etc - it goes wrong more than it goes right.

If the team can move out their glut of other wingers for positive assets & Mikheyev plays well then it starts to look a bit better. But for now, I'm not there.

I don't like it for this reason either, but I do believe a team can sign this player type out of free agency in specific situations, mainly when it is one of the last pieces you need to put it all together. Malhotra wasn't, on a relative salary basis with ~$60M cap, cheap when we signed him to play in the bottom six, but he was literally one of the last missing pieces for that team.

In this instance, it seems like you're playing fiddle on the Titanic. Yeah, maybe he's a nice player that fits some needs on this team. Should you be burdening a cap strapped team with this type of contract over 4 years that is nowhere close to contention? That's my issue. If they subsequently move Miller or Myers and make some genius trade then all is forgiven. If they try to carry this cap situation through the season (or in my mind trade Garland) I don't like it at all.

 

[Uhmkay]

I have 2 things to say.

1) I liked the signing at the beginning and like it even more now.

2) I think going forward I'm just going to Quote anything MS posts and under the quote put "Agreed". Guy just understands the game but he articulates better than I do so...

I love math and stats, which is why it drives me bonkers when I see people using math and stats badly.

These guys creating WAR stats in their basement are pretty much right in line with the anti-vaxxers proving science wrong in their basement.

Agreed.

 

[Michael Dal Swolle]

What’s with your obsession with using basements as a negative? Basements are a key part of northwestern culture. I will not allow this basement slander to stand.

If JFresh's Patreon page is to be believed he's pulling in over $11,000 per month on his stuff which is pretty damn good, basement or not.

 

[Vector]

If JFresh's Patreon page is to be believed he's pulling in over $11,000 per month on his stuff which is pretty damn good, basement or not.

Good for him. Glad people find enjoyment into his efforts. It’s not for me and I find the results dubious. I’ll go back to my basement now.

 

[Regal]

They'll take a guy like Seth Jones - who is a pretty good #2-3 defender being mis-cast as a 26 minute/game #1 shutdown defender on bad teams - and announce he's like a 2nd percentile NHL defender. And people just blindly lap it up. It's just such total garbage.

It's the mirror reflection of dumb dinosaur hockey guys blindly taking 6'5 coke machines because they make boards go boom. Stat nerds who don't understand math just blindly taking stupid charts at face value and making terrible evaluations based on them.

All those percentiles are relative to the context of their deployment fyi. Part of the problem is some people don’t realize this so don’t see these numbers as only being compared to other similar deployed players.

 

[me2]

Good for him. Glad people find enjoyment into his efforts. It’s not for me and I find the results dubious. I’ll go back to my basement now.

Just dropping the "I have a basement" humble brag on those of us that don't.

 

[Bojack Horvatman]

I love math and stats, which is why it drives me bonkers when I see people using math and stats badly.

These guys creating WAR stats in their basement are pretty much right in line with the anti-vaxxers proving science wrong in their basement.

Completely agree. Defensive stats in do not compare well when comparing different roles. The reason being is that bottom pair d/4th liners have low goals against rates because they play more minutes against less skilled players. I did this a few years ago, but and average bottom pair D would have about a 2.4 ga/60. This would be a very good number for a top 4 D. A bottom pairing D that gets average results in his role would be equivalent to a top 4 that gets very good results for his role. This is why just comparing players of different roles with raw numbers is flawed. Not only on will playing a roll above or below their level effect their numbers, but the criteria between good and bad is different.

 

[bobbyb2009]

Completely agree. Defensive stats in do not compare well when comparing different roles. The reason being is that bottom pair d/4th liners have low goals against rates because they play more minutes against less skilled players. I did this a few years ago, but and average bottom pair D would have about a 2.4 ga/60. This would be a very good number for a top 4 D. A bottom pairing D that gets average results in his role would be equivalent to a top 4 that gets very good results for his role. This is why just comparing players of different roles with raw numbers is flawed. Not only on will playing a roll above or below their level effect their numbers, but the criteria between good and bad is different.

Not a fan of most of these, if not all of these kind of stats. They really bother me because almost none of them alone can measure anything specific.

In the case, it sounds like this is a stat/conclusion that can be used to help to decide if a player can succeed in a role that is comparable to the role he may play in a new team. If you are looking for a specific kind of 3rd pairing guy to fill a role in your team, and he has been filling that role in another team, this "measurement" might be able to give insight in if he would succeed....

 

[ahmon]

There's simply too many variables in hockey.

To be accurate you probably need to collect decades of data from a single player, and unfortunately a player's career is not even that long.

 

[sting101]

Not a fan of overpayments buy he's pretty much exactly what we need...speed a mentor for 2 new Russians a excellent penalty killer and has some size to win pucks. Free agency tax is about a million in this deal unless he goes 40-50pts while he's here which will make him a excellent move all the way around

 

[DFAC]

You have to imagine part of the reason we overpaid is to have a Russian here to mentor Podz and Kuzmenko

He’s probably 750k overpaid which is fine by me if that means the Russian kids have an easier time

 

[strattonius]

I'm with you guys on jfresh charts.

There are good players on bad teams and vice-versa; However, the charts don't accurately reflect that. If all the bad players played on one team there would be a larger disparity of outcome between good and bad teams. But anyone that's watched this sport for a day knows even the bad teams win fairly often against good teams. A jfresh chart would look accurate in the EPL.

Horvat being a replacement level player was literally argued by these dweebs on this forum last summer.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

Mikheyev plays a heavy game? Seems unlikely for a guy that had less hits than Marner last year

Nah. He really doesn't.

He does push the pace and is really fast and that allows him to be first to the puck more often than not. He doesn't shy away from contact but he isn't a physical player.

You have to imagine part of the reason we overpaid is to have a Russian here to mentor Podz and Kuzmenko

He’s probably 750k overpaid which is fine by me if that means the Russian kids have an easier time

The player is elite middle 6er. So I have no trouble with the player.

I just don't like the fact that we AGAIN went and got our target on day one amongst the first deals in the league. IMO we should be waiting the market out and trying to find players on positive value deals that get left behind by the initial frenzy.

To me this is a contract, that if he plays to his full potential, he will just barely earn.

 

[Jimnastic]

Having read quite a few articles on the Russians over the last week, I think this was a pretty shrewd and targeted acquisition. Size, speed, can talk to our rookie and our sophomore. That is a pretty eclectic bunch of benefits. And it looks like management is making it clear they reward help.

 

[CanucksMJL]

It looks like this guy ticks many boxes for us. He brings things the Canucks didn't have that management said they wanted. Looking at this signing as adding "yet another winger" is missing the point that this isn't a redundant addition. 6'3" 195 who can PK, tilt the ice at ES and an upward trajectory on offensive production. He's not afraid of contact and he's fast. Fast being an understatement. 6'3" 195 and can beat McD in a rundown.

It makes sense to me to pay guys who drive the play. Practically by definition that singular quality means they are better than the opposition. Play drivers improve their linemates. It's the guys who put up hockey card stats in sheltered minutes or because they are paired with elite linemates that are truly overpaid. (side note: I think I just talked myself into a Brock Boeser trade)

There is no way to know if this or any player will fit as intended. I can easily see the logic that went into the decision to make this bet and I think it was a good one. His profile fits a need, the term of the contract is in line with his age and performance trend, and he drives the play.

 

[LandfiII]

Play drivers improve their linemates. It's the guys who put up hockey card stats in sheltered minutes or because they are paired with elite linemates that are truly overpaid. (side note: I think I just talked myself into a Brock Boeser trade)

There is no way to know if this or any player will fit as intended. I can easily see the logic that went into the decision to make this bet and I think it was a good one. His profile fits a need, the term of the contract is in line with his age and performance trend, and he drives the play.

Careful. You can’t say that here. No matter whether the contract is bad or not.

 

[MarkMM]

It looks like this guy ticks many boxes for us. He brings things the Canucks didn't have that management said they wanted. Looking at this signing as adding "yet another winger" is missing the point that this isn't a redundant addition. 6'3" 195 who can PK, tilt the ice at ES and an upward trajectory on offensive production. He's not afraid of contact and he's fast. Fast being an understatement. 6'3" 195 and can beat McD in a rundown.

It makes sense to me to pay guys who drive the play. Practically by definition that singular quality means they are better than the opposition. Play drivers improve their linemates. It's the guys who put up hockey card stats in sheltered minutes or because they are paired with elite linemates that are truly overpaid. (side note: I think I just talked myself into a Brock Boeser trade)

There is no way to know if this or any player will fit as intended. I can easily see the logic that went into the decision to make this bet and I think it was a good one. His profile fits a need, the term of the contract is in line with his age and performance trend, and he drives the play.

My hope / expectation is that there'll be some trades of surplus forwards (Miller/Garland/Boeser) for defence help / prospects and suddenly the move for Mikheyev will make a lot more sense when it becomes clear that Rutherford / Allvin planned all along to move out those players and knew they were going to need Mikheyev to slot in.

Right now I'm lukewarm but that's probably because management isn't done yet, and when the dust settles hopefully this will make a lot more sense.

 

[ChuckNorris4Cup]

He's still not in the top 4 wingers here so he's still behind so many players.

So many you say , I guess he's already a write off in your eyes.

 

[gringo]

It’s a risky signing that adds to a position of strength on the roster so if it doesn’t work out it will look really bad.

But if he hits hopefully it will give the management the courage to finally move on from Boeser.

 

[CanucksMJL]

My hope / expectation is that there'll be some trades of surplus forwards (Miller/Garland/Boeser) for defence help / prospects and suddenly the move for Mikheyev will make a lot more sense when it becomes clear that Rutherford / Allvin planned all along to move out those players and knew they were going to need Mikheyev to slot in.

Right now I'm lukewarm but that's probably because management isn't done yet, and when the dust settles hopefully this will make a lot more sense.

I think the surplus forwards on this team are Boeser, Pearson and Dickinson.
The Boeser signing was still the right move IMO since he can still be traded, there's the off-chance he could surprise and I don't know what else could be done.
Pearson and his contract is fine, he just doesn't make sense on a team with so many other options. Pearson belongs on a contender as the 3rd best 3rd liner on the team. Failing that he belongs on a bottom feeder that needs a few actual NHLers on the roster.
Dickinson seems to suck and I hope he gets way better because that's the only way this player and contract isn't an unmitigated disaster.

Miller is the best player on the Canucks so I can't agree that he falls into the surplus category. His situation is so awkward that it might alter the future of the entire franchise for a decade. He's too old to sign long-term and feel good about it, but he's not old enough that it's out of the realm of possibility that it could work out great.
Say you're all like f*** that shit I'm gonna trade him for a king's ransom because he's a 99pt multi-dimensional fwd with a multi-year track record of elite play. Great, good call IMO. Now you have to be offered the king's ransom. In this case, the king's ransom probably includes a young, cost-controlled RHD that can already play. Nobody wants to give that up. Nobody. So it's hopeless? Hell no. When your team isn't what you thought it was and your window is now, you come to Jesus. Jesus makes 5.5M without retention and is everything you wanted. Suddenly anyone who isn't moving the needle this very second looks pretty expendable.

Garland seemed to provide a solid bang for the buck. He moves the needle and I don't get why it seems to be widely assumed that he's perpetual trade bait. The Canucks have enough elite PP personnel. What they don't have is elite ES personnel. Trading this guy for cap space sounds nuts. I'd way prefer losing draft picks to ditch dead weight like Dickinson and Poolman. It's so hard to get players that actually help a team. The Canucks are at max capacity for players whose best quality is that they give the good players a chance to rest.