Player Discussion David Quinn: Part II

[Tawnos]

I'd be absolutely shocked if Ruff didn't have a big say in what they're doing

Oh sure, the head coach works in consultation with the assistants. But the main direction is set out by the head coach. This team is not trying play Lindy Ruff defensive hockey.

 

[Oscar Lindberg]

Oh sure, the head coach works in consultation with the assistants. But the main direction is set out by the head coach. This team is not trying play Lindy Ruff defensive hockey.

Their defensive metrics sure look like Lindy Ruff defensive hockey haha

 

[Tawnos]

Sure, you're going to have issues.

And even then, I think the first 35-40 games of this season were still below reasonable expectations.

Well, hopefully their recent improvement continues. If it does, both in terms of holding where they've gotten to and making further strides, then the process is working.

 

[True Blue]

Again, Ottawa and Detroit just this year.

Yeah, sorry but no. Neither of those teams iced a defense that has 3 rookies starting for a good chunk of the year. And if you say that Hajek has been hurt and Staal has been playing instead, does that really bolster your argument?

You're acting as if this is a historically bad roster. It isn't.

You are using the term historical. But as you cannot name a single team in the last 25 years that iced a defense like this, what does that tell you? How in the world can you simply keep on ignoring such an important point when discussing how poor they are defensively?

 

[Machinehead]

Well, hopefully their recent improvement continues. If it does, both in terms of holding where they've gotten to and making further strides, then the process is working.

Agreed.

 

[Tawnos]

Their defensive metrics sure look like Lindy Ruff defensive hockey haha

Metrics can look the same in a variety of different systems.

 

[McRanger]

Maybe not historically bad, but the defense, in terms of defensive zone play, is pretty bad. Trouba is the only one capable of high quality defensive work in the role he's playing. As impressive as Fox has been as a rookie, he's not amazing in the D zone yet. I believe he will be in a year or two and he's obviously improving as the season goes along. Ditto Lindgren. DeAngelo is, at best, below average in the defensive zone. He makes up for that elsewhere, but that doesn't help when you think about defensive breakdowns, etc. Skjei is playing over his head at the moment. He's above average in the defensive zone when in the correct role, but he's not playing that role. We don't need to discuss Staal.

When you put all of that together with the lack of defensive capabilities among the forwards, you're going to have issues. And you're going to look very disorganized at times, which is our perceived lack of structure. The youth is improving, and as they do so does the team D performance.

There is a difference between defensive capabilities and defensive effort. I don't expect a guy like Strome to become a shut down center. But I do expect him to back check and make smart line changes. I dont expect Trouba to easily line up against the elite forwards of the world. But I do expect him to at least be close enough to the blue line that he is visible on the television, because half the time he is so far back that it looks like no one is there and opposing forwards are on a breakaway.

 

[Machinehead]

Yeah, sorry but no. Neither of those teams iced a defense that has 3 rookies starting for a good chunk of the year. And if you say that Hajek has been hurt and Staal has been playing instead, does that really bolster your argument?

You are using the term historical. But as you cannot name a single team in the last 25 years that iced a defense like this, what does that tell you? How in the world can you simply keep on ignoring such an important point when discussing how poor they are defensively?

Cholowski and Hronek are rookies and Bowey played one full season, so you're wrong.

No, Ottawa don't have three rookies but their roster makes our's look like an all-star team.

So yeah, I've named two. Just from this season.

 

[Oscar Lindberg]

Metrics can look the same in a variety of different systems.

I guess

If Ruff doesn't matter all that much in terms of what they're doing like you say, then it shouldn't be that big of a loss if he's fired

 

[Tawnos]

I guess

If Ruff doesn't matter all that much in terms of what they're doing like you say, then it shouldn't be that big of a loss if he's fired

Oh I'd have no problem if they fired him. In no way am I defending him overall. Just in terms of what strategy they use, or even a perceived lack of structure that I don't agree with... I don't believe that would be on him.

 

[McRanger]

Cholowski and Hronek are rookies and Bowey played one full season, so you're wrong.

No, Ottawa don't have three rookies but their roster makes our's look like an all-star team.

So yeah, I've named two. Just from this season.

Plus Fox and Deangelo aren't contributing, at least statistically, to the problem.

It's like if Kakko and Chytil each had 30 goals already but the rest of our offense sucked and the response was "Of course we suck, look at how young our forwards are!"

 

[Tawnos]

There is a difference between defensive capabilities and defensive effort. I don't expect a guy like Strome to become a shut down center. But I do expect him to back check and make smart line changes. I dont expect Trouba to easily line up against the elite forwards of the world. But I do expect him to at least be close enough to the blue line that he is visible on the television, because half the time he is so far back that it looks like no one is there and opposing forwards are on a breakaway.

Well look, I also think poor execution is mistaken for poor effort all the time around here. It's not simply a matter of every single individual backchecking hard. A hard backcheck from too many players results in trailing players looking for offense being open. So that requires an ability to read the play, have a strong defensive awareness of your teammates, etc. If Strome doesn't have strong defensive abilities, he's going to make a lot of mistakes in terms of when to backcheck hard and when not to. When he makes the mistake, it looks like poor effort, but in reality it's poor execution.

And you often see defensemen hanging too far back from the blueline when they're overcompensating for the defensive deficiencies of the rest of his team. That's an execution problem too. Because there's just no way that the coaches are like "you should yield the blueline."

 

[Off Sides]

This is correct, there usually is a give and take. If you are a hard forechecking team that has defense supporting your pressure, you are more likely to give up an odd man rush. If you are a trap/counterattack team, you make things miserable for teams moving the puck but risk spending little time in the O zone if things don't work out. If you play a D zone scheme that involves a lot of pressure and shifting, you risk defensive mix ups, but you are in a better position to start a rush. Etc.

But I can't see any successful strategy that doesn't involve things like back checking or defending the blue line. Actually, scratch that, those things aren't even strategic, they're just the basics of defensive hockey. And the whole point of a Very Serious Coach is that, even if the team is devoid of talent and can't do anything else, they will do those little things.

Back checking obviously is a thing that is not strategic, it should just be natural.

Since I only watch on TV it's difficult for me to ascertain if they are back checking or not.

Yet to your point if they are not, then giving up the blue line, whoever is back probably does not have much confidence in standing up at it without back checking support.

 

[Athor]

What are the goals of this team, exactly?

Having the puck occasionally should be one. (And yes, they've been better)

Again, Ottawa and Detroit just this year.

You're acting as if this is a historically bad roster. It isn't.

It's a historically young roster. The goal is to get better. You admit they've gotten better. Even their season average shot share has moved up to be basically the same as Ottawa. Treating this team like it's not a full work in progress & expecting them to be anywhere above the bottom 10 in anything is just setting yourself up for disappointment. In your case it's a safety net you can point to in an attempt to prove a narrative against Quinn.

You're also confusing having the puck with shot attempts. This team passes up shots more than anyone else in the league, yet they are still towards the top in many offensive categories.

 

[True Blue]

Cholowski and Hronek are rookies and Bowey played one full season, so you're wrong.

No, Ottawa don't have three rookies but their roster makes our's look like an all-star team.

So yeah, I've named two. Just from this season.

So no, Ottawa does not have 3 rookies and a sophomore comprising 4 out of 6 spots. Playing one full season no longer means being a rookie. And looking at the dumpster fire of teams that you put out, is this really the hill that you want to die on when looking for comps as to why the Rangers are so poor defensively? You are basically defeating your own argument as to why they should not be this bad.

And even then, I think the first 35-40 games of this season were still below reasonable expectations.

Only in the context of what happens when you get to define what "reasonable" is.

 

[Machinehead]

It's a historically young roster. The goal is to get better. You admit they've gotten better. Even their season average shot share has moved up to be basically the same as Ottawa. Treating this team like it's not a full work in progress & expecting them to be anywhere above the bottom 10 in anything is just setting yourself up for disappointment. In your case it's a safety net you can point to in an attempt to prove a narrative against Quinn.

You're also confusing having the puck with shot attempts. This team passes up shots more than anyone else in the league, yet they are still towards the top in many offensive categories.

I don't need a safety net to "prove a narrative" against Quinn. He's accomplished nothing in this league and is the furthest thing from above criticism.

So no, Ottawa does not have 3 rookies and a sophomore comprising 4 out of 6 spots. Playing one full season no longer means being a rookie. And looking at the dumpster fire of teams that you put out, is this really the hill that you want to die on when looking for comps as to why the Rangers are so poor defensively? You are basically defeating your own argument as to why they should not be this bad.

Only in the context of what happens when you get to define what "reasonable" is.

But they're significantly worse than those teams at shot shares.

 

[True Blue]

But they're significantly worse than those teams at shot shares.

They are also significantly young and significantly inexperienced. And oh yeah, need to play a quarter of their games without their top line center.

 

[McRanger]

Well look, I also think poor execution is mistaken for poor effort all the time around here. It's not simply a matter of every single individual backchecking hard. A hard backcheck from too many players results in trailing players looking for offense being open. So that requires an ability to read the play, have a strong defensive awareness of your teammates, etc. If Strome doesn't have strong defensive abilities, he's going to make a lot of mistakes in terms of when to backcheck hard and when not to. When he makes the mistake, it looks like poor effort, but in reality it's poor execution.

I'm usually the one making the "execution over effort" argument, so I agree with you; effort without execution is completely worthless. But its usually easy to see whether a lack of effort is a factor, the player is involved in the play but doing the wrong this as opposed to not being involved in the play at all. Its not about every player skating hard all the time more than its about some players skating hard some of the time.

Still its hard to know for sure. If "problems with effort" isn't completely accurate then maybe "directionless" is more fitting.

And you often see defensemen hanging too far back from the blueline when they're overcompensating for the defensive deficiencies of the rest of his team. That's an execution problem too. Because there's just no way that the coaches are like "you should yield the blueline."

Eh I think the direction is more or less to do that exactly, in situations where the opposition has numbers, and for the very reason you mentioned: lack of support from the forwards. There are certainly times ceding the blueline is the smart play or the only play. We just do it to an extreme amount instead of situational. Its not an exaggeration to say we almost never break up plays at the blue line. The "where is the D man and why isn't he in the picture? Is he changing? Oh no, its the same guy!" thing wasn't even me being hyperbolic, that has happened a lot this season and I can't remember it ever happening before.

 

[Machinehead]

They are also significantly young and significantly inexperienced. And oh yeah, need to play a quarter of their games without their top line center.

Whatever. I guess "they shouldn't get outshot 3:2" is a radical opinion.

 

[True Blue]

Whatever. I guess "they shouldn't get outshot 3:2" is a radical opinion.

Radical or not, it is an opinion. Viewing an entire season through the prism of a metric is viewing it with blinders on. It ignores significant injuries (ZBad) and it ignores improvement seen lately. As you would expect from such a young team.

 

[Machinehead]

Radical or not, it is an opinion. Viewing an entire season through the prism of a metric is viewing it with blinders on. It ignores significant injuries (ZBad) and it ignores improvement seen lately. As you would expect from such a young team.

It's not just one metric.

 

[McRanger]

Deangelo is the only Sophomore in history to play 180 games and complete a 3 year ELC.

Fox is the first rookie in history to be the cause of a bad statistics despite being the best player statistically.

Lindgren and Hajek are the first rookie pair in history to only play 18 out of 48 games together but somehow count as full time players.

 

[Athor]

I don't need a safety net to "prove a narrative" against Quinn. He's accomplished nothing in this league and is the furthest thing from above criticism.

Except you do, because you're consistently downplaying the recent improvement of the team & instead opt for the argument that paints him & the team in the most negative light possible. Again, they've raised virtually all of their defensive metrics the last 20 games to just below league average. Let's keep talking about the 3:2 shot share though. I'll point you to the 6 of 7 top shot share teams in the league either at the bottom of the standings or barely hanging on to a playoff spot. Corsi has become a dinosaur stat in the world of advanced statistics.

 

[Machinehead]

Except you do, because you're consistently downplaying the recent improvement of the team & instead opt for the argument that paints him & the team in the most negative light possible. Again, they've raised virtually all of their defensive metrics the last 20 games to just below league average. Let's keep talking about the 3:2 shot share though. I'll point you to the 6 of 7 top shot share teams in the league either at the bottom of the standings or barely hanging on to a playoff spot. Corsi has become a dinosaur stat in the world of advanced statistics.

A hot run hasn't overturned any of the statistics @McRanger showed us, and even then, the improvement has been offense-driven.

There's nothing wrong with people being concerned about our defense.

 

[Athor]

A hot run hasn't overturned any of the statistics @McRanger showed us, and even then, the improvement has been offense-driven.

There's nothing wrong with people being concerned about our defense.

Did the goalposts just move to an entirely different field? Concerned with the defense is completely different from claiming this defense is historically bad & the coach is the reason because our D are offensively capable.
We've lost a bunch of games where we outplayed the opponent statistically. Advanced statistics are heavily driven by offensive outputs because they require shots to have any data point. They have very little utility when it comes to defensive acumen or prevention.

Right, but we know this is heavily biased towards what happened at the beginning of the season. If we take this last batch of ~20 games, they're 16th and 18th in CF% and xGF%. If you break down xGF%, they're 8th in xGF/60 and 25th in xGA/60. There's a clear trend for an improvement there, which is what's important to see in a young, rebuilding team.

It's still a work in progress, but it's obviously starting to get better.

xG numbers are better indicators than CF% (and it's still massively flawed). 25th in a "defensive" rate statistic seems pretty appropriate for this team right now.