Devils discussion (news, notes and speculation) - part III

[dgibb10]

I think the point is that the zone start stats are kind of a flawed way to look at things when the majority of starts are on the fly.

View attachment 977349
This is all 5 on 5.

Hamilton had 60 more offensive zone starts than Siegenthaler but Hamilton has 1,142 shift starts and Siegs has 1,122.

So 50 starts is around 5% of the total starts or about 1 per game. Either way, that’s a difference but not a huge difference.

Dougie gets 2.4 offensive zone starts per game and Siegs gets 1.35. As a percentage that is a big difference, as a raw number it’s not. It’s small as a raw number because most shifts don’t start in a zone anyway.

THANK YOU.

The only time zone starts are ever brought up is when someone wants to push a narrative about a player, and then it's done with numerical manipulation to hide the fact that even in the extreme we're usually talking about a shift or 2 a game being changed (and even those shifts aren't that meaningfully affected, a single ozone start isn't some magic offense potion that some seem to think it is.

I could use zone deployment to pick apart any superstar dman in the league and say he's worse than Brandon Carlo if I wanted to.

Notice how these people will ramble on about impactful every minor difference in forward linemate time or a zone start a game, but will never mention the single biggest factor for a dman, which is who your d partner is.

Perhaps it's because Hamilton plays with NJDs worst dman, which has as comparable than the zone starts and forward deployment combined

 

[devilsblood]

A single ozone start does not have NEARLY the impact that you seem to think it does for some reason

When the difference in on ice shots against per game is somewhere around 1.5, I think the impact is right in line with what I think.

THANK YOU.

The only time zone starts are ever brought up is when someone wants to push a narrative about a player, and then it's done with numerical manipulation to hide the fact that even in the extreme we're usually talking about a shift or 2 a game being changed (and even those shifts aren't that meaningfully affected, a single ozone start isn't some magic offense potion that some seem to think it is.

I could use zone deployment to pick apart any superstar dman in the league and say he's worse than Brandon Carlo if I wanted to.

Notice how these people will ramble on about impactful every minor difference in forward linemate time or a zone start a game, but will never mention the single biggest factor for a dman, which is who your d partner is.

Perhaps it's because Hamilton plays with NJDs worst dman, which has as comparable than the zone starts and forward deployment combined

That's not what I'm doing so you have to reevaluate your thinking here.

You're just way sensitive to the Hamilton discussion.

 

[dgibb10]

I said 80% only because it's factual, but this was only a retort to you saying it's 1% which is not factual.

And I've said a bunch of times Hamilton is the better offensive player and that's why he is out there with those guys. So it's no mystery to me. You're punching at clouds here. (although should be noted the respective xGF's are not that different and Dougie with those 2 is pushing 80% ozone faceoffs)

Dougie Hamilton starts 12.01% of his 5v5 shifts in the ozone.
Luke Hughes starts 11.1% of his 5v5 shifts in the ozone

12.01%-11.1%=1%.

The real difference. It is 1% of shifts we are talking about here.

ZONE STARTS MEAN f*** ALL, especially marginal differences in zone starts.


The xGoals/60 for an ozone shift is about 3xgf/60-2xga/60. Or about 1 goal every 80 ozone starts (45 second shift = 80 shifts in 60 minutes), or 0.0125 per shift

We are talking about a difference of 0.2 extra ozone shifts a game in Luke vs Hamilton.

Let's do some quick math.

0.2x0.0125=0.0025 extra on ice goals per game for dougie.

That would only take, hmm 400 games to reach a whopping 1 goal worth. WOW

Truly a meaningful difference, truly.

 

[devilsblood]

Although Cale Makar

Dougie Hamilton starts 12.01% of his 5v5 shifts in the ozone.
Luke Hughes starts 11.1% of his 5v5 shifts in the ozone

12.01%-11.1%=1%.

The real difference. It is 1% of shifts we are talking about here.

ZONE STARTS MEAN f*** ALL, especially marginal differences in zone starts.


The xGoals/60 for an ozone shift is about 3xgf/60-2xga/60. Or about 1 goal every 80 ozone starts (45 second shift = 80 shifts in 60 minutes), or 0.0125 per shift

We are talking about a difference of 0.2 extra ozone shifts a game in Luke vs Hamilton.

Let's do some quick math.

0.2x0.0125=0.0025 extra on ice goals per game for dougie.

That would only take, hmm 400 games to reach a whopping 1 goal worth. WOW

Truly a meaningful difference, truly.

I also said above that Ham's get's the offensive minutes, Kova the defensive assignments and Luke is somewhere in the middle. Posted a bunch of stats about it.

So the difference is not very significant between high and middle. But is more significant when comparing the truly offensive deployment of Hams and the truly defensive deployment of Kova.

And it's not just ozone starts, but it is often a good indicator, again I posted a bunch of stats above.

 

[dgibb10]

Although Cale Makar

I also said above that Ham's get's the offensive minutes, Kova the defensive assignments and Luke is somewhere in the middle. Posted a bunch of stats about it.

So the difference is not very significant between high and middle. But is more significant when comparing the truly offensive deployment of Hams and the truly defensive deployment of Kova.

And it's not just ozone starts, but it is often a good indicator, again I posted a bunch of stats above.

1 per 80 shifts, 120 differential (both sides) between kovy and dougie= 1.5 goals on the season.

WOW, truly a massive difference. Truly remarkable.

Now, I wonder what the difference between having Brendon Dillon as your partner vs Jonas Siegenthaler as a partner is worth.

I could use your arguments to justify saying Calvin De Haan is better than Cale Makar.

 

[dgibb10]

Did you know cale makar has 740% more ozone starts than Calvin De Haan?

And look at these linemate differences. (side note, what the f***. How is it even possible as a dman to play 2/3 of your minutes.

Makar plays 65% of his minutes with mackinnon
De Haan just 14%

Makar has played 750% more minutes with Mackinnon than De Haan has smh

If you though the difference between Hughes and Hamilton was significant, I'd love to hear what you think about this @devilsblood

 

[devilsblood]

Did you know cale makar has 740% more ozone starts than Calvin De Haan?
View attachment 977395

And look at these linemate differences. (side note, what the f***. How is it even possible as a dman to play 2/3 of your minutes.
View attachment 977397

View attachment 977399

Makar plays 65% of his minutes with mackinnon
De Haan just 14%

Makar has played 750% more minutes with Mackinnon than De Haan has smh

If you though the difference between Hughes and Hamilton was significant, I'd love to hear what you think about this @devilsblood

Makar actually has the most 5v5 defensive zone starts amongst Colorado d-men. Makar plays the 2nd most minutes for Colorado 5v5. 2nd most minutes when up 1 goal, as well as the 2nd most dzone starts while leading by 1. While playing the 2nd most minutes vs opposition top lines and the least against bottom lines.

And oh yeah 2nd most on the PK.

So sure he has a high ozone start rate, but it's one stat amongst many that I have posted. Comparison of his usage vs Hamilton is stark.

 

[devilsblood]

Makar leads Colorado in 5v5 d-zone starts with 134 and all strengths d-zone starts with 239.

Ham's has the least d-zone starts amongst the regular NJ d-men with 87 5v5 and with 91 all strength faceoffs.

You really need to set the bar lower here.

 

[New Jerseys Devil]

No game anytime soon, but...

OH WELL


~~~~Lets Go Devils!!!!~~~~

 

[dgibb10]

Makar actually has the most 5v5 defensive zone starts amongst Colorado d-men. Makar plays the 2nd most minutes for Colorado 5v5. 2nd most minutes when up 1 goal, as well as the 2nd most dzone starts while leading by 1. While playing the 2nd most minutes vs opposition top lines and the least against bottom lines.

And oh yeah 2nd most on the PK.

So sure he has a high ozone start rate, but it's one stat amongst many that I have posted. Comparison of his usage vs Hamilton is stark.

So now ozone starts and time with top players doesn't matter?

Great walkback.

 

[devilsblood]

So now ozone starts and time with top players doesn't matter?

Great walkback.

It all matters.

But Makar doesn’t solely play offensive minutes like Hams does. He plays the most on the PK. He plays the most protecting a lead. He gets the most defensive zone starts. Yes he gets a ton of favorable offensive minutes but he plays defensive minutes as well.

Somewhat similar to Nico as he too plays tough defensive minutes but favorable offensive minutes as well

While Jack skews much more heavily towards offense. And Id bring this fact up in the past when people were trying to say Jack is a stud defensive fwd. which wasn’t a slight on Jack but lets be real he plays easy minutes (though his use and success on the pk shows he is expanding his game(but id even push back a little on his pk usage as he will never take that opening faceoff in the defensive zone)).

 

[onmygameboi]

I can tell there hasn't been a game in awhile.

 

[Bleedred]

I can tell there hasn't been a game in awhile.

There’s actually been one wraparound goal scored since the last Devils game. Trust me.

That’s how long ago the last Devils game was.

 

[onmygameboi]

Thanks.

I’m only now keeping track of the wraparounds because after I said “Trust me wraparounds do not happen all that often. I don’t see many of them” in that GDT, one person told me in their own words that when someone says “Trust me” before something it’s usually a load of bullshit.

So now here I am counting exactly how many wraparound goals happen, because even I didn’t know the exact number. All I knew was that it wasn’t very much.

Now someone can disagree with me all they want about what is and isn’t a bad goal. But they can’t argue with me about how often wraparound goals happen, unless they also wanna watch every single goal and see for themselves. And so far we got two in the month of February out of however many hundred non-empty net goals.

Now maybe there’s a sites out there that track wraparound goals themselves. And what they or the league would consider a wraparound goal may make their number higher than what I’m counting. If they’re counting things like a puck off the backboards where a guy puts the puck into the net from behind the goal line at the side of the net. Or if there’s a net mouth scramble and the goalie gets caught up in it and can’t get back over to make the save. Maybe even if a guy goes around the net and the goalie gets back in time and makes the initial save, but the goal is scored on the rebound. I’m not counting those.

When I say wraparound goal I mean when a guy skates around the back of the net with the puck and beats the goalie back to the other post and puts it in on the FIRST try.

Sometimes a wraparound is good sometines it's bad to let up.

Just like a shot from the point, or

There’s actually been one wraparound goal scored since the last Devils game. Trust me.

That’s how long ago the last Devils game was.

I cut my own toenails today. That's the level of boredom I've reached.

 

[NJDfan86]

It’s very obvious why Makar starts in the d-zone more than Dougie - he can also skate the puck out of the zone himself.

You want your best retrieval/exit defenders on the ice in the dzone, some teams do this well and other don’t. Both Bednar and Keefe are playing to their players skill set.

 

[theoptimist]

Kyle Palmieri is not what we need. Case closed.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

Kyle Palmieri is not what we need. Case closed.

I don’t think there are many better realistic options. He checks some boxes and won’t be too expensive. The geezer probably won’t even sell though.

 

[devilsblood]

I can tell there hasn't been a game in awhile.

Says the guy with 233 posts.

It’s very obvious why Makar starts in the d-zone more than Dougie - he can also skate the puck out of the zone himself.

You want your best retrieval/exit defenders on the ice in the dzone, some teams do this well and other don’t. Both Bednar and Keefe are playing to their players skill set.

thats part of the reason. His ability to defend is the bigger part of the reason.

Otherwise little guys who can skate would dominate the dzone start list.

 

[devilsfan950003]

No game anytime soon, but...

OH WELL


~~~~Lets Go Devils!!!!~~~~

At least they won't lose.

 

[Guttersniped]

THANK YOU.

The only time zone starts are ever brought up is when someone wants to push a narrative about a player, and then it's done with numerical manipulation to hide the fact that even in the extreme we're usually talking about a shift or 2 a game being changed (and even those shifts aren't that meaningfully affected, a single ozone start isn't some magic offense potion that some seem to think it is.

I could use zone deployment to pick apart any superstar dman in the league and say he's worse than Brandon Carlo if I wanted to.

Notice how these people will ramble on about impactful every minor difference in forward linemate time or a zone start a game, but will never mention the single biggest factor for a dman, which is who your d partner is.

Perhaps it's because Hamilton plays with NJDs worst dman, which has as comparable than the zone starts and forward deployment combined

“The only time zone starts are ever brought up is when someone wants to push a narrative about a player, and then it's done with numerical manipulation to hide the fact that even in the extreme we're usually talking about a shift or 2 a game being changed (and even those shifts aren't that meaningfully affected, a single ozone start isn't some magic offense potion that some seem to think it is.”

This isn’t true and is actually insulting. I discuss them because they tell us how a player is used.

The Frozen Tools graphs (link) I share were developed by Rob Vollman in 2011, a major figure in hockey analytics who now works for the Kings.

Offensive usage doesn’t make a player worse, offensive players should get more offensive starts.

For example, Hischier is always going to get tough matchups but his amount of defensive faceoffs is absurd. This has led to Meier, who we pay 8.8m for offensive production, to used in way too much of a defensive role. Add not playing him the PP1 and we aren’t getting good value out of that deal. (I know why he isn’t on the PP1 but it‘s still a bad situation.)

You’re framing this as an attack at Hamilton because you have a weird fixation on defending him against everything, including neutral analysis apparently.

 

[NJDfan86]

Otherwise little guys who can skate would dominate the dzone start list.

Oooooooof - if you can’t identify a variable like coaching bias hard to dive deeper into this discussion.

 

[dgibb10]

It all matters.

But Makar doesn’t solely play offensive minutes like Hams does. He plays the most on the PK. He plays the most protecting a lead. He gets the most defensive zone starts. Yes he gets a ton of favorable offensive minutes but he plays defensive minutes as well.

Somewhat similar to Nico as he too plays tough defensive minutes but favorable offensive minutes as well

While Jack skews much more heavily towards offense. And Id bring this fact up in the past when people were trying to say Jack is a stud defensive fwd. which wasn’t a slight on Jack but lets be real he plays easy minutes (though his use and success on the pk shows he is expanding his game(but id even push back a little on his pk usage as he will never take that opening faceoff in the defensive zone)).

No no no.

Don't try and change the discussion. You weren't talking about role.

You were talking about how getting a disproportionate amount of ozone starts vs dzone starts skews results, and a disproportionate amount of time with the best players skews results.

Don't walk that back now for Cale Makar who has 101 more ozone starts than dzone starts and plays 67% of his ice time with Nathan Mackinnon after mentioning how it was oh so important and impactful to the stats that Dougie has 50 more ozone starts he does than dzone starts, and that dougie plays 38.3% of his time with Hughes (before we even get into the ridiculous difference between Devon Toews and Brenden Dillon).

If Hamiton's deployment skews results, than Makar's results are f***ed to timbuktu.


And again, let us not avoid the 67% usage with Mackinnon.

That's more than most guys have with their LINEMATES, let alone a specific forward for a dman


And once again, you conviently ignore the most important piece of the usage puzzle that Hamilton plays with Dillon.


In terms of how your usage affects results for a dman

D Partner (because the differences affect virtually EVERY, SINGLE, SHIFT)

GAP

Forward deployment because the differences generally, outside of extremes, represent getting an extra 5-10% extra ice time with the top guys

GAP

Competition (again, 5-10% differences against top guys)

GAP

GAP

Zone starts (because the differences represent a very tiny amount of shifts)

 

[dgibb10]

“The only time zone starts are ever brought up is when someone wants to push a narrative about a player, and then it's done with numerical manipulation to hide the fact that even in the extreme we're usually talking about a shift or 2 a game being changed (and even those shifts aren't that meaningfully affected, a single ozone start isn't some magic offense potion that some seem to think it is.”

This isn’t true and is actually insulting. I discuss them because they tell us how a player is used.

The Frozen Tools graphs (link) I share were developed by Rob Vollman in 2011, a major figure in hockey analytics who now works for the Kings.

Offensive usage doesn’t make a player worse, offensive players should get more offensive starts.

For example, Hischier is always going to get tough matchups but his amount of defensive faceoffs is absurd. This has led to Meier, who we pay 8.8m for offensive production, to used in way too much of a defensive role. Add not playing him the PP1 and we aren’t getting good value out of that deal. (I know why he isn’t on the PP1 but it‘s still a bad situation.)

You’re framing this as an attack at Hamilton because you have a weird fixation on defending him against everything, including neutral analysis apparently.

I have been widely consistent in saying that, outside of extreme outliers, zone starts are not particularly meaningful.

People vastly overblow them, manipulate them to make them seem more important (eg they take NZ and OTF, which are generally 80% of shifts or so, completely out to pretend a player starts a vast % of his shifts in 1 zone).

Maybe every time was an exaggeration, but they are constantly brought up to justify to bring down whatever elite offensive weapon whoever is making the point doesn't like.


Hamilton's deployment isn't more favourable than any of the other elite OFD you want to look at.


If the claim is that OFD, and offensive players in general are vastly overrated across the league because they get better deployment, and that DFD, tough usage players are heavily undervalued and underrated I'd at least respect the consistency.

I'd disagree completely because offensive generation is a lot more consistent than defensive results are, but I'd at least respect it.

But there is never any consistency. And instead it is virtually always used to push narratives.

Meanwhile I'm sure they suggest bringing in some winger who also gets offensive usage.



The only player who's zone starts meaningfully matter in the league rn is frankly Dylan Strome.

Who is 2nd in terms of most ozone starts at 20.3%, and dead last in terms of dzone starts at 3.42%

And then on the other side for WSH it's duhaime and dowd with the lowest ozone start %s at 2.9%, and the 2nd and 3rd highest dzone starts at 22.5%.

(and btw Nic Dowd STILL has a better goals share AND xGoals share than Strome)

None of those people in here talking about zone starts are banging on the table for Nic Dowd in UFA this coming season to fill our C need. Because that's not in the narrative.

Nic Dowd gets the worst deployment in the league without a doubt and is crushing it. Surely you and these people talking about hamilton's zone starts should be banging on the table to give him anything he wants in UFA (he also leads a top 5 PK in hockey). 5+ mill AAV clearly he's worth in a heartbeat, right? Clearly a better F than whatever PP guy of the week people want around here.

 

[Billdo]

Because it's 2 for 1 in terms of current NHL players we definitely get better this year, and I'd say most likely better next year. Very possible we win this in year 3 even if Bjorkstrand walks, just via McCann vs Mercer.

But Mercer could be better then either McCann or Bjorkstrand in year 3. I don't think that's crazy, and Casey could be the best player in the group in year 3 and for years beyond that. 5 years down the road if McCann and Bjork are off the team while Mercer is scoring 25+ and Casey is tier below Quinn Hughes then we'd be wishing that trade didn't happened......unless we win the cup in the next couple years.

Also have to consider neither guy is a legit center and then there is also the salary cap situation, and these may be the most important factors in this hypothetical.

There's also a statistically likely chance that Casey is Burlon, Walsh, Ty Smith, etc.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

There's also a statistically likely chance that Casey is Burlon, Walsh, Ty Smith, etc.

Casey at 20 years old has already shown more than those first 2 guys have, in 8 NHL games.