Devils team discussion (news, notes and speculation) - 2023 offseason part II

[devilsblood]

Toffoli should be on the first PP unit, in the bumper spot, on day one. He's great in that spot.

I honestly have no clue how Toffoli has been deployed on the PP in the past. But the discussion above about Nico being the shooter on the PP has led me to believe bumper players rack up ihdcf.

Toffoli is not high in that metric. I'm going to doubt he played a bunch in that role. In Calgary at least.

 

[devilsblood]

He's just deliberately not getting it at this point. I grant it is not a simple concept and the single tweet that he refuses to read most of obfuscates some of what's trying to be expressed.

I'll try one more time, even though this is getting into one-armed drummer territory.

Forget Nico Hischier. Imagine a Player X. What if we looked at every shot taken on the power play in the league, taking into account the pre-shot movement and location of every shot, and came up with a metric that determines, based on location and pre-shot movement, the likelihood of any given shot becoming a goal? Then if we take those numbers and applied them to all of the players in the league, we have Shooter Score, which we can then apply to any player, including Player X, not taking into account player X's boxcar numbers or perceived shooting skill. This is fundamentally similar to a concept like xG, but it is not xG. Goal results are only being considered here as an input, not as an output. That's why Nico has a high score - he took a good number of shots, almost all of them from close in, and by this metric and by others, probably should've had more PP goals. But maybe there's something fundamental to Nico or the power play why he doesn't - more investigation is needed.

I read the tweet. But this is all convoluted stupidity.

Hughes was much more a shooter then Nico was, UNTIL Meier came aboard. At which point Hughes became more of a distributor. Those 21 games don't override the previous 60.

And this metric some how is not valuing shots from the dots where all the best shooters in the league are. Ovi, Laine, Pasta. Middle of the ice shots are dangerous, sure, and teams do look for that, but teams put their shooters on the wings, and tons of goals are scored from those spots. See Hughes as the team leader for NJ.

You said yourself you thought calling Nico a shooter was odd, but nah, it's me not reading the tweet.

 

[devilsblood]

I was surprised to learn that Nico was credited with more 5v4 PP shots than Hamilton. 14 shots/60 to 12. Minor difference obviously, but I never would've guessed that, even though I eye tested the whole season.

Hamilton with the higher Corsi rate would lead one rightly to believe that he shot the puck more.

 

[glenwo2]

I agree with you on the deployment of the 2nd unit. I do think Nico works well in the bumper and net front roles to help win puck battles when needed and score in the lower areas, though. Given the other weapons that will be on that unit, I don't think we need him to do much more than that.



Bratt had 32 goals. Mercer had 27. Holtz is a shooter. Those are guys who can finish.

eh...I mean Mercer...yeah.

Bratt is still more of a playmaker than a finisher though he's done a solid job of it last season.

What the 2nd unit needs is a sniper and hopefully Holtz becomes that.

 

[Aurinko]

Bastian was great at netfront though....way better than Nico (and wood).

Bastian is definitely an option if there are injuries.

The short time he was given he did perform convincinly. While he didn't respresent any god tier deflections, he stood extended periods of time 1 inch away from the goalies face and manage to get away from it. It was really funny looking.

PP in general is an interesting subject, since even if a player is a complete natural talent in PP, what guys like Bastian and Holtz could be and Luke probably is, teams almost never give a bottom six players or entry level contract players PP1 time. Even getting time in PP2 is only saved for special cases.

 

[Aurinko]

eh...I mean Mercer...yeah.

Bratt is still more of a playmaker than a finisher though he's done a solid job of it last season.

What the 2nd unit needs is a sniper and hopefully Holtz becomes that.

Looking at the career shooting stats, the whole team is full of very high quality shooters. Obviously the way you are played effects the shooting stats, but shooting stats are still stats that do reveal things about the player.

Both Bratt and Mercer stand out with extra good shoot%. Maybe it's more that both players prefer quality over quantity than it is about them possessing godly shots.

 

[Hisch13r]

I see Bratt having the Hughes role on PP2. Zone entries and being a bit of a rover. Pop Holtz (if he nakes it) on the opposite wing as a shooter like Meier, Palat netfront like Tofolli, Haula in the bumper in the Hischier role and Luke on D.

BTW, I'm actually not that sold on Hischier on PP1. Maybe it was just my perception, but I just didn't feel he was very effective there.

Disagree with Palat over Mercer. Mercer should be PP2 bumper and Haula/Palat net front. Palat for on the fly starts and Haula for faceoff starts.

Nico will 100% be PP1 for his faceoffs alone

 

[RNCDevil]

PP1 is going to be a mess I think for the first few weeks. They are adding Toffoli and Meier in some sense and so figuring out roles and flow will require some patience. Toffoli, Hughes, Meier, Nico and Dougie I assume. I for one, hope there's SOME structure but they don't become obsessed with some cross seam play every time:

Opportunity Analysis: What sets Edmonton's freakishly good power play apart from all others

The Edmonton Oilers' power play was the best in NHL regular season history and so far in these playoffs they're converting on over half of their chances. So what sets them apart? Justin Bourne uses NHL EDGE IQ data (powered by AWS) to find out.

www.sportsnet.ca

"...freedom to improvise..." That's it right there for me. You have other-wordly talent on that top 5. Put them in positions ot succeed and urge them to skate and move the puck quickly.

 

[Ol Dirty Bstrd]

Nico isn’t a great PP guy but until Jack learns how to win a faceoff he’ll be a staple there. We lack effective bumper/net front guys as has been stated. Between Nico, Toffoli, Mercer, Palat and Haula hopefully we have the right mix to fill those roles on both units.

Agree that Bastian is our best option for screening the goalie so he may be in the mix too even though it’s not ideal to have him on PP1 unless he improves his hands in tight

 

[Devils731]

PP1 is going to be a mess I think for the first few weeks. They are adding Toffoli and Meier in some sense and so figuring out roles and flow will require some patience. Toffoli, Hughes, Meier, Nico and Dougie I assume. I for one, hope there's SOME structure but they don't become obsessed with some cross seam play every time:

Opportunity Analysis: What sets Edmonton's freakishly good power play apart from all others

The Edmonton Oilers' power play was the best in NHL regular season history and so far in these playoffs they're converting on over half of their chances. So what sets them apart? Justin Bourne uses NHL EDGE IQ data (powered by AWS) to find out.

www.sportsnet.ca

"...freedom to improvise..." That's it right there for me. You have other-wordly talent on that top 5. Put them in positions ot succeed and urge them to skate and move the puck quickly.

To me, reading and watching the attached videos, the Devils PP philosophy was very similar to what Edmonton was doing, just with guys with less experience and who aren’t all world PP talent.

The article features McDavid skating all around his halfboards and using his skating to attack downhill and score on wrist shots that aren’t really high danger. Hughes does that.

McDavid’s movement and danger to score forces the opponents shape to bend which opens up cross slot one timers to Draisaitl. The Devils do that with Hughes and Bratt.

Once the opponents have collapsed into a tiny box to prevent the McDavid and Draisaitl from getting their looks it leaves Bouchard open in the middle of the ice with a lane for a one timer. The Devils do that with Hamilton.

———————

I think the big differences are, the Devils not having a good garbageman in front of the net and Edmonton’s halfboards guys are extremely talented and experienced. The Devils half board guys will get better through experience but they’re unlikely to grow enough to better McDavid or Draisaitl in their roles.

The Devils PP using that philosophy should end up being good to very good though. The Devils players are very good and have the talent set to fill similar roles as Edmonton. An upgrade to the Bratt and Garbageman spot would help too.

 

[Triumph]

I read the tweet. But this is all convoluted stupidity.

It certainly is, but assigning where that exists is the challenge here.

Hughes was much more a shooter then Nico was, UNTIL Meier came aboard. At which point Hughes became more of a distributor. Those 21 games don't override the previous 60.

Did you show your work on this one? Absolutely not. How about you give it a moment's thought and wonder about where Hughes is on the power play versus where Nico is - Nico cannot distribute much from where he is. Hughes is where he is so that he can distribute as well as shoot, that's why he is credited with way more passes than shots - this isn't hard. The only hard thing is that we don't have passing numbers on the power play, so somebody has to count all of them by hand, just so you can wave your hand and say, this contradicts the stuff I'm not even willing to look up.

So just to fact check you here - hey, you may be right, but I'm not editing this after the fact:

Hughes shots/60 pre-Meier: 19.1 S/60
Hughes shots/60 post-Meier: 11.8 S/60

So yeah, there is a noticable drop in his shots. Meier himself didn't have that many, though, only 13.5/60 which is fewer than Nico had over that time.

And this metric some how is not valuing shots from the dots where all the best shooters in the league are. Ovi, Laine, Pasta. Middle of the ice shots are dangerous, sure, and teams do look for that, but teams put their shooters on the wings, and tons of goals are scored from those spots. See Hughes as the team leader for NJ.

You're making a giant mistake here extrapolating from one team's power play what it is saying about the other 31 power plays. The reason why teams put their shooters on the wings is to give them the space to operate. Those are not 'better shooting locations', they are just 'the spots where it is most likely players can get the time and space to score from'. This might seem like a distinction without a difference but it absolutely is not.

Ovechkin has 79 more goals than xG predicts over his career on the power play. How would this metric think about him? I don't know - I don't subscribe to the Patreon and don't have access to it. All I know is that people like you bitch about things like this not taking into account pre-shot movement, this is attempting to do that, and you're here complaining about the wording of a tweet.

You said yourself you thought calling Nico a shooter was odd, but nah, it's me not reading the tweet.

You're patting yourself on the back for calling out the wording in a tweet instead of taking a look at the hours of work that went into crafting the metric the tweet is about.

 

[Camille the Eel]

To me, reading and watching the attached videos, the Devils PP philosophy was very similar to what Edmonton was doing, just with guys with less experience and who aren’t all world PP talent.

The article features McDavid skating all around his halfboards and using his skating to attack downhill and score on wrist shots that aren’t really high danger. Hughes does that.

McDavid’s movement and danger to score forces the opponents shape to bend which opens up cross slot one timers to Draisaitl. The Devils do that with Hughes and Bratt.

Once the opponents have collapsed into a tiny box to prevent the McDavid and Draisaitl from getting their looks it leaves Bouchard open in the middle of the ice with a lane for a one timer. The Devils do that with Hamilton.

———————

I think the big differences are, the Devils not having a good garbageman in front of the net and Edmonton’s halfboards guys are extremely talented and experienced. The Devils half board guys will get better through experience but they’re unlikely to grow enough to better McDavid or Draisaitl in their roles.

The Devils PP using that philosophy should end up being good to very good though. The Devils players are very good and have the talent set to fill similar roles as Edmonton. An upgrade to the Bratt and Garbageman spot would help too.

The biggest thing that’s held our power play back is Hamiltons lack of lateral movement. He has a great one timer. But in the diamond formation the guy up top has to have great lateral agility. That’s not Dougie. When he gets the puck and is standing still, he’s actually pretty stiff. Eventually Luke Hughes is going to be ideal here. That said -

I agree with a lot of what you say. The Edmonton comparison is helpful as to how McDavid and Draisaitl interact. But while Jack Hughes can do much of what McDavid can in making a defense react and thus opening up passing lanes and one timers for Draisaitl - we really don’t have an equivalent to Draisaitl. Actually no one does except for maybe Boston with Pasternak. Draisaitl can score even when facing the goalie down low from practically on the goal line. He will regularly put the puck over the goalies shoulder through extremely tight windows. A unique talent.

 

[RNCDevil]

To me, reading and watching the attached videos, the Devils PP philosophy was very similar to what Edmonton was doing, just with guys with less experience and who aren’t all world PP talent.

The article features McDavid skating all around his halfboards and using his skating to attack downhill and score on wrist shots that aren’t really high danger. Hughes does that.

McDavid’s movement and danger to score forces the opponents shape to bend which opens up cross slot one timers to Draisaitl. The Devils do that with Hughes and Bratt.

Once the opponents have collapsed into a tiny box to prevent the McDavid and Draisaitl from getting their looks it leaves Bouchard open in the middle of the ice with a lane for a one timer. The Devils do that with Hamilton.

———————

I think the big differences are, the Devils not having a good garbageman in front of the net and Edmonton’s halfboards guys are extremely talented and experienced. The Devils half board guys will get better through experience but they’re unlikely to grow enough to better McDavid or Draisaitl in their roles.

The Devils PP using that philosophy should end up being good to very good though. The Devils players are very good and have the talent set to fill similar roles as Edmonton. An upgrade to the Bratt and Garbageman spot would help too.

I mostly agree. It's just they became too predictable and static. There was a phase when they were first doing the "Hughes-curl-read-and-react" play that the PP looked turbo good. But they kept forcing seam passes and became too static. The idea of Hughes directing traffic is great, but I would love to have him do it from a few different spots and also accept that sometimes a shot on net with traffic is also ok.

 

[glenwo2]

 

[Aurinko]

Oilers 32%+ powerplay isn't a bad one to learn from. Greatest powerplay of modern times and probably best ever even with a margin.

The way they get Draisaitl open for one timers near the goal line looks like the key. Colorado uses the same spot with Rantanen with bit less success, but it's still effective. Would not be surprised if Devils find success with Meier or other left shooter from there.

 

[My3Sons]

Oilers 32%+ powerplay isn't a bad one to learn from. Greatest powerplay of modern times and probably best ever even with a margin.

The way they get Draisaitl open for one timers near the goal line looks like the key. Colorado uses the same spot with Rantanen with bit less success, but it's still effective. Would not be surprised if Devils find success with Meier or other left shooter from there.

The problem is that on some level the individual talent of the player on EDM probably plays into that success as much if not more so than any structure and system. NBA teams can watch prime Golden State to configure their offense in the modern league dominated by 3 pointers. Lots of movement and double screens and timing is spot on. But at some point, you realize that pass it around until there are 3 seconds left on the shot clock and then get it to Curry who flings up a heavily contested three while he is being pushed and wearing a blind fold and it hits perfectly is not really going to work as well for the other teams. You can't really hope to replicate what McDavid and Draisaitl are capable of in my view. They are just transcendent talents. Hughes on NJ is the only one close to that stratosphere. I'd rather find a team with decent but not great personnel that has PP success and see what might translate from that. Just my thought. I presume the pro scouts look at every other team and if they see something systemic they believe might work they will pass it on.

 

[Ripshot 43]

Glenwo posting glenwo

 

[Aurinko]

The problem is that on some level the individual talent of the player on EDM probably plays into that success as much if not more so than any structure and system. NBA teams can watch prime Golden State to configure their offense in the modern league dominated by 3 pointers. Lots of movement and double screens and timing is spot on. But at some point, you realize that pass it around until there are 3 seconds left on the shot clock and then get it to Curry who flings up a heavily contested three while he is being pushed and wearing a blind fold and it hits perfectly is not really going to work as well for the other teams. You can't really hope to replicate what McDavid and Draisaitl are capable of in my view. They are just transcendent talents. Hughes on NJ is the only one close to that stratosphere. I'd rather find a team with decent but not great personnel that has PP success and see what might translate from that. Just my thought. I presume the pro scouts look at every other team and if they see something systemic they believe might work they will pass it on.

EDM has good skill (like McD playmaking & Drai legendary shot) and years of practice with the PP core. It doesn't mean it's nothing others can't achieve. No team, not even them will be 32,4% next year, all of the teams have studied their ridiculous PP from 2022-23 season and will counter them.

I would be ok even with above avg powerplay since the strength of this team is the speed and probably ridiculously good puck control in 5v5 thanks to combination of hard work and crazy faceoff skills. I feel like it's still reasonable to expect a high quality PP from the group, especially in the normal season, with this much skill.

 

[Devs3cups]

Eventually Luke Hughes is going to be ideal here. That said -

I could see Nemec being a very good PP QB. His strengths scream PP QB to me. Both should be very good options though.

 

[MadDevil]

We really do have some lovable goofballs on this team.

 

[Bleedred]

We really do have some lovable goofballs on this team.

So they're basically implying that during the season he likes to sign with worthless shit bag LOSER franchises because he wants to win?

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

I honestly have no clue how Toffoli has been deployed on the PP in the past. But the discussion above about Nico being the shooter on the PP has led me to believe bumper players rack up ihdcf.

Toffoli is not high in that metric. I'm going to doubt he played a bunch in that role. In Calgary at least.

He played the left board, where Jack is usually set up on. He's not touching that here obviously which is why having him PP2 probably makes more sense anyway. You'd have 2 units that could flourish tremendously.

 

[MadDevil]

So they're basically implying that during the season he likes to sign with worthless shit bag LOSER franchises because he wants to win?

Um...that's Marino dancing.

 

[Bleedred]

Um...that's Marino dancing.

I just couldn't resist the shot at Gaudreau (or moreso the Blue Jackets) after seeing ''Johnny Hockey''.

 

[Saugus]

I just couldn't resist the shot at Gaudreau (or moreso the Blue Jackets) after seeing ''Johnny Hockey''.

I never pass up a chance to post this picture and quote: