GDT: Free agency part III-toed sloth slow

[Boom Boom Apathy]

In today's game, unless you have have a 1st pairing that can regularly play 25-30 minutes a night, you need a solid 2nd pairing. Maybe Slavin-Burns can do that but I doubt it, and they'd probably be run down by March. Skjei and some league average/replacement level player is a massive downgrade over Skjei-Pesce.

And that pretty much doesn't happen for most teams in the NHL today.

Last season, only 12 defensemen in the NHL played more than 25 min / night and the most was 26:12. Other than Devon Toews and Darnel Nurse, it was because they all played 3-4min/night on the PP.

Only 1 team had a 1st pairing that played 25+ minutes / night and that was Makar-Toews, just barely with Toews at 25:22 and again, because Makar played almost 4 min/night on the PP.

In fact, since 2016, only 2 players have eclipsed 27 min. Byguglien (27:27) and Doughty (27:09). Teams aren't playing top pairings 25+ min/ night any longer for the most part.

As you said, Canes will need a strong 2nd pairing regardless of the strength of the 1st pairing.

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

Agree to disagree.

Pesce is one of the players who is surprisingly polar in opinions and I just don't understand why. You can maybe convince me he's not as good as I think he is but you'd be hard pressed to ever convince me he's not better than Skjei straight up or even value wise. That's basically all I'm saying.

No one is arguing that Skjei is more valuable than Pesce except Vagrant. You have moved the goal posts of this discussion.

 

[spockBokk]

I could see Pesce being moved next summer, but moving him now would significantly weaken the team’s cup aspirations.

They might be comfortable moving on from Pesce if one of Bear or Coghlan has a banner year. I do think Bear has it in him to be a reliable 2nd pair RD and they likely could get him signed at a Pesce-like number next offseason. However, I think it’s much more likely they end up keeping Pesce for the next 2yrs and end up letting him walk if his contract demands are too high.

 

[Vagrant]

No one is arguing that Skjei is more valuable than Pesce except Vagrant. You have moved the goal posts of this discussion.

brady had 8 point shares last season, with 5.5 on defense. Pesce didn't reach 5.5 point shares total. pesce has never had an 8 point share season. he had one at 7.9. the mind sees what the mind wants. the much more elite pesce had 3.8 defensive point shares last season, other than his 7.9 season his career best is 6.5, brady has a 6.4 season as his second best. if my viewpoint that brady was better than pesce last year is an island, I'll be on that island alone if need be. brady was so drastically better last season defensively and it went ignored by a good chunk of the fanbase. he was our best D behind slavin.

this vibe that it's not even a discussion worth having is somewhat confusing to me, but we all see different things. I guess we can leave that there.

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

brady had 8 point shares last season, with 5.5 on defense. Pesce didn't reach 5.5 point shares total. pesce has never had an 8 point share season. he had one at 7.9. the mind sees what the mind wants. the much more elite pesce had 3.8 defensive point shares last season, other than his 7.9 season his career best is 6.5, brady has a 6.4 season as his second best. if my viewpoint that brady was better than pesce last year is an island, I'll be on that island alone if need be. brady was so drastically better last season defensively and it went ignored by a good chunk of the fanbase. he was our best D behind slavin.

this vibe that it's not even a discussion worth having is somewhat confusing to me, but we all see different things. I guess we can leave that there.

Last season because Skjei finally scored. The two seasons before Skjei wasn’t highly rated. Skjei wouldn’t have those levels without Pesce. Same as TDA and Hamilton without Slavin.

For guy that is been in the league 7 seasons , using 2 non consecutive years to determine value is an odd cherry pick

 

[emptyNedder]

brady had 8 point shares last season, with 5.5 on defense. Pesce didn't reach 5.5 point shares total. pesce has never had an 8 point share season. he had one at 7.9. the mind sees what the mind wants. the much more elite pesce had 3.8 defensive point shares last season, other than his 7.9 season his career best is 6.5, brady has a 6.4 season as his second best.

I think defensive point shares is useful--I once believed it indispensable. But then I went to it's logical conclusion.

For instance (just a few of many):
Devon Toews has been the best defensive defender in the NHL over the past two seasons.
Darnell Nurse was significantly better than Tanev/Slavin/Pelech on defense in 20-21.
Dougie Hamilton was better defensively than Slavin in 19-20.

Those are all discussions worth having based on DPS.

 

[the halleJOKEL]

i thought skjei and pesce were at least comparable last season based on the eye test, but i'm surely not going to type a bunch of words about it oops oh no my keyboard is dyi

 

[Vagrant]

Last season because Skjei finally scored. The two seasons before Skjei wasn’t highly rated. Skjei wouldn’t have those levels without Pesce. Same as TDA and Hamilton without Slavin.

For guy that is been in the league 7 seasons , using 2 non consecutive years to determine value is an odd cherry pick

well, it was just a frame of reference for what each player produced in their best and 2nd best seasons. 8.0 and 6.4 for brady, 7.9 and 6.5 for pesce. in other words, almost exactly the same. that was the relevance of my choice with that. to diminish the odds that I was taking a career season and overexposing it. brady had some tough seasons with the rangers for sure. I didn't watch them enough at the time to know what was going on there.

 

[Stickpucker]

I can see why Pesce is a polarizing player. When he and Slavin came on the scene our defense was so dog shit anything decent would look like wagu steak. Because of that I have always thought Pesce a bit over rated. That said, I do think he's a very good defensively sound top 4 rd.

Last season I think Skjei was a pretty good player. I think part of his perception may have been colored by NYR fans experience of him coming in. He was very threatening offensively 5v5 and laid some pretty big hits....both things I didn't see from Pesce.

Trying to be as unbiasted as possible...I think the last 2 seasons...for whatever reason were a bit of down years for Pesce and I would say Skjei played better than him last year.

 

[raynman]

I think the Canes would really miss both players. After the 2nd pairing the talent level falls off a cliff. Those dudes may be serviceable as 3rd pairing guys but asking them to eat big minutes agaisnt tough matchups for long stretches of the season like Skeij and Pesce would not be fun.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

While we probably do over-rate Pesce at times, one of the aspects of Pesce's game that we probably underrate is his versatility. Want to play him on the 2nd pairing with a vet (Liles)? Works. Want to play him on the top pairing with Slavin? works. Want to move him to the L to play with Faulk? works. Want to pair him with a guy that had a not so great reputation in Skjei? Works. Other than Gardiner, who just struggled in general, he seems to gel with anyone in any situation.

He's not a guy that you need to worry about needing to be carried on a pairing, or need to have chemistry with, or need to shelter, or need to avoid other team's matchups, etc... Yeah, he doesn't have the offensive chops of many top defenders, but the fact that he can play pretty much with anyone in any situation (other than PP), is valuable.

 

[Discipline Daddy]

From my eye test, it's clear Skjei had the best season of his career last year. He was outstanding. For me I saw it as carrying over from my impressions of him in the 2021 playoffs. He wasn't perfect there, but damn he filled in well for Slavin, as well as anyone could, and he ate tons of minutes. I have a theory that Skjei is one of those players who plays better when he logs big minutes. That does not explain his 21-22 season, as his ice time only went up from 20:44 to 21:09 per game. Just a hunch.

Pesce is outstanding too. It's hard to compare the two since they play on the same pair, and see most of the same events on the ice. They're both great. I think Pesce is better overall on his career, but I think Skjei's season last year was so good it made me put them in the same tier. My impression is that Pesce is a bit stronger defensively and Skjei a bit stronger offensively. We're really lucky to have the two of them, and they're one of the big reasons why our defense is so good. Most teams' second pair guys, frankly, suck in comparison. Pretty amazing we got 4.5 years of service of Skjei for the lesser of two 1sts.

 

[Ole Gil]

The stats I'm looking at that match my eye test are

PIM, Giveaways, and Blocked Shots.

Skjei 23 minors, 52 giveaways, 56 blocks in 82 games at even strength
Pesce 12 minors, 21 giveaways, 81 blocks in 70 gmaes.

Skjei makes me nervous in a way Pesce doesn't.

 

[geehaad]

I want to see stats on icings...I'm suspicious that there's some additional info on Skjei there.

 

[chaz4hockey]

Oettinger gets $12M over 3....thoughts?

btw: I'm a fan of Tage Thompson & believe it was a good transaction for Buffalo.

 

[DaveG]

Oettinger gets $12M over 3....thoughts?

btw: I'm a fan of Tage Thompson & believe it was a good transaction for Buffalo.

It's fair and if he could continue anything close to his form from the playoffs for the next 3 years that's the kind of contract that would allow an also ran to add a piece to become a contender... If they didn't have so many bad contacts already.

I have a feeling that's the deal we would have had to give Ned to stick around and I'd much rather have Otter of the two.

 

[Svechhammer]

The more I think about this upcoming season, the more excited I am getting. We already have a pretty darn good roster going into the year, we should be comfortably in the playoff mix and should be competing for the division title yet again. And we already have our big deadline acquisition locked up with Max Pacioretty who will be just collecting LTIR until February, and should be at or near full strength by the time we get into the playoff tune ups. We already had a good defense, already had the Jennings Trophy winners in net, and now we're already setting ourselves up to be loaded on offense as well.

And the best part is that we didn't mortgage the future to get into this spot.

This really feels like the first year in which we are truly going for the Cup in what should be a sustained 5+ year window of doing so. Pretty exciting times, to be honest.

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

Yeah this is the “shades of ‘06” year for me just because of all the OGWACs we’re adding. I’m cool with considering this the first “all in” year of our window, sure. Obviously not quite the same thing as a traditional “all-in” year because we didn’t really give up any futures at all to get these guys (smart), but we’re definitely loading up where we can. I love it.

 

[ONO94]

Is there a stat for shin pads hit/60? if so, Skjei has to lead the league by a fair margin.

 

[AD Skinner]

Are yall saying that these is the tiems?

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

I have to see Freddie return and Kotkaniemi’s skating before I get too excited

 

[Svechhammer]

I have to see Freddie return and Kotkaniemi’s skating before I get too excited

KK's skating has to be one of the most overblown issues I've seen around this team in a long while

 

[Discipline Daddy]

@DaveG - can't remember - is this the time for the prospect ranking, or are we waiting for a prospect tournament first?

 

[DaveG]

@DaveG - can't remember - is this the time for the prospect ranking, or are we waiting for a prospect tournament first?

Waiting till after the tournament this year.

 

[AhosDatsyukian]

KK's skating has to be one of the most overblown issues I've seen around this team in a long while

It's overblown because of insane habs fans but that doesn't mean it's not a concern. He needs to show some improvements there to stick as a top 6 center. I'm very hopeful anyways