GDT: Game 28. At Capitals 4pm
- Thread starter LadyStanley
- Start date
Jargon
Registered User
Just watched the game.
I don’t remember the last time the Sharks played this well defensively. Offense supporting, defense skating and making smart passes, good sticks, good gap control and FAST breakouts. Like, who the f*** is this team?!
Some of the plays in the offensive zone were beautiful. It felt like both teams had moments of sort of awkward fumbling and shot misses/heels but, in general, it was a perfect road game and they played the Capitals exceedingly well.
Eklund ending it in overtime was a great finish. Celebrini is f***ing amazing. Walman and a 2nd for future considerations, I mean, Jesus Christ, those considerations would look STEEP if that’s how it worked — he’s great. Ferraro and Liljegren look like a good 2nd pairing. I’ve really enjoyed Liljegren’s smooth skating and mobility.
Smith has been hustling and skating way better. His passes into sticks and people were a little brutal a few times, but then other times they were elite, so I’m fine with him testing and learning, that’s part of the experience. He’s a totally different player than the first 10 games though. I really like the Kostin (he’s been quite good), Granny, Smith line.
actually, in general, these lines are really potent.
I can’t believe this team is this fun again.
I don’t remember the last time the Sharks played this well defensively. Offense supporting, defense skating and making smart passes, good sticks, good gap control and FAST breakouts. Like, who the f*** is this team?!
Some of the plays in the offensive zone were beautiful. It felt like both teams had moments of sort of awkward fumbling and shot misses/heels but, in general, it was a perfect road game and they played the Capitals exceedingly well.
Eklund ending it in overtime was a great finish. Celebrini is f***ing amazing. Walman and a 2nd for future considerations, I mean, Jesus Christ, those considerations would look STEEP if that’s how it worked — he’s great. Ferraro and Liljegren look like a good 2nd pairing. I’ve really enjoyed Liljegren’s smooth skating and mobility.
Smith has been hustling and skating way better. His passes into sticks and people were a little brutal a few times, but then other times they were elite, so I’m fine with him testing and learning, that’s part of the experience. He’s a totally different player than the first 10 games though. I really like the Kostin (he’s been quite good), Granny, Smith line.
actually, in general, these lines are really potent.
I can’t believe this team is this fun again.
karltonian
Registered User
- Jan 1, 2023
- 2,212
- 2,685
Patty Ice
Mighty Luca
Hey so um the wording on this is very misleading.
A Sharks fan with a hyperbole??? Get out of town!
Last edited:
OrrNumber4
Registered User
- Jul 25, 2002
- 16,900
- 6,420
I can't explain Ferraro's resurgence, and I am sure that Kostin falls off...but this could be evidence how useful adding another top-6 winger and #2-3 defenseman would be
Stewie Griffin
What the deuce
Just went through Washington's GDT, and just like OTT, DET, LAK, and a few other teams...they are all surprised at how much better the Sharks are than they thought...and praise Celebrini for how good he looks.
Jargon
Registered User
Jargon
Registered User
You know, I’m a little hopeful that Kostin can keep this play up. I’m not sure he’s been on a team that’s this tight knit and the guys seemed to have really stepped up and helped him through his struggles earlier. He really, really seems like he’s trying and I think he knows very well that this could be his last chance. I think he’s really trying and working hard and I really hope for his sake and the team’s sake he finally breaks through. I genuinely believe if he hits his ceiling or anywhere close, he could be a big part of this team in the future. Who doesn’t want a giant with his hands?
The Nemesis
Semper Tyrannus
I said this in teh Eklund thread but he had to know damn well what he was doing when he wrote that.
the natural assumption (and the wrong one) that Eklund is now the leading scorer among his draft class for their respective careers is a very specific (and way too early) but still meaningful accomplishment.
the actual statement that Eklund is leading members of his draft class in scoring for just the 24-25 season-to-date is so narrow and shallow that it's basically meaningless and is something that no sane hockey analyst has ever brought up before to the best of my recollection.
It's the equivalent of all those baseball broadcasts where they say "well, team X has a record of Y and Z in Tuesday day games on the west coast after a Monday night game and before a Wednesday game in the mountain time zone and the temperature at first pitch is below 80 degrees."
tahoesharksfan
Old-Timer
Just got through my recording of this one. Man it's good to see the boys playing NHL hockey for a full 60 minutes again.
Given how the Caps have been running it was a mighty fine win.
I look forward to a long stretch of watching Celebrini, Eklund, etc, making this team a competitor again!
Given how the Caps have been running it was a mighty fine win.
I look forward to a long stretch of watching Celebrini, Eklund, etc, making this team a competitor again!
I would definitely push back on this and say it is meaningful if not for the 20 game sample.
Whoever has the most points in the season from a draft class is a way to quantify how that player performed on the season compared to his peers. It is very common to compare players from their same draft class so to “win the scoring title” from a draft class is not meaningless. Granted there are many other ways to measure the impact a player has than points.
Articles are written all the time about “redrafting” a draft class. Yes in the grand scheme it doesn’t matter which draft class a player is from when measuring their contributions, but it is a commonly used method separating players for comparison.
If Eklund is the highest scoring player from his draft class at the end of the season that is absolutely an accomplishment to celebrate as a Sharks fan.
The Nemesis
Semper Tyrannus
What? You want to compare the success of particular draft classes? What a radical thought that I in no way would've considered!!!!
That right there says I understand that there's value in comparing draft class performance, so the fact that you spent most of your post lecturing about the idea that comparing draft classes has value as if you're refuting something I said to the contrary is at best misguided and at worst a straw man.
The entirety of my point was to say that comparing draft classes has value, but only in contexts where the comparison carries actual useful weight. Like for a career, or a multi-season stretch of time (like, say, performance through every player's first X full seasons in the league), or if you want to butt up against the abyss of "so narrow it's meaningless" without going over, then maybe you compare individual peak seasons. in hindsight.
The only time anyone talks about a single season in a vacuum with regards to a draft class would be for the season that represents the rookie year for a significant number of its notable members (which will require hindsight), or barring that then the year immediately after the draft to compare the players that make the leap right from the amateur ranks to the NHL. And the fact that I have to specify that it could be one of any number of possible seasons based on differing rates at which members of a class make it to the NHL is part of the reason that such measures are pointless: because they create far too much noise to muddy the value of the info observed.
The big reason for this is that every prospect matures at different rates, and one particular season can represent a variety of different growth points in the careers of the players involved.
Nobody's going to go back and say "who was the highest scoring member of the 1991 draft during the 1995-96 season?" (it doesn't matter that it was Peter Forsberg. Yes it means Peter Forsberg was great that year. But there are tons of other ways to establish that he was one of the best players from the 91 draft besides isolating one mid-career season against other players who will have had differing amounts of NHL experience to him by that point). You might want to know who was the leading career scorer for that draft by the end of the 95-96 season. Or look at who had the best rookie season regardless of when in that span it took place. But asking which players from one particular class had the best year in one particular year offers you no useful or valuable info that you couldn't get through other more sensible sets of data.
To draw another baseball parallel, this feels a lot like the argument around the value of pitcher wins or RBIs as measures of player performance/ability. Can you potentially look at those stats and identify great players? Sure. Are there significant flaws that threaten the reliability or validity of those numbers? Yes, that's the big problem with them. And are there better measures you can use instead that don't have the same amount of noise, distortion, or randomness that create those uncertainties? Undoubtedly.
I agree with you that in historical context scoring the most points in a draft class in their D+4 season doesn’t matter. I’m arguing that in the context of the present that Eklund is having one of the best seasons of players in his draft class. He is outscoring every player this season which does say something about how he is presently playing.What? You want to compare the success of particular draft classes? What a radical thought that I in no way would've considered!!!!
That right there says I understand that there's value in comparing draft class performance, so the fact that you spent most of your post lecturing about the idea that comparing draft classes has value as if you're refuting something I said to the contrary is at best misguided and at worst a straw man.
The entirety of my point was to say that comparing draft classes has value, but only in contexts where the comparison carries actual useful weight. Like for a career, or a multi-season stretch of time (like, say, performance through every player's first X full seasons in the league), or if you want to butt up against the abyss of "so narrow it's meaningless" without going over, then maybe you compare individual peak seasons. in hindsight.
The only time anyone talks about a single season in a vacuum with regards to a draft class would be for the season that represents the rookie year for a significant number of its notable members (which will require hindsight), or barring that then the year immediately after the draft to compare the players that make the leap right from the amateur ranks to the NHL. And the fact that I have to specify that it could be one of any number of possible seasons based on differing rates at which members of a class make it to the NHL is part of the reason that such measures are pointless: because they create far too much noise to muddy the value of the info observed.
The big reason for this is that every prospect matures at different rates, and one particular season can represent a variety of different growth points in the careers of the players involved.
Nobody's going to go back and say "who was the highest scoring member of the 1991 draft during the 1995-96 season?" (it doesn't matter that it was Peter Forsberg. Yes it means Peter Forsberg was great that year. But there are tons of other ways to establish that he was one of the best players from the 91 draft besides isolating one mid-career season against other players who will have had differing amounts of NHL experience to him by that point). You might want to know who was the leading career scorer for that draft by the end of the 95-96 season. Or look at who had the best rookie season regardless of when in that span it took place. But asking which players from one particular class had the best year in one particular year offers you no useful or valuable info that you couldn't get through other more sensible sets of data.
To draw another baseball parallel, this feels a lot like the argument around the value of pitcher wins or RBIs as measures of player performance/ability. Can you potentially look at those stats and identify great players? Sure. Are there significant flaws that threaten the reliability or validity of those numbers? Yes, that's the big problem with them. And are there better measures you can use instead that don't have the same amount of noise, distortion, or randomness that create those uncertainties? Undoubtedly.
The Nemesis
Semper Tyrannus
Those two things (most points in their D+4 season and outscoring all their draft mates this season) are the same thing. You can't say that one doesn't matter but one does.
My point is that if you're going to say that Eklund is having a good season this year (which he is) there are a bunch of other ways to frame it that offer better context and more meaningful depth of observation than comparing them to their draft class in one particular season. You could say that he's top 50 in the league. Or that he is (I think, I hand-counted this) 8th among players under 25. Or that I think he might be the highest scoring player among players who have less than 3 full seasons of NHL experience (again, hand-counting).
it just makes for a better point of comparison than his draft class, especially right now when his draft class only consists of like 6-10 players with a reasonable chance of being on that level (out of like 30 players in the whole draft who have even reached 10 career NHL GP.)
But whatever. I guess it is what it is. I don't really want to spend the rest of the day belaboring this point.
