Eklund Rumor: Leafs in on Cam Fowler

[dracom]

Obviously that's an aspect of the game he excels at, but what does that mean if he's not using it to prevent shots or chances?

He's a good skater too, but it's not helping his end result any.

According to what? Fancy stats? How about the Ducks being a successful team the past few years with him playing top pairing minutes against teams top players? That's the end result I like having, not the ones that look good on paper.

 

[4thline]

Jake Gardiner has been one of my favourites since he joined the Leafs. I really enjoy watching him play. He skates so very well and he is learning how to be stronger on his feet and to play a good defensive game. He's always improving and he's a better player year by year. I think Gardiner is a keeper.

Jake Gardiner is a fantastic litmus test to see how people look at hockey.

To use boxing as an analogy
Traditional views of defense is a players ability to weather the storm in his own end- the ability to block and take a punch- at this point Gardiner is **** at that, eye test shows it pretty obviously

The evolving view places greater emphasis on playing with the puck and limiting time in your zone - being light on your feet and keeping the opponent at arm's length- Gardiner is fantastic at that, numbers show it pretty obviously.

Both are true and important to evaluating him, and not at as mutually exclusive as the hardline camps would have it

 

[Machinehead]

According to what? Fancy stats? How about the Ducks being a successful team the past few years with him playing top pairing minutes against teams top players? That's the end result I like having, not the ones that look good on paper.

Yeah according to those stats that were pulled out of thin air and have nothing to do with what happens on the ice.

 

[JetsHomer]

According to what? Fancy stats? How about the Ducks being a successful team the past few years with him playing top pairing minutes against teams top players? That's the end result I like having, not the ones that look good on paper.

This is my favourite pro-Fowler argument.

'The Ducks were good and therefore Fowler must be good' only good players can play on good teams, no exceptions

 

[dracom]

This is my favourite pro-Fowler argument.

'The Ducks were good and therefore Fowler must be good' only good players can play on good teams, no exceptions

And these are some of my favorite anti-Fowler posts.

"The Ducks are good but not because of their players, they just are."

Face it, the Ducks would not be a top team if they had a terrible player playing in their top pairing along side guys like Bieksa and Lovejoy.

Or maybe Lindholm is just so good, he somehow just makes our top 4 so good that Fowler can suck so hard and our defense is still the best in the league.

 

[Machinehead]

This is my favourite pro-Fowler argument.

'The Ducks were good and therefore Fowler must be good' only good players can play on good teams, no exceptions

Like when Dan Girardi was the most used payer at even strength on a Stanley Cup Finals team.

Yeah, that happened. Guess Girardi is awesome.

 

[dracom]

Like when Dan Girardi was the most used payer at even strength on a Stanley Cup Finals team.

Yeah, that happened. Guess Girardi is awesome.

Or maybe Fowler is our McDonagh and Bieksa is our Girardi? Unless you think a pairing of two Girardi's could lead the best defensive team in the NHL.

 

[Machinehead]

Or maybe Fowler is our McDonagh and Bieksa is our Girardi? Unless you think a pairing of two Girardi's could lead the best defensive team in the NHL.

McDonagh is a 56% possession player away from Girardi, with harder usage.

Where's Fowler's amazing numbers away from Bieksa?

 

[dracom]

McDonagh is a 56% possession player away from Girardi, with harder usage.

Where's Fowler's amazing numbers away from Bieksa?

Don't really care. What I care about is results on the ice, and those results show the Ducks being the best defensive team in the league and one of the best teams the last few years with Fowler playing a major role. Keep your advanced stats and take them as gospel, I'll be happy using real results on the ice to support my claims in Fowler being a good hockey player.

 

[Machinehead]

Don't really care. What I care about is results on the ice, and those results show the Ducks being the best defensive team in the league and one of the best teams the last few years with Fowler playing a major role. Keep your advanced stats and take them as gospel, I'll be happy using real results on the ice to support my claims in Fowler being a good hockey player.

"Real results" like your personal opinion? Cool.

 

[dracom]

"Real results" like your personal opinion? Cool.

No...real results as in the Ducks having the best goals against in the league (behind powerhouse teams like LA and Wash) and the 6th best team at the top of the standings at the end of the season.

Those results mean more than advance stats on paper do.

 

[FerrisRox]

"Real results" like your personal opinion? Cool.

You realize the Ducks being the best defensive team in the league last season isn't his opinion, right?

Also, it's not his opinion that Fowler led the team in average time on ice, it's a "real result." That's a fact. So what part is his "personal opinion?" Are you going to dispute that the defensemen who logged the most ice time on the team played a "major role" in them being the top defensive club in the league?

 

[lindholmie]

Obviously that's an aspect of the game he excels at, but what does that mean if he's not using it to prevent shots or chances?

He's a good skater too, but it's not helping his end result any.

hes a defensemen. Hes one of the best at getting the puck out the D zone. thats pretty good, no?

 

[lindholmie]

Care to show how these stats were collected/what the sample size is?

Oh that's right, you can't, because that is an absolutely garbage article

that was the whole last season. There was an article about the first round playoffs and fowler again was one of the best.

 

[Machinehead]

You realize the Ducks being the best defensive team in the league last season isn't his opinion, right?

Also, it's not his opinion that Fowler led the team in average time on ice, it's a "real result." That's a fact. So what part is his "personal opinion?" Are you going to dispute that the defensemen who logged the most ice time on the team played a "major role" in them being the top defensive club in the league?

Logging a lot of minutes is not a quality, it's a coaching decision.

 

[LeafingTheWay]

Don't really care. What I care about is results on the ice, and those results show the Ducks being the best defensive team in the league and one of the best teams the last few years with Fowler playing a major role. Keep your advanced stats and take them as gospel, I'll be happy using real results on the ice to support my claims in Fowler being a good hockey player.

No...real results as in the Ducks having the best goals against in the league (behind powerhouse teams like LA and Wash) and the 6th best team at the top of the standings at the end of the season.

Those results mean more than advance stats on paper do.

You totally ignored all the actual results that were laid in front of you, and formed 'opinions' about Fowler's impact on the team.

And for being the best defensive team in the league:
(According to stats.hockey.analysis.com)
Anaheim was 17th with 49 GF% at 5v5
Anaheim was 11th best 2.02 GA60 at 5v5
^ Slightly worse the year before as well.
Anaheim was a good possession team last year though at 5v5.

 

[dracom]

You totally ignored all the actual results that were laid in front of you, and formed 'opinions' about Fowler's impact on the team.

And for being the best defensive team in the league:
(According to stats.hockey.analysis.com)
Anaheim was 17th with 49 GF% at 5v5
Anaheim was 11th best 2.02 GA60 at 5v5
^ Slightly worse the year before as well.
Anaheim was a good possession team last year though at 5v5.

I formed opinions about Fowler by watching him and what he does to help the team. The advanced stats don't tell you the whole story on how Fowler is actually a good hockey player. It's why I don't take those stats advanced stats as gospel, unlike others who believe advanced stats are the only way to judge a player.

 

[WhatTheDuck]

Care to show how these stats were collected/what the sample size is?

Oh that's right, you can't, because that is an absolutely garbage article

You can't provide any rebuttal to anything mentioned in the article, but we're supposed to believe it's garbage merely because you say so?

Obviously that's an aspect of the game he excels at, but what does that mean if he's not using it to prevent shots or chances?

He's a good skater too, but it's not helping his end result any.

He's not a #1 dman, yet has been tasked with carrying a top pairing alongside bottom pairing caliber partners, while facing top competition. I don't see how anyone could look at that situation and not expect him to have poor possession and shot suppression numbers. The study I posted does a good job of explaining how Fowler and the Ducks are able to survive this situation. When you're facing elite players and your partner is Kevin Bieksa, I'd say it's fairly inevitable that you're going to spend a fair amount of time bottled up in your own end. Fowler has shown an elite ability to get the Ducks out of trouble in these situations.

"Not helping his end result". If I spend 30 seconds in my own zone defending a top line and allow two shots before causing a turnover and clearing the puck, is that negative result? That shift would score pretty poorly in the shot suppression and possession metrics, but was the ultimate result not a positive?

 

[LeafingTheWay]

"Not helping his end result". If I spend 30 seconds in my own zone defending a top line and allow two shots before causing a turnover and clearing the puck, is that negative result? That shift would score pretty poorly in the shot suppression and possession metrics, but was the ultimate result not a positive?

I'll let the poster you responded to answer the other portion of your comment.

But to answer your question:
The point of using a shots for/against (relative to teammates) measure instead of a goals for/against (relative to teammates) measure is to eliminate the smallish sample size over the season. Anaheim for example last year faced 3300 shots against and only 131 goals against. There's a much larger sample size with shots to extrapolate a consistent result from.

So from your example of the 30 sec shift - YES, that's a negative result. Key word you used was 'Clear the puck' <-- A big difference that can be tracked via advanced stats is how a D clears the puck. In the long-term, if every one of your shift is you stuck in your own end, getting the puck, clearing it and then changing... That's not a positive result. The D that get the puck out 'effectively' are the D that produce positive results. This can be done through carrying the puck out or clean breakout pass (short or long). Stralman IMO is the master of the short breakout pass. He'll strip the puck of someone and then make the perfect short pass that always goes to a F with plenty of open space to take it up.

 

[Paul4587]

I'll let the poster you responded to answer the other portion of your comment.

But to answer your question:
The point of using a shots for/against (relative to teammates) measure instead of a goals for/against (relative to teammates) measure is to eliminate the smallish sample size over the season. Anaheim for example last year faced 3300 shots against and only 131 goals against. There's a much larger sample size with shots to extrapolate a consistent result from.

So from your example of the 30 sec shift - YES, that's a negative result. Key word you used was 'Clear the puck' <-- A big difference that can be tracked via advanced stats is how a D clears the puck. In the long-term, if every one of your shift is you stuck in your own end, getting the puck, clearing it and then changing... That's not a positive result. The D that get the puck out 'effectively' are the D that produce positive results. This can be done through carrying the puck out or clean breakout pass (short or long). Stralman IMO is the master of the short breakout pass. He'll strip the puck of someone and then make the perfect short pass that always goes to a F with plenty of open space to take it up.

Fowler was the best in the league last season at getting the puck out of the zone while keeping possession. There was a study done but I'm too lazy to dig up the link. Clearing the puck was the wrong expression to use, Fowler rarely turned the puck over when trying to get it out of the zone.

 

[WhatTheDuck]

I'll let the poster you responded to answer the other portion of your comment.

But to answer your question:
The point of using a shots for/against (relative to teammates) measure instead of a goals for/against (relative to teammates) measure is to eliminate the smallish sample size over the season. Anaheim for example last year faced 3300 shots against and only 131 goals against. There's a much larger sample size with shots to extrapolate a consistent result from.

So from your example of the 30 sec shift - YES, that's a negative result. Key word you used was 'Clear the puck' <-- A big difference that can be tracked via advanced stats is how a D clears the puck. In the long-term, if every one of your shift is you stuck in your own end, getting the puck, clearing it and then changing... That's not a positive result. The D that get the puck out 'effectively' are the D that produce positive results. This can be done through carrying the puck out or clean breakout pass (short or long). Stralman IMO is the master of the short breakout pass. He'll strip the puck of someone and then make the perfect short pass that always goes to a F with plenty of open space to take it up.

The study I posted was in reference to controlled zone exits and not just clearing the puck in general. Fowler is one of the best there is at getting his team out of their zone with control.

 

[Liferleafer]

Lol...2 pages about arguing advanced stats....i get I'm old, but i miss the days when we would watch hockey games to see how good a player was...now we just look at spread sheets.

 

[Macallan18]

Logging a lot of minutes is not a quality, it's a coaching decision.

exactly, like when Babcock played Hunwick a ton. Showed that Babcock is human.

 

[Ducks in a row]

Like when Dan Girardi was the most used payer at even strength on a Stanley Cup Finals team.

Yeah, that happened. Guess Girardi is awesome.

Not this again. Girardi brings down his defense pair and gets a benefit of playing with McDonough a #1D for a good amount of time. Fowler isn't a #1D he is a #2D who plays with 3rd pair quality defenseman. I would love to see Fowler playing with someone of McDonough quality on the Ducks too bad we don't have the right defenseman.

Lol...2 pages about arguing advanced stats....i get I'm old, but i miss the days when we would watch hockey games to see how good a player was...now we just look at spread sheets.

Yea too many advance stat watchers thinking they know how good or bad a player is as if actually watching a player doesn't mean that much anymore. NHL teams should get rid of all their scouts because watching a player isn't that important

According to advanced stats the Josi - Weber pairing in Nashville was terrible defensively they were not even good enough for a 3rd pair defensively all they were good for was scoring.

 

[Cotton]

I formed opinions about Fowler by watching him and what he does to help the team. The advanced stats don't tell you the whole story on how Fowler is actually a good hockey player. It's why I don't take those stats advanced stats as gospel, unlike others who believe advanced stats are the only way to judge a player.

I agree with this, I'm not sure when "fans" lost the ability to actually evaluate talent without first needing to read their advanced stats, which even people who like to use them often misunderstand and misrepresent. The hockey community functioned fine with the eye-test in combination with basic statistics and context, even now it's use is behind closed doors at the NHL level and is there as an option to GM's who wish to use it but hasn't positively affected any aspect of the game; the draft is as accurate as it always was and guys like Jake Gardiner don't possess amazing trade value, infact for all his amazing fancy stats he isn't utilized like a D who is good defensively, which is because he isn't.

Gardiner is a good example in how advanced stats can **** with fans. There was a Gardiner vs Rielly thread of the Leafs board and of course Jakes advanced stats were prominent in his backers arguments. I'm not a fancy stat guy so I reached out to one who did it for a living by contracting with hockey teams, I did it because the eye-test completely contradicted what I was being told about this player. My question was simply who, between the two, was better defensively, and he agreed it was Rielly. The actual fancy stat argument on why this was the case is in that other thread, but the conclusion I came to after all that stupidity was essentially usage indicates competence and the eye-test is more often than not the best indicator.

Having said that I think Lindholm is overrated for the same reason Gardiner is.