Management Thread | Blurst of Times

[God]

Unfortunately all signs point toward Soucy being the problem:

- Forbort looked pretty good even with those guys, but only because I think expectations have been set so low because Soucy was so much worse.

- Hronek has been great since coming back from injury except for the few games a couple weeks back that they paired him with Soucy.

it's quite sad to see. i thought he was fantastic last year, and there have been some 3 game stretches where he's looked like his old self. but something is off. this is his first full season as a negative player in +/-.

 

[MS]

it's quite sad to see. i thought he was fantastic last year, and there have been some 3 game stretches where he's looked like his old self. but something is off. this is his first full season as a negative player in +/-.

His skating looked awful to start the season, like he aged 5 years in one summer, and I really wonder if having newborn twins significantly impacted his ability to train in the summer and arrive in camp in shape, and whether he just hasn't been able to recover from that.

I have nothing to substantiate this and it's pure speculation but as someone with two kids 3 and under ... holy f***, it's exhausting and holy f***, it's hard to do things like find time to exercise and stay in shape.

 

[God]

His skating looked awful to start the season, like he aged 5 years in one summer, and I really wonder if having newborn twins significantly impacted his ability to train in the summer and arrive in camp in shape, and whether he just hasn't been able to recover from that.

I have nothing to substantiate this and it's pure speculation but as someone with two kids 3 and under ... holy f***, it's exhausting and holy f***, it's hard to do things like find time to exercise and stay in shape.

this also happened with JTM in 22-23 so i get it. also makes me understand someone like sundin more, who waited until his career was done to have kids.

tangentially related but i once talked to the owner of a dairy queen in the neighbourhood that laurence gilman lived in, and he said his theory was that the canucks lost to the bruins because they started having kids and they couldn't focus during the playoffs. i thought he was insane at the time, but maybe he's right.

 

[Burke's Evil Spirit]

On the flipside, having kids seemed to level up Bo Horvat.

 

[Icebreakers]

What would you guys give up for Alex Tuch?

Seen his name circulating.

Honestly , his game would be perfect for what the Canucks would be looking for. 6'4 220lb winger with speed.

 

[God]

What would you guys give up for Alex Tuch?

Seen his name circulating.

Honestly , his game would be perfect for what the Canucks would be looking for. 6'4 220lb winger with speed.

I would've been happy with getting Tuch back in a JTM deal, and Buffalo was always a team that I was surprised wasn't in the mix for him

Now I don't know that we have any assets to offer them, and the price is high given that he's a local guy. Willander is off the table but fits their needs the best. Doubt they trade him for Boeser, even with an extension.

 

[rypper]

Buffalo 100% should have been after Miller. Doubtful he would have waived to go there, but they need someone like that to come in and shake things up.

 

[MS]

Buffalo 100% should have been after Miller. Doubtful he would have waived to go there, but they need someone like that to come in and shake things up.

Yeah, it's insane to me that they were the #1 team after him. He was probably a better fit there than any team in the NHL and they had tons of options to offer back in a trade.

They sorely need an impact #1 matchup C. The single biggest reason they can't turn a corner is that their 1C (Thompson) is basically a shooting winger with defensive issues playing C and their matchup 2C is Cozens who is just not ready for the role.

 

[credulous]

miller would never, ever waive for buffalo as long as a single other team was interested

 

[MS]

miller would never, ever waive for buffalo as long as a single other team was interested

Other than Pittsburgh which was obviously a non-option given the mess there, Buffalo is the closest NHL market to his home town and are a reasonably promising young team where he would have come in as 'the guy' which might have appealed to him. It's still probably a no but it isn't something I would have ruled out entirely and if I were Buffalo I would have been moving mountains to make it happen and convince him. And that certainly didn't seem to happen.

 

[Bleach Clean]

I have literally no idea what you're watching. Hronek has been excellent this year, full stop.

Again, the literal biggest hole on the team was 2LD. We were probably the weakest team at 2LD in the entire NHL. This trade has nothing to do with who the 1RD is.

I'm questioning your ability to evaluate Hronek objectively.

Outside of Hughes, he's only looked OK with Forbort, and that in a low event sense. With Hughes, he wasn't sharp enough in passing, rushing, or shooting to drive offense himself. He deferred too often.

Myers actually has been pretty similar to Hronek this year. He has looked OK with Soucy outside of Hughes (similar to Forbort-Hronek). Nobody is confusing him for a strong #3 Dman though...

You're watching the game you want to watch, not the one that is actually occurring.

This is why getting MPetey will be significant in Hronek's utility. He can play with him or Hughes and still push the play forward.

 

[God]

i just realized filip hronek and jeremy roenick have the same last name

 

[MS]

I'm questioning your ability to evaluate Hronek objectively.

Outside of Hughes, he's only looked OK with Forbort, and that in a low event sense. With Hughes, he wasn't sharp enough in passing, rushing, or shooting to drive offense himself. He deferred too often.

Myers actually has been pretty similar to Hronek this year. He has looked OK with Soucy outside of Hughes (similar to Forbort-Hronek). Nobody is confusing him for a strong #3 Dman though...

You're watching the game you want to watch, not the one that is actually occurring.

This is why getting MPetey will be significant in Hronek's utility. He can play with him or Hughes and still push the play forward.

I mean, my 'unobjective' view of Hronek seems to line up with everyone's but yours. And all of your viewpoints seem to be based off your unchanging view that the team should have been tanking in 2023.

Hronek being able to 'carry a pairing' is irrelevant to the team, even though he obviously can. He was signed to be the Toews to Hughes' Makar, he's Hughes' preferred partner that Hughes has specifically asked for, he's going to play with Hughes except when circumstances dictate otherwise. The notion that 'Hronek's inability to carry a pairing has forced the Pettersson' trade is a totally nonsense (on both fronts) invented narrative by you.

The trade to acquire Pettersson has everything to do with the team's horrible depth at LD since the departure of Zadorov/Cole and literally nothing to do with Hronek who has been excellent this year.

Myers has also been mostly very good aside from a rough October with the struggling Soucy and after he badly rolled his leg in a game in the first week of the season. There's a reason all of our defensive metrics look fantastic despite playing a struggling Soucy and poor Juulsen/Desharnais so much - Hughes/Hronek/Myers/Forbort have all been really strong.

 

[Bleach Clean]

I mean, my 'unobjective' view of Hronek seems to line up with everyone's but yours. And all of your viewpoints seem to be based off your unchanging view that the team should have been tanking in 2023.

Hronek being able to 'carry a pairing' is irrelevant to the team, even though he obviously can. He was signed to be the Toews to Hughes' Makar, he's Hughes' preferred partner that Hughes has specifically asked for, he's going to play with Hughes except when circumstances dictate otherwise. The notion that 'Hronek's inability to carry a pairing has forced the Pettersson' trade is a totally nonsense (on both fronts) invented narrative by you.

The trade to acquire Pettersson has everything to do with the team's horrible depth at LD since the departure of Zadorov/Cole and literally nothing to do with Hronek who has been excellent this year.

Myers has also been mostly very good aside from a rough October with the struggling Soucy and after he badly rolled his leg in a game in the first week of the season. There's a reason all of our defensive metrics look fantastic despite playing a struggling Soucy and poor Juulsen/Desharnais so much - Hughes/Hronek/Myers/Forbort have all been really strong.

If it's one thing on this board that you've proven, it's that likes don't align with accuracy. Like your 2 year re-tool.

(The quick/slow re-tool conversation will wait for the offseason (Looking forward to it))

If Hronek could carry the 2nd pairing, then we should have seen it occur. It did not.

Getting Marcus Pettersson to carry the 2nd pairing is speculation on my part. No question. I think that's why they paid so much for him because if Hronek could do it, the impetus to pay that price isn't there.

And let's be clear Marcus Pettersson, who I've wanted here for quite some time, is worlds better than Zadorov/Cole (and is better than Hronek). He's not just an improvement at LD, he's the building block for the DCorps outside of Hughes.

Myers was as OK with Soucy as Hronek is with Forbort now, just in a more high event way. This is why the 'Soucy dragged down Hronek' thing doesn't hold for me. But the point was that if both get similar effects with the Dmen away from Hughes, does that make them more similar or dissimilar to each other?

Last, and I know you hate these, but I am trying to quantify what I see here:

(I can get into his pairing results too if it helps you)

 

[MS]

If it's one thing on this board that you've proven, it's that likes don't align with accuracy. Like your 2 year re-tool.

(The quick/slow re-tool conversation will wait for the offseason (Looking forward to it))

If Hronek could carry the 2nd pairing, then we should have seen it occur. It did not.

Getting Marcus Pettersson to carry the 2nd pairing is speculation on my part. No question. I think that's why they paid so much for him because if Hronek could do it, the impetus to pay that price isn't there.

And let's be clear Marcus Pettersson, who I've wanted here for quite some time, is worlds better than Zadorov/Cole (and is better than Hronek). He's not just an improvement at LD, he's the building block for the DCorps outside of Hughes.

Myers was as OK with Soucy as Hronek is with Forbort now, just in a more high event way. This is why the 'Soucy dragged down Hronek' thing doesn't hold for me. But the point was that if both get similar effects with the Dmen away from Hughes, does that make them more similar or dissimilar to each other?

Last, and I know you hate these, but I am trying to qualify with what I see here:

(I can get into his pairing results too if it helps you)

View attachment 972002

I literally give zero shits about Jfresh charts, and the notion that Hronek has been massively worse defensively than last year is just ludicrous. I'm guessing his bad model doesn't adjust for on-ice shooting % and bad goaltending.

Edit : actually, hell, that crappy chart doesn't even contain 24-25 numbers which we were discussing. And the notion that he was worse defensively in Vancouver than in Detroit is equally ludicrous. And probably means that the model is badly adjusting for the Hughes effect.

 

[Bleach Clean]

I literally give zero shits about Jfresh charts, and the notion that Hronek has been massively worse defensively than last year is just ludicrous. I'm guessing his bad model doesn't adjust for on-ice shooting % and bad goaltending.

Edit : actually, hell, that crappy chart doesn't even contain 24-25 numbers which we were discussing. And the notion that he was worse defensively in Vancouver than in Detroit is equally ludicrous. And probably means that the model is badly adjusting for the Hughes effect.

Oh, my mistake. I thought that was from a Jan 2025 post. I can't imagine it being better now, but I'll post it when I find the current one.

I've posted his xGA and Rel numbers earlier too (both not at a top4 level). That's from this year. He still had 389 min with Hughes and is hovering around a 45% xGF% with Forbort (64 min).

Conversation isn't going to get anywhere if you'll keep rejecting the data. I'm open to contrasting data if you have it? My impression of Hronek is clearly not as strong as your own, so it's better to quantify his play imo.

 

[pitseleh]

Oh, my mistake. I thought that was from a Jan 2025 post. I can't imagine it being better now, but I'll post it when I find the current one.

I've posted his xGA and Rel numbers earlier too (both not at a top4 level). That's from this year. He still had 389 min with Hughes and is hovering around a 45% xGF% with Forbort (64 min).

Conversation isn't going to get anywhere if you'll keep rejecting the data. I'm open to contrasting data if you have it? My impression of Hronek is clearly not as strong as your own, so it's better to quantify his play imo.

Hronek has a 56% xGF% at even strength away from Hughes and Soucy this year.

Question is how much stock you put in the 67 minutes he played with Soucy in which he put up a 32% xGF%. I don’t give it much weight because (1) Soucy has dragged everyone down massively, and (2) he played most of those minutes shortly after coming back from injury.

 

[Nucker101]

The wowy stats are always so flawed.

Sample size is usually a a big reason, not to mention usage. My fav is when fans show wowy stats of a sheltered player and how everyone with him has better analytics, ignoring that it's also because a lot of those players are getting easier minutes playing with the sheltered guy. Vice versa when a fanbase rips on a guy who gets tough minutes against top 6 lines and a lot of teammates have wowy that doesn't get better with him...no shit, I wonder why?

Another is when 2 offensive dmen who aren't a regular pairing, but get put together at times have incredible xgf% numbers, but the coach only plays them together when the team is trailing in games and score effects inflate xgf%.

There's tons of context that needs to be looked at.

 

[Bleach Clean]

Hronek has a 56% xGF% at even strength away from Hughes and Soucy this year.

Question is how much stock you put in the 67 minutes he played with Soucy in which he put up a 32% xGF%. I don’t give it much weight because (1) Soucy has dragged everyone down massively, and (2) he played most of those minutes shortly after coming back from injury.

I think that xGF% is an average of his xGF% ratings away from Hughes (not weighted). The majority of his min away from Hughes are with Soucy (66.21) and with Forbort (64.19), and in those min, he has a 29.21 xGF% and a 45.09 xGF%, respectively.

Also, Soucy did not tank Myers' play: 45.40 xGF% in 250:39 min TOI.

 

[pitseleh]

I think that xGF% is an average of his xGF% rating away from Hughes (not weighted). The majority of his min away from Hughes are with Soucy (66.21) and with Forbort (64.19), and in those min, he has a 29.21 xGF% and a 45.09 xGF%, respectively.

Also, Soucy did not tank Myers' play: 45.40 xGF% in 250:39 min TOI.

No, I used the line tool on Natural Stat Trick so it should be based weighted for ice time.

It’s just that his numbers are quite high away from those guys in the ~70 mins you have left over: 52% with Myers, 67% with Brannstrom, and 95% with Elias Pettersson as his next three most common teammates.

Soucy is running a 43% xGF rate and generally his teammates have worse numbers when playing with him than not. Some of that is the Hughes effect but if that is the baseline then I don’t think 32% in the equivalent of ~4 games of ice time for a noisy stat is outside the range of what you’d expect given that context.

 

[MS]

Oh, my mistake. I thought that was from a Jan 2025 post. I can't imagine it being better now, but I'll post it when I find the current one.

I've posted his xGA and Rel numbers earlier too (both not at a top4 level). That's from this year. He still had 389 min with Hughes and is hovering around a 45% xGF% with Forbort (64 min).

Conversation isn't going to get anywhere if you'll keep rejecting the data. I'm open to contrasting data if you have it? My impression of Hronek is clearly not as strong as your own, so it's better to quantify his play imo.

'The data' is basically like saying you see Jesus in your toast. JFresh stuff is worthless. My dog leaves turds on my lawn that tell me more about how the Canucks are playing. Absolutely I reject it, completely.

And honestly, most of this stuff (especially rel stuff) is all kinds of screwy because of the Hughes effect. When you have a player that insanely good (same as McDavid) it is really freaking difficult to sort it out of the numbers, and sort out how the overall usage is affected.

Hronek has been a really good player for this team since we acquired him. Full stop. He's been excellent this year. Full stop. This is not a controversial opinion.

 

[MS]

The wowy stats are always so flawed.

Sample size is usually a a big reason, not to mention usage. My fav is when fans show wowy stats of a sheltered player and how everyone with him has better analytics, ignoring that it's also because a lot of those players are getting easier minutes playing with the sheltered guy. Vice versa when a fanbase rips on a guy who gets tough minutes against top 6 lines and a lot of teammates have wowy that doesn't get better with him...no shit, I wonder why?

Another is when 2 offensive dmen who aren't a regular pairing, but get put together at times have incredible xgf% numbers, but the coach only plays them together when the team is trailing in games and score effects inflate xgf%.

There's tons of context that needs to be looked at.

Yeah, my favourite one was 'EVERYONE PLAYS BETTER WITH GOLDOBIN!' because everyone had good advanced stats with Goldobin.

But the reason everyone had better advanced stats with Goldobin was because Goldobin was always getting the softest usage of any player on the team so literally every time any guy played with him they were getting easier minutes than they'd get otherwise.

In Hronek's case, his zone exit numbers cratered when paired with Hughes, because of course he defers to the best zone exit guy in the NHL. Does that mean that Hronek is worse than when he was the primary puck mover on his pairing in Detroit? Absolutely not, but these graphs will now say he's shit at it.

 

[I am toxic]

The heavy lifting on D is . . . mission accomplished

The heavy lifting on top6 C has . . . just begun

 

[Bleach Clean]

No, I used the line tool on Natural Stat Trick so it should be based weighted for ice time.

It’s just that his numbers are quite high away from those guys in the ~70 mins you have left over: 52% with Myers, 67% with Brannstrom, and 95% with Elias Pettersson as his next three most common teammates.

Soucy is running a 43% xGF rate and generally his teammates have worse numbers when playing with him than not. Some of that is the Hughes effect but if that is the baseline then I don’t think 32% in the equivalent of ~4 games of ice time for a noisy stat is outside the range of what you’d expect given that context.

Ok, so we are saying that outside of Hughes, Hronek's xGF% dropped from 56% to 46.83% because of noisy minutes with Soucy. Last year, his non Hughes minutes resulted in an xGF% of 46.58%. Larger sample, but both Soucy and Zadorov dragging his xGF% down below 50% (he did the same to them last year too). He and Cole were at 50%.

Do we exclude his play with Zadorov and Soucy to judge his play away from Hughes in the larger sample last year?

Also, I'd like to know your thoughts on his play last year given the WAR chart above? Much appreciated Pitseleh.

 

[pitseleh]

Ok, so we are saying that outside of Hughes, Hronek's xGF% dropped from 56% to 46.83% because of noisy minutes with Soucy. Last year, his non Hughes minutes resulted in an xGF% of 46.58%. Larger sample, but both Soucy and Zadorov dragging his xGF% down below 50% (he did the same to them last year too). He and Cole were at 50%.

I mostly just think once you’re slicing and dicing numbers below 20 game samples it starts to get pretty noisy and I would lean on the eye test more heavily. He’s got great numbers outside of a handful of games when he was coming back from injury and playing with arguably the worst defender on the team. I’m inclined to chalk that up to health/partner.

Do we exclude his play with Zadorov and Soucy to judge his play away from Hughes in the larger sample last year?

Also, I'd like to know your thoughts on his play last year given the WAR chart above? Much appreciated Pitseleh.

The problem with last year is that he was clearly injured down the stretch. I don’t know exactly when he got hurt but picking an arbitrary date he posted a 49% xGF rate in 251 minutes without Hughes before January 31 and a 41% xGF rate in 111 minutes without Hughes after January 31.

Then factor in he got 31% ozone starts when he wasn’t playing with Hughes vs 65% when he was. I think zone starts tend to be an overrated factor but when you have big splits like that it is going to knock down your percentages by a couple percentage points.

Is that noise, a drop off in performance, something else? Personally, watching him I didn’t think he was great last year, and really wished we could have seen more with him away from Hughes to make a better judgment on him. I think the JFresh chart is a bit tough on him due to the injury impact. But I’d agree it is directionally correct.

But this season I’ve thought he’s largely been very good and don’t have the same concerns I did last year.