Management Thread | Blurst of Times

[pitseleh]

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.

In fairness, Hronek’s exit numbers were poor in Detroit too. I thought the same as you a while ago but Burke’s Evil Spirit posted a good article showing that wasn’t the case. He was like fourth or fifth on the Red Wings in controlled exits when he played there. Strong defensive impacts, strong work in the offensive zone, but average-ish in getting the puck out with control. I think that’s in part why he doesn’t do well with Soucy.

If the team is ok continuing to play Myers with Hughes, it’s why I think him and Pettersson could make a good pairing.

 

[pitseleh]

I am curious what a JFresh card would have said about the Sedins back in the day when they were running 55-60% xGF rates together but 40-45% xGF rates when apart.

 

[Bleach Clean]

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.

Fair enough, I would prefer the bigger samples (31 and 81 games from last year) and not controlling for his worst partner(s).

The eye test shows me he's not generating enough offensive events that would suggest he's a strong #3 Dman carrying a weaker partner. What I see is Forbort has stabilized the bottom end of his play, unlike Soucy, which has allowed him to get close to even on the 2nd pair, but still not a net positive.

What I didn't account for is non-standard partners like Brannstrom and Myers (primarily) buoying his xGF% in the 1/3rd block of minutes that does not include Hughes, Soucy and Forbort.

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.

A #3 Dman is my bar for him away from Hughes. In that regard, he hasn't met expectations last year or this year. When he's looked good with Forbort, he's sawing off minutes with him (44.83 xGF%), not leading that pair forward. That's my concern.

Even if that JFresh chart is hard on him due to injury, it lightens the critique on him too by incorporating his minutes with Hughes... 4/5ths of his minutes buoyed by the 65% Ozone starts you reference, still 58% WAR rating and below the 50% EV threshold in Offense and Defense... Not good. (But thank you for at least acknowledging the chart)

This year and last year look pretty similar in terms of non-Hughes minute xGF% (incorporating Soucy for both). His counting stat rate is dropped to the lowest in 5 years too. And so, the eye test is the last best argument for him... And I don't think that's enough.

We should all expect his play to bear out in the numbers across the two years.

 

[ExarKun80]

The heavy lifting on D is . . . mission accomplished

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

There is also a need for a serious winger. What we have now is not going to cut it. Brock and DeBrusk are too streaky. You can't rely on guys who score in bunches for 4-5 games and then go 10-15 without a goal.

Using last year as any sort of evaluation is a mistake since it was an aberation just like Jimbo's bubble. Management fell for it and downgraded the defence thinking that our offence+Demko will make up for it and here we are.

 

[pitseleh]

Fair enough, I would prefer the bigger samples (31 and 81 games from last year) and not controlling for his worst partner(s).

The eye test shows me he's not generating enough offensive events that would suggest he's a strong #3 Dman carrying a weaker partner. What I see is Forbort has stabilized the bottom end of his play, unlike Soucy, which has allowed him to get close to even on the 2nd pair, but still not a net positive.

Interestingly the microdata JFresh posted showed someone who is providing strong offensive creation impacts in the offensive zone, just poor transition impacts.

A #3 Dman is my bar for him away from Hughes. In that regard, he hasn't met expectations last year or this year. When he's looked good with Forbort, he's sawing off minutes with him (44.83 xGF%), not leading that pair forward. That's my concern.

Even if that JFresh chart is hard on him due to injury, it lightens the critique on him too by incorporating his minutes with Hughes... 4/5ths of his minutes buoyed by the 65% Ozone starts you reference, still 58% WAR rating and below the 50% EV threshold in Offense and Defense... Not good. (But thank you for at least acknowledging the chart)

I don’t follow your reasoning. As far as I know we don’t know how JFresh “lightens the critique by incorporating his minutes with Hughes”. My experience with is that in these types of situations the model JFresh relies on weighs those minutes away from Hughes very heavily and does not give much credit for the minutes with Hughes.

I think that’s pretty clear from the chart when you consider that he has the trendline for Hronek as being around the 10th percentile for defence in 2023/24. You can’t get there from his numbers unless your model assumes the results with Hughes were almost entirely due to Hughes.

This year and last year look pretty similar in terms of non-Hughes minute xGF% (incorporating Soucy for both). His counting stat rate is dropped to the lowest in 5 years too. And so, the eye test is the last best argument for him... And I don't think that's enough.

We should all expect his play to bear out in the numbers across the two years.

But which numbers? Dom Lucyzyzyn’s model at the Athletic had Hronek as the 30th best defender in the league last year. Even this year with the time missed he’s tied with a bunch of players in the 35-45 range. That seems pretty consistent with how people view him.

Even under the model JFresh uses Hronek would be in the 80-95 range for the league (based on the 58th percentile and assuming he has 6-7 defenders per team meeting his minutes cutoff), which puts Hronek as a low end #3 or high end #4.

So you have a strong #2 on one end and a high end #4 on the other, which seems to be around the range of debate here.

 

[vancityluongo]

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.

this rules hahaha

laurence gilman's neighbourhood dq owner >>>> joe sakic's bbq salesman

 

[Ernie]

I just don't think you can evaluate a defenceman who is shuffling around the lineup like he does when he's not with Hughes. He has to play an entirely different game when he's with Hughes vs when he's running his own pairing.

He was re-signed to caddy Hughes after he helped elevate Hughes to the Norris trophy. Can a cheaper player replicate most of what he does with Hughes, and can he be the play driving half of a 2nd pairing? Perhaps it's worth finding out, but it's more than likely that the best way for him to move the needle is to play the role that he has been successful in on this team.

 

[theguardianII]

Hughes still out. Many top players suffered through a sports hernia and kept playing. They aren't always need a stretcher situation.
You know there must be something because his injury is being downplayed by Dhali.

Could be just preparation to sit out the 4 Nations thing but it could also be him making sure he can play with his brother(s) in the 4 Nations. His first chance really

 

[Bleach Clean]

Interestingly the microdata JFresh posted showed someone who is providing strong offensive creation impacts in the offensive zone, just poor transition impacts.



I don’t follow your reasoning. As far as I know we don’t know how JFresh “lightens the critique by incorporating his minutes with Hughes”. My experience with is that in these types of situations the model JFresh relies on weighs those minutes away from Hughes very heavily and does not give much credit for the minutes with Hughes.

I think that’s pretty clear from the chart when you consider that he has the trendline for Hronek as being around the 10th percentile for defence in 2023/24. You can’t get there from his numbers unless your model assumes the results with Hughes were almost entirely due to Hughes.

But which numbers? Dom Lucyzyzyn’s model at the Athletic had Hronek as the 30th best defender in the league last year. Even this year with the time missed he’s tied with a bunch of players in the 35-45 range. That seems pretty consistent with how people view him.

Even under the model JFresh uses Hronek would be in the 80-95 range for the league (based on the 58th percentile and assuming he has 6-7 defenders per team meeting his minutes cutoff), which puts Hronek as a low end #3 or high end #4.

So you have a strong #2 on one end and a high end #4 on the other, which seems to be around the range of debate here.

With JFresh's model, it would be 6 defenders per team (192), and a 58th percentile rank of that would be 111th no? And that's with Hughes. In other words, only 57% of scores would be lower than his score, despite playing with Hughes in 4/5ths of his minutes in 2023-24. Correct?

(Edit: Is the min cut off you propose the same as what JFresh is using?)

I saw those microstats. Fair point about poor transition impacts (I've been saying he defers too much). Mixed results in DET too. His DZone impacts in VAN (denials, retrievals and preventions) don't favour him either, but he was very good once in the Ozone. That aligns with how I see him play.

On gauging him as a strong #3 dman: Last year his impact sans Hughes would have been around 181st in terms of xGF%. This year it's 166th. All Hughes min last year at 70th (Strong #2 Dman, as you said), and Hughes mind this year 52nd (#1 Dman). That's a #1 Dman to almost a bottom end #6, all turning on Hughes. That's such a wide range. I'm looking for 64-96th ranked impacts without Hughes. Is that unfair?

If your read is that he was a high end #4 last year, why did his play not seem very good to you? (eye test?)

 

[Bleach Clean]

I just don't think you can evaluate a defenceman who is shuffling around the lineup like he does when he's not with Hughes. He has to play an entirely different game when he's with Hughes vs when he's running his own pairing.

He was re-signed to caddy Hughes after he helped elevate Hughes to the Norris trophy. Can a cheaper player replicate most of what he does with Hughes, and can he be the play driving half of a 2nd pairing? Perhaps it's worth finding out, but it's more than likely that the best way for him to move the needle is to play the role that he has been successful in on this team.

No doubt, I agree it's best for him to be with Hughes. For the team, however, he's best played away from Hughes to run his own pair if Myers can mimic his impact. So far, Myers has done this:

In 344 min this year with Hughes, Myers is at 58.98 xGF%
In 402 min this year with Hughes, Hronek is at 57.12 xGF%

Last year Myers edged out Hronek's performance again with Hughes, but it was only across 159 min (too small a sample).

Him driving the 2nd pair, even though he hasn't really done it, is worth exploring. The potential payoff could be immense.

 

[Jyrki21]

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.

Columbus is actually the next-closest market to Pittsburgh, and they'd have the added bonus of being able to advertise him as an Ohio native. And in spite of everything, they seem to be headed in the right direction -- it seems to me they really could have used him too.

 

[pitseleh]

With JFresh's model, it would 6 defenders per team (192), and a 58th percentile rank of that would be 111th no? And that's with Hughes. In other words, only 57% of scores would be lower than his score, despite playing with Hughes in 4/5ths of his minutes in 2023-24. Correct?

You have the math backwards. If there are 192 defenders, 57% (109) would be below him and at the same level, making him 81-83 in the league (since 2-3 players will be at the same percentile).

On gauging him as a strong #3 dman: Last year his impact sans Hughes would have been around 181st in terms of xGF%. This year it's 166th. All Hughes min last year at 70th (Strong #2 Dman, as you said), and Hughes mind this year 52nd (#1 Dman). That's a #1 Dman to almost a bottom end #6, all turning on Hughes. That's such a wide range. I'm looking for 64-96th ranked impacts without Hughes. Is that unfair?

I don’t think it’s an unreasonable expectation, but recognizing:

- in doing so you are only measuring the quality of defender by even strength play.

- the data has not been adjusted for zone starts and quality of teammates/competition, which may have a small but material impact. I wouldn’t be surprised if adjusting to neutral zone starts alone would add 1-2 percentage points to Hronek’s xGF ratio based on the numbers I have seen on Corsi impacts from zone starts.

- that in the sample sizes you’re looking at the data may not with a high level of confidence show an absolute ranking.

If your read is that he was a high end #4 last year, why did his play not seem very good to you? (eye test?)

My not very good comment was relative to expectations - to me he looked more like a 3-4 defender who had a hot few months with Hughes and should be paid $1.5-2 million less, not a $7.25 million top pairing defender.

 

[Bleach Clean]

You have the math backwards. If there are 192 defenders, 57% (109) would be below him and at the same level, making him 81-83 in the league (since 2-3 players will be at the same percentile).

I don’t think it’s an unreasonable expectation, but recognizing:

- in doing so you are only measuring the quality of defender by even strength play.

- the data has not been adjusted for zone starts and quality of teammates/competition, which may have a small but material impact. I wouldn’t be surprised if adjusting to neutral zone starts alone would add 1-2 percentage points to Hronek’s xGF ratio based on the numbers I have seen on Corsi impacts from zone starts.

- that in the sample sizes you’re looking at the data may not with a high level of confidence show an absolute ranking.

My not very good comment was relative to expectations - to me he looked more like a 3-4 defender who had a hot few months with Hughes and should be paid $1.5-2 million less, not a $7.25 million top pairing defender.

That's how he looked to me too, and I also feel he is overpaid for it.

Ah right, 42% are better, which would place him at 81-83 overall in 2023-24. I was questioning how he could be a middling #4 despite Hughes' impact.

On expectations:

- Yes, it's only even strength (a limitation)
- Qual Comp/Qual Team is missing yes. ZSAD: (Edit @pitseleh): If we grant the 2 percentage points on 46.58 xGF% to adjust for all three factors, that would pull him up from 192nd to 157th league wide. It is a significant jump, but still #5 Dman territory.
- Yes, short sample, but it's what we have. It's why I like to include last year.

Overall, he's 84th (#3 Dman) in % of shifts starting in the Dzone this year.

While granting the 2% bump for qual comp/team + Dzone starts, and given the sample we have to work with, he's not there. The expectation should be 65-80~ range away from Hughes, and he simply is not unless we start parsing the data out.

Thanks for the exchange though, I learned something about how his numbers are being impacted outside of Hughes/Soucy/Forbort.

 

[F A N]

No doubt, I agree it's best for him to be with Hughes. For the team, however, he's best played away from Hughes to run his own pair if Myers can mimic his impact. So far, Myers has done this:

In 344 min this year with Hughes, Myers is at 58.98 cGF%
In 402 min this year with Hughes, Hronek is at 57.12 xGF%

Last year Myers edged out Hronek's performance again with Hughes, but it was only across 159 min (too disparate).

Him driving the 2nd pair, even though he hasn't really done it, is worth exploring. The potential payoff could be immense.

The question is, who is Hughes better with? Myers or Hronek? I think that's a big part of the discussion.

 

[Bleach Clean]

The question is, who is Hughes better with? Myers or Hronek? I think that's a big part of the discussion.

Well those are the pairing results. That's xGF% for Hughes-Myers, and xGF% Hughes-Hronek.

 

[Hodgy]

On the trade or not trade Pettersson topic, I agree with those who think we should hold onto him as him returning to form is our best bet at competing now with Hughes, and hopefully helping to persuade Hughes to re-sign. And I'd go so far as firing Tocchet before trading Pettersson.

But with that all said, how long is the leash? Because as we all know, an asset goes from underperforming but worth something (likely worth a significant amount in the case of Pettersson) to a negative value untradeable player. And that transition, I have found, can actually occur quite quickly. And it would be relatively franchise crippling if that occurred here.

So when do you cut bait? That's the interesting question to me.

 

[God]

On the trade or not trade Pettersson topic, I agree with those who think we should hold onto him as him returning to form is our best bet at competing now with Hughes, and hopefully helping to persuade Hughes to re-sign. And I'd go so far as firing Tocchet before trading Pettersson.

But with that all said, how long is the leash? Because as we all know, an asset goes from underperforming but worth something (likely worth a significant amount in the case of Pettersson) to a negative value untradeable player. And that transition, I have found, can actually occur quite quickly. And it would be relatively franchise crippling if that occurred here.

So when do you cut bait? That's the interesting question to me.

Pretty obvious the first milestone is before his NMC kicks in. If the offer is good enough, I think they cut bait.

Without any good offers, I'm thinking they just focus on getting his training proper during the off-season, and I'm not sure what is and isn't allowed within the CBA with respect to club involvement in off-season training.

 

[rypper]

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.

Speaking as someone with a not quite 3 week old newborn in the house, makes a ton of sense to me. Even when I sleep, I'm still dead tired. Between my wife and I that's where our focus is, outside of an hour or two, here and there.

 

[rypper]

They were speaking a little bit about the leash that will be given to Pettersson before a potential trade on canucks talk today.

Drance and Dodd said a determining factor, in their opinion, would be Pettersson's commitment to the off season. Offer to have him stay in Van and have more control over his rehab/training. If he's willing to commit to that, they would be willing to commit to him.

They talked about how long the playoffs run and how that could effect trades as well. Also thought the Canucks could have multiple trade options in their pocket regardless if they were going to pull the trigger, ie quietly talking to other GMs.

 

[Hodgy]

Pretty obvious the first milestone is before his NMC kicks in. If the offer is good enough, I think they cut bait.

Without any good offers, I'm thinking they just focus on getting his training proper during the off-season, and I'm not sure what is and isn't allowed within the CBA with respect to club involvement in off-season training.

I think you are right on that milestone, but I don't think you are likely to get a "good" deal for Pettersson before July 1st. You'd be selling another distressed asset, for pennies on the dollar, and its really hard for me to see a situation where you do so and still remain competitive enough to get Hughes to re-sign here.

 

[racerjoe]

I know people like to throw last years second half and this year together… I think you have to completely throw them out.
AST year he was hurt, and even if management and coaches don’t like it, it was a big injury. It’s not the type where you can do more physical damage by playing, but it would make it worse. Let’s not get in the weeds with it.

This year I think it’s been a number of factors all adding up. First and I have been vocal about this his rehab, I think him not coming into camp to what he has previously in, rubbed people the wrong way, but should have been predictable given the injury. I think he was starting to round into form when he got hurt again and missed some games.

Now that is just part of it. I think you also have had the miller thing and it probably effected both miller and Pettersson and looking at their numbers I think that is true.

On top of that Pettersson has been playing with truly awful defence and while you would like Pettersson to be a play driver, it’s tough to be when your skating is down from a bad offseason, then you are constantly chasing the puck because your defence can’t do anything but glass and out.

Then we have the also much talked about Tocchett system. If we look at past players Tocchett has coached they seem to drop off in the second season with him.

Finally you have a player that with all of this is just way down on confidence. That seems to also be pretty clear with how much he defers.

I think all of this has really piled on, and now I see a player that thinks too much doesn’t play with confidence, and is lacking some physical tools he normally has to work his way out.

This season… honestly I am just keeping my fingers crossed. Next season, I think if he gets good summer training we will see elite Pete return.

 

[God]

I think you are right on that milestone, but I don't think you are likely to get a "good" deal for Pettersson before July 1st. You'd be selling another distressed asset, for pennies on the dollar, and its really hard for me to see a situation where you do so and still remain competitive enough to get Hughes to re-sign here.

dunno man, i just saw the mavs trade luka doncic for dogshit, so...

 

[Jyrki21]

I think you are right on that milestone, but I don't think you are likely to get a "good" deal for Pettersson before July 1st. You'd be selling another distressed asset, for pennies on the dollar, and its really hard for me to see a situation where you do so and still remain competitive enough to get Hughes to re-sign here.

Unless his reputation is totally sewered, I'd hope there's a demand-side to that equation that stops his value from sinking too low. If there are at least a few potential suitors then the market can't really be that soft as they can't lowball to the extent they could with JT. As everyone says, these types of player don't become available very often, and there is always a "we can save him" feeling when you're eyeing a shiny new purchase (hell, we're doing it right now with Chytil).

 

[andora]

If it's getting to a point where we are microanalyzing a defenseman based on charts I don't understand why data such as what forwards were on the ice, score effects, shift length etc etc etc aren't being added into the discussion unless I missed it somewhere. At some point it reverts back to watching the player play and then maybe reconciling some stuff in the background.

 

[Frostage]

Newborns are no joke.

We saw this impact Hansen particularly where he had premature twins and his play fell off a bit and everyone wanted to trade him. I can see normally super worker, Garland being affected a bit too.

Joshua coming back after cancer I had speculated that after this break he might be close to his old say, but missing time already may push that back.

Injuries are tough and some take a long time to get back from or never let you. See Higgins.