Mika Zibanejad

[KirkAlbuquerque]

Yeah I think that was one of the biggest stand outs in that clip.

He was so much more decisive with every decision he made too. When he went on that 2nd half heater before Covid hit he was basically shooting the puck expecting to score on every shot he took. We get the rare confident play for him now (the PP goal he scored against Montreal) but those were the norm form him back then.

yeah, theres some revisionist history going on now that he was never a 1C but he definitely was. Maybe it was only for a short time but he was an elite player. Sucks to see what happened to him and its not one of those easy to diagnose issues like he tore his ACL or achilles or something and lost his burst, or broke his wrist or tore a rotator cuff. He just stopped doing the things that made him good.

 

[TheDirtyH]

Mika's "decline" is like the equal and opposite kind of thing that I used to mention RE: Kakko and the PP. I remain convinced to this day that had the Rangers stapled Kakko to PP1 through his rookie season onwards, no matter where he played 5v5, his season would've been evaluated much more like Michkov's currently is than it was. It's just hard to score at 5v5. It takes a lot of problem solving. And for bigger players like Kakko and Mika, that little bit of extra room can go a long way for developing habits (or not developing habits). A younger Kakko needed that space to get touches and work out how to make an impact as a scorer, not to mention, to gain the confidence of his teammates, coaches, and himself as he learned the rest of the NHL game.

Mika... seems like every year he was more and more just killing time 5v5 and had it in his mind that his role was to put up points once the PP started. And more than that, his role on that PP grew overwhelmingly stagnant. Like, nobody moved less in the league on the PP than Mika, except maybe OV. But Carberry even was like, OV, you've gotta move sometimes.

I just think Mika's game got stale. When you get to 28-30-32, that's when guys are less likely to be 'peaking' as far as pushing individual socring records, but they're peaking in a sense of consistency, in maturity, understanding their strengths and weaknesses and how to be mostly good most of the time, as they can be. Some guys lock into that so well they find an even greater efficiency (Kreider comes to mind, Bergeron and Crosby being like the exemplary players of this mold), and other even have new levels to get to that it takes some experimentation and new opportunities to discover (Panarin, I think JT Miller and Blake Wheeler are examples of this as well).

I think Mika's hit that range of his career where he's meant to know what he is and what he's good at, but he kind of got set in a bad mold. He's not a player that can make much of an impact standing still, but that's who he thinks he is. The PP, for whatever reason, just hasn't had it's fastball (he's a part of that no doubt). Just look at his personal heat map on the PP during htat magical breakout, monster season:

Compared to last season:

He's not Ovechkin. That guy can do nothing in a game, and then somehow take one shot and score three goals. Mika needs to be skating. He's not a threat from a standstill AT ALL and he really has never been in his whole career going back to Sweden. I'm still of the opinion there's a seriously good player to be salvaged here but you HAVE to force him out of this rut if your the coaching staff. It's like how habit is just the grooves deepening in the mind, you've got to push him out of his usual spots and put him places where he HAS to behave differently. If you keep him on the PP, you put him in the high slot. At 5v5, I think you move him to the wing for a while. I'd put him on Trochek's RW to make that very clear to him.

 

[B17 Apricots]

yeah, theres some revisionist history going on now that he was never a 1C but he definitely was. Maybe it was only for a short time but he was an elite player. Sucks to see what happened to him and its not one of those easy to diagnose issues like he tore his ACL or achilles or something and lost his burst, or broke his wrist or tore a rotator cuff. He just stopped doing the things that made him good.

Yeah it's kinda silly. Mika was an elite 1C for a good half a decade with us. I've said this before in here, but after that break out season in 18/19 he's been a ~40 point guy at 5v5. Your league leading franchise level sort of players you're going to find somewhere in the 50-70 range, like a MacKinnon or a McDavid. So that ~40 number puts him in great company. You'll find a lot of your top guys around there. Elite players, above average guys. You'll get some outliers here and there too. But generally it's a good area to be at. You'll see guys like Aho, Scheifele, Kopitar, Tavares, Larkin.. I could go on, theres plenty of high end players that slot in around there.

And this is kinda dumbed down bare bones numbers we're talking. You're not really factoring in ice time, usage, linemates.. that sort of stuff. That's where you need some context. You'll see a guy like Pavel Zacha, a couple seasons in a row where he put up ~40 points at 5v5. Doesn't it kinda help that he's been stapled to someone like Pastrňák? Or Ryan Hartman a few years ago notched 50 at 5v5. Sure he's a solid player, but he was largely a benefactor from being linemates with Kaprizov. Would anyone say those guys were better players than Sebastion Aho, or Mika? Come on. Brayden Point is a cornerstone center to build around. As good as he is, you don't think his numbers get a boost playing with the best winger in the world?

So that's obviously a factor worth mentioning. Look at who Zibanejad has largely played with in his career. He's not playing with a Kucherov or a Kyle Connor, he's largely played with Chris Kreider. And that's nothing against him but call a spade a spade. Kreider has been a solid run of the mill top 6 winger for most of his career. He's been a 50-55 point player with 2 fantastic +70 point years sprinkled in. The last few years he's rounded himself into one of the best net front guys in the league and has made a killing on the powerplay. But aside from that the guy is a 30-35 point player at 5v5. The last 3 years he's notched ~30 points at 5v5. That's a solid number, but its nothing extraordinary.

Once upon a time Mika could drive his own line with some help. Panarin could drive his own line. There wasn't a need to play them together. What would Zibanejad's numbers look like if he was playing with a winger of that caliber? A Marner or a Pasta? Either way, who cares I guess. It's speculative.

In that 5 year window, depending on whether you'd like to consider Stammer a center or a wing... Zibanejad is 7th or 8th in production and points per game for centers. The f***ing guy is 18th for all forwards in the entire league in that time frame. I liked to frame him maybe somewhere in the top 10 centers or top 15 at the time with his overall game. But to pretend like the guy wasn't a high level 1C all of a sudden is just nonsense

 

[Siddi]

yeah, theres some revisionist history going on now that he was never a 1C but he definitely was. Maybe it was only for a short time but he was an elite player. Sucks to see what happened to him and its not one of those easy to diagnose issues like he tore his ACL or achilles or something and lost his burst, or broke his wrist or tore a rotator cuff. He just stopped doing the things that made him good.

And that is why I maybe foolishly hoping for him to turn it around. Send him to the best sports witch doctor that money can buy.

 

[Siddi]

Yeah it's kinda silly. Mika was an elite 1C for a good half a decade with us. I've said this before in here, but after that break out season in 18/19 he's been a ~40 point guy at 5v5. Your league leading franchise level sort of players you're going to find somewhere in the 50-70 range, like a MacKinnon or a McDavid. So that ~40 number puts him in great company. You'll find a lot of your top guys around there. Elite players, above average guys. You'll get some outliers here and there too. But generally it's a good area to be at. You'll see guys like Aho, Scheifele, Kopitar, Tavares, Larkin.. I could go on, theres plenty of high end players that slot in around there.

And this is kinda dumbed down bare bones numbers we're talking. You're not really factoring in ice time, usage, linemates.. that sort of stuff. That's where you need some context. You'll see a guy like Pavel Zacha, a couple seasons in a row where he put up ~40 points at 5v5. Doesn't it kinda help that he's been stapled to someone like Pastrňák? Or Ryan Hartman a few years ago notched 50 at 5v5. Sure he's a solid player, but he was largely a benefactor from being linemates with Kaprizov. Would anyone say those guys were better players than Sebastion Aho, or Mika? Come on. Brayden Point is a cornerstone center to build around. As good as he is, you don't think his numbers get a boost playing with the best winger in the world?

So that's obviously a factor worth mentioning. Look at who Zibanejad has largely played with in his career. He's not playing with a Kucherov or a Kyle Connor, he's largely played with Chris Kreider. And that's nothing against him but call a spade a spade. Kreider has been a solid run of the mill top 6 winger for most of his career. He's been a 50-55 point player with 2 fantastic +70 point years sprinkled in. The last few years he's rounded himself into one of the best net front guys in the league and has made a killing on the powerplay. But aside from that the guy is a 30-35 point player at 5v5. The last 3 years he's notched ~30 points at 5v5. That's a solid number, but its nothing extraordinary.

Once upon a time Mika could drive his own line with some help. Panarin could drive his own line. There wasn't a need to play them together. What would Zibanejad's numbers look like if he was playing with a winger of that caliber? A Marner or a Pasta? Either way, who cares I guess. It's speculative.

In that 5 year window, depending on whether you'd like to consider Stammer a center or a wing... Zibanejad is 7th or 8th in production and points per game for centers. The f***ing guy is 18th for all forwards in the entire league in that time frame. I liked to frame him maybe somewhere in the top 10 centers or top 15 at the time with his overall game. But to pretend like the guy wasn't a high level 1C all of a sudden is just nonsense

Sports fans let their emotions lead more often than not. I myself is guilty of this but regarding Mika this has gone way overboard. People see him play today and all of a sudden thats how he always has been in their mind. I honestly dont think I have ever seen such rampart revisionism against a player.

 

[JohnC]

It’s hard to pinpoint where the decline actually started.

-Returning for the Covid play in round (the whole team looked like ass tbf)
-Getting Covid during the bubble season
-Losing Buchnevich who some would argue was the engine that drove the KZB line

I personally think it was getting Covid. He hasn’t really been the same since and I’m wondering more and more if the effects of long Covid are at play here.

It’s a shame because he was a beast from the 2017 playoffs through the COVID shutdown, but now we’re on a trajectory where the majority of his time spent here will probably be remembered as a mediocre/bad player that was a powerplay merchant when for a few seasons there he was very good.

 

[Boris Zubov]

Sports fans let their emotions lead more often than not. I myself is guilty of this but regarding Mika this has gone way overboard. People see him play today and all of a sudden thats how he always has been in their mind. I honestly dont think I have ever seen such rampart revisionism against a player.

If you were capable of being objective, you'd see what the rest of us see. A player who is nothing but a shell of himself. It's the same thing we saw with Rick Nash. The Nash we got from Columbus, other than one season, was not close to the same player he was before he came over.

Pro sports is a cruel business, unfortunately. Players get old, they lose their a fraction of their skills & it all starts to unravel. Some guys it happens gradually, others you can see the difference in real time.

I think MIka is having extra vitriol spewed in his direction because of his personality. Fair or not, he looks disinterested & checked out. That plays a huge part of why you're seeing the perceived hate he's getting. He's not the first guy to receive this kid of treatment, he won't be the last. Hell, even Mickey Mantle was booed toward the end.

The bottom line is this is a results driven, "what have you done for me lately", league. Unfortunately, very few players have been able to turn back the clock or reverse the aging process.

 

[Gordon Bombay]

im pretty sure most of the Rongos core if they took their shirts off would have the physique of Tom Brady at the 2000 scouting combine.

I miss Michael Grabner. Now that was a physique you could set your watch to.

Years ago MSG was interviewing someone in the locker room and Rozsival comes strolling through no shirt on with a beer gut and no physique whatsoever. Always found that hilarious.

 

[noncents]

there it is: the actual reason why this player stopped being effective.

The buchnevich trade

 

[Siddi]

If you were capable of being objective, you'd see what the rest of us see. A player who is nothing but a shell of himself. It's the same thing we saw with Rick Nash. The Nash we got from Columbus, other than one season, was not close to the same player he was before he came over.

Pro sports is a cruel business, unfortunately. Players get old, they lose their a fraction of their skills & it all starts to unravel. Some guys it happens gradually, others you can see the difference in real time.

I think MIka is having extra vitriol spewed in his direction because of his personality. Fair or not, he looks disinterested & checked out. That plays a huge part of why you're seeing the perceived hate he's getting. He's not the first guy to receive this kid of treatment, he won't be the last. Hell, even Mickey Mantle was booed toward the end.

The bottom line is this is a results driven, "what have you done for me lately", league. Unfortunately, very few players have been able to turn back the clock or reverse the aging process.

Are we not all in agreement that this current version of Mika is a shell of himself? You replied to a post I made regarding revisionism. Nothing I said was objectively wrong. You trying to frame me in a certain way is dishonest.

 

[Boris Zubov]

Are we not all in agreement that this current version of Mika is a shell of himself? You replied to a post I made regarding revisionism. Nothing I said was objectively wrong. You trying to frame me in a certain way is dishonest.

Way to miss the point & nothing I posted was dishonest. I responded to your statement that you've never seen "such 'rampart' revisionism" against a player. Again it happens all the time, players get older, their skills erode & the fans aren't kind...for the majority of us it's not personal. For you, it's clearly personal.

Try reading what was written in the context where you're not being attacked. You constantly post like you're paranoid or on the defensive. It's just discourse. Unless you're in Mika's immediate family, try to lighten up. You'd be taken more seriously if you weren't popping up in every thread calling out posters & posting charts to show that "Mika wasn't the worst forward on the ice" in a 5-1 loss. This isn't the way to gain credibility.

 

[chosen]

We saw some effort last game but he has had some really terrible games this year. Full on primary give away leading to a goal, brutal to non-existent back checking effort is some cases, while he's still defending ok on the PK, there is a clear lack of pressure and aggression which in the past drove a lot of SHG chances. He's looked slow on a lot of reads too which has also led to several goals. I think he still has the skill. His head is just somehow not in it. He's thinking at AHL speeds right now.

I don't think it's effort. His game has slipped and so has his confidence.

 

[McRanger92]

I don't think it's effort. His game has slipped and so has his confidence.

His confidence slipping is such a cop out when his home country chose him as one of the first players for their National team in the 4 Nations.

 

[Siddi]

Way to miss the point & nothing I posted was dishonest. I responded to your statement that you've never seen "such 'rampart' revisionism" against a player. Again it happens all the time, players get older, their skills erode & the fans aren't kind...for the majority of us it's not personal. For you, it's clearly personal.

Try reading what was written in the context where you're not being attacked. You constantly post like you're paranoid or on the defensive. It's just discourse. Unless you're in Mika's immediate family, try to lighten up. You'd be taken more seriously if you weren't popping up in every thread calling out posters & posting charts to show that "Mika wasn't the worst forward on the ice" in a 5-1 loss. This isn't the way to gain credibility.

You mean like the way you pop up like unwanted weed everytime I post about Mika. Posters defend all sorts of different players but when I call out the hyperbole of some posters you feel the need to rush in like some self-entitled forum police. I dont seek your approval nor do I feel the need to gain any credibilty from random posters on an online forum. I post shit, you post shit, everybody posts shit. We just like different flavors of shit.

Now begone and continue your hunt for that forum credibility.

 

[Atax]

 

[DanielBrassard]

To be fair to Mika, this season has been his worst season and it’s not even close. He’s basically barely an NHL level player right now. Although I believe he has been overrated and was never in that elite tier of number one centers up until last season he was a solid 1st line center in that 20-25 range. Last year that wasn’t true and this season he’s become unrecognizable even for himself.

 

[n8]

I don't think it's effort. His game has slipped and so has his confidence.

You may be glossing over the comment or responding to something else. His game has obviously slipped. All I was saying was via eyeball test, there was more effort in the previous game than the previous 10+ games before that.

I think at present, the whole team is mentally fragile. I forget which NFL sports psychologist I saw on a podcast mention this anecdote: when a great team that had a great season goes into the playoffs and loses in a big game (be it the super bowl or conference finals for our case), if they don't have the psychological resilience, they can easily shift from a "playing to win" mentality to a "playing to not lose" mentality. I see that on this team. Now add the whole Trouba/Goodrow drama on top of that, you also have a team that does not feel psychologically safe or protected by their GM. Sure it's a business but it's like working somewhere where there are constant rolling layoffs. It becomes difficult to just concentrate on your job when the boss is yelling at you and now one is helping you work through your problems. A LOT of speculation on my part but the signs all fit.

 

[Shesterkybomb]

Imo his decline came after the concussions, he is playing scared now.

 

[LokiDog]

I don’t think it’s revisionism.

Pre-Covid was Mika’s absolute highest peak. He could have convinced anyone during that stretch that he was in the 10-15 range for centers in the league.

Coming back in the bubble and into the following season something was different. I know this is true and not revisionism because if it wasn’t we would not have been discussing whether he was suffering from “long Covid” or lingering concussion issues. Why would that be a conversation unless the player who came back after the bubble did not look as elite as the player before the Covid shutdown?

Despite something being off and a disappointing start, the Rangers’ PP found a lethal groove and Zib’s one timer was still ON at that time so he continued to put up solid numbers but without any real debate, I imagine we can almost unanimously agree that each and every season since, he has become less effective at 5v5, less of a two-way force and now there’s almost no doubt that the PP one-timer is no longer the deadly weapon that it was, and thus his PP production is also down.

I don’t think that’s revisionism. He looked like he was around the 10-15 mark for centers in the best year of his career. Not the franchise center tier, but pretty elite. The closest he ever came after the bubble was probably around a 25-35 center, which is a low-end 1C, amazing 2. Right now he’s 42nd among centers in raw points, but that’s also ahead of guys like Matthews and Miller and Jarvis who have missed time, and we know points aren’t telling the whole story anyway and his actual performance is abysmal. He’s probably - pretty easily - not a top 60 center at this point. He’s probably slipped about 5-10 spots like clockwork each season since the peak where he flirted with truly being elite briefly, and this year he has taken the biggest dip by far.

 

[Peltz]

I don’t think it’s revisionism.

Pre-Covid was Mika’s absolute highest peak. He could have convinced anyone during that stretch that he was in the 10-20 range for centers in the league.

Coming back in the bubble and into the following season something was different. I know this is true and not revisionism because if it wasn’t we would not have been discussing whether he was suffering from “long Covid” or lingering concussion issues. Why would that be a conversation if the player who came back after the bubble did not look as elite as the player before the Covid shutdown?

Despite something being off and a disappointing start, the Rangers’ PP found a lethal groove and Zib’s one timer was still ON at that time so he continued to put up solid numbers but without any real debate, I imagine we can almost unanimously agree that each and every season since, he has become less effective at 5v5, less of a two-way force and now there’s almost no doubt that the PP one-timer is no longer the deadly weapon that it was, and thus his PP production is also down.

I don’t think that’s revisionism. He looked like he was around the 10-15 mark for centers in the best year of his career. Not the franchise center tier, but pretty elite. The closest he ever came after the bubble was probably around a 25-35 center, which is a low-end 1C, amazing 2. Right now he’s 42nd among centers in raw points, but that’s also ahead of guys like Matthews and Miller and Jarvis who have missed time, and we know points aren’t telling the whole story anyway and his actual performance is abysmal. He’s probably - pretty easily - not a top 60 center at this point. He’s probably slipped about 5-10 spots like clockwork each season since the peak where he flirted with truly being elite briefly, and this year he has taken the biggest dip by far.

I think you *slightly* underrate his peak - he was definitely a top 10 center in the league right before covid hit. He scored 5 goals in a game right before the league shut down and was sort of unstoppable during those months leading up to the stoppage.

I agree with the rest of your post though. It's all completely accurate.

 

[Boris Zubov]

I think you *slightly* underrate his peak - he was definitely a top 10 center in the league right before covid hit. He scored 5 goals in a game right before the league shut down and was sort of unstoppable during those months leading up to the stoppage.

I agree with the rest of your post though. It's all completely accurate.

He was top 15 for the briefest of shining moments. Here's 10 Centers off the top of my head that were still better than Zib before Covid.

McDavid
Crosby
Eichel
Matthews
Bergeron
Draisatl
MacKinnon
Malkin
Barkov
Schiefele

 

[GAGLine]

His confidence slipping is such a cop out when his home country chose him as one of the first players for their National team in the 4 Nations.

They picked him before this season started. If they hadn't already picked him for the team, do you think he'd be on it?

Every player deals with a lack of confidence at times, even vets. I'm sure he sees his game slipping and is wondering if this is it for him. It's not a cop out to suggest that he is lacking confidence.

That said, I'm not arguing that confidence is the only reason he's struggling. Bad play precedes a loss of confidence, so there are other factors that have caused him to decline. Until he figures those out and fixes them, he won't be able to address the confidence issue.

 

[McRanger92]

They picked him before this season started. If they hadn't already picked him for the team, do you think he'd be on it?

Every player deals with a lack of confidence at times, even vets. I'm sure he sees his game slipping and is wondering if this is it for him. It's not a cop out to suggest that he is lacking confidence.

That said, I'm not arguing that confidence is the only reason he's struggling. Bad play precedes a loss of confidence, so there are other factors that have caused him to decline. Until he figures those out and fixes them, he won't be able to address the confidence issue.

I mean, he had a terrible year by his standards last year and he was still one of Sweden's no brainer picks. Mika's issue is that his confidence goes multiple times a season. If the mental pressure is too much, he should take a break. There's no shame in that. JT Miller is currently doing that.

If he's well enough to play? It's time to suck it up and do the job you are paid handsomely to do. We live in an era where mental health is taken extremely seriously. If he is not using those services to help himself at this point, its not a viable excuse for why his game has cratered.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

He was top 15 for the briefest of shining moments. Here's 10 Centers off the top of my head that were still better than Zib before Covid.

McDavid
Crosby
Eichel
Matthews
Bergeron
Draisatl
MacKinnon
Malkin
Barkov
Schiefele

Scheifele? That’s cap

 

[Siddi]

View attachment 940356

This is actually funny. Well played