Confirmed with Link: Mittelstadt re-signed (3 years, $5.75M AAV)

[BFLO]

Most likely just a result of a poorly run organization.

Mitts was the Sabres best overall center and they traded the guy away for the #3 LD on the depth chart. Since then they been looking for a center and traded for McLeod.

It's this. By all accounts Buffalo never even tried to negotiate an extension for Mitts. All the while having more than enough cap space to fit him in short or long term.

And he signed with you lot for a very reasonable 3 x $5.75m

 

[Murzu]

It's this. By all accounts Buffalo never even tried to negotiate an extension for Mitts. All the while having more than enough cap space to fit him in short or long term.

And he signed with you lot for a very reasonable 3 x $5.75m

Don't tell our fans this. They will come and tell you what a terrible deal this is.

 

[RoyIsALegend]

No matter which combos you have PP1 ends up with 1:45 and PP2 is lucky to get on the ice.

…and those 15 seconds are spent retrieving the puck from our zone, skating up ice, and dumping it in as the guy comes out of the box.

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

IMO that's the way it should be for your PP though. You should absolutely load up one PP unit and use them for the full two minutes quite frankly. Your best players are the ones who will give you your best opportunity to score with the man advantage.

It would suck for a guy like Mitts to bot get that same PP time but you've gotta put Mack/Makar/Mikko on the ice, they're the ones who will give you the best chance to score.



That being said... Mitts should also easily be on PP1 over Drouin IMO.

PP1 should be Mack/Mikko on the walls. Cale up top, Mitts below the line, and Nuke moving through the middle of the ice.

 

[missionAvs]

IMO that's the way it should be for your PP though. You should absolutely load up one PP unit and use them for the full two minutes quite frankly. Your best players are the ones who will give you your best opportunity to score with the man advantage.

It would suck for a guy like Mitts to bot get that same PP time but you've gotta put Mack/Makar/Mikko on the ice, they're the ones who will give you the best chance to score.



That being said... Mitts should also easily be on PP1 over Drouin IMO.

PP1 should be Mack/Mikko on the walls. Cale up top, Mitts below the line, and Nuke moving through the middle of the ice.

Pull the goalie and get Drouin in there too.

 

[expatriatedtexan]

…and those 15 seconds are spent retrieving the puck from our zone, skating up ice, and dumping it in as the guy comes out of the box.

The be honest the first 1:45 is usually a series of drop passes, failed entries, and overpassing once the zone is gained.

Pull the goalie and get Drouin in there too.

I seriously think we need to employ the "Pull the Goalie you cowards!" tactics a lot more if we are going to insist on keeping Georgiev around. I think it was Henchy that dug up some intresting statistics regarding playing with your goalie pulled. I'd almost like to see us try a complete game that way.

 

[Avs9296]

Mittelstadt looks to be in better shape this year to me, or at the very least more used to the pace that the Avs play at. Last year at times he looked a little gassed or behind the play.

 

[expatriatedtexan]

Mittelstadt looks to be in better shape this year to me, or at the very least more used to the pace that the Avs play at. Last year at times he looked a little gassed or behind the play.

Haven't most players traded to the Avs pretty much said that the skating done here is on another level? Not sure how much of that is flattery for the fans vs the honest truth, but from what little I've been able to gleem from some of the player tracking data is that the Avs do skate (farther and at higher average speeds) more than a lot of teams.

 

[henchman21]

Haven't most players traded to the Avs pretty much said that the skating done here is on another level? Not sure how much of that is flattery for the fans vs the honest truth, but from what little I've been able to gleem from some of the player tracking data is that the Avs do skate (farther and at higher average speeds) more than a lot of teams.

NHL EDGE Puck and Player Tracking Statistics - Teams

NHL EDGE Puck and Player Tracking Statistics for teams including skating speed, skating distance, shot speed, shot location, and zone time.

edge.nhl.com

We have the data on this. The distance isn't all that much in comparison. Roughly league average. Speed top quartile. Bursts are where the Avs stand out. They get north/south and very quickly. No messing around, get to the other side of the ice as quickly as possible and don't dance around. This is why guys who are labeled 'elite' skaters like Newhook tend to struggle here (and we all know I have my issues with that definition of him). He's a fast skater, but when it comes to burst, creating separation and getting up the ice... he's pretty average. Whereas Mitts who is a pretty average skater all around can succeed. He's not outright fast (actually fairly slow), but he can burst to 18-21 better than most. The puck moves faster than guys can skate. If you can get north-south and make passes you play fast and get through the zone at 18-21 mph a lot, it looks very fast without being outright fast or for a huge amount of distance.

 

[expatriatedtexan]

NHL EDGE Puck and Player Tracking Statistics - Teams

NHL EDGE Puck and Player Tracking Statistics for teams including skating speed, skating distance, shot speed, shot location, and zone time.

edge.nhl.com

We have the data on this. The distance isn't all that much in comparison. Roughly league average. Speed top quartile. Bursts are where the Avs stand out. They get north/south and very quickly. No messing around, get to the other side of the ice as quickly as possible and don't dance around. This is why guys who are labeled 'elite' skaters like Newhook tend to struggle here (and we all know I have my issues with that definition of him). He's a fast skater, but when it comes to burst, creating separation and getting up the ice... he's pretty average. Whereas Mitts who is a pretty average skater all around can succeed. He's not outright fast (actually fairly slow), but he can burst to 18-21 better than most. The puck moves faster than guys can skate. If you can get north-south and make passes you play fast and get through the zone at 18-21 mph a lot, it looks very fast without being outright fast or for a huge amount of distance.

I have had the absolute worst experiences trying to get info out of NHL Edge. Thanks for digging that out though! The one thing I noticed is that this is based on the entire team whenever the game clock is in motion. Is there a way to filter it down to individual players? I'm wondering what percentile our top five are in, followed by 2nd line and 2nd pairing, then bottom six and bottom pair.

I know it's a small sample size, but the shape of this years graph looks fuller or more rounded/balanced (I'm assuming this may have some correlation to overall performance but am unsure) while there has been some attrition in our top rankings. However, you can also see where that should all be improving (maybe significantly) if we could ever get some freaking health again.

 

[henchman21]

I have had the absolute worst experiences trying to get info out of NHL Edge. Thanks for digging that out though! The one thing I noticed is that this is based on the entire team whenever the game clock is in motion. Is there a way to filter it down to individual players? I'm wondering what percentile our top five are in, followed by 2nd line and 2nd pairing, then bottom six and bottom pair.

I know it's a small sample size, but the shape of this years graph looks fuller or more rounded (I'm assuming this may have some correlation to overall performance but am unsure) than last years overall but you can also see where it's should be growing even better if we could ever get some freaking health again.

You can go over the player side to get that info. The site is designed terribly though to pull info from without data mining it.

Should be noted though, guys like Lehky, Drouin, and Landy don't really help those stats. They don't outright hurt them but Colton getting more minutes helps the skating numbers a lot more than Lehky would. Though Lehky would help over Kovalenko a good amount. I would actually expect a drop off in those, especially since it'll probably push Ivan out of the lineup and Colton/Wood/LOC down the lineup. Nuke will improve it though.

 

[expatriatedtexan]

You can go over the player side to get that info. The site is designed terribly though to pull info from without data mining it.

Should be noted though, guys like Lehky, Drouin, and Landy don't really help those stats. They don't outright hurt them but Colton getting more minutes helps the skating numbers a lot more than Lehky would. Though Lehky would help over Kovalenko a good amount. I would actually expect a drop off in those, especially since it'll probably push Ivan out of the lineup and Colton/Wood/LOC down the lineup. Nuke will improve it though.

Just realized I wasn't looking at the skating when saying the graph should get better. I was looking at pushing shots on goal, shooting percentage and goals back up to last years percentiles. What's weird (again small sample size) is that we are sitting in the 93 percentile this year for Off zone ES time, compared to 81 last year.

I'm going to have to dig into the player side again because I really would like to track distance and speed as the year progress and the impact it has on performance over time. I'd like to see if there is a better way to maybe quantify the impact playing the top guys so damn much has for the positives it gives (at times in the regular season) vs what we are saying is burnout in the playoffs. It's one of those things that just seems like natural sense...but I'm not sure we've actually statistically looked at it in any meaningful way yet. Or if we have, I'd love a pointer in that direction.

 

[henchman21]

Just realized I wasn't looking at the skating when saying the graph should get better. I was looking at pushing shots on goal, shooting percentage and goals back up to last years percentiles. What's weird (again small sample size) is that we are sitting in the 93 percentile this year for Off zone ES time, compared to 81 last year.

I'm going to have to dig into the player side again because I really would like to track distance and speed as the year progress and the impact it has on performance over time. I'd like to see if there is a better way to maybe quantify the impact playing the top guys so damn much has for the positives it gives (at times in the regular season) vs what we are saying is burnout in the playoffs. It's one of those things that just seems like natural sense...but I'm not sure we've actually statistically looked at it in any meaningful way yet. Or if we have, I'd love a pointer in that direction.

Keep in mind that these are raw numbers and not tied to per/60 or anything. So given that the Avs have played 10 games (tied for 5th most) it gives an advantage in the raw counts over teams like Vancouver who have only played 8. That'll just level as as we get to 40-50-60 games where one or two games doesn't make a huge difference anymore.

I don't know of a public database that has that stuff. It probably exists, but private databases have this info.

It might be counter intuitive, but skating distance is frequently looked at as a bad thing. It typically means back and forth hockey where a team can't sustain offensive pressure. The more offensive zone time, the lower the skating distance should be.

As a whole this season, the team hasn't played bad. Some bad games for sure, but the overall play is better than the record. Pretty much all the numbers point to that.

 

[expatriatedtexan]

Keep in mind that these are raw numbers and not tied to per/60 or anything. So given that the Avs have played 10 games (tied for 5th most) it gives an advantage in the raw counts over teams like Vancouver who have only played 8. That'll just level as as we get to 40-50-60 games where one or two games doesn't make a huge difference anymore.

I don't know of a public database that has that stuff. It probably exists, but private databases have this info.

It might be counter intuitive, but skating distance is frequently looked at as a bad thing. It typically means back and forth hockey where a team can't sustain offensive pressure. The more offensive zone time, the lower the skating distance should be.

As a whole this season, the team hasn't played bad. Some bad games for sure, but the overall play is better than the record. Pretty much all the numbers point to that.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure we are all aware of who the Avs achilles hell heel is this season.

 

[henchman21]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure we are all aware of who the Avs achilles hell heel is this season.

All except one of us.