Nick Ritchie discussion - clears waivers

[Macallan18]

chuckle away, but it's absolutely true.

every GM makes mistakes.

crucial to have one that doesn't sabotage his team further because he's too scared to admit it.

It would have been so, so easy for Dubas to keep Ritchie and waive Engvall, but that would have hurt our team significantly. Many GMs would have done just that.

also nice to have a GM whose mistakes are this minor, of course.

Bunting, Kase, Kampf kinda means he's batting 750, hall of fame average

 

[Coachcorner]

Will definitely miss the random moment that seemingly happened every game when the camera would pan the Leafs bench and Ritchie would be sitting there looking bewildered

Has to be one of the non-smartest players in nhl history period sire............................................

 

[Martin Skoula]

Hopefully Dubas learns not to overcorrect because the media is being mean to the team next time. Stick to the plan, our physical guys need to be able to play with intensity.

 

[4thline]

Ritchie ends his time as a Leaf (maybe) as the only regular Leaf to manage to post a negative xGF% this year, at 49.6%.

The next closest are Kase at 50.4% and Kampf at 51.1%, but they're only that low due to getting extreme defensive usage.

Funny stat: Nick Ritchie's xGF% away from David Kampf is 51.56. Kampf's away from Ritchie is 52.71

That line didn't work at all, and really skews things downward for both of them

 

[Macallan18]

Has to be one of the non-smartest players in nhl history period sire............................................

worse than Al Iafrate, who had real talent

 

[zeke]

Funny stat: Nick Ritchie's xGF% away from David Kampf is 51.56.

That line didn't work at all, and really skews things.

that's likely because the Kampf line gets some of the toughest usage in the league. That's why Kampf's low=-ish number is actually pretty impressive.

But Ritchie sabotaged every line he was, unforutnately. Look at the difference even in the soft usage 4th line:

Engvall-Spezza-Simmonds 73.0xgf%
Ritchie-Spezza-Simmonds 48.6xgf%

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

He was given a chance to stick everywhere in the lineup, and just blew it. I was never really happy with the signing, so hopefully this is the last we've seen of him

 

[SeaOfBlue]

It's not a devastating signing or a massive mistake, but it certainly is a mistake and was an entirely predictable one.

Ritchie has never been a particularly useful player. Last season he popped some goals shooting above his career average shooting %. The "analytics GM" probably should've been able to recognize this (like many of us already had) and not determined that Ritchie might finally be a decent top-nine player. He's just the same as he always was: poor play-driver, poor defensively, takes a lot of penalties.

They should never have pursued him and just kept the cap flexibility. A guy like Brooks, who ended up being waived at the expense of keeping Ritchie for an extra month, would've been more useful to the club and clocked in at a league minimum cap hit.

His ixG this year at all strengths is ~5.5. He only has 1 goal. If he even had 4 goals, which would still be the worst differential on our team, he is suddenly a 4 goal, 12 point scorer on our 4th line. Still not great, but it is passable for a guy who would still be getting less than expected based on his scoring chances. If he was getting what was expected, and this is while playing on our 4th line most of the year, he would be pacing for 15 goals and 40 points. That is surplus value for 2.5 mill.

The main downside with Ritchie is that, if he does suffer from something like this, he does not bring much value besides being a big body. That separates him from a guy like Mikheyev, who was still an excellent PKer and shutdown guy even when he couldn't convert to save his life last year, and that was the risk with Ritchie. However you are trying to use hindsight to say he sucks when Ritchie is pretty much living with the worst possible outcome relative to how well he is playing right now. Very misleading and poor justification.

 

[Keon1963]

Is this the same Ritchie that Don Cherry said was greater than William Nylander. Who is Don Cherry????

 

[Auston Marlander]

yeah we were obviously better, but they were without McDavid, and have been terrible even with him - and we made some egregious mistakes that the stats don't quite capture either.

and even the stats say the 4th line was a disaster.

Oh I think the Leafs were meh and it was a snoozer of a game. Just pointing out the eye test and stats dont really align with this game. The Oilers were trying real hard, but didn't do much with that effort.

 

[Racer88]

Lots of blame to go around there. Why single out Ritchie?

Obviously the coach and GM felt the way that most fans feel about Richie

 

[Zero1]

I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets claimed honestly. A lot of dinosaurs still in other front offices.

 

[AvroArrow]

Is this the same Ritchie that Don Cherry said was greater than William Nylander. Who is Don Cherry????

"They take the little Swede !"

 

[ACC1224]

Obviously the coach and GM felt the way that most fans feel about Richie

They commented on the goal?

 

[Obo]

or "its not you, its me"

yeah, which usually means "it's not you, it's me...i've decided i don't like you."

 

[Racer88]

Yeah, the whole undefeated fighting record in his career was exciting for a bit.
Dude doesn't seem to have a mean bone in his body. Not sure what gives??

So I guess a stint in the UFC is out

 

[bossram]

His ixG this year at all strengths is ~5.5. He only has 1 goal. If he even had 4 goals, which would still be the worst differential on our team, he is suddenly a 4 goal, 12 point scorer on our 4th line. Still not great, but it is passable for a guy who would still be getting less than expected based on his scoring chances. If he was getting what was expected, and this is while playing on our 4th line most of the year, he would be pacing for 15 goals and 40 points. That is surplus value for 2.5 mill.

The main downside with Ritchie is that, if he does suffer from something like this, he does not bring much value besides being a big body. That separates him from a guy like Mikheyev, who was still an excellent PKer and shutdown guy even when he couldn't convert to save his life last year, and that was the risk with Ritchie. However you are trying to use hindsight to say he sucks when Ritchie is pretty much living with the worst possible outcome relative to how well he is playing right now. Very misleading and poor justification.

It's not hindsight at all. I really disliked the Ritchie signing at the time, quite clearly stated it would not work out, and it hasn't. He's a perimeter shooter who relies on favourable shooting %s to produce anything of value to a team. As you said, when that doesn't work out, he doesn't bring anything else to help an NHL club. And that's what's happening. And I've said all this at the time of the signing.

An NHL club, particularly a cap-strapped one, needs to be pretty careful about who to invest their cap dollars in. Investing $2.5 x 2 in a guy who had a pretty decent chance of contributing nothing to the club was a mistake, period.

 

[Racer88]

They commented on the goal?

Waiving him was all the comment they needed to make

 

[ACC1224]

Waiving him was all the comment they needed to make

You believe he was waived because he was on the ice for a goal against?

 

[JT AM da real deal]

Yeah. But even when the D gets burnt on a pinch it’s not the wingers job to pick up the slot lol. It’s usually the C unless he was down low on the forecheck to help cover up. That original poster is just blaming Ritchie for being the only forward close. Lack of understanding of structured hockey

He is a rook defense and it takes a long long time in pro hockey for defense to figure out structured positional hockey .. but 4 guys playing below hash marks in other teams end with other team in a strong defensive position is generally a bad time for an offensive D to try to create from nothing .. it leads to 2 on 1s and then goals against especially on backward passes .. there was a day 30 years ago in pro hockey where if you were a defender making a backward pass in other teams end below da hash you were benched no matter how play turned out no matter who you were

 

[Macallan18]

You believe he was waived because he was on the ice for a goal against?

he is simply not engaged, and that play illustrated that fact.

 

[Clark4Ever]

Not sure if he gets moved mid season but I can see a team taking him in the offseason. There's always a GM who wants a big boy on skates

Fixed your post, lol.

 

[saltming]

Sadly he was not what I was hoping for.
Alas, that's hockey

 

[PromisedLand]

Two bold moves by Dubas

1) good bye Hyman
2) waiver for the guy he picked up as a UFA at a considerate cap hit

Now another bold move Dubie; tell Keefe to man the F up and get Nylander on the left/right wall, Bunting as the screen and Marner on the 2nd PP unit

 

[cgc83]

I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets claimed honestly. A lot of dinosaurs still in other front offices.

well fingers crossed he gets claimed .
leafs have had terrible luck with players getting claimed by other teams . Hopefully Ritchie doesnt break precedence .