Player Discussion Patrik Laine: Part 2 - Healthy Living Edition

[Guy Larose]

This is the best reply I had. Yeah, keep him at least for the next year and they decide what they do with him. Maybe because he's getting out of injury is a valid excuse. There are two clans about him. I feel more secured when Habs gets a player who never had a "problem".

Next year should be interesting since it's also a contract year.

 

[Catanddogguitarrr]

That's one tall center! He'll hit the scoreboard.

And get scored vs his team most of his shifts. He can score 34 and being -17 at the end of season.

Next year should be interesting since it's also a contract year.

The typical "last year contract" when the player gives the best he can do. I saw so many underperforming players having a good "last year contract" and become a deception just after signed. No need to bring examples, there are too many.

 

[Pat Riot]

My avatar is last minute decision, lol. There are 1 or 2 tv host show missing. I think the large version have Degeneres at the right. I just didn't care at the moment I piked the avatar. I like Jimmy Fallon and I liked the mix of colours.

I guess they can be funny at times. Personally I just cant listen to theses wokes hollywood virtue signaling morons. To each his own. On Laine I agree with you hes not a defensive wizard and never will be. Put Laine and a playmaker Demidov on the second line with a better center, and see how it goes. The extra year on Laine contract is good for us. We have time to evaluate him properly and plan the next move

 

[WeThreeKings]

What player has worked well with Newhook and Dach this season? Several have been tried.

They don't work well together, but the other 3 lines are working, so that's pretty much what you get.

 

[Catanddogguitarrr]

I guess they can be funny at times. Personally I just cant listen to theses wokes hollywood virtue signaling morons. To each his own. On Laine I agree with you hes not a defensive wizard and never will be. Put Laine and a playmaker Demidov on the second line with a better center, and see how it goes. The extra year on Laine contract is good for us. We have time to evaluate him properly and plan the next move

I'm not that crazy too with woke Hollywood either. I can decide what is right or wrong without feeling I must agree with those morality new preachers. I think I will change that avatar. There is a thin yellow line and the rest is sky blue like the Ukrainian flag.

Lets' hope Habs will get good center next summer cuz we are stucked with Dach who still doesn't deliver on regular basis and nobody else can do on 2nd until maybe Hage in 2 years.

 

[ReHabs]

I understand what you mean. But my point is, that even if your posession numbers are good, but you don't have production are you still playing well?

Posession numbers are always prediction. Score sheet is real. You have to make goals to win games.

I really hope both players finds their game.

Pseudo-stats are either for fooling oneself or trying to fool someone else. The Habs have played 24 games since Dec 28th (strange date to choose, but I digress). In that span Dach has 13pts in 23gp... 0.57ppg is a 46pt season pace. Not remotely interesting or good for a player with his TOI. Laine has 13pts in 20gp, which is a 53pt season pace, also not interesting or good.

Here's a fun stat: over that period Laine's EV On-Ice GF% is 52.3 to Dach's 43.7. Can someone tell me which one's better.

This is the best reply I had. Yeah, keep him at least for the next year and they decide what they do with him. Maybe because he's getting out of injury is a valid excuse. There are two clans about him. I feel more secured when Habs gets a player who never had a "problem".

For sure getting an actually good player with no baggage is preferable -- who could possibly disagree? -- but they cost assets to acquire and Hughes has already whiffed big time on Dach and Newhook. At least we got paid to take on Laine and his cap hit.

 

[BehindTheTimes]

Dach was holding Laine back. Lolol. Now that Patrik is free of him he will catch fire!!

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

What player has worked well with Newhook and Dach this season? Several have been tried.

But they were tried back when Dach was hurt. There's a big difference in how he played in October vs January.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Pseudo-stats are either for fooling oneself or trying to fool someone else. The Habs have played 24 games since Dec 28th (strange date to choose, but I digress). In that span Dach has 13pts in 23gp... 0.57ppg is a 46pt season pace. Not remotely interesting or good for a player with his TOI. Laine has 13pts in 20gp, which is a 53pt season pace, also not interesting or good.

Here's a fun stat: over that period Laine's EV On-Ice GF% is 52.3 to Dach's 43.7. Can someone tell me which one's better.

Yes.

Dach has been significantly 5 0n 5.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Dach was holding Laine back. Lolol. Now that Patrik is free of him he will catch fire!!

Hopefully Laine heats up in down the stretch. He's at about the same point in his season that Dach was when he began to improve. He will get better and I expect him to look a LOT better next year.

I wouldn't too much stock in one game though. Encouraging, yes. But I'm old enough to remember people talking about how Dobbes was going to win every game this season for us.

 

[BehindTheTimes]

Hopefully Laine heats up in down the stretch. He's at about the same point in his season that Dach was when he began to improve. He will get better and I expect him to look a LOT better next year.

I wouldn't too much stock in one game though. Encouraging, yes. But I'm old enough to remember people talking about how Dobbes was going to win every game this season for us.

Dobes? I was just poking fun, but yeah. Dach and Laine need a mulligan this year.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Dobes? I was just poking fun, but yeah. Dach and Laine need a mulligan this year.

I wasn't talking about you specifically man. I just bring up Dobbes because he was the 'it guy' for about three games.

And it's good that Laine had a good game. Hopefully it's the start of something. Sometimes you just need a good game to get over the hump.

I don't expect great numbers from him going forward but I'll settle for an improvement. I think we can see that.

 

[BehindTheTimes]

I wasn't talking about you specifically man. I just bring up Dobbes because he was the 'it guy' for about three games.

And it's good that Laine had a good game. Hopefully it's the start of something. Sometimes you just need a good game to get over the hump.

I don't expect great numbers from him going forward but I'll settle for an improvement. I think we can see that.

I don’t put much into possession numbers. Sone players are opportunistic. Laine will produce with poor metrics, I don’t care about his metrics if he is producing. He’s one of those players who will never have great metrics

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

I don’t put much into possession numbers. Sone players are opportunistic. Laine will produce with poor metrics, I don’t care about his metrics if he is producing. He’s one of those players who will never have great metrics

Possession numbers can be deceiving depending on the situation but they're not useless. They at least give you a baseline to work with. And if you're numbers are excellent or terrible then you definitely get a sense of how a player's doing.

If you've got terrible numbers it means you're spending most of your time in your own end. And that's exactly what we saw with Dach to start the year and Laine since he came back.

This isn't smoke and mirror type stuff. And when you see the effect a guy has on others it really drives the point home.

 

[DAChampion]

I don’t put much into possession numbers. Sone players are opportunistic. Laine will produce with poor metrics, I don’t care about his metrics if he is producing. He’s one of those players who will never have great metrics

Hockey stats seems largely produced by people who have both never properly learned statistics (nor played competitive sport at any level). They make a lot of elementary mistakes, but worse than that many of them believe they're incredibly insightful and astute.

I don't expect the average person to know what a Bonferroni correction is, or what a covariance is, but when someone is peddling "advanced stats" and they don't know, it's cringe.

 

[Sorinth]

Hockey stats seems largely produced by people who have both never properly learned statistics (nor played competitive sport at any level). They make a lot of elementary mistakes, but worse than that many of them believe they're incredibly insightful and astute.

I don't expect the average person to know what a Bonferroni correction is, or what a covariance is, but when someone is peddling "advanced stats" and they don't know, it's cringe.

To be fair the stats that presented free to the public aren't what is being used/looked at by the actual analytics departments of teams. As fans what we get pushed the stuff that will generate ad revenue by making people think looking at these stats will give them an edge in their fantasy pools.

 

[DAChampion]

To be fair the stats that presented free to the public aren't what is being used/looked at by the actual analytics departments of teams. As fans what we get pushed the stuff that will generate ad revenue by making people think looking at these stats will give them an edge in their fantasy pools.

It may well be that the stuff being used by teams is a lot higher quality. I don't know. Nobody knows. It could also be equally mediocre.

But yes I am entirely referring to the publicly discussed stats that sometimes make it onto the forum. It may be that some of this is simply trying to make money off of the toxic sports gambling industry. I hadn't realized that. Thank you for the insight.

 

[the]

Laine got that Kovalev ability. Even if he's still injured. He's got that talent to take over a game all by himself.

We need that elite talent even if it's not perfect. He's winning us games. That's all that matters. Is he costing us some games? Maybe but we were already a bottom feeding team for almost a decade before he showed up.

Laine is clearly a needle mover. His game breaking talent is helping us level up. For better or worst. We had one of our best streak in many years because of his arrival. Keep playing him.

 

[BehindTheTimes]

Hockey stats seems largely produced by people who have both never properly learned statistics (nor played competitive sport at any level). They make a lot of elementary mistakes, but worse than that many of them believe they're incredibly insightful and astute.

I don't expect the average person to know what a Bonferroni correction is, or what a covariance is, but when someone is peddling "advanced stats" and they don't know, it's cringe.

Couldn’t agree more. Laine is a perfect example. He’s a sniper, not a play driver. We all know that, but anyone who thinks Alex Newhook or Kirby Dach are adding more value are hard to take seriously.

Most of the stats ignore special teams too, like scoring on the PP doesn’t contribute to the outcome of the game.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Couldn’t agree more. Laine is a perfect example. He’s a sniper, not a play driver. We all know that, but anyone who thinks Alex Newhook or Kirby Dach are adding more value are hard to take seriously.

Then you have not been watching the games.

Sorry but Laine has played very similarly to how Dach was playing. The puck has died on his stick. Him being a sniper doesn’t matter. If he was effective then he’d be getting a lot more shots on net.

On the PP? Totally different story.

Most of the stats ignore special teams too, like scoring on the PP doesn’t contribute to the outcome of the game.

We’re not talking voodoo here. CF% is a basic fundamental stat. It gives you an idea of where the puck is when a player is on the ice.

Are the the be all and end all? Of course not. If you play with Nathan MacKinnon then your numbers go up. If you play with garbage it will go down. But the numbers for Laine are bad no matter what. And his presence has brought down his linemates. And that is not surprising considering his play. He false out hasn’t looked good.

But just because he hasn’t looked good so far doesn’t mean it will continue. I expect him to improve.

In terms of team numbers, it’s more predictive of cup winners than goal differential.

And nobody is ignoring the PP. But those are two different things.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Hockey stats seems largely produced by people who have both never properly learned statistics (nor played competitive sport at any level). They make a lot of elementary mistakes, but worse than that many of them believe they're incredibly insightful and astute.

Corsi and Fenwick have been the best predictors of cup winners. It’s not voodoo.

I was a huge skeptic but once you find the strength of thst correlation you can’t deny their usefulness.

I don't expect the average person to know what a Bonferroni correction is, or what a covariance is, but when someone is peddling "advanced stats" and they don't know, it's cringe.

What’s cringe is seeing people dismiss basic info because they don’t like what the numbers are saying. Even worse is appealing to bad stats like plus/minus to make a case.

No, Corsi is not the be all and end all. As an example, Caufield’s numbers without Suzuki this year are terrible. But that doesn’t mean Nick is necessarily carrying him, it’s indicative of how bad Dach was at the start of the year when we tried Caufield there.

We don’t need stats to see that Laine’s been bad. If you haven’t seen it then you aren’t paying attention. People just look at the points and think he’s done well… he hasn’t. Not at 5 on 5 anyway. On the PP though? Totally different story. He’s been incredible there.

 

[Rapala]

If Laine can stay on the positive side of the scoresheet 5v5 I think that will be a huge boost for him.
He's certainly let everyone know it bothers him when he's not...

C'mon Beckster!

 

[DAChampion]

Corsi and Fenwick have been the best predictors ... bad stats like plus/minus

corsi is the same thing as +/-, but "goals" are replaced by "shot attempts". It's a tradeoff of less accuracy for more precision, since shot attempts are less meaningful than goals, but there are ~16x more shot attempts than goals of them so you get ~4x more precision.

Corsi is on the bottom left.

If you're describing corsi as a good and meaningful statistic, then your only allowed criticism of +/- is that the sample size is small. That's fine, but it could be handled a different way by assigning a a Poisson uncertainty to +/-.

People understand this instinctively even if they don't know how to compute error bars, they'll say things like "+/- is not a great stat, but if a player is last on his team in +/- after 50 games played, it means something ". The people who speak that way may not have a formal training in statistics, but they have superior instincts and reasoning skills.

However, people don't understand this. They criticize +/- on the basis that "it doesn't account for linemates!!" ... That's fine but then those same posters will praise corsi thirty seconds later, corsi also doesn't account for linemates.

Corsi is often called by its defenders a "possession metric". That is very clever marketing but alas it's not a metric of possession. It's a metric of shot attempts. If they were more honest they might be referring to shot attempts as a "weak proxy for possession" or a "biased indicator of possession". It is not a metric of possession since it does not measure possession.

PS: Counting shot attempts can be informative, but it's not "advanced".

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

corsi is the same thing as +/-, but "goals" are replaced by "shot attempts". It's a tradeoff of less accuracy for more precision, since shot attempts are less meaningful than goals, but there are ~16x more shot attempts than goals of them so you get ~4x more precision.

Goals are a rare event. Shot attempts are not. Because shots for and against happen in greater numbers you can get a much better picture of where the puck is while a player is in the ice. Will there be weird situations (a player losing his stick for example) that dictate that a play winds up in your zone? Yes. But because there’s such volume it drowns out the noise for exceptions like that.

Goals on the other hand don’t happen frequently. And things like goaltending and other variables play a huge role. That’s why plus minus sucks.

Corsi is on the bottom left.
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If you're describing corsi as a good and meaningful statistic, then your only allowed criticism of +/- is that the sample size is small. That's fine, but it could be handled a different way by assigning a a Poisson uncertainty to +/-. People understand this instinctively even if they don't know how to compute error bars, they'll say things like "+/- is not a great stat, but if a player is last on his team in +/-, it means something ".

However, people don't understand this. They criticize +/- on the basis that "it doesn't account for linemates!!" ... That's fine but then those same posters will praise corsi thirty seconds later, corsi also doesn't account for linemates.

Corsi is often called by its defenders a "possession metric". That is very clever marketing as it's not a metric of possession. It's a metric of shot attempts. If they were more honest they might be referring to shot attempts as a "weak proxy for possession" or a "biased indicator of possession". It is not a metric of possession since it does not measure possession.

I’ve never liked the term ‘possession’ either but that’s the term that’s used. I’m not going to fight city hall.

The usefulness of Corsi stats is that it’s not just capturing the outcome of a goal for or against. It’s capturing where the bulk of the play is taking place when a player is in the ice. That’s why the term ‘possession’ is used. You can’t have shots for attempts if you’re spending the night in your own zone.

Again though, we don’t need stats to see that he’s been really bad at five on five anymore than we needed it for Dach in November. The numbers only confirm it.

The big difference between Laine and Dach’s slumps though is that Laine is contributing huge numbers on the PP. He’s best in the league in goals with the man advantage and top 20 in points. Dach was terrible on the PP. From a points perspective I wouldn’t even call it a slump at all.

Anyways as I said, I expect Laine to improve as the season progresses. He needs his timing back and he looked good in his last game.

 

[HHel]

Advanced stats gives you glimbs, how play should go in theory.

Hypothetic situation, Laine and Newhook take five shots exactly same spots. Stats say they both have same xGF, but in real life we all know that isn't the case, because Laine's shot is more better. So his xGF should be higher.

That's why I think GF/GA is better meter. If you are net positive, then you are winning games when player is on the ice.