Paul Kariya vs Pavel Bure

[trentmccleary]

That can be meaningful, but in the case of these two, it may be the result of luck more than anything else.

Neither player has a reputation for being a good defensive player. At their best, guys like Jagr and Ovechkin were able to heavily outscore the opposition at ES due to being good possession players and tilting the ice. Did Kariya really do either of those things much better than Bure? It would be good to be able to see corsi type data from the prime seasons of Bure and Kariya.

The superior goals against results may also have to do with the fact that Kariya had another major threat on his line that teams had to worry about in Selanne and a solid defensive centre in Rucchin whereas Bure was basically FLA's lone scoring threat at times and had to cherry-pick.

I'm not sure that I see the point in using shot plus minus. It's much less precise and only came into favor to get sample sizes up to make predictions. Their careers are over so we don't need to use it to predict how they might do defensively, we know exactly how many goals were scored against when they were on the ice. We also don't have a sample size issue because they were on the ice for 800-900 goals against each.

There isn't a lot of variability here. Bure's GA numbers were consistently bad across multiple years, teams and scoring environments. His 1993 season is the only real anomaly in this table.
Kariya's GA numbers were consistently adequate.
The average of their GA numbers over their careers is that 11 fewer goals were scored against Kariya per 82 GP. That seems huge when comparing two players who have similar offensive production throughout their careers.

EVGA/GP

	PB	PK
1991-1992​	0.85​
1993​	0.69​
1994​	0.99​
1995	1.02​	0.96
1996	(15GP) 0.93​	0.87
1997	1.05​	0.72
1998	0.89​	0.95 (22 GP)
1999	(11 GP) 0.82​	0.72
2000	0.86​	0.81
2001	1.02​	0.79
2002	0.94​	0.73
2003	(39 GP) 0.62​	0.74
2004		0.65
2006		0.70
2007		0.74
2008		0.83
2009		0.55 (11 GP)
2010		0.64

 

[centipede2233]

Bure scored 59 goals in 2000, second was Owen Nolan with 44…Bure’s center was Victor Kozlov,/thread

 

[PB37]

This is a weird retreat. You made PK a point of emphasis yet he pointed out to you a glaring disparity in SHG. So there are other parts to PKing except his coach at the time had to trust him enough to expect him to help more than he hurts.

PK was coached a lot differently in those days as well. It was commonplace to have an offensive first player on the PK as a breakaway threat to keep the PP team honest.

 

[authentic]

I'm not sure that I see the point in using shot plus minus. It's much less precise and only came into favor to get sample sizes up to make predictions. Their careers are over so we don't need to use it to predict how they might do defensively, we know exactly how many goals were scored against when they were on the ice. We also don't have a sample size issue because they were on the ice for 800-900 goals against each.

There isn't a lot of variability here. Bure's GA numbers were consistently bad across multiple years, teams and scoring environments. His 1993 season is the only real anomaly in this table.
Kariya's GA numbers were consistently adequate.
The average of their GA numbers over their careers is that 11 fewer goals were scored against Kariya per 82 GP. That seems huge when comparing two players who have similar offensive production throughout their careers.

EVGA/GP

	PB	PK
1991-1992​	0.85​
1993​	0.69​
1994​	0.99​
1995	1.02​	0.96
1996	(15GP) 0.93​	0.87
1997	1.05​	0.72
1998	0.89​	0.95 (22 GP)
1999	(11 GP) 0.82​	0.72
2000	0.86​	0.81
2001	1.02​	0.79
2002	0.94​	0.73
2003	(39 GP) 0.62​	0.74
2004		0.65
2006		0.70
2007		0.74
2008		0.83
2009		0.55 (11 GP)
2010		0.64

Wouldn’t Selanne help make that up though? Having them both probably made it easier to control the puck more in the offensive zone.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Bure scored 59 goals in 2000, second was Owen Nolan with 44…Bure’s center was Victor Kozlov,/thread

Sure, but by that logic Kariya had 108 points in 1996, second was his center Steve Rucchin with 44.

In this very thread we’re still trying to figure out how it was possible for Kariya to have 58 assists when nobody else on the team even scored 20 goals.

There really isn’t a /thread to be found here. They’re very similar players in terms of individual impact, team success, injury history, longevity, and so forth.

 

[trentmccleary]

Wouldn’t Selanne help make that up though? Having them both probably made it easier to control the puck more in the offensive zone.

The bulk of those games would have occurred from 1997 to 2001 on that table. Just by eyeballing it, I don't see any notable defensive improvement during those seasons.

 

[cc]

Bure if we are talking about raw tools and ability