Roster Speculation 2015-16 Pt. III

[Jame]

Jame,

Fair enough response, and I guess I do need to elaborate. There is a chance Larsson could eventually be the player you are predicting/envisioning. Here is where I differ somewhat from your opinion.

1. I do not see Larsson as the starting 1C this coming year, though I understand your reasoning. I see Girgensons more in that role. I see Larsson being somewhere on the third line for now. We'll see. Long-term, if we do not get O'Reilly, I see Larsson more in the 3C spot, and Girgensons in the top 6 winger role.

2. I'd be cautious with even calling Larsson "O'Reilly lite." In my eyes, he still has a ways to go to get there. Let's face it, he's played a good 68 games or so, but has a lot more to prove. Will he get where you envision? We'll see, and I actually hope you are right.

1. interesting. Bylsma's comments would indicate the opposite. he specifically said Girgensons is not a #1 center, and followed those comments by heaping some league wide praise on Larsson.

2. fair enough. but im just not that type of fan. Im always going to be projecting. that's the heart of this website i'll be wrong, but not nearly as often as im right others need to wait and see Kesler or O'reilly score 50-60 points. I didn't.

 

[Jame]

question/choice

+Oreilly at 7 per for 8 years
-(whatever you think the cost in trade is)

or

+Larsson at 1.0 next year and then 4.0 per for the following 4 years
-(nothing)

 

[stokes84]

1. interesting. Bylsma's comments would indicate the opposite. he specifically said Girgensons is not a #1 center, and followed those comments by heaping some league wide praise on Larsson.

2. fair enough. but im just not that type of fan. Im always going to be projecting. that's the heart of this website i'll be wrong, but not nearly as often as im right others need to wait and see Kesler or O'reilly score 50-60 points. I didn't.

Interesting interpretation. I thought more clearly, Murray said he envisions Larsson as a 3rd liner, and Bylsma said Girgensons is the perfect buffer until the kids are ready take over bigger roles. There wasn't any mystery in these comments.

 

[Jacob582]

My prediction for the off season has changed with the recent WGR talk with TM.

I think it will be similar to last year:

- one draft day trade
- one free agency day trade
- commit less $$ to free agents than last year. Sign depth for Rochester.

 

[Push Dr Tracksuit]

Aren't we going a tad overboard with Larsson here?

no more than with Girgensons, if Girgs ability makes him a potential top 6 player then Larsson's ability should give him the same status

as for next season, will anyone really be shocked if Dan Bylsma starts the season with Girgs and Larsson as the top 6 centers, we aren't even at the draft and we're gonna spend 3 pages on who will end up 1c in October, how surprised would anyone really be if Eichel and ROR are the top 2 centers, this stuff is best saved until at least we know what the training camp roster is gonna look like

 

[Jame]

Interesting interpretation. I thought more clearly, Murray said he envisions Larsson as a 3rd liner, and Bylsma said Girgensons is the perfect buffer until the kids are ready take over bigger roles. There wasn't any mystery in these comments.

"[Zemgus] Girgensons, a heart and soul, workin', gritty guy that kinda makes them go. Is he a No.1 center in the league? I don't think anyone's gonna put him there but he's a guy I think can offer some protection to some of the younger players that are coming to the team in Sam Reinhart and the second pick overall (Eichel.)"

I think your bolded is a poor interpretation. He explicitly states that he's NOT going to put him at #1 center, but that he will use him in a ROLE that protects the young guys (that role being a checking, matchup, dstart, faceoff, etc role.... NOT a #1 role)

"[Johan] Larsson is a guy who in the last 30 games, [after] I'd talked to a couple of coaches, is tough to play against. He was a gritty player, played a hard game and they had to watch [him] when he was on the ice and take note of him."

 

[Tapu Coco]

1. interesting. Bylsma's comments would indicate the opposite. he specifically said Girgensons is not a #1 center, and followed those comments by heaping some league wide praise on Larsson.

To be fair, the post you responded to indicated Girgs in a top 6 role, which could mean playing wing or 2C and still align with what Bylsma said. Re: larsson, I thought that the praise Bylsma gave him was something along the lines of the fact that he was tough to play against (EDIT: you posted it above^), and that doesn't definitively say he'll be playing in a top 6 role.
--
Regardless, I think labeling guys as 1C/2C/etc when sheltering needs to be a factor is kind of irrelevant, as there is some ambiguity on where some players fit due to a sheltering approach and bylsma will deploy them as he sees fit. We're aren't at the stage of our turnaround where roles are clearly defined. Ultimately, I think you just go with whichever of Larsson/Girgs works better with Moulson and ennis in camp if they test it out, as both lines had good stretches last season. It'll be interesting to see

 

[Jame]

To be fair, the post you responded to indicated Girgs in a top 6 role, which could mean playing wing or 2C and still align with what Bylsma said. Re: larsson, I thought that the praise Bylsma gave him was something along the lines of the fact that he was tough to play against (EDIT: you posted it above^), and that doesn't definitively say he'll be playing in a top 6 role.

that's fair.

Regardless, I think labeling guys as 1C/2C/etc when sheltering needs to be a factor is kind of irrelevant, as there is some ambiguity on where some players fit due to a sheltering approach and bylsma will deploy them as he sees fit.

agreed. I hate the terminology in general, but it's the easiest way to communicate ideas

Id much rather discuss in terms of roles/usage.

We're aren't at the stage of our turnaround where roles are clearly defined. Ultimately, I think you just go with whichever of Larsson/Girgs works better with Moulson and ennis in camp if they test it out, as both lines had good stretches last season. It'll be interesting to see

I agree again... but it's certainly one of the more interesting topics of debate. We are flush with forward talent and deep at center. It's a beautiful thing.

I posted the Moulson/Ennis splits with Girgs vs Larsson a few pages back. They were better offensively with Larsson, and SIGNIFICANTLY better defensively as well.

 

[Jame]

no more than with Girgensons, if Girgs ability makes him a potential top 6 player then Larsson's ability should give him the same status

as for next season, will anyone really be shocked if Dan Bylsma starts the season with Girgs and Larsson as the top 6 centers, we aren't even at the draft and we're gonna spend 3 pages on who will end up 1c in October, how surprised would anyone really be if Eichel and ROR are the top 2 centers, this stuff is best saved until at least we know what the training camp roster is gonna look like

you want to save roster/lineup speculation until training camp??? what the **** are we gonna talk about after the draft????

 

[OkimLom]

My thoughts on Larsson:

I think he'll be, when the season starts, as our #1 Center/#2 Center depending on how training camp goes. It will most likely will be between Girgensons and Larsson.

I like the game he plays, it's very Hecht-like where his value is in the subtle plays he makes, whether it's chipping the puck past a guy in the corner so his linemate can get it, to the very quick stick he possess when he backchecks. To me, he is the type of player I wish Hodgson was when you factor in their body types. Larsson has a lower center of gravity, he too has short legs, but his footwork is great, his acceleration is so much better and he has the two-way acumen to effective in all three zones either at wing or at center.

I'm not sold entirely on his offensive potential. I need to see more of the consistent offensive game from him before I can feel comfortable about throwing out ROR-lite comparisons.

 

[Pads of Irbe]

GirgensOns guys, GirgensOns

 

[BowieSabresFan]

1. interesting. Bylsma's comments would indicate the opposite. he specifically said Girgensons is not a #1 center, and followed those comments by heaping some league wide praise on Larsson.

2. fair enough. but im just not that type of fan. Im always going to be projecting. that's the heart of this website i'll be wrong, but not nearly as often as im right others need to wait and see Kesler or O'reilly score 50-60 points. I didn't.

We'll see about the first point. Obviously, Girgensons is not a long-term solution at #1 C. I see him more as a top 6 winger, and Larsson as a quality 3C. And, for the record, I hope Larsson become an O'Reilly. It just makes the Sabres that much better.

 

[Zman5778]

Is calling him O'reilly-lite, and stating that it looks like he could shed the "lite", going overboard?

This is Sekera redux.

I do think your first statement is a bit overboard. Calling him ROR-lite I have zero issue with. I don't think he can put up the same type of points like ROR can. I think his career high is somewhere in ROR's typical range.

Is it Sekera redux? To an extent, yes. However, I don't think that Larsson will ever earn the kind of free agent contract that Sekera's about to. So in that respect, no.

 

[FamilyGuy716]

question/choice

+Oreilly at 7 per for 8 years
-(whatever you think the cost in trade is)

or

+Larsson at 1.0 next year and then 4.0 per for the following 4 years
-(nothing)

We should see what we have in Larsson before we do anything like trading for ROR. We should have a better idea of Larsson's offensive upside knowing full well how good he already is defensively.

 

[Jame]

I do think your first statement is a bit overboard. Calling him ROR-lite I have zero issue with. I don't think he can put up the same type of points like ROR can. I think his career high is somewhere in ROR's typical range.

Is it Sekera redux? To an extent, yes. However, I don't think that Larsson will ever earn the kind of free agent contract that Sekera's about to. So in that respect, no.

fair enough.

And of course the O'reilly offensive production only comes if he gets the O'reilly like role (playing with talent like Duchene, Landy, Mackinnon in one way or another)

If Larsson's "hard to play against, strong on the puck, defensively stout" style meshes as a glue component on an Eichel line... a la Hecht w/ Briere... then I have no problem projecting O'reilly like offense.

If Larsson's future is in an equally important but less likely to produce the offense role as a shutdown center, with heavy dzone starts and away from the top offensive talent... then his offense will reflect that.

Eichel is one of the best prospects of the decade right... If Larsson is on his wing, the offense is going to be there.

Future state, using just the known long term pieces...

Larsson-Eichel-Ennis
Kane-Reinhart-xxxx
Moulson-Girgensons-xxxx

or

Larsson-Eichel-Ennis
Kane-Reinhart-Girgensons
Moulson-xxxx-xxxx

 

[Jame]

going back to Oreilly....

as a 3rd line center BEHIND Stastny and Duchene, with limited PP time, but a big PK role.... 20-30 points

As a top 6 forward WITH Duchene, or Landy or Mackinnon, with PP time,..... 50-60 points

it's gonna be similar for Larsson

 

[Push Dr Tracksuit]

going back to Oreilly....

as a 3rd line center BEHIND Stastny and Duchene, with limited PP time, but a big PK role.... 20-30 points

As a top 6 forward WITH Duchene, or Landy or Mackinnon, with PP time,..... 50-60 points

it's gonna be similar for Larsson

man 60 points out of Larsson, thats too much for me to agree to with what we've seen so far, the next Hossa? no, not yet

 

[Jame]

man 60 points out of Larsson, thats too much for me to agree to with what we've seen so far

I don't find total point plateau's to be that useful. Oreilly has been a 55 pt player for 3 of 4 seasons with one 64 pt season in the midde.

if Larsson played on Eichel's wing (or centered Eichel) through Eichel's 2nd - 5th seasons, along with some PP time... would it be absurd for him to average 50 pts (per 82) in those seasons?

He's got the complimentary possession game, the playmaking/forechecking skills, with talent... the points are just going to be there.

i mean, is 60 points really that many points? That's only Derrick Brassard points, come one

The reality is that the linemates of elite players... produce points.

 

[Sabretooth]

I posted the Moulson/Ennis splits with Girgs vs Larsson a few pages back. They were better offensively with Larsson, and SIGNIFICANTLY better defensively as well.

Thanks for the link to the stats by the way. Unfortunately, it didn't really have what I was looking for. I was looking for the game by game raw data to look at trends over time and strength of opponents and what not. I could probably spend a few hours manually going through the data on NHL.com but I don't really have that time now.

My suspicion is that the easier schedule after the trade deadline is primarily what makes Ennis and Moulson stats with Larsson look better than with Girgs. It's not a knock on Larsson, its just a smaller sample size where the team was playing better than the average of the previous ~60 games, which had ups and downs.

One of the things that would be influencing Girgs stats, but not Larsson, is the first 20-ish games where the team played its worst hockey collectively against the toughest competition. I remember Girgs and Ennis still playing well relatively during that stretch, but it would make sense that possession stats would suffer (see: Myers, Tyler). I also remember Girgs had a stretch of 10-20 games where he got cold for a bit, which would influence his stats over a still small sample size of ~60 games he played this season, but going forward may just be a blip or growing pains. I would expect Larsson to go through similar struggles over larger sample sizes against tougher opponents as well. There's also how the other roster players moved around to consider. Girgs I'm guessing was on the ice a lot with Myers and Gorges, and Larsson probably had Risto and Bogo a lot. I'm not sure how that would affect things, but my guess is the latter ended up with better possession stats.

One of the things I would be interested in seeing is something like comparing the 10-15 best "with girgs" games to the end of season "with Larsson" games, rather than an average. I just feel like the sample sizes are maybe too small and too different to make a comparison of what are essentially season average stats. The games Larsson played as top C probably aren't necessarily equivalent to the 60ish games girgs played as top C.

I feel like I should put a full disclaimer here that this is many just me spitballing going off my imperfect recollections of watching the games this year, so I don't need anyone jumping down my throat if my suspicions are incorrect. They're just the things I would be looking to confirm or disprove if I had time to look into the stats a little more. I'm not trying to argue one player over the other or anything like that, only that I'm not convinced that stats you showed us prove that Ennis and Moulson were absolutely more productive with Larsson - only that they were more productive over the last 15-20 games on average than they were the previous ~60, on average. I was certainly impressed with Larsson and I remember thinking at one point while watching the games that Larsson was providing about the same impact on the top line as Girgs was.

 

[Push Dr Tracksuit]

I don't find total point plateau's to be that useful. Oreilly has been a 55 pt player for 3 of 4 seasons with one 64 pt season in the midde.

if Larsson played on Eichel's wing (or centered Eichel) through Eichel's 2nd - 5th seasons, along with some PP time... would it be absurd for him to average 50 pts (per 82) in those seasons?

He's got the complimentary possession game, the playmaking/forechecking skills, with talent... the points are just going to be there.

I'll say this, Kunitz has 3 60 point seasons. So if Eichel is a 100+ player then all bets are off, John Scott could get into double digit goals with a 100+ point center. I'm saying that it should be considered common knowledge at this point that Larsson is going to be at the worst a very good possession player. Beyond that he will be a 23 year old with 68 NHL games played and 20 points, 14 of which were scored in his last 20 games. No one should look at that, imo, and come to any other conclusion than that he's gonna be an NHLer, and has demonstrated the potential to be a really good one.

 

[Jame]

Thanks for the link to the stats by the way. Unfortunately, it didn't really have what I was looking for. I was looking for the game by game raw data to look at trends over time and strength of opponents and what not. I could probably spend a few hours manually going through the data on NHL.com but I don't really have that time now.

welcome

My suspicion is that the easier schedule after the trade deadline is primarily what makes Ennis and Moulson stats with Larsson look better than with Girgs. It's not a knock on Larsson, its just a smaller sample size where the team was playing better than the average of the previous ~60 games, which had ups and downs.

I just don't buy this argument at all. It's an easy attempt at correlation, but it's lazy.

For example:

Ennis played 6 games against the 5 worst non buffalo teams BEFORE Larsson's promotion. In those 6 games (mostly with Girgs and Moulson) Ennis produced 3 points... all of them in 1 game vs Toronto. The other 5 games who put up 0 points.

Against those same teams, with Larsson at center, Ennis put up 9 points in 5 games.

One of the things that would be influencing Girgs stats, but not Larsson, is the first 20-ish games where the team played its worst hockey collectively against the toughest competition. I remember Girgs and Ennis still playing well relatively during that stretch, but it would make sense that possession stats would suffer (see: Myers, Tyler). I also remember Girgs had a stretch of 10-20 games where he got cold for a bit, which would influence his stats over a still small sample size of ~60 games he played this season, but going forward may just be a blip or growing pains. I would expect Larsson to go through similar struggles over larger sample sizes against tougher opponents as well. There's also how the other roster players moved around to consider. Girgs I'm guessing was on the ice a lot with Myers and Gorges, and Larsson probably had Risto and Bogo a lot. I'm not sure how that would affect things, but my guess is the latter ended up with better possession stats.

Girgensons most common defensive pairings were
Risto 31.8%
Myers 30.9%
Bogo 29.2%

Larsson got...
Risto 34.0%
Mesz 30.1%
Benoit 25.6

One of the things I would be interested in seeing is something like comparing the 10-15 best "with girgs" games to the end of season "with Larsson" games, rather than an average. I just feel like the sample sizes are maybe too small and too different to make a comparison of what are essentially season average stats. The games Larsson played as top C probably aren't necessarily equivalent to the 60ish games girgs played as top C.

I think the possession and defensive data from Larsson in 2013-14 made it clear he'd be successful in a bigger role. So it's no surprise that in his first stint in such a role he was wildly successful. Small sample? yup. But fit the profile.

I feel like I should put a full disclaimer here that this is many just me spitballing going off my imperfect recollections of watching the games this year, so I don't need anyone jumping down my throat if my suspicions are incorrect. They're just the things I would be looking to confirm or disprove if I had time to look into the stats a little more. I'm not trying to argue one player over the other or anything like that, only that I'm not convinced that stats you showed us prove that Ennis and Moulson were absolutely more productive with Larsson - only that they were more productive over the last 15-20 games on average than they were the previous ~60, on average

.

I understand that. But the fact is... they WERE absolutely more productive with Larsson. You are looking for reasons that bring more context to that production. And that's fine.

I was certainly impressed with Larsson and I remember thinking at one point while watching the games that Larsson was providing about the same impact on the top line as Girgs was.

He was providing a significantly larger impact in goals for, goals against and puck possession.

 

[Jame]

I'll say this, Kunitz has 3 60 point seasons. So if Eichel is a 100+ player then all bets are off, John Scott could get into double digit goals with a 100+ point center. I'm saying that it should be considered common knowledge at this point that Larsson is going to be at the worst a very good possession player. Beyond that he will be a 23 year old with 68 NHL games played and 20 points, 14 of which were scored in his last 20 games. No one should look at that, imo, and come to any other conclusion than that he's gonna be an NHLer, and has demonstrated the potential to be a really good one.

That's fine. Some prefer to take the conservative approach to projections. It's funny that projections are all the rage when a player is an 18 year old draft prospect... but once they start honing that talent at the pro level, we should no longer project and believe in what we see. I mean, why should anyone look at CHL production and believe that Timo Meier will be anything more than an NHLer with the potential to be really good? Boring.

Like I said before, some can spot Hecht, O'reilly and Kesler's future before they are 50-60 point players. Sean Couturier is a stud.

 

[LetsDoughBuffalo]

As someone who doesn't really look up advance stats until they are presented to me, I'm surprised that more people don't love Larsson based on the eye test alone.

He was great last year.

 

[stokes84]

As someone who doesn't really look up advance stats until they are presented to me, I'm surprised that more people don't love Larsson based on the eye test alone.

He was great last year.

You can love him without ridiculous hyperbole like calling him "last year's best forward"' and then backing it up with a "well developed eye". Most of us were very impressed with Larsson's last 20 games. James pretentiousness doesn't help his cause.

 

[Push Dr Tracksuit]

Like I said before, some can spot Hecht, O'reilly and Kesler's future before they are 50-60 point players. Sean Couturier is a stud.

The experts don't nail these things every time, forgive me if I don't take the posts of an internet GM as gospel. That Couturier prediction, wow that's quite a limb to be on.