Rumor: Rumors & Proposals Thread | The Oilers Biggest Roster Need Is?

[McTonyBrar]

Pretty sure Matheson is not the guy to cover off Nurse's brain clutch moments.

Pretty sure Nurse hasn't had many of those and I'm pretty sure you'd want Mike Matheson on his right side not Troy Stecher. Kulak would be good there as well but then who stays with Emberson? Stecher? Lol

Matheson could fill that role. Plus, I don't know why you are making judgement calls on a player you barely see play. The only thing we all know is that he'd be a better fit than what we already have

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

I am also skeptical of reading too much into possession stats in a single game for a specific player. It is really too little of a sample and is easily distorted. For example, 5 vs 5 his CF% vs MacKinnon was 33%. Doesn't look too good. But that comes about from 2 CA vs 1 CF over 1:19 5 vs 5 with 1SA and 0 SF. Not much you can really gather from this. In fact most of the time Emberson faced MacKinnon it was on the pk. Moreover, if you look at the pk with MacKinnon on the ice it was CF 2 CA 9 so on the surface this does not look so great but shots were actually SF 1 SA 2 . Yet we have a claim in this thread that he got torched by MacKinnon. So maybe the eye test is just as unreliable. Where I think stats start to tell the story is over longer periods of time where patterns become much more consistent.

Personally I have been happy with Emberson.

Appreciate the insight. Regarding the assessment of Emberson's game in Colorado, the Mackinnon opinion (rhyming haha) seems to derive from an interpretation of x-stats moreso than straight eye test. The more information you posted gives a more granular accounting of the situational play with these two players on-ice together. The challenge I think often comes within the interpretation of data which can skew conclusions.

Agree Emberson has been pretty good notably once reset into third pairing responsibilities and ice-time. Solid growth to take on top pair PK responsibilities. Personally I think Knoblauch (coaching staff broadly) best decision making has been in their d-core deployment notably elevating Kulak into 2RD toi and responsibilities.

 

[Scrapin Ice]

Pretty sure Nurse hasn't had many of those and I'm pretty sure you'd want Mike Matheson on his right side not Troy Stecher. Kulak would be good there as well but then who stays with Emberson? Stecher? Lol

Matheson could fill that role. Plus, I don't know why you are making judgement calls on a player you barely see play. The only thing we all know is that he'd be a better fit than what we already have

I watch more of the Habs games than I do of the Oil. I know Matheson good and bad. Its you thats Pretending to know shit you don't and critizing without knowledge.
Matheson is not a stand up guy. Matheson's gap control against larger forwards is a circus. Matheson hardly ever wins board battle against larger forwards.

However he can transition/pass the puck out of the zone really well once he has possession. From the red line into the ozone he has excellent anticipation of who and when to get the puck to. That is a talent...a talent for the top pair but he need the right partner and Montreal has the right guy coming for him.
Reinbacher will make Matheson look so much better.

 

[bucks_oil]

I struggle with these x stats in isolation to make conclusions about individual players. As an Oiler Emberson's zone starts this season are 58.4% d-zone, 41.6% o-zone. Deployment is one critical component of game management under coaching control. Against Colorado, Emberson had second highest PK toi with 5:07 minutes, that's 26% of his total toi. Notably his short-handed zone starts this season are 93.3% d-zone, 6.7% o-zone.

Seems clear this player has coach's confidence to weight heavy defensive zone starts and to play in overwhelming PK defensive zone tilted ice. Makes sense when considering these variables that his work is in goal suppression at the cost of goal production work (xGF% and real production) better done by the Ekholm Bouchard pair matched with McDavid's elite league ice tilting in the opposition o-zone. I think advance stats have a blind spot for goal suppression players. That said Emberson came out with a point in the Colorado game. He had a couple defending wobbles notably against super elite MacKinnon but his coach was confident to roll out in critical, big PK minutes which in stopping the Ave attack was a critical part of their big win

The Utah game Emberson's game usage was carefully managed with a team defense low of 13:34 toi. Still came out of that game at +-0

A big key in this team's defense is the coaching staff managing its deployment to utilize their strengths including by comparison Bouchard's splits 73.9% o-zone, 26.1% d-zone (highest o-zone starts of his career) and Ekholm, 58.6% o-zone 41.4% d-zone. As well, Knoblauch has actively managed his middle pair deployment in game deploying Nurse and Kulak in key situations and carefully managing the ice-time of his #5=6 d-man generally around 13-14 minute toi.

I think there is a blind spot in x stats for defensive defensemen based on using xGF% as a critical measure. Important to overlay with zone start information which is active and controllable coaching function in personnel deployment in-game.

1000% agree.

It's one thing to not watch the game and pass judgement based on ANY stats.

It's entirely a different thing to not watch the game and pass judgement based on any ONE stat.

And it's simply unforgivable to look at xGoal, or even real goal stats, with a small sample size and pass judgement without: a) looking at the darn utilization stats and b) looking at least at the highlights to find out what was going on on the plays that skewed the numbers.

 

[Cloned]

Matheson is probably who Stauffer keeps referring to when he says puck mover who plays the right side but is a left shot with term.

At this point I’m expecting it to happen.

 

[McDoused]

Pretty sure Matheson is not the guy to cover off Nurse's brain clutch moments.

To Be fair those are going to happen regardless. Unless you grab a guy like Tanev, Desharnais or Gavrikov type who just stand in front of their net all game, no one can make up for those plays.

Nurse needs someone who can skate. Whenever the opposition dumps in the pack to the far corner, they need someone who can go back and get the puck in pressure and breakout the puck the other way. Nurse actually struggles with defence first stone hand types and slower partners.

 

[Cloned]

To Be fair those are going to happen regardless. Unless you grab a guy like Tanev, Desharnais or Gavrikov type who just stand in front of their net all game, no one can make up for those plays.

Nurse needs someone who can skate. Whenever the opposition dumps in the pack to the far corner, they need someone who can go back and get the puck in pressure and breakout the puck the other way. Nurse actually struggles with defence first stone hand types and slower partners.

Desharnais is probably available

 

[McTonyBrar]

I watch more of the Habs games than I do of the Oil. I know Matheson good and bad. Its you thats Pretending to know shit you don't and critizing without knowledge.
Matheson is not a stand up guy. Matheson's gap control against larger forwards is a circus. Matheson hardly ever wins board battle against larger forwards.

However he can transition/pass the puck out of the zone really well once he has possession. From the red line into the ozone he has excellent anticipation of who and when to get the puck to. That is a talent...a talent for the top pair but he need the right partner and Montreal has the right guy coming for him.
Reinbacher will make Matheson look so much better.

Okay I'm so sorry I didn't know you were a MTL fan as well. All right that's a good assessment of him. But, he would still be better than any other right side defender that the Oilers have except for Bouchard. He wouldn't be playing as much in Edmonton which could probably help him.

I don't know why you got so angry because of what I said though. It seems like you're angry or trying to argue with everyone whenever you post on here man relax.

 

[bucks_oil]

This is not a specific criticism of your post but in general I have major concerns about over valuing zone start numbers in terms of their impact on other stats. There are several factors that are most important for me in coming to this. First, the vast majority of shift stats are either on the fly or neutral zone starts. The second is that top offensive players create more ozone faceoffs. There is also the fact that bottom pairing defensemen are often used against 3rd and fourth liners in the defensive zone and those players tend not to generate a lot of shots or scoring opportunities even with offensive zone starts.

I looked around a bit and found the following article that articulates some of this:

How much do zone starts matter part II: A lot on their own, not that much in aggregate

In Part I of our review of zone starts, we looked at the how the traditional definition of zone starts varied from what most people would consider a “true” zone start, and found that when we applie…

puckplusplus.com

In fact McCurdy did a significant study on this and his analysis showed that only 5% of the players in the league would have seen more than a 1% change in their possession numbers if zone starts were adjusted out of the picture.

Now zone starts can indicate a coaches belief in a player. But I think that to do so accurately does require some additional context.

By the way if you look at a guy Bouchard he has fantastic possession numbers that are often attributed to playing with Ekholm, McDavid and Leon and to positivce zone start stats. Yet if you take these three out of the picture his possession a stats since 2022-23 are about 10 points better than the teams numbers with out any of the four on the ice with similar zone starts. In fact in almost every combination possession improves with him on the ice vs not:

Line Stats - Natural Stat Trick

Thanks for the article... I'll read it later, but I declare my a-priori skepticism.

I mean maybe over the long haul, for most players who are used in a variety of situations, it is probably true that zone starts don't matter.

But to your earlier point, if you are talking low n-size, single events are going to wildly skew your x-STATS and your real-STATS. You of course agree with that.

So then it stands to reason that if you have a role player (like a Desharnais as perhaps a better example), who is being PREFERRED by the coach in situations where no offense is expected, no offense is likely, and the key responsibility is to contain, get the puck out and get a shift change...

... well then all of those single events the skew meaning in the low n-size (situation based) scenario above, are just going to accrue disproportionately (relative to the population) as the n-size increases... No?

Desharnais, to come back to that example typically had 8% O-zone starts and 16% D-zone starts as an Oiler... sure the rest of the starts are on the fly or neutral, but when we talk about a GF% of 45:55 being "bad" and 60:40 being "elite", those disproportionate zone starts certainly have potential to skew it a bit... and when you start to talk about xSTATS, I expect they would skew even more (this based on my general bias that they don't yet do a great job of discerning true chance quality)... I mean, even with weighting, any shot against hurts your xSTATS and if your job is to "get it out and get off" twice as often as it is to pin the opponent in the o-zone, your stats will suffer.

If a typical NHL shift were long enough to ensure that each shift has some balance of O-zone vs D-zone, I'd be inclined to agree with you... but that's not always true and certainly isn't true for situational utilization.

 

[McTonyBrar]

Matheson is probably who Stauffer keeps referring to when he says puck mover who plays the right side but is a left shot with term.

At this point I’m expecting it to happen.

I sincerely hope you're right. The only thing that's odd is why we haven't tried to pull the trigger now

 

[Cloned]

If both are available I wouldn’t be surprised if the Oilers went all in and traded for Matheson and Montembault.

 

[Jimmi McJenkins]

If both are available I wouldn’t be surprised if the Oilers went all in and traded for Matheson and Montembault.

That would sure be interesting and makes some sense. Do you think Skinner goes the other way or Pickard instead?

I sincerely hope you're right. The only thing that's odd is why we haven't tried to pull the trigger now

Probably ALOT of back and forth on the price, retentions, etc. I agree though, get it done.

 

[Old Boys Club]

If the best options out there are EK65, Matheson, or Murphy...

 

[Jimmi McJenkins]

If the best options out there are EK65, Matheson, or Murphy...

??? Really? Did you want Makar? He's not available.

 

[Cloned]

That would sure be interesting and makes some sense. Do you think Skinner goes the other way or Pickard instead?


Probably ALOT of back and forth on the price, retentions, etc. I agree though, get it done.

Probably something like Skinner, Skinner, Akey, 1st, 2nd. Maybe another prospect too.

 

[Old Boys Club]

??? Really? Did you want Makar? He's not available.

I want a Dman capable of playing top 4 minutes on a playoff blueline, something I don't think any of those 3 are capable of.

 

[McDNicks17]

Speaking of Connor Murphy…

 

[CanadasTeam99]

They still fine for this?

Edmonton Oilers forward Jeff Skinner has been fined US$2,000 for embellishment during a recent game against the New York Rangers, the NHL said Monday.

 

[Mcnotloilersfan]

I want a Dman capable of playing top 4 minutes on a playoff blueline, something I don't think any of those 3 are capable of.

I think Matheson is perfectly capable of that. I watched him closely in the Habs game this year. Guy was making smart plays all night. Always in the right position.

 

[GhostfaceWu]

It’s good but it’s half of what he had the year before and he makes over 10 million. He doesn’t really bring anything but offfense and for that dollar figure he needs to be PPG + to make that cap hit worthwhile.

The whole premise is that he'd be retained down to 5 million if you don't think he's worth that caphit than you aren't thinking logically.

 

[Slats432]

Desharnais is probably available

Do you think they would retain half?

 

[Jimmi McJenkins]

I want a Dman capable of playing top 4 minutes on a playoff blueline, something I don't think any of those 3 are capable of.

They all absolutely are, without question, that's not even in discussion.

Speaking of Connor Murphy…

I don't really like Connor Murphy, so fine, but Zub is on all 3 of those lists and I take him all day everyday.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

Thanks for the article... I'll read it later, but I declare my a-priori skepticism.

I mean maybe over the long haul, for most players who are used in a variety of situations, it is probably true that zone starts don't matter.

But to your earlier point, if you are talking low n-size, single events are going to wildly skew your x-STATS and your real-STATS. You of course agree with that.

So then it stands to reason that if you have a role player (like a Desharnais as perhaps a better example), who is being PREFERRED by the coach in situations where no offense is expected, no offense is likely, and the key responsibility is to contain, get the puck out and get a shift change...

... well then all of those single events the skew meaning in the low n-size (situation based) scenario above, are just going to accrue disproportionately (relative to the population) as the n-size increases... No?

Desharnais, to come back to that example typically had 8% O-zone starts and 16% D-zone starts as an Oiler... sure the rest of the starts are on the fly or neutral, but when we talk about a GF% of 45:55 being "bad" and 60:40 being "elite", those disproportionate zone starts certainly have potential to skew it a bit... and when you start to talk about xSTATS, I expect they would skew even more (this based on my general bias that they don't yet do a great job of discerning true chance quality)... I mean, even with weighting, any shot against hurts your xSTATS and if your job is to "get it out and get off" twice as often as it is to pin the opponent in the o-zone, your stats will suffer.

If a typical NHL shift were long enough to ensure that each shift has some balance of O-zone vs D-zone, I'd be inclined to agree with you... but that's not always true and certainly isn't true for situational utilization.

Appreciate your post. I think what I struggled with is not the value of additional data and its help to give greater insight into team and individual performance, it is valuable in the right hands. More so I have trouble with how some people interpret the information to drive conclusions that I think are incomplete or inaccurate.

Long post, but last year I questioned an advance stats based case was made that Borgen was a much better defenseman than Larsson. There was a clear personal bias involved with the players involved (diminishing Larsson). This didn't smell right to my eye test (mixed metaphor aside haha) and I thought it would be helpful to do a deep dive on their ice-time, situational play, and ultimately largely inconsequential salary difference.

I have confidence when a math expert like @Fourier uses information but feel conclusions are often made by some using incomplete, limited data. The challenge is to discern what is the fulsome 'truth'. In Larsson's case, I think there's an example where a quality goal suppression d-man gets nicked by some x-stats that bias toward offensive measures.

Looking robustly at alot of information I don't think the advance stat x-results based interpretation held up to the reality of these two players deployment and situational usage.


Seattle Team: -19 Goal Share
9th fewest goals allowed
29th goals scored

Larsson
Toi (avg): 22:57
Toi (high game): 29:52 Shoot Out Loss to St. Louis (10.14.2023) 0+/-. 18 games over 25:00 toi. (-4)
Toi (total minutes): 1858.6
Toil breakdown: Even: 1607 Short-handed: 235.7. PP: 15.9. 5 on 5: 1529 . 5 on 5 Close: 1529 5 on 5 Tied: 1529
On-Ice Goals Against/60: 2.2
Zone Starts: 57.2 OZ. DZ
Points: 18/81 games
+/-: +6
Salary: $4,000,000


Borgen
Toi (avg): 17:35
Toi (high game): 22:51 Loss to Pittsburgh (1.15.2024) 0+/- . 11 games over 20:00 toi. (-3)
Toi (total minutes): 1442.
Toil breakdown: Even: 1294. Short-handed: 115.7. PP: 3.1. 5 on 5: 1294. 5 on 5 Close: 1294 5 on 5 Tied: 1294
On-Ice Goals Against/60: 3.0
Zone Starts: 34.6 OZ. 65.4 DZ
Points: 25/82 games
+/-: -5
Salary: $2,700,000

Net Comparison:
Toi(avg): Larsson plays 5:22 more per game
Toi (high game):
Larsson 29:52 Shoot Out Loss to St. Louis (10.14.2023) 0+/-. 18 games over 25:00 toi. (-4)
Borgen: 22:51 Loss to Pittsburgh (1.15.2024) 0+/- . 11 games over 20:00 toi. (-3)
Toi (total minutes): Larsson plays 416.6 more total minutes last season (Equivalent to 6.9 NHL Games)
Toil breakdown: Larsson plays more in all situations Even: 313 Short-handed: 120. PP: 112.8. 5 on 5: 235 . 5 on 5 Close: 235 5 on 5 Tied: 235
Points: Borgen outproduces with 7 more points
+/-: Larsson has an 11 net spread
Salary: Larsson and Borgen difference is $1,300,000

 

[McDoused]

Speaking of Connor Murphy…

I didn't realize zub was this slow. Never striked me as a burner but I guess he's just that good positionally that he doesn't need to be.

 

[McTonyBrar]

If the best options out there are EK65, Matheson, or Murphy...

Lol well who were you expecting on the market? Slavin? lol

I want a Dman capable of playing top 4 minutes on a playoff blueline, something I don't think any of those 3 are capable of.

Matheson is a top 4 Dman.... How are so many of you guys underrating this guy because of what Habs fans are saying?