WC: Team Slovakia

[TheGoldenJet]

None of your statements are true.

Way to start off with a false statement.

Slovakia would not in any way be clear favorites in a match up against Latvia.

Wrong again. See Elvs’ post on the previous page which shows official oddsmaker odds of winning.

 

[SoundAndFury]

Well, is he (Ciliak) really so bad? Thought he had some good moments last year.

Well, he has been pretty consistently mediocre goalie throughout his career. He isn't *so* bad but he is nowhere near top-8 starting goalies in the WC which makes him a weak spot on a team trying to get to QF. Same with Slovan who signed him just because he's Slovak, I assume.

Just the fact that he is being gifted all those opportunities for no real merit makes me not like him slightly.

 

[Retroglyphs]

Well, he has been pretty consistently mediocre goalie throughout his career. He isn't *so* bad but he is nowhere near top-8 starting goalies in the WC which makes him a weak spot on a team trying to get to QF. Same with Slovan who signed him just because he's Slovak, I assume.

Just the fact that he is being gifted all those opportunities for no real merit makes me not like him slightly.

Thank god you guys at least have a good defense. For us germans it's a bit the other way around.

 

[flemo]

Same with Slovan who signed him just because he's Slovak, I assume.

Or maybe Slovan had a problem to sign any goalie. Everyone knows about money problems.
However, he was pretty good lately in Brno.

 

[stastny12]

Well, is he (Ciliak) really so bad? Thought he had some good moments last year.

He is not bad. But some people are a bit angry that he is taking minutes more talented goalies like Godla and Rybár (or maybe Húska, Hrenak too)...

 

[stastny12]

Like 10 to 20 years. (I'm not trying to be sarcastic, just realistic.)

Sky is the limit. Everything is possible. Damn, just check the yesterday's Liverpool game. They beat freakin Barcelona four zero. Like I said, everything is possible. To be always optimistic is the key.

 

[SoundAndFury]

Or maybe Slovan had a problem to sign any goalie. Everyone knows about money problems. However, he was pretty good lately in Brno.

I don't think Ciliak played for free either. And they had Stepanek signed, they could have signed some kind of moderately priced backup and be good with money in their pocket.

 

[KendoYanar]

Okay thanks for answers. So do you think Rybar will start against USA?

 

[stastny12]

Okay thanks for answers. So do you think Rybar will start against USA?

Yes, no debate about it. He want to show his best against Blashill(which could be his Coach next season).

 

[Lexus]

Slovakia with this guy, can't do no wrong.

 

[Faterson]

Sky is the limit. Everything is possible. Damn, just check the yesterday's Liverpool game. They beat freakin Barcelona four zero. Like I said, everything is possible. To be always optimistic is the key.

If you live in a dilapidated country like Slovakia, there's little reason to be optimistic about anything, because you might just wind up dead.

Basically nothing works in this country, and everything is a mess – so why should hockey, out of all things, work as it should? It would be very surprising, illogical, and out of the ordinary to see that.

Yeah, "flash in the pan" happens sometimes (as it did for us in 2000 or 2012 at the World Championships), but as they say, "you need to work hard to create your luck".

I don't think we work hard, as a rule. We're a nation who basically doesn't give a damn about anything. We just want to take it easy our whole lives long, and we expect everything to fall into our laps for free. Not a good mindset to succeed in any game, including hockey, or in life in general. And the country looks and works (or fails to work) accordingly.

 

[lostinwarsaw]

If you live in a dilapidated country like Slovakia, there's little reason to be optimistic about anything, because you might just wind up dead.

Basically nothing works in this country, and everything is a mess – so why should hockey, out of all things, work as it should? It would be very surprising, illogical, and out of the ordinary to see that.

Yeah, "flash in the pan" happens sometimes (as it did for us in 2000 or 2012 at the World Championships), but as they say, "you need to work hard to create your luck".

I don't think we work hard, as a rule. We're a nation who basically doesn't give a damn about anything. We just want to take it easy our whole lives long, and we expect everything to fall into our laps for free. Not a good mindset to succeed in any game, including hockey, or in life in general. And the country looks and works (or fails to work) accordingly.

Maybe the Hungarians can whip us into shape, let them control again.

 

[mirec04]

It's great that you feel things, but if we collect and gather all the data regarding productivity of the top 12 Latvian and the top 12 Slovakian forwards using their 2018/19 PPG numbers and then convert them to NHL point equivalency, this is what you get:
1st line Latvia 0.46 NHLe vs. 0.48 NHLe 1st line Slovakia
2nd line Latvia 0.32 NHLe vs. 0.27 NHLe 2nd line Slovakia
3nd line Latvia 0.35 NHLe vs. 0.22 NHLe 3rd line Slovakia

The Latvian 4th line is roughly the same as yours, except for 0.63 PPG Bondra. I have no idea what's he doing in this lineup at all, Latvian B/C team forwards have managed to get 0.50 PPG in Slovakia.

Basically, it turns out we're actually a little better offensively, we have a significantly deeper bottom 6.

I also noticed a very strong selection bias in favor of some players based in your domestic league. There's a guy on your 2nd or 3rd line wing who was a Swedish 3rd division player last season and didn't manage to record any points in Allsvenskan. This season he's been productive in Slovakia, but since the level of your league has dropped so much, you might have a player selection problem with your GM still living in the past.

As for goalies, there's this thing called statistical variance. The expected SVS% doesn't change game by game. A better goalie is a better goalie.

I didn't want to react but I have to. There are so much nonsenses you produced in this post..
Comparing teams based only on statistics from different leagues is totally wrong way. You are not taking into account many things including team chemistry, systems the teams are playing if they are too defensive or offensive etc..
When talking about quality of leagues and claiming that one player produced nothing in one lower league and is a star in Slovak 1st league is big nonsense and tells us little about the quality of these leagues and the mentioned player.

1. Lantosi played in Division1 2 seasons ago, in Allsvenskan 3 years ago!
2. last season he already played in Slovak league and could produce only 17 points in 55 games! this season he produced 68 points in 74 games, he got the chance in the first 2 lines and took it very well, he made big progress- so you totally don't consider player's development through seasons,
3. you don't know whether player had some health issues during past, problems in family, low self confidence, you don't know which role he has at the team he was playing etc.

You only took one player and made him automatically not good enough based on his statistics from the past... I need to laugh at it.
But ok I will give you another such example, Michal Kristof played in the same club as Robert Lantosi last season, he had only slightly better statistics. He had very solid Olympic as well Championship.
After last season he moved to Liiga and established himself very well. What does it say based on your logic?
Btw. the hockey experts in our country claim that the quality of Slovak league has improved in the last 2-3 years but still we are miles away from the top leagues in Europe.

 

[hellwar9]

Yes, our league has really gone up in last 2-3 years and our league is good for younger players who are starting a european career, it's such a middle station to a better league (SHL, Liiga, Tipsport Extraliga...). So Lantosi after this season and world championship MAYBE go to finnish Liiga or swedish SHL. His skating is really good and i think he can improve even more, for example, Kristof last season.

 

[slovakiasnextone]

And if we want to judge Lantosi on his past seasons, it needs to be noted that he was consistently a very good player for the Slovak junior national teams throughout his career, better than his league stats indicated.

 

[BigBadBoar]

And if we want to judge Lantosi on his past seasons, it needs to be noted that he was consistently a very good player for the Slovak junior national teams throughout his career, better than his league stats indicated.

Lantosi is a tremendous skater and he will be a very valuable guy for the Slovak team. I expect him, Studenič and Krištof to be among the pleasant surprises of the tournament.

 

[777]

Any idea of PP lines? I wonder if Cernak will be on the top unit, I think he is going to be a really nice dman.

Is there a lot of buzz in Bratislava and Košice? Curious what the crowd will be like.

 

[Namejs]

I didn't want to react but I have to. There are so much nonsenses you produced in this post..
Comparing teams based only on statistics from different leagues is totally wrong way. You are not taking into account many things including team chemistry, systems the teams are playing if they are too defensive or offensive etc..
When talking about quality of leagues and claiming that one player produced nothing in one lower league and is a star in Slovak 1st league is big nonsense and tells us little about the quality of these leagues and the mentioned player.

1. Lantosi played in Division1 2 seasons ago, in Allsvenskan 3 years ago!
2. last season he already played in Slovak league and could produce only 17 points in 55 games! this season he produced 68 points in 74 games, he got the chance in the first 2 lines and took it very well, he made big progress- so you totally don't consider player's development through seasons,
3. you don't know whether player had some health issues during past, problems in family, low self confidence, you don't know which role he has at the team he was playing etc.

You only took one player and made him automatically not good enough based on his statistics from the past... I need to laugh at it.
But ok I will give you another such example, Michal Kristof played in the same club as Robert Lantosi last season, he had only slightly better statistics. He had very solid Olympic as well Championship.
After last season he moved to Liiga and established himself very well. What does it say based on your logic?
Btw. the hockey experts in our country claim that the quality of Slovak league has improved in the last 2-3 years but still we are miles away from the top leagues in Europe.

I actually used Lantosi's productivity only during 18/19. If I had done otherwise, the difference between the two teams would be even bigger. I assumed that his usage changed and that he has improved substantially. That's what I did with every player - only using their highest avg. productivity. Same for the 40 year old geezer, even though I should've accounted for his age. And, yes, I did use stats from their past, since I don't have any stats from the future.

As for chemistry and defensive-minded teams, do you have any suggestions how to quantify team chemistry?

All Latvian players have played with each other for years. I assume that to an extent it holds true for Slovakia.

As for defensively minded teams, the chances of every single Slovakian player playing for a low-scoring defensive team and every Latvian being on a run and gun team with 5 forwards on the ice is non-existent. On average, it shouldn't change anything substantially since the players are spread around loads of different teams.

It could be accounted for, but it would take quite a few hours of work to include that in the model and it would be a pointless excercise with little effect on the end result.

Also, those snidey comments in the brackets were just that - i was honestly surprised myself at how mediocre some of your forwards are.

 

[Elvs]

^ The 40 year old geezer scored 10 points in 7 games during last years tournament. Everyone above him in scoring race played more games. Patrick Kane, Connor McDavid, Sebastsian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen were the only forwards to end the tournament with a higher PPG ratio.

I'd quite comfortably take Tatar+Panik over Blueger and Balcers. And the gap between Darzins/Kenins/Indrasis/Abols/Dzierkals and Kristof/Dano/Nagy/Studenic/Hudacek isn't big enough to give Latvia the edge, imo. You've said it yourself, Slovakia can ice a stronger PP1 unit, and the PP is crucial for these smaller hockey nations. On defence it's not even close. Sekera and Cernak has the potential to be one of the best D pairings on any team in the tournament. And I would comfortably take the Marincin/Jaros pairing over any pairing Latvia has. A good defence also helps the transition, and thus the offense. Latvia has the clear advantage in goal, but Slovakia don't have to lean as heavily on their goaltender to win them games. The odds have Slovakia quite comfortably ahead of Germany as well, though that one is more detable. Germany has the edge up front, but on defence it's no contest and that's why the odds look like they do. I hope I've broken things down enough for you now, though I did touch on these things earlier in this thread.

I'm trying to stay on topic here, discussing Slovakias roster. The shot differential against Norway (45-17), with no Kristof or Hudacek, is encouraging. It would never have happened with the roster Slovakia had in WC last year, which was the weakest roster they've ever had probably. Still they finished 9th, just one point shy of the QF's, and was the only team to steal a point from Sweden (the eventual champions).

There's no guarantee that this year will be better. Home ice could be a disadvantage just as much as it can be an advantage, but on paper this team is clearly stronger. Last year's team had no Tatar, Panik, Dano, Hudacek, Cernak or Marincin. Jaros had not developed into an NHL defenseman, Fehervary had not developed into a SHL defenseman, Studenic had not developed into an AHL forward. They are missing Jurco, that's it. And Bakos I'd say, but management seem to disagree as they cut him from this year's roster. Imo he should have been on this team.

 

[mirec04]

I actually used Lantosi's productivity only during 18/19. If I had done otherwise, the difference between the two teams would be even bigger. I assumed that his usage changed and that he has improved substantially. That's what I did with every player - only using their highest avg. productivity. Same for the 40 year old geezer, even though I should've accounted for his age. And, yes, I did use stats from their past, since I don't have any stats from the future.

As for chemistry and defensive-minded teams, do you have any suggestions how to quantify team chemistry?

All Latvian players have played with each other for years. I assume that to an extent it holds true for Slovakia.

As for defensively minded teams, the chances of every single Slovakian player playing for a low-scoring defensive team and every Latvian being on a run and gun team with 5 forwards on the ice is non-existent. On average, it shouldn't change anything substantially since the players are spread around loads of different teams.

It could be accounted for, but it would take quite a few hours of work to include that in the model and it would be a pointless excercise with little effect on the end result.

Also, those snidey comments in the brackets were just that - i was honestly surprised myself at how mediocre some of your forwards are.

It seems you didn't understand my comment. OK I will try one more time.
The problem is the way you used your statistics and proclaimed them as a holy fact.
You can not compare player from AHL, NHL, SHL, Extraliga or Liiga with the player playing in KHL. The base comparative unit is different and so the statistics are not trustworthy, not talking about the fact that goals and assists alone do not tell us too much, even if the players would play in the same league..., better would be e.x. CORSI statistics.
But you can use them for your own fun.
IMO, statistically taken I still think we would win 6- 7 games from 10 against your current squad . Good luck to your team in Championship.

 

[kudla]

Damn Libor Hudacek won't play against USA and maybe FInland. He is ill

 

[penepi]

^ The 40 year old geezer scored 10 points in 7 games during last years tournament. Everyone above him in scoring race played more games. Patrick Kane, Connor McDavid, Sebastsian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen were the only forwards to end the tournament with a higher PPG ratio.

I'd quite comfortably take Tatar+Panik over Blueger and Balcers. And the gap between Darzins/Kenins/Indrasis/Abols/Dzierkals and Kristof/Dano/Nagy/Studenic/Hudacek isn't big enough to give Latvia the edge, imo. You've said it yourself, Slovakia can ice a stronger PP1 unit, and the PP is crucial for these smaller hockey nations. On defence it's not even close. Sekera and Cernak has the potential to be one of the best D pairings on any team in the tournament. And I would comfortably take the Marincin/Jaros pairing over any pairing Latvia has. A good defence also helps the transition, and thus the offense. Latvia has the clear advantage in goal, but Slovakia don't have to lean as heavily on their goaltender to win them games. The odds have Slovakia quite comfortably ahead of Germany as well, though that one is more detable. Germany has the edge up front, but on defence it's no contest and that's why the odds look like they do. I hope I've broken things down enough for you now, though I did touch on these things earlier in this thread.

I'm trying to stay on topic here, discussing Slovakias roster. The shot differential against Norway (45-17), with no Kristof or Hudacek, is encouraging. It would never have happened with the roster Slovakia had in WC last year, which was the weakest roster they've ever had probably. Still they finished 9th, just one point shy of the QF's, and was the only team to steal a point from Sweden (the eventual champions).

There's no guarantee that this year will be better. Home ice could be a disadvantage just as much as it can be an advantage, but on paper this team is clearly stronger. Last year's team had no Tatar, Panik, Dano, Hudacek, Cernak or Marincin. Jaros had not developed into an NHL defenseman, Fehervary had not developed into a SHL defenseman, Studenic had not developed into an AHL forward. They are missing Jurco, that's it. And Bakos I'd say, but management seem to disagree as they cut him from this year's roster. Imo he should have been on this team.

Well said.

Do you think that the omission of Halak, Chara, Cehlarik and Jurco could be a decisive factor in practical (results) terms for Slovakia in the end?

That is, for instance, if we would make the QFs with them, while now we will not. Or - in the case you believe Slovakia will reach the playoffs stage either way - if we might even make the SFs with those four, which seems unreal now.

Or the last possibility - whether that won't make any practical difference, and, except for the quality of our game, those four would not be able to have such a great impact, which would bring us 'one step forward'.

 

[stastny12]

Lineup for tomorrow:

Cernak, Sekera - Panik, Kristof, Tatar
Jaros, Marincin - Nagy, Sukel, Studenic
Fehervary, Ďaloga - Dano, Zigo, Lantosi
Koch, Cajkovsky - Bondra, Buc, Liska

Rybar in the net

 

[stv11]

This thread is here to discuss the Slovakia WC roster. Please keep it this way.

Thanks.

 

[Elvs]

Marincin may be a "bum" in the NHL. But both him and Jaros are okay top 4 defenseman at the WHC level unless you're team Sweden, team Canada or team USA. One can be a solid puck mover without racking up points. Josh Manson does small quick passes to get out of the neutral zone all the time. Cernak and Jaros are the same way. Marincin has 10 assists in his last 51 NHL games with barely any PP time.

Jaros played in Lulea before moving to the NHL, that's a 40 minute drive from where I live, and I've been able to follow his progress closely for many years.



Everything is relative. For 6/7 defensemen Marincin and Jaros have solid puck moving ability. They are not the most creative players, but they can help transition at the WHC level.

Not to mention, Sekera is an absolute beauty on the National Team. Even last year when he missed most of the season, so one can hope he can pull it off again. Clutch performer. Almost every time he plays in the World Championships he's performing like one of the best defensemen in the tournament. Slovakia looks good on defence. Sekera/Cernak has the capability to be a terrific shutdown pairing, and also contribute some offensively. There's also the alternative to play them on seperate pairings, giving the team more depth.