The Paul Maurice Pitchfork Thread (MOD Warning Post #1)
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FrolikFan67
Registered User
- Apr 29, 2012
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I think we have to come to grips that ultimately this isn’t a good team/roster. Let’s see last years roster and we’ll highlight the players who changed:
Verhaeghe-Barkov-Duclair
Huberdeau-Bennett-Tippett/Giroux
Marchment-Lundell-Reinhart
Lomberg-Luostarinen-Hornqvist
Weegar-Ekblad
Forsling-Gudas
Carlsson/Chiarot-Montour
We were losing Marchment and Giroux due to salary increases. Those were set in stone (Barkov and Verhaeghe). I’m not going to assume retaining Marchment would’ve been as easy as buying out horn. If it were for one more year? Sure, maybe. But I was expecting him to get a Duclair level deal (3mil x 3yrs) instead he ended up getting 4.5per x 4yrs. You have to look beyond just this season and moving out horn via a buyout, which still wouldn’t have been enough. That was clearly a gamble as his sample size was still really small. He seems to be doing good for Dallas and I wish him nothing but the best but retaining him would’ve been trickier in the longterm and I’m pretty sure that’s why I’m sure zito passed on him at those numbers.
Then Duclair gets injured, and now so has Hornqvist which may let Duclair actually play now. But we’re still missing at bare minimum half the season without a 30g 1st line player for us.
Once you make the tkachuk trade on top of all of that, it just further complicates things. Now not only are you changing one of the big cogs in the machine in Huberdeau, which imo had to be done anyways given the contract expiring soon, doing the trade was the right thing but it’s clearly not the same thing as what was in place last season. You also lose a top pairing D too.
Contract raises forcing guys out, the trade, and now injuries. Ekblads been injured and possibly a contributing factor for his lousy play. Idk what’s been up with Barkov. When you have his skill, idc what coach or system is implemented, there’s no reason for him not to be contributing more and being more impactful.
Maybe it was foolish to go all in at last years deadline, but some of this was expected and therefore why he went so hard since we weren’t going to have a similar situation for a while, if ever (short term future).
There was no running it back again. To run it back would’ve meant still no Marchment or giroux, keeping Huberdeau and weegar, not acquiring tkachuk and him going elsewhere making us either having to resign Huberdeau and/or Weegar longterm or trade them for other unknown pieces either at the deadline which would’ve been unlikely since we’d be “going for it” one last time. Either walking after the season was over and just using the money on free agents, or extending them which I don’t think would’ve been the right move. Keeping brunette. Duclair still would’ve been injured. Barkov and Ekblad possibly still getting the same injuries (who knows). A natural regression anyways. Either way, no matter how you view it, there was no “running it back” and maybe we have to accept a lot of this was inevitable for this coming season and we were still coming off the high and didn’t want to expect we’d falter and fall that much in one season. And now given the circumstances we are and we’re blinded by what last season was instead of accepting what this roster actually is at this stage. A fringe playoff team when guys are healthy and players are performing up to their standards.
I do believe that will change, next season accelerating that, as I think the future is still bright. But last year was a peak that wasn’t going to be matched or followed up on, it was always going to dip for a couple years
Verhaeghe-Barkov-Duclair
Huberdeau-Bennett-Tippett/Giroux
Marchment-Lundell-Reinhart
Lomberg-Luostarinen-Hornqvist
Weegar-Ekblad
Forsling-Gudas
Carlsson/Chiarot-Montour
We were losing Marchment and Giroux due to salary increases. Those were set in stone (Barkov and Verhaeghe). I’m not going to assume retaining Marchment would’ve been as easy as buying out horn. If it were for one more year? Sure, maybe. But I was expecting him to get a Duclair level deal (3mil x 3yrs) instead he ended up getting 4.5per x 4yrs. You have to look beyond just this season and moving out horn via a buyout, which still wouldn’t have been enough. That was clearly a gamble as his sample size was still really small. He seems to be doing good for Dallas and I wish him nothing but the best but retaining him would’ve been trickier in the longterm and I’m pretty sure that’s why I’m sure zito passed on him at those numbers.
Then Duclair gets injured, and now so has Hornqvist which may let Duclair actually play now. But we’re still missing at bare minimum half the season without a 30g 1st line player for us.
Once you make the tkachuk trade on top of all of that, it just further complicates things. Now not only are you changing one of the big cogs in the machine in Huberdeau, which imo had to be done anyways given the contract expiring soon, doing the trade was the right thing but it’s clearly not the same thing as what was in place last season. You also lose a top pairing D too.
Contract raises forcing guys out, the trade, and now injuries. Ekblads been injured and possibly a contributing factor for his lousy play. Idk what’s been up with Barkov. When you have his skill, idc what coach or system is implemented, there’s no reason for him not to be contributing more and being more impactful.
Maybe it was foolish to go all in at last years deadline, but some of this was expected and therefore why he went so hard since we weren’t going to have a similar situation for a while, if ever (short term future).
There was no running it back again. To run it back would’ve meant still no Marchment or giroux, keeping Huberdeau and weegar, not acquiring tkachuk and him going elsewhere making us either having to resign Huberdeau and/or Weegar longterm or trade them for other unknown pieces either at the deadline which would’ve been unlikely since we’d be “going for it” one last time. Either walking after the season was over and just using the money on free agents, or extending them which I don’t think would’ve been the right move. Keeping brunette. Duclair still would’ve been injured. Barkov and Ekblad possibly still getting the same injuries (who knows). A natural regression anyways. Either way, no matter how you view it, there was no “running it back” and maybe we have to accept a lot of this was inevitable for this coming season and we were still coming off the high and didn’t want to expect we’d falter and fall that much in one season. And now given the circumstances we are and we’re blinded by what last season was instead of accepting what this roster actually is at this stage. A fringe playoff team when guys are healthy and players are performing up to their standards.
I do believe that will change, next season accelerating that, as I think the future is still bright. But last year was a peak that wasn’t going to be matched or followed up on, it was always going to dip for a couple years
Last edited:
scholl
Registered User
Giroux came too late to be included when we compare rosters now and last year. Vatrano was there. Marchment, Vatrano, Lomberg and Tippett were the guys who were hungry for spots in the roster and they didn't play every game. This year that energy isn't there because there is no fight for roster spots.
We knew that Luostarinen is better than 4C. Obviously he moved up. Otherwise when we take a look at the players that you highlighted and add Vatrano, goalscorers are missing now. They added cheap players like White and Cousins with no potential and don't let prospects like Denisenko play. A successful team needs young players with low salaries who learn quickly. A successful team also needs chemistry between players. That is missing too now. There are no pairings or lines that work very well.
In my opinion after a while players don't learn in AHL but learn when they see what leaders do in training every day. Without a taxi squad this year, the roster size should be 23 all the time. Zito should have made cap space to make it possible. That would mean 14 offensive skaters which would allow E. Staal to rest some games and give Denisenko or Levtchi chances to show what they have. That doesn't make it 100% sure that there would be a player in the roster who could score goals like Duclair or Tippett (this year) or Marchment but now they aren't even trying. Current playoff hockey style is about battling, not about being a goalscoring machine.
austropanther
Registered User
Btw we are the team that has taken and drawn the most penalties of all teams. For a team that sucks at special teams, not the most convenient thing. One of the only things PoMo is right about that we are not disciplined enough
Felidae
Registered User
- Sep 30, 2016
- 11,875
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Idk, I find it pretty entertaining and I'm pretty sure it's just a trolljob by Tkachukspestcontrol to annoy and anger the main board, in honor of the man himself.
BB88
Registered User
- Jan 19, 2015
- 41,401
- 21,742
There’s no excuses for this team to be with Montreal in the standings halfway through the season.
Barkov/Tkachuk/Bennett/Lundell/Reinhart/Verhaeghe.
There’s ton of high end talent on offense
panthersdu67
Registered User
- Oct 5, 2019
- 158
- 221
I think there are too many "aggravating" circumstances around PoMo for Zito to consider pulling the plug on him anytime this season : cap hell situation, injuries and illnesses, stretches of really bad goal tending etc. Maybe he is starting to have some doubts, but he's probably thinking that PoMo hasn't yet had the chance to demonstrate what he is "capable" of under normal circumstances. If he's really smart I guess he probably laid out a "worst case scenario" type season (looking like what we're witnessing) in front of ownership sometime in the off season, explaining how this season could end up only being a down year before next year that will see the Panthers be competitive again. In this case, the chances of PoMo getting fired are even slimmer. And he might even get another year behind the bench. In which case, buckle up folks, cause the ride is going to be rough !
FrolikFan67
Registered User
- Apr 29, 2012
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Tkachuk and Verhaeghe have performed. Reinhart’s been better. Lundell has 1 solid rookie season on the 3rd pairing but it wasn’t out of this world, he hasn’t earned the benefit of the doubt just yet. He’s been completely irrelevant, I feel Lomberg and cousins impact more than his this season. But even with him aside I agree that if Barkov and Ekblad were both their usual self then we’d certainly be better than what we are now. My main point was mostly that this isn’t the same team as last year and was never going to be. We get so clouded by how amazing last year was that we assume we’d be at least relatively close to that regardless of the changes. We’re probably a couple wins below what we should be, but they’re showing what the team currently is this season, a fringe wild card team and even that isn’t a given. But to assume anything close to last season is showing to have been foolish thinking, myself included
zeroG
Registered User
i've enjoyed your reasonable takes in this thread. this is a nice 40k foot view.
i'm also unattached to maurice and don't care if they let him go but i also agree that it's not going to make a difference. and zito and ownership know that.
maurice is a reasonable, veteran coach and i still believe he can be successful in FLA. realistically, the only way he's going to be fired is if the team completely collapses and we see a long losing streak. unfortunately for most in this thread, i think the team is too good for that to happen.
so... i think we'll sputter through the season. maybe duke will come back and bring a spark. maybe ek will heal up and return to form. either way, i don't think maurice is going anywhere. and he probably shouldn't.
ScottyMascotty
Registered User
- Oct 7, 2006
- 6,058
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I think models are definitely useful, but I also think when a model can't explain something that's pretty obvious, like the team is actually playing bad, then it's the model that may be broken...
For example, they won't capture things like bad goaltending, bad finishing by the big guns, "high danger" chances by subpar players that can't finish.
It's like the playoff project by Dom giving the Panthers still a 37% chance to make playoffs. Pretty sure that's based on players like Ekblad, Barkov, Lundell, etc. performing like they should, which hasn't happened and I'm not that confident will change a lot, then add in inconsistent goaltending. I don't think our actual playoff chance is 37%....
ScottyMascotty
Registered User
- Oct 7, 2006
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What I mean is they can't capture why they aren't finishing well and then incorporate that into the model real-time. I doubt they even capture that they haven't been finishing well recently, and that could change the future expectations. The models are more based on mean regression back to maybe some career or league average, which I think makes sense most of the time, but there are cases when teams/players just aren't finishing as well as they should (or vice versa), and it's not just something that might mean revert, at least not in-season.
Take Bo Horvat as an example. He's on fire this year, shooting at 24%, way way above his career average of 14% and the league average of 10%. Is that actually sustainable? Probably not, but how much he should mean revert doesn't really get captured. Should it just be based on career average? I dunno because based on what he's said, Horvat's changed his stick and worked with Oates in the off-season, and that's had a big impact on how he's played his game differently.
TheImpatientPanther
Registered User
@ScottyMascotty what are the defensive numbers from last year VS this year in terms of HDCA? xGA?
Feel like goaltending isn't as consistent which may explain some of the unexplainable?
Feel like goaltending isn't as consistent which may explain some of the unexplainable?
TheImpatientPanther
Registered User
Eye test confirms goaltending and special teams, backed by numbers in this article.
We improved from 31st in HDCA to 15th but goaltending is subpar and special teams (especially PK) is killing us.
ca.news.yahoo.com
We improved from 31st in HDCA to 15th but goaltending is subpar and special teams (especially PK) is killing us.
How the Panthers went from Cup contenders to playoff pretenders so quickly
Months after setting franchise records in wins and points en route to the Presidents' Trophy, Florida is trudging through a historically bad encore season.
ca.news.yahoo.com
ScottyMascotty
Registered User
Probably the same. HDCA/60 in all situations is 12.29 this season compared to 12.15 last year, according to Naturalstattrick.
ScottyMascotty
Registered User
ScottyMascotty
Registered User
ScottyMascotty
Registered User
The thing is, finishing is quite unstable, and bad stretches can always happen, but strong underperformance on finishing over long time is a rare anomaly.
Moneypuck has a feature named "shooting talent" which is calculated by how player historically has been scoring compared with his ixG. There are some players that tend to always outperform their expected goals, and some are the opposite, so you can see "shooting talent adjusted expected goals" and "goals above shooting talent".
Compared with the players "shooting talent", team is currently underperforming on finishing by nearly 25 goals in all situations according to Moneypuck.
letsgrowcactus
Registered User
- Jan 21, 2017
- 4,794
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Borrowing from here:
"At the halfway point, the Panthers are 15th in the NHL in goals forced (3.22), scoring nearly a full goal per game less than last season (4.11). The Cats have the 10th-worst goals allowed average (3.41), almost a half a goal per game more than last season (2.95). The powerplay is 20.3% effective, 22nd in the league, four percent worse than last season (24.4%). The penalty kill is also 22nd at 75%, nearly five percentage points worse than a year ago (79.5%).
The Panthers are in the worse half of the league in team face-off percentage, hits, blocked shots, giveaways, takeaways, shooting percentage, and missed shots. They have taken the most penalties in the NHL. The most minor penalties, by a long shot, with the second most misconducts.
If you like shots and don't care about the quality of shots or the amount of shots that lead to goals, then this is the team for you. The 5-on-5 possession numbers are good, but not as good as those first 13 games."
Playoff-style hockey FTW.
"At the halfway point, the Panthers are 15th in the NHL in goals forced (3.22), scoring nearly a full goal per game less than last season (4.11). The Cats have the 10th-worst goals allowed average (3.41), almost a half a goal per game more than last season (2.95). The powerplay is 20.3% effective, 22nd in the league, four percent worse than last season (24.4%). The penalty kill is also 22nd at 75%, nearly five percentage points worse than a year ago (79.5%).
The Panthers are in the worse half of the league in team face-off percentage, hits, blocked shots, giveaways, takeaways, shooting percentage, and missed shots. They have taken the most penalties in the NHL. The most minor penalties, by a long shot, with the second most misconducts.
If you like shots and don't care about the quality of shots or the amount of shots that lead to goals, then this is the team for you. The 5-on-5 possession numbers are good, but not as good as those first 13 games."
Playoff-style hockey FTW.
PanthersHockey1
South by Southeast
There’s lots of graphics and math in this thread and I don’t need anything to tell me they’re playing with garbage systems, no heart and getting what I consider to be unacceptable goaltending and defense.
austropanther
Registered User
At the 41 games mark: If PIT wins their next 2 games , they will be in the last wild card spot with 50 points, on pace for 100 points this season.
With us at 40 points, we would need a winning percentage of 0.75 out of our last 41 games (or 30 wins in 41 games) to even catch them. This means we would have to be better than last year where we were at an overall points percentage of 0.744. Never going to happen.
I hate to say it folks, but this season is over. And the only rational quick response you can show to this kind of misery without dismantling the whole Presidents' Trophy winning team is chopping off the head coach. I honestly think that this road trip is the make-or-break ultimatum for PoMo. Otherwise, we really have to question Zito's decision making since this should be the last foot of leash PoMo should receive. If we beat COL and VGK, I am afraid PoMo will be allowed to continue messing us up.
With us at 40 points, we would need a winning percentage of 0.75 out of our last 41 games (or 30 wins in 41 games) to even catch them. This means we would have to be better than last year where we were at an overall points percentage of 0.744. Never going to happen.
I hate to say it folks, but this season is over. And the only rational quick response you can show to this kind of misery without dismantling the whole Presidents' Trophy winning team is chopping off the head coach. I honestly think that this road trip is the make-or-break ultimatum for PoMo. Otherwise, we really have to question Zito's decision making since this should be the last foot of leash PoMo should receive. If we beat COL and VGK, I am afraid PoMo will be allowed to continue messing us up.
On the other hand there are consequences to signing coaches (or players) to multi year deals then ditching them after a few months.
In the chance a desirable coach is available, will they cross Florida off their list because we won’t give a coach a chance to get themselves out of a hole? Why would someone (of stature) come here if a slow start to the year means they may be gone?
- Mar 21, 2006
- 13,322
- 11,788
For the sake of next season, for the sake of waking Zito up, for the sake of this team’s future, we should hope for L’s in the next two games.
(Interestingly, “pomo” means boss in Finnish. But PoMo is Canadian, and he’s definitely not the boss.)
I have thought about this and I think the answer is simple. Because the next coach will believe he’s way better than Mo. He will believe that the reason this team sucks is because the coach sucks. They all have huge egos, so it won’t be a hard sell.
- Oct 7, 2006
- 6,058
- 8,147
With the team mostly healthy now, there's really no more excuses coming out of the holidays. I was hoping with some health, the team would actually step up and play better. Fact is, blame lies across coaches and players, especially our top guys. We can't get rid of the top guys for an assortment of reasons, but we can fire the coach.
