Speculation: What Went Wrong?

[shelbysdad]

Not sure of the cause of it but the mental errors.

Bad decisions all over, from passes, clears, bad penalties away from the play, line changes, over passing , not shooting when they have a chance... looking for perfect play.

Overthinking and not being instinctive. They play like they are mentally exhausted.

 

[bigbadbruins1]

situation is 75% upper management. Sweeney continually gets a free pass on poor drafting, middling UFA signings, and poor player development. If you really look at our team Swayman, Lohrei (meh) and Beecher are the only drafted players from Sweeney ( not counting 2015 since he took the job in may 2015) still on the roster.

That is horrid, unacceptable, and a fireable offense in its own right. His only saving grace was the aging core of Bergy, krejci, etc that kept this team afloat for so long.

That and they actually believe Marchand is a Captain. I understand the thought process, but making our only agitator player have to now play by the rules/ be a respected captain after years of debauchery is just insulting to us as fans.

 

[Raleighfern]

situation is 75% upper management. Sweeney continually gets a free pass on poor drafting, middling UFA signings, and poor player development. If you really look at our team Swayman, Lohrei (meh) and Beecher are the only drafted players from Sweeney ( not counting 2015 since he took the job in may 2015) still on the roster.

That is horrid, unacceptable, and a fireable offense in its own right. His only saving grace was the aging core of Bergy, krejci, etc that kept this team afloat for so long.

That and they actually believe Marchand is a Captain. I understand the thought process, but making our only agitator player have to now play by the rules/ be a respected captain after years of debauchery is just insulting to us as fans.

McAvoy, Frederic, Carlo, Poitras

 

[Ladyfan]

situation is 75% upper management. Sweeney continually gets a free pass on poor drafting, middling UFA signings, and poor player development. If you really look at our team Swayman, Lohrei (meh) and Beecher are the only drafted players from Sweeney ( not counting 2015 since he took the job in may 2015) still on the roster.

That is horrid, unacceptable, and a fireable offense in its own right. His only saving grace was the aging core of Bergy, krejci, etc that kept this team afloat for so long.

That and they actually believe Marchand is a Captain. I understand the thought process, but making our only agitator player have to now play by the rules/ be a respected captain after years of debauchery is just insulting to us as fans.

Brad is an excellent captain

 

[BMC]

It does, but it also makes you wonder how much of our perception is influenced by good goaltending.

Over the summer, lots of media and analysts were saying that the Bruins defense was actually bad last year, and that it was being propped up by their goalies.

To a certain extent it was. The Ullmark/Swayman tandem was just unreal that last season. We all saw how many times one of them would make a great save after a defenseman blew his assignment somehow.

 

[elMatador]

situation is 75% upper management. Sweeney continually gets a free pass on poor drafting, middling UFA signings, and poor player development. If you really look at our team Swayman, Lohrei (meh) and Beecher are the only drafted players from Sweeney ( not counting 2015 since he took the job in may 2015) still on the roster.

That is horrid, unacceptable, and a fireable offense in its own right. His only saving grace was the aging core of Bergy, krejci, etc that kept this team afloat for so long.

That and they actually believe Marchand is a Captain. I understand the thought process, but making our only agitator player have to now play by the rules/ be a respected captain after years of debauchery is just insulting to us as fans.

GM has failed the team again.

With Chara and Krug gone, there is no D replacement of the same quality.
With Bergeron and Krejci retired, there is no center replacement of the same quality.
Made the best agitator a captain, there is no agitator replacement of the same quality.

Simply, there is no succession plan at all.

 

[ON3M4N]

situation is 75% upper management. Sweeney continually gets a free pass on poor drafting, middling UFA signings, and poor player development. If you really look at our team Swayman, Lohrei (meh) and Beecher are the only drafted players from Sweeney ( not counting 2015 since he took the job in may 2015) still on the roster.

That is horrid, unacceptable, and a fireable offense in its own right. His only saving grace was the aging core of Bergy, krejci, etc that kept this team afloat for so long.

That and they actually believe Marchand is a Captain. I understand the thought process, but making our only agitator player have to now play by the rules/ be a respected captain after years of debauchery is just insulting to us as fans.

You're missing some guys that have been drafted under Sweeney. I'm not sure how we can discredit guys drafted in 2015, but then complain that Sweeney is terrible at drafting. Many consider the 2015 draft by Sweeney to be his worst draft.

I also don't know that I'd say he gets a "free pass" because there are many post on here calling out Sweeney for his drafting, signings and development of players.

 

[Dr Hook]

"Expected goals (xG) is a metric that estimates how likely a shot is to be scored based on a number of factors. It's calculated using a statistical model that assigns a probability value to each shot.

Factors considered; Distance to goal, Angle to goal, Shot type, Assist type (i.e. shots off a cross ice pass are more likely to be scored), Goalkeeper position...

How it's calculated

1. A model is used to calculate the probability of scoring based on the shot's characteristics
2. The model assigns a value between 0 and 1 to the shot
3. A shot with a value of 0.3 is likely to be scored about 3 out of every 10 times based on all shots taken in the league that meet the same criteria.

The xG metric is used to measure the quality of a chance to score. It can be used to estimate how many goals a player or team should have scored based on the shots they took. Conversely xG against is used to determine how many goals a team should have allowed based on the shots they give up."

AI is scary.

It is an interesting consideration. What I don't like about it is that it isn't actual goals. No matter how much statistical prediction is done, there are way too many factors in a fast moving game like hockey to actually assign definitive values to variables. It would actually be interesting after a season to run a simulated season based on the advanced stats and see what outcomes were produced. Maybe it has been done? Would the standings look the same? Would player production?

What bothers me about this in relation to this years Bruins xGF and xGA (?) is that the defense is not better than last season. The stat says the Bruins should have let in 17 fewer goals, but they did let those goals in. So in a model that has goaltending as worse and defense as better, where did those 17 goals come from? And if it is off that much through 2/3 of a season, what will it look like at the end? That amount of goals would nearly wipe out the negative goal differential.

Maybe worse is that it is probably being used in part by the FO to evaluate the path forward, and I hope they aren't looking at that and thinking all is actually pretty well and not a lot needs to be done in terms of change.

As always, I am willing to have my mind changed on this topic. I am a humanities guy and always somewhat of a skeptic when it comes to social science and stat-based attempts to predict human behavior