Player Discussion: Winnipeg Jets Defense

[Mortimer Snerd]

Kovacevic was lost because our right side was

Demelo
Pionk
Schmidt

All gad at laeast 3 yeara of term at the time Kova was placed on waivers. Had nothing to do with Stanley

No, he was lost because they acquired Schmidt instead of going with Kovacevic. That lead to losing Kova to waivers a year later.

At the time Kova was waived they would have been better off waiving Schmidt. No one would have picked up that contract but they would have been able to bury more than Kova's contract cost.

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

It doesn't matter now bro. Before it was Pionk, but Pionk isn't playing bad, in fact he is playing good. Stanley's advanced stats aren't even the worst. De Melo is so far down there and getting beat regularly now, but Stanley is the reason why the Jets are in this tailspin, even when he isn't in the lineup. Because the Jets are being outchanced with him on the ice. And as we all know xGoals matter. Because they predict how bad a player is likely to suck. What's the Jets PK with Stanley in the lineup? If the Jets win on special teams like they did early in the season, they win more than they lose.

There is a generally disdain for the Stuart/Chiarot/Stanley type of defenseman in this lineup. Always has been. And a genuine love for the PMD Niku/Chisholm/Heinola types as the way to win. I think Tampa, Vegas and Florida are recent examples of bigger defenses winning, with some good skaters to insulate them.

So I agree with Low Lefty, that it's a mindset the team has. So far Stanley hasn't replaced Dillon, and Dillon is doing just fine with a good team.

There's probably a lot of players Chevy would covet in free agency or in a trade as an upgrade, but the amount of good physical d-men available to Winnipeg on the market is likely marginally slim.

Except that you are ignoring the fact that Stanley isn't a good physical Dman, though he is getting better at playing a physical game. Jets PK is better without Stanley than with him, based on nothing prefixed with an X. Actual GF - actual GA.

Tampa, Florida, Vegas did it with bigger defenses that could skate.

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

Who plays the PK on the left side, Morrissey, or Heinola? Jets PK is up to 11th in the league after a pretty rocky start, I still think there is some consideration there.

Can Heinola kill penalties? Because with Samberg out that's the role. Can Miller kill penalties regularly, maybe with Pionk on his offside like they had to in Dallas with all the d-men going to the box? Maybe worth a look, especially if Ville can make the PP work better, in Ehlers absence.

I'll say this: penalty killing in a league where guys can whip the puck is not a fun role. Samberg is down with a shot block. De Melo might be banged up blocking shots. Lundmark went down in preseason taking one off the foot. And isnt playing right now for likely the same reason. JAD broke his foot. I think guys like Beaulieu and Sbisa were decent enough skaters early in their career but you break your feet enough times there is nothing left to skate on. Imagine telling your parents you want to play hockey, and all the skill that it takes to make it to the next level, and your career is basically a pain threshhold at a certain point.

I'll qualify that I am not the coach. This is not a fun time to be the coach.

You talk an awful lot about special teams - almost as if there was nothing else - almost. You are not entirely wrong. The parity at 5v5 is such that ST are very often the only real difference between wins and losses, or ST and goaltending.

During our 17-3 start our PP was extremely good, unsustainably good. Our PK was just OK but IIRC we didn't take as many penalties as we drew. So our ST were a pretty big +. We had the goaltending.

PK doesn't require particularly high skill. Anyone with the guts to stand in front of 90+ mph shots can learn to do it. That eliminates quite a few right there though. But you don't want to be losing your most skilled players to shot blocking injuries.

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

Because they had no idea what they had in kovacevic. At the time, nobody knew how kova would turn out. He could have ended up worse than Stanley at the NHL level. Revisionist history isn't the same as rewriting history

Imagine you've been dating someone for a couple of months. Things are good, you're getting along fine. Another person comes along and you have a nice chat over coffee. Maybe you'd hit it off if you got together, maybe not

Do you dump the person you've been with for two months to find out?

When Kova was waived Jets had had him for 5 years since drafting him. That is more than a chat over a cup of coffee. Stanley was drafted 1 year earlier and his lead in NHL experience was enough to be able to see that he did not have it. It is the old pattern of taking known bad over unknown might be bad but also might be good.

Kovacevic's performance in NCAA and AHL was better than Stanley's performance in Jr and AHL. Everything pointed to him being better - and a RHS.

 

[Buffdog]

When Kova was waived Jets had had him for 5 years since drafting him. That is more than a chat over a cup of coffee. Stanley was drafted 1 year earlier and his lead in NHL experience was enough to be able to see that he did not have it. It is the old pattern of taking known bad over unknown might be bad but also might be good.

Kovacevic's performance in NCAA and AHL was better than Stanley's performance in Jr and AHL. Everything pointed to him being better - and a RHS.

Why does everyone bring up Stanley when talking about Kovacevic? They play two different positions, and the depth chart for both of those positions looked differently at differnet times during their respective development paths (which as you noted, were staggered)

 

[Buffdog]

No, he was lost because they acquired Schmidt instead of going with Kovacevic. That lead to losing Kova to waivers a year later.

At the time Kova was waived they would have been better off waiving Schmidt. No one would have picked up that contract but they would have been able to bury more than Kova's contract cost.

When Schmidt was aquired in the summer of 2021, Kovacevic had zero NHL experience and only 75 games in the AHL. Are you saying that he was ready for full time NHL minutes at that point?

Juat for fun, I went back and read the first dozen or so pages of the Nate Schmidt acquisition thread.

There were some hilarious takes (one poster wanted to use the acquisition as an opportunity to "dump" JoMo lol), but there was absolutely ZERO posts saying "we don't need him because we have Jonathan Kovacevc who is NHL ready after less than a full season with the Moose".

In fact, everyone was super pumped by the trade

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

Man, you juat won't quit

They waived Kovacevic becaue they had 3 vets on the right side and he had no chance of cracking the line up for 3 years, unless someone went down in injury

Left side was (going into the 2022-23 season)

Jomo
Dillon
Samberg (15 games NHL experience at that point)
Stanley

They didn't seven know how Samberg would turn out at the NHL level at that point. That's the one period in time where our RHD depth > LHD depth

Basically kovacevic was facing 3 years of popcorn duty if he wasn't waived.

Or unless Schmidt was waived and then bought out. Half of that happened anyway.

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

So yes I was right

Here's the thing. Garret works in the hockey analytics industry. If he wants to procure work, the best way to do so is to write an article saying "See? I was right about this!" He has a vested in bashing Stanley


You'd have kept redundant RHD even though he had no chance to break into the line up?

Had the pencilled Kova into thr line up instead of trading for schmidt that summer, it would be roughly equivalent to the Jets gifting Simon Lndmark a job this year on the 3rd pairing instead of signing Miller

Not!
Lundmark has never shown as good as Kova at the same level in any aspect of the game.

Edit: Sorry for making so many posts on a week and a half old convo. Some posts just demand argument. I'll jump ahead about a week now.

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

I’m not sure what you are saying…..Kovacevic got 2 years as a regular in Montreal, that’s more than a fair chance and the league decided he is worth $.767m. The league disagrees with your evaluation of him in the NHL.

I don’t know who said Kovacevic “projected well” on the Moose. Maybe I missed that but it seems like revisionist history. Or just more of the usual prospect pumping that happens around here that doesn’t pan out the vast majority of time.

People had to wait for a 30 game span in the 3rd year after leaving the Jets to cry they made a mistake? I guess on a long enough time line with enough players coming and going you can squint real hard to find a mistake if that’s what you need.

This isn’t about letting Kovacevic go. The Jets didn’t need him for the last two years. This is about choosing Miller and Fleury over Kovacevic in FA this year and peoples over attachment to draft picks.

List the 4 or 5 guys the Jets made “mistakes” with. Anyone making more than $1.5m currently? Anyone who the Jets haven’t effectively replaced?

That may have been me. I said it at the time and I stand by it. No hindsight revisionism on my part. I thought he had shown enough. True, he had not shown it in the NHL yet, so there would have been some obvious risk. IMO, that risk was lower than the risks associated with the alternatives. I believe history has borne me out this time. Maybe blind monkey and banana but I'll take it.

 

[Buffdog]

Not!
Lundmark has never shown as good as Kova at the same level in any aspect of the game.

Edit: Sorry for making so many posts on a week and a half old convo. Some posts just demand argument. I'll jump ahead about a week now.

Kovacevic was 0.28 points per game when they aquired Schmidt (75 AHL games played)

Lundmark was 0.24 points per game in his first AHL season

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

Kovacevic was 0.28 points per game when they aquired Schmidt (75 AHL games played)

Lundmark was 0.24 points per game in his first AHL season

And Lundmark's ppg has never improved. Kovacevic's ppg in the season that had just ended when they got Schmidt was .48.

Kovacevic had shown being a good skating, big, physical, defensive Dman well before that season. His time in the A was really just waiting to see if his scoring would rise to a minimum acceptable level. It did. It was time for the promotion.

They went out and got Schmidt and his big contract instead. IMO at the time, it was 1 too many D acquisitions after having just got Dillon. That lead to a waiver choice a year later. They chose to waive Kova over waiving Stanley.

Is it so hard to just say that they made a poor choice?

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

He had 58 points in 137 games (0.42 PPG) for the Moose before we lost him on waivers - so not terible

In contrast, Stanley put up 32 points in 117 games on the Moose (0.27 PPG)

Chisholm played 144 games for the Moose and had 65 points (0.44 PPG)

Heinola: 159 GP 103 points 0.64 PPG
Niku: 114 GP 80 points 0.70 PPG


I think that's a little high for a guy just traded for a 4th round pick, but GMs do love their 6'5 RHD

I certainly wouldn't pay him that. As I've stated, his numbers in the NHL aren't even comparable to Miller who is on a 1.5M deal

4-5 mil is probably a little high. But with the cap rising pretty steeply this year and again next it might not be out of sight, if he continues to play well enough. But 3-4 might be a very reasonable range for him. Certainly he will get more than his current 766,667.

 

[Buffdog]

And Lundmark's ppg has never improved. Kovacevic's ppg in the season that had just ended when they got Schmidt was .48.

Kovacevic had shown being a good skating, big, physical, defensive Dman well before that season. His time in the A was really just waiting to see if his scoring would rise to a minimum acceptable level. It did. It was time for the promotion.

They went out and got Schmidt and his big contract instead. IMO at the time, it was 1 too many D acquisitions after having just got Dillon. That lead to a waiver choice a year later. They chose to waive Kova over waiving Stanley.

Is it so hard to just say that they made a poor choice?

You're using hindsight to judge the choice, which of course looks poor now. Nobody is denying that. But all the org had to go on when they aquired Schmidt was the 75 AHL games Kova had played. Anything after that is irrelevant when judging that decision. So you're point that Kova improved his production after that is moot

As for 2022 after camp... if Kovacevic had never played the left side, then he was out of the conversation for a spot on that team. I've outlined why in detail in previous posts.

Anyway, we're arguing over a career bottom pairing D man. He's gone and we replaced him with Miller who has better production numbers over a larger sample size.... so why don't we all get over it and move on

 

[scelaton]

......

Anyway, we're arguing over a career bottom pairing D man. He's gone and we replaced him with Miller who has better production numbers over a larger sample size.... so why don't we all get over it and move on

I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss Kovacevic as a career bottom pairing Dman and certainly wouldn't compare a rising Kova to a declining Miller.

DeMelo also had all the markings of a bottom pairing guy early in his career, but developed into solid top-pair partner for Morrissey...until this year.

Kovacevic is already playing big minutes on a strong NHL team and his progression over the last couple of years, as a complimentary top-4 player, has been impressive. If I were Chevy, I would be trying to figure out how I could part with DeMelo (much as it pains me to say this), who looks like he is deteriorating rapidly, and consider using the money to bring back Kovacevic. Morrissey could conceivably carry him on the first pairing-- it would be a stretch (as is DeMelo atm) but sure look nice to have a younger, smooth-skating 6'5 complementary partner for him. In any case, he could play almost anywhere up or down our RD and add value.

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

I think part of it is just who's been on the board when the Jets have been picking.

I'd characterize Barlow, Ves, Chaz as 1st rounders who'd they'd maybe like a do-over on but when you go and look at who was taken after them, there's no impact D in the ballpark.

I'm excluding later round pucks who turn into gems because I'm not surenif there's any team who has a crystal ball and hits in those regularly

Even when they picked Stanley, there really isn't anyone in the next 10 picks who have had an impact on D

I think that is a valid point, or at least a factor that needs to be considered. We can always find some guy who no one expected to be a big hit but who was in the end. We can look at picks after our own and cherry pick. But that is not valid. What is valid is seeing someone taken later who our brain trust should have recognized as the better pick.

In '16 when we took Stanley we had the 22nd and 36th picks. We could have taken DeBrincat and Girard. Both would have been available at our spots. Both were passed over at least once by every team except that Chicago took DeBrincat with their first pick at 39. We had at least one poster here who advocated strongly that we do just that. Easily would have been better than Stanley if we only took either one of those 2.

In '17, after Ves it is hard to find a real impact Dman that we could have taken instead. There is Henri Jokiharju. He's a RHS and has played 370 games in the NHL so better than Ves. Probably a 3rd pair guy though. But we could have taken Morgan Frost with that pick, a 2C. Or we could have taken Jake Oettinger. We wouldn't have needed a backup of that quality but once developed he could have brought a very nice return, maybe even a good Dman.

In '21 there might have been some very good Dmen taken after Chas but it is too soon to say. Some are already starting to look pretty good. I can say much the same for '23 after Barlow.

If we open it up to just any players who are showing better than the ones we took, there are plenty. But there is that hindsight thing again.

I still have high hopes for Barlow and even Chas. I'm quite happy with Yager in exchange for McGroarty, though it took me a while to get over the disappointment with that jackass. And right now, it looks like we might hit on a couple of those lucky/flukey later picks.

When I look at the Dmen we have drafted I think they have turned out pretty well, even if we have tossed 1 or 2 away. I think the problem is that we just haven't drafted enough Dmen in the first 3-4 rds.

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

You're using hindsight to judge the choice, which of course looks poor now. Nobody is denying that. But all the org had to go on when they aquired Schmidt was the 75 AHL games Kova had played. Anything after that is irrelevant when judging that decision. So you're point that Kova improved his production after that is moot

As for 2022 after camp... if Kovacevic had never played the left side, then he was out of the conversation for a spot on that team. I've outlined why in detail in previous posts.

Anyway, we're arguing over a career bottom pairing D man. He's gone and we replaced him with Miller who has better production numbers over a larger sample size.... so why don't we all get over it and move on

It is not hindsight.
I said it at the time. That is foresight.

Good suggestion though. It is water under the bridge. I will happily never mention it again if only other posters will stop defending it. Like that is ever going to happen.

Actually, I don't think it is necessary for me for you, or other posters to stop defending it. What I want to see is Chevy stop trying to make Stanley be better than he is. The fact is that Stan is not the worst Dman to ever play in the NHL. He is probably not the worst one to ever be a regular for the Jets. But the org's continuing support for him has cost better players, several times. It continues to be frustrating.

Right now, I want to see what Ville can do playing his strong side, not hampered by his D partner. Play Ville - Miller as the 3rd pair for a while and find out if Ville has what it takes. Then, when Snerg comes back, we will need to see a choice between Ville and Fleury for 3 LD. Stanley is not in that decision because Fleury has already shown himself to be better than Stan. If Ville has not shown enough by then, Fleury gets the job. Barring more injuries of course.

We are no longer winning at a record pace. What we are doing now is not working all that well. This is a time when we can afford to try some things.

 

[Buffdog]

I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss Kovacevic as a career bottom pairing Dman and certainly wouldn't compare a rising Kova to a declining Miller.

DeMelo also had all the markings of a bottom pairing guy early in his career, but developed into solid top-pair partner for Morrissey...until this year.

Kovacevic is already playing big minutes on a strong NHL team and his progression over the last couple of years, as a complimentary top-4 player, has been impressive. If I were Chevy, I would be trying to figure out how I could part with DeMelo (much as it pains me to say this), who looks like he is deteriorating rapidly, and consider using the money to bring back Kovacevic. Morrissey could conceivably carry him on the first pairing-- it would be a stretch (as is DeMelo atm) but sure look nice to have a younger, smooth-skating 6'5 complementary partner for him. In any case, he could play almost anywhere up or down our RD and add value.

Kovacevic is 0.30 points per game this season to Miller's 0.27 so compating them is absolutely worth doing. If he were with the Jets, he'd be on the bottom pair, just like he is in NJ and like he was in MTL

You saw the Habs last night. Their D is terrible... yet they moved on from Kova for a 4th. I wonder why.

People are really looking at this guy through rose colored glasses, bit that's par for the course with some of the group-think around here. Guys like him are a dime a dozen in the NHL, and every team has multiple examples of losing games guys like him (and acquiring them).

 

[Buffdog]

It is not hindsight.
I said it at the time. That is foresight.

Good suggestion though. It is water under the bridge. I will happily never mention it again if only other posters will stop defending it. Like that is ever going to happen.

Actually, I don't think it is necessary for me for you, or other posters to stop defending it. What I want to see is Chevy stop trying to make Stanley be better than he is. The fact is that Stan is not the worst Dman to ever play in the NHL. He is probably not the worst one to ever be a regular for the Jets. But the org's continuing support for him has cost better players, several times. It continues to be frustrating.

Right now, I want to see what Ville can do playing his strong side, not hampered by his D partner. Play Ville - Miller as the 3rd pair for a while and find out if Ville has what it takes. Then, when Snerg comes back, we will need to see a choice between Ville and Fleury for 3 LD. Stanley is not in that decision because Fleury has already shown himself to be better than Stan. If Ville has not shown enough by then, Fleury gets the job. Barring more injuries of course.

We are no longer winning at a record pace. What we are doing now is not working all that well. This is a time when we can afford to try some things.

Re: foresight

That's why I brought up Lundmark. Their production in the AHL was almost identical at the same early point in their development - which is to say that Kovacevic hadn't shown the org anything up until that point that he'd end up better than Lundmark is now. His big steps were taken AFTER they aquired Schmidt. If you can point me back to any post around the time that we aquired Nate (preferably by you or @WolfHouse ) that explicitly states that we shouldn't have aquired Nate and instead should promote Kovacevic in the fall of 2021, I'd be thrilled to see it. THAT would have been foresight!

NOBODY thought Kovacevic would turn out the way he did. There wasn't even a "free Kova" movement on these boards like we saw with prospects that actually showed some potential but never panned out.

As for Stanley... yes, we should talk about that. But kovacevic has nothing to do with it

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

His offensive numbers aren't, his defensive numbers are better. That's where his value is.

I mean I was asking on the Habs forum last year before we traded for Miller if a 2nd or 3rd round pick made sense for getting Kovacevic back. Of course I was told no by fans and he was traded for a 4th in real life. As far as the hindsight stuff goes (not referring to you here Buffdog).


And how did that turn out for the league so far. Guys get overlooked all the time.

If he is underrated or under the radar of the NHL GM's that means he could he even cheaper, making him potentially more valuable.

I'm going to get jumped all over for this and that's fine. What are the chances the Jets will be a better team if they have Kovacevic in their top 4 instead of Pionk next year? I'd love to hear what people think.

I have a little trouble with that question because I'm never quite sure what we have in Pionk. He has been very good at times this year, even defensively. At times. DeMelo, OTOH has been very poor most of the time this year. I suspect he is playing hurt but we never know about that until after the fact, if ever. If it isn't bad enough to keep a player out of the lineup we can only guess.

I think we would be a better team with Kovacevic in place of one of our 3 RHD. It might be Pionk 1st pair, Kova 2nd and DeMelo 3rd, for example. Or maybe there is better chemistry with Josh and Kova together and Pionk staying with Samberg. It isn't necessarily a straightforward ranking of the available players in 123 order. Or it might simply be with Kovacevic on the 3rd pair. He might be a very good partner for Ville providing the physical presence in the pair.

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

Yeah a 4 x $4M deal for Kova would probably age pretty well.

The way I recall it, we lost Chiarot because we would not go 3.5 per year. Eventually we replaced Chia with Dillon. They were pretty similar players playing pretty similar roles. I won't get into which one might be a little better than the other. Dillon cost us 2 2nds and 3.9 mil per year for 3 years while we had him.

Presumably we could have just kept Chia if we had only paid up a little more. Is it fair to compare those 2 sets of circumstances? Does Kova belong in a comparison with Chia and Dillon?

I 100% agree. But the only thing special about Kovacevic in this thread is the team that drafted him.

Lots of guys could have been overlooked by the league, Miller, Fleury, Coughing, Beaulieu, Forbort, Dahlstrom, Bitetto....... your basically playing poker with these players discarding some and picking up others hoping to hit that inside straight.

You keep churing those semi NHLers over and over. Some times you get lucky and you might get a player who can fill in on the 2nd pair 10, 11, 12 years after they are drafted for a short period of time. That doesn't mean you hold on to every single player you draft just in case he has a good 30 games at some point in his life.

Big picture, I agree with this - but it is not just the team who drafted him. It is who that team kept instead.

 

[Gm0ney]

We can pick on the Jets D with or without stats - on their best days, when they are getting the most support from the rest of the line, they are OK to good.
IMO, most of it depends on the teams play, how they chip in to defend in the dzone, or how defensive minded they are in the zones outside of the dzone. I don't know if stats consider any of this.

Maybe they do but we choose to break down the issues by player rather than look at plays and how they develop. The end result is a goal or an attempt to score where the issue may have started with a turnover or missed coverage in O/N zones - but the dman is where we converge because we don't pay much attention to the upstream effects that start the fire in the first place. And if we do point out the turnover for example, we don't connect it to the end result. Some on here will connect the dots but in more cases, they are going to attack the player (usually one they don't like) and assign blame.

You're a stats guy so I'll get to my point - do the stats look at upstream impact when the defense breaks down? Do stats connect the dots?
IMO, they don't - but I'm no expert and this could be a dumb question or point to make - so I'd appreciate an opinion from someone who has a better handle on stats than I do.

The shot metric stats are just a count of what happened when a player was on the ice.

The "analytics" stats like expected goals and scoring chances apply a probability of how likely an unblocked shot is to score.

xG is more involved and looks at a bunch of variables (coordinates, shot angle, shot type, if it's on a powerplay, if it's off a rebound, etc.). An xG model assigns a statistical chance to score for every unblocked shot, based on NHL data going back to 2007 (~1 million shots).

Scoring chances are just unblocked shots that happen in the offensive zone and get categorized into High Danger and also MD and LD chances (but we usually just talk about SC or HDC here).

Anything can happen in small samples, but when you get a large enough sample you can definitely connect some dots.