It was meant to be a funny post that would subsequently bring up further discussion.
For the record, this was his statement:
And this is flat out wrong either way. The average Stanley Cup winning #1C over the past 10 years was either a 90 point (96 adjusted pts) or a 70 point (77 adjusted pts) scoring Selke winner.
Kadri, comparably, was coming off a season of 55 points (56 adjusted) and prior to that, a season of 61 points (67 adjusted). He's 10-15 points away from the Selke winning #1Cs (and miles away from them defensively), and 30-35 points away from the non-Selke winning #1Cs.
Those stats pretty comfortably say that Kadri doesn't belong. To say that there isn't one stat of any kind anywhere that says Kadri is anything less than a #1C was laughable at the time and that's being proven as Kadri is regressing further from his anomalous 16-17 season and closer to his career mean.
If you simply sorted by centers from 16-18, Kadri would rank 28th in points per game. Just last season, he ranked 32nd in points and 35th in points per game. The reason that people had such an issue with Kadri being in the top-20 among centers isn't because everybody hates Toronto but because he just flat out isn't that good and he's showing it this season. Somebody like Malkin is having a down season and still has 23 points more than Kadri. Somebody like Kuznetsov is having a down year and he still has 11 more points than Kadri - both have played fewer games. zeke's strong defense of Kadri, and in particular the statement made above there, were both very flawed. If one ranked by just points over the two seasons, then yes, Kadri would make the cut-off. If one used just zeke's model, then yes, Kadri would make the cut-off. With a different model, there is a great chance that Kadri doesn't show up on the list. For those who rank the players by how they feel about them and don't have any strong feelings either way, there is a great chance that Kadri doesn't end up on the list.
This thread was inherently flawed from the start. The cut-off of 14 ESTOI/GP is fishy and makes me wonder if there were any specific players below the mark. Just checking, looks like it just barely excluded players like Mikael Backlund, Mika Zibanejad, Logan Couture, William Karlsson and Nico Hischier.
Nico Hischier in particular ranked above Nazem Kadri in the following metrics: ESP/60, ESP1/60, xGF%, Rel xGF%, CF%, Rel CF%. The only stat where Kadri was superior to Hischier was TOI% QoC and that was by a grand total of 00.01%. Using the exact method that zeke used for these calculations, Nico Hischier would have absolutely crushed Kadri in these rankings and he probably would have finished within the top-10 or even higher. Of course, he wasn't included in the list, because he didn't meet the arbitrary 14 ESTOI/GP. He played 13.36 TOI/GP, which was enough to disqualify him. Part of me certainly wonders if that cut-off was made
after seeing where Hischier ranked. (And now, part of me also wonders what kind of player Hischier might become, but that's for a different thread.)
But according to corsica, none of Barzal/Koivu/Kadri/Monahan/Bergeron actually met that criteria either, which makes me wonder where he really decided to cut it off. All of those guys were super close but played like 13.8 at even strength according to corsica. So I guess when he said 14 ESTOI/GP, he rounded up from 13.5. Which is fair but I still don't understand the need for such a high and arbitrary cutoff point.
The extremely high emphasis placed on QoC also feels like it was done intentionally to flatter the 3 Leafs on the list and hurt players like Kuznetsov/Barzal/Malkin. I personally believe that facing tougher competition and being deployed in a tougher role makes things harder for certain players but I haven't seen enough statistical evidence to quantify just how much it does. I've actually observed a strong positive correlation between TOI% QoC and GF% among players.
(This is 5V5 among 1,279 skaters with at least 1000 TOI from 2007-2009.)
Now, a large portion of this is going to be just because the best players face the toughest competition. If you look at the tops of the TOI% QoC list, it's filled with superstars like Lidstrom, Datsyuk, Toews, Sundin, Thornton, Kopitar, etc. I'm not doubting that TOI% QoC makes things more difficult, but I'm not convinced the effect is anywhere near as prevalent as this thread makes it out to be. ZSR% is actually something with a clear trend line (higher ZSR%->higher GF%), but And we're now observing a player like Kadri, who switched over to a lesser role with easier QoC, and he isn't producing well. (As zeke mentioned in PM, he's doing better in possession. But scoring is more important and he isn't producing well.) That's a big reason why it probably isn't fair to use TOI QoC so heavily - it is far too punishing of players like Barzal/Malkin/Kuznetsov who can't entirely help their situation, and far too friendly to players like Kadri who take tougher minutes and don't really do anything too special.
If somebody could find an accurate QoC adjuster - perhaps some sort of model that rates how possession and production increase or drop among specific players in seasons where their QoC is higher or lower, then I would be open to using it in this sort of manner. In this case, just ranking every player by where their QoC ranks, and giving that more value than any other metric, is just unfair.
I don't need to go into detail as to why excluding PP is just not the way to go. Anybody who watched last year's playoffs should be aware of what a strong PP can do. Evgeny Kuznetsov's work on the PP in the playoffs was marvelous and a perfect example of what wins hockey games. Yet none of it will be included on this list for two reasons: it excludes the playoffs and it excludes special teams.
And on to my next point, excluding the playoffs is just flat out wrong. It's also very flattering to Tavares, Matthews, and Kadri. After all, Tavares hasn't played a single playoff game in the past two years, Matthews has 7 points in 13 playoff games, and Kadri has cost his team as many goals with suspension level penalties as he has scored. (Kadri has 4 points in 10 playoff games and has been suspended for 3 games.) Meanwhile, Malkin and Kuznetsov both have Conn Smythe level, PPG+ playoff runs. The two of them combined for 60 playoff points in their two runs and that gets completely ignored because of how OP decided to structure this thread. I can't attack Matthews/Kadri/Tavares for their teams not getting into the playoffs or going far when they get there, but I can compare their combined 11 points in 23 playoff games to Kuznetsov/Malkin's combined 78 points in 71 games.
That's what ultimately makes this list bad: it completely excludes power play and it completely excludes the playoffs and it completely excludes any player who doesn't meet a certain arbitrary cut-off that the 3 Leafs just happen to meet. Anybody who watches hockey knows how important a playoff power play is. Any hockey fan who has watched their team fail in the playoffs can always look back to one crucial power play where their team just couldn't manage to score. Power play scoring in the playoffs is very often what separates winning teams from losing teams. The playoffs as a whole is what separates the big boys and the pretenders.
However, that long post up there isn't what people like to see as my explanation of why I don't agree at all with this list. I commend the stats based approach and the work that was put in but it's not a great list. That has been pretty much proven by the respective seasons of Kadri/Kuznetsov/Malkin - all of which have struggled, but two of whom are still at a totally different level in their play. So it's quicker and funnier to just laugh about Kadri's current season because he never really belonged here.
I have never seen a person more obsessed with a more useless stat before then that guy with his P/60 ramblings.
