GDT: Devils @ Canucks 4PM

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

4 minutes ago, mfitz804 said:

I think it’s ridiculous. 

You’re talking about a guy who came over having never played in the NHL with an obvious adjustment to be made, and he’s playing on a team that has been half a dumpster fire and he’s still scored more goals than Hall, Nico, Simmonds, Wood, Zajac and Coleman, and he’s played in less games than all of them. 

I’m not an advanced star guy, but “goals scored” is not a glamour stat as far as I’m concerned. You win based on goals scored. 

I'm not a huge advanced stats guy either (I've butted heads with the hardcore part of that crowd several times), but you're way oversimplifying, and making more out of Gusev's short-sample goal total than you really should.  Do you really think he's going to shoot almost 15% over a full season?  Is he such a prolific scorer that he can be pretty awful at just about everything else?  He only has more goals than Hall because Hall's been incredibly snake-bit so far...Taylor sure as hell isn't going to continue to shoot 3.4% and we both know it.  If Hall was converting at his career 10.9% rate, he'd have 6 goals right now.  You win based on goal differential too...as in not giving up more than you score.  You don't just put guys out there who might be able to score, but hurt you in too many other areas.

The rest of Gusev's game was scary enough that he needed to be sat down and worked with.  Sure, I know he was going to need to make adjustments, and the Devils gave him nine games of really rotten play (outside of a few goals, one of which was a lucky break) before they did what they had to. 

For the record, I'm not giving up on him.  I think having him sit with Elias was a good idea.  The last two games were not nearly as cringeworthy as many of his earlier games.  Like I said, they're something to build off. 

[T0asterleav1ns]

If Gusev was used properly we wouldnt have to give a #%&)#%&* about his defense.

He should not  be playing with Jack Hughes. Or Jesper Bratt. 

Edited November 11, 2019 by Toasterleavins

[mfitz804]

1 hour ago, NJDevils1214 said:

I think he has 2 SO goals.

I couldn’t find it, I thought so as well. Count those as “goals” and he’s tied for the team lead. 

 

1 hour ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

I'm not a huge advanced stats guy either (I've butted heads with the hardcore part of that crowd several times), but you're way oversimplifying, and making more out of Gusev's short-sample goal total than you really should.  Do you really think he's going to shoot almost 15% over a full season? 

No, but you can’t argue he’s terrible based on the fact that he might not sustain what is a pretty decent start for a guy with zero NHL experience coming into the season. The fact is, he’s not been as bad as people want to make him out to be. Much in the same way Boqvist has not been as good as people want to make him out to be. 

You can only judge how he has performed on how he has performed, which is a short sample. He has not been the liability people want him to be, and he’s scored more goals than a bunch of guys on the team. 

43 minutes ago, Toasterleavins said:

If Gusev was used properly we wouldnt have to give a #%&)#%&* about his defense.

He should not  be playing with Jack Hughes. Or Jesper Bratt. 

Correct. 

[lazer]

wood has been stellar since talking to elias

 

only thing is the wins have been squeakers and nothing dominant but maybe that takes time.

 

wood has been dominant and i like simmonds game, really impressed hes got an old school style that gets chances.

 

edit: if you can combine the old school with the new school thats hard to do to have equal parts skill and power is the holy grail of sports.

Edited November 11, 2019 by lazer

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

1 hour ago, mfitz804 said:

No, but you can’t argue he’s terrible based on the fact that he might not sustain what is a pretty decent start for a guy with zero NHL experience coming into the season. The fact is, he’s not been as bad as people want to make him out to be. Much in the same way Boqvist has not been as good as people want to make him out to be. 

You can only judge how he has performed on how he has performed, which is a short sample. He has not been the liability people want him to be, and he’s scored more goals than a bunch of guys on the team. 

I'm not making that argument at all and I think you know that.  I'm making the argument that scoring four goals off an unlikely sustainable shooting% (he now has one goal for his only point in his last six GP, which could be a sign that his luck is already starting to even out) wasn't enough to cover up for a VERY rough nine games to start his NHL career...he was every bit as bad as Tri and Neb00rs detailed, goals or no goals...Tri did a fine job pointing out the few things Goose did well, as well as the many things he wasn't, and how the "Well Goose's numbers aren't really that bad" viewpoint was very flawed (and as most know I've clashed with Tri on a number of occasions, as well as with the hardcore metric crowd, so it's not like I support that stuff blindly).  I can see that some fans were getting overexcited by Gusev's three goals in his first seven games, which made them a bit too willing to overlook everything else.  What kinda surprises me is that I thought Goose looked pretty bad from an eye-test standpoint too...even though it turned out that the metrics fully supported that, I didn't need them in thinking to myself "Wow, this guy is having a rough time out there, he really needs some help, now."

I'm glad that the Devils took him aside and let Elias work with him, even if it meant that Gusev sat out for a pair of games.  I think it will serve him better in the long run.  Like I've already said, he's looked better in his last two games.  I hope that continues.   

[titans04]

2 hours ago, lazer said:

wood has been stellar since talking to elias

 

only thing is the wins have been squeakers and nothing dominant but maybe that takes time.

 

wood has been dominant and i like simmonds game, really impressed hes got an old school style that gets chances.

 

edit: if you can combine the old school with the new school thats hard to do to have equal parts skill and power is the holy grail of sports.

Wood has been stellar since talking to Elias?

Wood and his 2 goals has been the same old dreadful Wood to me. 2 goals 4 points and a -6.

Is there some advanced stat that says Wood is anything more than a plug at this time?

Happy to see Wayne pick his game up, hoping he can sustain it,

[mfitz804]

11 minutes ago, titans04 said:

Wood has been stellar since talking to Elias?

Wood and his 2 goals has been the same old dreadful Wood to me. 2 goals 4 points and a -6.

Is there some advanced stat that says Wood is anything more than a plug at this time?

Happy to see Wayne pick his game up, hoping he can sustain it,

I’d have said better, he’s got a way to go for stellar. 

[Devil Dan 56]

52 minutes ago, mfitz804 said:

I’d have said better, he’s got a way to go for stellar. 

I think for Wood "stellar" is just "not god awful"  

[lazer]

6 hours ago, mfitz804 said:

I’d have said better, he’s got a way to go for stellar. 

wood has been very much better since talking to elias🙃

[NJDevils1214]

10 hours ago, lazer said:

wood has been very much better since talking to elias🙃

Wood to better has Elias since talked been he 🙃🤔🤔

[NJDfan1711]

18 hours ago, mfitz804 said:

I think it’s ridiculous. 

You’re talking about a guy who came over having never played in the NHL with an obvious adjustment to be made, and he’s playing on a team that has been half a dumpster fire and he’s still scored more goals than Hall, Nico, Simmonds, Wood, Zajac and Coleman, and he’s played in less games than all of them. 

I’m not an advanced star guy, but “goals scored” is not a glamour stat as far as I’m concerned. You win based on goals scored. 

Let's go ahead and blow up this post to 200% size, print it out, frame it, and hang it on the wall, because this is both accurate and to the point.  

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

32 minutes ago, NJDfan1711 said:

Let's go ahead and blow up this post to 200% size, print it out, frame it, and hang it on the wall, because this is both accurate and to the point.  

You're doing the same thing that others are...blowing up a small sample of pretty good goal scoring (based on a bloated shooting% that isn't likely to stay as high as it currently is and leaving out a number of other factors) and making a huge deal out of it.  There's guys on the "more goals than" list who are clearly going to see their goal-scoring numbers go up.  Hall isn't going to finish his season shooting 3.4%, and Simmonds won't finish at 4.3%.  Nico should finish higher than 8.0%.  Zajac is worrisome because he's not getting his shots so far (only 11 SOG through 16 GP), but he did score his fair share of "right place right time" goals last season, so maybe things are evening out a bit this year.  As far as Wood and Coleman go, aren't we all expecting a guy with Goose's offensive skills to outscore those two, even if he's new to the NHL?  Wood may have already set his single-season high in goals, and as much as I love what Coleman brings, he may have already set his career-high in goals too.  Anyway, Shero doesn't trade for Goose and sign him for pretty good money if he doesn't think that Goose won't be a solid offensive contributor in the NHL (and fairly quickly...Goose isn't a kid and he's only here for couple of seasons, barring an extension.  This was a "right now" move.).    

You and many others have been watching hockey long enough to know that you will get anomalies throughout the year, where guys are getting various levels of good and bad fortune...it's the reason we see a guy like Henrique score 8 goals in his first 14 GP and don't automatically think "Damn, he might score 40 this year!"  It's almost as though many want to act as though all of the bad that was coming with Goose earlier shouldn't even have been acknowledged at all, simply because at quick glance his goal total over a short sample looked pretty good, though that didn't accurately reflect his on-ice play.  I'm glad the Devils didn't do that and recognized one of the most complete forwards in their history might be able to help him.  It's one thing to give an NHL newbie time to adjust, and quite another not to step in and say "OK, we tried to keep sending him back out there in Top Gun Maverick style, but it's not working...let's take a step back, and hope he now takes steps forward."  This is one particular case that I think the Devils handled right.     

[DevsMan84]

25 minutes ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

You're doing the same thing that others are...blowing up a small sample of pretty good goal scoring (based on a bloated shooting% that isn't likely to stay as high as it currently is and leaving out a number of other factors) and making a huge deal out of it.  There's guys on the "more goals than" list who are clearly going to see their goal-scoring numbers go up.  Hall isn't going to finish his season shooting 3.4%, and Simmonds won't finish at 4.3%.  Nico should finish higher than 8.0%.  Zajac is worrisome because he's not getting his shots so far (only 11 SOG through 16 GP), but he did score his fair share of "right place right time" goals last season, so maybe things are evening out a bit this year.  As far as Wood and Coleman go, aren't we all expecting a guy with Goose's offensive skills to outscore those two, even if he's new to the NHL?  Wood may have already set his single-season high in goals, and as much as I love what Coleman brings, he may have already set his career-high in goals too.  Anyway, Shero doesn't trade for Goose and sign him for pretty good money if he doesn't think that Goose won't be a solid offensive contributor in the NHL (and fairly quickly...Goose isn't a kid and he's only here for couple of seasons, barring an extension.  This was a "right now" move.).    

You and many others have been watching hockey long enough to know that you will get anomalies throughout the year, where guys are getting various levels of good and bad fortune...it's the reason we see a guy like Henrique score 8 goals in his first 14 GP and don't automatically think "Damn, he might score 40 this year!"  It's almost as though many want to act as though all of the bad that was coming with Goose earlier shouldn't even have been acknowledged at all, simply because at quick glance his goal total over a short sample looked pretty good, though that didn't accurately reflect his on-ice play.  I'm glad the Devils didn't do that and recognized one of the most complete forwards in their history might be able to help him.  It's one thing to give an NHL newbie time to adjust, and quite another not to step in and say "OK, we tried to keep sending him back out there in Top Gun Maverick style, but it's not working...let's take a step back, and hope he now takes steps forward."  This is one particular case that I think the Devils handled right.     

My issue is the whole statement that Goose is somehow the worst player in the NHL because of a couple of advanced stats.  I fully acknowledge that he needs/needed work but to say he is somehow worse than Miles Wood because the latter is leading the team in "expected goals" is silly.  Of course the explanation for Wood's actual goal total not being close to his "expected goal" stat is often brushed aside from the advanced stats crowd oft-used panacea; bad luck.

The same crowd are the ones who told us that BB8 is an advanced stat beast.  Still waiting for that to convert into wins or even a useful player.  However, he is still in the AHL where he has been since we decided not to re-sign him after the 16-17 season.

This is why we take these things with a grain of salt.

[NJDfan1711]

9 minutes ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

You're doing the same thing that others are...blowing up a small sample of pretty good goal scoring (based on a bloated shooting% that isn't likely to stay as high as it currently is and leaving out a number of other factors) and making a huge deal out of it.  There's guys on the "more goals than" list who are clearly going to see their goal-scoring numbers go up.  Hall isn't going to finish his season shooting 3.4%, and Simmonds won't finish at 4.3%.  Nico should finish higher than 8.0%.  Zajac is worrisome because he's not getting his shots so far (only 11 SOG through 16 GP), but he did score his fair share of "right place right time" goals last season, so maybe things are evening out a bit this year.  As far as Wood and Coleman go, aren't we all expecting a guy with Goose's offensive skills to outscore those two, even if he's new to the NHL?  Wood may have already set his single-season high in goals, and as much as I love what Coleman brings, he may have already set his career-high in goals too.  Anyway, Shero doesn't trade for Goose and sign him for pretty good money if he doesn't think that Goose won't be a solid offensive contributor in the NHL (and fairly quickly...Goose isn't a kid and he's only here for couple of seasons, barring an extension.  This was a "right now" move.).    

You and many others have been watching hockey long enough to know that you will get anomalies throughout the year, where guys are getting various levels of good and bad fortune...it's the reason we see a guy like Henrique score 8 goals in his first 14 GP and don't automatically think "Damn, he might score 40 this year!"  It's almost as though many want to act as though all of the bad that was coming with Goose earlier shouldn't even have been acknowledged at all, simply because at quick glance his goal total over a short sample looked pretty good, though that didn't accurately reflect his on-ice play.  I'm glad the Devils didn't do that and recognized one of the most complete forwards in their history might be able to help him.  It's one thing to give an NHL newbie time to adjust, and quite another not to step in and say "OK, we tried to keep sending him back out there in Top Gun Maverick style, but it's not working...let's take a step back, and hope he now takes steps forward."  This is one particular case that I think the Devils handled right.     

While I appreciate the expanded explanation, I'm not really sure why it's directed at me when I only said one thing lol.  

I skimmed your post and believe it's a mix of both your opinion as well as stats that I assume are factual, however I only skimmed it because I'm just not really interested in defending my opinion, nor debating yours.  At this point I believe there to be two camps regarding Gusev - those who are interested in the goals he puts up and accept him for that, "flaws" and all, and those who are going to nitpick his game to the bone and want him to be the most well-rounded player the league has ever seen.  

Without getting too far in depth because as I said I'm just not really interested in going back and forth about him anymore, I will just touch on the bolded.  Essentially that is the issue I have, in that I really haven't seen much in the way of all of this "bad" that he was exhibiting on the ice.  The team sucked hard for the first half dozen games of the season, and I think he was made out to be a scapegoat while we were all looking for one.  Granted I don't watch him personally like a hawk, I don't necessarily do that with anyone unless I'm purposely trying to spot something (I may do this with Gusev now, but not positive - we'll see), and instead I watch the play in general, the flow of the game, the various line combos we have and how the players are playing together and with one another, etc - and while doing that, nothing has really stood out to me about Gusev where I went "Oh sh!t, look at that idiot and how he just got burned", or "Damnit, there goes Gusev making another stupid play!".  I just haven't seen it. At least no more so than anyone else on the team, like how Tennyson, and even Severson early on, have played poorly on defense - and again, Gusev isn't even a fvcking defenseman.

mfitz has been pretty spot on with this which is probably why I quoted him, and he said in another post that you can only judge him by what he's done, which so far has been score goals, and fairly consistently I might add.  We all know the sample size is small, but so what?  There's really no reason speculating on what the guy may or may not do in terms of shooting percentage throughout the next 65 games.  He's scored, so far, and that's all that matters to me. I'm not going to say he's going to be the next guy to 500 goals, but even Alex fvcking Ovechkin isn't the best on defense.  And if you wouldn't want him on your team and would constantly complain about how "bad" he is on defense and all of these other situations outside of offense and scoring goals, then you should just sell/trade Gusev, take all of the return you get for him, scour the globe for a year, a spend it all on the best goalie walking this planet so that you can win every game 1-0.  We've done that before.  We had the best goalie on the planet, and we won games while we were starved for offense.  It was fun at the time, and it brought us 3 awesome championships....but right now we DON'T have awesome goalies.  What we have is a guy who is scoring goals for us, so I just don't understand why people can't be fvcking happy with that.  

It's like if you're having work done on your house and you have a contractor installing a new shower and doing some plumbing work in your bathroom, and he does a great job at it, and then you're like "Well hey, since you're here, can you install the tile backsplash in my kitchen?  No?  Why the hell not?!"  Because I'm not a fvcking tile guy. I'll do awesome job with the plumbing work you need, but stop asking me to do something you know I probably can't do, nor should. I never claimed to be an expert at that, so let me do what I do.  It's really that easy/simple, or should be anyway...  

 

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

9 minutes ago, DevsMan84 said:

My issue is the whole statement that Goose is somehow the worst player in the NHL because of a couple of advanced stats.  I fully acknowledge that he needs/needed work but to say he is somehow worse than Miles Wood because the latter is leading the team in "expected goals" is silly.  Of course the explanation for Wood's actual goal total not being close to his "expected goal" stat is often brushed aside from the advanced stats crowd oft-used panacea; bad luck.

The same crowd are the ones who told us that BB8 is an advanced stat beast.  Still waiting for that to convert into wins or even a useful player.  However, he is still in the AHL where he has been since we decided not to re-sign him after the 16-17 season.

This is why we take these things with a grain of salt.

I don't think Goose is the worst player in the NHL, but he was playing bad enough that some serious intervention was needed.  That was really my main point.  I just didn't agree with the "Keep playing him no matter what because he has a few goals" viewpoint. 

NJDfan1711...I don't need Goose to be a two-way beast or super well-rounded.  Just not as bad as he was before he was sat.  We're seeing steps taken in that direction.  It's a start.

Edited November 12, 2019 by Colorado Rockies 1976

[Triumph]

Gusev was unplayably bad.  Yes, he can score some goals, but there was absolutely no way that he would have a positive impact on the team going forward with that sort of play.  I especially enjoy the same crowd who is like 'Hynes teams always get penned in their own zone and can't get out' are like 'Play Gusev more' - Gusev could've established residency in the defensive zone in the first 3 weeks of the season.  He could not get out with possession if he wanted to.  

What I'm seeing from Gusev the last few games is encouraging.  He's a below-average skater so it's extra important that he knows where to be on the ice, otherwise he's going to be useless outside of the offensive zone, and he was so bad in the early going that he couldn't even really get in to the offensive zone.  We're seeing him make better decisions in the defensive and neutral zones.

Beau Bennett could've been an effective 3rd/4th line guy but teams decided not to go in that direction.  That's all that was ever said about him but people just interpret however they want to.  That was it - Beau Bennett could play on an NHL 3rd line in 2017-18 - not on a good team probably, but he could've played there.  He didn't, and then he got hurt again, and now he's 28 with a huge injury history - it is not surprising that he is in the AHL now.  

Edited November 12, 2019 by Triumph

[MadDog2020]

22 hours ago, DevsMan84 said:

Advanced Stats: Where Goose is the worst player in the NHL, Bennett's release was enough to make Cordell have a twitter meltdown, Simmonds is just the unluckiest player on Earth and "expected goals" is an actual thing.

And the league embraces this sh!t with open arms. 🙄

[titans04]

14 minutes ago, MadDog2020 said:

And the league embraces this sh!t with open arms. 🙄

Paralysis by analysis! 

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

36 minutes ago, MadDog2020 said:

And the league embraces this sh!t with open arms. 🙄

Not to a fault though...I think most front offices can distinguish that some guys aren't as good as their metrics would lead one to believe.

As for "unluckiest guy on Earth Simmonds", that really only applies to his lack of goals to this point.  Lots of other areas where he's simply just not that good.  I've said it before, but I'm glad he's only here for one season. 

[SterioDesign]

these stats based on shots on goal will always be incredibly flawed cause it's qualifying all "shots" as the same metric/quality and compiling them.

Let's be clear if one shot is from Ovechkin in circles vs a unscreened wrister/dump in from Andy Greene from the blue linen is like comparing apple and oranges.

Then you can make the best setup play, crazy tic tac toe highlight of the month play just to miss the post by half an inch.. in the stat worlds it's like nothing happened.

Edited November 12, 2019 by SterioDesign

[mfitz804]

4 minutes ago, SterioDesign said:

these stats based on shots on goal will always be incredibly flawed cause it's qualifying all "shots" as the same metric/quality and compiling them.

Let's be clear if one shot is from Ovechkin in circles vs a unscreened wrister/dump in from Andy Greene from the blue linen is like comparing apple and oranges.

Then you can make the best setup play, crazy tic tac toe highlight of the month play just to miss the post by half an inch.. in the stat worlds it's like nothing happened.

I’m starting to think fvck stats completely, the only thing that counts are results. 

[SterioDesign]

5 minutes ago, mfitz804 said:

I’m starting to think fvck stats completely, the only thing that counts are results. 

Well it can be helpful to catch tendencies and stuff like that. But to put too much into them can be quite misleading

[mfitz804]

3 minutes ago, SterioDesign said:

Well it can be helpful to catch tendencies and stuff like that. But to put too much into them can be quite misleading

Not for me, maybe for the team. Doesn’t matter what tendencies I catch as a fan. I’m not ACTUALLY the Assistant GM lol.

Or...am I??

[SterioDesign]

Just now, mfitz804 said:

Not for me, maybe for the team. Doesn’t matter what tendencies I catch as a fan. I’m not ACTUALLY the Assistant GM lol.

Or...am I??

no you're actually not

[lazer]

elias is yoda though