Checking Up On The MSM So You Don’t Have To
November 16th, 2009 by SteveOk so the main stream media (MSM) produced a few interesting articles bashing the Leafs for the foreseeable future over the past couple of days. Prognostication has gone in the following trend for most of the press, and to some extent that Barilkosphere (generally speaking of course):
Stage 1 - during the free agent season: The Leafs are going to be better because they have a rebuild defense, structured around Francois Beauchemin, Mike Komisarek, and young up and comer Luke Schenn. Tomas Kaberle will produce points, and the team will be better in front of it’s rebuilt goaltender Vesa Toskala. Team management predicts the playoffs are attainable, and wants to ease in Swedish Rookie Jonas Gustavsson while giving Toskala the lionshare of the workload in net. The offense isn’t a huge concern since they scored goals last year.
Stage 2 - during the pre-season: Hey look, Gustavsson is pretty awesome, we traded for that Kessel kid, but we don’t need draft picks because we have super rookies in Bozak, Stålberg, and Hanson. Gunnarsson looks good on D, and with Tlusty ready to make the leap the team looks ready to improve for the future. No veteran’s job is safe! Everyone will be scared of Colton Orr, Jay Rosehill, and the Leafs new pugnacious D men.
Stage 3 - during the early losing streak: Holy cow… this team sucks, they’ll never win! Let’s joke about how bad they are and how we all saw this lack of offense coming months ago! Stupid Burke, trading away 1st rounders for Kessel! What was he thinking! Kessel is injured, and thus will be injury prone forever! Toskala sucks, Gustavsson is injured - the goaltending is a joke! That kid on the blue line Schenn looks like an idiot that forgot how to skate! They fight a lot but that’s all they do.
Stage 4 - during the 8 game point streak: This team might not win games but they sure are exciting to watch! They keep going to OT, and then they lose because of all their bad luck. That Gustavsson kid looks like the real deal, he’s obviously the starter. Thank god Toskala is injured and will never play for the Leafs ever again! Schenn isn’t really any better, but who cares, Komisarek and White are playing well, and Tomas Kaberle is the best offensive defenseman since Bobby Orr! We should never have worried about the offense, but obviously the kids aren’t ready for the NHL yet. They can learn their jobs on the farm with the Marlies, then when the trade deadline rolls around we can deal all these veterans for draft picks to replace the ones lost for Kessel and promote the kids! Oh yeah, and that Kessel guy is pretty good, and he’s probably worth all those draft picks. Thank god we’re good again. The Leafs will probably be back in the race in no time now that their PK is better (4 game streak baby!) and they have the best PP in the NHL!
Stage 5 - during the current stretch of play: Uh Oh - Gustavsson might suck. Luckily Toskala is healthy again and can play ok. That Kessel guy is really good, but everyone else in the forward core sucks. We have no other top 6 forwards that can play with Kessel. He is skilled, and his 36 goal, 60 point season is far superior to anything any Leaf has ever done in recent memory. We have nobody that can play at his level (aside from Blake and Ponikarovsky who scored more points than him last year). Luke Schenn sucks and needs to be traded before he’s worthless - or perhaps we should send him to the minors - the least we should do is bench him and point out how crappy he has played, since he has likely not watched ANY video of his games so far, and nobody has told him when he makes mistakes.
Ok so does anyone else feel like vomiting yet? That’s probably one of the better roller coasters in Toronto, and I think it will be opening up at Wonderland next summer.
Here are some quotes from recent articles I’ve read on the Leafs (i.e. earlier today):
“When Burke and Wilson started that playoff talk…their reasoning was that their key forwards would improve their modest numbers from last season.”
“All that has resulted so far is a strong argument the forwards were overachievers last season. The top six scorers for the Leafs last year were forwards, and five are still with the team. Four of them – Blake, Ponikarovsky, Stajan and Hagman – have regressed. Only Grabovski’s production rate is up this season but it is negligible, an improvement of 0.04 to 0.66 points a game.
Blake and Ponikarovsky are down the most in that group. Last season, Blake was the team’s leading scorer with 63 points in 78 games for an average of 0.81 points a game. Ponikarovsky was second with 61 points in 82 games for an average of 0.74. This season, Blake is producing 0.61 points a game and Ponikarovsky is at half a point.
Grabovski, the leader among Leaf forwards this season, was tied for 88th in points before yesterday’s games. Until there are a few Leafs in the top 20, the playoffs remain a pipedream.”
- Dave Shoalts, The Globe and Mail
I love it when Journalists play with sports statistics. It’s like watching a kid with a hand grenade. Let’s review a few of these points shall we?
1. Blake, Ponikarovsky, Stajan, and Hagman have regressed. Really? Last year Ponikarovsky finished 2nd on the Leafs with 61 points, and he scored a career high 23 goals. This year he has 7 goals through 18 games and is on pace to produce another career high 32 goals. The Leafs had ZERO 30 goal scorers last year, so I’m not really upset if Ponikarovsky can best that number. The real issue is he only has 2 assists. Except, for him to get assists, other players need to score goals. Last season he assisted on a large number of goals scored by Nik Antropov, who is the top 6 scorer that is no longer with the team that was mentioned by Shoalts. Unfortunately, Ponikarovsky’s line mates this year, Kulemin and Grabovski, have only combined for 6 goals.
Grabovski might be on pace to best his point total from last year, but he scored 20 goals. This year he is on pace for 14. He’s also on pace for 41 assists, and I’m guessing Ponikarovsky might score a few of those. Kulemin is on pace to improve his goal output from 14 last year to about 16 or 17 this year. The difference in his totals is that he has zero assists this season so far. Again, Grabovski’s lack of scoring might have something to do with that.Col
Stajan is on pace to increase his goal output from the 15 or 16 range (his career best), to 19. He is only currently slated to produce 33 assists, but since he’s playing with Kessel more recently, I find it hard to believe that his assist numbers will drop significantly from the 40 he had last season.
Hagman has never been much more than a goal scorer on offense, and his goals per game rate has increased this season. He only played 65 games last year due to a concussion, but if he plays in around 80 games this year, he should hit the 28 goal plateau - which would be another career best. That’s three career bests in the goal scoring department for 3 of the 5 players I’ve mentioned, and yet somehow they’ve all “regressed”.
Last up is Jason Blake. The irony here is, Blake is producing assists at a greater rate than he ever has in his career. Yes he’s not scoring, but he is putting up some points. If he ends up with the 41 assists he’s on pace for, and still only scores 15 goals, guess what… that’s 56 points. I can live with that point total from Blake.
Then there’s Stempniak, who had 14 goals last year, but is on pace to score 18, and produce 41 points as 3rd line winger who gets PP time. John Mitchell is on pace to increase his point output from 29 to 32 this season, as a 3rd or 4th line guy.
So who are the real culprits in this anemic offense? Rickard Wallin - 0 goals, 2 assists; Colton Orr - 0 goals, 1 assist; Viktor Stålberg - 0 goals, 1 assist; Jay Rosehill - 1 goal, 0 assists; Wayne Primeau - 1 goal, 0 assists; Tyler Bozak - 0 goals, 1 assist; Jamal Mayers - 0 goal, 1 assist. Jee, so much for secondary scoring.
Phil Kessel will improve things as he continues to produce… and guess what, the odds of the Leafs continuing to be this bad are pretty low.
Then there was the Leafs interim report card from the Toronto Star. It included the following gem:
Even Strength Scoring
“There’s no telling if this will ever improve, although Phil Kessel’s presence should help. The Leafs have 25 goals at full strength, tied for fewest in the league. They’ve allowed 39 goals at full strength, 23rd worst in the league. Part of the problem here is presence in front of the net. The Leafs’ big players – Alexei Ponikarovsky and John Mitchell – apparently don’t like to stand there, so the job is left to smaller players. Matt Stajan and Jason Blake are too easily knocked off the puck.”
Ok some of this is accurate some isn’t. We need to look in more depth at the Leafs play at Even Strength. The Leafs are currently one of the lowest scoring teams at Even Strength. When the score is tied, and they are playing at even strength, the Leafs are shooting 1.1%. That’s ridiculously bad. When the score is NOT tied, and they are playing at even strength, the Leafs are shooting only 5.3%. That’s also really really really bad. They are the worst in the NHL in both categories. It is also pretty unlikely that they will continue to shoot that poorly all season long.
And yet, their Corsi numbers in those situations are actually pretty good. They’re 12th in the NHL in Corsi F/A at even strength in a tie game, sandwiched between Vancouver and LA. At even strength in all situations, the Leafs Corsi F/A ratio improves respective to the rest of the NHL, rising to 7th in the league. The only teams doing a better job of directing shots at the opposition net at even strength, are Philadelphia, Buffalo, Carolina, Phoenix, Detroit, and Chicago.
Even weirder is the fact that 6 of Alexei Ponikarovsky’s 7 goals have been scored at even strength. All 4 of Phil Kessel’s goals have been at even strength, and all 3 of Nikolai Kulemin’s goals have been at even strength. That means that 3 players have accounted for 13 of Toronto’s 25 even strength markers.
Considering the article said that Ponikarovsky has no presence in front of the net at even strength, it’s a bit weird that he’s on pace to produce 27 even strength goals this season. That’s a total that would have ranked Ponikarovsky 9th in the NHL last season, right behind new Leafs addition Phil Kessel who had 28. The only players with more than 27 included Kessel, Loui Eriksson, Rick Nash, Jeff Carter, Marian Hossa, Zach Parise, Ilya Kovalchuk, and Alex Ovechkin. So yeah, let’s stop the talk about how horrible Alexei Ponikarovsky is in front of the net at 5 on 5. It’s amazingly ignorant to argue that Ponikarovsky’s 5 on 5 play is sub standard.
Kessel is on pace to produce 40 even strength goals this season, which is a tad unlikely. Either way, he and Ponikarovsky are definitely productive in these situations. Let’s keep that in perspective.
The following players have zero goals at even strength: Jason Blake, Matt Stajan, Rickard Wallin, Jamal Mayers, Jiri Tlusty, Viktor Stålberg, Tyler Bozak, and Colton Orr. Of those players, who are we actually expecting to score goals? Blake and Stajan maybe?
Anyone got any ideas on who we should be ditching from the club any time soon?
Suffice it to say, yes the Leafs have been really really bad. They can’t score any goals, agreed. But the idea that they won’t improve is pretty hard to maintain in the face of all the information that’s out there.
Posted in Game Analysis, Player Analysis, Stat Analysis
10 Responses to “Checking Up On The MSM So You Don’t Have To”
By Wan Ihite
on Nov 17, 2009
Good article, but…
You concede that they have been bad.
Then you project out the forward’s goal totals, ASSUMING THEY KEEP PRODUCING AT THE CLIP THEY HAVE SO FAR ALREADY, and announce that they are actually not so bad
And finally you conclude, “see, the Leafs will get better.”
But really if “better” is just “will keep producing at the current rate”, and the current rate is “bad”… then… Yeah.
I’m thinking they’re still getting worse results than their talent level should dictate, and that really they are a lower-middle of the pack team that has seen a small sample skew low… but what do I know.
By Steve
on Nov 17, 2009
What I conceded is that they have been bad at scoring even strength markers as a collective unit. I did not concede that Ponikarovsky, Kessel, Hagman, Kulemin, Grabovski, and Stempniak are the problem though. Even Stajan is scoring goals (admittedly on the PP), and Blake is getting assists and thus points.
What the Leafs have virtually none of is scoring from their bottom 6 forwards. It isn’t inherently a problem as the top 6 are also producing less than they probably need to as a top 6 unit, but in the long run, getting 2 goals and 6 assists from that selection of bottom 6 guys over the span of 18 games is about as horrible a number as one can imagine.
That is like the total output of 1 shitty top 6 forward. It’s sort of ridiculously horrible.
I don’t think 30 goals from Ponikarovsky, and 28 from Hagman qualifies as “bad”. I also don’t think Ponikarovsky scoring 28 even strength goals qualifies as REMOTELY bad, in fact it is VERY VERY good. Kessel is also on pace to produce well.
Stajan and Blake need to either sort their even strength game out or see more of the bench.
I just think it’s wrong to universally slam every forward or defender on the club for poor play when they haven’t all played poorly.
By Karina
on Nov 17, 2009
“Stajan and Blake need to either sort their even strength game out or see more of the bench.”
This! Blake needs to get the puck into the net, he’s taking so many soft perimeter shots, like he did to start the year last year. I do like how he’s being more of a playmaker though.
Stajan… just… needs to go.
By Wan Ihite
on Nov 17, 2009
Huh, so in essence you’re standing the conventional wisdom on its head. Everyone is saying “the leafs have lots of bottom 6 forwards, but no top 6″… You’re saying the opposite. “the top 6 are meh, it’s the bottom 6 that are terrible.”
Of course, you can always flip the one into the other by making most of our top 6 INTO the bottom 6, then adding 3 or 4 more star scorers above them… but it would also be nice to have a pony
By Kohma
on Nov 17, 2009
Wan: Most of our top-six forwards should be bottom six forwards.
Steve: With the exception of Wallin, it’s hard to pin the blame for lack of output on guys like Orr, Rosehill, Primeau and Mayers. These are 4th line guys with next to no minutes, and some of them rarely dress. Stalberg and Bozak haven’t had ample time with the club to produce anything.
Ponikarovsky’s play has been completely respectable, however, his net presence is and has always been sub-par. He simply does not use his size to his advantage to screen the goalie well, or with any consistency. This leads to goalies getting good looks at our shots, and makes our shot percentages fall. Your stats did not represent any of these facts, though I agree with the statements you do make.
It’s been a trying season, and throughout, we’ve had different looks to this team, and it’s been difficult to gauge exactly what we have on the ice. Statisticians are throwing their arms up and exclaiming that the teams stats are relatively unprecedented and unsustainable. I guess the media is just as exasporated as the rest of us.
By Dave
on Nov 17, 2009
Steve, you say: “When the score is tied, and they are playing at even strength, the Leafs are shooting 1.1%. That’s ridiculously bad. When the score is NOT tied, and they are playing at even strength, the Leafs are shooting only 5.3%.”
Where do you get these numbers from? Do you know what the league average is so I can see just how insanely far below average 1.1% is? What is the next worst team and the best team shooting in these situations?
Thanks!
By Steve
on Nov 17, 2009
Kohma - While I concede that Ponikarovsky doesn’t use his physical stature to his advantage (or his teammates) as much as most observers would like, I would argue that we need to stop expecting him to be something he is not. He is not an amazingly physical player. He is a very effective, defensively sound, reasonably talented, productive top 6 forward.
Considering the fact that he has remained productive, and in fact INCREASED his productivity in the goal scoring department despite playing with a team of predominantly lesser players speaks volumes to his level of play all around. He is one of the top even strength offensive players in the NHL - and I can show that statistically over the past 4 seasons.
Any team that trades for him to add to their arsenal, and there will be a large number of bidders, will likely undercut the Leafs on his value, and his stock will only improve if he plays on a quality team. Don’t expect him to miraculously suck when he ends up playing for a contender. Teams like the Sharks would love to have a player like Poni to play with the likes of Clowe or Pavelski.
As for expecting Ponikarovsky to improve the shot quality of 9 players that he isn’t playing with regularly (the other 9 forwards who aren’t on his line), I find that a bit ridiculous. You seriously can’t be expecting Ponikarovsky to stand in front of the net for 60 minutes and thus improve the shot totals for the rest of the Leafs forwards. His goals are not typically of the garbage variety, and he scores a bunch of them, so I’m not sure why we want him to suddenly stand there and wave at rebounds.
As for pinning the blame on Orr, Rosehill, Mayers, Primeau, Bozak, and Stalberg, I’ll respond to that in a bit.
By Steve
on Nov 17, 2009
Dave, I got the info from this post at Objective NHL analysing the data from the first 250 games of the season.
According to that info, the median shooting percentage at even strength with the score tied for all of the teams in the NHL is 7%, registered by Columbus and Tampa Bay.
Carolina is almost as bad as the Leafs at 1.8%, but the standard deviation for the stat is 2.8%, so the Leafs are 2.2 standard deviations below the mean. That means they’re pretty astronomically bad. Within 1 standard deviation in either direction of the mean would mean they should end up somewhere between 9.4% shooting and 5%, and 19 of the teams in the NHL do that.
Only Colorado, LA, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, St. Louis, Washington, and Calgary are ahead of the 9.4% pace, which indicates a few worrying trends if I’m a fan for Minnesota or St. Louis.
Minnesota and St. Louis have had pretty crap records thus far this season, and that’s WITH this factor working in their favour. That implies they’re really weak in some other areas. St. Louis in particular must have a hard time figuring out what they’re doing wrong.
The interesting thing is both teams are much closer to (or in the case of Minnesota) below average when playing at even strength and the score is NOT tied. Thus, if they’re losing, or winning, they suddenly can’t shoot as accurately? That’s kind of strange, and doesn’t make a lot of sense. I’d be worried about it a bit because it indicates they’re not as likely to extend leads, or catch up, as they are to jump out in front when things are tied.
By Steve
on Nov 17, 2009
Ok I didn’t get to this earlier because I was at work and something came up that required immediate attention.
In regards to the Bozak, Tlusty, Stålberg, Orr, Rosehill, Primeau, Mayers references in terms of offensive output, my point is based as follows.
Last year the Leafs promoted the following rookies (age last season in brackets): Kulemin (22), Grabovski (24), and Mitchell (23).
Those 3 players in the first 18 games of 2008-09 performed as follows: Kulemin 3G-6A-9P, Grabovski 8G-4A-12P, Mitchell 2G-4A-6P. That’s a combined 13G-14A-27P.
If I add up the rookies (i.e. Stålberg, Bozak, Wallin, Rosehill) AS WELL AS Mayers, Primeau, Orr, and Tlusty… we only end up with 2 goals and 6 assists. That’s 8 points. These were some of the most highly touted collegiate players coming out of the NCAA after last season (Bozak and Stålberg), as well as one of the top scorers from the Swedish Elite League (Wallin), one of the Leafs top offensive prospects (Tlusty), and some checking veterans (Mayers, Primeau, Orr). It gets even worse when you realize that Primeau and Rosehill have the two goals!
So let’s review, 3 rookies last season produced 27 points in the first 18 games, playing a combined total of 54 games. This year, 8 players with a combined total of 72 games, have 8 points, or less than 1/3rd of the offensive production.
Yes I realize that said rookies from this season aren’t being given the same opportunities to produce, but I’m not sure that’s a reasonable argument in it’s entirety since Stålberg and Tlusty both skated on the top line with Stajan while playing in the NHL.
Wallin has floated between 3rd line duty, and has spotted some minutes on the PP. Either way, he’s not scoring 5 on 5.
No matter how you slice it, 8 guys generating 8 points in 18 games is absolutely atrocious.
Oh, and so far this year Kulemin, Grabovski, and Mitchell have combined for 22 points, with almost the entire drop off coming courtesy of Kulemin’s 6 assists dropping to zero. It’s hard for a guy who has been bounced between 3rd line duty and 2nd line duty to get many assists when NOBODY ON THE 3RD LINE IS SCORING.
It gets even more difficult if the only scoring the rest of the team does is on the PP, when he isn’t playing many power play minutes.
By BCapp
on Nov 18, 2009
I know its petty but…
Is anyone else enjoying Dominick Moore’s shitty performance this year?
He scored his first goal tonight. 1 G 1 A 2pts 10 GP