Kovalev vs. Hemsky

Alex Kovalev is a good hockey player. Probably not so much anymore. He is 38 after all. But in his prime, Kovalev was a sublime talent who was a pretty prolific scorer.

That’s what makes Eric Duhatschek’s article so puzzling. Duhatschek basically dumps on Ales Hemsky by calling him too much like Kovalev.

“In some ways, Hemsky at 27, seems to be heading down the same career path as Kovalev - a player with talent to burn and capable of dazzling on the ice…. But the problem with Hemsky is the one that dogged Kovalev all these years - inconsistency, and when the droughts come, they can be deep and long because their confidence is so fragile.”

So let me get this straight. Ales Hemsky is too much like Alex Kovalev? A guy with over 1,000 career points and currently 72nd all-time. How high is Duhatschek setting the bar here? I really hope Steve Tambellini didn’t think to himself last June, “boy that Taylor Hall guy looks pretty good but he reminds me too much of Mike Gartner.”

For what it’s worth, Hemsky is a lot better than the eastern media gives him credit for. Just tonight, I heard Darren Dreger say he’s a terrific secondary scorer. I’ve read and seen other opinions that can be paraphrased down to he’s a good player but he will never be the best player on a good team.

He’s ninth in the NHL this year in even strength points per 60, ahead of names like St. Louis, Richards, and Kopitar. He draws the toughest matchups night in and night out. Although not this season, he’s been a historically good powerplay player.

I’ll concede he’s not Sidney Crosby but his career is tracking eerily similar to Kovalev’s by points per game. Duhatschek somehow thinks that’s a negative thing. I want to know what more we can reasonably ask?

Bad Statistics

There is an article in the January 31st issue of Sports Illustrated on the emergence of Ryan Kesler as a premier player in the NHL (read it here). If that is really true or not could likely be the subject of another entry, although his 18% shooting percentage is sure making him look more offensive than he really is. It the article contained one line that I found particularly irksome. It is a statistic that is thrown around quite frequently and one that has never seemed all that meaningful to me.

“As Kesler goes, so go the Canucks. Through Sunday, Vancouver (29-10-9, tops in the West), which has lost only three games in regulation since Dec. 5, is 24-1-5 when Kesler gets a point.”

You see this kind of number thrown out all the time. A certain team’s record is much better when a certain player scores as opposed to when they don't. The point seems to be that player x is particularly key to their team’s success. Looking at the numbers, it turns out saying this about basically any player will make you correct.

Since the article was about Kesler, I decided to look at the Vancouver Canucks. I logged who scored in all of their games through their February 7th win over the Ottawa Senators. I looked at the point percentage for each player in the games they scored, versus the team's overall point percentage. As expected, the team has a better record nearly regardless of who scores. Of the 27 players that have scored for the Canucks, the team’s record was better for all but 3 players. The outsiders: Peter Schaffer (16gp), Sergei Shirokov (2gp), and Keith Ballard (53gp, but only 4 points).

Here are the full results:

In hindsight this is beyond obvious. First, any game where Vancouver is shut out gets automatically eliminated Second, in it’s easy to understand goals are more plentiful in games won than lost. Teams don’t often lose when they score 3 or more goals. Teams almost always lose when they score less than that.

It also turns out that Kesler doesn't even have the most impressive results when looking at these numbers. That honour goes to Mason Raymond, with the Canucks going 17-1-0 in games where he scores. Instead, it suggests that the stat is completely meaningless.

I also think this does a disservice to a player like Daniel Sedin. He has scored at least one point in 81.5% of his team’s games. This kind of consistent performance is much more beneficial to the team over the course of the entire season.

I would conclude that that trying to directly correlate any individual stat to any team win is probably a bad idea. The next time you see a stat like this quoted, it should definitely be taken with a grain of salt.

At Least They Didn't Get Him For Pronger

After about 30 seconds I finally managed to scrape myself off of my office floor when I got wind of the Leafs trading for Joff Lupul.

My first thought was Dave Nonis must have slipped moonshine in Burkie's coffee this morning. Then I saw this on tsn.ca:

"Maple Leafs president and general manager Brian Burke told a press conference that the deal for Lupul had been about three weeks in the making, and that he had tried to acquire the forward while he was still with Philadelphia up until the end of the 2008-09 season."

That's right, Joff Lupul - he of the same cap hit as Ales Hemsky - has been sought by Brian Burke for a long time. Burke and Richard Peddie must have been hitting 9:00 a.m. happy hour together for the last 2 years.

There is no way a sober man gives another GM a call and says, "hey, whaddya want for Joffrey Lupul. Our pro scouts really like him."

I remember watching Lupul for a year in Edmonton. If there was such a thing as a truculence quotient, Joff's rating would be worse than his career plus/minus number (-46 for those wondering).

Have fun Leaf fans. Jake Gardiner better turn into something special.

Who Cares About Being Right When Damien Cox Can Write?

Whether it be on The Reporters, HNIC’s Satellite Hotstove, or even in his own column for the Toronto Star, Damien Cox has proven time and time again how pathetic his NHL knowledge is outside of Ontario.

This was most obvious after writing the following last spring:

“The Oilers are also in salary cap purgatory with difficult-to-move, cap-clogging contracts owned by Shawn Horcoff (four more years, $23 million), Dustin Penner (two years, $8.5 million), Sheldon Souray (two-years, $9 million) and Tom Gilbert (four-years, $17 million). As well, Edmonton has forward Ales Hemsky, less than a point-a-game player over his career, on the books for $9.5 million over the next two years, plus 37-year-old goalie Nikolai Khabibulin's contract which calls for the veteran to be paid $11.25 million over the next three years. That's six problematic contracts eating up more than 50 per cent of the cap, and not a true star in the group."

Cox is partly right. Horcoff, Souray, and especially Khabiboulin will be problematic going forward. I won’t get into it here but Hemsky, Penner, and Gilbert are all value at their current pacts. In any event, this isn’t baseball. Going 3 for 6 doesn’t quite make Cox the Barry Bonds of sports journalism. Not to mention that nine months later, the Oilers are 13 million under the cap this season. Just think, that’s two and a half more Phil Kessels!* Salary cap purgatory indeed.

*That would be perennial 40-goal scorer, dynamic offensive sniper, and the league’s bestest all-star ever Phil Kessel. The Oilers still have enough room to buy themselves 100 more goals and 270 goals against!

Cox outdid himself this weekend though. Still basking in the glory of chosen boy James Reimer’s first career shutout, he penned this:

Sigh, I don’t think anyone could have written an article that better encapsulates what we want this blog to be about. Here we go, line by line. Cox’s words in bold.

Next, interesting to see the Edmonton Oilers have slipped into dead last again.

Interesting to see the Toronto Maple Leafs have vaulted from second to fifth last during the second straight year they don’t have their first round pick. That’s….. errrr….. progress I suppose.

Guess they've got their sights set on Gabriel Landeskog, likely the top pick in the June entry draft.

Sure, that’d be cool. Any one of Landeskog, Larsson, or Couturier is a defensible pick to me. But again, tell me who the Leafs are looking at picking in the draft this year, Matthew Puempel?

But let's make a date for Jan., 2014. Only then, really, will we have any real evidence on whether the Oilers are doing their rebuild correctly or whether Brian Burke has done a better job with different ideas in Toronto. Like the Kessel trade, you're just going to have to wait and let this play out.

Cox’s arbitrary cutoff humours me – pontificating as if he’s the authority on this kind of thing. Not that there is any set date where we can start judging this kind of stuff, but let’s look at the situations of both teams at the end of this season for fun.*

The Leafs have $37 million committed to 12 players in 2011-2012. Key free agents include Tyler Bozak, Clarke Macarthur, Tomas Kaberle, and Luke Schenn. Say 3 of those guys resign – that number becomes $45-$50 million to 15 players. To ice a full roster, they would still have to sign seven players with about $10-15 million of cap remaining. Between $1.5-$2.0 million per player.

The Oilers have $41 million committed to 16 players in 2011-2010. Key free agents include Andrew Cogliano and Ladislav Smid. With both of those guys resigning they’ll be under $45 million for 18 players. To ice a full roster, the Oilers would still have to sign 4 players with about $15-20 million of cap remaining. Between $3.75-$5.0 million per player.

This seems to identify Edmonton as having more cap flexibility going forward. And the more I think about it, I wonder why Tambellini seems against the idea to compete next year. $20 million can buy 4 pretty good hockey players.

Also, Burke’s “different ideas” must classify as giving up two lottery picks for a temperamental and lazy offensive player who gives up as much defensively as he contributes in the opposing team’s zone. That or to building a team through “pugnacity, testosterone, truculence, and belligerence.” The latter being as conducive to winning hockey games as my Call of Duty skills are to winning a Victoria Cross.

*I find doing a direct comparison of Tambellini vs. Burke’s GM skills is like watching a drag race between a Pinto and a Neon. One may win, but it really is a waste of everyone’s time.

In Edmonton, I see Taylor Hall with a good chance to be a 35-40 goal scorer in the NHL….

In Toronto, I see no forward – rookie or not – worth two farts of Taylor Hall’s potential.

In fact, I’d say he’s already better than Phil Kessel. Consider:

Hall
GFON: 30
GAON: 39
+/- per 60: -.068
CorsiOn: 0.23
CorsiOff: -12.67
Sh%On: 8.9
Sv%On: 903

Kessel
GFON: 23
GAON: 45
+/- per 60: -1.65
CorsiOn: -3.89
CorsiOff: 0.36
Sh%On: 5.9
Sv%On: 900

The Toronto Maple Leafs give up a goal and a half per 60 minutes of even strength hockey Phil Kessel plays. Also, their team records a positive shot differential as soon as Kessel rides the pine. Looks like Ron Wilson is a smarter man than we thought all along.

Conversely, Edmonton gets killed when Taylor Hall isn’t on the ice and saws the opposition off when he’s on it. Yeah, Kessel’s getting boned by the percentages but I think this is a pretty logical argument in favour of Hall being better.

…a couple of exciting prospect in Jordan Eberle and Magnus Paajarvi and then a bunch of holes

Cox is being a tard if he doesn’t’ think Eberle or Paajarvi would fill holes on the Leafs’ top 9 right now.

The Oilers’ holes are no more pronounced than COTU.

… that need to be filled by a team that is rated the second least attractive club to be part of in the NHL in a recent survey by NHL players.

The following are results of said player poll Damien Cox is alluding to on the question of least desirable franchises to play for:

1) New York Islanders
2) Edmonton Oilers
3) Buffalo Sabres
4) Atlanta Thrashers
5) Toronto Maple Leafs

See the bolded number 5 there Damo? Yeah, you’re a buffoon – gotta love the market assassination by a Toronto writer who is too ignorant to admit the shortcomings of playing in COTU. Not that ignorance is a trait people from Toronto are known for or anything……

Want to know my theory? Players want to join teams not because of climate reasons, media pressure, arena they have to play in 41 times a year, taxation levels, or anything like that. Players would rather play for teams that regularly WIN. I know, I know, what a novel concept.

I’m sure Cox has been to Detroit before. It’s probably the biggest hellhole in the world. Yet for some reason, they don’t have any problems keeping and attracting free agents. As a city, Calgary isn’t much different than Edmonton except that their hockey team makes the playoffs every five years or so. Long Island is a 45 minute drive from New York, a franchise that is always a front runner when it comes to player recruitment. Yet the players hate playing in the Big Apple’s suburbs.

Outside of Buffalo, every team on that list has been a perennial loser over the past 3-5 years. But no, the eastern media thinks the weather is too cold in central Alberta for anyone to want to play there.* I mean, Georgia is frigid this time of year too.

*Note: Cox didn’t say this explicitly in his article but it’s been a theme of the Eastern media for a while now.

The Oilers may indeed be on course for a championship……

Well I wouldn’t go that far, they do have Steve Tambellini for a General Manager. A guy whose previous franchise (Vancouver) passed over him twice to become GM. It hurts to say this but it’s probably the best decision they ever made. Mike Gillis has done an incredible job so far.

But are the Oilers closer to a championship than Toronto? Absolutely, I’m as sure as Phil Kessel needs rogaine.

….but there's tons of work to do….

We actually agree on something.

…and right now, they're significantly worse than the Leafs,

sig•nif•i•cant (s g-n f -k nt)
adjective.
-Fairly large in amount or quantity

At the risk of overstating things, I’d like to again point out that the Toronto Maple Leafs currently sit 25 out of 30 teams in the National Hockey League. They are not significantly better than anyone.

Correct uses of the conjugated word “significant” in a sentence:

The Detroit Red Wings are significantly better than the Edmonton Oilers.

The Reporters is a significantly better show without Damien Cox.

My life will not get significantly better when I quit hearing stories about waffles, “heart” as a hockey skill, Tomas Kaberle’s No Trade Clause, and James Reimer being Jesus until he plays 50 games in the NHL.

who have a similarly youthful team with more kids (Keith Aulie, Nazem Kadri, Brad Ross, Jerry D'Amigo etc) possibly on the way.

To put it mildly, I disdain HF boards like Silvio Burlisconi does celibacy. But its parent body, Hockey’s Future does some decent work on organizational prospect rankings. Here are their latest rankings of the teams in question from November of 2012:

3) Edmonton Oilers
12) Toronto Maple Leafs

In terms of the prospects Cox names, Aulie and Kadri will probably have decent careers. However, Jerry D’Amigo is scoring at the rate of Phil Cornet in the AHL. For those of you who don’t know who Phil Cornet is, he’s not even rated among the Oilers’ top 20 prospects on HF.

Brad Ross on the other hand doesn’t have a point per game in the WHL his first post-draft year on a stacked Portland Winter Hawks team. Not a great sign.

He is on pace for his second straight 200 penalty minute season though. OOOOOOOHHHH YEEEEAAAAAHHHH, he sounds truculent all right. Burkie sure did hit another one out of the park.

Edmonton has high hopes for Curtis Hamilton, Tyler Pitlick and Anton Lander, among others.

All three guys mentioned are better prospects than Brad Ross. They are scoring at a rate far superior to him when you take into account league equivalencies.

I’d argue they’re all more promising than D’Amigo at this point too but that’s pretty subjective until we see them in the AHL. That’s a tough league and a lot of guys can’t make the adjustment from junior.

It's impossible to forecast right now which team has the better kids, although Hall is certainly the top blue-chipper in either organization.

You’re right, it is impossible but I’ve just spent the last 1,000 words analyzing why Edmonton’s are better – including why Taylor Hall is doing awesome for an 18 year old rookie. Eberle too.

You blabbered on about Jerry D’Amigo and significance.

That said, the gulf that some would have you believe exists between the rebuilding approach of the Oilers and the Leafs is theoretical, at best.

This article is theoretical, at best.

As it stands now, the Oilers are in much better shape. Of course, Tambellini will screw it all up this when he signs Michael Nylander this summer. His wife will be forced to approve this time when the choice is Edmonton or Minsk.

The St. Louis Blues have gone about their business in the same way as the Oilers, including picking defenceman Erik Johnson first overall in '06, and right now their rebuilding efforts are barely ahead of Toronto's.

Sigh, do I have to prove you wrong a second time?

If you go by Cox’s definition of the word, the Blues are significantly better than Canada’s Team. They’re averaging 1.08 points per game. Toronto averages 0.94. If point levels remain consistent over the season, the Blues will finish with 88 points compared to 77 for the Leafs.

Not to mention the Blues have similar cap room going forward plus blue-chippers like T.J. Oshie, Patrick Berglund, Alex Pietrangelo, and Erik Johnson currently skating for them. Also, they’ve got Vlad Tarasenko and Jayden Schwartz who haven’t turned pro yet.

The Leafs have Luke Schenn, Nazem Kadri, Phil Kessel, and……. Nikolai Kulemin? Jerry D’Amigo?*

I would say “barely ahead” should mean “extensively” or “considerably.” But let’s not get bogged down in semantics when we can just make generalized attacks on things we know little about, eh Damien?

*Update: And I just see the Leafs traded for Joff Lupul. BAHAHAHAHAHA. Although that Gardiner guy they got too is supposed to be a decent prospect.

Twit's and Twitterz

I’ll be honest, pro athletes, outside of their incredible talent at the games in which they play, impress me very little. Sure, there are some exceptions to the rule – Ken Dryden, Magic Johnson, and Derek Jeter – to name a few. But by and large, when athletes try to transition into day to day life, they seem to be very inadequate at it. I am impressed by smarts and these just aren’t very intelligent people.* Nowhere is this more evident than twitter. Oh the sweet access of social media.

*One just needs to watch any Sportsnet Oilers’ game and listen to Louie DeBrusk do colour with Nick Kypreos as the intermission panellist.

Take the Jay Cutler situation from a few weeks ago. I’ll defer on the whole should he or should he not have come back into the game after spraining his MCL. Instead, I want to look at a few tweets from NFL players that became public knowledge.

“FOX HAVENT SHOWED ANY TRAINERS LOOK AT CUTLER,UMMM” – Derrick Brooks

“Folks i never question a players injury but i do question a players heart. Truth” – Deion Sanders

“If I’m on Chicago team jay cutler has to wait till me and the team shower get dressed and leave before he comes in the locker room! #FACT” – Darnell Dockett

“I never questioned Cutler injury! But I know in a NFC championship game and I’m the QB? I’m gonna deal with the pain or whatever to win!” – Darnell Docket
Sweet Jesus, what a mess.

First of all, God bless my grammar teachers. They obviously had a much more difficult challenge than I ever imagined. Second of all, are these guys serious? Like I know it’s cool to be hip by saying “boi” and “u” in place of conventional words, but I think these guys are literally trying their hardest to make a sensible English sentence.

Derrick Brooks has apparently never conjugated a verb. Not to mention whoever ends their sentences, oral or written, with “UMMM” strikes me as someone less complex than a Black Eyed Peas song.

Deion Sanders thinks all words ending in “s” must be spelled like his last name. And as far as I know, blurting one-word declaratives only validates he’s an idiot, not that his statement is correct. Imagine how smart I would sound if I wrote like this:

The Maple Leafs suck. AWESOME. Brian Burke is a failure of a hockey executive. EXCELLENT. Damien Cox is an ignoramus. ABSOLUTELY.

It sounds like a Ninja Turtles episode. COWABUNGA, Prime Time.

But by far the worst is Darnell Dockett, he of the Arizona team. Double Ds tries to string together two thoughts that just make my head hurt. Like Deion, he’s never heard of an apostrophe, although Dockett just ignores the possessive altogether. Also like Deion, he spouts some insane declarative, “FACT”, as if it means anything.

Now I know what Dockett is ultimately trying to say. But are you kidding me? This is a guy who supposedly was academically eligible while at Florida State University. And it’s not like he was an engineering or physics major where he never had to write a paper. Did anyone give this guy a tutor? More likely some loose Seminole groupie coughed out a three page report on Freud after Dockett took her home from a frat party.

Ugh, presumably NFL players should be smarter than most professional athletes. Unlike the MLB and NHL, most of these guys have taken at least three years of college. But look at these sentences again. Is this really supposed to be a reflection of the regular 4-year undergraduate in an American university? Maybe Waiting For Superman has a point.

A quick search of Dockett’s twitter exploits show this isn’t an isolated incident. I present the following tweets from the first page of his twitter account:

“Aye fellas would yall Perfer a girl with a Nice body or cute face and why!”

“Yooooooo so this gucci mane tatto is real!! I thought it was a fake! Woooooooooooow!”

“Ok fellas if ur girl have to have one these witch would it be Thighs, BUTT, BOOBS, HIPS, EYES, LIPS, FEET or SWAGG! And why”

“This is funny as hell! I'm getting my old changed and I'm entertained cuz these responses have me LOL!”

I rest my case.

Maybe I’m just a grammar nerd but this is infuriating. Can twitter create a Wonderlic Test* so that idiots like Dockett are prohibited from posting? This may actually make me want to join twitter. Cull the herd of meatheads before letting the rest of the cows out of the pen. I also feel this is how a democracy should work; make voters prove they’re actually aware of what’s going on before they cast a vote. But I digress.

*Something like spot 3 errors in the following sentence: “its cold out side and me and my brother’s our boosting are carz.”

I’ll write my conclusion in twitterese:

All athleetee’s r well @ sports. But only sum can right good. There 4, only sum shuld use twittr. ROFL. Sew plz boiz n girlz, b carefull what u reed. Dont pic up bad habit’s. If ppl right like this when I get old, I will loose all hope 4 human ity. : ) LOL :-