Sam Fels – Page 213 – Faxes from Uncle Dale

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Game #34 – Hawks vs. Stars: Spotlight – Hanzal? Hanzal?

By Sam Fels December 21, 2017 1924 0

We give Dallas GM Jim Nill a lot of shit for a lot of things. The way he completely ignored his goaltending situation the past three years or so. Or when he did try to remedy it he ended up with Antti Niemi. And then ended up with Ben Bishop, which might only be a slight upgrade. The way he stuck by Lindy Ruff when it was clear that his defense-less ways were never going to allow the Stars to go anywhere. Or the way he “wins” every offseason according to the hockey media, and then the Stars are still not around when the calendar gets to May. Or they miss the playoff altogether.

We’ve spent so much time going over all that we’ve missed his Martin Hanzal signing. And this one might really suck. It might be one of the worst of the summer, actually.

Before we get to what Martin Hanzal is, let’s get to what he was. Martin Hanzal has scored over 40 points exactly twice in his 10-year career. And never more than 41. He’s never scored more than 16 goals in a season. Connected to that, he’s only played more than 70 games in a season four times, and three of them were in his first three seasons. He gets hurt, and he doesn’t score much when he’s actually on the ice.

And Jim Nill gave him $4.7 million for the next three years.

Here are some centers making around the same money. Bryan Little makes the same, as far as cap hit. When he signed that deal, he was coming off 32 points in 48 games in 2013. He then backed it up with a 64 point seasons and a 52-point season. Vincent Trocheck makes the same cap hit. He has two 50-point seasons and has been a point-per-game this year. Artem Anisimov’s cap hit is slightly less, and it’s probably not a good contract, but he’s about to gather his third-straight 20-goal season. Nazem Kadri makes $4.5 per year, and he’s got three 50-point season and is going to add a fourth this year. Other names are Marcus Johansson, Valtieri Fillpula, Tyler Johnson, Alex Galchenyuk, Jori Lehtera. Make of that what you will, which is probably there are some really dumb GMs around.

Hanzal has five points this year. He’s also been a possession black hole, which given his just-shit-myself skating style on a team that can get-up-and-go isn’t a huge surprise. His relative-Corsi is -5.37 and his -10.3 relative xGF% is one of the worst in the league.

Nill will get away with it because Kari Lehtonen’s $5.9 million hit and Dan Hamhuis’s $3.7 million hit come off the books this year. Even with Roussel, Johns, Shore, Elie, Janmark, Smith to re-sign. Then again, they’ll only have 11-14 million to do all that with. The following year Tyler Seguin is going to get his, but Jason Spezza’s hit comes off the books. So Nill might dodge the damage that could come along with such an oversized mistake.

To be fair to Hanzal, Jabba The Hitch has used him exclusively as a checking-line center. He starts only 32% of his shifts in the offensive zone, so of course his metrics are going to be low. Still, if you want merely a punching bag who sucks up defensive zone draws, you can probably find one for cheaper than $4.7 million per year.

More genius. You gotta love it.

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Everything Else

Game #34 – Hawks vs. Stars: Q&A With Taylor Baird… She Lives Here Now

By Sam Fels December 21, 2017 1951 0

For the second time in two weeks or so, we go and bother Taylor Baird from DefendingBigD.com. Follow her on Twitter @TaylorBaird.

The Stars are one of the lowest event teams in the league, which is something of a Hitchcock specialty. But given how this roster is built, is that really conducive to success? Is that why the record has been a touch wonky?

I think they’re still trying to figure out the balance between structure and suppressing chances against while being creative offensively. When they won five games straight right after Thanksgiving, they scored an average of 4.4 goals per game (excluding shootouts/empty netters) and they only allowed 2.2 goals per game on average. That’s a terrific recipe for success, and now they’ve shown they can do it. The trick is finding the consistency to put it into place each night while still adjusting to new linemates/system/coaching/etc. Sometimes that takes longer to put together than fans would like, but I think they’re capable.

The Stars traded Jamie Oleksiak, which seems to be a vote of confidence for Julius Honka. Why are Stars fans so excited about him?

He’s mobile and very creative with the puck in flashes in games he played last season, something the Stars have lacked at times from their blueline. Stars fans are excited that Dallas could have two of the offensive defensemen style blueliners in the lineup and believe it will help improve the transition game immensely. And while these kinds of players come with inherent risks, Honka has shown that he has the speed to be able to recover from his mistakes, something that Oleksiak struggled with in Dallas. It’s not that people felt Oleksiak was a pylon, but for many fans his defensive shortcomings when he wasn’t providing much in the way of possession/scoring was tough to swallow.

Martin Hanzal, five points, some of the worst metrics on the team. This has not gone well so far, has it?

The better penalty kill from the terribad one last season might say otherwise. He doesn’t look good statistically, but he has had flashes in games this season when healthy of doing all the little things that help maintain possession or cycle in the offensive zone that has created the environment for goal scoring by the next line on the ice. I’d say it’s more likely an “incomplete” grade at this point in the season, especially given that he’s missed games due to injury.

Marc Methot is returning from injury soon. What kind of difference will that make?

I think it will really solidify a top six, and maybe the Stars can stop the bottom four merry-go-round that they’ve run searching for the right combinations. If they can get a group in consistently for a stretch, I’d expect the team as a whole will look much better in general.

What will the Stars need to pick up to lock down a playoff spot this year?

Most likely a top six forward, as the Stars haven’t found the right answer to have a consistent second line threat without breaking up the dynamite grouping of Jamie Benn – Tyler Seguin – Alexander Radulov. It doesn’t seem to be ready to be answered from inside the system today, so acquiring that will probably be a top target for Jim Nill at the trade deadline (or sooner) this season.

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Everything Else

Game #34 – Hawks vs. Stars: Douchebag Du Jour – Goin’ Down South

By Sam Fels December 21, 2017 2304 0

Last time these two met, we went down on what makes Jamie Benn so angry. We got to the bottom of what might be irking him, to see if we could lap up what make Benn tick. Maybe, if we played our cards right–took it down, if you will–we could bring his problems to their knees. Sometimes, you just have to put your face in there, y’know? You can’t just expect things to come to you. Put your love out there, and you’ll get it back. Give if you want to receive, as it were.

But we couldn’t quite bring it through. Benn is second on the Stars in penalty minutes, speaking to his inner frustration, which he just can’t seem to open up. The bile is rising, but he can’t taste it. If Benn could just sink down into it, and see what he can’t get to. Maybe if he just took a look, and tried to solve his problems, things would just open up for him. And then he could be a player no one ever dreamed of.

That’s the thing with sports, in order to achieve all you can you have to realize there are things under the surface that you have to face. That you have to conquer. You have to do things that at first seem distasteful, maybe even gross. You have to push yourself through, no matter what might get stuck in your teeth. Maybe you’ll feel surrounded, maybe it’ll be dark and hot and you won’t know exactly what you’re doing. But then you just close your eyes and guess, and sometimes it works. Maybe this is why Jamie Benn has never seen a conference Final. He’s never gotten “halfway,” if you will.

But until Benn is willing to go where he hasn’t before, he’s never going to taste victory.

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Everything Else

Game #34 – Hawks vs. Stars: I Make A Lot Of Graphs

By Sam Fels December 21, 2017 1361 0

All stats at even-strength unless noted. Courtesy of Corsica.hockey.

Key: CF/60 – shot attempts for per 60 minutes

CA/60 – shot attempts against per 60

CF% – ratio of shot attempts for and against

G/60, GA/60, GF% – goals scored, allowed, and ratio of per 60 minutes

xGF/60, xGA/60, xGF% – “expected goals” i.e. goals team “should” have scored and allowed based on amount and types of chances and attempts created and allowed given neutral goaltending.

PDO – shooting percentage plus save percentage, used to measure luck. 100 is average.

Time On Ice Percentage – amount of even-strength time player skates

Off. Zone Start Ratio – percentage of shifts started in offensive zone

TOI% of Competition: percentage of even-strength time opponent takes of his team player skates against

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Everything Else

Game #34 – Hawks vs. Stars: Lineups & How Teams Were Built

By Sam Fels December 21, 2017 1832 0

All stats courtesy of Corsica.hockey and NaturalStatTrick.com. Team info from HockeyDB.com

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Everything Else

They Actually Got One Stabilized

By Sam Fels December 20, 2017 3027 0

It’s rare that the NHL gets good news when it comes to arena deals and stability. And sometimes, like Calgary, it’s them basically dropping eggs on their own face repeatedly. But it did today when the New York Islanders announced that they won their bid to build a new arena at Belmont Race Track, over NYCFC. I can only imagine the day the railbirds are going to have after getting beat out of a Pick Four by a 30-1 and then walk barely a quarter mile to yell at Nick Leddy for three hours. Actually, that sounds like my perfect day.

While I haven’t seen the ins and outs of the deal, it appears the Islanders and their partners are going to finance this one themselves, which is a real upset. I’m sure there are tax breaks galore involved here, and the land being owned by the racetrack probably puts in further complications. And of course the Isles have to figure out where they’re going to play after next season when the Nets and their Russian nutjob of an owner punt them out of the Barclays Center like Otto squatting in the Simpsons place. And based on their attendance, the Islanders might only leave some mustard behind. Yes, I just mixed my Simpsons metaphors. Sue me.

Still, this is good news, and there’s something unique about the Isles staying on the Island. First off, Belmont is accessible by train from the city (believe me, I know), so those who are coming from there aren’t out of luck like they were getting out to Nassau. But it’s closer to the team’s base on The Island, so that’s a win for everyone.

It took my compatriot Matt McClure pointing it out to me, but the Isles are maybe one of two remaining neighborhood teams in American sports. A team that isn’t identified with a city per se, but a specific area of a metro area. The other would be the baseball team here that plays on the Southside. No, I’m serious. There’s a baseball team there. I’m not kidding! And they’ve got a real nice park with great food. You should totally go. You can find Fifth Feather there still yelling about Todd Frazier. No one’s told him he’s been traded, and we’d prefer if you didn’t either. It’s funnier this way.

The Northside Nine are basically a national brand at this point, and have been for a while. They belong to Iowa and Nebraska and beyond thanks to WGN. While the Isles attempted to move their “neighborhood” to Brooklyn, Brooklyn is 4th biggest city in America by population. This isn’t the Dodgers anymore. You all think of a certain type of Brooklyn-ite, and he’s probably got a mustache and a wool cap in July and such. But that’s just one facet of it.

I guess the Mets could be considered a neighborhood team, and they have the same colors as the Isles, but no one wants to actually claim the Mets. They’re the Moosylvania of sports.

LA’s never had that, because everyone hates Orange County and it’s not a “neighborhood” so much as a “hellscape.” The Clippers and Lakers have either played in the same arena or two arenas that are really close to each other. The A’s and Giants have that identity, but Oakland is a huge place. I guess within the Bay Area, the A’s have the biggest identity in their little place of it, but Oakland is still a city.

Good for the Isles, and good for their collection of fans, even if Long Island is the reason we still have Billy Joel to bother us and also might be the genesis and biggest example of “white flight.” One of the appeals for soccer fans like me and others is that teams are so much more closely identified with where they’re from. Even if it’s a citywide team, there’s a real connection and feel there that sometimes American sports loses out on. Partially because we know how easily they’re moved around. But the Isles and the weirdness that they’re the only ones that come from this specific place and will return there, that has a place. An anti-New York City feel to it is what helped give the Isles their identity. And they’ll get it back.

No, seriously, there’s a baseball team on the Southside. You don’t have to look it up.

Everything Else

Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight – December 19th

By Sam Fels December 19, 2017 1725 0

First Screen Viewing

Jets v. Predators – 7pm

With the Jets suddenly in the targeting area and the Hawks about to find a shooting solution on them, this one seems pretty important. The Hawks have a game in hand on the Jets and are four points back. Get dinged in Music City and suddenly the Men of Four Feathers are going to get awfully big in the rearview mirror (HEY BUDDY!). The Predators are rolling these days, and look to be the class of the West and even though the Blues are tied with them in the standings I’m not sure it’s close as to who is better. Seeing as how the Preds have three games in hand on the Blues, you can see why. They’ve won six of their last seven, and somehow their one loss was to Vegas, though that was in a shootout. If the Jets still have designs of running with the big dogs, and it would be adorable if they do, they kind of need this. Lose in reg, and it’s a five point gap with the Preds having two games in hand. That’s kind of a massive gap.

Second Screen Viewing

Capitals v. Stars – 7:30

The Stars are a point behind the Hawks, but things haven’t really clicked yet as you have a roster designed for high-event hockey with a coach who couldn’t be more allergic to that. They’ve been ok, but the goaltending isn’t holding up and you could see the floor drop on it. The Caps have no such problems, as they’ve been on fire can’t can’t stop getting rubber into twine (HEY BUDDY!). Everyone is scoring on this team, and Ovie might be headed for 50 again. The past couple years we would have marked this as a potential 4×400. That would cause Hitchcock to choke on his two-pound cheeseburger, so we won’t get that. But we will get some intrigue.

Other games

Red Wings v. Islanders – 6pm

Ducks vs. Rangers – 6pm

Wild v. Senators – 6pm

Bruins v. Sabres – 6:30

Panthers v. Coyotes – 8pm

Canadiens v. Canucks – 9pm

Lightning v. Knights – 9pm

Everything Else

The Thinking (Or Drinking?) Man’s Awards

By Sam Fels December 19, 2017 2747 0

I like to do this every so often. I’m not sure it makes total sense, and it certainly would make more sense to do it in a couple weeks when the season is half over. But I’m here now and it’s rattling around in my head so let’s do it and circle back in a month or so.

Some of the NHL awards, or more to the point the criteria that are used to pick the winners, are borked. There’s no other way to put it. MVP… that’s usually easy to figure out as long as you don’t get too mired into what “valuable” means and really just pick player of the year. I suppose this year, at least so far, we could get a real dumb debate about how Kucherov and Stamkos are actually vaulting each other and hence aren’t as valuable as say, John Tavares who’s doing more with less. Fine, whatever. Pick any of the three and I don’t think you’re wrong.

Vezina is usually pretty easy, though can get muddied by win totals much like pitcher-wins used to be the defining characteristic for Cy Young winners in the past (like last year. Fucking Rick Porcello?). Still, with save-percentage and GAA are the best we have, and this year it’s Corey Crawford and if he keeps it up and doesn’t even make the finalist list I’m going to go kick several people in the shins and not explain why to leave them in the same fog of confusion I will be in. By any measure it’s Crow, as he’s got the best GAA among starters, the best save-percentage among starters, and the best difference between his save-percentage and his expected save-percentage, given what the team in front of him is surrendering. Good god, he’s been so good.

It’s the Norris and the Selke that always have the cloudiest parameters. The Selke has basically become “What center do we all know who scores a lot, wins faceoffs, and we’re pretty sure has good metrics but don’t check?” And that answer is always Patrice Bergeron. And you could hand this award to Bergeron from here until he retires, take Nick Lidstrom’s last Norris away because that was just stupid, melt it down, turn it into another Selke, and give that to Bergeron, and you wouldn’t really be wrong. But I think we can do better. Let’s see:

So if we’re looking for best defensive forwards, one place we can start is the best forwards at restricting attempts against so far this year. We won’t use goals, because that’s too dependent on the goalies behind these forwards which is out of their control. So you’re best forwards for corsi-against per 60:

Adam Lowry – WPG
Taylor Leier – PHI
Brandon Tanev – WPG
Mikko Salomaki
Pierre-Luc Dubois – CBJ

I can assure you that none of these players will get a Selke vote. But when they’re out there, their teams surrender the least attempts, which has to account for something.

If we go a bit deeper, we can use xGA/60, to not only use pure attempts but the types of chances against that these forwards are on the ice for.

Lowry
Tanev
Jason Zucker – MN
Oskar Sundqvist – STL
Mikko Koivu – MN

Again, we see Lowry and Tanev at the top of the list, and as they play on the same line together, that makes sense.

But it isn’t so simple, is it? Because you’d want to suss out who are doing really dynamo defensive work and who is just benefitting from playing on a great defensive team. So, you’re relative CA/60 leaders are:

H. Sedin – Van
Tanev
Evgeny Dadonov – FLA
Marcus Kruger – CAR
Lowry

And Relative xGA/60 leaders:

Ondrej Kase – ANA
Lowry
Mitch Marner – TOR (ain’t that some shit?)
Zac Rinaldo – AZ (what?)
Carl Hagelin – PIT

So if anyone actually used these numbers, you’d have a pretty convincing case for Adam Lowry this year, yes? The problem of course is that Lowry is skating third line shifts, with Scheifele and Little taking on the harder competition. Yes, Lowry is kicking aside everything he’s seeing, and that shouldn’t be discounted, and he’s also starting the most shifts of anyone in his own zone. So even though he has to start in his own zone the most, he’s making sure the least happens there. So yeah, right now, if the world made sense, Adam Lowry is your Selke front-runner. Don’t sit on a hot stove waiting for any voter to actually say this, though.

The Norris is a bit harder. Or it’s easier, because you could just hand the thing to Erik Karlsson, along with the three others he should have gotten but didn’t because voters were either MJ’d/LeBron’d out or they’re fucking xenophobes or both. But unlike the Selke, you do have to consider the whole package. Karlsson hasn’t won as many as he should because every so often voters decide merely scoring from the back end isn’t enough, and conveniently forget that Karlsson just pushed everything to the other end of the ice all the time and made life easier for everyone.

If this went how this normally went, John Klingberg or Tyson Barrie would get it because they’re the highest scoring d-men. But again, we know better now. We don’t get to vote, but we know better.

So if we wanted to find the overall best d-man, Corsi-percentage would be a good place to start. Who’s preventing attempts and generating more at the same time? Don’t worry, you’ll like this. Your top five d-men in CF%:

Connor Murphy – CHI (funny, don’t hear Mark Potash complaining about the Hjalmarsson trade at the moment)
Noah Hanifin – CAR
Mark Giordano – CGY
Zach Werenski – CBJ
Dougie Hamilton – CGY

Man, that feels good. But like we did with the forwards, let’s go with xGF% too to see the types of chances that are being surrendered and generated as well:

Brandon Davidson – MTL/EDM
Tim Heed – SJ
Roman Polak – TOR (No, I’m serious)
Jared Spurgeon
Yohann Auvitu – EDM

So this is no help. Aside from Spurgeon, these are four d-men who are skating third pairing minutes and are heavily sheltered. And they play on possession-dominant teams for the most part. So let’s do the relative thing again. First relative Corsi-percentage:

Hampus! Hampus! – ANA
Spurgeon
Josh Manson – ANA (He’s mad… he’s glad…)
Werenski
Giordano

And relative xGF%

Hampus! Hampus!
Spurgeon
Christian Djoos – WSH
Murphy
Drew Doughty – LA

Basically I want to hand the Norris to Murphy because… well, because. And if we’re going strictly but non-points and non-goals, there’s a case. There’s probably a stronger one for Spurgeon or Hampus, and you can throw Giordano and Werenski on the list, but you see what we’re doing here. Both Hampus! Hampus! and Murphy have the best relative corsi-against as well, if we’re going by straight defensive metrics as that’s in the job title. I’ve never thought that was fair, because d-men shouldn’t be punished for contributing offensively, but it’s fun to mention. Murphy also has the best relative xGA/60, and Hampus! Hampus! is 3rd.

Basically, Connor Murphy has been fucking excellent, and if hockey had a Fangraphs-like site that people paid attention to, I would spend all my time making his Norris case and dealing with the laughter. And Hampus! Hampus!’s, because I like saying, “Hampus! Hampus!”

Also, you should be pronouncing “Connor Murphy” just like Chappele’s Rick James said, “Charlie Murphy!” right before he punched him.

Everything Else

Game #33 – Wild vs. Hawks: Spotlight – With A Name Like Zucker…

By Sam Fels December 17, 2017 2978 0

If you’re sick of Jason Zucker, we wouldn’t blame you. First of all, he needs to decide how he wants people to pronounce his name, because it’s run the gamut. More to the point, if it feels like he kind of murders the Hawks, you wouldn’t be wrong there either. The stats say in the regular season, it’s only been eight points (five goals) in 20 games. Feels like more, right? Part of that is the Hawks were finally able to keep him quiet last year, with no points in four games. Still, he’s been a nuisance.

Zucker is on pace to have his career-best season this campaign. He already has 14 goals, his career-high is 22. He has 25 points already, his career-high is 47. Yes, he’s been awfully hot this season, and a 20% shooting-percentage isn’t going to stick around forever you wouldn’t think.

More to the point, Zucker isn’t getting the same number of attempts he has in the past few years, averaging just 11 when the past three years he’s averaged between 14-16 attempts per game. His individual expected goals are down as well per game, so he’s riding the percentages a bit. What Zucker has been able to do is maintain his possession numbers while the team’s around him has collapsed. Zucker’s relative numbers have sky-rocketed, case in point being that Zucker’s relative expected goals-percentage is +12.1 over the team-rate, fifth best in the whole league.

And if you’re GM Chuck Fletcher, you’re kind of hoping Zucker’s agent doesn’t point that out this summer.

Zucker is a restricted free agent after the season, which pretty much blows for him. Should he be able to keep grinding down the railing of high-percentages, he’d find himself a 30-goal scorer and 55+-point man at the age of 26. On the open market, that’s a $5 million-a-year player. But Zucker isn’t going to be on the open market.

And he’s on a team that’s going to have no space at all. The Wild are already up against the cap right now, thanks to their Monty Python-foot-like deals to Parise and Suter. They don’t get much relief after the year either, as only Chris Steward, Matt Cullen, and Daniel Winnik’s deals come off the roster. That’s only about $3 million to play with. Rumors of the cap going up must have Fletcher with some kind of Jobu-like shrine in his office, praying to whatever god can make that true. Because the Wild also have to re-up Matthew Dumba, and seeing as how they punted Marco Scandella away to elevate his role, you’d best believe they’re not going to give up on him.

If the cap went up $3 million or so, with the three they have coming off the books, the Wild might be able to play hardball and get both Dumba and Zucker in for $3 million each. It’d be a slight raise for each, but you’d have to think that both want more than just a mere percentage-point raise.

And this is where if the NHL didn’t have an unspoken, collusion-lite system of no offer sheets things would get awfully interesting. Part of the reason there are no offer sheets is that the compensation system for them is utterly insane. As stated above, Zucker might prove to be a $5 million player. But if you were to offer him that, it would cost you four first round picks. In any kind of vacuum, you’re not trading four first rounders for what is at best a second line winger. If you were to offer Zucker $4 million a year, an amount the Wild might simply not be able to match, that still costs you a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Again, for a second-line winger. You’d have to think this is something the NHLPA will revisit in a new CBA. That is, if they had a clue.

Look for some contentious negotiations this summer between the Wild and Zucker. They simply can’t give him more than $3 million, and he’s earned more than that. Would the Wild allow Zucker to bet on himself for a one-year deal and then go UFA in the summer of ’19? The Wild system is actually stocked. Jordan Greenway looks to be eying that spot as soon as next year.

Wonder if the Wild might think about a trade this season? Stay tuned.

Game #33 Preview