Leon Draisaitl swept all of the major awards from the Academy last night, and now 2020 will be remembered, at least in part, as the year he put German hockey at the top of the game. Congratulations, Mr. Drasaitl!
THE ATHLETIC!
I’m proud to be writing for The Athletic, and pleased to be part of a great team with Daniel Nugent-Bowman and Jonathan Willis. Here is our recent work.
- New Lowetide: Why Oilers’ Leon Draisaitl won the Hart Trophy and Ted Lindsay Award
- New Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Breaking down my ballot for the 2019-20 NHL awards
- Lowetide: Rising talent, acquiring picks key to Oilers’ success at draft
- Lowetide: European leagues are open, and Oilers prospects are everywhere
- Lowetide: Ken Holland and Dave Tippett’s past players: Can any help the Oilers?
- Lowetide: Roster projections for Oilers, including trade and free agent targets
- Jonathan Willis: Why the Oilers should buy out James Neal
- Lowetide: Oilers approach 2020 draft with increased depth in important positions
- Lowetide: Stock Watch: Hot starts and safe landings for Oilers prospects
- Jonathan Willis: There are no good shortcuts for the Oilers with Jesse Puljujarvi
- Lowetide: Potential trades and partners for the Oilers’ offseason
- Lowetide: The Oilers could find a world-class agitator in the draft
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Should the Oilers select goalie Yaroslav Askarov 14th at the NHL Draft?
- Lowetide: A bold draft strategy for the Oilers in 2020
- Jonathan Willis: Oilers third-line centre search should include other teams’ cap casualties
- Lowetide: Dealing a defenceman? Taking stock of Oilers’ blueline assets
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Q&A: Oilers GM Ken Holland on improving internally, the flat cap and goaltending
- Jonathan Willis: Can the Oilers find value picks among the 2020 NHL Draft’s impressive Russians?
- Lowetide: 10 free agent targets for the Oilers this offseason
- Lowetide: What if the Oilers went scorched earth in front of 2020 free agency?
- Lowetide: Oilers Top 20 Prospects, Summer 2020
- Jonathan Willis: Unqualified RFAs could be top offseason targets for the Oilers
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Who stays? Who goes? The most likely players to stay with and leave the Oilers
LEON’S WIN
If you have a look at the PHWA votes, it’s easy to see a change is on the way. More analytics seep into the conversation each year, with Connor Hellebuyck front and center as an example of a player getting more love than he would have a decade ago. We’re going to have disagreements in a close year like this one, but I also believe there are other forces at work. People don’t like new ideas, it takes them out of their comfort zone. My question for that situation is “wouldn’t you rather be right?” and we are here. I believe Leon Draisaitl earned the Hart Memorial Trophy last year, wrote about it in the post above. Many agree with me, others do not. That’s cool. I’d love to know the decision making process you went through to arrive at your conclusion.
My reasoning is not completely math based, but the math of his season proves my point. It was epic, and possibly franchise altering because the move to center impacts the Oilers future in a big way. However, I’ve lived long enough to know knowledge is power and my knowledge can be improved. So I’m going to pursue why some believe Leon didn’t earn the award, beginning with finding out the answer to the question I pose below.
ELUSIVE CONCLUSIONS
One thing about the Oilers 2019-20 season that is driving me around the bend is contained in the pages of Puck IQ. As you know, Puck IQ ‘bins’ a player’s opposition into three categories: Elites (the best), Middle (middle) and Gritensity (the lower portions of a roster). Intuitively, we’d conclude that a great player would play the elites to just above par, do some damage against the middle and rarely see the gritensity people. Right?
- McDavid versus elites: 47.80DFF%; DFF%RelC +4.10; GF-GA: 26-16 +10
- McDavid versus middle: 50.00DFF%; DFF%RelC -1.30; GF-GA: 13-21 -8
- McDavid versus gritensity: 51.40DFF%; DFF%RelC -1.90; GF-GA: 22-21 +1
I have been staring at this for a long time and all I have is more questions. McDavid is underwater in Dangerous Fenwick against elites and that still puts him miles ahead rel compared to other Oilers forwards. He outscores the elites despite the possession gap.
What the hell? Is this a reflection of McDavid’s one and done offensive sorties? Why did the Oilers lose so much (eight goals!) against middle competition while logic and reason suggested they had a clear advantage? Is it the lack of successful breakout passes? Let’s look at 2018-19:
- McDavid versus elites: 43.00DFF%; DFF%RelC 0.30; GF-GA: 26-19 +7
- McDavid versus middle: 52.80DFF%; DFF%RelC 7.70; GF-GA: 23-27 -4
- McDavid versus gritensity: 55.78DFF%; DFF%RelC 2.30; GF-GA: 27-29 -2
These results make more sense while also being a disappointment. McDavid on the ice in these two seasons is losing the chance battle against the elites but winning the war; Winning the chance battle against the middle opposition but losing (slightly) the war; Dominating the chance battle but losing (slightly) the war versus the lower end. Quality of linemates, quality of outlet passing and goaltending (he’s winning the possession battle here) are possible factors, plus the player is maturing on plays without the puck. Let’s go back to 2016-17.
- McDavid versus elites: 56.00DFF%; DFF%RelC 11.70; GF-GA: 27-14 +13
- McDavid versus middle: 56.30DFF%; DFF%RelC 11.50; GF-GA: 27-17 +10
- McDavid versus gritensity: 57.60DFF%; DFF%RelC 4.60; GF-GA: 23-16 +7
So here it is. That’s the kind of results set one expects from the best player in the game. McDavid is a more aware defensive player now than he was in 2016-17, so what happened? Well, in 2016-17 he played most often with Oscar Klefbom (479 minutes), Adam Larsson (470), Andrej Sekera (452) and Kris Russell (413). This season, his most common defensemen were Darnell Nurse (600 minutes), Ethan Bear (585), Oscar Klefbom (291) and Kris Russell (167). Perhaps that’s a reason for the OEL rumours. Now, let’s run the numbers for the No. 1 five on five line from each season via Natural Stat Trick:
- Patrick Maroon-McDavid-Draisaitl ’16-17: 543 minutes, 293-248 shots (54.2 percent), 32-21 goals (60.4 percent).
- Draisaitl-McDavid-Zack Kassian ’19-20: 443 minutes, 233-271 shots (46.23 percent), 28-25 goals (52.8 percent)
McDavid’s one and done sortie style would have been on display in 2016-17, these numbers are spectacular and obviously had a major impact. Comparing those totals to McDavid in 2019-20 is beyond maddening. What the hell? You can blame McDavid for not backchecking, but that’s folly because he is a better player now without the puck than he was in 2016-17. My answers are more minutes with Klefbom and Sekera in 2016-17, plus Cam Talbot was enjoying a strong season.
I want Connor McDavid to cheat for offense, and I don’t believe Patrick Maroon is a brilliant two-way winger. However, it’s clear there’s a friggin’ in the riggin’ and it needs to be fixed.
Craig Button published his Oilers top 10 prospects yesterday, I respect his opinion and it’s always good to have him chime in on anything related to prospects. There’s not much to disagree with, he likes Phil Kemp a lot and college defensemen are often difficult to project (I never valued John Marino, never saw the player he was, partly because of Adam Fox). Kemp might be a player the Oilers should try to sign in the coming days.
LOWDOWN WITH LOWETIDE
A big show today with much to discuss, we get rolling at 10 on TSN1260. Tom Gazzola from TSN and NHL Network will join me at 10:20 to chat about the Stanley Cup Final and what the Oilers will do over the next three weeks. At 10:40, Taylor Baird from Defending Big D will discuss the Dallas Stars and their outstanding run in the playoffs. At 11, Sean Highkin from Bleacher Report will talk about the madness of the NBA playoffs, it has been quite a ride. 10-1260 text, @Lowetide on twitter.
Seems I like Kassian more than most, but his performance vs Chicago was among the most disappointing on the team.
I was just saying that whether you value Kassian’s hockeying or his physical play, you can’t be happy with game in the play-in.
No need to over-react to 4 games, but we are all unified (I think) in seeing it as not good enough.
Or as my buddy’s dad would say, “Crushers who think they’re rushers become ushers.”
Cool story Harper, I always thought that Steve French could probably dunk.
If Kassian isn’t physical and aggressive with him just floating around like he doesn’t have a care in the world makes him a below average NHL player. I like Kass but if he thinks he’s to good to be physical the blue collar fans will turn on him something fierce.
Fair enough.
But you could say that about most Oiler players
This is interesting stuff (I’ve been the opposite, extra busy at work, so late getting to read everything).
SV% following QoC makes sense for sure and you do have a correlation. It’s tough though because you’re comparing across teams, systems, goalies. So there’s a ton of noise aside from what you want to look at.
It’s not SV% but I was looking at the PuckIQ DFA/60 just now. Woodguy posted the results with McDavid earlier, but the overall results (all teammates, all levels of competition) track really well with %TOI vs elites (DFA for 3rd pairing (Russell/Benning) < 2nd pairing (Klefbom/Larsson) <1st pairing (Nurse/Bear)). I think that agrees with QoC affecting SV%.
Jumping back to PDO from SV%/DFA. DFF follows the exact same trend as DFA (players facing lower comp have lower DFFs). And almost weirdly all the Oilers D fall pretty tightly in DFF% (all between 47.1% and 50.0%) (actually Russell is an outlier there, aside from him everyone is between 48.2% and 50.0%).
On the SV% vs OTF starts, that's an impressive correlation. Even over 3 years it's pretty decent. A caveat is that we know going in that Klefbom has had a bad on ice SV% while getting few OTF starts. It would be nice to see how the correlation holds beyond the Oilers since Klefbom himself could skew the results (whether by something he did or by being unlucky).
I kinda think this is key.
Woodguy showed the D with McDavid earlier but that’s a weird sample for them (McDavid was the worst Oiler by a bit in DFA/60).
In 16-17 and 17-18 McDavid was driving on ice SH% but also outshooting and out-chancing, no matter who he played with. Since then it’s slipped back to kinda breaking even (and on the “for” as well as “against” sides).
McDavid-Draisaitl when together this year were outscored. THAT is a crazy stat.
I think McDavid will get back to where he was, but my guess is that the change has been more in McDavid’s game than in who he’s played with.
I think 100% of us think he should have been better vs Chicago.
It’s funny, I was going to post something about how the Canucks were on a nose dive out of the playoffs, but were saved by the pandemic (with Demko in net after Markstrom got injured).
Demko wasn’t actually notably bad during that stretch (.906, same as his overall season).
I wasn’t looking for it but Koskinen played 5 games in that time frame: 5GP 1.79GAA .956SV%.
You forgot about Ekblad.
That appears to show MAF, Koskinen and Demko all tied.
Parsing slightly more, it appears MAF and Demko are backup goalies?
Congrats to Leon. A well-earned Hart. The “German Gretzky”, indeed.
(I do feel a little bad for MacKinnon – this was the chance for voters to right the wrong of having chosen Taylor Hall over him a couple years ago. Not saying MacKinnon necessarily deserved it this year, but he definitely did that year.)
I will own up to having been totally wrong in my harsh criticism of Leon’s deal. I figured he had to become the next Mark Messier to make it a team-friendly deal. He has now won a Hart at a much younger age than Mess did.
I still believe Connor is the better player. A typical goal this year had Leon making the kind of pass that only a few NHLers can make, followed by Connor making the kind of play that no player in NHL history has ever been able to make.
I’m glad we have both of them.
Harpers Hair,
Plan the parade! The Dys win the dys win.
Coming to a rink near you five year old wins Norris trophy.?
Imagine a goalie who has a .914 career save percentage at a cap hit of $1 million was better than a goalie who has a career save percentage of .909 but is paid more than 4 times as much.
https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=146146
https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=112570
You certainly can’t take this madness seriously.
See I don’t see it that way at all.
I would prefer it if Kassian stuck to hockey. There are posters like you who think he should have been more physical against Chicago. And there are posters who were pissed at him for snapping on Tkachuk in January. Poor bastard can’t win, no matter what he does.
.956/1.79
https://www.naturalstattrick.com/playerteams.php?fromseason=20192020&thruseason=20192020&stype=2&sit=all&score=all&stdoi=g&rate=n&team=EDM&pos=G&loc=B&toi=0&gpfilt=gpdate&fd=2020-02-25&td=2020-03-10&tgp=410&lines=single&draftteam=ALL
Imagine professing that a .917/2.75 is below average and a .905/3.06 is proven to be ready to start and actually trying to be taken seriously……
Can’t you just sum up all the DFF and DFA events for all the players on each team, divide by 5 (it’s all 5v5 data), and then divide by total team minutes?
(Presumably it isn’t actually that simple!)
I guess pisani just another nobody in these parts. The Maroon ship has sailed what lm getting at is if Kassian doesn’t open up ice and protect his meal ticket I would bury his ass in the minors and find a replacement that doesn’t need cue cards when it’s time to get nasty.
Go for it.
While you’re at it, find a 5 game segment where Koskinen was lights out.
Of course (a) the position that Mikko was below average this year is wrong (even moreso if one looks at GSAA) and (b) noone is trying to justify not improving in the area for next season (let along justifying a massive downgrade)
Do you think all those reasons are worth 2.1 million? Or a mid round pick?
I think Chiasson, at his current salary, is negative value. Not sure any team wants that.
My quote button also isn’t working…..
Responding to HH: that playoff sample size is too small to mean anything. Pretty sure I could find a five game segment for every goalie in the NHL where he went sub.900% at sone point during the regular season.
The money goalies:
https://www.quanthockey.com/nhl/seasons/2019-20-nhl-goalies-playoff-stats.html
You are such a troll
A week ago you were saying you liked Koskinen as he looked really good by metrics you were judging other G on
Today you hate him
Figures
Is anyone else being redirected from LT’s site to a spam survey website?
What was the average save percentage for NHL goalies this year?
What was Koskinen’s save percentage?
When is above average actually below average?
Why would Montreal want Chiasson? In no particular order:
1. He has size and their forward group is too small.
2. His even strength possession numbers are pretty solid.
3. He is a decent power play producer and their power play sucks.
4. Il vient du Quebec (and that is important in the francophone community.
Imagine paying a below average goaltender $4.5 million a year without a back up plan
Imagine, using a 36 year old regressing goalie’s career save percentage as an indication of their future performance – on an inferior team with an inferior defence.
Probably as good an idea as using a four-game sample size to prove a prospect goalie coming off a middling season is ready to be a starter.
Harpers Hair,
MAF is above average?
Demko with a save percentage of .914 at a cap hit of $1,050 million is a much better bet than Koskinen with a save percentage of .909 at a cap hit of $4.5 million.
Adding a goaltender with a .913 save percentage at $3.5 million to cover the bet gives the Canucks two goaltenders at the price of one Koskinen.
And, of course, the Oilers don’t even have a credible backup.
Huge advantage Canucks.
You spelled Mike Matheson wrong
Harpers Hair,
Ugh, that’s in my neck of the woods… luckily he’d have to swim a couple miles to get to my island.
A friends saw something almost exactly the same entering the start of the Malahat.
Yes, .905/3.06 and 37 games of experience screams ready for #1.
Nothing like over-valuing small sample sizes.
I think you want Tanev to walk at this point in his career. Benning will spend the $ on someone he thinks is a top 4 D, but will get another guy like Myers who isn’t (but will be paid like one).
And Demko isn’t a sure thing either, though I think you want to roll the dice on him rather than pay Markstrom who will be very costly.
Going all in with two above average goaltenders and Aaron Ekblad is even better.
Van going all in on small sample sizes on a goalie with significant concussion history without Tanev is even better
Yes, they did play great together at the Worlds.
I’m not once of those guys that doesn’t like the World, I look forward to it and watch and cheer every year but, at the same time, I put about as much stock in to it vis-a-vis NHL translation as I do the exhibition season – the wide range of competition and the tournament style, etc. make it a very poor NHL analysis consideration.
So anyone who scores an overtime goal, or sets a screen for one, is a keeper? According to this logic we should have kept David Deharnais.
There’s a lot of obscure players who have scored in overtime in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Single events are single events. It would be wiser to use a players entire body of work.
Near as I can tell Maroon is a 4th liner who plays on PP2 in Tampa. He is Tampas version of Neal and Chiasson. Do we really need more of those?
It’s not that simple.
With Demko seeming ready to be a #1 having a veteran on an affordable contract, allows the Canucks to upgrade their D.
If Tanev also walks, it frees up about $10 million in cap space to acquire a top 4 D.
Do slow boots matter if the player plays well and helps the team?
As far as re-signing Larsson, and I’m not against in at a high level, the premise would have to be a 3RD and top 6 fill-in, no?
It may not happen right away but I think we all forsee Bear/Bouchard as the top 2RD going forward. Bear is already a legit top 4 RD (subject to big time regression) and, although I don’t know how long it will take, I’m confidant Bouch will get there.
Many question Benning at 3RD at $2M and, while a better player, Larsson will be more expensive, even with a material pay cut.
There is one important piece of information that we don’t have – Berglund’s ability to step in to 3RD in the near future – here is hoping he comes on over after Linkoping’s season is done and provides us some info.
In my opinion, our coaches need to put a little more focus on getting McDavid (regular linemates) out against the Grits – should be very easy at home.
To me, it seems the staff seem overly comfortable with matching power vs. power and rarely work to get McDavid easy matchups, or at least away from the toughest matchups.
Van downgrading from Markstrom to Fleury would be nice
I hope if Markstrom goes to Calgary they at least have the decency to significantly overpay him
It would sure solve alot of problems, wouldn’t it?
Its a tough ask for a rookie though, to play that many 5 on 5 minutes against tough comp – even if McDavid changes the dynamic of what that looks like.
The skill-set is there though – the best “skill-set fit” of any potential option in the org (Lavoie isn’t an NHL option yet).
Of course, skill-set doesn’t always translate to the NHL – certainly worth a try though, in my opinion.
Oh yeah.
The visual will be imprinted forever.
Incredible! That’s power. Did you have an adrenaline rush? 🙂
I agree that Connor can’t “do it on his own” but, at the same time, given he has a $12.5M cap hit, the onus is partially on him to “do more with a bit less” – other generationals have done it and its led to championships.
Yes, one “legit” top 6 winger to play with is needed – he doesn’t have that currently – perhaps Benson or Puljujarvi can be that winger – they both have the pedigree.
Simply can’t take Leon away from Drai (or vice versa) at this point, in my opinion.
While I think AA may be best suited to a middle 6/3rd line “driving” role, where he has played his best hockey as an Oiler, I can’ say with any sort of certainty that any experiment with him should be over.
He certainly didn’t look to have any sort of chemistry on the top 6, however, 13 games, split by 5 months with the first 8 coming after playing on a generationally bad team and then injured and the last 5 in some fairly unusual circumstances.
1.8 P/60 or more for 4 straight years with, mostly, middle six linemates – one terrible year at 25 years old doesn’t discount the history.
Why exactly would Montreal want him?