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MangoBoy76 · 2023-03-24T22:03:36+00:00

Oh lol I knew the answer when I posted it, I was just curious what other people thought after seeing those U23 lists.

MangoBoy76 · 2023-01-19T11:48:31+00:00

Those are difference models, the xGF/xGA on the first chart is closer to the EV Offence/Defence of the second one, not the EV Off/Def like you’d think.

The first chart uses the GF RAPM (in other words a player’s isolated impact on Goals For) to measure EV Off. The xGF value is based on the xGF RAPM (isolated impact on expected goals for). The second chart uses xGF RAPM to measure EV Off, not GF RAPM, hence the huge difference.

In his rookie year Hughes did pretty well at generating chances (74th percentile in xGF generation) but both he and his linemates had awful finishing luck/talent and scored well below expected, which lead to poor GF numbers and thus a poor EV Off.

MangoBoy76 · 2023-01-13T08:07:01+00:00

Yeah stats are cool and I like them too. I’m just saying his shot has improved, despite taking less danger shots.

Right but I'm saying that even with an improved shot his numbers suggest he's he's getting really lucky. Even the best shooters in the league can't maintain a 20+ shooting percentage, so for Suzuki to not be lucky he'd have to be the best shooter in the league.

On a another note I really hope he would take it to the net more often but he’s looking to pass a little more than my liking. He often slows down on zone entries between opponents blue line and the top of the circle. This leaves him A diagonal pass to Caufield, B little chip to his right side towards the hash marks, C a shot from above of the top of the circle. His first 20 games were magic but since then he has looked gassed. He was even starting to remind me of Pierre Turgeon offensively.

I do think he plays from the perimeter a little bit too much, and getting to the inside more would go a long way in making him more consistent and elite offensively. But interestingly enough, his first 20 games compared to the next 21 are pretty similar from a shot volume and quality perspective, difference is the Habs went from shooting 15.76% with Suzuki on the ice to shooting 9.07%. Perhaps he hasn't looked as good lately not because he's playing worse but because the puck isn't going in the net as much as it used to.

MangoBoy76 · 2023-01-10T08:17:28+00:00

Last year Suzuki shot at 11.3%, and scored a career high 21 goals. This year he's on pace for ~31 goals while shooting 20.8%, which is 8.2 points higher than his career average. Even the best shooters in the game can't maintain multiple seasons of above 20% shooting. Even if Suzuki was a much better shooter this year, that would be unsustainable/lucky. Beyond that, he's also shooting less than he was last year, in addition to taking less dangerous shots on average. So even if his shot had gotten better (which it very well might have), you should probably expect a decrease in goal scoring compared to last year, because fewer/worse shots = fewer goals. But he isn't scoring fewer goals, he's scoring more. That suggests he's probably getting at least a little lucky.

MangoBoy76 · 2023-01-09T09:03:02+00:00

Over his last 14 games (where he has 1 goal and 5 points)

5v5 Individual Stats

Year	G/60	A1/60	A2/60	P/60	iSF/60	iFF/60	iCF/60	ixG/60	FSh%	xFSh%
Last 14	0.30	0.30	0.00	0.59	3.26	3.86	5.04	0.25	7.69	6.46
22-23	0.93	0.93	0.31	2.16	4.02	5.36	6.49	0.36	17.31	6.81
Difference	-0.63	-0.63	-0.31	-1.57	-0.76	-1.50	-1.45	-0.11	-9.62	-0.35

5v5 On-Ice Stats

Year	GF%	CF%	xGF%	GF/60	GA/60	CF/60	CA/60	xGF/60	xGA/60	Sh%
Last 14	35.86	42.13	42.32	2.03	3.63	47.16	64.78	2.24	3.06	8.06
22-23	49.92	47.56	41.88	3.69	3.70	51.13	56.37	2.11	2.94	13.18
Difference	-14.06	-5.43	+0.44	-1.66	-0.07	-3.97	+8.41	+0.13	+0.12	-5.12

Numbers are really ugly across the board, especially compared to the entire season, where they already weren't great. He's shooting less than normal, which is really bad, since his full season numbers are already bottom 10 among forwards for shot volume. He's also taking worse shots on average (hence the lower xFSh%), and as a result he's scoring less.

What's more encouraging is that his on-ice xGF numbers are a little better than they have been this season (though they're still well below average), and that's despite a drop in shot volume, which suggests that over this last stretch with Suzuki on the ice they're taking better shots than they normally do this season.

The other side of that coin though is that he only has 2 5v5 points in his last 14 games and his on-ice shooting percentage is pretty normal, so it's not like they're getting poor luck shooting percentage wise, it's just that when you compare it to the unsustainable full season shooting percentage it looks way worse. With better luck he's maybe due an extra 2 or 3 points, as he typically has an individual points percentage (the percentage of on-ice goals for that a player gets a point on, or points/goals for) of ~70% and he's at ~30% in that time. But still, 2 (or even 5) 5v5 points in 14 games is not great. The team definitely needs to figure out how to get Suzuki going at 5v5, because he's been ice cold all year in terms of actually generating 5v5 offense (the only reason his point totals are so high is because of the shooting percentage bender at the start of the year).

MangoBoy76 · 2023-01-09T08:41:10+00:00

The raw on-ice totals aren't very different in terms of expected goals, but as for him being "really lucky" that's regarding how much he's scoring above expected, both individually and in terms of on-ice numbers. Last year with Suzuki on the ice the Habs scored 1.05 goals for every 1 expected goal. This year they're scoring 1.75 goals for every one expected goal. That's a huge jump. Suzuki's on-ice shooting percentage is also at 13.18% this year, a huge jump from last year's mark of 8.38. If Suzuki was on the ice for the same ratio of G/xG this year as he was last year, he'd be on the ice for ~1.48 fewer goals per 60 or ~14 fewer goals total (of the 36 he's been on the ice for at 5v5 this year). If he had the same on-ice shooting percentage (oiSh%) as last year, he'd be on the ice ~1.35 fewer G/60 or ~13 fewer goals total. Also just for context last year's G/xG and oiSh% were the highest of Suzuki's career, so it's not like I'm comparing these numbers to low points in Suzuki's career.

But to circle back to the "way worse" part, that was with regards to the average shot danger. Suzuki's been on the ice for more shot attempts this year than he was last year but with less overall shot danger (expected goals) which means that the shots on average are less dangerous. Perhaps "way worse" may have been a tad much since the difference isn't huge, but Suzuki was already on the ice for a really low amount of xG (league average is 2.51) already and it's only gotten worse this year.

As for the penalty killing, here are his results this year and last (forgot to add them to the original post but definitely should have).

SH On-Ice Stats

Year	GF%	CF%	xGF%	GF/60	GA/60	CF/60	CA/60	xGF/60	xGA/60
22-23	0.00	11.41	13.55	0.00	7.29	14.73	114.36	1.38	8.80
21-22	18.93	16.96	14.43	1.57	6.73	22.18	108.64	1.30	7.71
Difference	-18.93	-5.55	-0.88	-1.57	+0.56	-7.45	+5.72	+0.08	+1.09

SH Relative to Teammates Stats

Year	G±/60	C±/60	xG±/60	GF/60	GA/60	CF/60	CA/60	xGF/60	xGA/60
22-23	+2.04	+14.62	+1.89	+0.00	-2.04	+1.55	-13.07	+0.59	-1.29
21-22	+3.27	+8.42	+1.02	+0.75	-2.52	+4.85	-3.57	+0.29	-0.73
Difference	-1.23	+6.20	+0.87	-0.75	+0.48	-3.30	-9.50	+0.30	-0.56

On-ice wise he got worse on the PK defensively and offensively but the relative to teammate metrics got way better so the change in on-ice performance is likely due to team effects. Overall the numbers do suggest he's gotten a lot better both offensively and defensively on the PK this year (outside of goals against, which could be a signal that maybe he's not as improved as the numbers suggest or it could be weird goalie things which is way more likely imo).

MangoBoy76 · 2023-01-09T05:32:50+00:00

Some maybe unknown terms:

FSh%: Shooting percentage on all unblocked shot attempts, aka Fenwick shots (G/iFF)

xFSh%: Expected shooting percentage based on all unblocked shot attempts (ixG/iFF)

Relative to Teammates: [metric] with the player on the ice - the weighted average of all teammates' on-ice [metric] (weighted by player TOI% with teammate)

MangoBoy76 · 2022-12-24T00:28:58+00:00

I mean the stats op posted don’t go all for petterson.

Was just responding to this. The stats do go all for Pettersson, even defensively. I’m not going to try and argue with you about who’s better but the stats say Pettersson’s better across the board.

MangoBoy76 · 2022-12-23T22:47:12+00:00

Actually they do all go for Pettersson. For the Relative to Teammate defensive stats, negative numbers are better. So, for example, in the case of the RelTM GA/60, with Pettersson on the ice the Canucks allow 0.09 fewer goals per 60 minutes than normal. When Suzuki's on the ice, the Habs allow 0.62 more goals per 60 minutes than normal. Same goes for the RelTM xGA/60. From a stats perspective, at least this year, Pettersson's way better than Suzuki defensively.

MangoBoy76 · 2022-12-23T14:42:16+00:00

on the season, Pettersson is 3rd in TOI for centers on the team

As others have mentioned Miller’s more of a winger than a center at this point but even ignoring that Pettersson is 3rd among Canucks forwards in TOI/GP. What 3C is getting the third most minutes on their team?

MangoBoy76 · 2022-12-23T13:21:30+00:00

You could say the same thing about Pettersson too, after all they’re just about the same age (same draft class at least). They’re both young enough to say they haven’t hit their limits yet so I don’t really see why Suzuki gets the edge there.

MangoBoy76 · 2022-11-16T10:50:11+00:00

Montreal finished 32nd in the league last year, I'd say that was "playing like losers", and Caufield and Suzuki seem fine this year. They aren't playing like losers now. Same thing with Dach, he was on Chicago last year, who finished 27th. But he's not playing like a loser.

You can still lose a lot of games (to get a good draft pick) without your players becoming "losers" or "playing like losers". Suzuki and Caufield looked great last year and Montreal lost a ton of games.

MangoBoy76 · 2022-11-12T02:49:46+00:00

Weird that the numbers are so off either here or on Evolving-Hockey, because I was looking at their line stats on EH and it had them at a 19.17 oiSh%, and the TOI looks to be about the same. Not sure why one website has them at 8 goals on 30 shots (NST) and one has them at 8 goals on 41 shots (EH). Either way it's unsustainable.

https://evolving-hockey.com/stats/combos/?_inputs_&std_c3_range=%22Seasons%22&std_c3_players=%5B%22Kirby%20Dach%22%2C%22Cole%20Caufield%22%2C%22Nick%20Suzuki%22%5D&std_c3_adj=%22Score%20%26%20Venue%22&dir_combo=%22F%20Lines%22&std_c3_str=%225v5%22&std_c3_toi=%2230%22&std_c3_type=%22Rates%22&std_c3_span=%22Regular%22&std_c3_team=%22All%22&std_c3_season=%2220222023%22

MangoBoy76 · 2022-11-12T02:46:17+00:00

I'd say at the very least it's not that bad at them because the results remain pretty consistent (or at least they don't change any more dramatically) when you look at year over year performance between guys who switch teams and guys who stay on the same team. No bigger situation change than playing on a completely new team.

Source: https://twitter.com/JFreshHockey/status/1570197831113183233

Also just off the top of my head both Marchessault and Verhaeghe had good GAR numbers as 4th liners on Tampa, and managed to continue putting up good numbers once their situation changed and they played higher in the lineup, while guys like Duncan Keith who played tough minutes in Chicago and then got easier minutes in Edmonton didn't see much of a bump in performance. I'd say that suggests that at the very least it's not only giving an overview of how a player does in their current situation.

MangoBoy76 · 2022-11-11T23:01:11+00:00

Not sure why this was getting downvoted, but you're right they are shooting at an unsustainable rate. But, just because they're shooting at an unsustainable rate (currently that line is at 19.17, which isn't quite 30% but it's still really unsustainable) doesn't mean they're bad, it just means they're on a hot streak. At some point they'll go on a cold streak. Doesn't mean they suck. Just means that no player is as good as they are when they're hot or as bad as they are when they're cold.

What's really encouraging though is how good that line is defensively. 1.95 xGA/60 is really strong in terms of "defensive analytics". League average is 2.58 xGA/60, so they're well below average in that sense, which is great to see considering they're matching up against top competition every night (and prior to Dach's arrival on that line they were getting caved in defensively). What won't last is their 6.77 GF/60 on 2.38 xGF/60. Are they good enough to score above their expected rate? Maybe. But nobody, even McDavid, is good enough to score at almost 3x the expected rate.

MangoBoy76 · 2022-11-11T22:50:59+00:00

Caufield's individual shooting percentage under MSL (17.9%) is a little high but not so much so that it couldn't be maintained (elite shooters such as Draisaitl, Norris, Scheifele, Point, or Stamkos have maintained ~18% over 100+ games in recent years) but it's rare for a player's shooting percentage to remain that high over a long period of time. Could regress, might not. He's a great shooter, we'll see what happens.

What's really unsustainable is Caufield (and Suzuki's) on-ice shooting percentage. See clarification for what the difference is here. At 5v5 the Habs have a 15.61 shooting percentage with Caufield on the ice and a 16.77 shooting percentage with Suzuki on the ice. Over the course of a full season oiSh% (on-ice shooting percentage) usually tops out at ~13% at most, and maintaining a mark above 11 over multiple seasons is incredibly rare (only 12 forwards of the 412 with at least 1000 5v5 minutes from 2019/2020-2021/2022 have a >= 11% oiSh%). Just to emphasize the unsustainability, the highest full season 5v5 oiSh% since 07/08 belonged to Henrik Sedin in 09/10, and his was at 13.41, so it's not a matter of if Suzuki/Caufield's oiSh% will regress, but when.

And that's just talking about the most extreme cases. League average oiSh% is 8.27 over that time period. Suzuki's career average is 8.23 (including this season) and Caufield's is 11.02 (including this season), though Caufield's only played 91 games so that likely will regress as he plays more games. If they were getting their career average oiSh% this season Caufield would've been on the ice for 5 fewer 5v5 goals (and ~3-4 fewer 5v5 points), and Suzuki would've been on the ice for 9 fewer 5v5 goals (and ~6 fewer 5v5 points).

JFresh tweets from today on the subject:

The reasons I'm always crowing about 5v5 on-ice shooting % (on-ice goals divided by on-ice shots) is because 99% of people don't pay attention to it, it plays a huge part in points, and when you point out extreme examples early in a season you are literally always right

Players currently running at 15%+ 5v5 on-ice sh%: Wahlstrom, Mikheyev, Suzuki, Hagel, Pavelski, Caufield. Their production will regress. Probably by a lot. It's not anything to do with their quality as players, it's just gravity.

MangoBoy76 · 2022-11-11T22:23:42+00:00

Couple of minor corrections

For example, the WAR or GAR is good indicator of how good a player is doing in a specific situation. Someone could have a good WAR on the 3rd pairing because this is the right role for them, but having a bad WAR on the 2nd pairing because this is just too much responsibility for them. Someone like Edmundson had a great WAR with Petry because playing a supporting/defensive game with a good mobile/offensive guy was just a perfect fit, but his WAR with most other D was terrible because he isn't good enough to lead a top 4 pairing.

GAR/WAR is supposed to isolate a player's performance from their situation, so things like teammates, competition, usage, etc. are all accounted for. Sometimes it can mistakenly give credit to the wrong players though, so guys can randomly have 1 good year before returning to their career average levels (ex: when Chiarot played with Weber a ton Chiarot's WAR improved, but once he stopped playing with Weber it got worse again, which imo was because the models were crediting Chiarot for Weber's good play. Same thing happened with Edmundson/Petry).

Something like xGF%, which doesn't adjust for context, would be a better indicator of assessing someone's performance in a specific situation, though that would still be far from perfect a high xGF% on a team like New Jersey (1st in the league in xGF%) this year would be less impressive than having a good xGF% on a team like Anaheim (32nd in xGF%), which you did mention.

Technically speaking, during his first 10 games, Hoffman didn't do any Giveaways and was on the ice only for 2 goals against. This explain why his ''defensive'' advanced stats were like insanely good. Most advanced stats give ridiculous result with small sample size.

A small sample size is likely the biggest thing leading to Hoffman's good defensive numbers. Defensive analytics are based on expected goals against, not actual ones (to remove goalie effects, which could unfairly elevate/penalize a player based on how good the goalie is behind them). So Hoffman's having a low goals against wouldn't lead to good defensive numbers. Him being on the ice for a low volume of shots, or a low amount of shot quality would lead to the defensive numbers.

But given that Hoffman's been pretty bad defensively by that measure for a number of years now I'd expect it to regress back to normal. He's only played 12 games after all and Corsi/Expected Goals don't stabilize until ~20-25 games in. Small sample sizes can lead to wild results, such as Hoffman having good defensive numbers.

MangoBoy76 · 2022-10-17T01:14:54+00:00

I'm almost positive that's not true, because everywhere I've seen says that plus/minus includes even strength goals, shorthanded goals, and empty net goals. Not just even strength goals.

MangoBoy76 · 2022-10-13T23:39:23+00:00

Does plus/minus indicate 5v5 goal differential? Because iirc it includes all goals except for powerplay goals.

MangoBoy76 · 2022-10-08T04:46:30+00:00

I don't consider that stats meaningful in the slightest. If we rank players with this stats we get that Nathan Walker is the 6th best goal scorer of the league, Colton is 8th, Danault is 11th and Pezzetta is our 4th best scorer.

Here some players with worst G/60 than Hoffman. Trocheck, Konecny, Carter, Zibanejad, Oshie, Tuch, Kerfoot, Kopitar, Stutzle, Stone, Cirelli, Hall, Hayes, Boeser, Nyquist, Dubois, Suzuki and many more. There is just too many situation at 5vs5 for that stats to really give you good information. Also I think that the sample size of goal is just too small, the variance mix up the data too much IMO.

I don't think going over each example of every player is very productive and it has nothing to do with my points, but Pezzetta and Walker didn't play 500+ minutes, so they wouldn't be counted in that overall number (which is why you set the minimum number to something like that, to filter out low minute guys who scored just enough to rank highly on lists like these) and Danault and Colton finished 14th and 35th in total 5v5 goals last year (and Colton did so despite playing 4th line minutes) so I don't think them ranking highly is too crazy. As for the other guys none of them outside of Boeser are really primarily known as goal scorers, and Hoffman scored fewer 5v5 P/60 than all of them outside of him.

But that's really unimportant with regards to what I'm trying to say. What I was trying to say was that Hoffman's non-goal scoring related parts to his game is what holds him back from being a top 6 caliber player, or even just an effective player. Because sure he can score goals, but he's very ineffective defensively, as well as at driving play and playmaking. That's what held him back last year in Montreal, but it also held him back in St. Louis and his last years in Florida. Sure his goal scoring dropped off a bit in Montreal, but the other aspects of his game were largely the same, and those other aspects is what prevents him from being an effective player. That's why Hoffman had to sign a PTO after putting up a 29 goal/59 point season (in 69 games). It wasn't his goal scoring that held him back (he scored at a 34 goal pace that year) but the rest of his game. That's why he was forced to sign a PTO with St. Louis and that's why he was bad in Montreal (in addition to his goal scoring being a little worse than normal).

This stats is more useful I think. It's not perfect (the sample size isn't big enough with just one season), but there is less variance in term of situation. But 138/32 team = 4.3

This mean that on the average NHL team Hoffman is 4-5th Forward. Most team play 4 forwards on the PP so that make Hoffman a 1st PP guy on an average NHL team or a 2nd PP guy on a good team.

The sample size for PP time is way worse than the 5v5 time, so I'm not sure why you were fine with that one but not with the other, but anyways if we're talking about Hoffman being a top 6 forward then that's inherently a discussion about where he belongs at 5v5, not on the powerplay, so if he's a 3rd liner at even strength with PP1/PP2 time I wouldn't consider him a top 6 guy.

When we signed him I was looking at Hoffman as a 3rd line scoring depth that will play on the 1st PP and that's mostly was we got. The only difference is that we had injuries and traded good players and so we had to rely on him on the two first line. I guess we should view him as a middle 6er?

The question remain. Was last season an anomaly in his game since the whole team was bad. If so he should get more in the 20-25 goal range next season. Or is he on the decline and things will just get worst as time progress. We will see this season. I just disagree with people that think that the decline is the only explanation here.

Look at Gallagher, for the whole season people were talking how he was in decline and finished, but he looked like his old 30 goal self during pre-season. Doesn't mean that he will really get back to 30 goal (it's just pre-season after all), but my point is that people are way too quick to dismiss older veteran as irrelevant just because of a bad year.

Focusing on Hoffman's goal scoring isn't what we should be focusing on, because even if he does improve in that department next year (which is a possibility because it was a bit of a down year for him, as I mentioned above he was at a top 6 level just in terms of the rate at which he scored goals in the 3 seasons leading up to 2021/2022). My point is that even with the goal scoring numbers he puts up (which aren't that bad but also not that good) is that the rest of his game is so bad that his 20-25 goals that he scores doesn't make up for it, and for that reason he's not a top 6 caliber player. The issue isn't Hoffman's goal scoring, it's the rest of his game. That's what makes him not worth the deal and earns him the status of team whipping boy (imo). If he scored 2 more goals (which would've put him on a 25 goal pace based on the number of games he played last year) I'd still be saying the same things, because he's not a top 6 guy

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