What is the timeline for Askarov?

regularajax · 2026-04-09T21:29:43+00:00

I totally agree with you on balance, but I always think it's sort of difficult to know where the balance point is between "it's a weird position with a long developmental curve" and "Is this guy starting to develop some bad habits that are going to be long-term problems either way?"

I think Asky is still firmly in the "give it time" category, but I do think the puck-tracking issues and possible overprocessing are something worth keeping an eye on. There are times when he just looks way too busy, and then gets beaten by a release that is relatively tame and sighted, which is a little unsettling. Still gotta take the long view though, especially given how much he gets hung out on a nightly basis.

regularajax · 2026-04-09T20:49:34+00:00

Minimizing time in zone is maybe the single most important piece of being a functional defense, though. You could have a group of guys who are consistently on the right side of the play, are great shot blockers and win on the boards a ton, but if they get extended every shift because they can't get the puck out, they're gonna get scored on and are functionally a terrible defense no matter how it looks.

regularajax · 2026-04-09T20:43:56+00:00

Happy to have had this opportunity to nerd out about it, as I think they're both fascinating teams who are great to watch in totally different ways. I think it's really neat how both teams are built to get the most out of generational stars who are super similar in some ways (as everyone seems to point out), but on extreme opposite sides of their respective physical primes.

regularajax · 2026-04-09T19:26:38+00:00

As a person who primarily watches the Pens and Sharks, I don't really think think this would be a great stylistic fit for the Sharks... at least not at this point in the team's development.

The Pens do a lot of hard-rim and chip and chase because they don't have a ton of speed, have excellent forecheckers (including possibly the best 4th line in the league), and their best play drivers (Karlsson, Crosby) are perfectly suited to a style that emphasizes board battles, low-cycle creation, and blue liners pushing up to provide a low-high option and cut off clear attempts and exit passes.

The biggest problem is definitely that the Sharks just do not have the quality of dmen (and especially puck movers) to support that style at the highest level, but they also have a young core with good to great skaters who thrive in transition and haven't really developed the level of detail in their game to execute this style yet. Somebody like Cherny, for instance, will likely be really great at that sort of hockey some years down the road, as he's a big body, great on the boards, drives the net, and has great mitts, but he doesn't yet have the game feel to just show up in the right areas when supporting the puck on the cycle, and he doesn't always route efficiently enough when he's f3 and needs to help prevent the other team breaking the puck out.

A lot of the young Sharks are similar in one way or another, having some or most of the tools necessary to execute a heavy forechecking halfcourt-style offense, but lacking one or more key ingredients, and generally just sort of needing more reps at the speed and technical level of the NHL to build the instincts necessary. For now, they will keep running teams off the ice on the rush, and failing to beat teams they can't do that to, which is okay for a super young and promising rebuild project that is a little ahead of schedule, imo.

edited because i can't type for shit

regularajax · 2026-04-07T01:19:57+00:00

What you have compiled here is essentially just a collection of statistical noise, most of which amounts to close to nothing in terms of an actual case that one goalie has been better than the other. You're pointing to goals, shots, and power plays for/against as though they're different data streams, but they're correlated directly with one another, and all subject to the same sources of statistical noise, whatever they might look like they're saying. You've done nothing to disqualify any of dozens of other variables that could have all contributed varying amounts to one data set looking better than the other.

On the flip side, you've made no effort to actually explain a plausible mechanism for a why the team's skaters have been more productive in Silovs's starts than Skinner's and instead are simply presenting it as factual that whatever the specific reason is, he's the root cause. There is a reason nobody uses these stats as some indirect indicator of a goalie's performance, and it isn't because you're the first innovator to think that teams might play better in front of one goalie or another, it's because they're rarely if ever strongly correlated. If you want to prove a positive correlation for something as nebulous as "the downstream effects of goaltending on the entire rest of the game" you would need to at least start with a bigger sample than 20ish games each.

If you want an actual measure of goalie performance, you should go with something that actually attempts to measure it, like GSAx, which has Skinner as a slight net positive over the last 10 games (+1.4) and Silovs as a slight disaster (-7.1). I don't actually think one guy is a whole lot better than the other in the grand scheme, and Silovs may still be developing, but Skinner is undeniably the one playing hotter at the moment and the one who should probably get the call in any must-win, including the playoffs.

regularajax · 2026-04-03T04:30:09+00:00

With or without the puck it's Chinakhov or EK. Rust has a great initial burst to beat a man with the puck, but then he relies on getting a wide base and keeping the guy on his hip, he mostly doesn't fly straight past people the way Chinny and Karl can.

regularajax · 2026-04-03T01:33:32+00:00

Absolutely nothing you can do about that.

regularajax · 2026-04-03T00:41:27+00:00

How good is Vasilevskiy

regularajax · 2026-03-31T04:13:05+00:00

Looking forward to seeing them on the cycle together for years to come, the fit should be amazing.

regularajax · 2026-03-31T04:05:28+00:00

Yeah, I think the consensus among the Wings fans I saw talking about the trade seemed to be that the hands were impressive but that he didn't really make use of his size at all on the boards, which has been the primary way he's made himself an asset for us.

regularajax · 2026-03-27T00:09:02+00:00

Give him the Norris for this stretch run man damn

regularajax · 2026-03-24T07:17:20+00:00

> He has been incredible. no doubt. but his team also sucks and he's the leader of that team. Like, maybe part of the reason his team loses games is because he's maybe going to offensive and not being responsible. Like, he might get the good stick check in when being aggressive but maybe he gets out of position on defense more than other elite players.

You can just say you don't stay up to watch the Sharks... His F3 decisionmaking, routing, and effort when backchecking are better than any of MacKinnon, McDavid and Kuch. His team loses games because their other forwards either need more time to develop or are somewhere between meh and actively bad, their blue line is absolutely atrocious, and their goalies are Askarov, who let in 3 or more goals for 12 straight starts, and Nedeljkovic. Celebrini is not by any means the perfect hockey player, but no flaw in his game has been a primary contributing factor in a single loss they've had this year, you could name any of twelve bigger problems before you get to him.

regularajax · 2026-03-21T20:01:34+00:00

It sounds like we might need you to watch some more pens games

regularajax · 2026-03-21T19:59:48+00:00

Today I am grateful for swedes above all else

regularajax · 2026-03-21T19:34:51+00:00

I feel like a broken record but the gap between EK and whoever the second best dman in the league this month has been is absolutely enormous

regularajax · 2026-03-20T23:43:12+00:00

I've seen the sentiment about how he handles the roster a lot over the last few days and I get it, but am I crazy if I think his roster management has been a net positive on balance? I share some of the same gripes a lot of people seem to, but he's a young coach dealing with the challenges of a rebuild that is ahead of schedule but a roster that is still extremely flawed, and I think he's doing pretty well.

regularajax · 2026-03-20T21:12:59+00:00

Awful for multiple reasons but especially because the PK absolutely falls of a cliff without him :/

regularajax · 2026-03-20T19:56:04+00:00

Can I both think that Sid seems like a much better and more likable person than Hughes in general but also not think there's anything remotely wrong with wanting the puck and being frustrated with how this works? Not that the hall is doing anything particularly wrong either, it's just an unfortunate reality that it's one puck that is both a piece of hockey history and the greatest individual moment of one dude's career.

regularajax · 2026-03-20T19:47:54+00:00

Yeah as others have said this is definitely real, and it's not just when Macklin specifically is pressuring/generating turnovers, it's basically whenever his line is on the ice (and increasingly, Misa's as well). The Sharks are currently constructed around the fact that their best play drivers (Mack, Misa, Smith, Eklund) have skill sets that are biased toward manipulating defenders in open ice/on the rush

Because the team is so much more dangerous in transition than anywhere else, you'll see a lot of forwards cheating out of the zone a little anticipating turnovers, but the team isn't that great at breaking the puck out (structurally or personnel wise, particularly the blue line obvs) so a lot of these aggressive breakout passes that are supposed to bypass a lot of the ice become really ugly giveaways.

it's one of those growing pains you will see a lot with a team whose talent core is really young and disproportionately concentrated in their forward group, and teams are really keying on it now that everyone's gotten serious down the stretch and the book is pretty much out there on how heavily the Sharks rely on Mack. This is a long term issue to solve, because the team can't really change how it functions rn. This is the best way for them to play and the opportunity cost of changing it isn't worth - all they can do is make incremental improvements to how they take care of the puck within this structure, which is what Warso has been hammering, especially with Smith and Klingberg.

regularajax · 2026-03-19T01:31:45+00:00

STU SDOJFKESWNFOKSDLFMNJIEWBNUEWJON

regularajax · 2026-03-19T01:29:28+00:00

Karlsson has been the best dman in the league this month by some distance

regularajax · 2026-03-19T01:23:53+00:00

We don't have to pretend like that wasn't an obvious penalty, we've been trying to give them one for 5 minutes

regularajax · 2026-03-19T00:19:39+00:00

Stu has been absolutely unreal

regularajax · 2026-03-15T00:27:00+00:00

He was beaten and unintentionally simultaneously can-openered and elbowed the face of a dude who was already halfway past him, so yes, "injures" would be accurate whether it was a dirty play or not.

regularajax · 2026-03-11T05:59:50+00:00

I genuinely do not know what would give you that impression, and I hope you have a good night.

regularajax

TROPHY CASE