Hint: Desharnais' minutes weren't "easier" than Eller's.
Well, only players on Montreal's ever-changing 4th line (from Nokes, Staubitz, Engqvist, Darche, Dumont, Palushaj, Blunden, Geoffrion) ranked lower in Corsi Relative Quality of Competition (well, Gomez and Leblanc are right there, too), so yeah... they kinda were; especially when you factor in the Corsi Relative quality of teammates (linemates) and see what Eller was working with while facing relatively better players. Also notice on the chart from the6thsens.com showing Eller well into the "shutdown" quadrant, while the Desharnais line borders between "2-way" and "sheltered".
Well, only players on Montreal's ever-changing 4th line (from Nokes, Staubitz, Engqvist, Darche, Dumont, Palushaj, Blunden, Geoffrion) ranked lower in Corsi Relative Quality of Competition (well, Gomez and Leblanc are right there, too), so yeah... they kinda were; especially when you factor in the Corsi Relative quality of teammates (linemates) and see what Eller was working with while facing relatively better players. Also notice on the chart from the6thsens.com showing Eller well into the "shutdown" quadrant, while the Desharnais line borders between "2-way" and "sheltered".
The thing about shot differential stats like Corsi is that they tend to underrate players that play tough defensive minutes. The shutdown forwards of the league play against the other team's best nightly, so their Corsi ratings tend to be low. Consequently, players who are subject to heavy line-matching, such as Desharnais, tend to have lower QoC numbers, even though they were oftentimes matched up against the opposition's best defensive players.
I linked an article earlier from nhlnumbers.com, which advances the theory that we should measure quality of competition by looking at a player's opposition's average ice time. If a forward is getting 18 minutes of ice time a game, he's likely to be one of the best on his team. The article (linked below too) shows graphs for the each team, showing a player's average opposing defenseman ice time and forward ice time. IMO, it gives a really good picture of a player's usage and how other teams tend to match up against him. For example, Ovechkin's opposing defensemen tended to play a lot of minutes, but not the forwards. This means that he faced the league's best defensemen last year, but not it's top scoring threats. On the other hand, a guy like Brandon Sutter played some pretty weak competition in terms of opposing defensemen, but faced the other team's best forwards night in night out. A guy like Datsyuk faced both the best defensemen and the best forwards, which makes a lot of sense since he's widely perceived as one of the best two-way forwards in the NHL.
My point isn't that Corsi isn't a good measure of QoC. It does show how well a player's opponents drive possession. However, it tends to be seen as a be-all end-all of hockey stats in a lot of circles, and doesn't get taken in proper context enough, IMO.
Edit: Bringing it back to the Desharnais-Eller debate, we can look at these TOI as a measure of competition stats and see that while the forwards that both players faced tended to have about the same nightly ice time, Desharnais faced defensemen who received more minutes. Obviously a player getting a lot of minutes doesn't mean he's good, but over a large sample size, I think we can trust NHL coaches with putting their better players on the ice against the toughest competition more often than not. Desharnais' opponents may not have driven possession all year, but that wasn't because they weren't good, it's because they were trusted to play against the toughest opponents on a nightly basis.
The thing about shot differential stats like Corsi is that they tend to underrate players that play tough defensive minutes. The shutdown forwards of the league play against the other team's best nightly, so their Corsi ratings tend to be low. Consequently, players who are subject to heavy line-matching, such as Desharnais, tend to have lower QoC numbers, even though they were oftentimes matched up against the opposition's best defensive players.
I linked an article earlier from nhlnumbers.com, which advances the theory that we should measure quality of competition by looking at a player's opposition's average ice time. If a forward is getting 18 minutes of ice time a game, he's likely to be one of the best on his team. The article (linked below too) shows graphs for the each team, showing a player's average opposing defenseman ice time and forward ice time. IMO, it gives a really good picture of a player's usage and how other teams tend to match up against him. For example, Ovechkin's opposing defensemen tended to play a lot of minutes, but not the forwards. This means that he faced the league's best defensemen last year, but not it's top scoring threats. On the other hand, a guy like Brandon Sutter played some pretty weak competition in terms of opposing defensemen, but faced the other team's best forwards night in night out. A guy like Datsyuk faced both the best defensemen and the best forwards, which makes a lot of sense since he's widely perceived as one of the best two-way forwards in the NHL.
My point isn't that Corsi isn't a good measure of QoC. It does show how well a player's opponents drive possession. However, it tends to be seen as a be-all end-all of hockey stats in a lot of circles, and doesn't get taken in proper context enough, IMO.
Well, in my opinion it's incredibly short-sighted to look exclusively at ice time, since I imagine you'd end up with an extremely wide range of talent/productivity/defensive acumen if you just sorted the NHL by icetime and started grouping guys who are close together. The icetime thing is interesting, but not as important as measuring how productive players are with the role/icetime they fill, and THEN looking back at who matched up against who. Comparing the resulting charts of the6thsens and nhlnumbers, I personally think the6thsens gets closest to "categorizing" the players "accurately" based on players' roles AND how they did in them. Also, I don't think it's necessarily beneficial to divide the focus between defensemen and forwards faced, since players (and their linemates) must be productive against 5 man units across 3 zones of ice - not just a pair of defensemen in one end of the ice.
And furthermore, I mean, if you think Corsi stats underrate defensive players, you must be floored by how favourably Eller still ranks on those lists versus Desharnais. After all, Eller held down far more defensive responsibilities and yet still came out on top by far in the categories I mentioned earlier.
Last edited by Ohashi_Jouzu: 08-19-2012 at 11:49 PM.
Well, if the team have a tough decision to make eventually, between, Pleks, DD or Eller, that's mean we're in good shape and there is some strong internal competition.
Well, if the team have a tough decision to make eventually, between, Pleks, DD or Eller, that's mean we're in good shape and there is some strong internal competition.
Can't hurt the team
There are always injuries. Some worse than others. But more importantly, I'd rather have Desharnais and Eller play more than Gomez..
IF Gomez attends training camp he better be really good and the Habs better have a short leash with him..
Maybe there is a need to distinguish tough offensive and defensive minutes? Was the player mostly:
-trying to score against defensive specialists
-trying to prevent offensive players from scoring
-other
-Outscoring the opponent's top line while shutting them down like Damphousse used to do
There were times over the last few years when Desharnais played against other team's energy lines. Last year he went from playing against non-shutdown players to being on an effective top line and playing against other teams' shut down line. Desharnais is a scorer, he is not going to get many defensive assignments.
Eller played defensive minutes against scoring lines. His opponents certainly had better scoring numbers than the guys Desharnais was playing against at the end of the year.
Eller has been mostly a defensive puck-retrieval machine. With a different role and line-mates he could put up more points. We'll see what Therrien does with him after the lockout. Was Martin holding Eller back? If so does that mean the habs should sign AK and put him on Eller's line?
this is good news, I am one that is sure that Eller holds lots of potential and to see him not being sugar-coated will only make him more confident when time comes that he is paired with worthy wingers, if I am right I believe that next season whenever it becomes reality we will see a much more capable and creative Eller, if his wingers can play at the level he will I predict a 50pts+ season for him.
Honestly I'n one of the biggest Desharnais defender and I still think he's better than Eller on the wing so Desharnais should play on the wing.
Long term I think it's the best thing to do... I'd say even short term.
I hope Therrien is willing to try both if that's what it takes...IMO both of these guys are worth more than their trade value right now, let's not waste assets for once.
Eller already makes Gomez unnecessary even for the one thing he's good at (puck carrying)
