Quote:
Originally Posted by Ice Cream Man
You've watched him everywhere he's played? Did you watch him in every single game he played in last season for Calgary, and the season before that? You know, in the seasons that actually matter? Cause I have. Have you?
Your analysis is old and outdated. You've even admitted it by saying you've formed your opinion of him long before he was even a Ranger. And you mention analysis of statistics... I'm curious to see what stats you analyzed, how you analyzed them and the manner in which you've interpreted them. Care to share your holy wisdom with us on this claim?
As for bias, I have no reason to be biased, and this is the biggest joke statement in your entire post. He's not even a Flame anymore and isn't returning to the Flames. What the HELL would I gain from being biased towards him?
Unbelieveable.
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Unbelievable is right. You have unbelievable gall.
What sort of response did you expect me to give after you basically implied in several different ways that I'm some kind of moron in your previous post?
What the HELL would you gain from being biased towards him? I don't know, what the HELL would I gain from being biased against him? You're the one that brought that idea into the conversation by implying that I had some sort of irrational dislike towards the player. I was simply returning the favor. This after you suggested that I developed an opinion of the player over a 1-month period during which he played for the Rangers. If I were a complete moron, maybe that's how I would develop my opinions of players.
And then you're the one acting all high and mighty and?
I watched about 20 Flames games in 2010-11, I watched at least 25 in 2011-12. The biggest reason for the increase was the buzz I was hearing and reading about how Jokinen was playing so well. I wanted to see for myself, especially since any time I'd seen him play in 2010-11, he looked like the same really poor decision maker he's always been. What I saw in 2011-12 was a mild improvement in puck distribution and an improved attentiveness to defense the likes of which I'd never seen Jokinen exhibit, but still nowhere near anything of note defensively. All I really noticed was him being matched against other teams' top players, and usually struggling to gain possession of the puck.
Player usage stats back that observation up. He did face tough competition, among the toughest on the Flames, but he didn't fare all that well against them in terms of possession.
Of course, it's also tough to gain possession of the puck when you stink at faceoffs, but then how great of a two-way center can you be when you aren't very good at faceoffs? I don't know if Jokinen has ever finished a season with positive faceoff numbers, but if he has, it hasn't been any time recently.
His shooting numbers show that while he no longer has the absurd frequency he once did, he's still a poor decision maker when he takes shots. He was 44th among forwards in Shots on Goal this season wiith 223. Of those 44 forwards, he had the 8th worst shooting percentage at 10.3. That's still an improvement over his horrendous 8.2% shooting in 2010-11.
Another poster called him physical. Now, provided that hit tracking can be suspect, I'm willing to give some benefit of the doubt, but the man had 53 hits attributed to him last season, 4 more than Matt Stajan had in 21 less games.
No, I did not watch him all 82 games. But I watched him enough times over different periods of the season where I feel I got a pretty good idea of what his game was last year. I saw a slightly improved player playing slightly less selfish hockey, and I saw him doing it in a contract year. Not nearly enough evidence to think that, at 33, he's turned some sort of corner.
And, not that it has anything to do with my own opinion of the player, but in the past, I've had a chance to speak to one assistant coach and one head coach, both who coached Jokinen in the NHL. Both, in the nicest way possible, implied that Jokinen was a difficult player to coach, not because he was a bad person. On the contrary, they had nothing but nice things to say about him personally. The difficulty stemmed from the fact that, according to these two individuals, he had a lot of difficulty "getting it," it being systems, strategies, and thinking the game in general.
I stand fully by my statement that any team that is dumb enough to give him a contract longer than 2 years will live to regret it.
Instead of implying that I was irrational or some kind of idiot who would hate a player because he stunk for one month when he played for my team, you could have just disagreed with my take. How did you expect me to react when you went out of your way to insult my intelligence?
Some nerve you've got...
