OT: NHL Off Season Thread
- Thread starter Tango Two
- Start date
My guess would be he's slotted at 2nd line right wing if kid line stays together. Whether he sticks there or they try other options remains to be seen.
And for the record, would like the kid line to remain intact with a commitment to 12-14 minutes per game. Have to let them play.
If the kid line stays together, then yes, I think it does. If you assume they carry 14 forwards then you have Goodrow, Kratsov, Blais, Gauthier, Reeves, Carpenter, and Hunt to fill 2 top 6 RW spots, and realistically, that list comes down to the first three names.
I'd imagine they'd like to go with Blais / Kratsov with safety of falling back to Blais / Goodrow (all assuming kid line preserved).
Kakko had very good numbers in the 6-8 games he was moved up to play with Mika and Kreider then he got hurt, had an extended absence, and wasn’t put there again.
I could see Gallant trying Kakko to start the year as 1st line RW, with Kravstov replacing him on the 3rd.
One of either Cuylle or Othmann will make the team. IMO
No clue about Kratsov.
Either way Cheese, Gallante has to revamp our gap and forecheck system.
You simply can not allow the time and space we give
I'd love to see Kakko get more ice time and especially with those players. I'm cautious or skeptical it will but the one scenario where I could see it is what you described.
It's light years better than the prior year with Quinn, but I agree wholeheartedly. TB didn't skate circles around them but clamped down and trapped the hell out of them. There's no excuse to yield that much time / space with the advantage they have in net.
A good start would be to stop giving the first two lines 18-19 minutes a game while the kid line (which was doing the best at keeping possession in the offensive zone) gets 12-13.
Both can be true. Ice time distribution was a problem but would kill for tighter neutral zone play
Benching Kakko, arguably our best forechecking wing throughput the entire playoffs was one hell of a head scratcher.
Not saying we win game 6 if he plays, but it was one dumb decision
Not saying we win game 6 if he plays, but it was one dumb decision
They gave away Buchnevich, who was one of the top 5v5 forwards they had, as if they couldn’t get him off the team fast enough. It appears that while other teams are trying innovative data-driving ways to build and manage their teams the Rangers are run using the “old hockey guy eye test”.
The only thing keeping me from being completely livid on how the TB series was mismanaged to failure is the fact that Colorado looked pretty unbeatable (although with Shesterkin I probably shouldn’t write the Rangers theoretical chance completely off).
Krup-
Their has to be an element of old guy eye test to go along with analytic data.
There are way to many intangibles that need to be evaluated.
Impactful contact, not getting knocked off the puck, winning wall battles, intuitive timing you can’t teach or measure.
Jack Johnson fit in with the Avalanche with all that speed and skill they have, yet he looked like a player that needed to Retire with us.
Someone evaluated him based on eye test
I didn’t say that the eye test was useless. A good team makes judgements based on what they are seeing with their eyes, then looks at the numbers to see what they show about that player, or looks at the numbers to identify hidden gems then watches games/tapes to try and verify. Both approaches should be used and valued to make the best final judgements.
Jack Johnson is easily explainable using the same reason Nemeth looked so much worse on the Rangers than the Avs. Neither of those players can hold up under pressure in their zone. The Rangers give up the blue line easily, allow them the much defensive zone pressure and those guys can’t handle. Colorado, on the hand, doesn’t put those guys in the situation where they fail often because they control the puck on offense so much and play in the other team’s zone.
Agreed,
We put tremendous pressure on our D mem with easy zone entry, and we sometimes blame them for the gap that isn’t remotely their fault.
The speed/time and space is allowed long before the opposition reaches our blue line.
Just think how f’n good K’Andre is on the rare occasion we are on top of the opposition.
If I see an opposition defenseman stop behind his net and our forwards skating backwards allowing them and him to build up speed on their breakout early next season….. I’m going to throw up.
The biggest problem with the Rangers system is that they don’t understand how their system changes the type of defensemen they need compared to other teams.
They hesitate to play smaller guys like Jones and Lundkvist in favor of bigger defensemen with less skill, when the smaller, skilled defensemen will successfully get the puck out of the zone much more often.
I saw the stat yesterday that in the last five years the Rangers have bought out, or paid at least a 2nd round pick to unload on another team, five defensemen in the last five years. All of them were over six feet, but they never learn from it.
They need to realize they can’t use the traditional mindset about building a defense when they play a system where getting the puck out of their end requires more skill than size.
Krup-
Even a gifted mobile defenseman like a Jones will struggle when he’s contested and forced to make a decision after one stride.
Gallant and Drury need to institute a system and mindset that’s totally based on no room, and taking away time and space….period!
Number one, as I said earlier is forwards do very little skating backwards while defending the oppositions break out….very little!!!!
Also, Ryan Carpenter….Why?
Even a gifted mobile defenseman like a Jones will struggle when he’s contested and forced to make a decision after one stride.
Gallant and Drury need to institute a system and mindset that’s totally based on no room, and taking away time and space….period!
Number one, as I said earlier is forwards do very little skating backwards while defending the oppositions break out….very little!!!!
Also, Ryan Carpenter….Why?
Last edited:
Ty Smith passes the eye test offensively but I know his advanced metrics were not good this past season. It’ll be interesting to see what his next contract winds up being (after 22-23).
If the Pens get Ty Smith to consistently be a good player, good for them. I'm happy with the trade, because Smith is a turnover waiting to happen, as soon as an opponent threatens physicality. In short Ty is a puss. I don't think he will amount to much, because his problems are mental as well as physical. It is not just getting stronger, it is not being afraid of getting hit. The draft pick for next year, bothers me more.
Long stats nerd/history geek post...
Last offseason I posted a statistic I calculated in a spreadsheet that attempts to compare each franchise's success against each others by determining how many Stanley Cups each team should have based on how many years they've been in the league and how many teams were in the league each year. It isn't perfect of course because obviously expansion teams normally take a while to get their first Cup, a team could have only had one successful patch but if it was a dynasty then it kind of skews the results (although you could argue multiple Cups still count as multiple Cups regardless of how many years elapsed between), etc.
Anyway, someone on here suggested adding in the data from the now-defunct teams, so when I updated it with this year's results, I added that in as well. In case anyone finds it interesting, below is the updated list with all teams that ever participated in leagues that competed for the Stanley Cup. I began with the 1913-14 season because prior to that, the Stanley Cup was awarded on a challenge basis, where a team would challenge the current champion to try to win the Cup off of them, like UFC or boxing or something. Beginning with the 1913-14 season, the winner of the National Hockey Association would play the winner of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association with the winner being awarded the Stanley Cup. Eventually, the Western Canadian Hockey League would also be eligible to compete for the Stanley Cup, as their winner would play the winner of the PCHA to determine who would play for the Cup until the PCHA folded. Eventually, the Western league folded as well, and starting with the 1926-27 season, the Stanley Cup would just go to the NHL champions.
I learned some interesting historical tidbits while compiling this data...
--In 1917, the owners of the NHA teams were fed up with the owner of the Toronto Hockey Club (separate franchise from the Maple Leafs), but the NHA constitution didn't allow for a team to be kicked out, so the rest of the teams got around that by forming a new league together and not inviting him--thus, the NHL was born.
--In those early years before the NHL, a minor penalty would result in a $2 fine, seemingly instead of a powerplay.
--The Toronto 228th battalion played in the 1916-17 season, the final season of the NHA. They wore khaki military uniforms on the ice and were the league's most popular and highest scoring team until they were ordered overseas mid-season.
Anyway, here's the list. A score of 0 means that a team has won the exact number of Cups they theoretically should have, so a +100 means they won double that. A negative score means based on the numbers, they should have won more by now. For the teams that haven't won, instead of putting their percentage (since they're all 0%) I wrote out the 0 divided by how many Cups they should have.
+209.17 Edmonton Oilers
+200.00 Toronto HC
+199.90 Tampa Bay Lightning
+144.20 Montreal Canadiens
+106.94 Pittsburgh Penguins
+97.70 New York Islanders
+85.50 Colorado Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques
+70.91 St. Louis Eagles/Ottawa Senators (NHA)
+58.04 New Jersey Devils/Colorado Rockies/Kansas City Scouts
+36.32 Toronto Maple Leafs/Toronto St. Patricks/Toronto Arenas
+34.21 Montreal Maroons
+29.65 Detroit Red Wings/Detroit Falcons/Detroit Cougars
+17.63 Seattle Metropolitans (PCHA)
+4.31 Anaheim Ducks/Mighty Ducks of Anaheim
-17.22 Philadelphia Flyers
-17.22 Los Angeles Kings
-25.58 Victoria Cougars/Spokane Canaries/Victoria Aristocrats (PCHA/WCHL/WHL)
-30.59 Boston Bruins
-33.79 Vancouver Maroons/Vancouver Millionaires (PCHA/WCHL/WHL)
-38.17 Carolina Hurricanes/Hartford Whalers
-41.07 Chicago Blackhawks
-47.32 Washington Capitals
-50.58 Calgary Flames/Atlanta Flames
-52.85 New York Rangers
-58.61 Dallas Stars/Minnesota North Stars
-58.61 St. Louis Blues
0/0.03 Seattle Kraken
0/0.16 Vegas Golden Knights
0/0.22 Toronto Shamrocks/Toronto Ontarios (NHA)
0/0.43 Portland Rosebuds/Regina Capitals (WCHL/WHL)
0/0.43 Edmonton Eskimos (WCHL/WHL)
0/0.43 Calgary Tigers (WCHL/WHL)
0/0.43 Saskatoon Crescents/Moose Jaw Sheiks/Saskatoon Sheiks (WCHL/WHL)
0/0.46 Montreal Wanderers (NHA)
0/0.58 Philadelphia Quakers/Pittsburgh Pirates
0/0.69 Minnesota Wild
0/0.69 Columbus Blue Jackets
0/0.73 Winnipeg Jets/Atlanta Thrashers
0/0.74 Cleveland Barons/California Golden Seals/Bay Area Seals/Oakland Seals/California Seals
0/0.77 Nashville Predators
0/0.79 Portland Rosebuds/New Westminster Royals (NHA)
0/0.96 Florida Panthers
0/1.00 Ottawa Senators
0/1.05 San Jose Sharks
0/1.10 Hamilton Bulldogs/Quebec Bulldogs (NHA)
0/1.62 Arizona Coyotes/Phoenix Coyotes/Winnipeg Jets
0/1.98 Brooklyn Americans/New York Americans
0/2.17 Vancouver Canucks
0/2.17 Buffalo Sabres
As expected, most of the defunct teams didn't have much success. Toronto HC did, and I can't help but wonder how much longer that franchise would have lasted if their owner didn't piss off everyone else so much that they went ahead and started an entire new league without him. I also didn't realize how unsuccessful the NY Americans were--the 3rd most underperforming team ever.
Last offseason I posted a statistic I calculated in a spreadsheet that attempts to compare each franchise's success against each others by determining how many Stanley Cups each team should have based on how many years they've been in the league and how many teams were in the league each year. It isn't perfect of course because obviously expansion teams normally take a while to get their first Cup, a team could have only had one successful patch but if it was a dynasty then it kind of skews the results (although you could argue multiple Cups still count as multiple Cups regardless of how many years elapsed between), etc.
Anyway, someone on here suggested adding in the data from the now-defunct teams, so when I updated it with this year's results, I added that in as well. In case anyone finds it interesting, below is the updated list with all teams that ever participated in leagues that competed for the Stanley Cup. I began with the 1913-14 season because prior to that, the Stanley Cup was awarded on a challenge basis, where a team would challenge the current champion to try to win the Cup off of them, like UFC or boxing or something. Beginning with the 1913-14 season, the winner of the National Hockey Association would play the winner of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association with the winner being awarded the Stanley Cup. Eventually, the Western Canadian Hockey League would also be eligible to compete for the Stanley Cup, as their winner would play the winner of the PCHA to determine who would play for the Cup until the PCHA folded. Eventually, the Western league folded as well, and starting with the 1926-27 season, the Stanley Cup would just go to the NHL champions.
I learned some interesting historical tidbits while compiling this data...
--In 1917, the owners of the NHA teams were fed up with the owner of the Toronto Hockey Club (separate franchise from the Maple Leafs), but the NHA constitution didn't allow for a team to be kicked out, so the rest of the teams got around that by forming a new league together and not inviting him--thus, the NHL was born.
--In those early years before the NHL, a minor penalty would result in a $2 fine, seemingly instead of a powerplay.
--The Toronto 228th battalion played in the 1916-17 season, the final season of the NHA. They wore khaki military uniforms on the ice and were the league's most popular and highest scoring team until they were ordered overseas mid-season.
Anyway, here's the list. A score of 0 means that a team has won the exact number of Cups they theoretically should have, so a +100 means they won double that. A negative score means based on the numbers, they should have won more by now. For the teams that haven't won, instead of putting their percentage (since they're all 0%) I wrote out the 0 divided by how many Cups they should have.
+209.17 Edmonton Oilers
+199.90 Tampa Bay Lightning
+144.20 Montreal Canadiens
+106.94 Pittsburgh Penguins
+97.70 New York Islanders
+85.50 Colorado Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques
+58.04 New Jersey Devils/Colorado Rockies/Kansas City Scouts
+36.32 Toronto Maple Leafs/Toronto St. Patricks/Toronto Arenas
+29.65 Detroit Red Wings/Detroit Falcons/Detroit Cougars
+4.31 Anaheim Ducks/Mighty Ducks of Anaheim
-17.22 Philadelphia Flyers
-17.22 Los Angeles Kings
-30.59 Boston Bruins
-38.17 Carolina Hurricanes/Hartford Whalers
-41.07 Chicago Blackhawks
-47.32 Washington Capitals
-50.58 Calgary Flames/Atlanta Flames
-52.85 New York Rangers
-58.61 Dallas Stars/Minnesota North Stars
-58.61 St. Louis Blues
0/0.03 Seattle Kraken
0/0.16 Vegas Golden Knights
0/0.43 Portland Rosebuds/Regina Capitals (WCHL/WHL)
0/0.43 Edmonton Eskimos (WCHL/WHL)
0/0.43 Calgary Tigers (WCHL/WHL)
0/0.43 Saskatoon Crescents/Moose Jaw Sheiks/Saskatoon Sheiks (WCHL/WHL)
0/0.46 Montreal Wanderers (NHA)
0/0.69 Minnesota Wild
0/0.69 Columbus Blue Jackets
0/0.73 Winnipeg Jets/Atlanta Thrashers
0/0.77 Nashville Predators
0/0.96 Florida Panthers
0/1.00 Ottawa Senators
0/1.05 San Jose Sharks
0/1.62 Arizona Coyotes/Phoenix Coyotes/Winnipeg Jets
0/2.17 Vancouver Canucks
0/2.17 Buffalo Sabres
As expected, most of the defunct teams didn't have much success. Toronto HC did, and I can't help but wonder how much longer that franchise would have lasted if their owner didn't piss off everyone else so much that they went ahead and started an entire new league without him. I also didn't realize how unsuccessful the NY Americans were--the 3rd most underperforming team ever.
Last edited:
Rob - that may have been me that put that bug in your ear, lol.
Thanks so much for this. You did really great research. I love this stuff. Only thing better would be to see all the old jerseys as well as the defunct teams. I’m sure there are a lot of fun nuggets here…a few that stick out:
- TB latest back to back probably shot them up big time. I don’t think most would have said that they are the more successful franchise than MTL, but here we are.
- COL and NJD orgs had to have much more success at their new homes to compensate for many years of failure at their original stops.
- Forgetting about the newbies SEA and VGK, about a third of the current teams still have not won a cup. If not for recent one offs by old timers WAS and STL, this would be worse.
Really cool stuff man!
Here‘s something that it is literally popping in my head as I type. If it’s nonsensical, let me know. How about a cross reference using the org’s All Time records against this list? Something to show either/or:
- relative strength of a org (credit for being a good team, but not getting over the cup hump much or ever)
- variance of an orgs success (those that have extreme highs and extreme lows)
- something else I can’t think of?
Plus, a even bigger curveball - somehow “discounting” the years before the draft. Or at least separating these years and acknowledging that the league has never been a continuum. To me, there are 3 pretty distinct eras for the NHL:
- the first 20 or so - the Wild West. But, maybe the most even as far as results? I think about 10 different teams won cups during this time. For a league that avg about 8 teams, that seems like good parity.
- 40s-60s - dominance of the Canadian teams. If not for Gordie in DET, this would have been a complete bloodbath for the US teams. The big boys got to keep the local talent. And boy did it show in the results.
- The draft - the great equalizer. Interesting that the previous dominant teams had polar opposite experiences. MTL continued to do well, TML has floundered.
I‘m not saying to do all this stuff over again, lol. But, if we just twist the diamond a bit, we find that there are different perspectives to all of this.
Anyway, great job. For those that love hockey history, this was really interesting. Thanks!
Last edited:
I assume the Devils will sign D-man Hughes in April 2023 and call him up. They’re shaping up to be an interesting team in the next few years.
They should be able to slide his contract (so he would still be signed through ‘25-26) if he only plays 9 games with the Devils next year. If the Devils somehow make the playoffs, I think they would be more likely to wait to bring him up because if he played more than 9 games, then the season would count as a contract year.
Good point.
The Devils have 3 defense prospects on Mish’s blue line. Luke, Casey and Edwards. Fans can watch their progress on BTN
I agree. No reason to rush an 18 year old d-man to the NHL. A full year, or even two, isn't too long to wait.
Avalanche let Cale Makar play two seasons at UMass. That worked out well.
Rangers let Leetch play 1-season at BC
No problem, I'm glad you made that suggestion because it was interesting learning about the formative years of pro hockey, rule changes, etc. You mentioned seeing the old teams' jerseys. Fortunately, someone else already somehow managed to put that database together, and you can check it out here. You can sort it by team and also by year. It only has NHL teams though, probably nearly impossible to track down the uniforms of the NHA, PCHA, WCHL, and WHL teams.
About a third of the current teams haven't won the Cup yet, but also interesting is that after 1913, the Cup has only been won by slightly more than half of the teams that have ever existed, and only about a third of the franchises have met or exceeded the number of Cups they statistically should have by now. However some of these teams that never won after the playoff/tournament format replaced the challenge format actually did have a lot of prior success, but that is not indicated here since we start with when the playoff format was implemented. Also, many of the teams that haven't won it were flash in the pan teams from a century ago when a franchise might only last for 5-10 years. The WCHL/WHL only had one team beat the NHL champion, so perhaps that league just had a lower overall skill level than the NHL and PCHA, so that accounts for a handful of the teams that never won. Of the 23 teams that never won, only 7 should statistically have won it by now.
I like the idea of comparing this statistic to each team's all-time record to gauge how much a team stepped up or choked in the playoffs. I bet there's a lot more variance of that now with a 16-team playoff than there was back in the day when the playoffs would only be a handful of teams. It would also be good to look at to determine overall performance rather than looking at just Stanley Cups since if you only measure by Stanley Cups, then only one team is successful each year. I'll see if I can get that done next, hopefully it doesn't take me a whole year this time haha.
Variance of a team's success--fluctuations between being at the top and being at the bottom, as you alluded to, may be too time-consuming of an undertaking for me, but that would be interesting to evaluate as well.
You're right, there was a lot of parity in those early years. The original Ottawa Senators won three Cups in four years, and they were the only team to do that until things consolidated to only six teams (now known as the "Original Six" even though the actual original teams were the Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Arenas (now the Maple Leafs), original Ottawa Senators, and Montreal Wanderers) in 1942. After that, it was pretty much just the Canadiens, Maple Leafs, and Red Wings dominating until expansion in 1967.
As for how Montreal and Toronto differed in the modern era, last year I did another one of these that just took the post-expansion era into account, and yeah that actually puts the Canadiens way ahead of everybody at +313.89 while Toronto is all the way at the bottom at 0/2.42. You're right, complete opposites. The draft started only four years before the 1967 expansion, but the Leafs did win the Cup two of those years while Montreal won the other two, so if I used the implementation of the draft as a starting point, the Leafs would actually be somewhere in the middle of the pack.
Glad you enjoyed checking it out, I just did it for myself but figured I'd post here in case anyone else found it interesting. I'll see how difficult it is to pull up each team's all-time record and see if I can work that in too, thanks for the suggestion!
Last edited:
Great stuff. And, Thanks for the link to the jerseys!
One thing - while true there was a “draft” since 63, in my opinion, 69 is the de facto beginning of the draft era. All of the previous rules for acquiring talent were also still in place until 67. Kind of competing with and undermining the intent of a draft. They changed all those rules with the expansion. And the transitionary 68 draft had a total of 3 rounds, 24 players drafted, 9 that made the NHL. 69 is the first without those rules that also pretty much matches our modern notion of a draft. With the same 12 teams as 68, the 69 draft had 9 rounds, 85 players taken, 49 that made the NHL. The playing field for getting young players has more/less been the same since.
More fun offseason filler - trade trees.
Below is the GRETZKY to LA trade tree. It’s long but it is really fun and interesting. This is from last year. At that point, and 33 years after the original trade, the tree was STILL ALIVE!
Below is the GRETZKY to LA trade tree. It’s long but it is really fun and interesting. This is from last year. At that point, and 33 years after the original trade, the tree was STILL ALIVE!
Ok, I’m way down this rabbit hole, lol! I believe the oldest living trade tree - RICK MARTIN from the famous 70s BUF French Connection line - traded to LA in 1981 for a couple of picks. 40 years later, BUF still has players and assets derived from that one trade. Crazy.
https://twointhebox.com/tag/rick-martin-trade-tree/
https://twointhebox.com/tag/rick-martin-trade-tree/
Wow and some of the guys derived from that trade were among the top players in the franchise's history.
Well Matthew Tkachuk was traded to the Florida Panthers for Jonathon Huberdeau, Mackenzie Weegar, Cole Schwindt, and a conditional 1st round pick in 2025. The pick is partially protected.
If he wasn't going to St. Louis or Nashville, he wanted a state with no state income tax. I think this is a case where a player cost the team trading him, a lot of value.
Unless Fitzgerald gets the Blues to trade Tarashenko, I think the Devils play the kids and hope.
If he wasn't going to St. Louis or Nashville, he wanted a state with no state income tax. I think this is a case where a player cost the team trading him, a lot of value.
Unless Fitzgerald gets the Blues to trade Tarashenko, I think the Devils play the kids and hope.
I don't think he cost Calgary a lot of value, I'd say that's a pretty good return. I was hoping the Devils would land him, but if a package like that is what he would have cost, I'm glad they didn't.
I'm happy they didn't land him either. The comment was made because, every proposed trade for him I looked at, had more pieces in it. Including younger pieces. I think Calgary would have done better if he was not limiting where he wanted to go. Thankfully Fitzgerald did not raid the farm system and give up next year's #1, to then see him want out in a year or two!
