Quote:
Originally Posted by ricardodw
My hypothesis is that teams can only have so many soft players before they begin to become ineffective.
Chicago was 30th in road hits and total hits..... however they only had 2 players that would fit in the soft category : Kane and Keith.
Sort of a gang mentality .. everyone plays hard and they don't get pushed around. The same works in reverse with so many small soft guys it becomes too hard and courageous for the remaining gang members to stand up on a continuous basis when you can see 5-6 guys never stepping up.....
The soft guys HAVE to justify their role in the gang by being exceptional at what they do good. Cammalleri and Hudler (and Tanguay and Cervenka) have to be 30-40 goal scorers to justify their role in the gang.
Stajan used to be a soft skilled guy but had a much better season 2012-13 when he competed harder and grittier. If he isn't going to kick in 60 pts then at least he is making other contributions.
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I would argue that hits will generally inversely related to possession. Since Chicago generally has the puck a lot, it is to be expected that they hit less. I think you'll get a better indicator of grit if you normalize by a possession metric. For example, to see how much a team hits, find out hits given/possession. Higher is better. To see how well they can take hits, find out possession/hits received. Again, higher is better as it indicates they can take a hit without losing the puck.