Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
1. Line adjustment which results in Nugent-Hopkins, Draisaitl and Yamammoto together on a line: fans are absolutely pissed about the fact that the "DRY line" has not yet seen the ice together this season. So much so that many see this as a serious enough indictment to cost Dave Tippet his job. The expectation is that this single adjustment makes the Oilers a great team that can win. How realistic is this hope? It seems completely delusional to me to imagine that a simple line adjustment would resolve all of their problems, especially in the light of how briefly this group played together last year.
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I'd like to see them together too ... see if what they did last year was sustainable.
Sometimes good to great players can just roll out great numbers year after year, but Nugent Hopkins has never had those numbers, and Yamamoto only played a half season.
Can Draisaitl elevate players that much?
Some numbers ...
Average NHL forward on ice shooting percentage 8.2%
The top 50 NHL forwards by xGF last season averaged 9.0%
Yamamoto led all NHL forwards with 12.5% on ice shooting percentage.
The Oilers also had McDavid (14th), Draisaitl (16th), and Kassian (22nd) in the top 25
Nugent Hopkins is way down the list at 73rd.
Finally ... if you look at actual goals vs expected goals into ice time, Yamamoto is 2nd to only Kadri in surplus vs expected /60. Draisaitl is 26th, McDavid 31st, Kassian 37th
Great players have better stats in these cases for sure, but that's a lot of Edmonton mentions in stats that look a little bloated.
The Calgary perspective?
On ice shooting percentage ...
Mangiapane 68th
Tkachuk 87th
Backlund 90th
Lindholm 141st
Lucic 165th
the rest of the forwards were under the league average including Johnny Gaudreau at 224th and Sean Monahan at 250th.
Looking at GF-xGF/60 ...
Mangiapane 102nd
Backlund 105th
Dube 130th
Lucic 148th
Lindholm 149th
Tkachuk 156th
Ryan 209th
Gaudreau 231st
the rest of the forwards were under water ... meaning they had less goals when on the ice than expected
Good summary of when things go right and when things don't.