Quote:
Originally Posted by jayswin
But does Rhett understand defensive metrics at all? Huberdeau's issue was quite clearly not effort, it was attempting to completely change his game as per Sutter. Which in itself would have been great, but Sutter also played a crappy shot volume system that clearly neutered Huberdeau's offensive game.
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Maybe Rhett does or doesn't understand defensive metrics, but he was a player for a long time and I have no doubt he can recognize when a player is giving 100%, and when they aren't. I didn't see the effort, except for at the tail end of the season, which does give me some hope for next season I suppose.
Huberdeau was last on the team for controlled zone entries amongst forwards. Even if it was just Sutter's system, it doesn't explain why he was last among his peers. I just didn't see intensity from him, except on rare occasions. If it was just the system holding him back, I would still expect to see more individual effort. Guys like Toffoli, Lindholm, and even Kadri for 2/3rds of the season didn't seem to have a problem at least on the GAF meter.
I recognize that Rhett's opinion is confirmation bias for how things looked to me as well and respect that others can have different conclusions, but I just didn't see it.