Interesting advanced stats on the Flames' Dman passing

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by TX_Flame

There's a problem, however, if you don't take into account when a team has guys like Monahan and Hudler, who consistently have a high Sh% or a goalie like Price, who has a consistently high save %. Montreal's consistently high PDO doesn't regress because Price has a consistently high save %.

Agreed. My point is you or I can't put a number on how much is luck or skill. The Lambert's of the blogosphere decry luck and regression. The Corsi haters claim skill. That's the circular argument we constantly have

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Galakanokis

Well sure, but it is damn near impossible to have a team of superstars and you can't have your superstars playing 60 minutes. So minimizing the damage, or suckage while they're not on the ice is a sound tactic.

We can't all be the oilers have 5 or 6 Giordano's.

OK, but that's a lousy defense of the player.

So outside the superstars, it's OK to be terrible? Why bother ever changing the bottom of your roster?

Engelland has some good qualities no doubt. I firmly of the belief though that the net sum is bad though and a replacement level D is better.

[TX_Flame]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

If you suck, but minimize damage while you suck, you still suck

Yes, that's an adequate description of Engelland, and why I'm really happy to have Hamilton on our team. But I really don't want Engelland to try to do more than that. As a 6-7 D at best, definitely not in the top 4, even if someone gets injured.

[Galakanokis]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

OK, but that's a lousy defense of the player.

So outside the superstars, it's OK to be terrible? Why bother ever changing the bottom of your roster?

Engelland has some good qualities no doubt. I firmly of the belief though that the net sum is bad though and a replacement level D is better.

Sorry, I might have missed something but I was just talking in generalities. A 6/7 defender is always (usually) going to suck compared to the top guys. I believe this on any team. You might get lucky and have a young stud work his way up from there but that is few and far between. Is Engelland terrible to other bottom D men in the league? Perhaps on par with most I would think. Ideally Morrison or Wotherspoon push Engelland down but I don't see that happening to start the year.

You always look to upgrade your roster regardless of how well you did. But once your roster is set you work with what you have. Minimizing mistakes/weaknesses and maximizing strengths is a big part of the game and the main goal of the coach in my mind. Putting players in a position to succeed. If that's scoring goals great but not getting scored on is pretty decent to.

[TX_Flame]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Agreed. My point is you or I can't put a number on how much is luck or skill. The Lambert's of the blogosphere decry luck and regression. The Corsi haters claim skill. That's the circular argument we constantly have

You can get close if you look at a player's history, like I did with Hudler, Monahan and Price. Bouma, on the other hand, I fully expect will regress, for the same reason.

[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by Galakanokis

Well sure, but it is damn near impossible to have a team of superstars and you can't have your superstars playing 60 minutes. So minimizing the damage, or suckage while they're not on the ice is a sound tactic.

No, but we saw last season that the Flames played a much safer game with Schlemko/Diaz as our bottom pairing than with Smid/Engelland. We actually got to see bottom-of-lineup guys like Stajan, Bollig, Ferland and Shore calm down and kill time in the offensive zone instead of raising our heart rates hoping to clear the puck without icing it. Was there perhaps the occasional risk of Diaz getting knocked off the puck in the corners or Schlemko simply being too much of an unknown with a small sample size? Sure, but overall the Flames minimized the damage when that bottom pairing was out there.