NHL 2013: Blackhawks Stanley Cup Champs ; Kovalchuk bails on NHL and $77 million

i really don't get it

especially on a "last gambit for the cup" angle since given the new divisional alignment... it's not leaving for a better job, it's effectively defecting to a main rival.

Nathan Horton signs a 7-year, $37.1 million deal with the Blue Jackets. Getting "this close" to the playoffs last year definitely motivated Columbus to spend some money.

I hope they don't expect him to be Rick Nash version 2. Horton has a tendency to coast through the regular season. He's a beast in the playoffs provided he can stay healthy.

Dysplastic wrote:

I've been starting to follow that, I really like the stats work those guys do. I need to give up on HFBoards, too much stupidity.
Copper and Blue does great work on the Oilers blog as well.

Speaking of which, very happy with the Ferrence and Gord signings for Edmonton. Labarbera is meh, I think there were better backups available. (Dubnyk should really be a backup, but that's neither here nor there).

Copper & Blue is great, as is Broad Street Hockey.

As for Dubnyk, over the last three years his even-strength sv% is as good as Carey Price's and his save-percentage is comparable. He should be fine.

Montreal's off-season has beeen bad (not disastrous like the Leafs, mind you. That Clarkson contract screams albatross). Going from Ryder and Armstrong to Briere and Parros is a pretty big downgrade. Facepunching does nothing to help win hockey games and there's no evidence being clutch is an actual ability.

Ottawa's done superb so far. MacArthur should provide performance along the lines of what Alfredsson would give (accounting for two-way play) and Bobby Ryan's a good forward. With Karlsson getting healthy and they should slot into the top-3 in the new NorthEast+Florida division.

"Wait for the Senators to be a cup contender? Ain't nobody got time fo dat!" - Daniel Afredsson

The Bryan Murray press conference going on right now has been... interesting.

There's no doubt Bobby Ryan is a good forward. However, the Sens gave up a lot for two years left in a contract. Are the Sens cup contenders in the next two years? There's no doubt Ryan helps, but we'll see.

Love the Ryan deal..... Besides the two years left.

I guess the plan is to woo him to stay then lock him up long term with something reasonable.

For teams that draft well and have a full cupboard of `good prospects` I'm always for trading it away for a proven guy. Bobby Ryan is the kind of skilled nasty player you can win playoff games with.

jowner wrote:

For teams that draft well and have a full cupboard of `good prospects` I'm always for trading it away for a proven guy. Bobby Ryan is the kind of skilled nasty player you can win playoff games with.

I agree with this sentiment, but it's all about timing. I see the the Sens being competitors 2-4 years from now, is now the right time to make that deal? It's tough, because it's not every day the opportunity to acquire a BR-type player lands on your doorstep. Like many things, it's a gamble, you have to trust in your GM and your scouts.

Dysplastic wrote:
jowner wrote:

For teams that draft well and have a full cupboard of `good prospects` I'm always for trading it away for a proven guy. Bobby Ryan is the kind of skilled nasty player you can win playoff games with.

I agree with this sentiment, but it's all about timing. I see the the Sens being competitors 2-4 years from now, is now the right time to make that deal? It's tough, because it's not every day the opportunity to acquire a BR-type player lands on your doorstep. Like many things, it's a gamble, you have to trust in your GM and your scouts.

They have been after him for ages. This rumor has been popping up for the last couple trade deadlines etc.

From Ottawas perspective I think they prefer to land a future FA like this. Ottawa isn't a dreamy FA destination like other teams. Also even if the money problems aren't true its never actually really smart to pay 20-30% more for a FA on the open market in a bidding war just cause.

The gamble is they bring him in now and have a full two years to woo him and awe him that Ottawa is actually a good place to be living and that the organisation is committed to winning. Depending how the rest of the prospects mature the winning part could become a reality. Its pretty much the Turris deal 2.0 at higher stakes. Which is working out great so far.

Also my facebook was highly comical yesterday. First it was the OMG ALFIE IS LEAVING with all the Canadiens and Leafs fans rubbing the salt in the wounds. Then it was Ottawa has traded for Bobby Ryan Danny Briere and David Clarkson don't exactly ooze the same excitement for some reason.

I think Ottawa's the big winner of the off-season so far.Ryan and MacArthur replacing Alfredsson and Silverberg make the team better, and they get a healthy Spezza, and a healthy Karlsson back. Ottawa was a top-10 or top-12 (depending on the metric) possession team last season and those four should provide some significant improvement.

Detroit, Boston, and Ottawa look like the clear top-3 (in any order) in their new division, with the Habs slightly behind at four in spite of their General Manager, and then Toronto (my God, what have they done?), Buffalo, Florida, and Tampa Bay all circling the drain.

Roke wrote:

I think Ottawa's the big winner of the off-season so far.Ryan and MacArthur replacing Alfredsson and Silverberg make the team better, and they get a healthy Spezza, and a healthy Karlsson back. Ottawa was a top-10 or top-12 (depending on the metric) possession team last season and those four should provide some significant improvement.

Detroit, Boston, and Ottawa look like the clear top-3 (in any order) in their new division, with the Habs slightly behind at four in spite of their General Manager, and then Toronto (my God, what have they done?), Buffalo, Florida, and Tampa Bay all circling the drain.

Tampa is stuck in a strange limbo IMO. They have Stamkos who is obviously a franchise talent but St.Louis is not getting younger.

Filppula at 5m was uhhh interesting. For 5 years? ouch. Just seems like the definition of a contract that the absolute best scenario is hes a 5m player. You really handcuff yourself going forward when you start locking up guys for significant years and theres little hope they outplay their salary.

Kovalchuck retires.... not from Hockey but from the NHL.

Rumor is hes going to sign in the KHL and make up to 20m.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/ilya-kovalchuk-join-ska-could-earn-20-million-210237775.html

Also kinda related I like how the journalism is getting less lazy and actually reporting figures that matter. Like...

How much? He speculates that if it was “a $15-20 million per year (at the taxation in 13%)” it would not be a surprise.

My biggest gripe during the Dwight Howard free agency was how he was 'leaving 30m on the table OMG HES CRAZY'. Whereas non lazy reporters would actually point out the huge tax differences between California and Texas which really didn't mean he was leaving anywhere close to that on the table. Who would of thought that what a person actually takes home after taxes might matter ;P

Kovalchuk is a liar and a coward.

Sports journalism, or most journalism, is pretty bad. Most just try to write a story but never look any deeper.

Vector wrote:

Kovalchuk is a liar and a coward.

Sports journalism, or most journalism, is pretty bad. Most just try to write a story but never look any deeper.

That's a little strong. He doesn't want to be live in north America and the NHL has no protection against guys doing this. NHL made their bed with the lockout and this is part of the fallout.

You can't do this in soccer BTW. The NHL is a professional league run by a bunch of hacks.

Kovalchuk, Parise. Clarkson. Where'd my offense go ? And Elias doesn't count.

Oh yeah and the 4 players and 2 draft picks.

KHL will bankrupt itself doing this. They do not have the money of the NHL. It is not even the most popular sport in Russia either. Soccer is more popular.

goman wrote:

KHL will bankrupt itself doing this. They do not have the money of the NHL. It is not even the most popular sport in Russia either. Soccer is more popular.

A lot of KHL teams are simply expensive toys for a few oligarchs. When they get tired of pouring money into their teams the league will fold hard.

jowner wrote:
Vector wrote:

Kovalchuk is a liar and a coward.

Sports journalism, or most journalism, is pretty bad. Most just try to write a story but never look any deeper.

That's a little strong. He doesn't want to be live in north America and the NHL has no protection against guys doing this. NHL made their bed with the lockout and this is part of the fallout.

You can't do this in soccer BTW. The NHL is a professional league run by a bunch of hacks.

He probably shouldn't have signed a 12 year contract if he wasn't going to committed to it.

Kovalchuk was a really fun player to watch so I'm disappointed he went back to Russia, but given that it's closer to home and probably a lot more money I understand completely why he's gone to the KHL.

If hockey had the prestige of say, soccer, I would be hopeful that the return to the KHL of the likes of Radulov and Kovalchuk, along with many good Russian prospects staying in Russia, was a sign that the KHL will hopefully one day challenge the NHL as a cartel league. That simply won't happen and I think imbiginjapan has things right - the Oligarch money will dry up and I bet it happens after the Sochi Olympics.

The Devils don't seem too upset about this (they agreed to terminate the contract rather than toll it)and given the dire financial strait the club is in I can see why. Kovalchuk leaving saves them $10m/year over the next 5 years, and they avoid any severe cap recapture situation, and they got three very good years out of him for about $6 million/season and a 1st-round pick - not bad value for an elite LW.

imbiginjapan wrote:
goman wrote:

KHL will bankrupt itself doing this. They do not have the money of the NHL. It is not even the most popular sport in Russia either. Soccer is more popular.

A lot of KHL teams are simply expensive toys for a few oligarchs. When they get tired of pouring money into their teams the league will fold hard.

Problem is if this equates to nickles and dimes to these guys the interest might not wane. If anything I think the real push is post Sochi. That's where their going to really pitch/push hockey to these guys and we will see how interested they are 2-3 years after.

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Honestly... do you blame him?

Bahahahahaaa well when you pit it that way !!!

Priceless. I am going to steal that.

f*cking brilliant!

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Vector wrote:

f*cking brilliant!

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Brilliant. I narrowly missed spraying my monitor with tea.

The Maple Leafs are going to be pretty damn awful next season, aren't they? Lost two of their best two-way/possession forwards in Grabovski and MacArthur, dealt for a goalie who's not as good as Reimer to "upgrade" in goal and take away starts from the good goalie they already have, and their coaching staff doesn't understand that they were incredibly lucky last throughout the season last year.

The explanations about zone-time and systems read like the counter-explanations to analytics-blogger types predicting Minnesota's harsh decline back in 2011-12 after their hot, percentage-fuelled start in the face of terrible puck possession. The few months of Pierre Gauthier's tenure as Montreal GM had me terrified but what the Leafs are doing and believe is much, much worse. The best thing for the franchise would be fore the team to get off to a horrible start and Nonis and Carlyle get fired before they can do any more damage. This is worse than the Houle years in Montreal.

Roke wrote:

The Maple Leafs are going to be pretty damn awful next season, aren't they? Lost two of their best two-way/possession forwards in Grabovski and MacArthur, dealt for a goalie who's not as good as Reimer to "upgrade" in goal and take away starts from the good goalie they already have, and their coaching staff doesn't understand that they were incredibly lucky last throughout the season last year.

Really interesting article, thanks for linking to it. It was cool to see Cronin's perspective on a few of the games.

There's a clear difference in his philosophy towards hockey in that he doesn't see CORSI and possession as being synonymous, but he and CORSI advocates agree as well: possession is the number one way to win a hockey game. He clearly just has a different way of measuring possession. I sincerely doubt he's telling the whole truth when he answers the question about whether his team has other advanced stats or if he has heard of CORSI (ludicrous to think he hasn't). NHL teams are notoriously secretive when it comes to their own stat tracking methods.

When Cronin brings up that he feels shots from weak areas aren't as valuable as zone possession time, he's basically getting to the heart of why CORSI shouldn't be looked at by itself. A shot leading to a quick turnover isn't as valuable as a time in the opponent's zone with a good cycle - your goal with possession is to wear the other team down. Everybody who is into advanced hockey stats knows this, but as CORSI gets more popular I think people are losing perspective on it.

CORSI is a valuable tool that stretches the rather limited statistics available from the NHL on aggregate and can tells us some really useful things about possession in a hockey game. But by definition it overvalues shots - it has to. How great would it be if the NHL kept track of actual individual puck possession for every minute of every game. You have to think a stat like that would make CORSI a lot less valuable. That's a dreamworld though.

The question is whether the Leafs coaching staff have a better way of measuring possession in their own squad than CORSI, and I really have to think they do. I mean, these guys pore over game video of every Leafs game. Though really, "the Leafs weren't out-possessed last season"? That's a hard one to believe, but I'm sure if I did some type of NDA he could make a compelling argument. I'd love to hear his explanation of some of the shot charts I saw from last season showing the Leafs were giving up more shots from "home plate", as he calls it.

Also, don't forget that Cronin isn't the GM of the Leafs. I really doubt he had much to do with Grabovski and MacArthur leaving. He certainly had nothing to do with giving Clarkson that contract.

Okay, that's a wall of text so I'll stop there. I'm holding onto my eternal Leafs optimism (you don't be a Leafs fan for as long as I have without a decent amount of blind optimism in off season), at least until the season starts. You really can't call it catastrophe when a single game has yet to be played.

I've shown I more often than not revert to wall-of-texts posts so it's not a problem. Cam Charron wrote a great piece about the interview so if you have some time I'd recommend giving that a read as well. He mentions the blogger scoring-chance tracking and how the home-plate definition of scoring chance isn't of much utility because Fenwick pretty much measures that. In terms of evangelizing I think scoring chance counts are still useful because it's a widely held concept thanks TV broadcasts but in terms of learning something new it's probably not worth the effort.

He links to an older piece from Vic Ferrari (one of the hockey stat movement grandfathers) about zone-time (when the NHL tracked and published it) and how it jives with the shot-metrics. A Leafs blogger (I think) tracked zone time for a number of games either this past season or the season before and they matched up well.

He seemed to tout the shot quality/shift quality thing a lot, and coming from a coach's perspective that's completely understandable. Every coach should be coming up with schemes or tactics to generate quality chances. The problem is that, from as far as I see when I watch games, 30+ second shifts in the offensive zone are incredibly and no NHL team in modern (post-second-lockout) times has shown that they're able to sustain a high shooting percentage. Expecting to ride that to sustainable success is probably folly given that you're relying more on randomness than player/coach ability.

Completely unrelated, but saying that Grabovski turned the puck over behind the empty Bruins' net when he didn't was a little bizarre. If you're tracking who's at fault for scoring chances against and that's a big enough event worth mentioning in an interview you would think you would get that right.

Edit: Something on the average time in the offensive zone to ponder:

I can't stop watching.

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