Red Line Station

Yes, Carlson is good. Quoting Friedman from the pl...

2013-03-22T15:50:37.979-04:00

Yes, Carlson is good. Quoting Friedman from the playoffs last year, in a 30 Thoughts: "even referees think John Carlson is going to win the Norris Trophy someday."

There's a story Dave Tippett told once about his team choosing which of two defensemen to trade. One made the right play defensively essentially without fail, but had to defend all the time because he was a poor puck mover. The other wasn't as good in his own end, but was defending less than half the time because he could pass and clear the zone, given the opportunity. They traded the first. Carlson is like the second.

Green is a defenseman. Just because someone has some skill doesn't mean they should be a forward. Or do you think Erik Karlsson should be a winger, too?

Comparing Alzner and Erskine is an insult to Alzner, who's as good a pure shutdown defenseman as you'll find in the East.

It's worthwhile to be patient with Kundratek as well. Before coming to this organization he was known as a third pairing prospect, Erskine with less physicality, better skating, same lack of offense. Were all the scouts that wrong?

Carlson's time to move might be now as his con...

2013-03-22T11:53:30.118-04:00

Carlson's time to move might be now as his contract is doable within a lot of team's cap space. We may be thinking his upside is higher than it is. Green will be tough to move due to salary and injury history and possible return may not appease GMGM. Shultz to anyone who will have him. Orlov, Alzner and Erskine are 3 mainstays but Erskine could have value with his snarl to a team needing that for playoff run. Kondratek, Hillen and Olesky are NHL depth players of the 4-5-6-7 variety. I like that Olesky will go after anyone, unlike some of the non- contact wimps that Caps have. Trade Mojo now while he's hot and we might actually get something other than a bag of turnips for him.

Do you really believe that Carlson is a good Defen...

2013-03-22T11:24:00.183-04:00

Do you really believe that Carlson is a good Defenseman? He is basically another winger (similarly to Green). Erskine is a stay at home D much like Alzner however Erskine adds the requisite toughness required. Olesky is ok but must wait and see. Kundratek is another offensive Defenseman; Schultz is just terrible...

Where's the upside? 52-46-65-56-50? I'd sa...

2013-03-10T21:27:07.341-04:00

Where's the upside? 52-46-65-56-50? I'd say he was pretty good in 10-11 and got a healthy bad dose of puck luck (shooting % that season by far his career worst) and was still the same old player by Corsi. As far as I'm concerned he's had about 100 bad regular season games now, which isn't even two seasons.

Plenty of players learn how to play defense as they get older. Ovechkin is probably behind on the learning curve, but I'm sure he'll learn, and he still has the size and puck skills to do it well.

Where do you see any upside in Ovechin? He has bee...

2013-03-10T16:57:43.932-04:00

Where do you see any upside in Ovechin? He has been on the downhill side for two seasons now because he refuses to change and play in any system other than his own personal one. He's a terrible team player and should never have been made Captain because he has no leadership skills. Just another moody Russian.

Comments on predictions: 1) For the "locks&...

2013-01-14T07:20:52.609-05:00

Comments on predictions:

1) For the "locks" to make the playoffs that miss, Pittsburgh won't be one of the misses.

2) Fleury being shaky in playoffs would likely preclude Pitt from winning Cup.

3) Doubt Item 23 will come to pass

Anyway, very well written piece, whether or not the predictions come to pass

I am new to this and am wondering if you help coul...

2012-12-29T15:05:43.585-05:00

I am new to this and am wondering if you help could point me in the right direction. Do you know if anyone is pulling off time on ice data broken down by period and game state (es pp pk)on a nightly per game basis in file that I could import? Thanks in advance.

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2012-08-26T05:28:35.542-04:00

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Very nice post and very well researched. Of cours...

2012-08-06T19:32:24.339-04:00

Very nice post and very well researched. Of course, they can't "ice" the "Intangibles" team since they're way over the Cap limit.

Very good prediction. It really played out like y...

2012-07-05T12:55:01.856-04:00

Very good prediction. It really played out like you thought. I wish you were wrong though!

No, not yet. Pretty bogged down by work. Definitel...

2011-11-29T00:31:33.367-05:00

No, not yet. Pretty bogged down by work. Definitely will catch up over holidays coming up around the new year.

Ever tried to tabulate those zone entries with Vic...

2011-11-21T12:12:34.671-05:00

Ever tried to tabulate those zone entries with Vic Ferrari's scoring chances script? That would give you some ES/PP/PK breakdowns, no?

I guess it would be possible to ask Vic to extend the script's capabilities to 200 entries or so (instead of the actual 100) so you can cram the whole game in one query.

Why was Eakin benched? You're not the only pe...

2011-11-12T08:09:32.843-05:00

Why was Eakin benched? You're not the only person who's expressed that sentiment. I think he had the bad luck to be on the "wrong line at the wrong time".

Tip-in. Those are a little tough to judge...most o...

2011-10-19T17:02:24.653-04:00

Tip-in. Those are a little tough to judge...most of the time it's deflecting a long pass (so there's no icing).

X is "other" which could be an offensive zone takeaway, a long clear and the Caps player wins the race to the loose puck, a long shot from center ice like Semin loves to do, a pass back to the point by the other team with their point man missing the puck and the Cap winning the race, and probably other things but I think those are the only ones I've noted so far.

C = Carry across blue line, D = dump in, p = pass,...

2011-10-19T16:58:07.657-04:00

C = Carry across blue line, D = dump in, p = pass, x = takeaway?, what does T stand for?

Thanks!

This post is two weeks old nearly, but I am curiou...

2011-10-16T23:49:00.910-04:00

This post is two weeks old nearly, but I am curious why you think Jonathan Toews was lucky last year.

Seriously??? Vokoun is a MUCH better goalie than T...

2011-07-29T16:16:08.162-04:00

Seriously??? Vokoun is a MUCH better goalie than Theodore. He's managed to be one of the leagues best goalies despite playing for such a bad team in FLA, and knowing they didn't have a chance at making playoffs. He will be extremely motivated by finally playing on a contending team, and will show that he didn't take such a drastic paycut for nothing.

I think you've made an outstanding case here f...

2011-07-29T10:00:19.865-04:00

I think you've made an outstanding case here for abrogating his contract. He is clearly an untrustworthy goaltender. We should swap for Theodore and sent Vokoun back to Florida. ASAP.

Had completely forgotten the google spreadsheet. I...

2011-07-15T22:00:00.972-04:00

Had completely forgotten the google spreadsheet. It's updated with data for the whole season now.

Ehhh, I'd looked at (but not published a piece...

2011-07-06T15:54:06.121-04:00

Ehhh, I'd looked at (but not published a piece on) all-score data before and the Alzner/Carlson deltas for all scores (over more than double the sample I have here, over 500 events each apart) are still under 5%. I think it's fair.

At any rate, I don't see anything to suggest that one was carrying the other, which is what the behindthenet empty-net-inclusive tables suggest.

A link to all the WOWYs so far:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en_US&hl=en_US&key=0AlHoj_-gdFo6dHVNeV8zX19qWENSRFhsb1hpN3FtcFE&output=html

You have a serious problem with a tiny sample size...

2011-07-06T12:56:45.195-04:00

You have a serious problem with a tiny sample size when you look at the time Carlson and Alzner are not together. You really cannot make the conclusions you claim.

... This is retarded.

2011-06-19T12:02:08.094-04:00

... This is retarded.

What changes when the cap is $63.5M?

2011-06-12T15:17:47.861-04:00

What changes when the cap is $63.5M?

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2011-06-08T02:49:37.796-04:00

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I think your comment on Detroit's style is dea...

2011-04-26T16:25:02.310-04:00

I think your comment on Detroit's style is dead on. They are definitely more methodical and like to set up in the zone a lot more and use Lidstrom, Rafalski and Kronwall to fire shots from the point and get tips and deflections near the net. They have guys on each line who are designated to be "net front specialist" (Holmstrom, Franzen, Cleary, Bertuzzi, Drew Miller, Abdelkader have all filled this role) and much of their offense revolves around driving to the net or getting traffic in front of the net. In order for that to happen, though, it takes awhile for plays to develop and their centers (Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Filpulla, Helm) have to be real patient with the puck.