In case you missed it, Elliotte Friedman published the latest edition of "30 Thoughts" last week—with 44 thoughts to last us through the summer.
Click here to read.
It has some Canuck content and lots of his other usual inside information.
To start, he muses on how the loss of Brad Richardson and Kevin Bieksa might affect the Canucks' penalty killing next season. Friedman points out that the Canucks finished the season ranked third overall on special teams, behind Washington and St. Louis. Vancouver's real strength was its penalty kill, which was second in the league to Minnesota's—a stat that got virtually no attention last season.
Considering that Bieksa ranked fifth among Vancouver's defensemen in average time shorthanded, I don't think we have much of a concern there. Friedman notes that Richardson tied with Nick Bonino for the most shorthanded ice time among forwards, averaging 1:57 per game. Penalty killing was certainly a strength for him, but he only played 45 games thanks to his ankle injury.
If we look at the games when both Richardson and Bieksa were out of the lineup, between January 27 and March 12, the Canucks were a solid 12-9-1 through that stretch. They gave up 14 power-play goals during that time on 67 opportunities, for a kill rate of just over 79 percent, which is signficantly below their season average of 85.7 percent.
Of course, both players were in the lineup in the playoffs, though Richardson did miss one game and was probably still hampered by his injury. That's when the penalty kill fell apart, giving up five goals on 18 opportunities for just a 72.2 percent kill rate—14th out of 16 playoff teams.
Bieksa moved up to fourth in penalty-killing ice time in the playoffs, ahead of Dan Hamhuis, while Richardson dropped to fourth, behind Chris Higgins and Jannik Hansen.
Based on these numbers, it's very tough to tell whether or not the loss of Bieksa and Richardson will make a difference on the P.K. next season.
Speaking of stats, Tony Gallagher has
a great historical take on the evolution of stats in hockey in The Province today.
His primary point is that the significance of a lot of the numbers we see isn't as black-and-white as we're often tempted to believe, whether it's today's Corsi and Fenwick data or other numbers from the good old days.
I've never looked at shooting percentage numbers over long stretches, but Gallagher says that they, too, must be taken with a grain of salt.
Now people are looking at much longer periods of time and finding that with a few exceptions, shooting percentages are so radically different from year to year that the stat is really nothing more than a chart of random luck. A guy with a great percentage one season is dreadful the next and vice versa, meaning that using such a stat to assess a player in the future is a waste of time.
The other element of advanced stats that makes me raise an eyebrow is statistical significance. Oftentimes, when looking at differences between player numbers in terms of percentages, the differences are really small enough that when you apply common sense, you can see how the gaps aren't as big as they might appear. I've talked about this before regarding face-off percentage but I think it applies to other numbers as well.
I'm happy to look at advanced stats to inform an argument, but I think they should be treated as only one tool in the toolbox of player and team analysis.
Back to Friedman. He suggests that Bo Horvat might be a player who can help out on the penalty-kill next season—and he sees Bo as the second-line pivot between Baertschi and Vrbata, with Alex Burrows back on the top line with the Sedins.
"But is that the role Desjardins wants for him?" he wonders...
Elliotte has one other Canucks tidbit, musing on the management changes that have transpired over the past couple of weeks:
New regimes have the right to hire who they want — and should, really — but it’s such a personality change in Vancouver with Kevin Bieksa and Eddie Lack gone on the ice and Mike Burnstein, Eric Crawford, Laurence Gilman and Lorne Henning off it. Gilman, in particular, highlights the difficulty of friendships between reporters and the people they cover. Ran into him the night before the Sedins signed their latest extensions. I asked if they were getting close, and he said, “No, still working at it.” Next day, done deal. At the 2014 Heritage Classic, I got a tip there were Roberto Luongo talks going on with Florida. He denied it. Days later, Luongo was traded. That one had some hard feelings. But it’s how this goes.
I think that anecdote can be read one of two ways—that Gilman was a sharp businessman who played his cards close to the vest, or that he was sneaky and difficult to trust.
To wrap today, Frank Seravalli of TSN has this story on Linden Vey, who sounds determined to make a bigger contribution next season.
“I’ve already worked the hardest I ever have in a summer,” Vey said. “In every league I’ve played in, I made a big jump in my second season. I’m not so much worried about the points, but I want to get my game to the point where I’m a factor. Last season, I wasn't the same player that got me to the NHL.”
Seravalli mentions that Vey has been in Vancouver this week, and was working out with Chris Higgins and Sven Baertschi on Thursday. Here's hoping that his adjustment period will pay dividends next season.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»