James Mirtle, whose blog is a never-ending font of interesting stuff, asked the question,
"who is a coach's worst nightmare?" By that, he meant to begin to address the matter of the league's worst defensive players -- defenseman and forward. Caps fans will not like the lists (click for larger images):
You'll note that the leaders are not with or are not currently in the lineup for the Caps (and folks in Calgary might take note of #3 among the defensemen). He is quick to point out that these are not lists of the worst defensive players, that more factors need to be incorporated into the analysis. But it still can't be an honor to find oneself on such a list.
You'll note that the leaders are not with or are not currently in the lineup for the Caps (and folks in Calgary might take note of #3 among the defensemen). He is quick to point out that these are not lists of the worst defensive players, that more factors need to be incorporated into the analysis. But it still can't be an honor to find oneself on such a list.
The problem with statistics like that - and most hockey stats - is that tend to penalize people for being on bad teams, in what is afterall, a team sport, and reward virtually everyone on a good team. Thus, the phenomenon of secondary assists padding scoring stats, and the deification of Martin Brodeur for stopping mostly perimeter shots - to bad we don't get to see how he would do as a BlueJacket.
ReplyDeleteExcept, of course, there are plenty of players on good defensive teams included there.
ReplyDeleteThis stuff is a work in progress anyway; I'll have more during the week.