Lowetide has an excellent post up on Sam Gagner, basically taking the position that there are some good signs with Gagner, notwithstanding his ugly numbers to this point in the season. I’m inclined to agree. I thought I’d chime in to add some numbers that LT’s post is lacking, presumably because he isn’t one of the five people outside of the NHL that have access to them.
LT was talking in terms of Corsi - I’m going to talk in terms of SF/SA. I wrote a post at around the midway point of last year, pointing out how the Oilers were being sunk by the kids at the time. We were a bit further along than we are now but I don’t think that it’s any secret that Gagner was an absolute ES sinkhole through the first half of last season - there were 170 ESSF and 245 ESSA with him on the ice. His PDO was respectable - 8.8 team ESS% and a .906 team ESSV%, for a 99.4. The shots were just so bad though, that the Oilers were getting hammered with him on the ice - EV+ 15 EV-23, through the first half. He scored 3-11-14 at ES, which strikes me as interesting because getting 14 points on 15 goals is pretty high for a forward. I don’t have the numbers right handy but there are at most 3 points available on every goal and the defencemen are going to get some of them. Most guys in the league don’t get points on 93.3% of their team’s goals.
In the second half, things picked up for Gagner in terms of the puck being in the right end of the ice. The Oilers went 259 ESSF and 281 ESSA with him on the ice, which is - to borrow LT’s word - a stunning move in the right direction. The Oilers were EV+ 24 and EV- 26 with Gagner on the ice and he scored 6-11-17, with points on about 71% of Oilers ES goals for which he was on the ice. It’s been a while since I looked at this but I recall that as being a more normal proportion for forwards. His PDO number wasn’t driving the results, not outrageously good: 9.3% team ESS%, .907 ESSV%. Even though the point rate had fallen off, the fact of having the puck in the right end of the ice more often was helping Gagner get his ES points.
The ES numbers for Gagner this year aren’t pretty: 0 G, 4 A and 4 P. His ice time is much higher and, as a result, his rate scoring stats have fallen into a bad place, into what’s generally known as “Pahlsson Territory”, with 0.77 ESP/60. Here’s the weird thing though - the ratio of SF/SA is pretty much unchanged from the last quarter of last year: Gagner’s been on the ice for 151 GF and 165 GA. The Oilers are still scoring goals when he’s on the ice: EV+ 12 EV- 13. Gagner’s somehow managed to get points on only 33% of the ES goals scored when he’s on the ice. That’s some crazy stuff; a good offensive defenceman will do that. Tough guy forwards will do better than that. For all Gagner’s sins this year, I’m not sure that he’s been such an ineffective offensive player. Again, PDO is pretty reasonable: 7.9% team ESS% and .921 ESSV%. He’s bang on 100.0.
The real question is whether Gagner’s play has fallen off or whether we’re being fooled by (relatively) short term blips in his numbers. I have a hard time reconciling the idea that this is his worst half season as an NHL player with the fact that the puck is in the right end of the ice and the Oilers aren’t doing too badly with him on the ice. Whatever his sins, I have a hard time believing that he’s really only created enough offence this year to be in on 33% of the Oilers goals scored when he was on the ice at ES - I strongly suspect that, if you accept that G-A-P aren’t perfect measures of offence in shorts periods of time, that it follows that that’s not a fair measure of his offensive contribution.
The 7.9% shooting percentage with him on the ice this year is high enough that it doesn’t seem to me that he’s an offensive sinkhole. Maybe the Oil should have another goal or two but it doesn’t seem that likely to me that the on-ice S% for Gagner “should” be over 10% at this point in his career. If the on-ice shooting percentage is off by only a hair, the SF/SA ratio is where it was in the last half of last year and the really weird number is Gagner having points on only 1/3 of the ES goals scored with him on the ice, is he really having that bad of a year? The underlying numbers seem pretty solidly respectable to me.
Looking forward, I feel relatively comfortable in saying that he should have a higher on-ice shooting percentage and I strongly suspect that the points will start to come for him. I took a look at last year and the best players in the league were clocking in at 10%+ in the on-ice ESS% department. We don’t have enough information about that yet to know where the ceiling is but it wouldn’t surprise me if Gagner’s the type of fellow who can sustain, at the very least, 9% over the course of his career, in a league in which the average save percentage is .920. Over time, that can be a real difference at ES.
Gagner is going to have to get to the point though where he can start taking some faceoffs in the wrong end of the ice. He’s had pretty soft faceoffs according to timeonice, with 30 more offensive zone faceoffs than defensive zone faceoffs. I’m still inclined to characterize his icetime as being pretty soft.
Finally, just looking quickly at the bigger picture, is there anyone left out there who thinks that it made sense for Gagner to make the team in 2007-08? The Oil are about halfway through his cheap contract now, with Gagner at the point where his line can play soft opposition generally even on the scoresheet, provided that they’re given lots of faceoffs at the fun end of the ice. Maybe that pays off down the road, nobody can say for certain. It seems to me like a waste of soft ice time though. LT made the point that he punts a playoff spot this year to develop Gagner. While I can understand that to a certain extent, I still have a hard time understanding why Gagner is even in the NHL this year. Years 4-7 of his time with the Oilers better be pretty special because the Oilers are paying a tremendous price for spending years 1-3 now, even if the results this year make it look unreasonably bad.
Nothing to argue with really except the `sending Gagner back to junior` thing. Truth is, the whole CHL is a despicable enterprise, but the bigger crime is the terrible coaching, or more correctly the self serving coaching.
As we speak 20 to 30 kids are being played like Gretzky in junior, and absolutely none of them are really Gretzky. Guys like Pouliot get coddled and then arrive in minor pro without the faintest clue about what to do in their own end (the fucktards at HF boards who pimped him as Horcoff-like were talking through their asses btw). The system serves no people other than the team owners, it`s a national embarrassment. And that`s before we start talking about substance abuse (NHL players can take the huge ephedrine hits, though sooner or later we`ll hit a rash of ’slapshot hits chest and cause heart attack’ incidents. But NHLers be NHLers, and kids be kids. And most people here know that you jjust don`t say no, not if you want to stay on the team. And that`s just the tip of the iceberg with that seamy little industry.
We all know it. We all look the other way. Ahhh, Canadiana.
I tend to agree on the junior hockey being a national embarassment thing. I’m amazed that the David Frost trial doesn’t seem to have caused a larger ripple.
Back to Gagner for a second, do you really think that, all things considered, it makes more sense to keep him? They’re just basically wasting his entry level contract. Does he really get worse spending another year or two in junior or does he just tread water hockeywise and get physically stronger?
I don’t know the answers to any of this, it just strikes me as completely insane that the NHL goes along with this system that puts teams in a bind with 18 and 19 year old CHLers. As you’ve said, it’s not like junior hockey isn’t a stain on our national fabric anyway.
Two very well thought out, very balanced takes on Sam Gagner in the span of just a couple days - who knew this was possible?
My worry is and has always been that despite saying all of the right things and doing many of the right things, the kid’s confidence has got to be taking a beating. This is the kind of slump that just one fluke or open net off a nice play isn’t going to erase from memory. One scene I will never forget as long as I watch hockey is Jiri Dopita and the world’s most epic sigh of relief after he stepped out from behind the net and went backhand fivehole for that first goal. Gagner is not in Dopita territory but with that goal you knew that it didn’t suddenly make everything ok and Gagner’s first will probably feel like a muted version of that same emotion.
That said, I absolutely cannot disagree with the hockey logic. Guy’s PDO average, corsi improved, minutes might be soft but the team is scoring when he’s on the ice at a non-sky-is-falling rate… it’s all there. In the few games that I’ve seen, he has had chances - to borrow a phrase from basketball, he’s getting a lot of good looks at the basket. Still.
Before I get into the contract, or Vic’s post, it occurs to me that many NHL players have token “moves” if you will. Think the puck being shot around the boards behind the offensive net and Ryan Smyth corralling it for a fluid motion wraparound on his backhand side. Think Jason Smith’s one arm push hit, or Hemsky’s toe drag. They’re just there. One of the “coach”’s and a few others keep mentioning Gagner’s blind drop pass to no one habit. If it’s as bad as they make it seem (and I don’t have the GV, the ‘games viewed’ to corroborate) then that’s something he’s got to eliminate from his game.
Finally, what is the reasoning behind the “no teenagers in the AHL” rule anyhow? Maybe the foresight wasn’t there during the last CBA negotiations regarding the elimination of a cheap second contract but it seems like today’s NHL involves a lot of gambling on 18 and 19 year olds in an attempt to find someone who will outperform their contract in an appropriate role. I personally prefer Detroit’s model, and have written at great length on this, but if this is the way so many teams are going to go (the idea of that Stamkos website was a fucking joke btw) then you’d think someone would want to write in a cover your ass clause somewhere and allow gifted teenagers who are not going to help you win games at the NHL level play against pros and learn a few things on the cheap. Or college, maybe… maybe college drafting is the way of the future?
Gagner specifically - I think at this point the ship has sailed and that’s all you can say. Sending him down or whatever would be a bit ridiculous given his improvement vis a vis last year and also I’m not sure how much PR gets into this but the kid, one way or another, put up ~50 points a year ago and you don’t send that shit down without a hell of a reason unless you want to send all of the wrong messages.
As for Sudafed/Ephedrine/lifestyle, I don’t know a thing about it but it seems to be the consensus among hockey folk that it exists. It’s just that everyone else is doing it, no?
As I understand the “no teenagers in the A” rule, it’s a sop to the CHL - teenagers who didn’t play in the CHL or who played four years in the A (Spezza) are free to play in the A. I can’t think of any examples of the former off the top of my head but Bonk and Samsonov played in the I.
1. the issue of service time seems to come up a helluva lot more with MLB than with the NHL; that’s certainly how I came to be familiar with the issue because when you’re a hardcore Expos fan you know it’s three years before the players have arby rights and then six years before FA.
BTW, if you’re bored just google Francisco Liriano and the Twins and arbitration and I think you’ll enjoy the results.
2. Going back a long time now the Oilers have have trotted out Show Ponies in order to distract everyone from the stink of manure. You had the Comrie contract negots in the fall of ‘00, Smid as a top four defender post-Pronger trade and last year it was Gagner to the rescue when all hope was seemingly lost.
3. I guess the CHL is afraid of the A sucking away all the talent but why not let 19 year olds play in the A? If you’ve honestly got a guy that’s nearly good enough to crack the bigs then what’s the point of sending him back to the juniors unless it’s to screw the latest batch of hockey dirties?
4. Which brings me to how shocked everyone was with Avery’s misogynistic comments given that, you know, it’s not like everyone doesn’t know what happens in all the same CHL towns and the AHL towns for that matter. It’s the finest kind for guys to pass ladies around or gangbang them but you’d better not utter the term “sloppy seconds.”!! And just watch the disgust on Modano’s face when he talks about how they don’t get the calls anymore because Avery causes trouble. So, yeah, the Stars threw him under the bus because they had the chance and then guys like Duhatschek just ran with it using the, “well if his own teammates hate them than so shall we.”
5. I don’t have any friends who played major junior but I heard some roundabout stories about Sudies and things like that which I guess are the equiv of the greenies that used to dot MLB clubhouses. Let’s be honest here: Canadians are known for navel-gaving but they aren’t going to examine any of the seedy sides that pockmark the hockey culture.
Add the sloppy seconds scandal to the stable of horses Dennis will beat to death over the next 5 years or so;)
You can count on it, bud.
I love talking about things that I’m right about:)
…then what’s the point of sending him back to the juniors unless it’s to screw the latest batch of hockey dirties?
The CHL would just as soon make money off of the guy while he’s not otherwise engaged.
Re: sloppy seconds. I’m starting to be convinced that Dennis has a point. I was opposed to the suspension, the whole nine yards, but there was a hell of a lot more ink spilled about “sloppy seconds” than there was about the David Frost thing, which painted a pretty terrible picture of hockey. Take a look at this, for God’s sake.
Steve Simmons is, generally speaking, not much of a writer, but he was on the right side of that issue and a long time before a lot of other people realized it.
(Fun aside: I’m pretty sure than awful lot of media organizations skated pretty close to the line with their descriptions of the “victims” in the Frost trial. As I understand it, you can’t publish identifying information of complainants in sexual assault cases - many publications referred to the publication ban and then went on to give the whole thing away with their descriptions of one of the fellows. If you know anything about this story, it’s obvious who one of the hockey players referred to is.)
But Dennis, you can’t really believe that there is or should be some sort of black and white, 100% final scale of which exact phrases are allowable and which aren’t? Bottom line is if you’re enough of a douchebag, in public, to your teammates, to your league, etc., you’re going to get sold the fuck out on whichever pretenses show their smiling faces.
I don’t know if you’re trying to spin it as hypocritical or two faced or what but it’s a pretty damned consistent truth.
Though, if MC79’s link is what draws your ire, I’d suggest it’s well placed. Doesn’t change a thing about Avery but that’s obviously a horrible thing to happen anywhere, as well as an awful thing for hockey to even be associated with, let alone be ingrained into hockey’s culture.
I don’t even know that the link is necessary. I don’t claim to speak for Dennis, but I take his point as being pretty simple: on the grand scale of things that hockey players do that indicate a lack of respect towards women, use of the phrase “sloppy seconds” ought to fall somewhere below “gangbangs involving sixteen year old girls” but you don’t hear anything near the level of outrage from the commentariat about that sort of thing. Of course, Avery didn’t have the courtesy to bring out a girl and a couple of his teammates, ask if TSN had the cameras turned on and then go to town with the boys. It’s hidden away. Still, if it’s hidden away, it’s known that it goes on and nobody bothers to say boo about it or follow up when they hear things, how can you take them seriously when they blow up about “sloppy seconds”? Do they really think that it’s offensive or is it just an easier story to deal with?
Which brings us to the next point Dennis has been making: Avery as an Oiler.
It makes sense on a hockey level, no?
I’m a numbers guy, Avery has useful numbers and I wouldn’t bring him within a mile of this team. He’s the guy who makes everyone believe that chemistry is real. I mean the guy has now been thrown off of TWO NHL teams!!! Bruce Boudreau says that there will be a chapter about him in his upcoming book and he coached the guy for ONE WEEK!
Maybe the shrink can fix him, maybe you can swing a deal with the Stars where they’ll take him back if it doesn’t work out but outside of having an out that I can exercise if he so much as sneezes at the wrong time, I can’t see it. I can’t imagine that Lowe and MacT would have any interest in him either.
It’s clearly an easier story to deal with and one that speaks to the economics of being a media outlet that covers hockey as much as it has to do with morality. You have a villain, you have his quotes over a long time frame, you have a huge amount of public sympathy, and when all’s said and done you can get rid of him and still have hockey the pure, hockey the chaste. A successful tumor removal.
I don’t see how TSN making a big deal out of Avery or Modano et al shitting on the guy publicly should be tied in any way to the Frost case or any other. You can suggest relative morality like you both have but Avery’s story comes down to a man who pissed off too many people with access to microphones. And that’s it.
Moral failings in other avenues aside, the media and the league as a whole have every reason to make a show of Avery. It’s in their best interest. And I can simply not believe that you Tyler, Dennis, or most smart people expect anything else. If you want to discuss the true moral failings ingrained into hockey’s culture, as you seem to, I don’t see how there is any benefit in pointing to “sloppy seconds” just to say it’s comparatively minor. At the same time, I can’t imagine the corporate machine of the NHL, its PR, or a media outlet acting in any other way.
Re: Avery as an Oiler, why would Edmonton want to be the team who took on such an alleged monster at a time no one else wanted to be associated with him? He is a useful player and he would address a team need, but seriously you just don’t want to be that team.
Regression towards the mean doesn’t just happen with shooting percentage. It applies to dumbass decision making as well and at this point there is no stretch of good Avery time that makes him worth the gamble.
Well, if you guys are suggesting that there are rampant cases of sexual assault commited by players and people associated with minor league hockey, of course that’s a serious issue that should be investigated and prosecuted. Sexual assault is a far greater offence than uttering “sloppy seconds”. That’s just fucking common sense.
The two issues are no way near related and it’s an absurd argument to say that the far less severe offence is acceptable because this other unrelated, horrible offence is occuring elsewhere.
I don’t know if Dennis was raised by nuns, but consensual sex in and of itself isn’t disrespectful, exploitive or an “objectifying” act. You can enjoy sex and have a reasonable standard of respect toward the opposite sex without being a hypocrite.
If I was an NHL GM I’d take a stab at acquiring Avery. The price to obtain has got be next to nothing while his on ice value is extremely high.
I don’t know if Dennis was raised by nuns
I’ve got a pile of chips for the “Salesian brothers” square…
Cosh: I didn’t make it past the Practical Training step;)
To all: My problem is with the way the Stars reacted right off the hop and also the way the MSM were either duped or decided to act.
We know that the Stars had discussed getting rid of him Before the incident in Cgy and that Modano had threatened to graduate to the front office after their loss in Bos. So, take all that into account and then Avery goes off in Cgy and his teammates give it to him so the media goes one or two ways:
1: his teammates aren’t helping him out so he must be a bad guy and we’ll just go with that and we won’t bother to look at the angle that says they are just using this to put the final set of boots to him.
2: we don’t really like him anyway so we’ll take this opportunity to pile on.
A lot of people probably aren’t wrong and the guy could be a bastard in the room but for $ 1.875 mill on recall waivers then damn right I’m pimping him as an Oiler. Ty’s remark about making people believe in chemistry Did make me laugh but I’d still take a shot at the guy.
That’s the on-ice thing and off-ice I just believe everyone got caught up in looking at one side of things and really didn’t want to dig any further. Without looking I’d say Ribero’s shooting pct has taken a big drop and was that Avery’s fault? What about the aging of Lethinen and Zubov? Turco’s ability to be pulled out of the net? All of that Avery’s fault?
My opinion is that the Stars took the opp to use him as the scapegoat and when you see Modano making comments like the ones about how the refs are harder on them these days and pictures like Turco smiling when talking to Millions after that night’s win in Cgy, well I think that’s the real story. If Turco gave two real fucks about what Avery’s comment might mean to women, That’s what he’d focus on in that interview. Same goes for Modano when he chose to talk about the refs. All this leads me to believe that it was the last straw and nothing more.
And if Devin Setoguchi had such an impressive notch list as Avery and uttered the same thing then I doubt this would raise a whole lot of eyebrows. But you had Eric Duhatshek beating the drum in Cgy while that Alex-from-Degrassi-lookalike Steve Simmons takes the Frost beat and gets into just how much respect there is for women in the NHL world.
If this comment was spoken by someone not perceived as being the devil and/or someone on a team that wasn’t perhaps underachieving then I would love to see how it played.
I think it was Dennis who pointed out that Avery was playing a bunch against good players when he played for the Kings. I’d just assumed that the Conroy/Demitra line was taking on that gig, given their histories with that role. Turns out that Dennis was right, both by zone (he was on the ice for a whack of own zone draws) and by players.
Avery played mostly with Eric Belanger, who is a very good player as well imo, though Riseborough has overpaid him, relative to market, I think.
And the guy just keeps helping teams win games wherever he plays. Personally I think that the Stars paid too much for a guy who doesn’t help the power play, but at half price, if he becomes available on reentry waivers … a lot of teams are going to pause and think about it.
Generally I don’t care too much about a player’s off ice reputation. Frankly, most of these guys are hard to like in the first place, and secondly, it may not be fair at all. Plus I’m not as big a believer in team chemistry as most fans.
But Avery? He’s like Dennis Rodman, his need for attention is just surreal. I mean I really doubt that Avery caused Turco to be unable to stop pucks, or Ribeiro to start shooting like himself (as opposed to Mario) again. And unless he intentionally injured Zubov, Lehtinen and Morrow, I have trouble seeing how he was the cause of the Stars’ terrible start. This Oilers organization seems to be able to create drama for their fans just fine on their own. They don’t need Avery.
Vic: I’m not saying people Can change but if the guy does his treatment and knows he’s one more suspension away from being essentially blackballed, and who knows maybe that’s the case now, then don’t you have to take him at 1.85 a season?
BTW, I think Avery was playing with Belanger and Kotsopolous when I noticed his role. I was watching like two games a night at the time and somehow watched the Kings during all three games of their Western Canadian swing. I was into watching for line matching then but I think the first year GD posted his stats was for ‘07 so there was no QualComp at the time. Anyway, I noticed Murray getting those guys out against all the toughs and I’ve been an Avery fan since.
Frost and Avery in the same post (on Gagner????). What’s not to like?
Avery’s very deliberate mistake was to be very very public in his douchebaggery. It is that public aspect that scares the daylights out of more than just the NHL. He actually invited the press to see and hear what a no-class idiot he is. Whereas Frost had the “decency” to conduct his despicable business under cover of darkness where it belongs.
Avery can call Denis Gauthier or Georges Laraque whatever he wants on the ice, and as long as there are no (official) ear witnesses life goes on. But as soon as a microphone is involved that changes the equation entirely.
Btw, is it just me, or didn’t Avery insult men just as much as he did women with his remarks? Everybody says he’s misogynistic but he’s pretty much just offensive to everybody, what?
Supremely unlikeable douchebag that Avery is, however, he doesn’t hold a candle to David Frost, who is the scum of the earth. If there’s anybody who deserves to have the book thrown at him, it’s that fucking prick. It goes against one of my dearest principles to say this, but the world would be a better place if Jefferson-Danton had done better in his choice of hit man.
For starters, David Frost is the scum of the Earth, and his acquittal dosn’t change that fact in the slightest. He’s the absolute last guy any parent would want near their children.
That said, the amount of love for Avery here is ridiculous. I’m a big believer in on-ice results, and Avery has them in spades, but at some point the amount of off-ice crap circulating around the guy makes him untouchable. This link is my favorite Avery-related story; and as much I’m sure we all frown on anecdotal evidence, the guy’s clearly out to lunch.
Avery isn’t what’s wrong with Dallas, but he is a problem. In that alternate universe where I’m a GM, I leave Avery in the scrap heap along with guys like Jesse Boulerice and Bryan Marchment. It’s an ethical objection, but I don’t think that invalidates it.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081215.wsptaverypoll15/BNStory/GlobeSports
It doesn’t say who conducted or paid for the survey but that is fucking nuts. I know it’s Canada and all but really?
I can’t believe that any GM in the league would touch Avery with a ten foot pole at any price. Cohesion in the dressing room is the most important factor when putting together a winning team, and I can’t see Avery entering any dressing room in the NHL without causing a fracture within the team.