31 replies to this topic

[Kenny F'ing Powers]

...Along with Backes and Datsyuk...

The truly elite players are the ones who can play -- and excel -- in any situation. The ones who are used not only when their team needs a goal, but also when it needs to prevent a goal.

The St. Louis Blues' David Backes, Patrice Bergeron of the Boston Bruins and Pavel Datsyuk of the Detroit Red Wings are just those kind of players, and for that reason they have been named as finalists for this year's Frank J. Selke Trophy, an annual award given "to the forward who best excels in the defensive aspects of the game."

Full article at NHL.com.

Edited by Kenny F'ing Powers, 23 April 2012 - 10:48 AM.

[Blacken]

Good for Bergeron, but he doesn't win against those guys. Jack Edwards will be sad.

[Saints Rest]

When I saw this, I thought back to the 70's and 80's when it seemed like the Bruins always had a top defensive forward. Don Marcotte, Steve Kasper, Gregg Shepard.

I just looked up the list of winners and was surprised to see that only once, in the 81-82 season, has a Bruin ever won. (Kasper)

[The Four Peters]

Well the votes are already in, the "finalists" are just the top 3 vote getters in each category. He certainly has a shot, but even if he doesn't he's deservedly in elite company.

[Catcher Block]

As a Blues fan, I love Backes, and I think he's deserving, but he's a part of Hitchcock's defensive system now. I think that hurts him just like someone in the NCAA/NFL who isn't as good because they're a system-QB.

Last year, I would have thought his chances were better before the Blues were known for their zone play under Hitchcock.

[FL4WL3SS]

I think Bergeron deserves it this year and I think he'll win IMO.

[PedroSpecialK]

I agree with CB, Hitchock's system will hurt Backes's perception around the league just as it has for Bergeron in the past.

I think/hope this is finally Bergeron's year, despite how much I love Backes.

[Greg29fan]

It's tough to beat out Datsyuk because of his reputation but Bergeron is a warlock on faceoffs.

[Blacken]

I think Bergeron deserves it this year and I think he'll win IMO.

This is the first time in the history of ever that I hope you're right about anything

[Carmine Hose]

The hope is that the Cup threw him enough votes to get over the top.

[PedroSpecialK]

This is the first time in the history of ever that I hope you're right about anything

You were hoping the Bruins wouldn't sweep the Caps?

[Blacken]

You were hoping the Bruins wouldn't sweep the Caps?

FL4W was hoping they'd lose. Fact, not opinion.

[Blacken]

Also shut up.

[FL4WL3SS]

You

[BigMike]

It should be a no brainer and Bergeron walks away with it. Just a fantastic player and a fantastic year. The domination at the faceoff circle should push him over the top.

But these are the same award voters who somehow gave Lidstrom the Norris last year (something to me that was almost to the Rafael Palmerio winning the 1B gold glove as a DH level of robbery), So nothing would shock me. Hopefully Datsyuk and Backes split the Western conference votes to some degree, and Bergeron dominates the EC voters

[FL4WL3SS]

I think Lidstrom had a legitimate case last year. Why do you think he shouldn't have won? He was second among defenseman in points and also put in another stellar year of defense. He had as good of a case as anyone else.

EDIT: In other words, who should have won it over him? Visnovsky? To me, none of the other players were any more enticing. It's unfair to say he didn't earn it.

Edited by FL4WL3SS, 23 April 2012 - 04:50 PM.

[FL4WL3SS]

You do realize that Lidstrom had put up, at age 40, his 6th best scoring season in his 19 years in the league last year, right? And, again at age 40, he was one of the top 3 defenseman in the league? I would rather have given the award to Lidstrom as a lifetime achievement award for what he did in his age 40 season than a guy like Visnovsky. I think the voters absolutely got it right last year.

EDIT: and I also find it peculiar that Visnovsky had his best offensive season, at age 34, on a team that had a 50, 34 and 31 goal scorer.

Edited by FL4WL3SS, 23 April 2012 - 05:01 PM.

[BigMike]

I think Lidstrom had a legitimate case last year. Why do you think he shouldn't have won? He was second among defenseman in points and also put in another stellar year of defense. He had as good of a case as anyone else.

EDIT: In other words, who should have won it over him? Visnovsky? To me, none of the other players were any more enticing. It's unfair to say he didn't earn it.

Honestly I thought it should have been Chara. I think Chara should be sitting on his 3rd, waiting for his 4th right now. As far as I'm concerned he is the most dominant player in the NHL and makes everything the Bruins have done under Julien Possible. Failing Chara then of course you could have made the strong argument for Shea Webber Another player who dominates the defensive zone of the ice, while also putting up consistently large offensive numbers

[PedroSpecialK]

I thought it should have gone to Chara last year.

Lidstrom averaged 2:33 SHTOI/game last year, 3rd on the Wings behind Stuart and Kronwall. He averaged 16:02 in ESTOI/game, 5th on the Wings - decidedly behind Stuart/Kronwall but within a few seconds of Ericsson/Rafalski. He made his hay on the Wings' PP, leading the team in PPTOI/game with 3:45 and scoring 7 PPG/32 PPA. This leaves him with 9 goals, 14 assists at even-strength, and started 48.8% of his shifts in the offensive zone..

Despite the B's being shorthanded 35 times fewer, Chara still averaged more SHTOI - 2:41/game, first on the team. He was the third-best 5-on-5 defender in the league by relative Corsi, was 6th in the NHL in ESTOI/game with 18:52, and his goalies posted a .940 sv% when he was on the ice. By comparison, Lidstrom's goalies put up .913 - obviously this isn't end-all-be-all evaluation considering the talent disparity between the two teams' sets of goalies. Chara had 3:00 in PPTOI/game and scored 8 PPG/7 PPA. He had 6 goals, 23 assists at even-strength, and started 45.6% of his ES shifts in the offensive zone.

Chara was the #1 defender in all situations for the Bruins. This was plainly not the case for Lidstrom on the Wings, as he was more of an ES defender/PP point man. In my eyes, Chara's performance merited the trophy.

Edited by PedroSpecialK, 23 April 2012 - 05:24 PM.

[ForceAtHome]

It should be a no brainer and Bergeron walks away with it. Just a fantastic player and a fantastic year. The domination at the faceoff circle should push him over the top.

But these are the same award voters who somehow gave Lidstrom the Norris last year (something to me that was almost to the Rafael Palmerio winning the 1B gold glove as a DH level of robbery), So nothing would shock me. Hopefully Datsyuk and Backes split the Western conference votes to some degree, and Bergeron dominates the EC voters

Curious... what makes Bergeron a no brainer over a guy like Backes? I think both have been awesome this year and would find it to be splitting hairs trying to decide who was actually better.

[Spaulding Smails]

Curious... what makes Bergeron a no brainer over a guy like Backes? I think both have been awesome this year and would find it to be splitting hairs trying to decide who was actually better.

The faceoffs. Not just Bergeron's edge in percentage 59.3 to 48.6 but the fact that he has won 315 more faceoffs, I think that puts him over the top.

[ForceAtHome]

and his goalies posted a .940 sv% when he was on the ice. By comparison, Lidstrom's goalies put up .913 - obviously this isn't end-all-be-all evaluation considering the talent disparity between the two teams' sets of goalies.

You make a lot of compelling arguments here, and you allude to the above quoted stat being taken with a grain of salt, but it really is a large grain. Bruins goalies had a .930 save percentage last year while Red Wings goalies were at .906, nearly negating the entirety of the difference seen here.

He averaged 16:02 in ESTOI/game, 5th on the Wings - decidedly behind Stuart/Rafalski but within a few seconds of Ericsson/Rafalski.

I'm not sure where you're getting your stats from, but NHL.com's are different. They have Lidstrom at 16:44 ESTOI/game and 4th in that category on the Wings instead of 5th. More importantly, although I hear the argument that Lidstrom was lower amongst his defense corps in ESTOI, there's a reason for it... he was still averaging 23:28 without missing a game all year. He was still playing #1 D minutes. While Chara does deserve credit for the extra minutes he played, Lidstrom still racked up the 17th highest TOI last year so he wasn't a total bum. I also feel that it's a little disingenuous to say Lidstrom only was an ES/PP guy when he averaged just a few seconds less per game on the PK than Chara, regardless of how many penalties his team took.

Finally, while it is important to look into PPP vs ESP, there is still great value in PPP. After all, a goal is a goal regardless of how it is scored. Lidstrom was a big factor in why the Red Wings were the 5th best powerplay in the league last year. As a Bruins fan, you probably know Chara's value on the PP last year much more than I do, but they were 20th in the league. Lidstrom had 24 more points on the powerplay than Chara did and the Red Wings ended up with 24 more PPGs last year. Obviously the difference between Lidstrom and Chara doesn't account for all 24 goals, but it's reasonable to believe that Lidstrom played a significant role there.

Like this year's Selke, I don't think either player would have been a bad choice depending on what you value.

[BigMike]

Curious... what makes Bergeron a no brainer over a guy like Backes? I think both have been awesome this year and would find it to be splitting hairs trying to decide who was actually better.

+/-
Bergeron +36, lead the Bruins, Backes +15 6th on the Blues

Faceoff Percentage
Bergeron second in the NHL 59.3 Backes 48.6 (Bergeron won over 300 more faceoffs than Backes)

Minor penalties
Backes 5th in the league with 38. Patrice Bergeron 10. So that is 28 more times Backus put his team at a disadvantage

Points
Bergeron 64 Backes 54

Basically the only category Backes has an advantage in is hits

Also Bergeron was a dominant player home and Road. +18 in both categories. 31 points at home, 33 points on the Road. Backes was great at home 34 points, +19, and very mediocre on the road 20 points, -4

[FL4WL3SS]

Like this year's Selke, I don't think either player would have been a bad choice depending on what you value.

Bingo - which is why saying that voters got it wrong and can't be trusted because of the decision is just... weird.

[PedroSpecialK]

I was getting my #'s from behindthenet.ca, but they may have done the 23.44 meaning 23'44" instead of 23' + .44*60 as I took it. In any event, you make good points and I definitely am not capable of full objectivity here. I just take the total package from Chara over Lidstrom last year and I think he was more important to his team.

As for the PPP, my point was poorly explained, but was that they had a similar amount of goals while Lidstrom benefitted from a supporting cast of Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Holmstrom, and Rafalski to pot PPG while Chara was (comparatively) stuck with Bergeron, Recchi, Ryder, and Ference/Kaberle. That was, IMO, a large source of the PPA disparity, not so much that Chara was a poorer distributor.

Edited by PedroSpecialK, 23 April 2012 - 06:24 PM.

[ForceAtHome]

Snip

+/- is a terrible statistic. Considering Bergeron was on the most productive offensive line on the team with the best goal differential in the league, it's no surprise that he tops the charts (with many of his linemates/teammates right there with him). Two years ago Jeff Schultz lead the NHL in +/- and Ovechkin was the top forward. I think that illustrates how flawed it is in determining Selke candidates. It's much more useful as a barometer of how good a team is.

Faceoff percentage is a legitimate difference. Bergeron was a faceoff monster this year and deserves credit for that. Backes has the extra 153 hits as his "answer" to this stat. I'd imagine the faceoffs are more valuable, but I actually have no idea by how much in terms of something quantifiable. Anyone have any idea on research?

The minor penalties argument is interesting to me. Backes takes 1.1 penalties/60 and draws 1.1 penalties/60 so he's a wash for his team. Bergeron takes 0.4 and draws 1.0 so his net is obviously positive for the Bruins which is better.

Points, if anything, is something that favors Backes in my eyes. Yeah, Bergeron had more points, but the Bruins scored 54 more goals than the Blues. Backes lead his team in goals and points. Bergeron scored 8.5% of his teams goals and factored in on 24.6% of the goals. Backes scored 11.7% and factored on 26.2%. Plus, I'm not sure that scoring is even something that should be a factor for the Selke.

As for other areas in which Backes has an edge over Bergeron: time on ice. Backes averaged 1:25 more time on ice per game. Per game, Backes played 1 fewer second on the PK, 7 fewer seconds on the PP, and 1:32 more at even strength.

Backes was also among the best in the league at what I will call "field position." He had offensive zone starts just 46% of the time and ended in the offensive zone 52.4% of the time. Bergeron was also good, but not quite as good at 47.6% and 52.3%.

Finally, there's a large component of defense and being a defensive forward that just isn't accounted for in freely available statistics. (I'd imagine NHL teams have some more advanced metrics, at least I hope they do.) I think Backes and Bergeron are pretty close and voting should be interesting. Winning the Cup may give Bergeron that kick he needs to win it.

[BigMike]

But those numbers are not really any different than things like +/- in that they are team/line dependant.

Lets look at linemates. Perron and march and are probably reasonably equally quality linemates especially defensively.

on the other side Backes has the high quality 2 way physical veteran in tj oshie. While Bergeron has spent most of the season mentoring, a19 year old who is at best learning the defensive game at the NHL level

[Domer]

Faceoff percentage is a legitimate difference. Bergeron was a faceoff monster this year and deserves credit for that. Backes has the extra 153 hits as his "answer" to this stat. I'd imagine the faceoffs are more valuable, but I actually have no idea by how much in terms of something quantifiable. Anyone have any idea on research?

Hits are a weird stat, because in order to compile them, the other team must have the puck. I don't know as much about hockey statistics as others on this board do, but from what I understand, hits do not convey much information because it is correlated with opponent puck possession.

[kenneycb]

Plus they vary rink to rink depending in the scorekeeper. Cal Clutterbuck, though he amassed a ton of hits, likely has an extremely inflated number.

[ForceAtHome]

Plus they vary rink to rink depending in the scorekeeper. Cal Clutterbuck, though he amassed a ton of hits, likely has an extremely inflated number.

I like to look at home and away hits to compare. I figure that hits are one of the more subjective statistics in the league, but if the other 29 rinks in the league think you're doing about as good a job as your own score keeper, that's a fair baseline.

Matt Martin is VERY impressive in this regard. Not only did he set the single season hits record this year, he racked up 187 in 40 games at home and the exact same numbers on the road. That, to me, points to his hits being very legitimate (at least by the aggregate NHL standards). Similarly, Clutterbuck only got a 0.01 hits per game bump at home, virtually dead even.

Dustin Brown, on the other hand, played 41 home and 41 road games. He had 188 home hits and 105 road hits. He got an extra 2.02 hits per game at home. That smells incredibly fishy to me.

David Backes got a 0.59 hit per game bump at home. Although his home numbers appear to be slightly inflated, this appears to be right in line with the league norms. I looked at the top 20 NHL hit leaders from this season at home and on the road. I ended up with a list of 26 different players. I then found each player's average hits per home game and average hits per road game to see what kind of bump each player got for playing at home. Not surprisingly, Dustin Brown lead the way among the hit leaders. The average among the 26 players was a 0.60 hit/game bump at home, meaning Backes was right in line with a "normal bump." Interestingly, Darroll Powe's home scorekeeper must hate him.

Difference between Home Hits/Game and Road Hits/Game

2.02	Dustin Brown
1.95	Maxim Lapierre
1.78	Steve Ott
1.63	Martin Hanzal
1.38	Chris Neil
1.20	Gabriel Landeskog
1.15	Troy Brouwer
1.06	Alex Ovechkin
0.80	Shane Doan
0.78	Erik Cole
0.78	Ryan Getzlaf
0.59	David Backes
0.49	Bryan Boyle
0.46	Derek Dorsett
0.38	Matt Hendricks
0.35	Tanner Glass
0.33	Derek MacKenzie
0.28	Brandon Dubinsky
0.20	Nick Foligno
0.01	Cal Clutterbuck
0.00	Ryan Callahan
0.00	Matt Martin
-0.01	Milan Lucic
-0.27	David Clarkson
-0.54	Craig Adams
-1.10	Darroll Powe

Now, the question remains -- what value does Backes gain (or not gain) through his hits? This does little to address that question, but at least gives some legitimacy to his hit totals.

Edited by ForceAtHome, 24 April 2012 - 07:55 AM.

[Kenny F'ing Powers]

That's really cool stuff FaH. Thanks for doing that.

[PedroSpecialK]

That's a great breakdown - interesting to see Martin's proficiency at hitting without drawing an inordinate amount of minors - out of his 121 PIM, he has the following non-matching minors:

3 boarding penalties (2 min each)
3 roughing minors
1 interference minor
2 goaltender interference minors
1 hooking minor
1 kneeing minor
1 tripping minor

That's a total of 11 times shorthanded. With 374 hits and omitting non-hitting and/or stick foul minors like hooking and tripping, he put his team shorthanded 9 times, or a clip of one penalty kill per 41.56 hits. Pretty staggering, all things considered.


And perhaps opposing scorekeepers believe in an onomatopoeic interpretation of Powe's checking skills while Minnesota's sees him for what he is.

Edited by PedroSpecialK, 24 April 2012 - 09:31 AM.