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Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality

Welcome to the Neno's Place!

Neno's Place Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality


Neno

I can be reached by phone or text 8am-7pm cst 972-768-9772 or, once joining the board I can be reached by a (PM) Private Message.

Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality

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    Washington Capitals

    jedi17
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    Post by jedi17 Thu 23 Feb 2017, 8:20 pm

    Backstrom For Hart and Selke? No 
    February 23, 2017, 2:14 PM ET [28 Comments]
    James Tanner
     Washington Capitals  Was Washington Capitals Blogger • RSS • Archive • CONTACT


    Isabelle Khurshudyan made the case this morning in the Washington Post that the Capitals' Nick Backstrom deserves Hart consideration. 




    I don't necessarily think her point was that he should win it, just that he should be in the conversation. It's necessary to do this because he is underrated compared to his skill level, so I understand. 

    But, as much as I'd like to say yes, I just can't.  

    I don't want to be too snarky here, because I think Khurshudyan is excellent at covering the Capitals and writing about hockey. There is nothing wrong with her opinion or her article.  

    However, when I turn on the radio every day and hear advanced stats and bloggers getting made fun of, and I can refute someone with 15 000 twitter followers, Access to Players, a job at the Washington Post and probably 1000 x my salary in twenty minutes, it's kind of annoying.  

    Backstrom is a good player, but if you use stats from this decade, you can see he is no way a Hart (or especially a Selke candidate).  



    Backstrom is fourth in scoring in the NHL. 

    But he's also just sixth in 5v5 scoring, 8th in p/60, and he drops to 15th when we look at primary points. 

    Great numbers for sure, but not Hart worthy. Especially when your main argument for including him is that he scores a lot.  

    The main reasoning behind Khurshudyan's column was that Backstrom scores a lot of points, and so as the best centre on the best team, he deserves consideration.  

    Based on scoring, McDavid, Burns, Crosby, Zucker, and Matthews all deserve to be ranked ahead of Backstrom.  

    Khurshudyan also suggested Backstrom's defense was Selke worthy and gave that as an additional Hart reason.  

    I live in my mom's basement, so I had time to run the stats.  

    I used corsica.hockey 5v5 and I selected 11 players to compare Burns, Backstrom, Crosby, McDavid, Matthews, and Zucker because of their Hart worthy offense. As well as Kopitar, Toews, Silferberg, Niederreiter, Hossa, Staal and Toews due to their defensive reputations. 

    Interesting thing I learned: as a defenseman it's clear Burns would lead this list in blocked shots, and he has 81, but you'd think since it's a who's who of defensive forwards, that there'd be more shot-blocking. Alas, Matthews has 41 and no one else has over 30.  

    Perhaps shot-blocking isn't as important as it's made out to be? 

    When it comes to Corsi-For, the standard possession rating stat, only Backstrom and Zucker are under 50%. If we 'score adjust it' Backstrom goes over 50% but he's still third last. 

    This should disqualify him from any Selke talk since to be effective when you allow the other team more shot-attempts when you're on the ice, you have to score at an insustainability high shooting percentage. 

    Note that Nick "not a defensive player at all" Backstrom is the only player on this list who has a relative Corsi rating negative to his team. Ouch. It's -2.2% . Nino is rocking a + 8% and that's freaking crazy though.  

    If we look at shots-against/60 Nino is a monster, allowing only 25.68 shots / 60 when he's on the ice. 



    Backstrom is 3rd best here, but if we combine this with his Corsi, it would just appear that the Washington Defense blocks a lot of shots. Not to take anything away from him, it's a good rating. Toews the defensive king is the worst in this catagory, with these players. 

    If we look at expected goals against / 60 Nino is against the best. Backstrom is ranked seventh. 

    Looking at scoring chances against / and Backstrom is 8th. Nino is again first. 

    PDO is the measurement of luck. Over time the combination of a player's team's shooting percentage and save percentage when he is on the ice will combine to equal 100. If it's higher, you're getting lucky and will regress. 

    Backstrom is at an alarming 104.45% Zucker is at an unfathomable 107% - sell high if you've got him in the pool. 

    Scary Note: the only one of these players who is a prolific scorer who is also under 100 is Auston Matthews.  

    Conclusion: Nick Backstrom certainly does not warrant even the mention of a Selke Trophy. Someone would have to massively overrate the importance of his plus 17 to even think that. 

    He's OK. 



    But without even a blink of an eye, the Selke goes to Nino Niedereitter which he'll never win because no one can spell his damn name. 

    As for the Hart, if you look at the raw stats only and squint real hard and are possibly also related to him, Nick Backstrom makes a good candidate.  

    In reality Connor McDavid is propping up a lottery team and is the run away, six miles, it's-not-close-and-anyone-who-says-differently-must-secretly-love-the-Lorax Hart Trophy Winner. 

    Second choice if I got a vote - which I almost sure Khurshudyan does - would be Crosby, followed by Matthes. I'd never vote for a goalie and Brett Burns is nice, but no.  

    Backstrom is good. The stats say he's just not Hart Trophy good. And for the love of anything you love, never suggest to me again that he is a Selke candidate.

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