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PostPosted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 11:14 am 
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http://www.japersrink.com/2015/3/31/831 ... x-ovechkin

Appreciate. Here's the list of 50 goal seasons... Ovi about to tie Super Mario, Marcel Dionne and Guy LaFleur for most 50 goal seasons. Beyond that is only Gretzky and Bossy with 9 each.

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 11:21 am 
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I thought back in the day that Ovechkin could possibly be the guy to break Bossy's 9 straight 50-goal season record, but nope. Goal scoring is getting too hard to come by now, and Bossy is still the only guy to do it and in a very high scoring environment to boot.

Here's a piece about Trotz and admitting his perception about Ovechkin was very wrong.

Quote:
When Trotz was hired by the Capitals, he thought he was inheriting a rebellious player who would be difficult to coach. What he discovered was that he inherited a one-of-a-kind player who is fascinating to coach.

"I call him fearless," Trotz said. "He is not scared of any player in the league. He is not scared of having to play against top players. He is not scared of criticism. He is not scared of accountability. He is not scared of coaching. He is a stand-up guy. He shoulders more of everything than is imaginable. And he does a lot in the community."

...


But Trotz has found Ovechkin extremely coachable.

"There are a lot of sensitive players in the league, and he's not one of them," Trotz said. "He takes coaching. He's tough. I can be hard on him. I can be up front with him, even in front of his teammates."

Trotz is probably the perfect coach for Ovechkin, because he is very clear about what he wants.

He thinks Ovechkin's issues involved the normal maturing that many players experience and an inaccurate perception that he wasn't serious about winning.

"There was an assumption that he didn't care, and he does," Trotz said. "The one thing you can say about Ovi is if you ask him to do something, he does it."

Trotz said one reason why Ovechkin is viewed as difficult is that he is always honest to a fault.

"Ovi will tell you exactly what he thinks," Trotz said. "Other players will tell you what you want them to think."


http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/20 ... /70697664/

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 12:03 pm 
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Boudreau and Ovi got along great even though they were both similar outspoken personalities. Ovi was a pretty solid teammate under Hunter even when he reduced Ovi's ice time when they got the lead, and was quite 'my way or the highway' due to his junior background. Oates was a fellow former star player who really wasn't a very good head coach and probably got frustrated in general. Trotz is a true pro, been coaching pros forever and just coaches a different style of game than Boudreau while having a more modest personality.

The 'Ovi is uncoachable' shit was really stupid to me. The coaches in recent years just weren't ready for the gig.

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 3:10 pm 
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I don't watch the Caps. Does he know where the D-zone is yet?

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 3:29 pm 
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Chris18 wrote:
I don't watch the Caps. Does he know where the D-zone is yet?

Not sure any of Bossy, Gretzky, Dionne, Lafleur or Mario knew were the D-zone was, either.

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 4:12 pm 
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saskhab wrote:
Chris18 wrote:
I don't watch the Caps. Does he know where the D-zone is yet?

Not sure any of Bossy, Gretzky, Dionne, Lafleur or Mario knew were the D-zone was, either.


Well some of them at least knew the area code.

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 4:40 pm 
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i wonder back in the run-and-gun 80s if fans cared so much about a player's ability in all three zones. Guys like Sakic and Yzerman (latter Yzerman, the young Yzerman was very much a one-way player) used to be the exception IMO, now fans treat it like they're supposed to be the norm.

Honestly, is Stamkos really that good defensively? You never hear much about him lollygagging in the d-zone or anything, but like Ovechkin the guy is as much a pure scorer as you'll find in the league.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 5:00 pm 
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saskhab wrote:
Chris18 wrote:
I don't watch the Caps. Does he know where the D-zone is yet?

Not sure any of Bossy, Gretzky, Dionne, Lafleur or Mario knew were the D-zone was, either.


Not bothering to check on the others, but besides Bossy's last year when he was really too hurt to be playing (-8 that year), Bossy's lowest +/- was a +27, with several years in the +60s. Sure he played with Trottier, but at least their line was doing their job in both zones, and 5 on 5. Unless +/- was calculated differently back then?

Okay I looked. Gretzky had quite a few - years. Lemieux as well, but I'll also cut him some slack for his ailing back & other health issues (even though he was always an asshole). Dionne had a few, but was mostly a +, and some high numbers. Same with Lafleur. This doesn't tell what they actually did in the D-zone, but they sure put up more than they allowed. So someone on their lines were playing D. Ovi's +/- numbers aren't as bad as I'd thought (besides last year!), but he's just had so many goals against where he was coasting back in the neutral zone watching. I think it's more his "not my problem" attitude that I have an issue with.

And I'm well aware that Tavares has been a - in all his years with the Isles. He was a -2 when Okposo got hurt, went up to +6 during Okposo's injury time, and is -2 again now with Okposo back. For as good as Okposo is, he seems to have trouble getting the puck out of the D-zone when he gets it at the point. Not trying to make this about the Isles, but I figured someone would throw that at me, so I'm being preemptively defensive. Arguing from the D-zone. :D

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 6:07 pm 
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Plus-minus has pretty much been debunked. There's far too much dependent on quality of teammates, quality of opponents, and most of all, goaltending.

Those dynastic Oilers and Pens teams pretty much DGAF about defense. They just happened to have some quality goaltenders in an era that didn't exactly sport quality goaltending that bailed them out when they needed it. Of course, when you have the league's best players at the time, it's not like you give up the puck very often.

I won't sit here and say I like everything about Ovechkin, you can't help but think he'd be even better if he would just try a little harder. That said, the guy is still one of, if not the most feared scorer in the NHL. Look at the WSH power play. Everyone knows what they're gonna do and yet they're still oftentimes powerless to stop it.

Peter Forsberg was definitely one of my favorite players to watch, but there were times even he frustrated me. It was usually when he had just plain gotten fed up with the clutching and grabbing and flopped at any given moment, then complained quite vociferously to the refs when the call didn't come. Thankfully more often than not we saw the Foppa who simply couldn't be knocked off the puck no matter how much manhandling took place around him. But there were stretches in games where he showed he was very much human.

Also, Forsberg wasn't exactly great defensively either. Sakic was, in my very biased opinion, Selke-caliber, which made things easier for Forsberg. I'm not even sure he helped kill more than a handful of penalties during his time.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 7:03 pm 
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Well, yeah, Chris. Bossy played with Trottier, one of the most reverred two-way centres to ever play the game. He was also backed up by Denis Potvin.

Ovi has an All-Star calibre center in Backstrom but no one is going to mistake him for Trottier or Kurri or what have you. He has Mike Green/John Carlson as his top defender there. His linemates are clearly inferior to him in a way those stacked teams that Bossy, Lafleur and Wayne were on can't compare to. Guy Lafleur played with Jacques Lemaire and had Larry Robinson and Serge Savard to clean up that end of the ice.

Marcel Dionne is in a way the best comparable here, although he definitely had it worse than Ovi.

The biggest reason Ovi had such a bad minus last year was because his teammates couldn't score. They shot like 2-3% with Ovi. It was a random, weird thing. If anything, by how it broke down, Ovi should be criticized for his play away from the puck in the OFFENSIVE zone last year. Defensively he wasn't that different than his team as a whole. It was the weird 'none of my linemates knows how to score' thing that sent him to the depths of the +/- category.

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 7:33 pm 
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Ovi gets his 50th.

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 9:37 pm 
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I know +/- isn't the best way of telling how a guy plays D, but it was the best thing I had to look at, since they didn't have all the fancy stats we do now back when those other guys played. I just figured it was something to look at.

Not saying Ovi is a bad player. I'd take him on the Isles in a second. I just recall several video clips last year of him coasting back while the team got scored on.
And congrats to him for netting 50.

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 10:11 pm 
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Ovi's coasting is really a function of how he skates/uses energy. He's so explosive but it's all in his acceleration. So at a certain point he has to coast. Other guys skate more consistently, but don't get to loose pucks like he does or he'll blow past a guy as a result of a quick acceleration.

Gotta take the good with the bad on that.

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 01, 2015 10:00 am 
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I thought I remembered reading somewhere that Bossy was a good defensive winger. Didn't pick up many token Selke votes, but was still good in his own zone.

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 01, 2015 12:19 pm 
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Bosc wrote:
I thought I remembered reading somewhere that Bossy was a good defensive winger. Didn't pick up many token Selke votes, but was still good in his own zone.


I didn't want to sound like a homer, but in all the old footage I've seen he's pulling his weight in the D-zone. Glad someone else said it. Those Isles won as a team. Everyone did everything.

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 01, 2015 3:02 pm 
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He was very good actually. Had both the foot speed and intelligence as well as the dedication to his craft to learn and be good at defence. He came in with a knock against his defence after coming out of the Q at a time when it was completely wide open and that rep sort of stuck.

Which is why he fell to 15th in the draft and the Isles grabbed quick. Can you imagine 75 goals in 61 games and not going in the top 3? :shock:

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 01, 2015 4:51 pm 
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Fogghorn wrote:
He was very good actually. Had both the foot speed and intelligence as well as the dedication to his craft to learn and be good at defence. He came in with a knock against his defence after coming out of the Q at a time when it was completely wide open and that rep sort of stuck.

Which is why he fell to 15th in the draft and the Isles grabbed quick. Can you imagine 75 goals in 61 games and not going in the top 3? :shock:


How about scoring 100 in 66 and falling to 30th overall? His career turned out quite a bit differently than Bossy's, though.

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdis ... p?pid=8507

If you want insanely high goal scoring numbers with non top-3 draft positions? Look no further than the rest of the crazy 1973-74 QMJHL season. Some good careers in the group, but some guys who never made it to the NHL.

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/top_ ... uenm=QMJHL


Scouting is inexact right now and even more so back in the day. Basically, follow Sam Pollock and Bill Torrey and their staffs around.

Fun fact: The Isles have the second highest career point totaller from Bossy's draft. Picked at #30.
http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdis ... p?pid=5430


I love Bossy's record of 17 goals in 3 straight playoffs. That's insanity. Next highest 3x total of anyone(not even in a row) is Jari Kurri with 14. Gretzky 13.

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 01, 2015 4:56 pm 
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Raw numbers are still fun.

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 01, 2015 5:09 pm 
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Bosc wrote:
Raw numbers are still fun.

It's why I like presenting this thread as what it is. When you start looking at who all is left for Ovi to catch in just scoring goals, even without mentioning anything about the difficulty of scoring goals in this era, you just get to appreciate him for being an all-timer.

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PostPosted: Thu Apr 02, 2015 11:20 am 
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saskhab wrote:
Bosc wrote:
Raw numbers are still fun.

It's why I like presenting this thread as what it is. When you start looking at who all is left for Ovi to catch in just scoring goals, even without mentioning anything about the difficulty of scoring goals in this era, you just get to appreciate him for being an all-timer.


Yup, pretty amazing.

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