hockeyfan1
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/leafs-beat/the-problem-with-david-clarksons-new-contract/article13067766/
David Clarkson - Signs with Maple Leafs
- Thread starter Screwball
- Start date
GhostofPotvin29
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I'm at work so just saw bits and pieces on Twitter, but what's this about the deal being structured to avoid the possibility of a buyout?
bustaheims
Active member
Potvin29 said:
The way it's set up, pretty much no matter when the Leafs might buyout the contract, it would leave a $3M+ cap hit for the 19/20 season. I don't know if that would be enough of a deterrent to stop a buyout (as the cap ceiling could be approaching or exceeding $90M by then), but, I can see why some people might think that.
pnjunction
New member
Looking at prediction for the salary cap, it has been predicted to be 77 and 81 million in the last 2 years of the contract. Also worth noting that the floor will be at 57 and 60 million (from 44 million today). Finally if you look at the actual salary payout it drops to 4.75 and 3.25 in those last 2 years.
I think overpaying for UFAs is inevitable, but as long as he is still somewhat useful he can plug away on the 3rd line or possibly be traded to a cap-floor team.
There's also the possibility of a buyout, one article noted that even a buyout 2 years into the deal (and let's hope it doesn't go sour that quickly) opens up cap space for the first 5 years and costs 1.8M for the next 5. That sucks, but it will be hitting in an era when the cap is likely to be 80-90M+. If we can get 4-5 years into this it's not bad at all (especially 5 where the buyout will only cost 1.33M for 4 years).
I think overpaying for UFAs is inevitable, but as long as he is still somewhat useful he can plug away on the 3rd line or possibly be traded to a cap-floor team.
There's also the possibility of a buyout, one article noted that even a buyout 2 years into the deal (and let's hope it doesn't go sour that quickly) opens up cap space for the first 5 years and costs 1.8M for the next 5. That sucks, but it will be hitting in an era when the cap is likely to be 80-90M+. If we can get 4-5 years into this it's not bad at all (especially 5 where the buyout will only cost 1.33M for 4 years).
GhostofPotvin29
New member
Thanks guys!
BlueWhiteBlood
New member
lamajama said:
I meant more the hockey crowd. I'm sure the hockey people are the ones leaving, maybe he gets more baseball listeners or whatever. I don't listen to him, so I could care less about his audience really. I just meant "hockey audience".
I mean, there are a few of us just in this thread who said we don't listen to him and really, why would you, if he doesn't even watch the game, or have a decent opinion whatsoever?
pnjunction said:
I think it's going to be a lot more than that. Last year was $72, if it wasn't for the lockout and rollback to $64, it probably would have been arounr $75.
Given 7 years ago it was $41 or so.... I think we're going right back to $70 next year. I'd guess the last 2 years of the contract we are around $90.
That's a lot of numbers I just threw out there with very little basis but whatever, the point is the cap is likely to climb significantly in the next 7 years.
mr grieves
New member
Back to hockey and David Clarkson... I looked a bit more at his stats and watched some of his video. De-fancied the fancy stats to see what could be said about his defensive acumen -- whether and how he'll limit shots against and, thus, goals against -- relative to Clark MacArthur. Partly that's because he replaces MacArthur, but it's partly because we need a winger to compare Clarkson to and we're all familiar with Clarke's game.
Here goes. All the numbers are for 5 on 5 and cover the 2010/11, 2011/12, and 2012/13 seasons.
Let's start with shots given up. In his time with the Leafs, MacArthur was on the ice for 1,282 of the 5,223 ES shots the Leafs gave up (25%). Over the same period, Clarkson was on the ice for only 1,062 shots against, but the Devils, in general, gave up fewer shots (4,254), so it too comes out to 25%. In terms of preventing shots, the two were, in their different contextes, even. But, if Clarkson's line (and team generally) gave up fewer shots overall, I'd think it's in part because he was doing what he's advertised to do: cycling the puck in the opposition's zone, chewing up time, and thereby limiting shots against. That's the defense he promises to provide.
What happens to the shots they do give up? Well, for MacArthur and his line mates, 123 of them turned out to be goals against. 27% of all the ES goals the Leafs gave up from 2010 to 2013 were given up when MacArthur was on the ice. Clarkson, on the other hand, was on for 112 ES goals against, which is 29% of all goals scored against New Jersey over that period. So, Clarkson seems a bit worse for his team than MacArthur was for the Leafs, but a bit better (or his line was) than MacArthur (and his) overall. Fewer shots and fewer goals. I'd say we're at slight advantage Clarkson, since he might be a bit worse defensively among other Devils forwards but still somewhat better than Leafs forwards, including MacArthur (who was among the best of them). And, again, at the level of shots against and goals against, I'd say the stats match the eye test and his reputation: Clarkson's good at keeping it deep in the other team's zone.
But I think a bit more can be said about those shots. The Devils and the Leafs,
I thought (given our woes and their reputation), have had rather different levels of goaltending over the last few years, and their defensemen surely countered offensive chances differently. Not all shots coming at the goalies are equal. And I'm assuming that, to some extent, this all had to do with how the forwards played the other way.
In order to get a better sense of how Clarkson and MacArthur contributed to team defense than shots and goals against could provide, I wondered how the goalies' save percentages when Clarkson and MacArthur were on the ice differed from when they were off the ice. In other words, from the above can we determine whether they (and their linemates) were giving up higher quality scoring chances which beat their respective goalie more than the average shot? Here's that: for shots given up by MacArthur and his line-mates, the goalie had a .904 save percentage, and, when they were off the ice the Leafs had a (surprisingly impressive) .917 ES SV%. Mac (and his line) knocked .013 off the ES save percentage. The Devils, on the other hand, had an .894 ES SV% when Clarkson was on the ice, which is .020 knocked off the .914 ES SV% the Devils had when Clarkson was off the ice. Clarkson and his line made their goalie notably worse than MacArthur and his line did.
So, it seems to me that, even if Clarkson and his line were somewhat better about not giving up shots than MacArthur and his line-mates, when they did give up shots, the shots they gave up were of a higher quality. We can draw that conclusion because the goalie had more trouble with them (unless the goalie was just distracted by Clarkson's tenacity and grit). And that passes the eye test too: from what I've seen of Clarkson video, it looks like when he's deep & grinding, getting in the goalie's face, etc., he doesn't always get back, when he has those partial breakaway goals he's up at the blueline and not really in the defensive play.
Everything said above, of course, describes not only what Clarkson does on defense, but what his linemates do. It does seem units he's on tend to give up fewer but better scoring chances than MacArthur's. It's relevance now isn't that MacArthur or Clarkson is "better" at defense, as that can't really be inferred from the above numbers (other linemates and all). But, I think, we do get a sense of how a line that David Clarkson is on might perform defensively if we know who's on that line with him. It's expected Clarkson will be a top-six forward and that he'll likely line up with Kadri and Lupul. And, if that's the case, let's hope Kadri and Lupul become better backcheckers, because otherwise that forward line looks like it'll get a lot of goals -- doing things Lupul-Kadri-MacArthur could never do -- but also like it'll give up a lot of goals.
Here goes. All the numbers are for 5 on 5 and cover the 2010/11, 2011/12, and 2012/13 seasons.
Let's start with shots given up. In his time with the Leafs, MacArthur was on the ice for 1,282 of the 5,223 ES shots the Leafs gave up (25%). Over the same period, Clarkson was on the ice for only 1,062 shots against, but the Devils, in general, gave up fewer shots (4,254), so it too comes out to 25%. In terms of preventing shots, the two were, in their different contextes, even. But, if Clarkson's line (and team generally) gave up fewer shots overall, I'd think it's in part because he was doing what he's advertised to do: cycling the puck in the opposition's zone, chewing up time, and thereby limiting shots against. That's the defense he promises to provide.
What happens to the shots they do give up? Well, for MacArthur and his line mates, 123 of them turned out to be goals against. 27% of all the ES goals the Leafs gave up from 2010 to 2013 were given up when MacArthur was on the ice. Clarkson, on the other hand, was on for 112 ES goals against, which is 29% of all goals scored against New Jersey over that period. So, Clarkson seems a bit worse for his team than MacArthur was for the Leafs, but a bit better (or his line was) than MacArthur (and his) overall. Fewer shots and fewer goals. I'd say we're at slight advantage Clarkson, since he might be a bit worse defensively among other Devils forwards but still somewhat better than Leafs forwards, including MacArthur (who was among the best of them). And, again, at the level of shots against and goals against, I'd say the stats match the eye test and his reputation: Clarkson's good at keeping it deep in the other team's zone.
But I think a bit more can be said about those shots. The Devils and the Leafs,
I thought (given our woes and their reputation), have had rather different levels of goaltending over the last few years, and their defensemen surely countered offensive chances differently. Not all shots coming at the goalies are equal. And I'm assuming that, to some extent, this all had to do with how the forwards played the other way.
In order to get a better sense of how Clarkson and MacArthur contributed to team defense than shots and goals against could provide, I wondered how the goalies' save percentages when Clarkson and MacArthur were on the ice differed from when they were off the ice. In other words, from the above can we determine whether they (and their linemates) were giving up higher quality scoring chances which beat their respective goalie more than the average shot? Here's that: for shots given up by MacArthur and his line-mates, the goalie had a .904 save percentage, and, when they were off the ice the Leafs had a (surprisingly impressive) .917 ES SV%. Mac (and his line) knocked .013 off the ES save percentage. The Devils, on the other hand, had an .894 ES SV% when Clarkson was on the ice, which is .020 knocked off the .914 ES SV% the Devils had when Clarkson was off the ice. Clarkson and his line made their goalie notably worse than MacArthur and his line did.
So, it seems to me that, even if Clarkson and his line were somewhat better about not giving up shots than MacArthur and his line-mates, when they did give up shots, the shots they gave up were of a higher quality. We can draw that conclusion because the goalie had more trouble with them (unless the goalie was just distracted by Clarkson's tenacity and grit). And that passes the eye test too: from what I've seen of Clarkson video, it looks like when he's deep & grinding, getting in the goalie's face, etc., he doesn't always get back, when he has those partial breakaway goals he's up at the blueline and not really in the defensive play.
Everything said above, of course, describes not only what Clarkson does on defense, but what his linemates do. It does seem units he's on tend to give up fewer but better scoring chances than MacArthur's. It's relevance now isn't that MacArthur or Clarkson is "better" at defense, as that can't really be inferred from the above numbers (other linemates and all). But, I think, we do get a sense of how a line that David Clarkson is on might perform defensively if we know who's on that line with him. It's expected Clarkson will be a top-six forward and that he'll likely line up with Kadri and Lupul. And, if that's the case, let's hope Kadri and Lupul become better backcheckers, because otherwise that forward line looks like it'll get a lot of goals -- doing things Lupul-Kadri-MacArthur could never do -- but also like it'll give up a lot of goals.
mr grieves
New member
Nik the Trik said:
From the dozen or so goals I looked at, he missed chances to slow the transition out and was slow getting back; he floated at the top of circles in his end after letting guys by him; overcommitted looking to cut off passes that he thought would spring him; after defensive zone faceoffs that were lost, started for the blue line looking to be sprung... they were all in games where he was a minus player, so those might be the worst of his performances. But they do suggest that he wasn't exactly the one honest man on a line of defensively irresponsible line mates. Let's hope Kadri's complete game comes together fast.
Kin
New member
mr grieves said:
Well ignoring the sample size those strike me all as issues of decision making and effort rather than any actual deficiencies in ability(speed, quickness, size) so maybe something else to consider hoping for is that whatever hiccups there might be in his defensive performance can be ironed out by good coaching and a desire to change things up a bit to become a more effective player.
mr grieves said:
Most New Jersey fans said that he was pretty bad defensively. I've read a few people here suggest that since he played in the Devils system for so long that he must know a thing or two about defensive hockey, but that really doesn't appear to be the case.
And it's my biggest worry about his play. Especially since his projected linemmates are going to be Kadri and Lupul, both are also pretty big question marks defensively.
Chev-boyar-sky
New member
princedpw said:
Grabovski? No, he was bought out.
Corn Flake
New member
Erndog said:
Yup. Both are quite a bit younger than the previous era guys were, no?
GhostofPotvin29
New member
Chev-boyar-sky said:
The sad thing is some people might actually believe that.
GhostofPotvin29
New member
Corn Flake said:
Yep, but neither player comes close to being as good as Gary Roberts.