Nylander signs 6-year contract

[CarltonTheBear]

He hasn't been 17/18 Nylander yet but the fact that his possession and some other numbers are still so strong is encouraging. He's not at peak performance and the points aren't there, but both those things will come. Let's not forget that Marner had some long stretches of little-to-no points in the first half of last season and he still ended up alright. He had a 10 game stretch where he was pointless in 9 of them and later a 12 game stretch where he was pointless in 10 of them.

 

[Phileas Fogg]

How about placing a meaningful bar for us plebs instead of celebrating zone entries.

For the balance of the regular season, how many points constitutes fair value for a $6.9M cap hit?

 

[Bates]

How about placing a meaningful bar for us plebs instead of celebrating zone entries.

For the balance of the regular season, how many points constitutes fair value for a $6.9M cap hit?

If I understand right points aren't as important as analytics???

 

[CarltonTheBear]

For the balance of the regular season, how many points constitutes fair value for a $6.9M cap hit?

There's really no reason to judge a long-term contract based on how year 1 goes. But going somewhat off of that, last season after January 1st Nylander recorded 33 points in 42 games. Assuming he's getting close to full-speed soon I'll be happy if he eclipses that benchmark.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

If I understand right points aren't as important as analytics???

I mean, yeah.

 

[Kin]

I really don't get the ongoing thing here. I get some people think that by puffing out their chest and getting mad at slumping players they consider themselves to be holding players accountable or whatever but everyone wants Nylander to score, there's really no way to force it and he's playing well enough that benching him would neither help Nylander or the team.

So if Nylander doesn't hit some sort of arbitrary standard for good value then what?

 

[WAYNEINIONA]

I really don't get the ongoing thing here. I get some people think that by puffing out their chest and getting mad at slumping players they consider themselves to be holding players accountable or whatever but everyone wants Nylander to score, there's really no way to force it and he's playing well enough that benching him would neither help Nylander or the team.

So if Nylander doesn't hit some sort of arbitrary standard for good value then what?

Then the Toronto fans and press run him out of town like they have with so many others.

 

[Highlander]

Don't think that's going to happen with Babs at the helm, he protects his players and that is why guys like Tavares are coming home. Nylander is going to be fine and all this talk will disappear like dust.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Here's a timely article I suggest checking out: https://mapleleafsnation.com/2019/01/03/the-leafs-have-been-much-better-with-william-nylander-in-the-lineup/

You may have heard that William Nylander has been in a slump since he returned to the Leafs just less than a month ago. In that time he hasn?t found the back of the net once, and has just two assists through 11 games played. Because of that, people are freaking out, going as far as saying he should have been traded instead of signed, all that kind of stuff.

Toronto fans going insane? Nah, couldn?t be.

Anyway, while Nylander?s offensive struggles have started to make headlines, going as far as teammates having to declare they?ll do anything to help him find twine, it?s worth looking at how the Leafs have done as a team since he?s come back into the fold. There?s a spoiler here: They?re good.

 

[herman]

Just another note regarding points vs analytics, if that's what the contention is for some.
It's a false dichotomy as analytics are simply studying game events that contribute to the generation of points averaged out on a more consistent, normalized manner.

The Points Pipeline:
Goals <-- Shots on Net <-- Shot Attempts <-- Puck Possession in OZ <-- Puck Possession in NZ <-- DZ exits

At this point in the game, there aren't any publicly available League generated stats beyond shot attempts, so that is the best proxy for all the events leading up to it.

As anyone who has ever counted coin flips before can tell you, it takes a good number of flips to get that 50/50 split between heads and tails, so it takes a larger sample size of events to get stable numbers (true performance). In the points pipeline, the sample size of goals is minuscule per game compared to everything that comes before it (2 goals off 28 shots on net from 78 shot attempts for example), so it is not a stable measure until you get a quarter to a full seasons worth of games. If you're measuring just an individual player, it's a season+ because while a team may be on the ice for a full game, no individual player is.

And if you're a good coach, or manager, and you understand the above, then you know the focus for each individual player has to be on maximizing what he himself can control, and eventually the results will emerge consistently.

 

[ZBBM]

The current crop of analytics is a huge step up from Stone Age stats like +/-.  But it will soon be far surpassed by a whole suite of real-time-tracked movement stats for every skater on the ice.  You can be sure that a system like this, https://wisehockey.com/, now being rolled out in Finland, will be adopted and adapted by the NHL (probably on its own proprietary basis).

 

[CarltonTheBear]

The current crop of analytics is a huge step up from Stone Age stats like +/-.  But it will soon be far surpassed by a whole suite of real-time-tracked movement stats for every skater on the ice.  You can be sure that a system like this, https://wisehockey.com/, now being rolled out in Finland, will be adopted and adapted by the NHL (probably on its own proprietary basis).

This stuff is going to be cool and all sure and I'm sure there will be some useful information but I also think a lot of it is just going to be filler/noise. Knowing a players heart rate at all times or how fast he passes the puck really isn't going to tell us which players help a team win the most.

 

[ZBBM]

The current crop of analytics is a huge step up from Stone Age stats like +/-.  But it will soon be far surpassed by a whole suite of real-time-tracked movement stats for every skater on the ice.  You can be sure that a system like this, https://wisehockey.com/, now being rolled out in Finland, will be adopted and adapted by the NHL (probably on its own proprietary basis).

This stuff is going to be cool and all sure and I'm sure there will be some useful information but I also think a lot of it is just going to be filler/noise. Knowing a players heart rate at all times or how fast he passes the puck really isn't going to tell us which players help a team win the most.

They'll refine it.  Sure, some of the first-gen stuff is gee-whiz filler, but it's the movement tracking that will be the foundation for real advances.  Animated representations of shifts that can be fed into databases for visualization comparisons, for ex, will give us actual pictures of what the most successful shifts look like.  Then, as coaches begin to work with that, and react to it, new strategies will develop.  Etc. etc.

 

[Phileas Fogg]

So if Nylander doesn't hit some sort of arbitrary standard for good value then what?

It's interesting, in the 400,000 post thread about Nylander prior to the signing, points per game was an entirely relevant statistic brought up countless times for Nylander's comps.

Now, it's an aribitrary standard.

 

[Kin]

It's interesting, in the 400,000 post thread about Nylander prior to the signing, points per game was an entirely relevant statistic brought up countless times for Nylander's comps.

Now, it's an aribitrary standard.

The difference between "good value" and "not good value" is arbitrary if based on PPG unless you've got some sort of line on a definitive objective standard that's somewhat unavoidable.

If nothing else, you'd think the 400,000 pages might have impressed on you that there is no agreed upon standard by which Nylander's point totals represented an amount of money he should be paid.

 

[Phileas Fogg]

For the balance of the regular season, how many points constitutes fair value for a $6.9M cap hit?

There's really no reason to judge a long-term contract based on how year 1 goes. But going somewhat off of that, last season after January 1st Nylander recorded 33 points in 42 games. Assuming he's getting close to full-speed soon I'll be happy if he eclipses that benchmark.

For comparison, I went to cap friendly "cost per point" - https://www.capfriendly.com/cost_per_point/2018/season/forwards/all/all/costperpoints/asc/normalized

- and pulled players making between 6M and 7.5M for the 17-18 season. This equally 41 players, with a seasonal average of 64pts. Over 82 games, that's 0.78ppg, and applied to the 43 game balance of this season, comes to 33.6 points.

Which is a whopping 0.6 off your estimate.

 

[herman]

https://theathletic.com/738397/2019/01/04/wheeler-digging-deeper-on-the-first-month-or-dozen-games-of-william-nylanders-season/

Do you like watching dozens of video clips of Willy in action? If so...

I'm also going to blockquote a section that really needs to be highlighted regarding Nylander's play, and fan perception of his play:

• Players who aren?t overtly physical in board battles aren?t necessarily weak on them, or proportionately more likely to lose the battle. There are great defensive players who spent their careers reaching into battles rather than engaging directly with them.
  
• Players who don?t drop their head and look like they?re working hard to get to a loose puck aren?t necessarily lazy, nor are they guaranteed to get there slower. Some of the game?s fastest players don?t look like they?re trying all that hard from A to B.

The truth about Nylander is that he doesn?t look like he?s engaged defensively in the same way as a Johnsson does, but his results (both in terms of the eye test and supporting data) suggest he?s a positive presence on his lines defensively and wins his fair share of battles.

One of the things that has impressed me about Nylander?s return is that despite his stagnated numbers in terms of raw outputs, he hasn?t fallen into bad habits or tried to cheat (at least not as often as a high-end scorer like him might during a slump).

My first (and only) live viewing of Nylander was the Marlies game before his first (and only) call up to the big squad, the day before the trade deadline, hair freshly shorn in apparent anticipation of having to face Lou daily. He made an impact on the scoresheet and an impact on the ice and throughout his play, it looked like he was just casually (maybe even lazily) going about his business.

It wasn't lack of effort: it was simply being naturally gifted (and honed) in the parts of the game that others normally have to exhibit tremendous effort to achieve.

 

[sickbeast]

I've gotta say I'm not a fan of the whole Nylander thing right now.  I would love to be proven wrong later in the season.  But as of right now I'm not a fan of the way it went down and also the way he has been playing.  It's like he got the big contract and now he's checked out.  I always found this situation to be a bad thing for team chemistry.  We'll see I guess.

 

[herman]

Lol

https://twitter.com/draglikepull/status/1082650840442257409

 

[Guilt Trip]

The beard is off. Willy doing everything to turn it around..