Phil Kessel
- Thread starter GhostofPotvin29
- Start date
Kin
New member
Deebo said:
It's a misleading comparison though. I think it's pretty clear that what Fanatic is saying about Kessel is looking forward. His playoff appearances with Boston are helpful but I'm not sure it should outweigh what we've seen from Kessel over his time with the Leafs where teams that play tight checking physical hockey have had pretty good success against him.
Kessel wasn't the guy teams were concentrating on shutting down in Boston. He would be right now in Toronto. I'm not sure that much importance should be placed on his time in Boston if we're trying to project it down the road here unless the idea is Kessel will be of comparable importance in Toronto's next playoff appearance as he was to the 08-09 Bruins.
And, as a side note, I'm not sure that his 08-09 playoff numbers don't sort of lend themselves to the idea that he'll be of questionable value in the playoffs. He scored 6 points in 4 games against a soft as butter #8 seed Habs team and then 5 in 7 against a marginally better but tighter checking #6 seed Hurricanes team.
The numbers can be parsed any number of ways. I don't think there's an airtight case to be made for or against what Fanatic thinks would happen in the future.
Borschevsky-Antropov-Kulemin said:
Boston, and to a lesser-extent Montreal, were the only two teams in the league to have pretty good success against Kessel. He scored at a point-per-game or pretty darn close to it against every other team in the league. New York, New Jersey, and Pittsburgh all had the 3 lowest goals against totals in the East besides Boston, and Kessel had a combined 11 points in 12 games against them. He had 7 points in 6 games against the top-5 defensive teams in the West.
Kin
New member
CarltonTheBear said:
I'm not sure that we need to pin down exactly what each of us consider "pretty good success" but we may have to leave it at us having fairly different ideas of what a player scoring a single point means in terms of his impact on the game.
edit: also, I have different numbers than you do in terms of the better defensive teams in the East by virtue of GA. I have the top 5 teams in the East in GA being the Rangers, Bruins, Devils, Panthers and Habs against whom Kessel scored just 6 goals and 19 points in 26 games.
bustaheims
Active member
Borschevsky-Antropov-Kulemin said:
Definitely shoot-out related. Shootout goals are included in GA on the standings page, but not GA/G or GAA.
GhostofPotvin29
New member
As I've said in other threads, I've been trying to read up on advanced stats some more, and since I'm on break from school for a bit, I've been doing a lot of blog-readin' about the Leafs and advanced stats.
Came across this defense of, well, Kessel's defensive play.
http://theleafsnation.com/2012/3/21/what-is-this-a-goal-scoring-competition-phil-kessels-defensive-game
http://wewantacup.com/headlines/708-this-is-the-real-phil-kessel
Just more food for thought, really. I'm really liking this Corsi stuff. And zone starts are really interesting to see how often a player starts their shift in the offensive zone and finishes it there.
Came across this defense of, well, Kessel's defensive play.
http://theleafsnation.com/2012/3/21/what-is-this-a-goal-scoring-competition-phil-kessels-defensive-game
http://wewantacup.com/headlines/708-this-is-the-real-phil-kessel
Just more food for thought, really. I'm really liking this Corsi stuff. And zone starts are really interesting to see how often a player starts their shift in the offensive zone and finishes it there.
L K
Active member
The problem I have with something like Offensive starts vs. Offensive finish is that a shift where you get run ragged in your own zone (something the Kessel line was prone to at times) but then have Kessel go on a 1-man rush up the ice at the end of the shift, well, he started in the offensive zone and ended in the offensive zone but it certainly wasn't a good defensive shift.
You can hardly compare the defensive effort of Kessel from this year to his first year with the Leafs (because he's leaps and bounds better). Kessel actually skates with effort back into the defensive zone (some-to-most of the time), he tries to stick with his man in the defensive zone (and actually doesn't do a bad job despite usually getting outmuscled).
But Kessel is neither a quality defensive player, nor is he one of the best PPG defensive players as the first blog suggests. The nice thing is that PPG players don't need to be great defensive players to be important pieces of a team, but the Leafs won't get to the next level without having a guy who can make up for Kessel's mediocre defense AND lack of size that goes along with that.
You can hardly compare the defensive effort of Kessel from this year to his first year with the Leafs (because he's leaps and bounds better). Kessel actually skates with effort back into the defensive zone (some-to-most of the time), he tries to stick with his man in the defensive zone (and actually doesn't do a bad job despite usually getting outmuscled).
But Kessel is neither a quality defensive player, nor is he one of the best PPG defensive players as the first blog suggests. The nice thing is that PPG players don't need to be great defensive players to be important pieces of a team, but the Leafs won't get to the next level without having a guy who can make up for Kessel's mediocre defense AND lack of size that goes along with that.
GhostofPotvin29
New member
L K said:
I'm sure it evens out over a season. But like any stat, it's obviously not perfect.
The one thing that jumps out is his quality of teammates, compared with the other top 5 scorers:
Malkin: 4.109
Stamkos: 1.210
Giroux: 3.374
Spezza: 0.857
Kovalchuk: 0.695
Kessel: -0.986
What they mean:
Corsi - is a +/- statistic for a player/team that measures all shot attempts, including misses and blocked shots, directed for and against the team/player being measured per 60 minutes.
Relative Corsi - is a measurement of a player's Corsi success relative to his own teammates per 60 minutes.
Corsi quality of teammates - a measure of the average Corsi score of the teammates a player plays with on average, weighted against ice time played with each player
hockeyfan1
New member
Looks like brother Phil has a 'rival'...
http://sports.nationalpost.com/2012/12/14/amanda-kessel-carving-her-own-identity-among-nhl-brothers/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
http://sports.nationalpost.com/2012/12/14/amanda-kessel-carving-her-own-identity-among-nhl-brothers/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Corn Flake
New member
Zee said:
I keep hearing there are photos of him recently, which is where a lot of this talk is coming from .. seen any?
GhostofPotvin29
New member
I've seen TSN video of him recently, looks the same as every other season. There was that photo from the Canadian Forces base last year or whatever and he's always looked like his conditioning was off - but then scored a ton so yeah.
maplesyrup
New member
Potvin29 said:
I'm still trying to sort out which Little Rascal he looks like.
J
Jalili
Guest
His pudgy appearance has always defied his actual athleticism, so I wouldn't put too much stock into photos of him.
Corn Flake
New member
But he ended up being in pretty good shape to start last year and generally looked a little on the pudgy side. The year before - coming off the shoulder injury - he was out of shape and it showed.
This isn't a Dustin Byfuglin situation here.. he looks like he ate a teammate.
This isn't a Dustin Byfuglin situation here.. he looks like he ate a teammate.
bustaheims
Active member
Corn Flake said:
Yeah. I think Kessel's just the type of guy that, even when he's in excellent shape, is never really going to look ripped and will always look a little on the more "common man" side of things.
