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Every summer, the Ottawa Sun fires up a half-dozen columns with the sole intent of riling up the masses. Although visibly missing from the company's mission and vision statements, the Sun and it's staff of writers -- especially recently -- have relied on opinion pieces that only play to the extremes, dodging the bullets of fair, thoughtful, and researched commentary in favor of unsubstantiated takes.
The goal isn't to actually offer insight, but rather to sell newspapers and dial up page hits via new-age media. The staff of writers peddle nonsense with
Blitzkrieg efficiency, and the editorial staff -- presumably under the direction of higher-ups and their infatuation with the bottom line -- push it through the wire.
What we're left with is columns like Don Brennan's from today -- one of the most laughable, inaccurate, and misguided interpretations of output and analysis that I've seen in quite some time.
Brennan's piece -- highlighting the three-year extension of Chris Neil
(kudos to DB here -- he had the scoop) -- led with a discussion emphasizing importance of physicality, toughness, and intimidating presence on a hockey roster. There's varying opinion on this amongst hockey fans, but I think one widespread belief is that players who can play physical without sacrificing from the team's overall productivity -- Milan Lucic and Ryane Clowe immediately come to mind as examples -- are extremely valuable pieces.
Perhaps that's why Chris Neil's extension was so well-received in the Ottawa market: Neil offers the physical game, but he's actually a decent hockey player, too. He's coming off one of his better point-production seasons since '05-'06, tallying 13G/15A/178 PIM in seventy-two games played.
Brennan, however, took the Neil extension as a green light to
again overstate the importance of two departed names in Matt Carkner and Zenon Konopka with an embarrassing case study in fallacy exclusion:
It’s not just fighting — the Senators need to be more physical, overall. They need to finish their checks more, as well as answer the bell when it rings. Many feel that Ottawa was able to stage so many third-period comebacks last season partly because opponents knew that if they ran up the score, they’d take a beating from Neil, Konopka or Carkner.
You read that correctly. Don Brennan's angle is that the Ottawa Senators were able to come from behind in so many games because the opposition was intimidated enough to play an inferior brand of hockey when leading.
(Side note): Guessing this game didn't count. Or this one. Or this one.
Claiming a team's ability to come from behind was primarily based on a couple of fighters (normally skating between slim and none third period TOI to begin with), and a tough, bottom-six grinder is not only ignorant, but unfair to those who actually accomplished these feats. Like, actual hockey players. And, with precisely zero other examples provided of hockey fans arguing such, claiming "many" hold the position is the untruth above all other untruths.
The alternative argument, one that speaks to Ottawa's ability to possess the puck, create scoring opportunities, and score goals is *slightly* more believable. If there was one area where the Senators struggled last year, it was dealing with the opposition's attack, and more specifically, keeping goals out of the back of the net. When other teams dialed down the intensity and shelled up in the defensive zone, Ottawa was able to create space and time for players like Jason Spezza, Erik Karlsson, and a variety of other
talented skaters to apply pressure.
It goes without saying that Craig Anderson's pretty important in all of this, too. With a tight margin for error, better-than-average goaltending -- and the halting of all late-game scoring opportunities -- is imperative. Anderson's splits this season, considering the quality of defense in front of him on a nightly basis, could be considered just that.
Further, Ottawa's ability to comeback from games was a bit hyperbolic, even if they did win seven games when trailing after two. Down with regularity early, Ottawa's win percentage when trailing after one(37.5%) and trailing after two(20%) was above the league average, but neither ranked inside of the top-five.
Let's take it one step further though, just to really make sure the alternative theory -- good players win hockey games -- adds up. Below are the fifteen best teams ranked by winning percentage when trailing after two. Their play five-on-five at even strength is also attached.
PITTSBURGH (27.6%) [+1.17]
NASHVILLE (25.9%) [+1.05]
BOSTON (22.6%) [+1.32]
ST LOUIS (21.1%) [+1.34]
NY RANGERS (20.8%) [+1.14]
TAMPA BAY (20.5%) [-0.93]
WASHINGTON (20%) [+1.01]
OTTAWA(20%) [+1.05]
MINNESOTA (19.4%) [-0.76]
NEW JERSEY (18.5%) [-0.93]
PHILADELPHIA (17.9%) [+1.13]
COLORADO (17.6%) [-0.93]
SAN JOSE (17.6%) [+1.10]
CHICAGO (17.6%) [+1.01]
DETROIT (16.1%) [+1.44]
Even more amazing(and by more amazing, I mean less amazing) -- twelve of the fifteen teams finished inside of the playoff race. Eleven of the fifteen teams were better at even strength, and only one -- Minnesota -- looked like a complete statistical anomaly.
And, there's more. Consider some of the teams near the top of the list -- Pittsburgh, Nashville, Boston, St. Louis, and New York. It's a blend of finesse, skill, and physicality -- an ideal and terrifying combination. Teams like the Blues and Rangers differ greatly from the Penguins and Predators this year, but the common end-product was the same: They controlled even-strength hockey, and created far more scoring opportunities than the opposition for sixty minutes.
So, the theory goes as follows: Good teams with good hockey players had the talent and ability to erase deficits.
An argument to add a bit of physicality, in turn, can't be taken seriously when the entire basis of the manifesto is that fighters are the impetus for comebacks.
Even better, consider one of the recommendations to fill the created voids left by Zenon Konopka and Matt Carkner's departure:
Zack Stortini, a 26-year old winger, was once the most feared player in the OHL. But at least one NHL veteran tough guy calls Stortini a “pretender,” and he did play just one game for the Nashville Predators last season, along with another 74 in the AHL. Maybe he wouldn’t fit in with the fast-paced game Senators coach Paul MacLean demands.
Zack Stortini --
a human punching bag and
awful, awful hockey player player.
What Don Brennan fails to realize, though, is that this team is already plenty tough enough. Players like Chris Neil, Zack Smith, Colin Greening, et al. offer plenty of the strong-man play without sacrificing on-ice talent. As the goons continue to be phased out of the league, the paradigm shift towards actual hockey skill takes another monstrous step.
Roster numbers are pretty limited, too. Burning a spot for a player who dresses for the sole purpose of punching a guy's lights out and spending the rest of the game in the locker room isn't an effective weapon, and any quantification of said effectiveness usually resorts to old-age hockey rhetoric that stresses the importance of intangibles and grit over skill and productivity.
Paul MacLean knows this. In his puck possession based system, each player must be capable of out-chancing the opposition when on the ice, adjusted for quality of competition. If he's not capable of such a feat, he's not a long-term asset in the new-age Ottawa Senators system.
Bryan Murray's listening, too. Konopka and Carkner were both effective players in a first-round playoff series last year v. New York, but prior to that, neither were anything more than sub-level replacement talent burning up spots on a team that could've been held by better hockey players.
You know -- the ones that can help create comebacks.
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