Follow @james_tanner123 The Milbies were a huge success!
At the after party, I met so many cool people: Harold from Red Green was there, as well as ex-Coyote Brad Isbister, the former Prime Minister of Iceland, and a weird ghost. I even got cornered by Milbury himself at the buffet table where he explained to me how Alexei Yashin was the most underrated player in NHL history.
I looked up his stats, and I can't really disagree.
As for the Coyotes, who played the Blackhawks last night, they most certainly are not awesome.
The score was 6-2 and most of that was because of bad goaltending.
I feel bad for Domingue, he was rolling along before Smith came back. I know I'm probably projecting - I don't know the guy; there's no real evidence of what I'm about to say - but, goaltending is a very psychological position and he just doesn't seem like the same guy ever since Smith came back.
Could be a coincidence, though, as he was probably playing way over his head considering who's actually making up his defense most nights. Either way, he hasn't been too good lately and last night's game didn't do him any favors.
I guess if he keeps making it ice time is the coach's only weapon, so I realize there's two sides to this, but ultimately, Duclair knows when he screws up and overall, he has had an amazing year.
He is a 50.24% possession player with a relative corsi of + 4.65% over his team. That's Erik Karlsson territory, as far as being better than the bad players you're stuck with. Even still, Tippett blamed "below average goaltending" for the loss, but I'd like to hang it on him. With Vermette ejected and Hanzal missing, his number-one centre was Brad "I can't believe it's not butter" Richardson and in response to this, Tippett barely played his best forward.
Duclair has 31 Even-Strength points. (For context, Kane leads with 55, but 31 puts you in the production range of Toffoli (35) Forsberg (34) Ryan Johansen (34) Daniel Sedin (34) the same amount as Giroux and more than Eberle. He also plays more than a minute, sometimes three minutes, less than all these players. ON a worse team. With worse linemates. And he generally gives you better possession than most of these guys.
He has 20 goals and almost 50 points.
And despite his consistent excellent play, he's always the first player Tippett benches.
* Duclair has one less 5v5 goal and point, despite playing over one minute less per game. *50.24 CF% to 46.41CF% in favor of Duclair. * The Coyotes allow 3 less shots per 60 when Duclair is on the ice vs. Domi. * They generate basically the same amount of shots per 60, so there's no offensive loss despite getting better defense out of Duclair. *Domi was on the ice for 61 more scoring chances against than for. Duclair just 19.
So by scoring, defense and possession Duclair has been the superior rookie by quite a bit, and yet, he's always the one who get's benched. When you're trying to develop anyone for anything I find it's better to send someone right back out there after they screwed up.
Yeah, let them know they did, but there's a lot of credence to the school of thought that suggests that punishment is mostly about the satisfaction of the wronged party and not a very good teaching tool.
Ultimately, I think a hockey player who needs to be benched to realize he screwed up and to try not to repeat the same mistake isn't necessarily a guy who's going to help your team anyways.
Either way, Dave Tippett doesn't seem to have a clue what he has in this kid. He's already out-permorming many name brand NHL stars and is a good power play situation away from going from a 50 point player to a 70 point player.
Yes, the shooting percentage was a little high, so I don't want to go too crazy here, but that high percentage has to be weighed against where he plays and how he's used and who he plays with.
He's the forgotten rookie in this years amazing group and he's currently the best non-Swedish thing about the Coyotes.
Thanks for reading.
Stats from waronice.com