The Coyotes visit the East-Coast tonight for the first of a four game road trip to play Ovechkin and the Capitals. Since the two teams rarely meet, this is a treat for Coyotes fans to get to see league leading goal scorer and all-around best player Alexander Ovechkin up close.
As if facing Ovechkin isn’t bad enough, it is also bad news for the Coyotes because the high-flying Capitals were shut out 3-0 in their last game. The last think you want to happen is to face a team like the Capitals when they are due for some goals, since they are hard enough to stop in the first place.
The game also continues a tradition this season of the Coyotes running into teams playing their first games with a new acquisition. They were the first team to face the Jets after they fired their coach, the first team to face the Blues after they got Miller, and the first team to face Montreal after they got Vanek. Their record in those three games is 2-1. Of course, tonight will be the first game Washington plays with new goalie Jaroslav Halak. It’s more of a fluky coincidence than anything else, but it is, I think, kind of funny that they have run into teams who are pumped up with new players/coaches on four separate occasions in one season.
Tonight also marks the return of Marin Erat to his former team just days after being acquired. Not sure Erat is really an impact player, however players do (and this is probably total confirmation bias) seem to play better against their former teams when first returning to play against them. Hopefully this helps the Coyotes at least negate the Halak factor.
There's no word yet, but with the playoff race in full swing, you can pretty much assume Mike Smith will start virtually every game from here on out. Also, Martin Hanzal remains sidelined with some kind of injury and will most likely not play, though he is a "game time decision."
Another injury - this time to Dave Schlemko who was hurt blocking a shot - has provided an opportunity for Brandon Gormely to finally get into an NHL game. Gormely was called up earlier in the season, but did not get into a game. He - along with Connor Murphy - are the Coyotes two top prospects and he looks primed to join Yandle and OEL as a star player on the blueline for years to come. It is hoped that Gormely will make his debut tonight, but Schlemko is also said to be a “game time decision.… The Capitals obviously will plan their strategy around the Coyotes 6th defenseman, so the secrecy surrounding these line-up decisions is totally warranted. (UPDATE: Chris Summers will start in place of Schlemko. So, no Gormely yet again.)
The Coyotes, who haven’t won three straight games since the fall, will look to get their third win in a row and keep pace in the crazy Western Conference playoff race.
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Until recently, I just assumed that if you lead the league in goal scoring, that it would be obvious that you were among the best players in the league. Then, I happened across an entire sub-section of sports reporting/ fandom: The Anti-Ovechkin Fan Club. This loose association of non-critical thinkers would have you believe that OV’s production is based on nothing more than power play proficiency and that his goal scoring is outweighed by his supposed defensive liabilities.
First of all he is among the league leaders in even strength goals and it makes no sense to discount his play with the man advantage – it’s not like everyone else is racking up goals on the PP like he does.
Secondly, people act like two-way players are comparable to goal scorers in terms of importance or that defense is as good as scoring. This isn’t true. Goal scoring is incredibly rare. Preventing goals is relatively easy compared to scoring them. You can teach defense, you can’t teach what Ovechkin does.
Ovechkin gets criticized by people for being -24 despite being on pace for around 60+ goals (as well as for having not yet won the Stanley Cup, but that is George McPhee's fault, not OV's). While both criticisms are unfair, the people ripping him for being -24 are absolutely ridiculous.
I'll save you the long version of the "why +/- is a ridiculous stat" argument (it’s easy enough to find if you’re interested) but I will say that the main reason (to my mind) is this: it assumes that goals scored by a player are equal to goals scored against his team while he is on the ice. This is completely illogical because of just how hard it is to score in the NHL.
If you score a goal, you did it yourself. If you are scored against, blame can usually be split six ways. Now, the obvious objection to this is that your team helps you score, but that is not valid because it wouldn't explain why the same players always score the most goals. If this was a valid argument, goal scoring would be more spread out, but it is not. So, what I am saying is that one goal is worth at least five, possibly six goals against, thus making plus/minus (which assumes they are events of equal importance) an irrelevant stat. Even if you adjusted that to reflect that someone has to pass you the puck to score, and said that a goal was worth three goals against, what that would mean is that if Ovechkin is a minus -24, it does not in any way, shape or form negate the fact that he has 44 goals. I am positing that he would have to be on the ice for over 150 goals against before his 44 goals comes close to being outweighed by his defensive play. And I consider that a liberal estimate.
The fact is, Alex Ovechkin, even with his -24, should be the NHL's MVP this year. You can argue Crosby has more points, but goals – in reality – are also worth much more than assists. The 1:1 ratio of goals/assists for calculating points is misleading and based on the ease of calculating total points and not because they are worth the same. Ovechkin has ten more goals than Corey Perry, the player with the second most goals this year. That is insane. I love analytics and stats, but people just don't seem to know how to quantify them properly, and so the result is that people make absolutely ridiculous criticisms of a player who is head and shoulders above anyone else in the league when it comes to the one thing that matters: scoring goals.
Thanks for reading