A couple of things to consider

Defensive skill and defensive impact aren't necessarily the same thing. I don't believe Asplund's defensive skill suddenly went away. I think it's more likely that whatever scheme Granato is using this year is less likely to create the sort of scenario that would allow his skill to translate into meaningful results. In the same way, I would expect a forward whose offensive impact is driven by shot volume to have less of an impact here than he would in say Carolina.

The other thing is purely a guess on my part, but I think defensive numbers have a lot more "noise" in their data. It exists in offensive data too, but since we have a clearer picture in the box score/play by play data, it's easier to cut through the chaos and find what a player is bringing to the table. Defense is tougher because ultimately, your value is heavily determined by how much doesn't happen and a lot of unrecorded events (like players out of position).

In Asplund's case, it's a 27 game sample with no consistency in GP and six different line combos, only one of which he played more than 30 minutes with. That was Mittelstadt and Olofsson. We know how they were defensively early on. Hard to draw a clear picture based on the information provided.
- Michael Ghofrani

This is where I stand mostly. It’s tough to statistically measure things that don’t occur and properly attribute value to it.

You know me, I’m a numbers person through and through, but over the last few years I’ve learned to respect a few of the nuances that numbers people don’t really acknowledge.

I think a lot of what’s said by Sabres analytics/intellectual Twitter is accepted as fact without any pushback and over time bears out to be untrue. And Asplund is case subject #1

Edit - and I fear Tyson Jost is the next Asplund where people will have these narratives that he “fixes” players or is this play driver. Most of his career he hasn’t been that

This is where I stand mostly. It’s tough to statistically measure things that don’t occur and properly attribute value to it.

You know me, I’m a numbers person through and through, but over the last few years I’ve learned to respect a few of the nuances that numbers people don’t really acknowledge.

I think a lot of what’s said by Sabres analytics/intellectual Twitter is accepted as fact without any pushback and over time bears out to be untrue. And Asplund is case subject #1

Edit - and I fear Tyson Jost is the next Asplund where people will have these narratives that he “fixes” players or is this play driver. Most of his career he hasn’t been that
- sbroads24

We've also come a long way since then in terms of how we interpret these numbers and apply them to player evaluation. XG was still in its infancy at the time it became popular on Twitter.

I wouldn't say I see Jost as someone who is fixing other players and I don't think the organization does either. I think they saw someone who didn't quite fit in with MIN, but had something to his game they thought would translate here. The byproduct of that being true is it finally moved Mittelstadt away from a role he couldn't succeed in. Pushing him to the wing with a competent centre has him in the 60th percentile in terms of WAR.

Put much simpler, they brought in an actual centre and moved someone who shouldn't be a centre out to wing. In hindsight, that was almost always going to break their way.

Old blog smells bad and is old and stinks badly

Saw that coming.
JJ needs to sit more