• For users coming over from tmlfans.ca your username will remain the same but you will need to use the password reset feature (check your spam folder) on the login page in order to set your password. If you encounter issues, email Rick couchmanrick@gmail.com

Leafs Line up this year

My 'cross my fingers for injuries and whatnot' December lineup...

Lupul  Connolly  Kessel
Clem  Grabbo    Mac
Kadri  Lombardi  Army
Brown Bozak    Hunter ( not stuck on him but not sure about alternatives )
Dupuis Orr

Aulie    Phaneuf
Liles      Schenn
Gunnar Franson
            Komi

Reimer
Goose
           
Interesting balance, a 4th line that can play and enough flexibility on d ( well, if they play in some kind of field of expectation based on past accomplishments, yadda yadda ). Still missing some killer pk'rs in the forward group but decent speed. It would be really nice if one of Frattin or Kadri could secure a spot through training camp, it would also be nice if Komi could shake off the yips and find his way back.

Looking at that roster it's still very much up to goaltending but hopefully, as the saying goes, 'out of many,one'.
 
Tigger said:
My 'cross my fingers for injuries and whatnot' December lineup...

Lupul  Connolly  Kessel
Clem  Grabbo    Mac
Kadri  Lombardi  Army
Brown Bozak    Hunter ( not stuck on him but not sure about alternatives )
Dupuis Orr

Aulie    Phaneuf
Liles      Schenn
Gunnar Franson
            Komi

Reimer
Goose
           
Interesting balance, a 4th line that can play and enough flexibility on d ( well, if they play in some kind of field of expectation based on past accomplishments, yadda yadda ). Still missing some killer pk'rs in the forward group but decent speed. It would be really nice if one of Frattin or Kadri could secure a spot through training camp, it would also be nice if Komi could shake off the yips and find his way back.

Looking at that roster it's still very much up to goaltending but hopefully, as the saying goes, 'out of many,one'.
Click to expand...

At this point I'm not even thinking about playoffs or anything, I just miss seeing the team play.
 
Moot Point said:
Any updates on the status of Orr.  I figured he was still injured since they signed Rosehill.
Click to expand...

Burke said he was supposedly able to play before the end of last season (in theory - something loosely to that effect) but they held him out to stay on the side of caution.
 
cw said:
Moot Point said:
Any updates on the status of Orr.  I figured he was still injured since they signed Rosehill.
Click to expand...

Burke said he was supposedly able to play before the end of last season (in theory - something loosely to that effect) but they held him out to stay on the side of caution.
Click to expand...

I think Orr might get a bit of a bad rap.

He wasn't such a bad 4th liner.  He skated, he hit, and then he'd quickly get off the ice.
 
princedpw said:
Does Gunnar have any shot at the position beside Phaneuf?

Gunnarsson Phaneuf
Liles Schenn
Aulie  Franson

?
Click to expand...

Given their play at the end of last season, I'd say it's pretty much a given that Aulie and Phaneuf will start the year together. However, if Aulie falters or suffers from the sophomore slump, then Gunnarsson would be the first guy I'd want with Dion.
 
Agreed. Aulie was pretty steady alongside Dion but I'm not sure a Liles Phaneuf combo is a strong idea aside from the PP. Gunnar would be the man should Keith slip.
 
princedpw said:
Does Gunnar have any shot at the position beside Phaneuf?

Gunnarsson Phaneuf
Liles Schenn
Aulie  Franson

?
Click to expand...

I would rather see Gunnarsson with Franson than Aulie because he has better mobility. Not that Aulie isn't a good skater relative to his size, but I question whether he has enough to compensate for Franson's lack of mobility.
 
The idea of Gunnarsson on the top pairing makes me sad and makes me think that our D isn't as strong as some think.

So far i don't see Gunnarsson as anything more than a run-of-the-mill journeyman defenseman. He's a good all around performer and that's good to have on the team, but he's no where near a top liner. I know that no one's suggested that he is, but there's got to be someone else who can step up.
 
Bullfrog said:
So far i don't see Gunnarsson as anything more than a run-of-the-mill journeyman defenseman. He's a good all around performer and that's good to have on the team, but he's no where near a top liner.
Click to expand...

As it stands, that's probably the biggest issue with the defense right now. There are a bunch of guys on the defense who are good in one end or the other but they don't really have any great two way defensemen who are easy to plug into the top of the lineup.
 
1. Defence

Barring a horrendous performance at camp and during the preseason, I don't see any possible scenario where Phaneuf and Aulie are split up, with Phaneuf on the right side.  It should also be a no-brainer that Schenn will play the right said of the next pairing and, presumably, Liles will have the first shot at the left side next to Schenn.  The big question is the bottom pairing and, in particular, whether Komisarek cracks the top 6. In an ideal world, Gunnarson and Franson will be the bottom pairing and Komisarek will move elsewhere (if that's even possible) or be the #7 guy.  My preference would be to see Komisarek moved and Lashoff play the #7 spot, as I thought he did a decent job last year when called upon. 

I don't see Gardiner or Blacker making the big club given the depth ahead of them, but I won't be surprised to see them called up either later this season if we're out of the playoffs.  Either way, I think another year or two in the AHL will do them both a lot of good. 

2.  Forwards
With the forwards, I think it's a no-brainer that Connolly will start the year between Kessel and Lupul, while the Grabo-Kuli-Macarthur line will remain in tact as well.  Assuming Lombardi isn't ready yet, Bozak should have a hold on the #3 centre spot with Armstrong on the wing. As many have suggested, Kadri could end up on the left side.  With respect to the fourth line, Brown is pretty much the only guy I'd say has a spot solidified night in and night out.  Dupuis, Boyce, Crabb, Orr (if healthy) and Rosehill are all candidates to fill out the 4th line on a rotating basis.  I don't foresee Frattin or Colborne cracking the big club this year , but either way I'd prefer to see them develop in the AHL this year personally.  I'd even like Kadri to get one more year in at the AHL level playing the wing.  What will be interesting to see is what happens if/when Lombardi comes back.  Also, the one wild card could be Luca Caputi. Coming back off an injury, I think he could either displace Kadri on the third line or at least take one of the fourth line spots. 

Overall, barring trades, I'll predict opening night looks something like this.

Lupul-Connolly-Kessel
Kulemin-Grabovksi-Macarthur
Caputi-Bozak-Armstrong
Boyce-Dupuis-Brown

Aulie-Phaneuf
Liles-Schenn
Gunnarson-Franson

Reimer
Gustavsson
 
Tigger said:
Agreed. Aulie was pretty steady alongside Dion but I'm not sure a Liles Phaneuf combo is a strong idea aside from the PP. Gunnar would be the man should Keith slip.
Click to expand...

Was Aulie steady beside Phaneuf?  For example, did he actually do a good job limiting scoring chances while he was on the ice?

I've read in a few places that he and Phaneuf gave up a huge number of shots against.  Advanced stats such as Corsi and Fenwick were extremely poor for Aulie, but Reimer bailed him out.  For instance, here's a summary of Aulie's Fenwick numbers (ie: very roughly speaking, shots for minus shots against while he was on the ice) last year.  You can see that he was the worst defenseman on the team. 

http://theleafsnation.com/2011/7/22/adjusted-toronto-maple-leaf-fenwick-numbers

Those numbers don't tell the whole story by any means.  But I wonder -- perhaps Gunnarson is better than Aulie, both offensively and defensively.  If so, I'd put the better guy with Phaneuf.
 
It's a fair question but as you say those stats alone don't tell the whole story. Aside from Frattin and Colborne Keith had the highest quality of competition es. He also had the highest relative Corsi QOC es.

He didn't take a lot of shots, 32, to balance that out but managed to be -1 on 2pts while facing tough opponents.

The general feeling/impression I have of his abilities from watching him play last year jives with those numbers.

This article sums up some of the Fenwick notes...

As you can see, Aulie played better in the second call-up, by quite a considerable margin. It wasn't, however, his defensive game that improved, but his offensive game, and it likely helps playing next to Dion Phaneuf instead of Brett Lebda, who he played with a bunch in his first call-up. He saw tougher competition the second go round as well, just by eye-balling the head-to-head charts, although I have no way of quantifying the discrepancy as of now.

Looking at the chart alone, the surface stats are much better. He was a minus-5 in the first call-up, but was a plus-6 in the second, despite more use in defensive situations. They gave up more shots than they created, however, and thus the final result is in the negatives, but obviously they continued to improve towards the tail end of the season. I've mapped out his performance in the final weeks. This is the five-game weighted average for his Fenwick number for the last six games:
KeithAulieFenwick.png


Personally I want the Leafs best defensive left side D playing with Dion es and to me that's Aulie as of now.

Sorry, don't know how to re-size the image, anyone?
 
Honestly, I'm not sure the Fenwick number really provides you with a lot of information when a soft shot from the point is given the same weight as one from a guy left alone 3 feet from the net. I mean, if Aulie was on the ice for a ton of shot shots from the outside, that's a good thing - it means he's helping to prevent scoring chances - whereas, if he was on the ice for a lower number of shots, but they were mainly from within 10-12 feet of the net, that's a bad thing. Honestly, any defensive metric that's based purely around shots without trying to gauge the quality of the shots is almost as worthless as +/-.
 
Busta Reims said:
Honestly, I'm not sure the Fenwick number really provides you with a lot of information ...
Click to expand...

When Komisarek is #1 with his Fenwick number either I, most Leafs fans and his coaching staff are delusional or there's something seriously suspect with that number.
 
I didn't read the the overall adjusted chart before, seems a tad unpossible, maybe it's a Brian Burke sales scheme...

In the authors defence he did call it 'experimental', reminds me of an 'experimental music' knock knock joke...

knock knock
"Who's there?"
1:22 of silence
"Hello?"
another 3:11 of silence
"Oh."
 
Busta Reims said:
Honestly, I'm not sure the Fenwick number really provides you with a lot of information when a soft shot from the point is given the same weight as one from a guy left alone 3 feet from the net. I mean, if Aulie was on the ice for a ton of shot shots from the outside, that's a good thing - it means he's helping to prevent scoring chances - whereas, if he was on the ice for a lower number of shots, but they were mainly from within 10-12 feet of the net, that's a bad thing. Honestly, any defensive metric that's based purely around shots without trying to gauge the quality of the shots is almost as worthless as +/-.
Click to expand...

I think the biggest weakness of both raw +/- and Fenwick is the lack of consideration of quality of teammates, quality of competition and situation (zone starts and also scoring effects -- teams shoot a lot more/less when losing/winning).  The stats in the previous article I posted correct for zone starts but not the other factors so I can understand the skeptical responses to my post.

Should these stats correct for shot quality?  It certainly can't hurt.  But it is obviously a lot harder to get the data.  How much does it matter?  I'm not sure -- it may be the case that good defensemen don't actually reduce shot quality *per shot*, they "only" reduce the number of shots and the quality per shot remains relatively consistent.  I believe there is somewhat of a debate in the advanced stats community concerning whether or not defensemen can suppress shooting percentage in a significant way.  The jury's out.  In fact, a couple of disbelievers offered up $150 to anyone who could prove that shot quality suppression (or elevation) was possible.  See here: 

http://www.arcticicehockey.com/2011/1/13/1927696/the-2011-shot-quality-prize 

My conclusion (not having followed these debates closely) is that even if it turns out that defensemen can suppress shot quality, it probably isn't by too much.  Otherwise, these guys probably would have figure it out by now.

The summary:  Fenwick/Corsi seem pretty useful as a starting point but really need to be adjusted for situation & quality of team/competition.  I do vaguely recall seeing Aulie's highly negative Corsi/Fenwick reported elsewhere -- perhaps it was better adjusted to situation/teammates.  If I see such an adjusted analysis on the interwebs I'll post it.  I'm sure it's around somewhere...
 
Here is another look at some of these shooting stats, though I must admit it is hard for me to interpret everything here as the author does not give definitions for all the stats used:

http://theleafsnation.com/2011/8/3/leafs-possession-numbers-defence

You'll note that Aulie is again way at the bottom, though you can see that he was used in extremely difficult circumstances -- very often starting in the defensive zone and playing against a high quality of competition.

Komisarek has the 2nd worst relative corsi (I'm not exactly sure what it is relative to unfortunately) despite being relatively sheltered by playing against weak competition (QOC).  Wow.  Why does this guy suck so bad? 

There is reason to be suspicious again though due to Lebda's high Corsi rel number.  Perhaps it can be explained by his exceptionally high OZone start number and his tremendously poor quality of competition.
 
princedpw said:
Here is another look at some of these shooting stats, though I must admit it is hard for me to interpret everything here as the author does not give definitions for all the stats used:

http://theleafsnation.com/2011/8/3/leafs-possession-numbers-defence

You'll note that Aulie is again way at the bottom, though you can see that he was used in extremely difficult circumstances -- very often starting in the defensive zone and playing against a high quality of competition.

Komisarek has the 2nd worst relative corsi (I'm not exactly sure what it is relative to unfortunately) despite being relatively sheltered by playing against weak competition (QOC).  Wow.  Why does this guy suck so bad? 

There is reason to be suspicious again though due to Lebda's high Corsi rel number.  Perhaps it can be explained by his exceptionally high OZone start number and his tremendously poor quality of competition.
Click to expand...

Anytime you're at the opposite end of a chart from Lebda and Komisarek, you can't be doing all that bad.

Personally, I could care less about stats like this. I like what I saw on the ice from Aulie and that's all that matters in the end to me.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top