The Great Prucha Debate…

Posted by inferno272 on August 3rd, 2008

There have been a lot of players over the past few years that fallen in and out of favor of the fickle Rangers fans. You saw Marek Malik rise to near God-like heights of fame after his between the leg shot in the marathon shootout against the caps a few years back, and now the guy would be scared for his life if he had to pull a Sean Avery like act of sitting with the die hards in the 400’s. There has never, in my hockey life, been one who has risen to such highs, and dropped to such lows in a relatively short period of time, without a single explainable reason as Petr Prucha (those are Pruuuu’s not boooooos). This isn’t Marek Malik with bonehead turnover after bonehead turnover. This isn’t Theo Fleury getting wasted or Eric Lindros with a scrambled brain. He’s not an incompetent player (or an alcoholic) like Sandis Bozolinsch, and he’s not ultra soft like Tom “You F’ing Nerd” Poti. So what is it exactly about Petr Prucha that seems to draw so much ire from the Rangers fans I have come across on the net (since I don’t live in NY, that’s what I have to go with)?

It’s an interesting question, because with Petr it’s really easy to just point to 2 things, his lack of production this past year, and his constant imitation of of this pickup…

Let’s break down Petr to get a more accurate picture though, so we can formulate a theory of what is going on here. In year 1 of Petrs’ career he had a ridiculous season. He scored 30 goals and 17 assists in only 68 games for 47 points. But if you recall he suffered a pretty bad knee injury just before the olympic break, forcing him to miss a little over a month, and devastating the kid by keeping him out of the Olympics in what might have been his only shot to represent his country on the biggest international stage. The interesting thing about his numbers was that he scored only 5 goals and 8 assists in his final 19 games of the season after coming back from his injury, which means he scored 25 goals and 9 assists in the previous 49 games. To break down the numbers further, after coming back from his injury, his numbers extrapolated to 82 games were 22 goals and 35 assists for 47 points, but in the first part of the season his numbers extrapolate to 42 goals and 15 assists for 57 points. Huge goal differential there dontcha think? This lends a lot of credence to the second theory that Petr getting constantly destroyed night in and night out must result in deleterious play by him. Still though, if you think about it, coming back from the first major injury in his entire career, Prucha still produced at a relatively high level, and if you recall a lot of his primary minutes when he came back were being taken by one Petr Sykora.

Regardless Petr has a superb rookie season, finishing second on the team in goals behind Jaromir Jagrs’ record setting 54, and also setting the Rangers rookie record for Power Play goals with 16. In short, he produced, and earned a bigger role the next year. At least that is what one would assume wouldn’t you think? Instead Glen Sather went out and brought in one of my all time favorite players, Brendan Shanahan. A slap in the face of Petr for sure, since it was clear to all of us that Brendan would be eating up the majority of Petrs primary power play minutes since you knew that Straka, Jagr, Nylander, and Rozsival were going nowhere off the main units. Sure enough Brendan Shanahan did just that, leading the Rangers with 14 Power Play goals in 2006-2007, and playing the majority of Petrs minutes. Still despite a lesser role in his second season, Petr put up 22 goals and 18 assists in 79 games. Playing primarily on the 3rd and 4th lines, with less power play minutes these numbers are actually quite staggering if you think about it. How many 3rd and 4th liners put up 20+ goals in the NHL? Not too many.

Petrs’ third year in the NHL was a disaster. There really is no other way to put it. His confidence shot, he was unable to buy a goal. His shooting percentage went to a ridiculous 7.87% after being at 23.08% his first year. His shots on goal dropped, his games played dropped, his goals sunk to a disgusting 7, and he only managed to score 2 power play goals, his bread and butter. So what the hell happened? Going from 30 goals, to 22, to 7 is not the way you want to go in the NHL. You want to get better, not worse. So did he in fact get worse? Or is there a little more to this story than just that? Well, let’s look at a few stats shall we?

First let’s look at some pretty straight forward stats, easy to read, no explanation needed:


Year
GP
Goals
Assists
Points
TOI
PP TOI/G
2005-2006
68
30
17
47
13:41
3:49
2006-2007
79
22
18
40
12:59
2:53
2007-2008
62
7
10
17
11:38
1:38

The problem here though, is that nothing is normalized. I don’t like to compare numbers when everything is all askew by the number of games played. So let’s normalize everything to projected based on 82 games played and assuming the same amount of average TOI/G and PP TOI/G since those are averages anyway…


Year
Normalized GP
Normalized Goals
Normalized Assists
Normalized Points
TOI
PP TOI/G
2005-2006
82
36
21
57
13:41
3:49
2006-2007
82
23
19
42
12:59
2:53
2007-2008
62
9
13
22
11:38
1:38

So, there we have everything normalized, in fact it looks even worse for Petr here than it does before, because the numbers drop off by a bigger margin. But if you look at the way Petr plays his game, and if you look at the video I made and posted above, you’ll note that he gets a lot of garbage goals, garbage goals are conducive to power play players, hence why he sees so much of his offensive production on the Power Play, and really, can you blame him, I mean playing regular minutes with Blair Betts isn’t going to help ones offensive totals I can assure you. So, next let’s examine difference. How does his goal total relate to the minutes played? Assists and points are more or less meaningless since we can all agree, Petr is a goal scorer, any assists he gets aren’t because of great passes, but because he misses a goal, and someone bangs home his rebound (generally). Now, these are some more geeky stat calculations, but I think they are interesting enough to do the math for you.


Year
Normalized GP
Normalized Goals
% Drop In Goals
TOI
% Drop in TOI
PP TOI/G
% Drop In PP TOI/G
Normalized PP Goals
% Drop In PP Goals
2005-2006
82
36
-
13:41
-
3:49
-
19
-
2006-2007
82
23
36%
12:59
5.2%
2:53
24%
8
50%
2007-2008
82
9
61%
11:38
10.4%
1:38
43%
3
63%

So, the interesting thing here is that Petrs overall year to year drop in time on the ice isn’t that large. We’re only talking 5% from year 1 to year 2, and 10% from year 2 to year 3, which makes sense considering the Rangers brought in Brendan Shanahan between the first 2 years, and then brought in Chris Drury and Scotty Gomez the next year. However the drop in power play time is extreme, 24% from year 1 to year 2, and 43% from year 2 to year 3. A total drop off of 57% from year 1 to year 3. Imagine that, the guy’s power play time on the ice has been more than sliced in half. Clearly his 3rd year production has a lot to do with his shooting percentage going into the toilet, but regardless the drop in ice time has been gigantic. His drop in production, it seems, can be at least partially blamed on the lack of quality ice time because of the Rangers going out and bringing in 3 guys who demand big time minutes.

So, all this discussion has led has back to the same place. What exactly is up with Prucha? Well, the way I look at it is this, the guy isn’t going to give you much in the way of offense at even strength. I figure at his very best the guy will give you 15-20 goals at even strength. And that is if everything goes right. More likely you should expect, with adequate minutes and competent linemates, somewhere between 10 and 15 (closer to 12 I would wager). The key to the kids success though is the Power Play. He needs to be on the left side, and he needs to get pucks directed at the net to get those rebound goals home. The Rangers last year were disgusting at directing pucks at the net on the power play. They always tried for the perfect pass, the tic tac toe goal, and that killed them. Petrs game is not suited for that kind of hockey since he really doesn’t have great vision. What he does have is a nose for the net, and he is willing to pay the price to get those goals.

However this year with the subtraction of Jagr, Straka, and probably Shanahan, one would hope that Petr would get adequate power play time, but if you really think about it, on the left side you definitely have Naslund and Dawes blocking him, since both are better offensive players than him, but on the right side there may only be Zherdev blocking him (as of now). Can Petr adjust to getting power play minutes on the right side? I honestly don’t know. I think the kid has the nose for the net regardless of where he plays, even if the left side is his strongest.

My final thoughts on Petr? Now is not the time to trade him. His value is at an all time low, and you likely won’t get much more than a 3rd rounder, or an equivalent player. In my personal opinion, Petr is worth more, probably even a low first rounder. He is fearless, he gets to those danger zones that so many of our guys are scared to go, and he plays balls to the wall every second of every shift. Personally, I say we give him regular minutes on the power play, regular minutes at even strength, and see what happens. There are really only 1 of 2 things that can happen, either he fails, and does nothing, like last year, in which case you are no worse off than you were last year, or he succeeds and builds back his value.

Regardless I think THAT is the time to trade him. Keep him till he either proves himself again, and then trade him when his value is high, or keep him till he proves his first 2 years were just flukes, and he can’t do it anymore, and then just dump him off for about what you would get for him now anyway. I simply do not see a future for Petr Prucha with this team. Not because of anything Petr has done, only because I think the depth behind him in the form of Lauri Korpikoski, Alexei Cherepanov, Artem Anisimov, Ryan Callahan, etc are worth more in his roster spot than he is.

Buy low (7th round) sell high. Don’t buy low and sell low, that is exactly what we would be doing right now if we gave up on this former 30 goal scorer at this juncture.


Live Chat!

Posted by inferno272 on July 28th, 2008

Im going to do a live chat with everyone in 13 seconds. You are allowed to post questions then I will go ahead and answer all of them. Ready guys?

Go…

-End Live Chat

Obviously im just kidding, poking some fun at Zip and Sam. They’ve had like 4 live chats between the 2 of them over the past 3 weeks. Zip just rescheduled his, and it’s kinda funny considering nothing of note has really happened in the past few weeks.

Anyways, big thanks to all of you who sent me messages on the HFBoards about my Shanny article. I know I didn’t get to em all, but I’ve been out of town at a family reunion.

I’m planning on writing another piece on Aaron Voros, but I seem to be woefully short on writing material. Meh…. Seriously though, expect one on Petr Prucha in the next few days, and yes, this time I am being serious. Who knows, even the Rodent, who hates my guts, might like this one…


Discussing A Legend…

Posted by inferno272 on July 19th, 2008

So I’ve been sitting back, reading Weinman, Zipay, and Dellapinas blogs & articles concerning one Brendan Shanahan. I’ve kinda sat back, and not said much, both on the message boards, and their respective blogs. But I figure time has come to at least touch on this subject.

First, let me do my best imitation of a broken record by saying that Brendan Shanahan is one of my favorite hockey players of all time. Not just as a New York Ranger, but as an NHLer. I generally find it difficult to cheer for non Rangers outside of a select few, for example Joe Sakic, Jarome Iginla, Trevor Linden, etc. It really takes a special hockey player for me to look past the jersey hes wearing and appreciate what he does on and off the ice. Brendan Shanahan, year in and year out, was right at the top of my list of favorite hockey players. When he joined the Rangers, it was like a long lost brother being found, that’s how ecstatic I was when the signing was announced. Here were the Rangers signing the greatest power winger of all time to a pretty cap friendly deal, with Shanahan himself saying he wanted to earn his money by signing a relatively cheap 1 year contract. Once again class personified, Shanahan did what was right for the team, and he started it off the day he inked that contract.

On the ice Shanny was a revelation. Scoring in seemingly every single game to start off the season, looking to be well on his way to breaking the record Jaromir Jagr had set the year before, but a freak collision in the middle of a slow down for him signaled the end of that bid. Still though, Shanny had a terrific first year with the Rangers, helping to get them into the 2nd round of the playoffs, by netting 29 goals and 33 assists in 67 games, followed by a very strong 5 goal, 2 assist performance in 10 playoff games. Despite what many of you guys think, this EARNED Brendan Shanahans higher 2nd year contract. Many people were baffled why the Rangers would sign Shanny to effectively a 5+ million dollar contract when he was aging, and slowing down. Not me, it made sense to bring him back. He brought it on and off the ice, and was the real captain of a team poised to make a real run at the Goblet of Stanley.

Sadly Shanny’s second tour with the Rangers wasn’t on par with his first year. It was clear from game 1 that Shanny was a little bit slower than the year before, and after being paired with Scotty Gomez after the Gomez-Jagr connection failed miserably it really became painfully aware to everyone that Shanny could not keep up with the future Rangers #1 center. Shanny was constantly slowing down Gomez, and whoever the left winger was on their line (sometimes Avery, sometimes Dawes). Shanny still managed to put up a respectable 23 goals, 23 assists for 46 points in 73 games. But it was down the stretch where it started to get painful to watch. In the playoffs Shanahan scored 1 goal and 4 assists for 5 points in 10 games. But that number is extremely misleading, none of his assists stand out as primary assists, and his 1 goal was a fluke shot that Uncle Daddy should have stopped…heck it was a shot that guys in my hockey league would be kicking themselves for letting in. But that doesn’t even begin to tell the story, counting the playoffs in his final 29 games played Brendan Shanahan scored a grand total of 4 goals, one of them being the aforementioned fluke shot. Even counting the fluke shot, those final 29 games extrapolate to 11 goals, and folks thats with playing 3:59 per game, on average, on the Power Play, which was the 3rd most on the Rangers. People love to scream how Jaromir Jagr killed the Rangers Power Play, but keep in mind Shanny only played 10 seconds fewer per game than Jaromir on the PP, and was just as much to blame for the PP’s failure.

So you had a Rangers team that couldn’t score a lick on the Power Play that featured Brendan Shanahan for the bulk of it, and a 2nd line that was basically Scotty Gomez carrying around the rest of his linemates on his back for the final 30-40 games. One would think that would spell the end for Brendan Shanahan, but, greatness it seems has a longer shelf life than mediocrity (though someone should tell that to the suddenly re-employed Jamie Lundmark). Brendan has stated that he only wants to play for the Rangers (unless they tell him to hit the road) and that he would be willing to take a reduced role. My God, how can anyone not love the guy for saying stuff like that? I mean, seriously, you have a sure fire first ballot hall of famer, holder of the #11 place on the all time goal scoring list saying he would take a reduced role to come back and finish his career with a cup.

So, we have an offseason where I could theoretically imagine Brendan Shanahan coming back on a 3rd or 4th line role with the entire crew from last year being reunited for one last try. But Glen Sather threw me a huge curveball by going out and COMPLETELY changing the face of this team. Sather went out and picked up guys who made sense for the rest of the team. He picked up guys who are square pegs to fit into the square holes we have. He went out and got guys who are built for Tom Renney hockey. Guys who can skate…FAST, guys who can press the puck out of the zone, guys who can play with Gomez and Drury, guys who compliment our core. In short, guys who play VERY different than Brendan Shanahan played down the stretch. Where Shanahan was slow, Naslund is fast. Where Shanahan is methodical, Zherdev is creative. They went out and gave Tom Renney exactly what hes asked for, including significant depth on the lower lines. But the question remains, what to do with Brendan Shanahan? Well, he has already stated that he’d be willing to take a reduced role, so lets say that leaves him open for ANY of the 12 forward positions. I think the best thing to do then, is to break up the team into 4 different categories, which are as follows:


Top 6 Players With Guaranteed Spots:
Top 6 Players Fighting For A Spot:
Bottom 6 Players With Guaranteed Spots:
Bottom 6 Players Fighting For A Spot:
Scotty Gomez
Petr Prucha
Brandon Dubinsky
Aaron Voros
Chris Drury
Nigel Dawes
Ryan Callahan
Patrick Rismiller
Nikolai Zherdev
Blair Betts
Dan Fritsche
Markus Naslund
Colton Orr
Freddy Sjostrom
     
Lauri Korpikoski

So, now that we’ve sort of broken the teams down logically, what we have to ask ourselves is, where is the most sensible place to put Brendan Shanahan? Well, that really is the big problem isn’t it? Ideally if you were to bring back Shanny, the place you’d want to play him is right there on Brandon Dubinskys wing on the 3rd line. But the team has an over abundance of bottom 6 players as it is, so much so that a kid like Lauri Korpikoski, who in my personal opinion is deserving of a shot next year, likely won’t get it. Ok, so let’s look at the top 6, I mean, clearly there aren’t as many forwards there fighting for spots, I mean, right now you can pretty much lock up Prucha, Dawes into the guaranteed spots, and guesstimate at what the lines will look. Let’s just say for shits and giggles that the Rangers will go ahead and trade Petr Prucha for a box of Oreo cookies (like many of you out there want, which by the way, for the record, I am dead against, I want something of value back for him, even if its a 2nd round draft pick, not just Oreos….or at least make it double stuffed Oreos). So now you’ve opened up the cap space, and the roster space to put Brendan Shanahan out there. Ask yourself which one of these guys stands out like a sore thumb, and why… Scotty Gomez, Chris Drury, Markus Naslund, Nikolai Zherdev, Nigel Dawes, and Brendan Shanahan. If you said Shanahan, and footspeed, give yourself a pat on the back.

Guys, Shanahan CAN’T play on the top 6, and will be hurting the development of our youth (Korpikoski, Fritsche) by playing on the bottom 6 (not to mention taking a younger, faster players job a-la Voros, Rismiller, Sjostrom).

Do I think Shanahan can score 20 goals next year? Yes, the shot is still there, but I do NOT think Shanahan makes sense for a)the direction this team is going speed and transition wise, and b)the development of our prospects.

In my personal opinion, as painful as it is for most of us die hard Shanny fans, you have to walk away. Go to war with what we have. Leadership is plentiful, and the style is there, Shanny would be a detriment to the team, and the last thing I want is to have to rip on a guy I have cheered for, for the bulk of my NHL watching days, because he is hurting the team with his play.


So, What Did I Miss…

Posted by inferno272 on July 15th, 2008

I was pretty bored this afternoon, so I went on over to my rink several hours early for my game tonight just to watch some pee wees play hockey…yeah, thats how friggin hockey deprived I am. Apparently while I was gone the Rangers traded Ryan Hollweg for a bag of pucks….wait…what…they actually somehow finagled a 5th rounder from Toronto? BUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Where was I? Oh yeah, Hollweg is gone, and somehow we got something of value back for him. And the perpetually dysfunctional Islanders got rid of one of the 3 best coaches in the game for no apparent reason. Hmm, too bad Dubliewicz or however you spell his name went to Russia, he could have had the coaching job all sewn up, I mean he has the requisite skill set, you know, being a mediocre backup goalie…Oh…apparently that only applies for people looking to be the GM of that club. Meh…


There Is A God

Posted by inferno272 on July 10th, 2008

Ladies and gents…Jason Strudwick has left the building. On the HFBoards they are saying he has signed with the Oilers….

Thank….GOD….


Closing In On 1.4 Million…

Posted by inferno272 on July 9th, 2008

I was just checking out some statistical data on the site, and what I saw boggles the mind. Here is the traffic data from December 5, 2007 (The day I switched my hosting account from Globat to GoDaddy) to July 9, 2008…

Total Hits:1,373,488

All I can say is….wow. Granted these aren’t unique hits. Everytime someone visits the site it counts as a hit, even if its the same person, and no, I do not sit at the computer hitting refresh 50,000 times a day to bump up the stats…though now that I think about it….err…where was I. Anyways, I just wanted to thank all the readers who visit the site. The Rangers have always been a passion of mine, if even 1 person finds this site useful, then I consider the time and effort well spent. Anyways I just wanted to share that with you guys. Enjoy the rest of the week and the weekend. Starting next week I am going to do a few offseason pieces, maybe some player evaluations, etc. Gotta keep it going till training camp starts aye?


Mara Back, Jagr Gone…

Posted by inferno272 on July 4th, 2008

In a not so surprising move the Rangers announced they signed Paul Mara to a discounted (wow, in this day and age, a discounted contract?!) 1 year 1.95 million dollar deal. Great move, which solidifies the strongest (on paper) defensive group in the NHL:

Staal - Redden
Girardi - Rozsival
Kalinin - Mara

There is also reports all over the inter-webs that Jagr has gone to Siberia to play with Alexei Cherepanovs team, Omsk. Its not a surprising move, but it is a happy move for me. Not because I hated Jagr, quite the contrary, I have always been a fan of his, and did NOT want him to leave the Rangers. But since he is definitely gone from the Rangers, the last thing I wanted to see was a pissed off Jaromir Jagr playing on Sidney Crosbys right wing 6 games a year (and in the playoffs persumably). Now with Jagr off the market, the Penguins have some of the weakest wings in the NHL (Miro Satan, Sykora, and Fedotenko are their top 3 wingers, HAH!) while the Rangers, while not having the best wings, have enough depth to go toe to toe with that group. I think the move of Jagr places the Rangers and Penguins at about even ground as far as how I would rank em just now.

Goodbye big fella, you will be sorely missed by this Rangers fan.


Naslund to Rangers?

Posted by inferno272 on July 3rd, 2008

They are talking about it on a few sites, not sure if its official or not. I guess we’ll see. Lets just consider this a rumor for the moment.

Sather has scheduled a press conference for 4:30 which is probably what that is for.

-UPDATE-

Apparently its Naslund AND Kalinin. Say goodbye to Jaromir Jagr folks, and say hello to your 2003-2009 New York Rangers. Id still rather have Jagr than Naslund, but Naslund is a warrior. He keeps his mouth shut, plays the game, never whines or moans, and does what he is told. Hes got leadership, and still has a bit of offense left in him. Kalinin is a superb all around defenseman, better in his own zone than in the offensive zone, he can hit, but is prone to getting hurt. Hes a high risk, high reward signing, much like the Zherdev trade. I absolutely LOVE it.

-UPDATE-

Apparently Naslunds deal is for 2 years. That I do not like, not one bit. Heres the part I wonder. According to the CBA, a player who is 35 or older will count against the cap no matter what. Naslund turns 35 in a few weeks. So is it the age when he signs the contract? The age when the season starts? Interesting…

Some Thoughts…
I think were going to be a middle of the row offense, but an elite defensive team. i think weve improved.

Sather just teabagged me, and all his other doubters.


Zherdev Video

Posted by inferno272 on July 3rd, 2008

Heres a video I put together showcasing most of Zherdevs career NHL goals…


Rangers Make A Trade

Posted by inferno272 on July 2nd, 2008

Tyutin and Backman for Zherdev and Fritsche.

GREAT MOVE, GREAT GREAT GREAT!!

Ive gotta get some work done, I’ll be back in a bit to comment on it.
oh sweet Jesus how can you not be excited right now?