2012 Off-Season (formerly 2011)

[TSE]

It's not my comparison, it's yours!!!!!!!!

You cited the stats as the justification for your argument, and the stat of .919 is golden, the other guys are used to provide context that that number is a valid awesome statistical output. LOL

And he does not have the 25th highest S%, he has the 13th highest! 3 of which are guys who played many less games which diminishes the relevance of them being higher, and 5 more of them are within .004 which is a reasonably small gap, meaning there are only 5 guys with a clear and significantly higher S% and a solid sample time this year. If they have a subjective opinion that can justify maybe he has had some bad luck overall and the other guys have been more lucky than he has or had to face weaker shot challenges that they determine, well they could make up for the 4 thousands of a point difference, then they can think they have a guy who hits the bottom of top 5 goalies in that stat. You make it sound like he's chopped liver in that category when he is VERY impressive in that stat. Jimmy Howard is the guy that is chopped liver in this league this year at that stat with only a .907. Now HE is 29th in the NHL in that stat. GPG is not as important as that's a function of how many shots the defensive players allow to come in on him. What if he played on a team that gave up 100 shots a game and he had an 8 goals against average? You are going to think he's atrocious because he blows away every goaltender of all time with such a bad score there? GPG is just a function, and it's the save percent skill that really defines the quality of play moreso than that stat.

I would trade Howard for Niemi in a HEARTBEAT! Either could be better, but I highly doubt you will find any hockey expert that would take Howard over him except if the cost savings were considered, but heads up on overall talent and whose the better player, nobody is going to pick Howard over this guy based upon how well he's done so early in his career, and that's why he makes a lot more money, it's pretty obvious.

[ajaX82]

Mediocre? Those are fantastic stats for Niemi! He's clearly better than Patrick Roy with those numbers. He's basically a young Domenik Hasek (.922 career). Those are just 2 guys I picked off the top of my head. Maybe name who you think are the top ten best goalies in hockey history and let's look at their stats and see how many of them save that high of a percentage?

I'm sorry did you just say that Niemi is better than Roy and on par with Hasek? You're kidding right...because that is the most absurd hockey comparison I have ever, ever read

If you actually believe this, I insist (please) you start a thread on the general hockey board supporting your claim. The guys there would love to chat about it I'm sure

[TSE]

No I did not say that. I was speaking in reference to Rodya's use of the stat as a determining factor that he is not good by showing him that if Niemi were to simply hold that number for his career, which he already has thus far, then statistically wouldn't he better than Roy and almost equal to Hasek? It was his assertion that .919 wasn't good, so if that number isn't good and Niemi isn't good, then it is Rodya who would then have to claim that Roy was even less as good and Hasek is indistinguishably better. Rodya is the guy that needs to write a page on the theory of goaltending quality and how it relates to a .919 save percentage, cause I can't see how Niemi is medicore with that if he thinks Roy is a better player with a less number and Hasek being similar?

[Rodya]

Once again TSE, your unnecessarily convoluted post fails to address the main argument. I mentioned how mediocre Niemi has been this year and especially over his career, using SV% and GAA as an indicator. You tried to show how irrelevant that statistic is by showing that great goaltenders like Roy and Hasek had similar career statistics. I went to give data showing why cross-era comparisons is overly unreliable and unfair to the likes of past greats. You conveniently failed to mentioned any of that within your argument, instead relying upon, for some reason, an unnecessary amount exclamation points.

Also, it's impressive how you managed you to try to somehow show that being 14th in the league in SV% somehow essentially equates to 5th. I believe his new bloated contract is a direct result of his win-loss record the year prior with the Hawks, a good finals showing and a desperation on the part of San Jose management to hold on to a formula that has temporarly catapulted the Sharks from missing the playoffs to 3rd in the Western Conference.

Last off-season, based on performance, an arbiter awarded Niemi a one year $2.75 million contract, which the Blackhawks simply scoffed at and instead waived Niemi, allowing him to become a free-agent. The team could have made financial space to give Niemi a multi-year contract, they traded many pieces in order to be able to retain financial flexibility in the future, but refused to use even a modest portion of it on Niemi.

Also, Chicago, Niemi's team the year previous, had by far the best defense in the league - with a 25.1 shots against average. This year, San Jose has the league's 6th lowest shots against average of 28.5. I've watched Niemi over the past two years and primarily due to the strong defenses he's had in front of him, most of those shots on goal were lame attempts on the weaksides or at a laughable distance near the blue line. If Cam Ward and Niemi were to switch spots, I promise you there would be a large difference in production among the two net minders.

[TSE]

Chicago waived him when he was a .912 goalie, big difference to go up 7 pts to .919, that's VERY significant. Plus maybe his new team sees him improving and believes he can in the future hold an average that is higher than .919 for the future. But even if they only think he's a .919 that's justifiable for his contract. If he hits that number or better then it is a sweetheart deal for them, if he falls below then they overpaid. They are gambling that he maintains or improves, and that's a reasonable gamble because even if he doesnt maintain or improve, they don't lose 100% of the value of the contract, so the amount they risk of overpayment is to them security to have a key position filled with a chance for a mega performance, and that all makes plausible sense to me.

I also find it weird that you are questioning my very sensible and rationale outlook considering you are the guy that somehow took his 14th ranking and flat out called it 25th. Methinks you are an ex goalie from the olden era and you are bitter now because guys are making more money than you did and you took one too many pucks in the head. LOL

[Rodya]

Regarding me thinking he was 25th, I admit I made a mistake, I must have been looking at statistics from the wrong season or a different period in this season. Even so, you still are unable to contest any of my other main points. You take a lot of liberties with your assumptions without, I'm confidently guessing, watching much of Niemi, the Shark, the Blackhawks or hockey. My entire argument was that he is mediocre and that a goalie for a quarter of the price could perform just as well in the Sharks great defensive system. I've lived half of the last couple years in Chicago and have watched him closely, he is mediocre and this contract is inflated. You may be impressed by his numbers (you shouldn't be), but you need to understand that his mediocre numbers are simply a result of great defensive systems and not from exceptional talent on Niemi's part.

Btw, it says a lot about a person when they continually laughs at there own jokes. You're in love with yourself and the idea of being wrong or even worse, proven wrong, is beyond your ability to accept. I've never heard you concede a point a single time and your unwarranted arrogance is beyond irritating. I think I speak for the majority on the RealGM Detroit boards, there is little joy in discussing anything with you and I speak for myself when I say please stop. You seem intelligent enough, articulate, passionate about sports, yet you do yourself an enormous disservice in the manner in which you go about interacting with fellow posters. It's really a shame.

[TSE]

Oook, and yeah of course I'm just basing it off the numbers and various assumptions, I'm not a fan of either of the teams he's been on and have no personal opinion one way or another on whether I think he's better or worse than the value of his stat. I'm merely commenting on the theory so I'm assuming that his stat is valid and that he is precisely worth exactly what his statistic says he's worth. It is implied that all of my points and arguments go out the window if he indeed subjectively appears to be worth less than a .919 quality goalie or has say been a lucky benefactor of a statistically larger amount of lucky saves or goalpost shots etc etc than the average goalie.

There is no right or wrong on subjective evaluations, that's all a matter of opinion anyhow and I wasn't interested in going there. If you say he's not as good as his number represents well I can't argue with that since I dont honestly know. You just keep going back to trying to explain how .919 is mediocre, and I think you are getting confused as to what I'm arguing. You seem to think I'm arguing all of this on Niemi's behalf and that this is about Niemi. Heck even Ajax thought I was comparing Niemi to Roy and Hasek!! Nothing about anything I said has to do with Niemi himself, his name is just getting in the way of the real argument here which is I'm arguing the concept that .919 is good, whereas you think it's mediocre. And the CRUX of my argument is that you should not say that cause then you would have to say Patrick Roy sucks, cause his career number for that value was .910, yet people consider him to be one of the greatest goalies ever. They couldn't make that claim if .919 was a mediocre number!! I totally do not and will not concede that argument because I'm thoroughly convinced that .919 is a GREAT number. And all you seem to care about is establishing that Niemi HIMSELF is mediocre, and that may very well be, but you should be making your argument clear, basically it sounds to me like you don't have a problem with the value of .919 so much as you don't like Niemi. And I have no problem with that, I could care less about Niemi himself, I'm only defending the number itself, Niemi is on his own to defend his play I'm not going to do that for him since I'm not intimately familiar with the quality of his play. Therefore, if we agree that .919 is a GREAT number and not mediocre, we then ask the follow up question...Is Niemi's actual quality indicative of that .919 number, whereas you say no, and I render no opinion, thus there shouldn't be any basis for an argument at all! Yet here we are going back and forth and you are frustrated, but that's because in my opinion you haven't done a good job of articulating your points and position as well as absorbing mine, and that's the only reason we aren't connecting with a more logical communication flow. Not my fault in that regard, that's your fault, and now you have fallend off a slippery slope where you are trying to pull me down your messy slide and I don't recognize that I should have any attachment or entitlement to that fall, keep me out of that one I didn't sign up for that or make the slip and fall myself so you're on your own there. Read my posts again and if there's anything confusing or that doesn't fit then you are welcome to bring it up, but until you have something valid to contest me on as a point of argument or in the fairness or logic of the style or fashion that I communicate, then you don't have any valid gripes, and I have yet to see you raise something relevant there that isn't predicated on an incorrect assumption or misinterpretation of things I have said.

Now to talk specifically about Niemi himself, well In the event that I did see him play as much as you did and agree with your evaluation of him, then I could naturally sign on with the rest of your argument about his contract being too big, that would all make sense then. So for all we know you and I are in completely agreement there!? And you never admitted the mistake til just now, so this whole time you left it a mystery. I've also in many cases admitted that I was wrong or made a mistake about various things on the board, you just aren't keen and adept on having familiarity with 100% of my historical post content to the same level that I myself have. If you did, you would realize how ridiculous some of your claims are since they are totally invalid and don't apply to me. You are mischaracterizing me in a negative light, that's the real shame.

Oh and by the way I remember before you also made the point that sometimes goaltenders have bad years at the end of their careers, well it wasn't that way for Roy, he had a career of a .910, but his last 2 seasons were .920 and .925 which improved his career average by the end, and that accounts for his 1st and 3rd best season ever statistically. fyi fwiw

So long story short, you still think .919 as a number in itself for that stat is mediocre? I just flat out don't think so. If you STILL somehow think that, well then we agree to disagree, big deal. No reason to get all upset about it, that's just my opinion still, and I can't prove it to be right and you can't prove it be wrong anyhow. I just think I support my position well as to why I believe that's a great number as opposed to mediocre, and when we applied it to the contract all I was saying was the team believes he is credible to that number, and you disagree, so what?

[Rodya]

Jesus Christ, you could have written all of that in two short paragraphs. You wrote so much and yet managed to say so little. Unrelinquishing, you still dogmatically speculate without understanding the context of the player and the teams on which he's played. You went on to compare his SV% to past greats (AGAIN) and I have continually showed you why that is idiotic to do, but you persist. .919 for a goalie in the situation that Niemi has been gifted the past two seasons is mediocre! I now understand that this is impossible to get through your head. Your naivete about the NHL, and more broadly the game of hockey, has become glaring. I can't fault someone for not watching or caring about a sport, but to simultaneously speak boisterously about it is beyond irritating. I've watched the game religiously for 15 years now and yet I recognize I know very little about the game.

One who boasts to know much, in fact knows very little. True knowledge produces humility and an awareness of just how little one actually knows. The manner in which you've continually spoken down to good people on all the Detroit boards is unwarranted. At the risk of sounding petty, I hope you are aware that my feelings towards you aren't uniquely mine, but shared by the more respected posters on all of the Detroit forums. This is the last time I will ever respond to you, I suggest you follow suit.

[TSE]

Ok sure whatever you want man. Yeah I was babbling on there for a while, I guess I got bored, don't know what I was thinking, sorry about that.

[Rodya]

Watching the Wings/Predator game and I am immensely impressed by Shea Weber. He is a hard hitting 6'4", 235 lbs, 26 year-old with a slap shot second to perhaps only Chara. He is exactly what this team needs. I mean exactly.

Unless Nashville signs him to an extension soon, he'll be an unrestricted free-agent by season's end. Unfortunately, we won't have nearly enough to sign him. Rumors are that he will command approximately $6-7 million per. The guy is a stud, one of my new favorite players.

[trwi7]

Unless Nashville signs him to an extension soon, he'll be an unrestricted free-agent by season's end.

At the end of this season? That's wrong, he's an RFA after this season. Although if he was offered a contract of $7 million a year they would probably let him go and take the butt load of picks they would get for him.

[TSE]

Some beat writer was clamoring for them to go after him during the trade deadline, but doesn't sound like we sniffed that option. As far as picks though, we already have a lot of offensive depth in addition to quite a few prospects in the system, so if it just takes picks to get him and can work out financially, then I wouldn't mind giving up a bunch of picks for him. Getting a stud Defenseman has to be our #1 priority this offseason above anything else. Although there looks like about a half dozen really intriguing guys that will be UFAs, so Shea Weber is probably too costly in money and material when we can just sign one of these hot 6 guys that are hitting in the market. Lots of choices, we have to get one of them!

[Rodya]

Unless Nashville signs him to an extension soon, he'll be an unrestricted free-agent by season's end.

At the end of this season? That's wrong, he's an RFA after this season, an unrestricted free-agent in 2012. Although if he was offered a contract of $7 million a year they would probably let him go and take the butt load of picks they would get for him.

You're absolutely right, I misheard the announcers. He's a restricted free-agent at the end of this season. In the unlikely case that Lidstrom retires, we would actually be a prime contender for his services.

http://www.puckmeplease.com/nhl-trade-r ... weber.html

[ajaX82]

Depends on how many picks it costs, but he would probably be totally worth it. With Weber you have a really young and talented defensive core of Weber, Kindl and Brendan Smith along with the vets like Kronwall, Stuart, Rafalski and Ericsson.

[TSE]

I may be wrong, but what I saw on another site is that to sign him to an "offer sheet" requires that a team has 2 first round picks, a 2nd, and a 3rd, in order to gain him that way as opposed to trading for him. So that's something to go on for now to establish the ballpark of his value. The article was talking about the Oilers who have 2 first round picks in the next draft, so I'm guessing that maybe you have to have all that material in the upcoming draft to sign him, not sure if that allows you to use the following year's draft to sign him to an "offer sheet". The Oilers might even have the first pick in the draft, so not sure if it would make sense for them to go that route, but it is an option. The article says that the Oilers used that strategy twice before on Thomas Vanek and Dustin Penner. But BUF matched Vanek's $50M offer-sheet so he didn't become an Oiler, Penner wasn't matched on a 5 year $21M deal, so he did become an Oiler.

[Mr Swagtastic]

I've followed the Wings since i was a wee lad. Nick is my favorite player ever. I'd like to say I know a thing or two about the Wings and hockey. That said...

It's not about the money with Nick. He's won cups and Norris trophies and had a top-5 career in terms of defenseman...ever. He wanted to go back to Sweden back a few years ago IIRC too. And with 4 kids, he probably wants to see them grow up. Why would he stay is the real question?

TSE i can't even begin to sift through your long, drawn out arguments but he has made his money. He has won his titles and awards. And he signed a 1 year deal last offseason...probably so he could retire. I think he is content to go out on top. I am almost positive he will retire after the year

Have to 100% agree with you here. I mean if we get a cup this year what left does Nik have to prove? The guy is a Red Wing legend and like ajaX82 said will be a top 5 all-time D-Man so I don't see him back with us unless he has something to prove and signs for less then $2 million per year. I bet he could play for possibly 2 more years but I think he would rather go home to Sweden and retire with his family and do the everyday thing there

[TSE]

Why would he sign for less than $2 million, that's chump change for him and hardly worth his time? If the Wings weren't going to offer him more than that, then I would retire if I were him too. It seems to me like you are chiming in a debate in which you've altered the premises of the conversation/dialogue exchanges between myself and Ajax. What's the relevance of this sentiment that you post? Nobody is going to disagree with what you just posted.

[Rodya]

I don't really understand the whole "prove something" argument as to why Lidstrom will retire. Just because the man has nothing to prove doesn't mean he wouldn't enjoy staying the captain of title contending team for another season, plus the $6.5 million is also nice. If he wasn't playing as well as he has thus far this season, I would believe he'd go the route of Yzerman and just say "I have nothing more to give".

I'm not speaking with conviction in regards to what he'll do, I don't know his motivations at this point in his career. Nonetheless, it's hard to imagine a player contending for another Norris Trophy walking away from the captaincy of the Red Wings with $6.5 million on the table. Furthermore, I can't think of many hockey players in their 40s walking away from the game while their still immensely effective. Actually, I can't think of any. Every hockey player at that stage left because their skills and subsequently role diminished to the point that their pride got the best of them.

I just wanted to address the whole "nothing to prove" argument. How many hockey players in the twilight of their career continue because they still have something to prove? Howe, Chelios, Plante, Larionov, Lemieux, Messier, Hasek, Hull and a few others all played well into their 40s. What did they have to prove at that point?

[TSE]

Hasek will be 47 in January, and he is planning to play next year in the KHL cause he hopes to win a title in that league. That's pretty cool.

[Mr Swagtastic]

Why would he sign for less than $2 million, that's chump change for him and hardly worth his time? If the Wings weren't going to offer him more than that, then I would retire if I were him too. It seems to me like you are chiming in a debate in which you've altered the premises of the conversation/dialogue exchanges between myself and Ajax. What's the relevance of this sentiment that you post? Nobody is going to disagree with what you just posted.

Well for one the Red Wings have been great to him and so has he to the Red Wings. So I think a pay cut would be a smart move on his end. Lidstrom is easily the best player I think in the last 10 years if you take what he's done he's easily a legand for the team. I don't see him signing with another team it would be a insult to him to sign with somebody else I think he rather hangs 'em up. I mean really who is going to offer a 40 year old (even as good as him) more then say $4-$5 million per year?

Rodya - I am a huge Chelly fan but what did he prove playing like 40-60 mins all year? That he can compete here and score a goal and get a assist? I agree that some players can't let the game go but I see Lidstrom as a player who would walk away on top. I mean Yzerman did and again he's a top 15 all time player and went out with class