S.Kostitsyn to Hamilton

The younger brother has been sent down to the AHL team. Martin retains his reputation for bringing kids along slowly.

Andrei hasn't had a good camp either. And these two are supposed to be the future of the Habs' forward corps...

Well, he hasn't looked good, and had a little riff with the coach at practice., according to the awesome MTL media.

I need Andrei to produce

Sergei will be a star in a few years, but he needs a vocal leader in the dressing room to guide him.

Andrei will be fine. He's a veteran now and you don't necessarily base how he will play during the season on a few pre-season games. I mean, look at Alfie -- do we expect him to suck for 82 games? Because, really, he hasn't done a heck of a lot in the pre-season (8 shots in 3 games, zero points).

Hmm, just checked the stats, and Andrei had 2 assists in five games (8 shots), while Sergei had 1 goal in 3 games, with 10 shots. So which of the brothers had a better camp, eh?

Montreal pre-season stats:
http://www.cbssports.com/nhl/teams/stats/MON/preseason/SCORING/yearly

And here's Ottawa's stats:
http://www.cbssports.com/nhl/teams/stats/OTT/preseason/SCORING/yearly

Stats say very little about how well or poorly a guy has played in hockey. Fantasy league's are cute and all but the actual production in real life doenst mean anything if your team doesnt win.

N4L wrote:Stats say very little about how well or poorly a guy has played in hockey. Fantasy league's are cute and all but the actual production in real life doenst mean anything if your team doesnt win.

True. But there was also the statement that Andrei did not have a very good camp. The stats support that. Bottom line in hockey, production is what counts, and that is stats. I only looked at a very small subset of all stats (there's hits, blocked shots, takeaways, giveaways, PK time, etc.) I believe that looking at a wider set (if it was available) *will* give you a much better correlation to how well a player is playing. But without the benefit of seeing many of those games, and without having all the stats available (pre-season stats are hard to find) I can only do what I can only do, right?

So, with all that out of the way, are you going to say that Andrei had a better pre-season than Sergei?

wprager wrote:

N4L wrote:Stats say very little about how well or poorly a guy has played in hockey. Fantasy league's are cute and all but the actual production in real life doenst mean anything if your team doesnt win.

True. But there was also the statement that Andrei did not have a very good camp. The stats support that. Bottom line in hockey, production is what counts, and that is stats. I only looked at a very small subset of all stats (there's hits, blocked shots, takeaways, giveaways, PK time, etc.) I believe that looking at a wider set (if it was available) *will* give you a much better correlation to how well a player is playing. But without the benefit of seeing many of those games, and without having all the stats available (pre-season stats are hard to find) I can only do what I can only do, right?

So, with all that out of the way, are you going to say that Andrei had a better pre-season than Sergei?

I don't think I could disagree with that any more if I actually wanted to.

N4L wrote:Stats say very little about how well or poorly a guy has played in hockey. Fantasy league's are cute and all but the actual production in real life doenst mean anything if your team doesnt win.

Stats can help support a point of view. I'd be interested to know what Alfie's stats were for give-aways this pre-season because in the Boston game it looked like he gave it away a few times in his own zone which is uncharacteristic of Alfie and as Prages said - we shouldn't judge veteran players on pre-season performance.

Cap'n Clutch wrote:

N4L wrote:Stats say very little about how well or poorly a guy has played in hockey. Fantasy league's are cute and all but the actual production in real life doenst mean anything if your team doesnt win.

Stats can help support a point of view. I'd be interested to know what Alfie's stats were for give-aways this pre-season because in the Boston game it looked like he gave it away a few times in his own zone which is uncharacteristic of Alfie and as Prages said - we shouldn't judge veteran players on pre-season performance.

Ummm, Alfi gives the puck away a lot. He just doesnt do it in bad spots. Always has, always will.

Pre-season is what it is, it's to get ready for the season. That includes practice which is more important then actual games in terms of judging performance and learning the system and improving as a player. I have not seen one stat on good practice vs bad practice, ever.

Why did The Sens suck the last couple of years? It's not because of production from the top line guys, they were 1, 2, 3 in scoring last year and the year before. It's because of their overall work ethic which starts in practice.

Like I said, if you're looking at the box score and basing your opinion on the game, on that, then alright... means very little in the grand scheme of things.

I would be willing to wager that S.Kostitsyn has zero work ethic during practice, zero intensity, and I know he has zero consistancy in his game.

Mixed with off ice problems and having paid no dues as of yet, it's no surprise he got sent back down to Hamilton.

N4L wrote:I would be willing to wager that S.Kostitsyn has zero work ethic during practice, zero intensity, and I know he has zero consistancy in his game.

Mixed with off ice problems and having paid no dues as of yet, it's no surprise he got sent back down to Hamilton.

Like I said, he had a few talks with the coach about that.

Well there you go... he might be on his way out to be honest.

I'm actually surprised he is still there. Gainey should have traded him before the start of training camp, because if his brother doesn't produce, I can already hear the MTL media whining about it.

N4L wrote:

Cap'n Clutch wrote:

N4L wrote:Stats say very little about how well or poorly a guy has played in hockey. Fantasy league's are cute and all but the actual production in real life doenst mean anything if your team doesnt win.

Stats can help support a point of view. I'd be interested to know what Alfie's stats were for give-aways this pre-season because in the Boston game it looked like he gave it away a few times in his own zone which is uncharacteristic of Alfie and as Prages said - we shouldn't judge veteran players on pre-season performance.

Ummm, Alfi gives the puck away a lot. He just doesnt do it in bad spots. Always has, always will.

Pre-season is what it is, it's to get ready for the season. That includes practice which is more important then actual games in terms of judging performance and learning the system and improving as a player. I have not seen one stat on good practice vs bad practice, ever.

Why did The Sens suck the last couple of years? It's not because of production from the top line guys, they were 1, 2, 3 in scoring last year and the year before. It's because of their overall work ethic which starts in practice.

Like I said, if you're looking at the box score and basing your opinion on the game, on that, then alright... means very little in the grand scheme of things.

I've seen Alfie give the puck away and I agree with you about him normally not giving it up in bad areas of the ice. When I went to the Boston game I saw him give the puck away twice in his own zone, on the same shift, once in front of the Sens net and a second time right at his blue line which I'm pretty sure are bad spots.

I was only trying to say that his performance was uncharacteristic of his usual play and I didn't mention stats on it I was actually curious how he did in other games in that regard. I also take zero stock in his performance in pre-season because he's a veteran. Which was the point I was trying to emphasize.

N4L wrote:Stats say very little about how well or poorly a guy has played in hockey. Fantasy league's are cute and all but the actual production in real life doenst mean anything if your team doesnt win.

Especially during pre-season when it's every man for himself and more about individual performance than team performance.