Blues Offseason Needs: How St. Louis Measures Up To NHL’s Conference Finalists

[STLinCHI]

Critical Thinking 101

What would forum responses look like if Thomas's stats were truly wrong?

Answer: There would be at least one response indicating that Thomas is great on defense.


What would forum responses look like if Thomas's stats were truly correct?

Answer: There would be many responses attacking the messenger.


What do the forum responses tell you, hockey fans?

ASOGG responses tell me your self assessment as a hockey expert is quite delusional.

[Army's Mom]

This one looks like a freebie from The Athletic.

-------------------------------------

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/640003 ... finalists/

Blues offseason needs: How St. Louis measures up to NHL’s conference finalists

By Jeremy Rutherford
June 5, 2025 7:00 am CDT

- clip -

So with that, let’s use Dom Luszczyszyn’s Net Rating model to compare the state of the Blues’ roster to the average roster of the NHL’s four conference finalists: Florida, Edmonton, Dallas and Carolina.

The Net Rating model has a long track record of demonstrating predictive value, and even though it’s imperfect, there’s some reliability in how it can put into perspective which individual players are contributing to the team’s success from an offensive and defensive standpoint.

We will project the Blues’ lineup for the 2025-26 season — excluding unrestricted free agents Radek Faksa and Ryan Suter — and contrast it with one combining the ratings for the Panthers, Oilers, Stars and Hurricanes for an “average conference finalist” team.

Sure, it’s a bit skewed when you consider Edmonton has two all-world players in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. But in order to compete, the Blues will need to add similar stars or get more out of their talent.

Here’s how they stack up:




To read more...

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/640003 ... finalists/

I dont think that is exactly necessary to compete for a Cup and how is Paraykos rating so low hes one of the top RHD in the NHL

I didn’t bother clicking on the article but there’s no way JR’s smart enough to come up with this stuff on his own so I can guarantee you he’s getting the data from Dom Luszczyszyn - the Athletic’s fancy stat guy. But Dom is a moron. I’m actually a proponent of fancy stats but Dom simply trusts his model over the eye test way too much. I’m not even sure he actually even watches hockey. Every year he’ll put out a list of what his model says is the best and worst contracts in the NHL and for at least 2-3 years now he’s had Parayko as one of the worst 2-3 contracts in the game, saying Parayko is really more like a $1-2M player. Only an incredibly overconfident, cocky moron would see results like that and think to himself “I need to publish this and bash Parayko because my model reveals he’s truly a 3rd pairing replacement level player” and not, “holy cr@p! Clearly my model isn’t accounting for all of the value a player can provide and I should investigate that and tweak my model before publishing the results so I don’t look like a moron.” But nope, Dom’s been posting garbage for years and then pompously proclaiming it as gospel. His model isn’t bad at all when it comes to offensive minded forwards but clearly he has it way too skewed to valuing some offensive values so defensive forwards and in particular defensive d-men get way undervalued in his model. Last I saw, he had Evan Bouchard rated as pretty much the best d-man in the history of the game.

TL;DR: Dom’s a moron so I didn’t even bother reading this article.

His model definitely isn't the end all, be all - and it is grossly skewed towards offensive players. That said, I think more of my problem with it is how the Athletic must force every writer to only use Dom's model - it's not so much Dom that I find arrogant, as much as the entire publication pushing his model as the standard.

That said, it does "validate" two of the most common complaints that have been voiced here, which I find interesting:

1. Faulk is the weak link in our Top 4 D.
2. Joseph/Sundqvist are anchors in our Top 9.

How does this validate that Faulk is a weak link when he is rated above Fowler?

This data seems questionable and probably doesn't validate anything.

Oh wow, how did I not see that??? This thread validates my selective blindness, at least

[2forDiving]

This one looks like a freebie from The Athletic.

-------------------------------------

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/640003 ... finalists/

Blues offseason needs: How St. Louis measures up to NHL’s conference finalists

By Jeremy Rutherford
June 5, 2025 7:00 am CDT

- clip -

So with that, let’s use Dom Luszczyszyn’s Net Rating model to compare the state of the Blues’ roster to the average roster of the NHL’s four conference finalists: Florida, Edmonton, Dallas and Carolina.

The Net Rating model has a long track record of demonstrating predictive value, and even though it’s imperfect, there’s some reliability in how it can put into perspective which individual players are contributing to the team’s success from an offensive and defensive standpoint.

We will project the Blues’ lineup for the 2025-26 season — excluding unrestricted free agents Radek Faksa and Ryan Suter — and contrast it with one combining the ratings for the Panthers, Oilers, Stars and Hurricanes for an “average conference finalist” team.

Sure, it’s a bit skewed when you consider Edmonton has two all-world players in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. But in order to compete, the Blues will need to add similar stars or get more out of their talent.

Here’s how they stack up:




To read more...

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/640003 ... finalists/

I dont think that is exactly necessary to compete for a Cup and how is Paraykos rating so low hes one of the top RHD in the NHL

I didn’t bother clicking on the article but there’s no way JR’s smart enough to come up with this stuff on his own so I can guarantee you he’s getting the data from Dom Luszczyszyn - the Athletic’s fancy stat guy. But Dom is a moron. I’m actually a proponent of fancy stats but Dom simply trusts his model over the eye test way too much. I’m not even sure he actually even watches hockey. Every year he’ll put out a list of what his model says is the best and worst contracts in the NHL and for at least 2-3 years now he’s had Parayko as one of the worst 2-3 contracts in the game, saying Parayko is really more like a $1-2M player. Only an incredibly overconfident, cocky moron would see results like that and think to himself “I need to publish this and bash Parayko because my model reveals he’s truly a 3rd pairing replacement level player” and not, “holy cr@p! Clearly my model isn’t accounting for all of the value a player can provide and I should investigate that and tweak my model before publishing the results so I don’t look like a moron.” But nope, Dom’s been posting garbage for years and then pompously proclaiming it as gospel. His model isn’t bad at all when it comes to offensive minded forwards but clearly he has it way too skewed to valuing some offensive values so defensive forwards and in particular defensive d-men get way undervalued in his model. Last I saw, he had Evan Bouchard rated as pretty much the best d-man in the history of the game.

TL;DR: Dom’s a moron so I didn’t even bother reading this article.

I agree with all of this 100% and Dom is a pompous clown. He was on one of the 101 shows after the Blues had won the Cup and was telling everyone how the Blues just got lucky basically and how great his model was and I think it was Rivers that asked, then how does it keep getting the Blues wrong? He stammered and stuttered and finally admitted that the Blues perform well outside of data his model didn’t account for

[seattleblue]

quintessential Hawk fan a disinformation blight? say it ain't so

[TimmyVee]

And here I thought Kyrou was really bad on Defense (and the stats show that), but he was twice as good as Thomas.

Thomas is definitely the team's "cherry picker", the guy that only goes north, no south.

Buddy, you are dredging really low on this one.
RT had the toughest matchups.
You are more folksy and therefore more palatable than the other Trolls with their unsupported eliteisms, but its getting old, SOGG

I truly appreciate SOGG, his posts remind me I am not signed in!