About Willsie
Again, thanks to everyone who has read and commented on the team analysis stuff. One of the fun things about doing this is getting some responses from readers who can add things that I have overlooked or just plain don't know. Along those lines, I wanted to share an e-mail I got today from a reader, who reacted to my analysis of Brian Willsie, which was mostly critical.
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It's not like I'm a supporter of Brian Willsie, but your analysis felt a bit incomplete to me. You identified that his overall minutes and shifts per game didn't change much from the year previous, which is true, but there was one key factoid you missed that might better explain his sharp decline.
With the Capitals
* 4 minutes 19 seconds of powerplay time per game.
With the Kings
* 43 seconds of powerplay time per game.
With Washington he played 82 games and had 19 goals and 22 assists for 41 points. Of that he had 21 powerplay points with 8 goals and 13 assists, so at even strength he only had 11 goals and 9 assists.
With the Kings he played 81 games and had 11 goals and 10 assists for 21 points. Of that he had 4 power play points with 2 goals and 2 assists, so at even strength he only had 9 goals and 8 assists.
The powerplay served as his bread and butter with the Capitals -- accounting for nearly half his 41 point total
from 2005-2006. So you take that away and he's exactly what Kings fans saw this season, a 20 point player. So it
might not really be a regression so much as Willsie merely being consistently mediocre, you could say.
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About the bloggers
Rich Hammond has covered the Kings, on a full-time or part-time basis, since the 2000-01 season. He was the beat writer for the entire John Torchetti era and has witnessed Bob Miller singing country music in a Nashville honky-tonk bar. A native of Los Angeles, Rich has worked at the Daily News since 1999 and also serves as the paper's deputy sports editor. E-mail Rich at rich.hammond@dailynews.com.
Jill Painter joined the Daily News in 2000 and during the last eight years she's covered the Dodgers, Cal State Northridge, UCLA, Kings, golf and everything in between. Even though she's from Colorado, she still freezes in the Staples Center press box but always manages to thaw her fingers in time to make deadline. E-mail Jill at jill.painter@dailynews.com.
Great post...good to know that Willsie was never that good.
You need only to have looked at the many years he couldn't crack the Avs lineup to know that he was never that good :)
And, that Washington team was a home for a number of wayward journeymen who never found a secure job in the NHL prior to coming to the Caps.
I wish it had been Chris Clark and not Brian Willsie who defected to Los Angeles.
Willsie is onne of the "good" guys they brought in to help mentor the young guys. Unfortunately, he didnt play up to snuff and now we have him for another year. I agree about the Chris Clark comment!
I take something much different from that analysis than everyone else. I see that as proving that he's not as bad as everyone thinks. How can you blame him for putting up half the points as last year when he wasn't given powerplay time? That's not his fault. Blake Crawford and Lombardi for bringing him in and not giving him the powerplay time to succeed. If you bring in a guy who collected half of his points last year on the powerplay, and then you don't give him any powerplay time, who's to blame for his decreased production? Obviously, it's *your* fault, not the player's.
How can they say you are critical of Willsie, when he's the King in your title image of the blog?