Kings in the clutch
Interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal this week, which identified the top ``clutch players'' who switched teams this summer. ``Clutch players'' were identified by ``how often they are on ice when the game is in a clutch situation (two minutes left in a one-goal or tied game).''
The Kings had two of the top five, in Rob Scuderi and Ryan Smyth.
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J.P. Hoornstra writes about NHL and IHL hockey for the Los Angeles Newspaper Group. He welcomes any and all dialogue on the finer points of hockey.
E-mail J.P. at jp.hoornstra@inlandnewspapers.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.
Vincent Bonsignore is a sports columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News. E-mail Vinny at vincent.bonsignore
@dailynews.com.
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This is a great way of looking at these acquisitions. Again, agree or disagree with him, but Smyth and Scuderi are exactly the type of persons (and position) that Dean said he wanted this off-season.
Nice article and I agree completely. Of course, Anthonyy will take Deano to task for getting his advice from the Wall Street Journal, I'm sure...
The #'s a bit skewed because actually the minute relate to the most trusted players on particular teams, according to the particular coach, each of whom has a different set of players to chose from. That is a relative weighting assessment with different people to weigh..
I.e, the Duck coach almost always preferred Pronger over Neidermeyer. Doesn't necessarily mean he would prefer Pronger over someone else (though I am sure he would). Does show how good Prionger is, cuz Neids is a Hall of Fame stud.
Also, its a relative weighing. If you have more depth, then you do not have to continually play 1-2 players.
I disagree there is no coach bias. Coaches should not hv bias and should judge players on there respective merits. But, being human, some coaches probably do-- and probably not on purpose.
With the Kings, IMO coach Murray was feeling the players out and purposely played a lot of them in different situations. If that opinion is correct, you'd expect the time to even out a bit. Seems to me, the best problem to have is a coach trusting all his players and deciding amongst them--leading to even time. Being forced to play one guy a lot of minutes probably means there is a relatively weak player in the group. Sorry Blake haters, but I think that was a problem facing Crow a few years back: Crow concluded that he better off playing an injured Blake then someone else.
Oh, to assist some others, what these #'s mean is that DL/TM really blew this one, I'm not sure how, I just know DL and TM are both really really really bad. really. JMO I love the Kings.
Great news. Thanks Rich. Deano does it again.
vicarious...
you left out the obvious statistical weight described in the definition. These minutes are based on who is on the ice during the last minutes of a 1 goal or tied game. If you are a team that either wins by a bunch or looses by a bunch your players would not get many "clutch' minutes. While entertaining, this stat is about as useful as plus/minus.