February 6, 2015

News/views: Penguins pushing Bennett hard

by Dejan Kovacevic • News/views • Penguins

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC CALGARY, Alberta — For what the Penguins announced would be an optional skate this morning at Scotiabank Saddledome, it sure wasn’t optional for Beau Bennett. He remained on the ice even after the injured players, the backup goaltender and the coaches. That signified two things, both meaningful: • He won’t dress tonight

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31 Comments Newest to oldest

Scott
2-6-2015, 4:32 pm
Of course this would be done on the Friday Insider day. Great Stuff DK.

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BAd
2-6-2015, 4:34 pm
Interesting stuff. I wonder if BB is the right type of player for this coaching staff at all?

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mpackage
2-6-2015, 4:34 pm
Mark who?

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Bettis36
2-6-2015, 4:36 pm
When are they going to start pushing Sutter. My gawd has he been awful. If they want to refer to puck possession, take a look at Sutters frightening stats. Every player Sutter is matched with falls off a cliff as far as possession goes. It's under-reported, but Sutter is/has been a big part of their recent slump.

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Jay Baileys
2-6-2015, 4:39 pm
Well they seem to be trying to help him which is promising. I hope what MJ and Tocchet said was true that think he will be here long and be a special player here. If he can stay healthy and produce some, he should definitely be a solid 3rd liner which may help Sutter out of his funk.

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BK
2-6-2015, 4:40 pm
Are they going to show those same "battle level" tapes to Kunitz and Sutter, or were they deleted in some computer mishap?

If they want to improve Beau in this way, then fine. But when I see Sutter and Kunitz continually getting a free pass, the hypocrisy boils my blood.

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yinzer84
2-6-2015, 4:56 pm
Great comment, the writing is on the wall for Kunitz. This is his last season here.

burghsportsguy
2-6-2015, 5:04 pm
Yeah, agree, difficult balance. I love the "tough love" approach here, but it's obvious that not everyone is held to the same standards. This harkens back to game 7 vs NYR - do you have a better chance to win the the battle level of Tanner Glass or the skill of Beau Bennett?

czyryca
2-6-2015, 4:47 pm
DK off topic - but how does Lapierre seem to be gelling with the team?

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Dejan Kovacevic
2-6-2015, 5:03 pm
Have not noticed that. Sorry.

dps2002
2-6-2015, 4:53 pm
"Battle level"...I'm convinced that John Hynes here in WBS uses that phrase on every day that ends in Y, both positively and negatively.

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ahod30
2-6-2015, 4:55 pm
Beau needs a change of scenery between the injuries, mumps, and now this. Maybe he isn't a fit in Johnstons system. Sure would be tough to see them trade him though，with our problems drafting/developing forwards. What to do?

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yinzer84
2-6-2015, 4:55 pm
Love the tough love approach. He's a professional whether he realizes it or not. At least this coaching staff is willing to help him or appears they are. We all know how Byslma buried Depres before.

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Rik
2-6-2015, 5:17 pm
I hope this doesn't turn out to be another Markus Naslund. And Spaulding is such a talent he deserves top 6 time....

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dannyboy1631
2-6-2015, 5:19 pm
Bennett was a player drafted by Shero for Bylsma's system. He's purely a skilled passer/perimeter player, and is very obviously not the kind of player that wins battles in the corner or drives the net. Kudos to the coaching staff for saying all the right things, but to me this is akin to scratching Scuderi because he doesn't jump in on the rush enough.

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PlazMan
2-6-2015, 5:29 pm
I don't like this, I LOVE this! To quote William Ward, "Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records." Bennett has a ton of potential, but so did a lot of has beens and never weres. Looking forward to seeing how he responds to the benching and teaching. And who better to learn "battle level" from than Tocchet and Geurin?

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Dave G
2-6-2015, 5:30 pm
Beau's afraid to hurt himself again.

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NPerino
2-6-2015, 5:41 pm
I don't buy this. For 5 on 5 play, Bennett has the 4th best Fenwick % on the team. He's behind only Letang, Hornqvist, and Kunitz. Malkin and Crosby are 5 and 6. Corsi shows Letang, Kunitz, Malkin, Hornqvist, Bennett, then Crosby. His possession numbers are incredible and can't be argued. Not sure where they are getting their numbers, but those numbers are simply not correct.

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Sarah
2-6-2015, 5:48 pm
Spot on. And aren't Sutter's possesion numbers horrible lately too? When will he get benched?
As for production, BB is out producing Sutter since BB came back.
Possession?? This is what it's about?
I'm with you - don't buy it.

This sounds like something Inside the room or between BB and the coaches.

A. Lane
2-6-2015, 6:33 pm
Video scouting allows you to confirm whatever bias you are looking for. I'm a big Bennet fan, but I don't see this as a huge issue even good coaches make odd lineup decisions. Blackhawks fans complained of Quenneville's love of Michal Handzus despite lack of any on ice production.

I think it becomes an issue if this staff takes the mantra of "being tough to play against" too seriously and continually jettisons good players in favor of tough to play against plugs.

Sarah
2-6-2015, 7:00 pm
You could be right....but Geez how many tough to play against plugs do we have?.....

andrew.collins.roman
2-6-2015, 7:10 pm
For what it's worth, if you believe Bob McKenzie, nobody in the NHL uses anything like Corsi or Fenwick. And they especially don't use numbers that were collected by some data scraping website like Puckalytics or WAR on Ice. Any numbers they use to measure possession are independently counted and audited by the coaching staff and their assistants, and they are counted by actually watching game tape. In fact, possession for Mike Johnston, as I understand it, is entirely "measured" in the film. It's all about winning wall battles, controlling the puck in the offensive zone, slowing down the opponent's counterattack, and getting it out of the d-zone quickly. Now as for why Sutter and the whole fourth line don't get benched when they can't even complete 6 foot passes to one another in the offensive zone, you'll have to ask someone else.

A. Lane
2-6-2015, 8:32 pm
Andrew, good name, I'm familiar with those quotes but that is not analytics, it is video scouting, so basically teams track events and infer things. Which is fine and good but without larger data sets looking lead wide data you have no idea if what you are tracking is reliable, valid, repeatable, and most importantly correlated winning.

The NHL's real time stats are pretty much useless, hits have small but negative correlation with winning, block shots negative correlation, winning faceoffs 5v5 not really that big of deal.

I don't think NHL coaching staffs are tracking other teams and have developed extensive data sets and done significant background research into the reliability and usefulness of what they are tracking. They probably have some good assumptions, but there is a reason that NHL teams have been hiring guys who started as bloggers and did some of foundational hockey research. In addition, one of the War on Ice guys has been hired by the Oakland Athletics.

I don't think the NHL in-house analytics staffs are as advanced as they are in basketball or baseball.

NPerino
2-7-2015, 12:21 pm
As far as the NHL using or not using analytics, I don't know. Here's what I do know, of the last 5 Cup winners, 4 were in the top 3 in NHL for Corsi Agains/60 mins. The other team had a guy named Tim Thomas who single-handedly carried them through the playoffs (you can thank Ryan Wilson of hockeybuzz.com for these stats, they aren't mine). If teams aren't using analyitcs, they should. And lets not forget, the Pens said they would be using them this year...

mike
2-6-2015, 6:33 pm
Give me a break, if you can, simply, cut it in the NHL you can. If you can't you won't. there are so many levels to any sport working its way to the professional level...... If beau can't go, so be it. Fish or cut bait. Im happy with this coaching/management scheme to raise the Pens from stat generators to champs. Go Pens

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Sarah
2-6-2015, 7:07 pm
My goodness! Just had to post this my Peeps, from another blog discussion....
Rossi at peak form!!!

http://www.970espn.com/media/podcast-the-david-todd-show-David_Todd/david-with-rob-rossi-62514-24951621/

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Scott Hey Hey
2-6-2015, 7:44 pm
Said some things that might be worth thinking about, but was clearly 100% wrong about others

timberlandblues
2-7-2015, 10:40 am
Nice, candid piece. A lot of truth there... maybe a little on the angry side but most of what he said was absolutely valid. Time will tell.

Joe Yinzer
2-6-2015, 8:14 pm
Beau Bennett has spent so much time not playing because of injury that he has no business coasting along and not giving his all now that he's healthy. Sounds like the coaching staff is trying to light a fire under Beau and get him over the hump to a level they expect from him consistently. He can't be thinking about getting injured and therefore not going all out.
He either prove he belongs or he gets shipped out.

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@SteelersNasty
2-6-2015, 9:29 pm
This is ridiculous. They better hope BB odd the type of player who responds to the "tough love" routine. They don't have enough forward scoring depth b now and they want to go this route?

I say put him on the third line and tell him hell stay there until he earns PT on the top two lines. No way do I like scratching him completely.

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unipress_5463ead9c8c0c
2-7-2015, 12:11 pm
Seems BB needs to hit the Weight Room

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News/views: Penguins pushing Bennett hard

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