Someone else over Hathaway

CAR 8 players, NYR 7 players, WAS 5 players

This team has a clear top line that I like a lot. The middle 6 is ok, I don't think it would perform quite aswell as expectation. Defense corps is absolutely sexy. Hamilton is the best defensemen in the league and putting him on a pairing with Fox would be unreal in all zones. Slavin and Pesce should help cover for the elite offensive tendencies of Carlson and Deangelo. Goaltending doesn't have proven starters but I believe the capability of those two as a tandem.

Swap Williams/Hathaway with Buchnevich/Foegele.

Literally Dzingel

Hathaway might be genuinely one of the forward PKers in the league. In 86 minutes of short-handed play he's been on the ice for only 5 goals against. Additionally, his xGA was 3.73 during that time period. For comparison, Brendan Dillon on the same team was also 3.73 but in only 27 minutes of PK time.

Looking at the player isolate data compiled by Jfresh on twitter he's in the top 1% of all players for WAR on the PK.

Buchnevich was initially on the team, but I took him off to make cap space for Zibenijad. If I had more space he would be on there. Despite having decent production for a player of his ice-time Foegele really isn't that good at pushing the play 5on5. And he's really not good on special teams.

what is a WAR and an xGA

Dzingel is too bad defensively for me to find a spot to fit him on this team. Hes a good offensive option no doubt, but I like all the top 9 wingers over him and couldn't warrant taking a defensive liability for the 4th line.

WAR is wins above replacement. Basically a statistical compilation that determines a players value in comparison a base benchmark like a 7th d-man or 13th forward. xGA is basically a statistical measure that estimates expected goals against. To do this all shots are assigned values, higher percentage shot/chances given a higher expected goal value etc.

If that's the case, why not swap Hamilton with Gardiner and put in Martinook, who's one of the best analytical bottom 6 forwards in the NHL.

You don't know WAR and xGA? I'm honestly surprised cause you're usually quite intelligent

I mean using that as a metric, wouldn't it make more sense to swap Wilson for Buch?

I don't advanced stats

Yea I should probably have kept Buch in looking back. I was thinking about the physicality of Wilson but no Buchenevich is the better player

Ovechkin?