No, he's not better than Mo.

What would you consider evidence enough to change your mind?

Probably none, but you can try (I'm guessing by your user flair "watches no games" that you're a big analytical guy).

Yeah It's mostly gonna be extractions of stats showing how, while he does increase offense going forward, Rielly increases offense going his teams direction even more. He was really good in 16-18, then he was basically current Darnell Nurse for two seasons (like a fine offensively minded mid-pair guy), and then pretty damn bad last year.

Whitecloud had an amazing 19-20, like better than any of Rielly's seasons by far. *But* he did have a weaker last year now that I look, and considering the sample maybe he's not currently much better than Morgan.

However, after Rielly lost some offensive touch last season, he's not particularly good at anything. Whitecloud is still a defensively skilled player. I would probably lean Rielly 5on5 currently though, while Whitecloud is a much better specialist.

With time on his side, I do believe that Whitecloud could have some of the better defensive seasons in the league over the next few years. I think Rielly's prime is past him, and he not only needs to come back to offensive form, but do something he's never really done and play defense to be worth his contract.

So, yeah, maybe I was quick on the trigger - Rielly might be just a tad better as of now, but anything beyond this season and I would lean towards Whitecloud, and that's before even considering the money. Meaning I'd rather take him than Rielly for the exact same cap hit and length.

I appreciate the thought you put into this.

I'd still take Rielly over Whitecloud on his contract. I don't think Rielly's past his prime, it seems like he's ancient for how long he's been on the leafs but he's only 27 (many defenseman peak around 30, as opposed to forwards which peak earlier usually). I think it will be at least 3 years before Whitecloud passes Rielly.

I believe it's 22-23 for forwards and 24-25 for defenseman, according to the metrics I rely on. It's not so much the age though, as the trend. As I said, he was really good 16-18 but has been trending down ever since. But I guess we'll just wait and see what happens. I suspect Rielly will always put up more points for example, but I value that less than most, so it's not really gonna convince me all that much. I would want to see Whitecloud being anything more than his current offensive void though, to consider him clearly above Rielly on the other hand.

Fair enough. I'm also not overly familiar with Whitecloud (and am very familiar with Rielly) so there might be some bias, too.

Sure, yeah. Last season Whitecloud looked a bit like a worse Brandon Carlo (worse going forward than good in his own end), but the year before he was on some Jonas Brodin level of defence-to-offence ratio - meaning almost average offensively and one of the best in his own end. The issue with defensively strong players, beside the fact that almost no one can identify them, is that there are very few that are consistently good at it. Bergeron is a rare case of continuity, while for example Barkov has very few defensively strong seasons. If it's less predictable it's harder to assign value to.

Ya, offensive talent is easily and directly comparable with goals, points and assists, but defensive stats are a bit harder to understand and compare.

I do believe shots added/reduced in either direction is a really good proxy for offensive/defensive effect at least. But yeah, barring any crazy stuff going on points usually follow. If you add some playing time and zone usage components you're already really close to getting the actual value compared to expected. This though is where I think many people are making mistakes based on their intuition. P.Kane has to be good because he puts up a lot of points, right? Well, the expected points produced when playing his minutes is actually really high. I think the best example I can bring up is Ryan Spooner if you remember him. He was seen as this pretty good but offense-only type of player in Boston. Then when he got traded, and completely fell off, cause no team could hide him behind a Bergeron line.

Anyways, what's missing after all that is mostly what effect players have on each other and coaching etc. which both can be really hard to discern.

What's funny too is that in the end, teams are kind of what they are. Whenever I talk about specific players being better or worse it's almost never an attack on someones team. Toronto is pretty much as good as people believe, give or take a few standing points, I just remove some of Rielly's general credibility and attach even more to Matthews, Nylander etc.

This is a steal

Oh, I don't think Whitecloud is or will be anything more than a 3rd pairing defenseman in his career, doesn't have enough versatility to be a top 4 guy. He IS A quality 3rd pairing guy though, and so he's being payed appropriately