What would it take?

[rjfryman 1,120]

Julius Freeman had the most goals in the last regular season but honestly very little people cared or even though it was worth mentioning. He now is line mates with his old rival who is also benefiting from this arrangement. Both players Freeman and HHH are doing great. They are two of the best players in the league right now, period full stop. They will be line mates again and probably both have great seasons, Hopefully they will go further in the playoffs but I do question one thing with having two great players on a line and on a team. They will never get full recognition. They were both nominated for the Brett Slobodzian Trophy but even if you put both of their votes together they are tied for the next person on the list. Did they lose something by both being great. I want to take a quick look at all the players nominated and see just look at what we see.

 

Julius Freeman  

Season	GP	G	A	P	+/-	SHT	PIM	HIT	SB	GW	PPG	SHG
69 (VAN)	72	44	45	89	42	452	12	41	25	7	7	1

 

Hunter Hearst Helmsley

Season	GP	G	A	P	+/-	SHT	PIM	HIT	SB	GW	PPG	SHG
69 (VAN)	72	42	50	92	36	356	151	295	22	9	9	0

 

Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen 

Season	GP	G	A	P	+/-	SHT	PIM	HIT	SB	GW	PPG	SHG
69 (MOS)	72	17	66	83	41	240	160	264	117	2	9	0

 

Julian Borwinn 

Season	GP	G	A	P	+/-	SHT	PIM	HIT	SB	GW	PPG	SHG
69 (HSK)	72	42	51	93	28	447	125	241	25	5	6	1

 

Kallis Kriketers

 

Season	GP	W	L	OTL	SV%	GAA	SO	GA	SA	MP
69 (RIG)	67	45	17	2	0.931	1.66	11	108	1574	3914

 

 

I just want to preface this with all the players listed are great players. I just am unsure if we have correct value to some stats over others.

 

The  biggest knocks for Julius Freeman to not get this award are as follows:

1. He had an all-star teammate/line-mate who propped up his stats, in HHH.

2. He doesn't have the most points, being edged out by HHH and Borwinn.

3. He doesn't have as many hits as many high level players.

4. He does not have as many Game Winning or Power Play Goals as his teammate HHH.

 

Things that are in favor of Julius Freeman.

1. He got the most goals out of anyone in the league.

2. He stays out of the box.

3. He blocks a good amount of shots for a forward. 

 

The biggest knocks for HHH.

1. He had an all-star teammate/line-mate who propped up his stats, in Julius Freeman.

2. He didn't have as many goals as Freeman or Assists as Werbenjagermanjensen or Borwinn.

3. He takes a good amount of PIM's 

 

Things in favor of HHH.

1. He was second in points overall only losing by 1 point.

2. He Has the most amount of hits as anyone in this selection.

3. He gets goals when they are needed with 9 GW and 9  PPG.

 

The biggest knocks of Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen.

1. He wasn't the highest point getting defenseman. 

2. He had great forward core in Randoms and Jet Jaguar to help some of his numbers.

3. He was in the box more than any other player on this list.

 

Biggest things in favor for Werbenjagermanjensen.

1. Great numbers for a defenseman while still getting huge shots blocks and hits.

2. Great of the Power Play getting more than half his goals from it.

3. Great plus minus and good at being a positive influence when on the ice.

 

Biggest Knocks for Julian Borwinn 

1. Also has a great teammate/line-mate in Kronos Bailey who was #6 in points overall.

2. Weakest GW goals share of any of the top forwards.

3. Weakest SHT% of all the forwards on this list.

 

Biggest things for Julius Borwinn

1. Most points in the league by 1.

2. Tied for 2nd most Goals.

3. Good mixture of PIM to Hits ratio.

 

Biggest Knocks on Kallis Kriketers.

1. Has some Great Defenman helping out in Apollo Hacket, Lincoln Tate

2. Most wins but it took more game to get 1 more win than Greg Eagles.

3. Out of all the top goalies he faced the lowest shots so you could make the argument that any top goalie on Riga might have just as good stats.

 

Biggest things for Kallis Kriketers.

1. Most shutouts.

2. Most wins.

3. Out of the goalies who played 65 games best SV%.

 

The first problem I see with this process is that goalies and skaters have an almost impossible task of comparing stats, With goalies, Wins and SHT % are some of the most important stats to keep up with. Yes shutouts are great but at the end of the day its just a fancy way of saying their SHT% was great that game. I'm not trying to take away from any players here I just don't understand some things. but when you put up a goalie vs other players and you see a big Wins column vs goals its hard to say which is better, or worse they are all part of teams and its a team sport.

 

Another thing I am looking at is Goals vs Assists. Julius Freeman had the most goals and came 3rd in points overall so he got a lot of points. But when you look at the voting only two people other than himself cared. What percentage of goals is important to you. Is a goal worth 2 assists? Thats what we say in the VHFL. If it were that way Freeman would have 133 "points", HHH - 134 "points", Borwinn = 135 "points". A way closer comparison that still doesn't make Freeman the top point getter but it makes it too close to make a huge call either way. 

 

Do we even care about PIM? Do we care that a player stays out of the box and lets his team play with him and game plan with him on the ice. Freeman has 12 mins in the box. With a total of 2144 minutes played in the season. 0.56% of the time he was in the box. That is not even a full 1%. That is a player that a team and coach can game plan around. Borwinn was in the box 5.96% of his game time. HHH was 7.18% in the box. Webenjagermanjensen was 7.48% in the box. Idk which is the right way to play hits or staying on the ice but if I were a coach or GM and could get the production of Freeman with him almost never making us short handed I would jump at that and if the trade off is he doesn't Hit people than thats something Im willing to care about.

 

SHT% is another stat that Freeman doesn't win at but is better than some. HHH is actually the best SHT% with 11.8%, Freeman has 9.73% SHT. and Borwinn had 9.4% SHT. Werbenjagermanjensen had 7.08%

 

One thing that I kinda look at when I see goalies vs players is how does the goalie stack up against other goalies. Kriketers won 67% of his games but Greg Eagles won 68% of his games. So when we look at that do we really think that it was as dominate. 1 win more as kinda shown above with the points doesn't look as great when you see the next person being so close. With SV% Its also a interesting story of a team just allowing more or less shots. Kriketers had a SV% of .931%. Funk had a SV% of .923%. The major difference in my mind is that Funk also had to face 322 more shots in 3 less games no less. Seattle as a whole let more shots be made on their goalie than Riga did. 

 

Personally I don't know if this is worth the time that it took to write this but it was an interesting exercise for myself. I wonder how many people did write off Freeman and HHH mostly because they both were at such a high level, when you look at all the players they were all on great team who helped them get the stats they got. Maybe the issue is that the Forwards were so close in so many ways that it made room for a goalie to win it when if Freeman had lets just say 5 more goals would he have been the run away winner? What would it have taken for people to take Freeman seriously. What would it have taken for HHH to be taken seriously would have have to win the goals race and be the highest point getter by a couple. What margin would it have taken. From some of the way that older players talk scoring is way more spread out than it used to. It used to be the best players would dominate so hard. Do we need to look at the players differently? Will any players who are playing today live up to the HOF standard? Who knows? What do you think it would have taken for Freeman to have gotten more than two votes other than himself. Who did you vote for and why? Is there any player that should have been up here more than another? These are all questions that are interesting and a little confusing? Do you care about PIM at all?

If you are still here thank you for reading and hopefully enjoying this article. 

 

 

1611 Words 

[rjfryman 1,120]

Week 2

With Last Doubles Week https://vhlforum.com/topic/2451-vhl-donation-index/?do=findComment&comment=704880

[rjfryman 1,120]

Week 3 and Last Claim