Article: Where Does Zeev Buium Stand In the Calder Race?

[Benjamin Marois]

View full article

[Citizen Strife]

Hutson got with 66 points and a -2.  I get why Buium's defense is scary, but taking him off primary PP minutes really shortchanges his biggest strengths.  

Sure, expecting him to end up at 70-80 points is a bit much, but this team needs to outscore its defensive problems.

Note: the whole defense is at fault for this situation, not just Buium.

[Dean]

Nanne was on K fan talking about wild d not being physical. They said Billy made a comment you can’t expect a guy who’s not a hitter to start hitting. Like Nanne said. Checking is a part of hockey!  It’s the easiest thing to teach. You don’t need to kill guys but make contact.  . It takes  opponents out of the play or delays opponents. Which in turn kills plays our causes chaos in what the other team is trying to do. So why is it a part of hockey and is one of the easiest things to teach yet the wild don’t do it?  It’s what wins in the playoffs  yet we don’t do it or value it.  
    Zeev seems to have offensive upside but defensively he’s calen addison . Looking at jiricek being a 5 year pro and so bad defensively, it makes you wonder can or will Zeev ever get it defensively. Neither one is physical and neither one can play d at this point . Is  defense really something that can be taught at this age of these prospects?  Or is Zeev one dimensional? I haven’t seen enough to form an opinion but sure sounds a lot like the Addison stuff already as far as hyping before he delivers 

[Enforceror]

8 minutes ago, Dean said:

Nanne was on K fan talking about wild d not being physical. They said Billy made a comment you can’t expect a guy who’s not a hitter to start hitting. Like Nanne said. Checking is a part of hockey!  It’s the easiest thing to teach. You don’t need to kill guys but make contact.  . It takes  opponents out of the play or delays opponents. Which in turn kills plays our causes chaos in what the other team is trying to do. So why is it a part of hockey and is one of the easiest things to teach yet the wild don’t do it?  It’s what wins in the playoffs  yet we don’t do it or value it.  
    Zeev seems to have offensive upside but defensively he’s calen addison . Looking at jiricek being a 5 year pro and so bad defensively, it makes you wonder can or will Zeev ever get it defensively. Neither one is physical and neither one can play d at this point . Is  defense really something that can be taught at this age of these prospects?  Or is Zeev one dimensional? I haven’t seen enough to form an opinion but sure sounds a lot like the Addison stuff already as far as hyping before he delivers 

I think the difference with Zeev is he's a very smart player....and he's still very young. 

I really do think we'll be seeing improvements throughout the year. Time will tell.

[MNCountryLife]

14 hours ago, Dean said:

Zeev seems to have offensive upside but defensively he’s calen addison

I disagree with this completely.  Addison had no defense at all.  I think Buium does an adequate job on D.  Not perfect.. .but he is learning.  His movement with the puck is better than Addison ever had and he is smart enough to know when to engage and when to hang back (most of the time)... still learning.

His negative stat is actually better than Spurgeon's and Foligno's. Two players that have prided themselves on their D-zone play in the past.  This entire team has a D-zone problem that needs to be fixed.

[mnfaninnc]

15 hours ago, Dean said:

So why is it a part of hockey and is one of the easiest things to teach yet the wild don’t do it?  It’s what wins in the playoffs  yet we don’t do it or value it.  
    Zeev seems to have offensive upside but defensively he’s calen addison .

The top part of this comment is real, and it is about playing the "right way" which is always preached by the Wild coaching staff. Put another way, if you are not checking, you are not playing the game the right way. Now, there's checking and then there's Foligno type obliterating. We're not asking for Foligno bombs by everyone, but we are asking for them to take the body and not get mesmerized by the puck. 

The 2nd part of the highlighted comment I cannot agree with. The results look very similar: -8 in 10 games. However, Addison had no interest in playing defense, was allergic to body contact initiated by himself, and when he got beat on rushes he turned around and loafed back.

Buium I have seen rub guys out, give an effort to defend and battle. While the results look similar, I see a whole different attitude with Buium than Addison. Addison could have acclimated to the NHL defending, but he ignored advice from Spurgeon, and in his 2nd year showed little to no improvement in his deficiencies. Buium, on the other hand, looks like he is learning and really has to get up to speed on the NHL moves. The opponents have gotten him several times, but it does look like he learns from that and won't let a lot of it happen again. 

Am I advocating this comment?

Quote

Buium continues to do an excellent job defensively. He rarely gets caught in his own zone by turnovers, loves to jump into the rush, and carries the puck confidently through the neutral zone. The Wild have long struggled to generate offense from the back end, but with Buium, they finally have a young gem on defense.

No, he is often caught out of position and hasn't done an excellent job defensively, thus the -8. He's been with Spurgeon the most through the 10 games. We know what Spurgy can do defensively, to suggest that Spurgy might be the reason for the -8 is a bit of a reach.

But throughout the 10 games so far, I am noticing that the Wild defenders are not packing the inside. They are chasing the perimeter which is exactly what the opposition is looking for. This is a flaw that they need to fix. Our goalies are good enough to handle perimeter shots. They are not good enough to handle constant pressure in the home plate area. If you want to help out the goalies, let other teams shoot from the perimeter and snuff out anything in the middle. Whoever's in charge of coaching the defense should see this concept as low hanging fruit. 

[Dis-allowed display name]

Minnesota is fighting for a playoff spot, 

 

Somebody should tell the team.  They don't seem to play like it.

[MNCountryLife]

Zeev

Spurge

Zeev and Spurgeon were line mates in games 1, 2, 3, 4, 7,10 

Zeev and Brodin were line mates in game 8,9 

In games with Spurgeon, Zeev gave up goals of  0,6,1,4,1,1 for a total of 13 goals against.  With 6 games played with Spurgeon that is 2.16 goals average given up with Spurgeon.

In games 8 and 9 with Brodin, Zeev gave up goals of 1 and 1 for an average of 1.

Zeev played without our top two D in games 5,6 and 11.  He gave up goals of 1, 0, and 2.  3 goals in 3 games.  Average of 1 goal against.

This suggests that Zeev is actually playing better defensively when NOT paired with Spurgeon.  His GA average does not change with other players. 

Spurgeon with Zeev is 0,3,2,1,0,2.  8 goals against. 1.3 Goals Against Average.

Spurgeon without Zeev is games 5,6,8,9,11.  His goals against him in those games is 1,0,2,1,2.  6 goals against in 5 games or 1.2 goals against average per game.

All told Zeev has been on the ice for 16 goals and Spurgeon has been on the ice for 15 goals. 

Zeev Average goals against per game is 1.45

Spurgeon average goals against per game is 1.36.

Can we deduce from this that Spurgeon and Zeev do not pair well together.  It is interesting that if you take away the Columbus game all the numbers become extremely close.  But they do suggest that Zeev does not pair well with Spurgeon.  Zeev plays better with a more disciplined d-man partner next to him.  It also suggests that Spurgeon is giving up goals at about the same rate with or without Zeev.  In other words, Zeev is not negatively affecting Spurgeon.

I did this review rather quickly.  Let me know if I got my numbers mixed up.
 

Edited 1 hour ago by MNCountryLife

[MrCheatachu]

22 minutes ago, MNCountryLife said:

 

I did this review rather quickly.  Let me know if I got my numbers mixed up.
 

I've been really impressed with the tools for this over at dobbersports (https://frozenpool.dobbersports.com/players/zeev-buium#lines) for this.  Their website layout kinda sucks with two 'top bars' where the lower 'top bar' has the interesting 'lines' and 'analytics' tabs

Your thesis appears a bit off, as JoBro/BooBro were only paired 5% of the time.

But basically, Zeev + Anybody was better than Zeev + Spurgy...

Num	Time	%	Line	GF	GA	+/-	SF	SA	SF%	CF	CA	CF%
1	86:42	50.4	JARED SPURGEON - ZEEV BUIUM	1	6	-5	31	48	39.2	79	97	44.9
2	28:06	16.3	ZACH BOGOSIAN - ZEEV BUIUM	0	0	0	12	16	42.9	25	28	47.2
3	20:36	12.0	DAVID JIRICEK - ZEEV BUIUM	1	1	0	10	11	47.6	20	18	52.6
4	15:27	9.0	BROCK FABER - ZEEV BUIUM	0	1	-1	9	9	50.0	18	19	48.6
5	8:35	5.0	JONAS BRODIN - ZEEV BUIUM	0	0	0	2	6	25.0	6	9	40.0
6	7:26	4.3	JAKE MIDDLETON - ZEEV BUIUM	1	0	1	3	2	60.0	6	3	66.7
7	4:26	2.6	ZEEV BUIUM	0	3	-3	4	3	57.1	7	5	58.3
8	0:12	0.1	JARED SPURGEON - BROCK FABER - ZEEV BUIUM	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	0	0	0.0
9	0:11	0.1	JARED SPURGEON - JAKE MIDDLETON - ZEEV BUIUM	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	0	0	0.0
10	0:06	0.1	JARED SPURGEON - JONAS BRODIN - ZEEV BUIUM	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	0	0	0.0

Edited 1 hour ago by MrCheatachu
fixed link

[MNCountryLife]

2 minutes ago, MrCheatachu said:

Your thesis appears a bit off, as JoBro/BooBro were only paired 5% of the time.

Thanks for the heads up on dobbersports.  I grabbed the information from NHL.com.  It doesn't account for changes during the game.  

[MrCheatachu]

Just now, MNCountryLife said:

Thanks for the heads up on dobbersports.  I grabbed the information from NHL.com.  It doesn't account for changes during the game.  

Yeah, BooBro/JoBro have only played together for 8:35 min total.  Not sure that's a big enough sample size to make a determination of his ability to play together.

In fact, the only CF% worse than Spurg/Zeev was JoBro/BooBro...

[MNCountryLife]

6 minutes ago, MrCheatachu said:

Yeah, BooBro/JoBro have only played together for 8:35 min total.  Not sure that's a big enough sample size to make a determination of his ability to play together.

In fact, the only CF% worse than Spurg/Zeev was JoBro/BooBro...

according to dobber Zeev plays best with Mids.  Interesting.

[NoJoSux]

19 hours ago, Dean said:

Nanne was on K fan talking about wild d not being physical. They said Billy made a comment you can’t expect a guy who’s not a hitter to start hitting. Like Nanne said. Checking is a part of hockey!  It’s the easiest thing to teach. You don’t need to kill guys but make contact.  . It takes  opponents out of the play or delays opponents. Which in turn kills plays our causes chaos in what the other team is trying to do. So why is it a part of hockey and is one of the easiest things to teach yet the wild don’t do it?  It’s what wins in the playoffs  yet we don’t do it or value it.  
    Zeev seems to have offensive upside but defensively he’s calen addison . Looking at jiricek being a 5 year pro and so bad defensively, it makes you wonder can or will Zeev ever get it defensively. Neither one is physical and neither one can play d at this point . Is  defense really something that can be taught at this age of these prospects?  Or is Zeev one dimensional? I haven’t seen enough to form an opinion but sure sounds a lot like the Addison stuff already as far as hyping before he delivers 

Philly obviously wasn't that high on Buium. He's still very young. 

[mnfaninnc]

48 minutes ago, MNCountryLife said:

Can we deduce from this that Spurgeon and Zeev do not pair well together.  It is interesting that if you take away the Columbus game all the numbers become extremely close.  But they do suggest that Zeev does not pair well with Spurgeon.  Zeev plays better with a more disciplined d-man partner next to him.  It also suggests that Spurgeon is giving up goals at about the same rate with or without Zeev.  In other words, Zeev is not negatively affecting Spurgeon.

We haven't tried Zeev with Faber yet. Would you consider Faber a bit more disciplined as a partner? I would.

My comment on Spurgeon not being the problem is more than this year's body of work. Spurgeon looks like the same player as in year's past. It doesn't appear as if he's lost a step, but the evidence here is clear, Spurgeon and Buium do not look as if they are good pairings, and I will have to take my opinion of this pairing back to the drawing board. 

Just out of curiosity, how does Buium do with Jiricek? I think he's played with him for 3 games. It's not just the goals against, but also the TOI.

Mr. Cheatachu's version shows the TOI together and is a better organized look at it, but with Buium playing with Jiricek, I'm guessing that they weren't on the ice as often. 

Edited 1 hour ago by mnfaninnc

[MNCountryLife]

3 minutes ago, mnfaninnc said:

We haven't tried Zeev with Faber yet. Would you consider Faber a bit more disciplined as a partner? I would.

My comment on Spurgeon not being the problem is more than this year's body of work. Spurgeon looks like the same player as in year's past. It doesn't appear as if he's lost a step, but the evidence here is clear, Spurgeon and Buium do not look as if they are good pairings, and I will have to take my opinion of this pairing back to the drawing board. 

Just out of curiosity, how does Buium do with Jiricek? I think he's played with him for 3 games. It's not just the goals against, but also the TOI.

Based on MrCheatachu's graph, it shows Zeev/Faber have been on the ice for 15 minutes and Zeev/Jiricek 20 minutes.

Zeev/Faber are  +/-  of negative 1 

Zeev/Jiricek are +/- of 0

Zeev is definitely comfortable with both of them. Yes, I would consider Faber a more "At Home" style defender.  Similar to Brodin.  I do think Hynes is sheltering Jiricek a bit.  But Jiricek is a plus/minus of zero.  Not too shabby for a guy that seems to fail the eye test a bit too often.  He may be earning a bit more time from Hynes.

[MrCheatachu]

If you go to the bottom of the Dobbersports site, there's a nifty plot that shows the players corsi for% vs their 'Quality of Competition' metric vs. their offensive zone deployment.

More positive 'Quality of Competition' means you're on the ice with the best players, higher CF% shows you're generating more offense than defense.

• JoBro/Fabes have been paired together so not surprising to see their bubbles close together with similar CF% (Blue color). 
• Jiricek is definitely getting sheltered minutes
• We aint getting many offensive zone starts...I guess i dont understand how the entire team is <50%...that seems to suggest we're not getting much offensive pressure as a team that is winning should.