[Signing] Capitals sign Ethan Bear 2 Years 2.0625 AAV

[Tusk]

3 minutes ago, Miss Korea said:

I disagree.  I think he would've at least received a qualifying offer as a bottom four RD.  Which is what he is.  I think it's pretty well accepted (even here) that we let him walk because of his shoulder injury.  Bear moved the puck decently and played okay defence in his own end, even in a losing season.  Despite playing with Hughes half the time, he still put up solid metrics the other half when paired with OEL.  When he did play with Hughes, he put up far better metrics than Luke Schenn.  At the end of the day, Bear is on another team and we have sufficiently replaced him, so it is what it is.  But I do honestly believe he can help Washington make the playoffs.

 

Regarding the assertion that this team is built for the playoffs... I think that's missing the point of our success this year.  For the first time in forever, the Canucks are actually a good regular season team.  We have been told year in, year out that the Canucks are a playoff team, only to fall at the first (most important) hurdle of actually winning regular season games.  Being big and physical means absolutely nothing if the team only bags 80 points.  Maybe we are a playoff team, or maybe we aren't.  What's most important is that we're winning games every week.

Looking at the RFA's and UFA's and what some people want to pay everyone, this is the only window.  This is the year. With some puck luck we are the best team this year that is still cap compliant, we gotta start shreding in july to keep our core so lets enjoy this next 6 months! Happy 2024 memories everyone!

 

[Gawdzukes]

16 minutes ago, EdgarM said:

I think your view of this is the part where many of us differ. Solid as in, he is adequate for what he did last year? Well it wasn't the playoffs and the group was pretty bad for the most part so he did OK , considering the circumstances.

If you look at our group now, we are big, and physical, aside from Hughes and Hronek who are our offensive threats. 

We are built for the playoffs and we have no room for a smaller , non-physical , defenseman who doesn't have very much offensive threat. 

He is one +king for key pieces to the puzzle.

He was never going to be a part of that once we acquired Hronek, end of story.

 

I totally agree this is a key. Yeah, he arguably played slightly better than most of our other crappy defenders but that's not saying much either. He was also part of one of the worst defense's in history on a complete non playoff team. The only one that gets a pass is Hughes, he's one of the best defenceman in the game. The others deserve no credit for their play last year. Just the opposite. It was truly horrifying. I think the fans expectations are just incredibly low after the last decade and that's where the difference in thinking comes from.

 

We simply couldn't afford to be taking $2 mil shots in the dark at this point in the franchise. I can't imagine to many people penciling in Bear as a starter on their SC contender teams.

[Miss Korea]

54 minutes ago, Gawdzukes said:

 

That's why I want you to explain exactly what they're saying so I'll be more knowledgeable and accurate. I don't want to be dismissive. It's just at the end of the day they won't change what I saw while watching him with my own eyes either, but maybe it will help me understand why people keep saying he's a decent defender when i just don't see any of it. The chart seems to indicate he's poor defensively with a 58% defence and 17% pk. Isn't that bad?

 

Like maybe if it says he clears the puck a lot or something I can agree but still say yeah it doesn't eliminate all the horrible giveaways he made and lack of coverage in his own end, or does this chart somehow explain that and I just can't read it properly?

 

I'm also real curious about the offence stuff. His offence seems pretty crappy to me so I'm confused by those ratings too. They seem way too high. I'd have them at about 50%, but maybe it's calculated in some weird fashion. I'm interested to learn.

 

Alright I'll bite, but this is like you telling an astronaut you think space is "silly" and it "sucks", but then asking how a rocket works.

 

The WAR cards use percentiles based on all the players in the league.  Officially, the EV defence metric is defined as "The estimated value a player provides based on his impact on scoring chances against (xGoals Against) when he's on ice at even strength.  Out of all the defencemen, Bear had an EV defensive rating of 58%.  So compared to every other defenceman in the league, his defensive impact at even strength was calculated to be in the 58th percentile.  That is pretty good - better than half the other guys in the NHL.

 

If you want to break that number down, there's more to look at by using Natural Stat Trick.  Whenever Bear was on the ice, whether with Quinn Hughes or Oliver Ekman-Larsson (his two primary partners), he made the team and his mate better.  Quinn Hughes' xGF% goes down without Bear (51.12 --> 48.71).  OEL's xGF% goes way down without Bear (50.72 --> 42.76).  On an individual basis, all of Bear's ratios (ie. scoring chances for/against, expected goals for/against, high-danger chances for/against) are all above 50%, which means he's generating enough offense while suppressing the opponent.  Compare that to someone like Luke Schenn, who also played tons of minutes with Hughes, but all his metrics were well below the 50% mark.  Schenn was actually a very risky defender with us last year, but he hit everything like a jackhammer and his scoring rate was unnaturally high.  Here is Schenn's card at the time he was traded to Toronto, compared to Bear:

 

 

 

When people knock Bear's puck-moving or defensive abilities, I look at it this way...  If I do everything right as a player offensively but you fail to score, we both get zeroes on the statsheet.  If I do everything right defensively and you do everything wrong, and then Demko still makes a save, we still both get zeroes on the statsheet.  Hopefully, the analytics can more accurately capture the difference in our quality.  The defensive job of a defenceman is firstly to prevent zone entry (ie. don't let the guy walk in).  Then it's to actually prevent scoring chances through shot suppression.  Finally, it's a defenceman's job to retrieve the puck and get it safely out of the zone.  Offensively, it's the same idea applied the other way.  All of that can be quantified, to varying levels of accuracy.  I do not have Bear's numbers from Vancouver but I'm assuming they're close to how he performed in Carolina:

 

 

Now, you can choose to take these numbers or leave it.  It doesn't really matter because #1: Bear's gone - he's not on our team anymore.  And #2: this isn't a perfect system.  There are a handful of really smart statisticians on this forum who disagree with the methodology of JFresh's WAR cards.  But ultimately, it's a fun and different way to analyze hockey that tries to cut through any biases we might have.  For the record, my own personal assessment of Bear on the Canucks roughly matches up with the metrics that he produced.

[EdgarM]

12 hours ago, Miss Korea said:

I disagree.  I think he would've at least received a qualifying offer as a bottom four RD.  Which is what he is.  I think it's pretty well accepted (even here) that we let him walk because of his shoulder injury.  Bear moved the puck decently and played okay defence in his own end, even in a losing season.  Despite playing with Hughes half the time, he still put up solid metrics the other half when paired with OEL.  When he did play with Hughes, he put up far better metrics than Luke Schenn.  At the end of the day, Bear is on another team and we have sufficiently replaced him, so it is what it is.  But I do honestly believe he can help Washington make the playoffs.

 

Regarding the assertion that this team is built for the playoffs... I think that's missing the point of our success this year.  For the first time in forever, the Canucks are actually a good regular season team.  We have been told year in, year out that the Canucks are a playoff team, only to fall at the first (most important) hurdle of actually winning regular season games.  Being big and physical means absolutely nothing if the team only bags 80 points.  Maybe we are a playoff team, or maybe we aren't.  What's most important is that we're winning games every week.

Bear said himself he liked Washington because they showed they "wanted" him. I don't think we sent him any message after last season to indicate we were going to sign him. Maybe after the fact and probably because we were dealing with injuries and he became a plan "B". 

The end interviews last year he looked pissed off and disinterested in the questions from the media. I got the feeling he didn't think he was coming back. We also went out and purposefully acquired "Big" defenseman. I don't think this was by accident. We wanted to get bigger and more physical "crease clearing" defenseman.

 

We are successful now because we have guys doing their actual job most nights. Forechecking, backchecking, blocking shots and finishing checks. We are being a little more physical then we have in the past, we are doing the staples we neglected for years before. Boeser is a big example of that. The guy has done a complete 180 from years past. 

We played a skilled game for so many years that we forgot about all of the other things a hockey team needs to be successful. Torts tried to tell us years ago but nobody wanted to hear it. Tocchet is finally doing what Torts tried to do, only he is getting the players to buy in this time.

[aGENT]

33 minutes ago, EdgarM said:

Maybe after the fact and probably because we were dealing with injuries and he became a plan "B". 

The end interviews last year he looked pissed off and disinterested in the questions from the media. I got the feeling he didn't think he was coming back.

We also went out and purposefully acquired "Big" defenseman. I don't think this was by accident. We wanted to get bigger and more physical "crease clearing" defenseman.

 

I think he was actually the plan for if we'd been able to move Myers this past offseason (or towards this TDL if Bear was maybe going to take longer to get healthy). Bear would have made a great (arguably better, more complementary) partner to any of those "bigger, physical" D we also added (and needed) in Cole, Soucy (and then Zadorov).

 

33 minutes ago, EdgarM said:

We are successful now because we have guys doing their actual job most nights. Forechecking, backchecking, blocking shots and finishing checks. We are being a little more physical then we have in the past, we are doing the staples we neglected for years before. Boeser is a big example of that. The guy has done a complete 180 from years past. 

We played a skilled game for so many years that we forgot about all of the other things a hockey team needs to be successful. Torts tried to tell us years ago but nobody wanted to hear it. Tocchet is finally doing what Torts tried to do, only he is getting the players to buy in this time.

 

Actual systems and F puck support is the other HUGE reason (beyond roster construction) for our turnaround in the standings this season.

[Gawdzukes]

11 hours ago, Miss Korea said:

 

Alright I'll bite, but this is like you telling an astronaut you think space is "silly" and it "sucks", but then asking how a rocket works.

 

The WAR cards use percentiles based on all the players in the league.  Officially, the EV defence metric is defined as "The estimated value a player provides based on his impact on scoring chances against (xGoals Against) when he's on ice at even strength.  Out of all the defencemen, Bear had an EV defensive rating of 58%.  So compared to every other defenceman in the league, his defensive impact at even strength was calculated to be in the 58th percentile.  That is pretty good - better than half the other guys in the NHL.

 

If you want to break that number down, there's more to look at by using Natural Stat Trick.  Whenever Bear was on the ice, whether with Quinn Hughes or Oliver Ekman-Larsson (his two primary partners), he made the team and his mate better.  Quinn Hughes' xGF% goes down without Bear (51.12 --> 48.71).  OEL's xGF% goes way down without Bear (50.72 --> 42.76).  On an individual basis, all of Bear's ratios (ie. scoring chances for/against, expected goals for/against, high-danger chances for/against) are all above 50%, which means he's generating enough offense while suppressing the opponent.  Compare that to someone like Luke Schenn, who also played tons of minutes with Hughes, but all his metrics were well below the 50% mark.  Schenn was actually a very risky defender with us last year, but he hit everything like a jackhammer and his scoring rate was unnaturally high.  Here is Schenn's card at the time he was traded to Toronto, compared to Bear:

 

 

 

When people knock Bear's puck-moving or defensive abilities, I look at it this way...  If I do everything right as a player offensively but you fail to score, we both get zeroes on the statsheet.  If I do everything right defensively and you do everything wrong, and then Demko still makes a save, we still both get zeroes on the statsheet.  Hopefully, the analytics can more accurately capture the difference in our quality.  The defensive job of a defenceman is firstly to prevent zone entry (ie. don't let the guy walk in).  Then it's to actually prevent scoring chances through shot suppression.  Finally, it's a defenceman's job to retrieve the puck and get it safely out of the zone.  Offensively, it's the same idea applied the other way.  All of that can be quantified, to varying levels of accuracy.  I do not have Bear's numbers from Vancouver but I'm assuming they're close to how he performed in Carolina:

 

 

Now, you can choose to take these numbers or leave it.  It doesn't really matter because #1: Bear's gone - he's not on our team anymore.  And #2: this isn't a perfect system.  There are a handful of really smart statisticians on this forum who disagree with the methodology of JFresh's WAR cards.  But ultimately, it's a fun and different way to analyze hockey that tries to cut through any biases we might have.  For the record, my own personal assessment of Bear on the Canucks roughly matches up with the metrics that he produced.

 

Well I thank you for taking the time to make the explanation. So it seems like it's more of a snapshot of how their play went. It measures stuff like expected goals for and against which is a measure of how many shots they get on net vs how many they give up or something. I think that's my biggest problem with advanced stats. It measures one thing and tries to extrapolate something else with it.

 

It also doesn't account for the different strengths of individual plays. A player can be on the ice for less shots for and more against and yet still be a better player than the guy next to him who had more shots for and less shots against. It's lacking so much context. That's why I like to watch all the plays myself and determine if they were good plays and bad plays. It just feels like these types of stats miss so much. It also doesn't penalize the player for (big) mistakes, which to me is the number one factor in what makes a good defenceman.

 

I also I noted that he created some offensive chances nicely as well, but in the end he only scored 3 goals and helped on 13 others. It didn't come that close for me to outweighing his inability to cover in his own end or all the poor passes he gave up under pressure leading to goals. We'll see how he does in Washington. By most accounts he had a good first game.

[The Duke]

14 hours ago, Miss Korea said:

 

Alright I'll bite, but this is like you telling an astronaut you think space is "silly" and it "sucks", but then asking how a rocket works.

 

The WAR cards use percentiles based on all the players in the league.  Officially, the EV defence metric is defined as "The estimated value a player provides based on his impact on scoring chances against (xGoals Against) when he's on ice at even strength.  Out of all the defencemen, Bear had an EV defensive rating of 58%.  So compared to every other defenceman in the league, his defensive impact at even strength was calculated to be in the 58th percentile.  That is pretty good - better than half the other guys in the NHL.

 

If you want to break that number down, there's more to look at by using Natural Stat Trick.  Whenever Bear was on the ice, whether with Quinn Hughes or Oliver Ekman-Larsson (his two primary partners), he made the team and his mate better.  Quinn Hughes' xGF% goes down without Bear (51.12 --> 48.71).  OEL's xGF% goes way down without Bear (50.72 --> 42.76).  On an individual basis, all of Bear's ratios (ie. scoring chances for/against, expected goals for/against, high-danger chances for/against) are all above 50%, which means he's generating enough offense while suppressing the opponent.  Compare that to someone like Luke Schenn, who also played tons of minutes with Hughes, but all his metrics were well below the 50% mark.  Schenn was actually a very risky defender with us last year, but he hit everything like a jackhammer and his scoring rate was unnaturally high.  Here is Schenn's card at the time he was traded to Toronto, compared to Bear:

 

 

 

When people knock Bear's puck-moving or defensive abilities, I look at it this way...  If I do everything right as a player offensively but you fail to score, we both get zeroes on the statsheet.  If I do everything right defensively and you do everything wrong, and then Demko still makes a save, we still both get zeroes on the statsheet.  Hopefully, the analytics can more accurately capture the difference in our quality.  The defensive job of a defenceman is firstly to prevent zone entry (ie. don't let the guy walk in).  Then it's to actually prevent scoring chances through shot suppression.  Finally, it's a defenceman's job to retrieve the puck and get it safely out of the zone.  Offensively, it's the same idea applied the other way.  All of that can be quantified, to varying levels of accuracy.  I do not have Bear's numbers from Vancouver but I'm assuming they're close to how he performed in Carolina:

 

 

Now, you can choose to take these numbers or leave it.  It doesn't really matter because #1: Bear's gone - he's not on our team anymore.  And #2: this isn't a perfect system.  There are a handful of really smart statisticians on this forum who disagree with the methodology of JFresh's WAR cards.  But ultimately, it's a fun and different way to analyze hockey that tries to cut through any biases we might have.  For the record, my own personal assessment of Bear on the Canucks roughly matches up with the metrics that he produced.

Yeah. My eye test from last year supported this as well.   It was nothing flashy, he just seemed to be good at getting the puck out of our zone with enough skill to not look out of place in the o zone.  He was fast and could play chippy enough despite being listed at a reasonable 5’11 197.
 

I didn’t watch all the games down the stretch so maybe there were some glaring mistakes people are remembering but from my POV he was solid and a breath of fresh air from the moment he was acquired.  

 

Plus, they featured him in the season ticket holder offseason messaging - I think the plan was to keep him around, and why not?  He’s a righty signed for a 2 mil AAV which is almost 2 mil less than anyone else on our back end besides Juulsen.  Perfect guy to pair with Soucy on a legit 16-18 min 3rd pair for a palatable 5-6 mil AAV. 

Edited January 2 by The Duke

[Miss Korea]

3 hours ago, Gawdzukes said:

 

Well I thank you for taking the time to make the explanation. So it seems like it's more of a snapshot of how their play went. It measures stuff like expected goals for and against which is a measure of how many shots they get on net vs how many they give up or something. I think that's my biggest problem with advanced stats. It measures one thing and tries to extrapolate something else with it.

 

It also doesn't account for the different strengths of individual plays. A player can be on the ice for less shots for and more against and yet still be a better player than the guy next to him who had more shots for and less shots against. It's lacking so much context. That's why I like to watch all the plays myself and determine if they were good plays and bad plays. It just feels like these types of stats miss so much. It also doesn't penalize the player for (big) mistakes, which to me is the number one factor in what makes a good defenceman.

 

I also I noted that he created some offensive chances nicely as well, but in the end he only scored 3 goals and helped on 13 others. It didn't come that close for me to outweighing his inability to cover in his own end or all the poor passes he gave up under pressure leading to goals. We'll see how he does in Washington. By most accounts he had a good first game.

I feel like you're dismissing Bear's metrics because they don't line up with your opinion.  Which is fine - you're entitled to it, and there are enough people here that agree with your assessment of Bear.

 

There are also a bunch of people here who disagree, who think that he was a solid player on both sides of the ice no matter who he played with.  Not a great player by any means, but certainly worth the $2M price tag.

 

Pure point production is a limited way to understand a player's ability to generate offense.  You can have an absolutely great game on both ends of the ice and have nothing to show for it, or you can have a horrendous game but have some lucky bounces.  Ian Cole is a great example of this.  He has 5 assists and no goals this season.  On that number alone one would think he is some kind of pure shutdown defenceman.  But he actually moves the puck forward surprisingly well.  Defensively, he tends to pass the puck out which limits his chances of getting 2nd assists.  Offensively he keeps the play alive by passing down, which once again limits his scoring chances.  But he makes good plays more often than not.  His finishing metric is obviously low but you have to see past that.  Damon Severson is also another prime example of a puck-moving defenceman who doesn't necessarily score a ton of points, but is the best at what he does.

 

 

 

By the way, Ethan Bear's takeaway/giveaway ratio last year was actually second only to Quinn Hughes.  Better than Schenn, Myers, OEL.  I don't think it's a useful metric, but since you're the one who brought it up, I just thought you should know that Bear performed a lot better than what you're giving him credit for.  The easier thing for you would be to relent and admit that a couple mistakes heavily skewed your impression of him.  I watched the same games you did and I thought he was pretty good.  The only difference is that I have the stats to prove it.

[Rekker]

Bear with the assist. 

[Bure_Pavel]

Through 8 games he has 1 assist and is -6. Glad he didnt choose the Canucks, he is likely a write off this year because of his injury. He may come back strong next season but at 2 million too much risk when we are focused on this season. 

Edited January 15 by Bure_Pavel

[Gawdzukes]

On 1/15/2024 at 1:06 PM, Bure_Pavel said:

Through 8 games he has 1 assist and is -6. Glad he didnt choose the Canucks, he is likely a write off this year because of his injury. He may come back strong next season but at 2 million too much risk when we are focused on this season. 

 

Yup, looks like a huge pile of blah. I'm also glad our sights are set higher than this type of player.  He is once again a rather mediocre contributor on a losing team. This is the type of player no good team wants but crappy teams will slot in to take up a spot until something better can be done. Averages about 17min a night, doesn't help produce goals and doesn't stop them at a great rate either. On pace to be -65 over an 82 game schedule.