Player Evaluation: Jamal Mayers

I love Mayers on the hawks, I do think he has enough talent to play 3rd line but we dont have a 4th line center to replace him.

I love Mayers on the hawks, I do think he has enough talent to play 3rd line but we dont have a 4th line center to replace him.

If Mayers couldn't get the puck moving in the right direction against other 4th liners, what makes you think he'd stand a chance against an opponent's 1st line?

When Bolly's out of the lineup, the 3rd line doesn't even sniff the opps top line. Q plays 1's vs 1's, etc in those situations. 3C is basically the most important position in Q's system. I honestly don't mean this to sound offensive, but I think that moving Mayers to 3C would be the single worst move Q could make since joining the Hawks.

I think Mayers is a great character guy and an obvious fan favorite, but he's a step down in class compared to the talent level of the rest of the team. Plus, Q can't afford to (but probably will) ice both Bollig and Mayers simultaneously. And FO wins are nice, but overrated. Statistically it take about 100 net FO wins to equal 1 extra goal.

I'd personally prefer Kruger at 4C and Mayers rotating in at wing. He can still take draws from there. Aside from FOs, he's just not effective down the middle.

If Mayers couldn't get the puck moving in the right direction against other 4th liners, what makes you think he'd stand a chance against an opponent's 1st line?

When Bolly's out of the lineup, the 3rd line doesn't even sniff the opps top line. Q plays 1's vs 1's, etc in those situations. 3C is basically the most important position in Q's system. I honestly don't mean this to sound offensive, but I think that moving Mayers to 3C would be the single worst move Q could make since joining the Hawks.

I think Mayers is a great character guy and an obvious fan favorite, but he's a step down in class compared to the talent level of the rest of the team. Plus, Q can't afford to (but probably will) ice both Bollig and Mayers simultaneously. And FO wins are nice, but overrated. Statistically it take about 100 net FO wins to equal 1 extra goal.

I'd personally prefer Kruger at 4C and Mayers rotating in at wing. He can still take draws from there. Aside from FOs, he's just not effective down the middle.

Mayers isn't a 3rd line winger. The Hawks have come to far with depth to do that. Put Shaw and Bickell with Bolland. All 3 have good skill and can grind it out too.

Mayers is a typical 4th line journeyman. Great on faceoffs, hustles his ass off, good defensively. Offensively, he's crappy.

Mayers was not brought here to be an offensive threat.

no way face off wins are overrated. i think its one of the few important stats and one which correlates with wins and loses. crazy? maybe. but the game is all about puck possession in my opinion.

Mayers was brought in for his offensive threats

He threatened all the white women in Chicago.

You're not getting it. You're arguing about singular events. Of course it's better to win each "individual" FO, but no one actually does that. In the macro, FOs aren't very important because 85% of teams are within 2% of average.

You use special teams draws as your example, yet Mayers only won 4 - count 'em 4 - more FOs on special teams than he lost.

And here's where the argument comes back to bite ya. Since puck possession IS important, and in your opinion, having a guy who's good at FOs is important and = possession, then why did Mayers have the worst Corsi rating on the team - even though he faced by far the the easiest quality of competition on the team?

So in reality, the fact Mayers won so many FOs at EV implies that he's even worse than his stats showed. Because winning that many draws against shitty competition, there's no way he shouldn't have dominated. And instead, it was completely the opposite. Good character guy, drops the gloves, smart player, but an AHL level skater.

Also, he was the worst PK forward on the team, even though he was on the ice for the best FO% on the team. Something doesn't add up!

And "Which one of those teams plays a puck possession game like CHI?" Didn't you just state that FOs = puck possession?? Chicago wasn't even in the top 10 in FO%, yet they were one the best possession teams in the league. MIN, CBJ, and CAR were in the top 10, yet they were 3 of the 4 worst puck possession teams in the league. TOR was also a bottom 10 possession team. No correlation.

Then why not just put 5 defenceman on the ice the last minute of a game, if the FO isn't important, come the end of the year due to the "Money Ball" fanatics? I mean, just base an entire team on some Corsi ratings, and you should win the Cup based on some sort of computer geeks flow chart.

As someone that has played, and coached...I know the value of winning draws in either zone. Ask any player thats ever played the game that simple question. If some "Corsi" computer generated "facts" says differently, so be it. If "Corsi" ever laced the skates up and lost a draw, had to chase the puck to try to gain possession - I would listen to it.

And yes, if you win a faceoff - you get possession of the puck. Not sure sure what's hard to get there. The difference is, TOR, CAR, MIN and CLB do NOT play a puck possession game. If you watch the games, you can notice teams systems, tatics, strategies. Hawks tend to have more a more mobile defence who skate/pass/catch the plays well. You see, those other teams - don't. It's not their style of play or system. Did the Corsi ratings take in effect the skill or style of play the coaches want their teams to play? A dump and chase/north and south team isn't going to have the same time of possession - regardless of face off wins/losses.