Tom Gilbert Scoring Chances 2010-2011

Tom Gilbert is a Wuss! It takes more courage to step in front of a 230 pound guy, than a 8 oz hockey puck.
Besides, blocking that many shots suggests he is often out of position, or isn’t covering his man. Blocking shots as a dman is usually a desperate / last resort play. Let the goalie play the shot, worry about the rebound or the man attacking the rebound.

You can come up with all the stats you want. Tom Gilbert is seen him bad. I have never seen anyone have so many blatant give aways in my life. He is responsible for most of the goals that he is on the ice for. You can’t have a defenseman who is such a liability in his own zone.

My worry all the time is that they will finally run him out of town and then everyone will wonder why we can’t get a solid D-man to handle the toughs and get the puck moving in the right direction.

I agree with you that Tom Gilbert is a good hockey player. His team scoring chance numbers are strong, and his Neilson numbers (individual scoring chance plus/minus at even strength) are even better.

They indicate that Gilbert played at about the same level as Ryan Whitney this year (though Whitney had much better luck and slightly more skill when it came to actually helping to score and prevent goals).

I’m not so sure that Joni Pitkanen was so strong as Gilbert, though. Now, I didn’t record Neilson numbers that year, nor did anyone else (except possibly the Oilers themselves), so I don’t know what his scoring chances plus/minus was.

But Pitkanen sure made a lot of mistakes that directly led to goals against. I wasn’t a fan.

This is just an opinion, not backed up by any numbers, but Pitkanen seemed to lack hockey sense, especially in comparison to players like Whitney or Gilbert. He was too often caught watching the play in his own zone, not checking a man or covering anyone.

I’d choose Whitney or Gilbert over Pitkanen.

P.S. It’s also worth nothing that outside of one terrible streak of games, from games 13 to 22 in the season, as I recall, Gilbert’s Neilson numbers and individual goals plus/minus were outstanding. If he can avoid this kind of defensive slump that has plagued him in each of his NHL seasons, Gilbert can take his game to a new level.

He’s still a young veteran d-man, just entering his real prime, so I’m betting he can do so.
I’d hate it if he was traded.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Red Wings tried prying Gilbert out of the Oilers as a Rafalski replacement.

Nick Lidstrom would be booed out of Edmonton.

Hall and company need defensemen who can move the puck more than anything else, even a true #1 centre, which is why Larsson should be the pick.

are the differences between players playing with gilbert and without gilbert statistically significant? I do see that they tend to be higher with Gilbert, but can you say that without a doubt none of these differences are due to chance events? Some of those differences are so close it makes me wonder if any of these numbers have any weight to them. Of course iam not very familiar with this particular metric, so i cant really gague gilberts performance effectively here anyway.

Also a comparable would be nice, maybe from another team or heck even Ryan whitney would be nice because i dont see anyone trying to run him outta town.