Patty Kazmaier 2014

[ARM]

I am of the opinion that Hilary Knight spent her Kazmaier year centering the 2nd line, opening the door for Decker to center the first line and win the Kaz. The Badgers were a better team overall for it, but if Knight centers the first line, she wins the Kaz.

Could be, but had Knight spent the whole season on the first line, she's a wing, not a center. When Johnson wanted more offense over Knight's final two seasons, he'd move her up the to first line, but she was one of Decker's wings. The other wing was Duggan during Knight's junior season and Prévost the senior year. Knight also moved onto the first line while Prévost was injured. So you could make a good point that Knight was playing out of position in addition to a line too low. Wisconsin players are often asked to play on a lower line than their talent would dictate, such as Prévost usually being stuck on a third line until her senior season, when was an unsung star on the top line.

 

[robertearle]

Re: Patty Kazmaier 2014

Could be, but had Knight spent the whole season on the first line, she's a wing, not a center. When Johnson wanted more offense over Knight's final two seasons, he'd move her up the to first line, but she was one of Decker's wings. The other wing was Duggan during Knight's junior season and Prévost the senior year. Knight also moved onto the first line while Prévost was injured. So you could make a good point that Knight was playing out of position in addition to a line too low. Wisconsin players are often asked to play on a lower line than their talent would dictate, such as Prévost usually being stuck on a third line until her senior season, when was an unsung star on the top line.

My recollection (as a UW season ticket holder who missed one (?) game all year) is that the 2011-2012 first line was Prevost-Decker-BrookeAmermann, and that Knight was almost always center 2nd line. (Even strength, that is; on first PP, Knight would play one of the points as if a defenseman.) On the rare occasion they were trailing (eg against the Gophers, so maybe that's why you're remembering Johnson would indeed move her up to first line wing. But the vast majority of the time, 2nd line center. Again, unless I'm *greatly* mistaken.

I'm saying that she could have asserted her seniority - both literal and figurative - and switched with Decker, such that Decker would have centered the 2nd line. She didn't, and as I said they were the better for it. But if she had...

 

[ARM]

My recollection (as a UW season ticket holder who missed one (?) game all year) is that the 2011-2012 first line was Prevost-Decker-BrookeAmermann, and that Knight was almost always center 2nd line. (Even strength, that is; on first PP, Knight would play one of the points as if a defenseman.) On the rare occasion they were trailing (eg against the Gophers, so maybe that's why you're remembering Johnson would indeed move her up to first line wing. But the vast majority of the time, 2nd line center. Again, unless I'm *greatly* mistaken.

I'm saying that she could have asserted her seniority - both literal and figurative - and switched with Decker, such that Decker would have centered the 2nd line. She didn't, and as I said they were the better for it. But if she had...

I agree that she almost always started out as center on the second line as you say. But from everything I saw, she was more of a natural wing. Knight is a great finisher, perhaps the best the WCHA has seen, but Decker was a more natural center. Decker plays center on the national team; Knight plays wing. When it was time to bump someone down to the second line, that was usually Brooke Ammerman, not Decker.

 

[wwhyte]

Re: Patty Kazmaier 2014

I agree with you; Karvinen does very well in the intangibles. What is tough in the intangibles is how do I sort those out for players that I don't know nearly as well? I've gotten to watch Karvinen in person a dozen times and have had the pleasure of speaking with her off the ice several times as well. I have nothing negative to say about her. But it is hard to give her full-value for her intangibles when I don't know so many of the candidates nearly as well. For example, I only spoke to Skarupa once, and she was great. I watched her compete in person once, and she was superb. So I'm not willing to go so far as to say it is a travesty if a Skarupa makes the top 10 and Karvinen does not. Just know going in that there are more than 10 players worthy of being recognized as finalists and it is impossible to name everyone that deserves the honor.

I think the Skarupa/Karvinen contrast is interesting. I'm a huge fan of Skarupa, but the Eagles have underperformed this year and North Dakota have if anything slightly overperformed, certainly in being the only team to take the Gophers. Since the Kaz criteria include displaying leadership, I would think that it's hard for a player, no matter how good, on an underperforming team to come through and win it. (So it's a rocky road for Bestland too). If Yale was doing slightly better than it is, this would suggest that Phoebe Staenz would be a possible dark horse candidate. Does that make sense or am I way out of line? Are there examples of Patty Kaz winners from underperforming teams?

 

[ARM]

I think the Skarupa/Karvinen contrast is interesting. I'm a huge fan of Skarupa, but the Eagles have underperformed this year and North Dakota have if anything slightly overperformed, certainly in being the only team to take the Gophers. Since the Kaz criteria include displaying leadership, I would think that it's hard for a player, no matter how good, on an underperforming team to come through and win it. (So it's a rocky road for Bestland too). If Yale was doing slightly better than it is, this would suggest that Phoebe Staenz would be a possible dark horse candidate. Does that make sense or am I way out of line? Are there examples of Patty Kaz winners from underperforming teams?

I disagree that UND is performing better than BC relative to expectations, but that could just be because I thought UND would challenge Minnesota for the WCHA title, more so than Wisconsin. UND is right where the league coaches picked them to be. BC is going to win Hockey East unless they have a meltdown, also as predicted. BC passed UND in the PWR with the UND loss tonight. So if BC is underperforming relative to UND, it isn't by much.

I don't think that any of Karvinen, Staenz, or Skarupa can win the award while sitting on the sidelines (or playing at the Olympics, as the case may be.) Jamie Lee Rattray had a five-point game in Clarkson's 5-0 win at Union. It is hard to match that if you aren't playing. For those three, I think the question centers more on whether or not they can make the top 10.

 

[pokechecker]

Re: Patty Kazmaier 2014

... Records are nice, but to win the Kaz...,

With all this talk about Rigsby & Knight I think you all need a reminder that Natalie Darwitz never won the award and she holds the NCAA record for most points in a season while leading her team to it's 2nd consecutive NCAA championship in addition to being the all time leading scorer at Minnesota. And Raty set every record of importance at goalie while also winning two NCAA in a row and she didn’t win the award either.

 

[brookyone]

Re: Patty Kazmaier 2014

With all this talk about Rigsby & Knight I think you all need a reminder that Natalie Darwitz never won the award and she holds the NCAA record for most points in a season while leading her team to it's 2nd consecutive NCAA championship in addition to being the all time leading scorer at Minnesota. And Raty set every record of importance at goalie while also winning two NCAA in a row and she didn’t win the award either.

Well...probably not everyone needs a reminder.

 

[Hux]

Re: Patty Kazmaier 2014

Article on USA Hockey.com on Quinnipiac's Kelly Babstock.

 

[dave1381]

Re: Patty Kazmaier 2014

With all this talk about Rigsby & Knight I think you all need a reminder that Natalie Darwitz never won the award and she holds the NCAA record for most points in a season while leading her team to it's 2nd consecutive NCAA championship in addition to being the all time leading scorer at Minnesota. And Raty set every record of importance at goalie while also winning two NCAA in a row and she didn’t win the award either.

You wrote this paragraph without mentioning that Agosta is the all-time leading NCAA scorer and never won?

But yes, this just emphasizes the point that it's not a career achievement award.

And then the Darwitz achievements also emphasize the point that it's not an end-of-season award. The Kaz voting happened long before Darwitz set that record and Minnesota won the title. This was also the same season Nicole Corriero set the season goal scoring record and led her team to the NCAA final and didn't even make the final 3, put she did get the much more prestigious ESPY nomination.

 

[pokechecker]

Re: Patty Kazmaier 2014

You wrote this .... is the all-time leading NCAA scorer and never won?

This was also the same season .. set the season goal scoring record

the award is primarily for leadership, leading a team to 2 championships trumps anything a player may accomplish if it doesn't involve leading her team to the pinnacle of the sport.

 

[OnMAA]

Re: Patty Kazmaier 2014

the award is primarily for leadership, leading a team to 2 championships trumps anything a player may accomplish if it doesn't involve leading her team to the pinnacle of the sport.

Read Dave1381 post again....Voting happens long before....

 

[Hux]

Re: Patty Kazmaier 2014

..but she did get the much more prestigious ESPY nomination.

I hope you are being sarcastic. An ESPY is a joke compared to the Patty Kaz.

 

[dave1381]

Re: Patty Kazmaier 2014

I hope you are being sarcastic. An ESPY is a joke compared to the Patty Kaz.

Mostly They're... different. An ESPY nomination means you get attend their gala event, which some might find more fun than the Kaz dinner -- which you get to attend anyway if you make the Frozen Four.

 

[pokechecker]

Re: Patty Kazmaier 2014

Read Dave1381 post again....Voting happens long before....

I thought you were putting me on your ignore list?

OK, I think we have made our point, the players who have NOT won the award are as impressive, if not more so, than those who have won.


maybe get back to the topic of the thread, who are the candidates for this year?

The U of MN goalie, Amanda Leveille, certainly has the stats for it, but since Noora didn't win last year,
hard to envision her winning it this year. And many probably think she's get's to sleep during most of the game anyway.
but she was 4-0 and pitched two shutouts head to head with Rigsby this year

 

[KTDC]

Re: Patty Kazmaier 2014

I thought you were putting me on your ignore list?

OK, I think we have made our point, the players who have NOT won the award are as impressive, if not more so, than those who have won.


maybe get back to the topic of the thread, who are the candidates for this year?

The U of MN goalie, Amanda Leveille, certainly has the stats for it, but since Noora didn't win last year,
hard to envision her winning it this year. And many probably think she's get's to sleep during most of the game anyway.
but she was 4-0 and pitched two shutouts head to head with Rigsby this year

Leveille sure would feel like a dark horse to me. But she's played every game, played well, lost only 1, and played her best games against Wisconsin.

 

[FredsDeadFriend]

Re: Patty Kazmaier 2014

maybe get back to the topic of the thread, who are the candidates for this year?

The U of MN goalie, Amanda Leveille, certainly has the stats for it, but since Noora didn't win last year,
hard to envision her winning it this year. And many probably think she's get's to sleep during most of the game anyway.
but she was 4-0 and pitched two shutouts head to head with Rigsby this year

The thing with Nora last year was she had to compete with Kessel and Bozek, her own teammates for the award, for without those 2 she would have won it.

This year, Amanda doesn't have Kessel or Bozek to compete with, and the scoring load for the team seems to be more spread out between a larger # of players, and everyone knew Raty was a world class goalie so she was expected to do well and some may have questioned whether she only looked at good as she did because of how good all of her teammates were. But a year later and most of the best players on the team being removed via graduation or being invited to the Olympics, I don't know how many people thought that the Gophers would only have 1 loss at this point in the season, and its possibly more clear that Amanda's more than partly responsible for that. She's already got 11 shut outs, with 2 games vs UMD and 2 games vs SCSU guaranteed to be on the schedule that give her the potential to have as many as 14 or 15 shut outs going into the Semis of the WCHA tourney, where she'll probably face UMD again, or an even weaker WCHA foe. What was Raty's NCAA record # of shut outs last year? 16? And she got how many of those before the Semis of the WCHA Conf Tourney?

My point is that Amanda could easily be seen as the biggest reason the Gopher's are the unanimous #1 team in the nation this year. No one forward or defender on the team sticks out the way Kessel or Bozek did last year. The gap between the #1 point scorer for the Gophers and the #10 point scorer for the Gophers on this years team is not as wide as it was last year. The #10 pt scorer for the Gophers this year is tied for 50th in the country.


So unless the selection committee doesn't like that she's only a Sophmore, my guess is that she should have as good a chance of winning as Nora had last year. IMHO

 

[FredsDeadFriend]

Re: Patty Kazmaier 2014

OK, I wrote my last post confident that I knew what I was talking about, but looked it up just to be sure.

Last year, at the conclusion of the season, the Gophers 5th highest pt scorer on the season had 32 pts. This years team already has 5 with 32. Ramsey has 31, Cam has 27, Meghan has 26, Menefee has 25 and Schipper has 24. It's likely that there could be 10 Gophers this year with over 32 pts on the season, compared to 4 last year. But last years team had a 101 pt scorer in Kessel and Brandt had 82, while the top Gopher this year only has 50 pts. The way they all seem to be sharing the load this season, at their current rate of approximately 1.5 pts per game, my guess is that neither Bona or Brandt will breach 70 pts this season.


Now, that just leaves goaltending. I had a suspicion that it wouldn't be fair to count the Minnesota games against Rigsby, as she's only had 23 goals against this season and just as I suspected, just shy of half of those came in her 4 games vs UMn. Also, her only losses on the season came against UMn. And seeing as Amanda doesn't have to go up against the Gophers, is it fair to include those games? On the otherhand, Amanda had to face the #2 ranked team in the nation 4 times, while Rigsby never had to? And Amanda played extremely well vs the #2 team in the nation whereas Rigsby didn't do very well vs #1. Amanda allowed 3 goals in 4 games vs UW, and Rigsby allowed 11 goals in 4 games vs UMn.

And throwing things off a little is the fact that Rigsby is a Sr and they are letting their Frosh Goalie play a lot of games, so unlike Amanda who has to face teams gunning for her back to back nights, where more often than not she shuts them out in the 1st game, only to give up a couple in the 2nd. Teams might be needing one game to figure her out, or maybe after getting shut out they get more fired up the 2nd game, or maybe after shutting them out Amanda relaxs or gets lazy in the 2nd game? I'm no expert, but the pattern was almost 100% before this last weekend series with Wisconsin, which could possibly fit the pattern as well depending on what the explanation for this pattern really is. But that's a different issue. Point is, Rigsby, when she takes a night off, its the Saturday or 2nd game of the series, whereas Amanda plays all of those games and those are where the vast majority of the goals against have come.

Just something to keep in mind.


But in games vs common opponents, it might be interesting to know that

Rigsby vs Mn St she allowed 1 goal in 2 games, Amanda allowed 1 goal in 4 games. Adv Amanda

Rigsby vs SCSU she allowed 1 goal in 1 game, Amanda allowed 5 goals in 4 games. Slight adv Rigsby

Rigsby vs OSU she allowed 5 goals in 4 games, Amanda allowed 5 goals in 4 games. A wash

Rigsby vs UND she allowed 1 goal in 2 games, Amanda allowed 6 goals in 4 games. Adv Rigsby

Rigsby vs UMD she allowed 3 goals in 4 games, Amanda allowed 3 goals in 2 games. Adv Rigsby

Rigsby vs BSU she allowed 1 goal in 1 game, Amanda allowed 6 goals in 4 games. Slight Adv Rigsby

Rigsby vs UMn she allowed 11 goals in 4 games, Amanda allowed 3 goals in 4 games vs UW. Huge Adv Amanda



If you average the games vs common opponents out in a way that can easily be calculated, I come up with

Rigsby with 26 goals against in 21 games and
Amanda with 24 goals against in 21 games.

If you take out each players 4 worst games, the gap becomes even wider, Rigsby has 15 goals against in 17 games and Amanda has 12 goals against in 17 games.


Also of note is that Rigsby has only 5 shut outs in 20 games or 1/4th of her games, whereas Amanda has 11 shut outs in 32 games or over 1/3rd of her games.


And the only way someone can really argue that its simply not fair to include the 4 games Rigsby had to play against the Gophers or that its not fair to pick and choose which 4 games not to include when looking at Amanda's resume, is to make an argument that despite Wisconsin being the #2 ranked team in the country, the gap between UMn and UW is much wider that it would seem. But that would only be true if UMn couldn't lose, but we know that they can and have come very close to losing on several occasions. And since UW fans can't just give the Natl Title to UMn without having to play the games, I don't see any reason to just give the Kaz Award to Rigsby without her having to prove herself, either.




Now as for any other players being excluded from my consideration?! With the Top scorer in the country probably only scoring around 65-70 pts this year, compared to Amanda's 101 last year, it would seem that goalies should get more consideration. I suppose the argument is going to be made that all the best players are playing in Sochi, so goalies have it easier this season, but a lot of those ladies in the olympics are done with college hockey and not all of them were primarily offensive players. And how many of the Top Goalies in the Olympics are coming back to school next year? Any of the Top 4 or 5? Just things to think about.

 

[Hux]

Mostly They're... different. An ESPY nomination means you get attend their gala event, which some might find more fun than the Kaz dinner -- which you get to attend anyway if you make the Frozen Four.

More fun than a fire alarm just before chow time? I think not...unless you are BU and the delay results in you departing before the first tray hits the banquet table.

 

[NMH]

Re: Patty Kazmaier 2014

And throwing things off a little is the fact that Rigsby is a Sr and they are letting their Frosh Goalie play a lot of games, so unlike Amanda who has to face teams gunning for her back to back nights, where more often than not she shuts them out in the 1st game, only to give up a couple in the 2nd. Teams might be needing one game to figure her out, or maybe after getting shut out they get more fired up the 2nd game, or maybe after shutting them out Amanda relaxs or gets lazy in the 2nd game? I'm no expert, but the pattern was almost 100% before this last weekend series with Wisconsin, which could possibly fit the pattern as well depending on what the explanation for this pattern really is. But that's a different issue. Point is, Rigsby, when she takes a night off, its the Saturday or 2nd game of the series, whereas Amanda plays all of those games and those are where the vast majority of the goals against have come.

You're over-estimating how much this happened - I only had a minute to check, but I'm pretty sure Desbiens only started three games when Rigsby wasn't injured. (Desbiens has 10 starts and Rigsby missed 7 full games).

Not really worth mentioning, especially since two were against SCSU and Lindenwood - teams with a combined 8 wins on the season. It's not as though Desbiens was absorbing "hits" for Rigbsy. The last was against a good Northeastern team, but was an exhibition of sorts for UW. Not sure how to count that one in the scheme of things, but I'm not sure it's fair to hold Desbiens' playing against Rigsby.

You make a solid case for Leveille (and I was very impressed with her in Madison last weekend) but this particular part of the argument is wobbly at best.

 

[northhockey]

Re: Patty Kazmaier 2014

Why the argument over which Gopher will win the Kaz? Im sure none of the Gophers players are focused on the Patty.