Kyle Quincey is Harvey Dent
| 08 Nov 2010
I can't remember a player ever having the kind of season Kyle Quincey is having. I imagine that every play he makes is like like the old cartoon Angel & Devil siting on his shoulder giving him play options, and he just picks one of their suggestions at random every time. (By the way, in this scenario The Angel is obviously wearing his Avs sweater, and the Devil is wearing the jersey of the team that didn't want him).
Anyways, Kyle Quincey is having one hell of a dichotomous season with the Avs.
On one hand: Kyle Quincey has zero points, despite being on the first defensive unit. He's the only player whose played in all 13 games this season to have not registered a point yet. Scott Hannan has 3 assists so far. To go with the scoring drought, Quincey also has had a couple of dismal games that stick out like sore thumbs this season. Scoring droughts, inconsistent play sprinkled with horrendous performances is the perfect recipe for fans to notice, and not in a good way. He seems to have regressed on his outlet passing quite a bit.
More after the jump
However, there are some indications that Quincey isn't having quite as bad a season as it appears. He's 8th on the team in shooting (2nd among defensemen). So, on some level, he's been a bit unlucky not to get any points. For example, Liles (who's been terrific by the way) has exactly 4 more shots than Quincey, yet he had a 10 game point streak (all assists) to start the season.
I think more importantly: Kyle Quincey (along with his partner Scott Hannan) are, in general, driving possession in the Avs favor. In fact Quincey is 4th on the Avs in SF/60 (shots for/ 60 minutes) at a sparkling 35.7. His shots against per 60 (SA/60) is 29.6 which means that he's ~ +6 in shots/60. That's an excellent indicator that he's driving possesion in favor of the Avs. Not only that, his Quality of Competition is pretty high (.279, second on the team) and his Guality of Teammates is low (-0.199). I've noticed recently that Hannan and Quincey are sent out often when the 4th line is out there, as support for the young forwards.
Quincey has had a very mediocre season to this point, and he's been up and down all season. One minute he's making a solid play, while the next he's making a boneheaded one. He needs to play better in order for the Avs to be better. However, he's catching quite a bit of flak out there for some of his play, and some of it has gone off the deep end. He's a good player going through a small slump. Let's not run him out of town just yet.