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How things have changed…

By on March 30th, 2012

As we approach the end of the 2011-12 NHL regular season there will be a lot of analysis and looking back at the past seasons for the Leafs and then looking forward to the off season and beyond but before I get into that, I wanted to reflect how Leaf fans were feeling just one short year ago.

A good starting point for that reflection would be Michael Langlois’ “10 reasons why Leaf fans can feel either encouraged or discouraged” post.  Let’s take a look at some of the reasons for optimism Michael pointed out and how we might feel about them now because I think this time last year more Leaf fans were optimistic than pessimistic.

1. The team, as currently configured, has become a team that is hard to play against.  There are very few teams that are ‘out of reach’ for the Leafs, especially in the East where there is so much parity and talent-thin rosters everywhere.

Tough to play against?  Hardly.  Few teams that are ‘out of reach’ for the Leafs?  Hardly.  The Leafs have a dreadful record against good teams and there are few teams that they can actually expect to beat on a regular basis.

2. For the first time in 20 years, the Leafs have a young goalie who has emerged, with the mental make-up to handle the adversity that he will no doubt face next season and beyond.

Umm, yeah, maybe not.

3. A young defense corps with four emerging players all 26 and under—Schenn, Phaneuf, Aulie and Gunnarsson, with gardiner perhaps waiting in the wings before too long.  There is an almost ideal mix of skating skill, toughness and puck-moving ability.

Well, Gardiner has developed nicely, but Schenn has regressed (from a not very good starting point), and Aulie has been traded away.  And while we can talk about their skating skill, toughness, and puck moving ability, one thing the majority of them have lacked thus far is defensive ability.  Despite the youth, it is pretty difficult to suggest the defense has progressed at all, despite adding Liles and Franson to the mix.

6.  Nazem Kadri appears poised to take that next step, whether as a front-line center or, as Wilson has projected, a winger.  As importantly, he is no longer seemingly the “only” young guy who is in a position to take steps forward as early as next season.  The team is now filled with youngsters, so if one guy steps back or falters, there are others standing by to jump in and compete

Well, Kadri hasn’t taken that next step and it doesn’t appear management has even enough confidence in him to give him a reasonable opportunity to do so.  The team “filled with youngsters” is now the team “filled with youngsters failing to deliver.”  Aulie didn’t show enough to management and got traded.  Kadri hasn’t shown he can take the next step.  Colborne has had an up and down year…with the Marlies.  The only guy who has really taken his opportunity and ran with it is Gardiner.  More and more now we are starting to divert our attention to the next wave of prospects, Blacker, Holzer, McKegg, newly acquired Carter Ashton, etc.

7.  The team should be in a good position, cap-wise, heading into free agency this coming summer.

We don’t know how much the salary cap will rise next year but the Leafs have nearly $58M in cap space committed with Kulemin, Frattin, and Franson to sign as RFA’s.  Cap space will depend on Burke’s ability to trade away some salary or his willingness to dump salary in the AHL.  There isn’t a lot of free cap space available to fill holes in the lineup, and there are plenty of holes to fill.

8.  The re-built Leafs are now one of the youngest (second-youngest, is it?) teams in the NHL.

Their players are a year older now, and very few of them have progressed any.  Plus, it is a bit of a myth that the Leafs are young.  Mostly they are lacking of old players.  The majority of their roster is between age 25 and 30, the prime of their careers.  It’s difficult to suggest that Phaneuf, Lupul, MacArthur, Grabovski, Connolly, Lombardi, Gunnarsson, Kulemin, Komisarek, Crabb, Brown, Steckel, or Liles will improve with age.  More likely the majority of them will regress over the next couple seasons.  Even Kessel is probably approaching his peak and after 4 seasons of being in the League Schenn isn’t showing any signs of improvement.  Any improvement from this team is likely to be coming from external sources (trades, free agent signings, new prospects coming up) and not from natural progression.

To me the most disappointing thing about this season is while a year has gone by very little progress has occurred with the Leafs in any area.  The team is still searching for a goalie (or two), the team is still playing poor team defense, the team still lacks a true shut down defenseman, the team still lacks a #1 center, the team still lacks a dependable checking line, the team still lacks size up front, the team still doesn’t know what they have in Kadri and Colborne (they gave up on Aulie), and we have even less cap space to work with this  upcoming off season (not that any key free agents will view the Leafs as a desirable destination anyway).  In all honestly, I am finding very few reasons for optimism heading into the off season and looking forward to the 2012-13 season.  To me, you do what you can this off season to rid yourself of as many useless players as possible (if at all possible), try and find a reliable goalie, add a few role players to provide some size, experience and defensive reliability, and next season you use it as a true building season by inserting Colborne, Kadri, Ashton, Frattin, Holzer, maybe the guy we draft with a top 5 pick, and maybe others into the lineup and see what they can do.  At least we’ll have guys in the lineup that have a realistic hope of progressing and being around in 3-5 years when the Leafs might actually contend again.  Then we can get serious about free agents in the 2013 off season when the contracts of Connolly, Lombardi, MacArthur, and Armstrong come off the books.

Just to end on a positive note, let me point out three positives that occurred this season:

1.  Jake Gardiner.  He looks really good.  It’s still early in his career, but all signs point to him having a very promising future as a puck moving defenseman.

2.  Joffrey Lupul.  I know a lot of Leaf fans are pointing to Kessel, but the real key to the Leafs offense in my mind is Lupul.  He has overcome his previous health issues and is back, despite his late season injury.

3.  Mikhail Grabovski has shown that his 2010-11 season was no fluke and he is one of the few Leafs that actually seems to care about winning.  I don’t think he is a top line center, but he plays a hard and determined 2-way game (despite his size) and it’s only unfortunate unfortunate more Leafs don’t follow his lead.

 

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Lupul’s always been this good.

By on March 2nd, 2012

A lot has been made about Joffrey Lupul’s “career year” this year and some Leaf fans are even suggesting that now is the time to trade him while his value is at an all-time high.  While it is true that he is on pace for career high in goals and points I would like to suggest that this is not because he is having a ‘career year’ but that he is being given greater opportunity.  He has always been this good and there is no reason to expect that he cannot repeat this years performance next season.

When I analyze a player I like to look at “on-ice” stats because I believe a player can contribute to a teams success without generating individual goals and assists.  But, since on-ice stats are teammate dependent I like to look at how his teammates do with and without the player on the ice with him.  So, let’s look at some of Lupul’s linemates 5v5 close faceoff adjusted goals for per 20 minutes with and without Lupul over the past 5 seasons.

Year Teammate Together TM w/o Lupul % Inc w/ Lupul
2011-12 Kessel 1.418 0.789 179.7%
2011-12 Bozak 1.068 1.268 84.2%
2010-11 Bozak 0.979 0.718 136.4%
2010-11 Kessel 0.989 0.769 128.6%
2008-09 Hartnell 1.61 0.659 244.3%
2008-09 J. Carter 1.627 0.73 222.9%
2007-08 M. Richards 1.718 0.683 251.5%
2007-08 Umberger 1.915 0.631 303.5%
2007-08 Briere 1.061 0.536 197.9%

The above table includes all players Lupul has played 100 minutes of 5v5 close ice time with over the past 5 seasons including their GF20 together and Lupul’s teammates GF20 when not playing with Lupul.  The final column is how much better the teammates GF20 is playing with Lupul compared to without Lupul.  As you can see, in every single season Lupul has made his linemates significantly better offensively.  This is a good thing.

So, why are Lupul’s individual offensive numbers so much better this year?  A lot of it has to do with greater opportunity and the most important factor in opportunity is ice time.   Let’s take a look at Lupul’s even strength goal production over the past 5 seasons and compare it to his even strength ice time.

Year ES TOI ES G Min. bt goals
2011-12 984:59 17 57.9
2010-11 688:23 10 68.8
2009-10 299:05 10 29.9
2008-09 1039:42 19 54.7
2007-08 744:47 13 57.3

The “Min. bt goals” column is the average number of minutes that he spent on the ice at even strength between his even strength goals.  As you can see, this season is pretty much on par with what he has done in the past.

Another interesting thing to look at is his on-ice shooting percentage in 5v5 close zone start adjusted situations.  Over the past 5 seasons, starting with 2007-08, they are 14.04%, 12.05%, 9.09%, 11.64%, and 13.73%.  These are exceptional numbers, and among the best in the league.  I know not everyone believes in shooting percentages but I believe they are an integral component of producing offense.  As a result, a corsi-based analysis of Lupul will fail to show his true offensive value.

So, in conclusion, Lupul’s offensive production this season is not an anomaly, it is his ice time that is the anomaly.  He has almost as much even strength ice time this year than he has ever had and he has capitalized on it at more or less the same rate as he has in the past.  He is on pace for 32 goals this season and there is no reason to believe that he can’t be a 30 goal scorer next year as well.  The Leafs shouldn’t be considering trading Lupul this summer but rather they should be re-signing him to a long-term deal before his value really sky rockets in 2013 after putting up back to back 30+ goal, 70+ point seasons.

 

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Who Can the Leafs Beat?

By on March 1st, 2012

I wanted to take a look at the Leafs record against various other types of teams so I took a variety of stats and looked at their records against the top 10 teams, the middle 10 teams and the bottom 10 teams in that stat.  Here is what I found.

Top 10 Middle 10 Bottom 10 Top 10 Middle 10 Bottom 10
GAA 5-9-2 11-10-4 13-9-1 61.5 85.3 96.3
GFA 5-14-1 13-6-4 11-8-2 45.1 107.0 93.7
GFA/GAA 6-11-2 7-11-4 16-6-1 60.4 67.1 117.7
SOG/Game 6-13-2 11-10-3 12-5-2 54.7 85.4 125.2
SOG Ag/Game 10-6-4 10-10-0 9-12-2 98.4 82.0 71.3
SOG/SOGAg 5-8-5 14-14-1 10-6-1 68.3 82.0 101.3
Save% 6-9-2 10-14-2 13-5-3 67.5 69.4 113.2
Sh% 10-11-2 9-9-3 10-8-2 78.4 82.0 89.1
PDO 8-13-1 8-8-4 13-7-2 63.4 82.0 103.1
PIM 10-14-0 12-5-5 7-9-2 68.3 108.1 72.9
Points/Game 7-10-4 7-13-2 15-5-1 70.3 59.6 121.0

The first three columns are the Leafs record against those teams and the last three columns are the expected point totals the Leafs would accumulate over 82 games making it a little easier to compare groups.

The group the Leafs play the worst against are teams that have a good goals for average (5-14-11, 45.1 points) followed by teams that generate a lot of shots per game (6-13-2, 54.7 points).  In other words, the Leafs play really poorly against teams that have good offenses.  A bad defense against a good offense is a killer combination.

They don’t play as bad against good defensive teams but they still do poorly.  Against teams that are really good in goals against average  they have a 5-9-2 record, good for 61.5 point pace.  Interestingly though they do quite well against teams that don’t generally give up many shots against (10-6-4, 98.4 points) and do much worse against teams that give up a lot of shots against (9-12-2, 71.3 points).  Not sure why this is as teams that do give up fewer shots do have better records.

The most telling stats might be the Leafs record against teams with the best GFA/GAA, SOG/SOGAg, PDO and Points/Game as these might be the best evaluators of a teams overall ability as they combine both offense and defense.  The Leafs 82 point pace against the top 10 in those stats are 60.4, 68.3, 68.3 and 70.3 respectively while their 82 point pace against the bottom 10 teams in those stats are 117.7, 101.3, 103.1 and 121.0respectively and their 82 point pace against the middle 10 in those stats are 67.1, 82.0, 82.0 and 59.6.  In other words, they are bad against good teams, still sub-par against middle of the road teams, and quite good against the worst teams in the league.  So from that we can probably deduce that the Leafs are probably ranked near the top of the bottom 10 teams in the league, or in around 21-23 league-wide.

Finally, the one category I was interested in was the Leafs record against big physical teams (since the Leafs are generally small at the forward position) and I used PIMs as a proxy for this.  The Leafs record against the top 10 teams in PIMs is 10-14-0 good for a 68.3 point pace.  Against the middle 10 they play at a 108.1 point pace and against the bottom 10 they play at a 72.9 point pace.  Interestingly, they play the worst against teams that don’t take many penalties and the best against teams in the middle.  I am not sure what this tells us other than maybe the least penalized teams are probably the teams that give up the fewest powerplay opportunities against and the PP is, generally speaking, one of the Leafs strengths.  The middle group are probably not big physical teams that fight a lot but are teams that take a lot of bad penalties and give up a lot of short handed opportunities that the Leafs can capitalize on.

 

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Burke should have started rebuilding yesterday

By on February 28th, 2012

I was somewhat disappointed in the lack of Maple Leaf moves made during yesterday’s trade deadline.  Not because Burke didn’t trade for anyone who can help us make the playoffs this year (though I though a trade for Ben Bishop would have been a useful gamble both short and long term) but because he didn’t do more to set up this team for the long term.  From my perspective this team is unlikely to make the playoffs this season and even if they do there is little chance they will win a round.  Their defense and goaltending is bad at best and physical defense oriented teams have the ability to shut down the Leafs offense.  The Leafs overall have a dreadful record against playoff teams.  So, Burke had an opportunity to take a team that had very little to be optimistic about this season and set it up for a better future.

Forwards

The way the team is currently set up we have the following group of forwards:

Kessel-Bozak-Lupul
MacArthur-Grabovski-Kulemin
Lombardi-Connolly-Frattin
Brown-Steckel-Armstrong

The six players I have listed in bold are the only six players that I believe have a chance to be on this team playing the same roles they are currently in 2-3 seasons when the Leafs really should plan on having a competitive team.  And even with those six players Brown and Steckel are not core players and may or may not be kept around and Frattin still has to prove himself.  Let me address some of the guys I haven’t listed in bold.

Bozak – I kind of like Bozak, but lets be honest, he is not a first line center and he especially isn’t a first line center between Kessel and Lupul.  Neither Kessel nor Lupul are quality defensive players nor exceptionally big and putting a small and weak defensive center between them that doesn’t have elite level offensive skills is just not a recipe for success.  It’s possible that Bozak could be a second line center with the right wingers but if we are giving the second line role to Grabovski he doesn’t fit there.  He isn’t good enough defensively to be a third line center so I have a hard time to see where he fits in long term.

MacArthur – MacArthur is the left wing version of Bozak.  He has some nice offensive skills but really isn’t much more than a 50 point one-dimensional player.  He isn’t big, doesn’t play big, isn’t anything to write home about defensively.  He is a nice place holder until we get something better but nothing more.  I don’t see MacArthur playing a significant role on a Stanley Cup contender.  He just doesn’t bring enough of a complete package to play a significant role on a contending team.

Kulemin – Being realistic and setting last seasons career year aside, Kulemin is probably a defensively responsible 15 goal, 35 point player.  While he is no doubt a useful 2-way player he is probably more suited for a 2-way third line role.

Connolly – I like Connolly and I think on the right team with some big wingers he can be a quality second line center but he is really just a place holder on this team and probably doesn’t have a long term role in Toronto.

Lombardi – Lombardi was just acquired as a way to get Cody Franson and has no long term role in Toronto.

Armstrong – If Armstrong could stay healthy I think he can be a useful player.  Unfortunately he cannot stay healthy.

So, looking forward I think this could be the lineup when we are ready to compete including the holes we are looking to fill.

Kessel-????-Lupul
????-Grabovski-????
Frattin-????-Kulemin
Brown-Steckel-????

Needed are a first line center, preferably one with size and a defensive presence.  Two second line wingers, preferably at least one with good size to offset Grabovski’s smallish stature.  A 2-way third line center who can kill penalties.  At least one fourth line role player.

The plan, I presume now, is that at some point Colborne can be plugged into the first line role and Kadri and newly acquired Carter Ashton can be plugged into the second line winger roles.

The question I have is, why couldn’t we have started this process right now?  Speculation is that first round draft picks were offered for both MacArthur and Kulemin.  Would it really have hurt this team that much to have flipped MacArthur for a first round pick and seen what Kadri could do on the second line for the remainder of the season?  Kadri hopefully has a long term role with the Leafs, I am not certain MacArthur does.  With the Leafs ever get another chance to flip MacArthur for a first round pick?  I am not so sure.  The price for players was extremely high yesterday (see Gaustad, Paul) and I don’t think you get a first round pick for MacArthur in the summer.  Same goes for Kulemin, though I do think Kulemin could have a long term role with the Leafs, just not necessarily as a regular top six forward.  Wouldn’t it be nice going into this summers draft with two or more first round picks and the opportunities that provides either in drafting quality prospects for the future or packaging them in a trade?  Wouldn’t it be nice going into this summer with some kind of indication as to whether Kadri is ready for a regular role the NHL?  I can argue the same for Bozak.  If Bozak could have been flipped for a draft pick or a prospect, wouldn’t it have been nice to see if Colborne is ready for regular NHL duty?

I realize it is tough for Burke to admit to fans that this is more or less a lost season from this point on, but I don’t really think fans would be unhappy had he traded away Bozak and/or MacArthur and/or Kulemin and/or others for first round picks and prospects and said “we thought that we had a playoff team that could possibly even scare someone in the first round but it has become clear that the group was not coming together as expected so we decided to make some changes and give some of our quality prospects a chance to show they will be ready for the NHL next season.”  Some fans might be angry that they have on some level ‘given up’ on the season but I think the majority of them will see that as being far more realistic than what Burke actually said: “we still believe in this team.”

So, as far as I am concerned, yesterday was a lost opportunity to trade away some players that may not (or probably do not) have a long term future with the Leafs (MacArthur in particular) while the prices were as high as they may ever be for those players.  It is also a lost opportunity to give some NHL ready prospects such as Kadri and Colborne an opportunity to show their abilities at the NHL level.  Instead have to watch a bunch of guys who won’t be with the Leafs when they are ready to be serious contenders fail to make the playoffs and generally continue to disappoint with their underwhelming performance.  Mediocrity without optimism is not fun to watch and lets be clear, this team is mediocre and there aren’t many players on the team we can be optimistic will be better a year or two from now.  They are what they are and there isn’t much hope this group will get any better.

 

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Just how bad is Jack Johnson?

By on February 23rd, 2012

The Columbus Blue Jackets have traded Jeff Carter to the Los Angeles Kings for Jack Johnson and a first round pick.  When Johnson signed his current 7 year, $30.5M contract I wrote how I thought the Kings would regret the contract.  Now I think the Blue Jackets will.

Just how bad is Jack Johnson?  Well, lets take a look at the Kings defensemen’s goals against per 20 minutes of zone start adjusted 5v5 close ice time over the past 2 3/4 seasons.

Defenseman 11-12 GA20 Defenseman 10-11 GA20 Defenseman 09-10 GA20
Martinez 0.471 Martinez 0.465 Harrold 0.418
Voynov 0.473 Greene 0.580 Greene 0.451
Doughty 0.495 Drewiske 0.635 Doughty 0.499
Mitchell 0.504 Harrold 0.715 Scuderi 0.517
Scuderi 0.557 Mitchell 0.764 O’Donnell 0.543
Greene 0.571 Doughty 0.785 Drewiske 0.682
Johnson 0.727 Scuderi 0.831 Jones 0.755
Johnson 1.054 Johnson 0.906

Not only is Jack Johnson dead last in all three seasons, he is last by a sizeable margin.  Of the 7 Kings defensemen this year the spread between #1 Martinez and #6 Greene is smaller than the spread between #6 Greene and #7 Johnson.  The previous two seasons look no better.

But what is even more scary are Johnson’s offensive numbers.  Yeah, Johnson may be a question mark defensively but his offense helps offset some of that.  Well, so we thought.  Here are the goals for per 20 minutes of ice time numbers for Kings defensemen.

Defenseman 11-12 GF20 Defenseman 10-11 GF20 Defenseman 09-10 GF20
Voynov 1.014 Harrold 1.072 Scuderi 0.791
Martinez 0.848 Mitchell 1.030 Doughty 0.774
Greene 0.694 Doughty 0.999 O’Donnell 0.744
Doughty 0.637 Martinez 0.802 Drewiske 0.744
Mitchell 0.612 Drewiske 0.714 Greene 0.708
Scuderi 0.590 Scuderi 0.712 Johnson 0.647
Johnson 0.485 Greene 0.709 Jones 0.519
Johnson 0.671 Harrold 0.314

Dead last in 2 of the three seasons and only ahead of Randy Jones and Peter Harrold in 2009-10.  Certainly not something to write home about.  So, if Johnson isn’t helping his team score goals and isn’t helping his team limit goals against, he has to have a pretty terrible goals for percentage (goals for divided by goals for + goals against).  Let’s take a look.

Player Name GF% Player Name GF% Player Name GF%
Voynov 0.682 Martinez 0.633 Greene 0.611
Martinez 0.643 Harrold 0.600 Doughty 0.608
Doughty 0.562 Mitchell 0.574 Scuderi 0.605
Greene 0.548 Doughty 0.560 O’Donnell 0.578
Mitchell 0.548 Greene 0.550 Drewiske 0.522
Scuderi 0.514 Drewiske 0.529 Harrold 0.429
Johnson 0.400 Scuderi 0.462 Johnson 0.417
Johnson 0.389 Jones 0.407

It’s pretty sad when every other defenseman on your team has a goals for percentage above 50% and you sit at 40%.

It seems that Jack Johnson is a major drag on his team, especially defensively, but offensively as well.  The only redeeming quality of Jack Johnson on the ice is that he seems to be a good PP specialist.  I have often called Jack Johnson the $4.3M/yr version of Marc-Andre Bergeron but that might be unfair to Bergeron.  Getting rid of Johnson is addition by subtraction plus you are getting Jeff Carter for a mere first round pick which is a steal.

The Kings win this trade by a country mile while the Blue Jackets have set back their franchise years by the whole Carter fiasco which has seen them trade Jakub Voracek, Sean Couturier and Nick Cousins (3rd round pick in 2011) for a horrid Jack Johnson and a mid first round pick.  Pretty sad for any Blue Jacket fan.

 

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Post Lockout Team Save Percentages

By on February 22nd, 2012

Looking at this chart, I think only Lightning fans can sympathize with the torture that Leaf fans have suffered through with regards to their goaltending, but at least the Lightning have made the playoffs a few times and even had some success.

Update:  For interest sake, here are the post lockout shooting percentages and PDO (shooting percentage + save percentage).


 

 

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Downie trade good for Stastny/Duchene?

By on February 21st, 2012

Steve Downie was traded from the Tampa Bay Lightning to the Colorado Avalanche today for Kyle Quincey (who was later shipped to Detroit).  I featured Downie in a post I wrote on the weekend about mixing toughness with skill and how having a big, physical winger can make a skilled center more productive, especially a smaller skilled center.  Downie did this with Stamkos, St. Louis and to a lesser extent with Lecavalier.  The beneficiary of Downie’s toughness in Colorado will be either Paul Stastny or Matt Duchene.

Until last years trade deadline Stastny played with another big, physical winger named Chris Stewart.  To see how Stastny might benefit from Downie it might be prudent to see how Stastny played with and without Stewart.

GF20 With GF20 Without
2010-11 1.158 0.781
2009-10 1.139 0.951
2009-11 (2yr) 1.145 0.854

That is a 34% boost in on-ice offensive production with Stewart than without.  This season Stastny’s on-ice GF20 is a fairly low 0.723 so there is definitely a lot of room to see a significant increase in those numbers.  It’ll be interesting to see how they perform the remainder of the season but if you are in a hockey pool, you may want to take a chance and trade for Stastny or Duchene.

 

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Zone Starts: Why We Shouldn’t Care

By on February 21st, 2012

There was a twitter conversation between Gabe Desjardins and David Staples last night in which Gabe suggested that Daniel Sedin’s heavy offensive zone start bias resulted in an additional 7-9 points that he would not have gotten if his zone starts were more evenly split between offensive and defensive zone.  When I saw this I immediately though that seemed like a really high number so I decided to take a look though the play by play sheets and see how many of Daniel Sedin’s even strength points came from a faceoff in the offensive zone.  Of all of Daniel Sedin’s points so far, here are the only ones that might at all be attributed to an offensive zone faceoff.

Date Opppnent Type Time After Faceoff
Oct. 15 Edmonton Assist 8 seconds
Oct. 20 Nashville Goal 11 seconds
Oct. 29 Washington Assist 19 seconds
Nov. 29 Columbus Goal 8 seconds
Dec. 6 Colorado Goal 24 seconds
Jan. 31 Chicago Goal 29 seconds
Feb. 18 Toronto Assist 40 seconds

Every other point that Daniel Sedin got was either on the PP, after a faceoff in another zone or after a line change during the play or after the opponent had possession of the puck.  Even the points above we don’t know if the opposition had control of the puck between the faceoff and the goal, especially for the plays 19 seconds or longer after the faceoff (a lot can happen in 19 seconds) and the goal vs Colorado was during 4 on 4 play as well.  But for the sake of argument, let’s say we can directly tie all 7 of those points to being a result of offensive zone face offs.  Also, for the sake of easy math, let’s assume his OZone% is 70% (it’s actually closer to 80%).  So, on 70% OZone starts he scored 7 goals.  If we reduce his Ozone% to 50% you’d naturally think you’d lose an equivalent portion of points so he’d end up with 5 points instead of 7.  Net result, Daniel Sedin’s offensive zone start bias has accounted for just 2 additional points so far this season.

What about previous seasons?  Well, over the previous 3 seasons Daniel Sedin was on the ice for 197 5v5 goals for.  If we ignore the 30 seconds following an offensive or defensive zone start (and 30 seconds is more than ample to account for zone starts) he was on the ice for 151 goals for.  That means we can fairly safely assume that offensive zone starts at best resulted in 46 goals for.

Now, over the past 3 seasons Daniel Sedin was on the ice for 1164 offensive zone face offs and 656 defensive zone face offs for an OZone% of about 64%.  Those 1164 offensive zone faceoffs accounted for at most 46 goals meaning approximately every 25 offensive zone starts resulted in a goal.  If Sedin had a 50% OZone% over the previous 3 seasons instead of his 64% he’d have been on the ice for about 910 offensive faceoffs, or about 254 fewer than he actually had.  Since every 25 offensive zone starts results in a goal those 254 extra offensive zone face offs he took resulted in approximately 10 extra goals being scored.  So, on average Daniel Sedin was on the ice for 3-4 extra goals per season because of his offensive zone faceoff bias, and that is being generous with the math.  That result is not far off this seasons observations above.

So, considering one of the best offensive players in the game with one of the most significant offensive zone biases in the game is only on the ice for at most an additional 4 goals a season as a result of their offensive zone bias, I think we can chaulk up the zone start effect as mostly insignificant.  The majority of players aren’t near as talented as D. Sedin and his linemates are and the majority of players end up having between 45% and 55% zone starts.  As a result, the majority of the players probably only see a zone bias affect their stats by at most one or two goals a season.  It’s pretty much not worth consideration.

Of course, a corsi based analysis would show a more significant difference because zone starts affect corsi more than goals.

 

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Mixing in toughness with skill.

By on February 18th, 2012

The other day at Pension Plan Puppets there was a discussion about the merit so Steve Downie and whether the Leafs should go after him if Tampa made him available.   In it I brought up the fact that when Steven Stamkos or Martin St. Louis or Vincent Lecavalier play with Downie their offensive numbers increase, sometimes dramatically.  The following table shows each players goals for per 20 minutes of ice time in 5v5 zone-start adjusted situations with and without Steve Downie on the ice with them.

Teammate With Without % Impr.
2011-12 Stamkos 1.481 1.19 24.5%
St. Louis 1.441 1.182 21.9%
Lecavalier 1.408 1.139 23.6%
2010-11 Stamkos 1.297 1.122 15.6%
St. Louis 1.246 1.06 17.5%
2009-10 Stamkos 1.284 0.903 42.2%
St. Louis 1.257 0.868 44.8%
Lecavalier 1.167 0.849 37.5%
2008-09 Stamkos 1.113 0.685 62.5%

This year Downie has improved their offensive production between 20 and 25% and it isn’t because Downie is an elite offensive player relative to those three guys.  He only has 12 goals and 28 points in 54 games this year and is Tampa’s 6th leading scorer behind the three listed above and Purcell and Malone.  In his best season, 2009-10, he only had 22 goals and 46 points so he is far from an elite offensive player at the individual level and yet he does something that makes his skilled linemates better.

I have always been interesting in exploring the optimal way to build a team and so this prompted me to look a little deeper to see if mixing in some toughness with more pure skill players makes the skill players better.   So, here are a few more examples that I found interesting.

Alex Burrows

Burrows Teammate With Without % Impr.
2011-12 D. Sedin 1.052 1.017 3.4%
H. Sedin 1.112 0.92 20.9%
2010-11 D. Sedin 1.365 1.06 28.8%
H. Sedin 1.277 0.982 30.0%
2009-10 D. Sedin 1.481 2.126 -30.3%
H. Sedin 1.321 1.994 -33.8%
2008-09 D. Sedin 1.534 0.851 80.3%
H. Sedin 1.434 0.94 52.6%

Milan Lucic

Lucic Teammate With Without % Impr.
2011-12 Krejci 1.182 0.607 94.7%
2010-11 Krejci 1.232 0.613 101.0%
2009-10 Savard 0.768 0.676 13.6%
2008-09 Savard 1.277 1.098 16.3%

Drew Stafford

Stafford Teammate With Without % Impr.
2011-12 Roy 0.939 0.585 60.5%
2010-11 Roy 1.137 0.926 22.8%
Connolly 1.407 0.765 83.9%
2009-10 Roy 0.913 0.876 4.2%
Connolly 1.318 1.01 30.5%
2008-09 Roy 0.965 0.809 19.3%
Connolly 1.384 1.195 15.8%
2007-08 Roy 1.415 1.235 14.6%

Ryan Clowe

Clowe Teammate With Without % Impr.
2011-12 Couture 0.984 0.722 36.3%
2010-11 Couture 0.933 0.733 27.3%
Pavelski 1.062 0.791 34.3%
2009-10 Pavelski 0.863 1.24 -30.4%
2008-09 Pavelski 0.922 0.557 65.5%

Scott Hartnell

Hartnell Teammate With Without % Impr.
2011-12 Giroux 1.286 0.812 58.4%
Jagr 1.309 0.683 91.7%
2010-11 Briere 1.169 1.064 9.9%
Leino 1.053 0.987 6.7%
Giroux 1.205 1.038 16.1%
2009-10 Briere 0.918 0.931 -1.4%
Carter 1.04 0.606 71.6%
M. Richards 0.719 0.707 1.7%
2008-09 Carter 1.299 0.699 85.8%
Lupul 1.272 0.327 289.0%
M. Richards 1.016 0.911 11.5%
2007-08 M. Richards 0.696 1.214 -42.7%
Briere 0.883 0.581 52.0%
Carter 0.936 0.754 24.1%
Lupul 1.305 0.923 41.4%

Dustin Penner

Penner Teammate With Without % Impr.
2011-12 Stoll 0.644 0.408 57.8%
M. Richards 0.577 0.494 16.8%
2910-11 Hemsky 1.004 0.714 40.6%
Cogliano 0.856 0.545 57.1%
2009-10 Gagner 1.063 0.653 62.8%
Brule 1.505 0.782 92.5%
Cogliano 1.171 0.669 75.0%
2008-09 Horcoff 1.123 0.724 55.1%
Hemsky 1.32 0.658 100.6%
Cogliano 1.09 0.671 62.4%
2007-08 Hemsky 0.974 0.741 31.4%
Horcoff 1.015 0.696 45.8%

Brenden Morrow

Morrow Teammate With Without % Impr.
2011-12 Ribeiro 0.887 0.642 38.2%
Eriksson 1.055 0.935 12.8%
Ott 1.069 0.880 21.5%
2010-11 Ribeiro 1.104 0.365 202.5%
Benn 1.040 0.900 15.6%
2009-10 Ribeiro 0.911 0.507 79.7%
Benn 0.923 0.692 33.4%
2007-08 Ribeiro 1.196 0.384 211.5%
Mietinen 1.087 0.808 34.5%

Nathan Horton

Horton Teammate With Without % Impr.
2011-12 Krejci 1.298 0.455 185.3%
2010-11 Krejci 1.276 0.632 101.9%
2009-10 Weiss 1.153 0.525 119.6%
2008-09 Weiss 1.141 1.094 4.3%
2007-08 Weiss 1.191 0.543 119.3%

Save for a small number of player combo seasons the big strong wingers made their smaller skilled linemates (particularly the centermen) better offensive performers and while most of the players I looked at above are quality players no one will really call them elite offensive starts that can carry an offense.  They are at best secondary top line players.  Now it could be that when some these guys are not on the top line they are replaced with a third line player who brings down the production of the top line but there does seem something happening here that makes me think if you have a small, skilled center you should really look to pair him up with a big, strong, winger.

All this makes me think that Brian Burke should be calling up Dean Lombardi and seeing if he can get Dustin Penner from the Kings dirt cheap and put him on a line with Tim Connolly.  Of course, maybe that is why Brian Burke is so interested in James van Riemsdyk.

 

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What is Rick Nash?

By on February 14th, 2012

So word has come out over the last day that Rick Nash is, at least on some level, available in a trade from the Blue Jackets.  So, the question is, who is Rick Nash and would you want him on your team?

Nash has been a Blue Jacket from the day he was drafted first overall in 2002.  He has played 648 regular season games and has scored 277 goals and 527 points.  Since the lockout he is 10th in goals (only Ovechkin, Kovalchuk, Heatley, Iginla, Staal, Lecavalier, Marleau, Vanek and Hossa) and 25 in points.  He has a pair of 40+ goals seasons and has been a 30+ goal scorer six times.  He has just 4 NHL playoff games under his belt when he scored 1 goal and a pair of assists.  He was a member of the 2010 Canadian Olympic team scoring a pair of goals and 3 assists in 7 games on route to the gold medal.  That is the raw facts that we all know about Nash.  But what about advanced statistics.

Here are my HockeyAnalysis ratings for Rick Nash over the past 4 seasons plus this season as well as his 2007-11 four year average.

2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2007-11 (4yr)
HARO+ 0.991 1.070 1.257 1.502 1.079 1.200
HARO+ rank 142/235 118/241 59/245 8/260 116/229 60/217
HARD+ 0.827 0.992 0.802 0.882 0.732 0.895
HARD+ rank 164/235 96/241 196/245 162/260 197/229 162/217
HART+ 0.909 1.031 1.030 1.192 0.905 1.047
HART+ rank 172/235 115/241 123/245 36/260 169/229 95/217

HARO+ is an offensive rating, HARD+ is a defensive rating and HART+ is his total/overall rating which is simply an average of his HARO+ and HARD+ ratings.  These ratings are for 5v5 close zone adjusted situations and the rank includes any players who played 400 ore more minutes in single seasons, 300 minutes for 2011-12 partial season (through this past Saturday’s games) and 1500 minutes for the 4 year average.  These ratings take into account quality of teammates and quality of competition.

 

Overall in 5v5 close situations Rick Nash looks to be a solid offensive player, but not elite overall and defensively he is relatively weak.

To put Nash’s 4 year numbers in perspective, the most closely ranked players in terms of HARO+ are Cammalleri, Weiss, Hemsky, Jussi Jokinen, Vanek, Boyes, Bertuzzi, Grabovski, Alfredsson and Parise.

How about Nash’s 5v4 power play numbers.

5v4 HARO+
2007-08 1.010
2008-09 0.853
2009-10 1.203
2010-11 0.902
2011-12 0.951
2007-11 (4yr) 0.967
2007-11 rank (500 min.) 154/184
2007-11 rank (750 min.) 92/99

Generally speaking, his PP numbers are quite poor relative to other top PP forwards.

An interesting comparable is Joffrey Lupul.  It is an interesting comparable because it is quite likely that the Leafs will have an interest in Rick Nash and also because Lupul is an interesting case because he has really had a break through season this year.  Or so it seems anyway.

Nash Lupul
2007-11 5v5close HARO+ 1.200 1.385
2007-11 5v5 HARO+ 1.080 1.118
2007-11 5v4 HARO+ 0.967 1.246

It’s interesting that Joffrey Lupul ranked better than Nash in each of the three categories.  Due to injury Lupul didn’t put up 1500 minutes of 5v5 close ice time (he had 1374:44), but of all 251 players to play 1350 minutes of 5v5 close ice time Lupul ranked 10th.  When looking at these numbers it is actually not a surprise to see Lupul tied for 5th in points and 17th in goals.  He is finally being given an opportunity to play big time first line minutes with offensive zone starts and #1 PP unit ice time and as a result, he is producing.

So, getting back to Nash, let’s take a look at how he has done with his various linemates over the previous four seasons.  Here are the scoring rates (goals for per 20 minutes) for all the forwards who have played at least 250 minites of 5v5 close zone adjusted minutes during the 2007-11 four year time period.

Linemate TOI Together Nash /wo Linemate Linemate /wo Nash
Huselius 969:45 0.969 0.938 0.907
Vermette 607:35 0.757 1.016 0.782
Umberger 448:34 0.803 0.985 0.845
Brassard 441:22 1.359 0.860 0.930
Voracek 426:33 1.313 0.873 1.020
Malhotra 425:06 0.894 0.963 0.790

Nash played best when he was paired up with Voracek and Brassard and only Voracek, Brassard and Huselius made Nash a better offensive player when playing with him.  Vermette, Umberger and Malhotra were drags on his offensive numbers.  When playing apart, Voracek’s numbers are better than Nash’s.  Same for Brassard’s (who is doing it again this year, 0.782 GF20 vs Nash’s 0.613 when apart).  As an aside, the numbers suggest that Voracek is a very good offensive player  and it was probably a big mistake to trade him.  It also suggest that the Flyers aren’t getting full value from him by playing him primarily with Maxime Talbot.  If someone acquired Voracek and put him in the right situations, he could be the next Joffrey Lupul.

So, to summarize, yes Nash is a good offensive player who may put up better numbers playing with better offensive players but he is probably not an elite offensive forward.  Also, he isn’t a great defensive forward so offense really is what you get him for.  If I were Columbus I would be willing to trade him if I can get a quality NHL ready player capable of playing in their top 6 forwards, a top tier prospect and a first round pick.  If I were other teams, I would be very wary of over paying because he is not an elite player but he is paid like one ($7.8M cap hit for 6 more seasons).