It has been two weeks since the NHL season began. Here are a few of the winners and losers thus far:
Note: All advanced statistics used are from behindthenet.ca and Stats.HockeyAnalysis.com. All conventional team statistics are from NHL.com.
Winners:
Matt Carle:
Tampa Bay Lightning GM Steve Yzerman has done a nice job constructing this team. In consecutive off-seasons, he found a No. 2 center (Valtteri Filppula) and two top-four defensemen (Anton Stralman and Jason Garrison). He acquired a No. 1 goaltender in Ben Bishop in a heist of a trade. But all good general managers make mistakes, and the Matt Carle contract falls into the can-I-get-a-redo category.
Carle struggles with his decision-making and is routinely outmaneuvered by opposing forwards on and off the puck. His Relative Corsi resides in the negative, and he is a liability every time he steps on the ice. So why is he a winner? Because over the past two seasons, he was logging over 22 minutes a game and he is logging less time now. And Yzerman’s acquisitions of defensemen Stralman and Garrison allow Bolts coach Jon Cooper to shelter Carle by employing him against easier competition, and providing him with more favorable zone starts.
Brad Richards’ role in Chicago’s supporting cast:
Brad Richards recorded his first point with the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday, and instead of the New York media hailstorm barraging him with criticism for finally producing some scoring, it was merely a footnote in another Blackhawks’ victory. The Blackhawks lead the NHL in Fenwick Close and Fenwick percentage at five on five, and are up to their usual shenanigans: They are 4-0-1.
Richards chose a good situation after being bought out by New York – the Blackhawks have been executing in all three zones at a powerhouse level. Chicago’s breakouts have been pristine, their support and puck advancement have been splendid, and they have been generating scoring chances off the rush and cycle.
Once again, the Blackhawks are the premier team in the NHL at attacking off a reset. They can swing it to the weak side and allow their highly talented skaters to test their mettle in open ice, or they can wait for the inside curl and hit the cutter who is moving with speed up the gut. On zone entries, the Blackhawks are dynamic enough to create space, but their off-the-puck skaters are also as adept as any team’s players at pushing the defense back for the cross-ice seam pass or to allow the puck carrier a clean look at the top of the circle.
And in all of this, Richards is just a supporting member expected to chip in offense. The Blackhawks are pushing play, positioning themselves tactfully, winning the territorial battle, and finding their outlets from all nooks of the defensive zone: half-wall, corner, behind the net, and in traffic in front of the net. The Blackhawks give up a few A-grade scoring chances every game because the team is so confident in its ability to move north and pass into any window and skate around any obstacle. This leads to odd-man rushes by opponents when the puck takes a detour. Richards took a pay cut to join arguably the most skilled team in the NHL, and he is on the Stanley Cup favorite right now.
Lower-body recoveries (the Islanders’ John Tavares and the Lightning’s Steven Stamkos):
What a delight. Intelligent Hockey gets bummed when stars players get hurt, and there was some internal angst when Tavares and Stamkos both suffered serious injuries, which derailed their regular seasons last year. Well, consider those concerns quashed!
The skating, passing, and shooting of Tavares and Stamkos expose gaps and compromise opponents’ defensive structure. And when coverage is one-on-one, which it has been during spurts this season, an opponent often will concede a prime scoring chance or goal. The Islanders and Lightning are hurtling toward playoff spots, and their top-flight centers are dominating sequences and altering the course of the game in individual shifts. Tavares and Stamkos are two of the most talented players in the game and they change the math when they are on the ice – one defender on them is not enough. They both possess the brilliant skill to create chances in abundance for themselves and their teammates.
Carolina and Buffalo:
The Hurricanes and Sabres are dreadful. It seems a fait accompli that one of them will land Connor McDavid or Jack Eichel in next summer’s draft. And while that won’t make them a contender overnight, acquiring a franchise centerpiece goes a long way toward turning around a hapless organization. Losing is extremely difficult and sometimes toxic to a franchise, but there is sound logic to bottoming out versus overspending for a mid-tier free agent, or attempting to trade for “better” players.
Elias Lindholm has shown some flashes for Carolina; Victor Rask is raw, but makes a surprising amount of impact plays; Ryan Murphy is dynamic, but extraordinarily high-risk, high-reward; and Justin Faulk is a pillar of their defense. For the Sabres: They have the best blue-chip portfolio of any team in the NHL. Again, rebuilding is a hard process. But acquiring elite talent through the draft is the way to do it.
Losers:
Philadelphia Flyers’ Playoff Hopes:
It is a sad state of affairs for Philadelphia. Braydon Coburn’s injury has forced the team to play most of the season without its top-pair defenders from last season, so predictably, it has been Claude Giroux, Jakub Voracek, and Wayne Simmonds submitting their best efforts on a sinking ship. The Flyers had inadequate possession metrics last season, and logically, they are in the bottom third of the league again. (The actual percentage this season is markedly worse than last year, though.)
Last night, the Flyers battled the Penguins to a victory on the scoreboard and evenly in possession. And it makes sense from a matchup standpoint: The Flyers’ skating and slow transition are their biggest problems against opponents, but although Pittsburgh is a team that can attack off the rush and maintain territorial advantage with two lines, the Penguins aren’t fast enough to make a dent on the forecheck and hamper Philadelphia’s slow-moving breakout. The Flyers and Penguins’ two-way games are only as good as their top players perform.
For the season, the Flyers’ puck retrieval and zone exits have been awful, and Michael Del Zotto, a recent persona non grata, has performed like their best defenseman thus far. (He is first in Corsi and trails only Mark Streit in points among Flyers’ rearguards.). The Flyers are 21st in shots against and 25th in 5 on 5 goals for/against; their skating is poor enough that they struggle to keep pace with an increasingly speedier league. Teams can hem them in their zone, and their best hope of sustaining pressure is when Giroux, Voracek, or Simmonds are on the ice. Still, this is a bad even-strength team.
New GM Ron Hextall’s directive to cut down on crippling penalties has helped Philadelphia stay out of the box, but the Flyers’ previous regime made terrible decision after terrible decision, which has saddled them with a roster ill-suited to the dynamic that makes a team successful in today’s NHL. The aforementioned trio is a nucleus the Flyers can be proud of, but the Schenn brothers have badly underachieved and the results are mixed with Sean Couturier. (A strong penalty killer and 40-45 point output are okay but not great for a former 8th overall pick). For a franchise that’s capped out, it is hard to find sustainable positives here.
Vancouver Canucks:
The Canucks have a solid squad – having a 0 goal differential perfectly encapsulates where this team is — and GM Jim Benning’s signing of Radim Vrbata is proving to be an immensely valuable move. But the Western Conference is so damn tough that the roadmap to get from fringe playoff team to contender is daunting.
The Canucks have some interesting young players in the organization, but overall, they have a top-heavy prospect pool, and these players may not provide the immediate help that would allow Vancouver to mix veteran skill with emerging youth, like Minnesota and Anaheim have done. The Canucks have a very good defensive group, but because they are status quo at forward and lack substantial depth, they have a problem once they exit the zone.
This team is 23rd in 5 on 5 goals for/against, yet sixth in Fenwick Close. The Sedins look great, but what was anticipated to be a problem at the beginning of the season is still a problem. After the first line, there are a lot of complementary pieces, but not enough young dynamic skaters who can make plays once they carry the puck in on the zone entry. The Sedins and Vrbata have 21 points combined; the rest of the forwards have 15 points.
Colorado’s supporting cast:
It has been a nightmare start, and the stars are not producing like stars. There has been overpassing by primary players, and also some poor puck luck. (Colorado’s shooting percentage at five on five is 28th in the NHL.) But the amount of pressure on Colorado’s nucleus is unfair – Canadiens’ defenseman P.K. Subban flat out ignored Max Talbot on a two-on-one because Talbot’s offensive facility was deemed too poor to bother providing coverage.
Losing Paul Stastny this summer was like pouring gasoline on a bonfire. The Avs’ management deserves some blame for signing incompetent players and not finding capable supporting talent. Tyson Barrie and Erik Johnson have been fine, but the rest of the defensive group has been ghastly, and the burden on Nathan MacKinnon, Gabriel Landeskog, Matt Duchene, and Ryan O’Reilly to create offense over 150 feet has been overwhelming. The market correction that helped buoy this team last season is happening, and the absence of Stastny, and his fantastic work in the Avs’ zone — which catalyzed the transition game — has been conspicuous.
Force-feeding Patrick Kane on zone entries:
Intelligent Hockey has the highest of opinions of Patrick Kane. He is an incredible player, one of the best spotlight-clutch performers in recent memory, and must-see television every time he plays. But Chicago’s insistence on consistently running set plays in the neutral zone in order for him to make the zone entry on power plays makes no sense. He has failed on most of them because it is so obvious that the action before will lead to him, and his teammates are Jonathan Toews, Patrick Sharp, Duncan Keith, and Andrew Shaw – all players who are very capable of gaining the zone and setting up the man advantage.
The Blackhawks’ power play is 14th in the NHL at this moment. If Chicago forces teams to account for several entry points, and not just the point where Kane is headed, then the offensive-zone acquisition will be more seamless and Chicago’s man-advantage will be more efficient. Not surprisingly, when teams can’t shade toward one player, they get spread out and become more vulnerable. The Blackhawks are not scoring from the neutral zone, so all these failed zone entries are devastating to the bottom line.
The Blackhawks love to run different sets in the offensive zone. Against the Flyers, Patrick Sharp intentionally shot a one-timer wide so that it caromed off the boards and landed around the front of the net. The puck landed on Kane’s stick after he had run a nice interchange with Toews, and that goal was a byproduct of Chicago taking the offensive zone faceoff and having territorial advantage. If they have zone time, the Blackhawks are deadly. The Blackhawks will run misdirection, give-and-go’s, and fun sets to their hearts’ desire when they have dug in, but they need to be in the offensive zone first. Limiting themselves to one person as the primary puck-handler is crazy.
