Midseason Mailbag Part 1
Victor Hedman, Thomas Harley, Why Your Favorite Team Stinks Right Now & The Canes Defenseman Conundrum
Going to do this until I reach the word limit.
The Hockey Rorschach Test aka Evaluating Defensemen
Let’s see if I can break this down without making it sound like a research article. To me, it looks like there’s a few things at play with Hedman & how he looks by most models.
The Lightning aren’t a great territorial team when he is on the ice (around 50-ish% by Corsi & Expected Goals) according to Natural Stat Trick.
He spends most of his shifts with Nikita Kucherov and his numbers are worse away from him while Kucherov’s are better while he’s away from Hedman.
The depth of Tampa’s roster being a revolving door due to injuries & roster attrition. Hockeyviz’s smoothed icetime charts are my favorite for referencing things like this.
Since Sergachev went down, Hedman’s the only one regularly breaking that 23+ minute threshold. Factor in Cernak getting hurt & you have some relatively unproven guys in Tampa Bay’s top-four. It takes some trial & error from the coaching staff to figure out which guys can stick and until then, Hedman’s going to be taking the brunt of the workload.
As for Hedman’s ability, this is where things get confusing because he still has a lot of qualities that make him a great defenseman. Whether it’s having the size, moving the puck or complementing Tampa’s forwards, that part of Hedman’s game hasn’t dropped.
So why are his on-ice numbers this poor when his individual numbers are still pretty good? Entry defense & getting beaten to pucks only explains part of it, as he’s good enough for other areas to make up for it. Microstats like the All Three Zones data show what the player is doing while models such as Hockeyviz, EvolvingWild & TopDown Hockey show what happens while they’re on the ice. With Hedman, his results probably come down to how much you think Nikita Kucherov & Brayden Point drive the bus while he is on the ice. Both are better away from Hedman, but he’s also playing with worse forwards & probably in a different role compared to the rover that he is behind Tampa Bay’s top line. The tape shows why his result might be a little wonky.
Take his goal against the Red Wings.
The play starts with him throwing the puck to an area where his teammate is outnumbered, but he quickly gets it back and moves it to Kucherov, who takes command of the breakout from there. He leads an entry & tries a give-and-go with Stamkos, which gets cutoff & the Lightning have to vacate the zone. A quick-up from Darren Raddysh has them entering the zone again & it’s Hedman who has a wide open net off another give-and-go, this time with Kucherov, and he buries it.
That kind of complementary skillset is always going to be valuable as long as this Lightning’s core stays in-tact. What happens away from that top line is more of a concern, which is where plays like the initial breakout pass here might hurt Hedman’s numbers a bit. If he’s constantly throwing pucks up the wall, it might not have the same results when it’s Michael Eyssimont exiting the zone instead of Nikita Kucherov.
With the minutes he plays, there’s probably a lot of good mixed in with the bad & Tampa would rather roll with that than the alternative options. It kind of reminds me of the whole Drew Doughty debate when the Kings were rebuilding. His numbers kind of went with the team, only Hedman is providing more of an impact on offense while giving it back at the other end.
Now, onto Dallas
First, you should all follow David’s Stars Stack & his twitter if you’re a Dallas fan or just a hockey fan in general. There are few people who love hockey more than him.
As for Harley, he’s still young in his career (under 100 games) and only just started playing 20+ minutes a night in December, so I’m guessing his results are going to be a little scattered until he gets a full year in a defined role under his belt.
With that being said, all signs are pointing to him being a defenseman that can control territorial play. He really likes to carry the puck out of the zone & take it in himself, which is usually a good sign for a defenseman becoming a top-four staple at the minimum. Sometimes it takes a year for the on-ice results to catch up, but when a player shows obvious talent like this it usually translates over in one way or another. Quinn Hughes had a similar trajectory (albeit he was more of an elite passer) and others like Jake Walman, Devon Toews & Mackenzie Weegar eventually broke through.
The only concerns I have with Harley is that he’s a little turnover prone & that might be why his defensive stats aren’t as good as the rest of his profile. That comes with the territory when you have a dynamic, young defensemen sometimes & he is more than making up for it on the offensive end. I kind of saw in action when I worked the Ducks game last week, as him & Heiskanen had a couple turnovers from trying to make plays happen & the botched breakout that led to the Silfverberg goal. Those will probably be ironed out overtime because the rest of his game in the defensive zone looks really solid. His one-on-one game against the rush was super impressive & he kills a lot of plays without needing to stand them up at the line. Doing that while complementing the forwards in their own rush game is going to be a game-breaker for the Stars if they keep him with Heiskanen.
What’s Wrong With My Team?
I got a variety of these questions, so I’ll break them down one-by-one
Rangers
It’s a combination of teams catching on to how they like to play (clearing the puck & re-grouping) and some general bad play from their defensemen. They were out-scoring their problems a little bit & it’s easy to do that with a talent like Panarin, but they aren’t getting much from the other lines right now. Going by the A3Z stats, they’ve been predominantly a rush team & very weak on the forecheck, both at preventing exits (especially shots from defensive zone exits) and generating their own shots. They were also feasting on neutral zone turnovers & counter-attacks early in the season & it’s been tougher to do that lately. The guys they brought into forecheck haven’t been very good at it & they’re playing a little more aggressive compared to the strict neutral zone structure they had early in the season (presumably because they’ve been playing from behind).
Every defensemen not named Adam Fox can’t complete a breakout pass to save their life right now & that’s a killer when your entire offense is led by regrouping. It’s effective when you can do it, but it’s also easier for defenders to stack the neutral zone against you when you know you’re going to do it. It’s an easy way to give up rush chances against & be stuck in your own zone forever when it goes poorly.
That said, Shesterkin’s also in a slump right now and their top line is still rolling so I think they’ll be okay in another month.
Devils
Goaltending is a big part of it, as are injuries. If they had Jack Hughes & Dougie Hamilton for the entire year, they’re probably closer to the top three instead of in a Wild Card spot even with the goaltending issues. Carolina’s had similar goaltending woes (and without a talent like Hughes) and the rest of the league has had similar struggles. That said, they have some problems that go beyond this. It’s a worse team from where they were last year and it starts with their defensive play falling off a cliff.
Here’s the English version of this chart:
Offensively, they’re fine. They’ve actually been more than adequate the past 25 games at 5v5. Nothing to worry about there.
They play an aggressive style with defending their blue line & are getting burned more times than not. They’re giving up more chances, denying fewer entries and have been defending more entries in general, which ties into some of the new stat categories I added this year, rush offense context.
Most of the rush offense they’re giving up has been off counter-attacks (or offensive zone turnovers) and neutral zone reloads (which usually start from a lazy exit that barely makes it to the red line. All of which comes back to their blue line. It’s not all on the defensemen, but they’ve seen a dropoff from some of their more steady guys this year, namely Joonas Siegenthaler.
His ice-time is going down while Luke Hughes & Simon Nemec’s are both going up, so we’ll see if this helps get them out of the murky middle of the Metro Division. I will say this does remind me a lot of Lindy Ruff’s tenure in Dallas. They had that one season where they were a terrific rush team & won their division. They lost in the second round of the playoffs & the house of cards collapsed after that (losing two key defensemen & getting lousy goaltending didn’t help either). Those teams didn’t have Jack Hughes (or two elite defensemen prospects), so it’s a different situation here, but it’s interesting how similar the timelines are.
Obligatory Hurricanes Question
It’s tricky because both are at the age where defensemen start to hit a wall. They’re both hard to replace for different reasons. With Pesce, you’re losing a minute eater & someone who has played the tough matchups for six years now. Regardless of how you feel about his performance, he’s been Brind’Amour’s guy on the second pair forever. Skjei, on the other hand, is a little more erratic and emerged as a shooting threat the past 2-3 seasons. That’s pretty important on a team that loves their point shots like the Canes do. He’s probably tougher to replace for that reason alone, but they have a potential one in Orlov (who is apparently still a scapegoat here).
Orlov was signed with the next two years in mind, but it’s hard for some coaches to move on when the current lineup has been an institution for them for multiple seasons. They’re both at the age where it’s probably smart to let both walk, and the Hurricanes have yet to re-sign any of their previous defensemen. They also haven’t been shy about dipping their toes into free agency but new players fitting in has come with mixed results.
I say play the year out & re-tool in the off-season. They missed an opportunity to trade Pesce in the summer, but it didn’t seem like anything that would help them in the present was available. They have Orlov to fill one spot & can maybe get another placeholder until some of the prospects are ready. Change is tough, but if they don’t win the Cup (or at least make it there), it’s probably not smart to lock up your 3rd & 4th best defensemen into their 30’s. If this is Slavin it’s another story.
Reached the word limit, stay tuned for Round 2 in a couple days!
Being lazy here and not looking up myself but when did Ruff’s tenure in Dallas end? Related, do you think he deserves more time or should the Devils move on sooner than later?