One of the goals I had with the All Three Zones Project was highlighting the strengths & weaknesses of every player in the league through micro-statistics. While there’s more hits than misses, occassionally you’ll have a few instances where a player’s micro & macro level profiles don’t add up. The Hurricanes newest signing, Paul Stastny, is probably the most glaring example of this.
Stastny has a well-deserved reputation as a reliable two-way center who will consistently give you good results. Friend of the newsletter, JFreshHockey’s player cards illustrates this well.
For the past three years, Stastny has posted great results at both ends of the rink. Most lines he was on drove scoring chances & did a solid job at preventing them & he did this while playing high in the lineup. Sounds like a no-brainer signing, right? The micro-level stats paint a different picture.
That’s a lot more red than you saw on the previous card. It’s also worth noting that his micro-stat profile in past years has been similar, so this isn’t just an aging curve thing. Stastny’s game has always been more about passing rather than speed or carrying the puck, so stats like this are going to underrate him a bit. Although the chance, deflections, forecheck & high-danger chances sections show why his offensive numbers with the Jets were good despite him never touching the puck for more than two seconds a shift. Watching all 21 of his goals from last year also shows how sneakily effective he is despite the lack of footspeed or game-breaking skill.
Some players are more comfortable with staying within their means as they get older & Stastny does a great job of that. He still has great hands, knows how to win box-outs in front of the net and will usually defer to the players on his line to do most of the work with the puck while he looks for a soft spot to jump on a rebound or get a deflection. Last year was the first time he topped 20 goals since 2014, so there will probably be a downtick in how many tap-in goals he gets next year, but you can see why models favor someone who does most of their work in front of the net.
The Hurricanes lost two of their better netfront guys in Vincent Trocheck & Nino Niederreiter this summer, so Stastny fills an immediate need. He also brings some flexability with being able to play both center & wing, so they have the option of plugging him into Trocheck’s 2C spot or pairing him with Sebastian Aho on the top line.
Which option will give them the best results is tricky because Stastny spent most of last year on Mark Scheifele’s wing and is usually slotted alongside a strong puck-carrier regardless of if he’s the center or not (Nik Ehlers, Alex Tuch, Mark Stone, Jaden Schwartz). Carolina has a few options there (Aho, Svech, Necas) and looking at some of Stastny’s work on Winnipeg’s top line is a good blueprint for them to follow.
Keep your eyes on #25 throughout. He’s very much an "touch & go” type of player rather than someone who is going to survey the rink or skate the puck into open ice (two strides & glide the entire way). Mostly off the rush, he’s a little more patient when the puck is already in the zone, but someone else is doing most of the work in the neutral zone while he follows them and makes himself a passing option. His movement is slow but his decisions are quick and most of the time it’s the right one. He’s also good at being the first one to pressure even if he’s not recovering the puck.
Microstats capture the important aspects of this (scoring chances, forecheck pressures) but sometimes players who create more quality offense than quanitity get underrated. Stastny is an interesting one because he is involved in facilitating the rush but he doesn’t get a lot of direct opportunities in transition. Instead, he creates more off follow-ups and recoveries, which bodes well for Carolina since that’s their preferred method for offense. It does make you wonder what he could do alongside Aho on the Hurricanes top line. Stastny doesn’t neccesarily need to be used this way, it’s just that the Canes could potentially be the difference between adding a 13- goal guy and a 20-goal guy if everything breaks right.
You could follow a similar outline with him playing the middle between Seth Jarvis or Martin Necas, but you also want to maintain an underrated aspect of Stastny’s game; facilitating the rush. This is one of those things that microstats don’t always capture (at least at the level that I track them). You’ll notice Stastny always in the right position to receive a pass exiting the zone or quickly making an exchange in the neutral zone to help an entry. He’s also someone who can drive the middle or trail the player entering the zone to add layers to the attack. That was a common theme with watching his Jets clips. Stastny is always "involved” in the play even if he never touches the puck. Making himself a passing option, fighting for space in front of the net, getting in the way of a breakout, etc. Someone else just has to help him get the puck from Point A to Point B, which is why he had so much success with Ehlers and Scheifele.
The Hurricanes are a team that likes to have their wingers flip the puck out of the zone, which negates some of Stastny’s strengths here. Maybe this is part of the reason why they signed him, even if Carolina’s has some recent history of trying to plug random free agency pieces into the wrong spots. Stastny can create off the cycle regardless so it’s not a deal-breaker but again, you want to get the most out of him and Stastny could become a pretty important player if he’s used this way, as opposed to someone who is going to take Derek Stepan’s place on the fourth line.
Takeaways
Players like Stastny are always a good self-check for me because I always want to see what I’m missing when my data doesn’t line-up with other public models. With Stastny, you have a player who doesn’t handle the puck much but usually makes good plays when he does get it. Microstats show some of the limitations in his game (carrying the puck, playing with speed, skating) and how the Canes can best utlize him. He isn’t too different from Teuvo Teravainen with most of his best work coming off the puck & making the most out of limited touches. Players like this will get underrated by microstats sometimes, so looking at the macro-level data is always a good check. Goes to show that you don’t always need to have the puck to be an effective player.