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Taking a page from
Copper And Blue, I've decided to take an in-depth look at the overall production of thirty Northeast division defensemen, arranged in a tidy bubble graph for player-to-player analysis.
The collection of blue liners from the Boston Bruins, Buffalo Sabres, Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators, and Toronto Maple Leafs have been thrown into the below-referenced bubble graph based on three metrics.
On your x-axis, you have Corsi Relative Quality of Competition, which measures Average Relative Corsi of opposing players, weighted head-to-head by ice time. The further right, the better the opposition faced.
On your y-axis, you have Zone Start Adjusted Corsi, which weights a player's productivity based on the regularity -- or, irregularity -- of offensive zone starts. Players that start a ton of their shifts in the offensive zone will naturally have more scoring opportunities, and subsequently, more points. Conversely, defensive defensemen often start their shifts in the defensive zone, and have less opportunity at point-scoring, effectively hurting their Corsi. Hence, the weight via the following formula:
Simplified Zone Start Adjusted Corsi = Corsi/60 - (Ozone% - 50)*0.18, courtesy [and explained] Driving the Net.
Lastly, the size of the bubble will indicate points per game. Considering I've limited the bubble graph to players with no less than forty games played, the averages aren't going to be heavily skewed. Erik Karlsson's a bowling ball, and Robin Regehr is a blip on the radar.
Take a minute to look over the graph before I get into some thoughts.
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Please expand the image for viewing HERE
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Boston Bruins: Corsi's a bit friendly to elite teams, mostly because they're constantly driving possession and racking up scoring opportunities. If there's anything surprising about where the Bruins finished, it's just how good Johnny Boychuk was for this team. Boychuk's not a major point-producer[fifteen points in seventy-seven games played], but he's probably underrated defensively and looks like a staple of this rough-and-tough blue line. Most importantly, he looks comfortable playing alongside Zdeno Chara, and vice versa -- the two were often paired together over the course of the regular season. For Claude Julien, it's a pairing he can lean on.
Buffalo Sabres: It shouldn't be ultimately surprising to see Sabres' defensemen struggling against the curve, as they lacked point-production from their blue liners for the majority of the season. Christian Ehrhoff was the bright spot for a Buffalo Sabres blue line that struggled from time to time, and his production in his first sixty-six games should -- to date -- warrant the 10Y, $40M deal inked last July. But, how 'bout some love for Andrej Sekera? Reggie made 67.5% what Regehr did last year, yet played well in tough minutes. His only downside, as evidenced by the size of the bubble, was point-scoring. Thirteen points in sixty-nine games just isn't enough.
Montreal Canadiens: For all of the heat P.K. Subban catches from the local and national media, he's still playing some pretty damn good hockey. He's playing some of the toughest minutes in the Northeast division, and still managed to piece together a thirty-six point season [7G/29A] with Montreal's 19th ranked offense. Right next to him on the graph? Josh Gorges, shutdown extraordinaire. Still, the biggest takeaway for me is just how awful Yannick Weber was against comparables. It doesn't matter if you're looking at regular or advanced statistics -- all signs point to the league average replacement probably being better at this point. As for Tomas Kaberle's unfortunate landing spot above? Well, I think that was expected.
Quick note: Alexei Yemelin is there, listed under the initials of AY.
Ottawa Senators: Gotta love Erik Karlsson's bubble looking like Jupiter in a planet alignment map. But, everyone knows he's a point-scorer. I'm more impressed with his work on the horizontal and vertical axis, which shows just how dominant he was against fairly strong competition. There's no question that Paul MacLean prefers to use Erik Karlsson in high-leverage offensive situations at even strength, but the notion that he's being hidden in an uptempo system that masks any potential defensive liability is tired, played, and just wrong. And, you have to love Sergei Gonchar sitting right on top of Christian Ehrhoff at the ripe age of thirty-eight. With Gonchar, there's legitimate questions as to how capable he is defensively, but he's bringing
enough to the table to warrant respectable TOI.
Toronto Maple Leafs: Much like P.K. Subban, the amount of criticism leveled the way of Dion Phaneuf is a bit over the top. Phaneuf -- along with Gorges -- logged the toughest minutes of any Northeast division defenseman, and still managed to put up forty-four points [12G/32A] on a Toronto Maple Leafs team that pretty much did nothing the second half of the season. I think the coaching staff was pretty happy with Carl Gunnarsson's play, too -- especially considering his cap-friendly $1.3M deal through the end of next season. If there's one trouble area, it's Luke Schenn. Unlike Jake Gardiner and Cody Franson, Schenn did not look comfortable in his third professional season, and the numbers certainly aren't doing him any favors. He needs a big turnaround season in 2012-2013.
Back with more tomorrow.
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