Reader Stringer74 asked this in the comments section yesterday:
Yost, is there any way to assess the performance of the Defensive pairs when the Spezza and Smith lines were on the ice, vs when the Turris, Zibanejad lines were on the ice? I think one poster here made reference to the important role of the Centre in supporting the Defensemen. I'm curious whether we will see a noticeable difference there, and also with moving on from Spezz to Legwand.
WOWY analysis is great for this, but it's sometimes difficult to isolate for performance on just one year of data. For one example: Jason Spezza played with the Chris Phillips pairing for only 200-minutes at EV last year. It's not an ideal size, and the standard deviations are huge.
The good news: Ottawa's had the same coach for three years, and he's really rolled out three distinct lines since taking over. Separately, we have defensemen who really haven't played a ton with each other -- Erik Karlsson, Chris Phillips, and Jared Cowen have all seen the majority of their minutes with a defenseman not named above. So, you can see where I'm going with this -- matching up one of our three regular centers with one of our three defenders to isolate for where things went when that five-man unit was on the ice.
I'm going to apply the three-year team average on each graph for a quick glance as to how the group performed relative to the norm. Let's start with Erik Karlsson, who makes every player around him significantly better. Not dissimilar to Zdeno Chara, or PK Subban, or Drew Doughty.
A couple of thoughts here. One, I was semi-surprised to see the Smith group do so well with Karlsson, but you would kind of guess that'd be the case when Karlsson's probably logging minutes against second or third-lines. Juts terrorizing them. The Karlsson/Turris group has laid waste to top-six groups for three years now. The Goal% strikes me as a tad generous, but north of 54% Corsi -- it's an elite number, period.
The Spezza/Karlsson group, on the other hand? A bit tricky. The possession numbers are just as strong as they are with Turris/Karlsson, but the goal percentages tail off miserably. It's hard to say if it's just random variance triggering that or if there's something to an offensive-minded forward playing with an offensive-minded defenseman -- something that leads to a less savory cut of the goals.
Let's move on to Jared Cowen.
If you have ever thought: "You know, I don't think Ottawa's 'shutdown group' is very good," here's the only data point you need. Three-years of just getting clobbered in goals, to say nothing of the fact that their territorial play is well below the three-year team average. Kyle Turris, much like Erik Karlsson, has a funny way of making players around him better. Jason Spezza and Jared Cowen look solid here -- maybe not to the degree of Kyle Turris and Jared Cowen, but remember, Jason Spezza was taking on the lion's share of tougher competition for the first of the three years in this group of data.
Now, Chris Phillips.
As a general rule for these graphs, I use the 40-60 band with a 50% break-even. I never thought I'd have to get out of that range. Zack Smith's line with Chris Phillips pairing? It's a trainwreck of colossal proportion. Jason Spezza actually elevated Chris Phillips' pairing to decent possession numbers, but again, the goals tailed off. And again, same objection/note applies: at least one of the three years in the data included Jason Spezza gunning against the league's best, which here means that Chris Phillips was logging minutes against the league's best. Which is terrifying. And again, Kyle Turris looks absolutely mint. Above the team averages with Chris Phillips on both fronts as a top-six center who logged some first-line minutes -- that's no small feat.
I don't think Ottawa's a better team with Jason Spezza lost. He's an elite point-producer and, in a second-line role in Dallas, I think he's going to kill. Here's the other thing: I'm not entirely sure Ottawa's going to be as bad as some suggest. And if they are as bad as some suggest, I think that's going to hang on this team's defensive corps, which is sort of an abomination. Objections to Kyle Turris playing a first-line role? I don't know if it's an ideal situation, but the numbers support him from every angle. He's not the flashiest player, but when you win the shots long-term, you win the goals long-term. And Turris has done that in just about every situation.
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Ottawa Senators Blogger • 
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