Wanna blog? Start your own hockey blog with My HockeyBuzz. Register for free today!
 

Positional Reviews: Defensemen

May 5, 2017, 2:13 PM ET [183 Comments]
John Jaeckel
Chicago Blackhawks Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT





OVERALL GRADE: C+


It’s easy to evaluate the defense, right? Look at Corsi, shots allowed, compare that with GAA and Bob’s your uncle.

Wrong.

Count me among those who see defense (ie, stopping the puck from going in your net) as a 200-foot, full team effort. And therefore, it’s much harder to isolate and grade a blueline corps purely by the standard, obvious metrics.

Because even when you look at Corsi and Fenwick for shot suppression, it doesn’t take matchups and assignments into account. All those metrics will be factored in here. But I will offer my subjective mortar between those bricks as well.

Does context matter with individual Corsi and Fenwick? Consider that the Hawks’ best Corsi and Fenwick for the regular season was registered by rookie, #6 defenseman Michal Kempny. Yes, context matters.

I wanted to give the blueline overall a C- grade based mostly on upside down team possession numbers for the year—and, of course, the still stinging first round playoff sweep.

Overall, by most metrics, the Hawk blueline has had marginally better years, but the big issue with this team, in my opinion, was with the forwards. And that may have affected somewhat how the blueline appeared to have played. More on that tomorrow.

Statistically, this was not a bad year for the blueline, but there are also some interesting highlights (or lowlights, depending) within the individual performances.



Duncan Keith

GRADE B-
Games 80
Goals/Assists 6/47
Plus/Minus +22
Corsi For (all situations) 50.7%
Blocks per game 1.3

53 points and +22 were an “off season” for the two-time Norris Trophy winner. Without question, Keith struggled earlier on in the year, coming off a summer knee surgery, from which he was rumored to have not fully recovered by the start of the season. It showed. Keith came on toward the end of the regular season, and he was one of only a small handful of Hawks who showed any life in the playoffs. Like Marian Hossa the year before, there were whispers around Keith (among fans) that “he’s done–too many hard miles (that old chestnut).” But like Hossa, Keith has been (and more importantly likely still is) an off-the-charts, superior athlete. The big question is, how much permanent debilitation was there from the knee surgery—and how much will it be a factor going forward, if at all? My sense is, if Keith’s knee was not debilitated permanently, he still has at least a couple of seasons of elite play left. Some may scoff. But when healthy, this guy is a freakish athlete.

Brent Seabrook
GRADE B-
79
3/35
+5
50.8%
1.9

Seabrook’s another guy, like Keith and Hossa and perhaps Jonathan Toews (to be discussed tomorrow), whose demise may be exaggerated at this point. Sure, he’s getting on in years, and like Hossa, as a bigger player, the miles do pile up a bit faster than for smaller, lighter players. But it’s hard to find any huge, gaping flaws in Seabrook’s numbers. Further, for the second straight season, Seabrook was mostly saddled with a learner on his left flank. This year, most of the season, it was Kempny. And when you look at his numbers—despite the obvious rough edges to his game—he looks pretty good. And you should probably credit Seabrook for that.


Niklas Hjalmarsson
Grade B
73
5 /13
+12
43.4%
2.5

Yet another solid book of work for arguably the cornerstone of the Hawk blueline. The metrics tell the story: Hjalmarsson is a pure defensive defenseman, and the guy Joel Quenneville leans on (at times even more so than Keith) for his toughest defensive assignments. Consider that his aggregate Corsi noted above is in all situations, so it is skewed by the amount of time he spends killing penalties, and is also mitigated by his team high blocked shots. You want to talk about hard miles? Here’s a guy you would look at—arguably moreso than the older (by two years) Seabrook. Yet Hammer was pretty much Steady Eddie, this past season at least.


Brian Campbell
GRADE C+
80
5/12
+12
51.4%
1.0

By most metrics, Campbell’s grade should be higher. Except, I graded all these guys in terms of expectation. One would assume the Hawks thought Campbell would approach his earlier career numbers, even last year’s in Florida, where he put up a respectable 33 points. But a couple of things were obvious this year about Campbell (to both the positive and the negative). Campbell’s ability to push the play has always been predicated on the solidity of his partner. Thus, many thought the coaching staff would simply reunite #51 with his 2009-11 partner, Hjalmarsson. Instead, Campbell played with Trevor van Riemsdyk. It’s not like these guys were terrible, but as a tandem, 5 on 5, they always seemed to give you the heebie jeebies as often as not, especially when pucks got deep in their end. To his credit, Campbell clearly has learned how to play within the limitations of eroded physical skill—the speed that was once there is gone.

Trevor Van Riemsdyk
GRADE C-
58
5 /11
+17
49.2%
1.7

Last season’s “revelation,” until a pretty miserable playoff first round versus St. Louis, TVR seems to have found his "level" this past season. A generally smart, depth defenseman with limited mobility and some ability to pitch in offensively. he is what he is. But it's probably time for the broadcasters to stop pumping his tires, and conversely, for bloggers to stop singling him out as the bane of the Hawks' existence. he is what he is. And although he is "cost-controlled" and clearly a favorite of Joel Quenneville, the Hawks may not be able to afford to overlook his limitations any more.


Michal Kempny
GRADE C+
50
2 /5
+1
53.7%
1.3

Like van Riemsdyk, Kempny polarized the fanbase. All some fans could see with the Czech rookie were positioning mistakes, getting caught too far up ice, etc. Others saw speed (and great quickness to pucks), a heavy playing style, a big shot. But actually it’s not an either/or. It’s both. Kempny is/was raw in terms of NHL ability. But on a team whose two best pure athletes are in their late 30s (Duncan Keith and Marian Hossa), Kempny’s sheer athleticism and individual skills, especially at what should be a decent controlled price, seems well worth developing more.


LOOKING AHEAD

This is where Johnny Oduya, Michal Rozsival (who is probably done) and Gustav Forsling come in.

In all likelihood, some combination of these nine players (eight, minus Rozsival) form the Hawk defense next year—barring trade, of course.

I have not heard anything specifically around the Hawks’ plans regarding their blueline this offseason. There’s soime conventional wisdom out there that—if the Hawks want to upgrade their forward corps in any kind of meaningful way—they need to move a veteran defenseman like Seabrook or Hjalmarsson. That remains to be seen, and I would not trust the conventional wisdom. In my opinion, and based on the totality of what I’ve heard since the end of the playoffs—I would take nothing for granted as far as how the Hawks will re-engineer.

And here’s another chicken/egg conundrum regarding the forwards and the defense. If there’s an urgency to upgrade the forwards to vault back into Cup contention (and, foreshadowing tomorrow’s blog, there should be), then how can you afford to trade away one of your defensive cornerstones?

Oduya and/or Campbell could conceivably return on very team-friendly deals, each in the twilight of their careers, each with personal reasons to want to be in Chicago.

Oduya struggled at times in the playoffs—when the assumption was he would slide right back in at April 2015 form. What went wrong? There is reason to believe he came back too soon from a lower leg issue. And, assuming Johnny O would like to re-up this summer in Chicago, his health and potential is a call for physicians and coaches to make.

The real issue is the bottom of the depth chart, positions 5-7. You will hear more of what I’m about to say tomorrow, but to my eye, if there’s a broad, overarching reason the Hawks got humiliated by Nashville, it was a roster-wide lack of energy, athleticism, size and speed. And don’t get me wrong, the “design” of the Hawk system is predicated on speed—out of the defensive zone and up the ice. Add to that, maintaining offensive zone pressure for long periods of time. The Hawks didn’t seem to have the horses, especially in the playoffs to play their game and dictate terms to the opposition—finding themselves, instead, and for the first time in several seasons—being dictated to.

I don’t feel the problem is as acute on defense as it is at forward. But, to my eye, more playing time and development opportunity for a Michal Kempny is critical. And if he, or especially Gustav Forsling, are in the Hawks’ plans after this summer, it may mean finally cutting ties with Rozsival and phasing out or cutting ties with the serviceable, but slow and not very physical van Riemsdyk.

Again, a lot of opinion mixed in with the stats here, and you may disagree. In which case, come back tomorrow, because you may really disagree then.

All I have for now,



JJ
Join the Discussion: » 183 Comments » Post New Comment
More from John Jaeckel
» Thanks and Farewell
» Where do we go from here?
» Preds at Hawks Breakdown
» "All Teams Have Flaws"
» The Games You Should Win