In these situations with a losing streak, team problems and a general negative vibe, it can be challenging for me to figure out what to write about. Doing the generic, everything is horrible at a superficial level in some ways could be the most accurate summary that hits what matters. But for those who watch the games, just listing out a bunch of players/problems with 1-liners tells people exactly nothing that they do not already know. Saying it is going to be okay even if you believe it is just a simple assertion of opinion with no reading value. And going into details on individual players or such is just misery.
With the team losing 3 straight and not playing very well in the process, the general tendency can be to just start indiscriminately throwing things under the bus. The star players who are not scoring generally go first without regard to breaking down the details. And the players who are actually playing decent tend to get lumped with those who are not especially when they are line mates. Best example coming out of the Pens loss might be Alexander Semin. He logged only 1 assist on the night, but when you dig deeper, I think he played really well. He had a beautiful 3rd period playmaker’s pass that got to Gerbe in the blue paint but handcuffed him a bit not being to his stick and not quite where he could kick it in without kicking it of course. Most noticeable to me was how much Semin simplified his game. He mostly looked to do his playmaking while still moving north-south. And he generally took shooting opportunities when they were presented launching a total of 8 shots though only 3 were on net. Sorting out and evaluating players individually is a challenge in itself when the negative vibe sets in, but it can be even harder to separate the individual components within a player’s game when it is mostly not going well.
So rather than chucking each and every player (or almost all of them anyway) under the bus after the 3-game losing streak, let me instead take a deeper dive on Jordan Staal's play so far. There is obviously some negative here, so I cannot candy coat the whole thing. The simple scoring situation with 3 scoring points in 12 games is obviously not good. He is struggling offensively and not holding up his end of the bargain as a 2nd line center in the scoring department. But when you dissect his game, I think his evaluation is actually more mixed than most would give him credit for, and it also yields an interesting surprise that defies the general assumption with 1 part of his game for which he just seems to automatically get credit.
My evaluation of Jordan Staal through 12 games gets back to my repeated yammering in my season previews this year and even further back to my suggestion to separate JStaal and Skinner that dates back to before the 2012-13 season started. In grading JStaal, many people get too wrapped around the axel looking at the easy numbers. People point to his $6M salary and his 2nd line center slot and then immediately demand stereotypical 2nd line center scoring stats. My target for JStaal entering the season was Brind’Amour’s 2001-02 season in which he played on a defense-focused line that played all of the hard minutes. Brind’Amour was a breakeven player that year and notched a decent but modest 55 scoring points. It was enough to play a key role in the Canes making the playoffs that year. Brind’Amour was successful that year not because of how much he scored but how much he scored relative to his opponents. That is exactly the target to for Jordan Staal in his current role that sees him taking as many of the hard matchups/minutes as Muller can get and playing with modest scoring talent equally focused on defense as goals. My measure for how much Jordan Staal is contributing continues to be whether he can break even at even strength most nights, be a leader on an improved penalty kill and have and provide decent depth scoring. Again, 50-55ish points is fine if the defense part comes through.
So how is he doing based on my metrics? I think breaking his game out by on-ice strength is a decent way to see both the positives and negatives.
At even strength (note I adjust even strength to NOT include extra attacker goals that I shift to the power play totals, so specifically for JStaal, he does not get a minus for Det’s 6v5 goal in the waning moments, nor does he get a minus for the empty net goal against at the end of the Clr game):
Defense: He has been surprisingly good. Taking more than his fair share of defensive zone starts and seeing more than his fair share of ice time against the other team’s best, he has been on the ice for only 4 even strength goals against in 12 games. If you assume a game includes 46 minutes of even strength ice time and project his even strength goals against on a per game basis, the math says that the team would allow 1.02 even strength goals against per game (in 46 minutes of even strength ice time). That is not a bad number at all. When you consider that roughly 25% of all goals are scored on the power play, with decent PK numbers, the Canes goals against average with JStaal on the ice would be something like 1.3-1.5. That obviously should be good enough to win hockey games even without a ton of scoring.
Offense: Here is 1 of the problems. As you would expect from his meager scoring totals of 1 G and 2 A, Jordan Staal has not been on the ice for much even strength offense. In fact, he has been on the ice for only 3 even strength goals for which is actually 1 less than his goals against and comes to only 0.77 goals for per game at even strength (as measured by 46 minutes of even strength ice time). That obviously is not good enough to win hockey games offensively.
But getting back to where I started, the goal for Jordan Staal is to take the tough ice time (defensive zone starts, the other team’s best line, etc.) and break even therefore putting the ball on the tee for even a decent night for the Canes top scorers to win a hockey game. Though the formula is light on scoring and maybe therefore not sustainable, I would argue that through 12 games, JStaal has mostly met his 2001-02 Brind’Amour target at even strength. (Again adjusting for the empty net stuff/extra attacker stuff that I move to power play stats) Jordan Staal has been minus in only 2 games, plus in 1 game and the targeted breakeven in the rest.
There are a couple problems that make it hard to see that Jordan Staal has been good enough if not great at even strength:
1) The superficial scoring numbers that people see daily are weak obviously and do need to improve.
2) The players who are supposed to score goals to convert JStaal’s defensive work into wins have been struggling. Most notably the top line has struggled and minus Jeff Skinner depth scoring has been real light.
3) Per my analysis below, JStaal has not been good on penalty kill.
Penalty kill: Jordan Staal has logged enough good seasons as a checking line center and strong penalty killer that he just automatically gets credit for it at this point. It is assumed that he is good. When the Canes started much better on PK this year, he got his share of the credit as 1 of the leaders. Sometimes history can cloud analysis, and I think that might be the case with JStaal for 2013-14 as relates to PK acumen.
A few quick stats:
--He has been on the ice for 8 of the Canes 10 shorthanded (including 6v5) goals against. No other forward has been on the ice for more than 4 goals against (Dwyer, his primary partner and EStaal).
--Up until his primary partner was injured, there was a collection of Canes PK forwards who had been on the ice for exactly 0 PK goals against. The list recently included Tlusty, Dvorak, Nash, Gerbe and Sutter, basically most of the mix and match combinations who took the ice when JStaal/Dwyer came off. Since Dwyer’s injury, both Dvorak and Tlusty have been tainted by PK goals against both playing next to JStaal in Dwyer’s place.
--JStaal is giving up 2.00 PK goals against per game (deemed to be about 7 minutes of PK ice time per 60 minutes). Per my previous comment, about 75% of NHL goals are at even strength, so a team giving up an averagish 2.50 goals per game would normally give up about 1.8 at even strength and 0.6 on PK. Regardless of details, the Canes are giving up too much when JStaal is on the ice killing penalties.
Stats can be misleading, but especially in recent games, JStaal has had a direct role in the PK goals against. The Wild power play goal came when Hainsey won a puck behind the net. JStaal who was in front of the net failed to provide a short pass outlet and then when Hainsey fed it around the boards where it seemed to be a 50/50 puck between JStaal and a Wild player, JStaal was slow to jump on it. By the time he got there, the Wild player picked up the puck and walked right around him to between the circles where he made no mistake with the scoring chance from a prime area while JStaal trailed behind. The Avs power play goal the next night featured Duchene beating JStaal 1-on-1.
Power play:
JStaal has a lone power play goal to his credit in terms of scoring (with no assists) but by virtue of being part of the 2nd power play unit that has been the better of the 2, he has been on the ice for 5 power play goals scored. That ranks behind only Skinner and Semin who have been on the ice for 6 each. Since he has not scored much you could argue that he just benefitted from who he was playing with. Or if you want to lean positive, you could give him credit for at least being a serviceable component of the part of the power play that has been working reasonably well. At the end of the day, I would rank his power play performance as 4th behind even strength defense, even strength offense and penalty kill defense (tied) in terms of importance for JStaal’s contribution to the team.
When you net it out, I do not think Jordan Staal’s game is as far off as people might think right now. He has been good in his #1 role of matching up against the other team’s best all night at even strength and by virtue of that he has been pretty much a breakeven player despite very little in terms of scoring. He has also missed some real good chances offensively of late seemingly due to the mounting pressure. Recent bad misses include twice where he whiffed completely on passes to him between the circles at point blank range and a breakaway where he went to shoot only to then find out that the puck was actually behind his stick not in front of it. At some point, you have to figure he will start finishing more offensively. I just refuse to believe that he is a 25-point player over the course of a full 82-game season. If he can achieve the offense at even strength when it comes without cheating defensively, then the recipe is not that far off from being exactly what is needed at even strength. From there it is a matter of getting back to form on PK. So much credit (I think mostly unearned at this early juncture of the 2013-14 season) for being a solid PK player that this part is taken for granted. If he can then fix this, I think Jordan Staal is then on target to be exactly the player the Canes need in his role.
It is just a matter of sprinkling a bit more offense into the even strength recipe and refinding the old recipe for penalty kill. At the beginning of the season, I named him getting back to being a solid defensive leader on the 2nd line as being key to the team’s success. I stand by that assertion, and I also think that Jordan Staal is closer than the current down mood and lack of scoring would suggest.
So short version:
--JStaal even strength defense=good.
--JStaal even strength offense=not enough but so far made up for by defense.
--JStaal penalty=surprising problem or at a minimum something to track.
--JStaal power play=lower priority and good enough to at least be a piece with other drivers.
What say you Canes fans? Is the lack of scoring and quality play in other parts of the lineup making the spotlight on Jordan Staal bigger than it should be? Scoring totals aside, does anyone buy my case that he is actually not that far off track at even strength? Finally has anyone else noticed the that he is always 1 of the players skating off when the other team scores a power play or extra strength goal?
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