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The other rookie defencemen

October 27, 2016, 12:12 PM ET [6 Comments]
Paul Berthelot
Columbus Blue Jackets Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Zach Werenski has been the big story of the Blue Jackets season, and with good reason. Not only is he their leading scorer with five points in five games but he’s been a possession monster with a 55.62% Corsi. That leads the team and is 12th among all NHL defencemen who have played at least 90 minutes. Werenski is not the only rookie defencemen on the blue line, Markus Nutivaara is also in his first NHL season, and while he hasn’t been as successful, there are signs he’s transitioning well.

Looking at the overall stat line for Nutivaara doesn’t paint a pretty picture. In five games he has zero points, one shot on net, and a 44.9% Corsi. Having no points so far this season isn’t good but considering Nutivaara plays on the third pair and has played exactly 0:00 on the power play, this isn’t a concern. What is concerning are his poor possession numbers. Nutivaara had strong possession numbers in Finland, and there was hope that he could translate that success in North America. Overall, this hasn’t happened, but let’s take a look at the individual games. He’s had two games where he was good (vs Boston and San Jose) where he put up a 53.33% Corsi and a 50% Corsi, one game where he was great, (against Dallas) with a 66.67% Corsi and two games where he was bad (against Chicago and L.A.) where he had a 32% and a 33.33% Corsi respectively.

With Ryan Murray’s injuries it has caused the defence to shuffle around. Jack Johnson was Nutivaara’s partner to start the season, but he was bumped up to the second pair and Dalton Prout stepped in on the third pair. When paired with Prout, Nutivaara has been good, when paired with Johnson the results have been very poor.



When paired with Prout, Nutivaara’s Corsi is 10% higher than with Johnson. When he is away from Johnson he does much better than when he is away from Prout. It’s admittedly a very small sample but based on what we know about Johnson and Prout this should have been expected and is likely to continue over the full season. Prout has been a very strong shot suppressor in his time with the Jackets. He brings no offense to the ice, but he excels at keeping the opposition out of his zone. Johnson is the exact opposite. He generates some offense, but is always stuck in his own zone.

At this stage in his career Nutivarra is not the player who is going to carry a pairing. He will be heavily influenced by his partners. Judging from this season and the players past history, playing him with Prout will be much more beneficial than playing him with Jack Johnson. When Ryan Murray gets healthy, Dalton Prout should not be coming out of the line-up. He has done well when paired with Nutivarra and has helped Nutivarra successfully transition to the NHL.

Stats courtesy of Natural Stat Trick.

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