The trade deadline has come and gone. The Blue Jackets were busy the last few days making three additions to the team. They traded for Mark Letestu on Sunday, and then Ian Cole and Thomas Vanek on Monday. You can read about the Letestu trade here. Today we are going to look at what Ian Cole brings to the Jackets, and tomorrow in preparation for his first game we will go into Vanek.
The Blue Jackets traded a 2020 third round pick and AHL player Nick Moutrey to get Cole. Moutrey is a non-prospect, in 137 AHL games he has just 34 points. The pick is where the value is in this trade. With the pick so far down the road however that lowers the value of it significantly. The Jackets got Cole for a relatively cheap price.
Cole has spent the last four seasons as a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins, winning back to back Stanley Cups. Right away, regardless of what Cole brings on the ice he adds value to this team. He, along with Letestu and Vanek are the only players on the team who have made it past the first round of the playoffs. Cole has been through the playoff rigor before he knows what it takes and brings valuable experience to a locker room that lacks it.
On the ice Cole isn’t expected to play a big role but he will have an impact every night. In 47 games with the Penguins this season Cole has three goals and 10 assists, more points than either Jack Johnson or David Savard. Cole’s not known for his offensive game, and playing with those Pittsburgh forwards is going to help anyone, but he does have at least some ability offensively.
Cole gets compared a lot to Johnson as both are bottom pair defencemen and at the time of the Cole trade most people thought he was going to be Johnson’s replacement. That didn’t happen and now the Jackets have both. The following visuals will give a good snapshot at how the two players compare this season.
This first one here is a summary of the data you can find on Corsica. In the top of part in the individual section you can see Cole has a lot more blue. He has more points, more shots and more goals for than Johnson. In the on-ice portion they are much more comparable. Cole has a better Corsi but Johnson has a higher expected goals for and plays against tougher competition. One thing to make note of here is the penalty differential. Cole takes a lot of penalties and immediately becomes the Blue Jackets most penalized player. For a team that ranks 27th on the PK that is concerning.
With this chart we can see that this season Cole and Johnson are very similar in their shot contributions. Cole shoots a little more and Johnson passes a little more but overall they contribute about the same. Johnson is considered more offensively minded though he doesn’t have the points to show for it, but it’s reflected in the entry and exit stats. Johnson doesn’t mind taking the puck and skating with it. Cole is not going to do that. Cole is a defensive defencemen, he might struggle with exits but he does a decent job at breaking up plays at the line.
Ian Cole (traded to CBJ) over the past three seasons: second pair scoring, third pair minutes and shot impacts, takes a lot of penalties. pic.twitter.com/spv1F7Xue6
— Micah Blake McCurdy (@IneffectiveMath) February 26, 2018
This is an overall real good summary of Cole. He’s a third pair defencemen and someone you can trust to play third pair minutes. He protects the front of the net, as you see on the bottom left in the 5 on 5 shots against heat map, there is a lot of blue right in front of the goal. He is going to keep players away from Sergei Bobrovsky and hopefully give Bob a lane to see the puck.
The big thing Cole provides is that trust factor the coaching staff will have in him. I mentioned this in the post-game report on Tuesday, John Tortorella can trust Cole on that third pair. He can play him 15-16 minutes a night and take some of the pressure off of Seth Jones and Zach Werenski. Tortorella was riding that top pair into the ground playing them 25 minutes a game recently. He didn’t trust Scott Harrington or Dean Kukan much and as result they were only playing around 10 minutes a game. You want Jones and Werenski playing as much as possible but you also want them to be fresh. There comes a point where it’s too much and I think the Jackets had reached that point.
It’s only been one game with Cole but the results are very encouraging. Jones and Werenski each played under 20 minutes, and Jones had three points. If you can keep their minutes down and still have them be effective it’s the best of both worlds.
Ian Cole might not be a significant add but he’s a decent third pair option who can eat up some minutes and take some of the load off of the top pair. He brings playoff experience and a winning pedigree to a locker room that doesn’t have any. He makes the defence group deeper and that’s a big help. Now if he could just stay out of the penalty box.
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