The Coyotes play the Ducks tonight and since it's roughly the quarter mark of the NHL season, I thought I'd go through the lineup and review the play of some of team's main players over the next couple of days.
The reason we'll be starting with the defense is because I came across a pretty interesting article from Sarah McLellan that I wanted to comment on. Not so much what she says, but the quote from Don Maloney that she uses in her article.
I come from Toronto where ripping the team is the media's primary focus to the point where they ran the best player the team had seen in a decade out of town with made up stories about hot-dogs, so I do find the soft-touch approach to covering the Coyote interesting, but given their ever-lasting precarious position as an NHL team, I get it.
Certainly there are few, if any, Coyotes fans who appreciate my critical approach to the team.
Anyway, here's the quote from the latest article by McLellan "Coyotes Defense Has Lessened Urgency for Trade."
Even in training camp when their roster appeared to be set, the Coyotes explored ways to bolster their defense.But the urgency to make a move isn’t so strong as it once was after the unit debuted improvement following last season’s struggles.
“That was a real priority to see if we can improve our mobility and puck-moving ability,… General Manager Don Maloney said. “But now with the way the group has played … it’s not as pressing.…
So the team who traded one of its better defensemen in training camp for a guy they don't even play (who is better than guys they do play) doesn't think it needs to make more moves? Reading this Don Maloney quote, if he isn't just straight-up lying, I feel as if he should be immediately removed from his job as GM of the team - I mean, I don't think he could actually say anything more inaccurate, so let's look at the stats.
The Coyotes are bottom-ten in goals allowed, and one of just four teams in that group with a PDO right around 100. They are the seventh-worst possession team in hockey and they have the seventh-worst shot differential.
Relative to the rest of the league, they don't allow a lot of shots or scoring chances, but they do allow the fourth most goals against per 60 minutes in the NHL. So what does this mean?
It means the Coyotes have gotten garbage goaltending (Although its being balanced out by a high team shooting percentage). But it also would be too easy to just blame the goalies. The style the Coyotes play is problematic. They may be decent at preventing shots, but the other team is able to hold onto the puck so much that they are converting more than they should be.
Watching the games seems to back this up, because the Coyotes do seem to be a team that gets hemmed in their own end while the other team cycles the puck.
I think it's because on any given night, the Coyotes defense is made up of too many players who just don't move the puck up the ice, which makes Maloney's quote above concerning.
Let us investigate further.
Oliver Ekman-Larsson:
The Coyotes' best player has four goals and 14 points in 20 games so far. He plays 51% of his time in the opponents end and his low PDO suggests he'll score even more than he has going forward.
He is one of four Coyotes (P.Samuelsson, Stone and Murphy) who have a positive scoring chance differential, with a +19, good for 34th in the NHL. When you consider he plays for a team that has literally one NHL centre, that is actually impressive.
OEL is so good at doing the little things, and such a strong puck mover, and so positionally sound, that even in games where he looks "off" he tends to put up strong stats. That is because all the little things he does add up to more than the one or two bad things he might do in a given game. I've had people tell me they don't think he's playing very good this season, those people need to look up and learn about my old friend the confirmation bias.
Nick Grossmann:
In 13 games, Grossmann has a CF% of 44.63. His replacements in the lineup - Samuelsson and Elliott - both have significantly higher possession stats. Now, Grossmann plays almost exclusively defensive zone starts and while he was out of the lineup, the team used Michalek and Dahlbeck as their primary shutdown unit, so that is a factor.
However, regardless of zone-starts, its worth pointing out that when not being used as the main shut-down line, Michalek and Dahlbeck don't post anywhere near 50% anyways, so while Grossmann is not totally to blame.
Comparing Grossmann to other players who post similar zone starts, we see that Chara, Keith, Niskanen, Hjalmarsson, Martinez, Edler, Brodie and Lovejoy all post much better possession stats. Some players are just as bad as Grossmann, but looking at players who play a similar kind of minutes, he's in the bottom half of the NHL.
I've been hard on Grossmann since the Coyotes picked him up, but honestly, he's better than Michalek and Dahlbeck, so I guess I have to find a new whipping boy. This doesn't mean that he is good - considering his zone starts and role, he's below average, but we must consider that most teams only give such zone starts to much better players in the first place, so he's been OK, all things considered.
One final note: Grossmann plays the 15th most PK time per game in the NHL. The Coyotes are bottom-third in goals allowed and Corsi while killing penalties and they allow the fourth-most shots per game on the PK, though to be fair they are the second most penalized team in hockey.
Grossmann has been decent on the PK, but nothing special, based on the stats.
Connor Murphy:
Murphy is having himself a good year. His single goal and five points don't look impressive, but he is a +11 in scoring-chance differential while starting most (not as much as Grossmann) of his shifts in the defensive end.
He is a 48% possession player, but when he gets away from Grossmann, he rises to a 52% which considering the Coyotes failure in this regard, is not something they should continue to ignore.
Though the sample size is small, he is at 58% when partnered with OEL. In the last three years however, whenever on the ice with OEL, they produce a 54% rating and should be partners.
Just 22, Murphy still has the chance to become an elite NHL defenseman. The fact that he is the Coyotes fourth most used defenseman at 5v5 is one of the worst usages of a player in the entire NHL.
Or, it would be if you weren't about to learn the absolute worst: Murphy plays less than a minute per game on the powerplay, despite having a game tailor-made to QB an NHL poweplay.
Michael Stone:
Stone has 1 goal and six points playing almost exclusively with OEL on the top pairing. He is a 49% Corsi player, but that drops to 43% when away from OEL, whose Corsi jumps to 54% when he gets away from Stone.
He is a good player and could be an excellent to great second-pairing player. I realize the Coyotes play him with OEL to provide balance and that he gets so much PP time because his shot is a rocket, but still, playing him ahead of Connor Murphy is kind of wacky.
Overall, he a solid, if unspectacular player. I have no complaints against him other than to say that Connor Murphy is better overall and should be playing with OEL.
Z.Michalek
A 44% possession player who the WOWYs say makes every player he plays with worse. His game has no offense and he has allowed 31 more scoring chances than he has produced.
But even worse, his shot differential is "just" -19, which is actually better than his scoring chance differential, which means that even when his line does have the puck, they aren't doing anything with it.
Re-signing Michalek was almost as big a mistake as re-signing Vermette.
Klaus Dahlbeck
People keep telling me that Dahlbeck is great, that he was such a steal. I disagree.
-17 shot differential, -27 scoring chance differential, 44% possession and no offense to speak of.
The Coyotes are smart enough to dress Grossmann with Murphy, so if they are going to dress Michalek, which they shouldn't, they should at least partner him with Elliott. Dahlbeck and Michalek are very, very ineffective. They allow a lot of scoring chances and produce none.
I can't find any evidence for keeping Dahlbeck in the lineup. He isn't an NHL defensemen, as far as I can tell. Despite easier minutes than Grossmann, he is much worse.
Final Analysis.
My problem with Grossmann has always been philosophical - there is ample evidence that players of his style should not play ahead of players who move the puck (go back to the top and look at the players who play similar zone starts but have better numbers: they are predominately puck movers. )
That being said, at worst, Grossmann is the Coyotes 4th or 5th best defenseman (we don't have enough evidence for Elliott, but I suspect with regular minutes he would be effective.) The problem on the Coyotes defense is not Grossmann, it is Michalek and Dahlbeck, who are not good.
After going through the data, it's clear that Maloney is either lying or wrong when he says the Coyotes don't need to trade for better defensemen.
They can get away with playing Grossmann, but they absolutely must get rid of Dahlbeck and Michalek. An easy way to do this would be to banish Michalek in the way Toronto banished Stephane Robidas and play Elliott in his place.
Then they would just need to trade for one more defenseman. The bright side is that with Murphy, Elliot and Stone, they can look at acquiring the far more prevalent left-shooting defenseman.
As for as properly using what they have, the first thing they need to do is get out of the outdated habit of playing a "defensive" defensemen against other teams top lines. The list of players who are excellent possession players with bad zone starts includes names like Edler, Chara, Niskanen and Keith. The Coyotes should recognize this and put OEL and Murphy on the top pairing and use them against all the other teams best players.
Then they should partner Grossmann with Elliott for the bottom pair and find a second-pairing partner for Stone. It shouldn't even be that hard to do, since the Coyotes have tons of prospect forwards and cap-room.
Thanks for reading.