Jason Lewis: Appreciating the "Little Things" in Jake Muzzin's Game

People don't see the little things, they only see the BIG blatant turnover whenever he fumbles it off his stick in the D zone or when one of those clearing attempts gets flubbed and leads to a quality shot against... but those happen to all of them, even the best of the best... IMO Muzzin is a solid blue liner who can play the body well, play solid defense, and even gets his shot through on a more regular basis than the perennial Norris candidate.

People don't see the little things, they only see the BIG blatant turnover whenever he fumbles it off his stick in the D zone or when one of those clearing attempts gets flubbed and leads to a quality shot against... but those happen to all of them, even the best of the best... IMO Muzzin is a solid blue liner who can play the body well, play solid defense, and even gets his shot through on a more regular basis than the perennial Norris candidate.
- Stu17

Last season Muzzin should have been on the Norris voting imo.

Guys like Brodin, Wideman, Markov all got votes (albeit small). Muzzin should have as well.

Last season Muzzin should have been on the Norris voting imo.

Guys like Brodin, Wideman, Markov all got votes (albeit small). Muzzin should have as well.
- Jason_Lewis

muzz is a 26 yr old willie mitchell

Last season Muzzin should have been on the Norris voting imo.

Guys like Brodin, Wideman, Markov all got votes (albeit small). Muzzin should have as well.
- Jason_Lewis

Sounds like you're on team Tanner on this one. I respectfully disagree. Muzzin is a good young defenseman, but he's not even the best defenseman on the team, let alone in the league. Nominating him based on his Corsi numbers is just as bad as nominating Mike Green, Erik Karlsson, and P.K. Subban year after year based on their point totals. It's only one piece of the defenseman puzzle and doesn't provide a clear picture of how good of a defenseman he is.

Sounds like you're on team Tanner on this one. I respectfully disagree. Muzzin is a good young defenseman, but he's not even the best defenseman on the team, let alone in the league. Nominating him based on his Corsi numbers is just as bad as nominating Mike Green, Erik Karlsson, and P.K. Subban year after year based on their point totals. It's only one piece of the defenseman puzzle and doesn't provide a clear picture of how good of a defenseman he is.
- tkecanuck341

40+ points, good possession, increasing minutes, tough matchups. What else is there? He makes the occasional bad turnover?

And his Jock Strap!!! (sorry, boring night, trying to kill time until Fallout 4 comes out in a few hours...)

And his Jock Strap!!! (sorry, boring night, trying to kill time until Fallout 4 comes out in a few hours...)
- Flamin_Irishmin

All sins absolved

Jason Lewis: Appreciating the "Little Things" in Jake Muzzin's Game
- Jason_Lewis

Muzzin is a very solid number 2. You can't have a team full of Doughty's.

Sounds like you're on team Tanner on this one. I respectfully disagree. Muzzin is a good young defenseman, but he's not even the best defenseman on the team, let alone in the league. Nominating him based on his Corsi numbers is just as bad as nominating Mike Green, Erik Karlsson, and P.K. Subban year after year based on their point totals. It's only one piece of the defenseman puzzle and doesn't provide a clear picture of how good of a defenseman he is.
- tkecanuck341

Except all three of the d-men you named were worth their nominations for that year.

#FreeSlava

#FreeSlava
- SRam19

Voynov is free
























































































In Russia

40+ points, good possession, increasing minutes, tough matchups. What else is there? He makes the occasional bad turnover?
- Jason_Lewis

Like I said, he's a good young defenseman, I didn't say otherwise. I think he's a good value for his contract. He's probably a top-pairing defenseman on most teams. However, if Muzzin is your #1 defenseman, your team has got problems.

In my mind, a Norris-worthy defenseman is exceptional in all situations. Last season, Muzzin was 2nd on the team in PP time, but came in 5th in PK TOI among the team's regular defenseman. Drew Doughty was 1st in all situations, and he had 40+ points, and good possession numbers. Muzzin was solid, but nowhere close to as important to the team's success as Doughty.

If you look at Calgary, Mark Giordano led his team in PK and SH TOI, as well as in defensive point production and relative Corsi stats. He is the clear-cut #1 on his team, and would have been the unanimous Norris winner had he stayed healthy the entire season.

In Chicago, Duncan Keith led all of the same categories, and is also the clear-cut #1. He was snubbed for a Norris nomination in my opinion due to his relatively low offensive numbers, but he was more deserving than any of the nominees (Doughty included) in his all-around play. He got payback by winning a Stanley Cup and a Conn Smythe.

If you look at Nashville, there is a situation where you can make the claim that there are two defensemen worthy of a Norris nomination. Josi and Weber have near identical numbers in every situation. Josi outperformed Weber in the assists category, but aside from that, their offensive numbers are identical. Weber brings a much more physical game than Josi does, as he more than tripled the number of hits. This defensive pair led Nashville to the 3rd best record in the West last season. It's unfair to them that they have to play in the best division in hockey and have to go up against the likes of Chicago and St. Louis in the first round.

I'm glad Muzzin is on our team. However, to say that his play last season was Norris-worthy places too much emphasis on advanced stats. He's having a quality season so far, and his PK time has picked up due to the departure of Regehr. If the TOI trend continues as it did last against Florida, then I might change my tune.

Except all three of the d-men you named were worth their nominations for that year.
- Blackstrom2

Nope. Not even close.

Jason, you seem to pride yourself on giving balanced analysis, without the Kings glasses on, but your analysis here is thoroughly one sided. Perhaps you meant it that way, as it is an "appreciation" post, but it renders your matter-of-fact conclusions rather meaningless.

For example, you make a lot of Muzzin's fairly good season so far, on pace for 40 points despite being apart from Doughty, but you don't mention that Doughty is on pace for 52 points, which would be his best year since his sophomore season. If Muzzin's 40pt pace suggests that he wasn't "riding Doughty's coattails," then doesn't Doughty's 52pt pace equally suggest that Muzzin was holding him back?

It's also a little amusing that, to show us that Muzzin is "really really good," you encourage us to take a look at a chart that places Muzzin at #2 amongst Kings defensemen... and Doughty at the very bottom. If Muzzin's position near the top proves that he's "really really good," doesn't Doughty's position at the bottom prove that he's "really really bad"?

Last, but not least, you show a lot of clips of successful plays by Muzzin, but what does that prove, other than that he makes good plays now and then, which even his haters acknowledge? It's a little disingenuous to declare, after showing those clips, that he passes the eye test when the successful plays are all that you showed. What wasn't shown are all of the dumb, unsuccessful plays that he makes. In fact, embedded in your language are telling phrases, like "a downright risky play to go across center on this play" and "Muzzin pinches down scarily low." You seem to want to believe (and want others to believe) that he's such a smart player that he knows exactly when to do and not to do those things, but he gets burned so often doing exactly those things that it proves that he doesn't know the right and wrong times to make those plays. He just does them, and, sometimes, it works out, but, quite often, it doesn't.

You say that he takes "calculated risks." I think that you're trying to see more intelligence in him than there really is. It's not a calculation when he does it all of the time, predictably, especially when it backfires often. That's not calculating; that's uncalculating. That's why I see him not as a smart player, but as a dumb one. He makes risky plays because he doesn't know better. When it works out, as it's bound to do a good share of the time, some people mistakenly interpret it as a great display of intelligence and timing, when it's really more of luck that the odds worked out in his favor that time.

Muzzin has talent, but lacks the brains to put it to the best use. Clearly, he can get by on just his talent, but he'll never be an exceptional defenseman and, certainly, never anywhere near Norris discussion except amongst the most biased of fans. He's not a total trainwreck, as your post shows, but he's a lot less extraordinary and more replaceable than many think.

Well the Patrick Marleau trade rumors sure are interesting.

LAK NYR and ANA are on his 3 team list.

Not sure what the Kings would give up considering they don't have a 1st. I can say one thing Kempe, Zykov (maybe) or Mersch better not be in that deal for a 1 1/2 year rental.

I can handle Weal+ being traded for him though.

Nope. Not even close.
- tkecanuck341

The year Green was nominated he had 31 goals and 73 points. The next highest were 23 goals and 64 points, significantly outscoring, and out "SAT"-ing guys like Lidstrom, Neidermeyer, Rafalski, Boyle, Weber, Markov, etc. That year, he saw the 4th highest SH time for a d-man on his team, and 4th in the league in PP time. He was 6th in the league for TOI/g, 26th in EV TOI/g. But, take a look at the guys ahead of him in the categories he falls behind...they aren't top pairing guys.

But, hey, keep going by what the media tells you because we both know how much you actually watched Green play in 08-09.