Who gets the Toughest Matchups: Defensemen
by Hawerchuk on Feb 1, 2010 9:00 AM EST
in Statistics
Email
PrintI hope you're familiar with the concept of "Quality of Competition" at behindthenet.ca. (You can find a short primer on it here.) At any rate, I wanted to post the rankings for defensemen on every team through Saturday's game. This list uses opposition Corsi +/- (shot differential) rather than goal differential - shot total is less-influenced by luck, so it gives a better indication of how a player has performed:
| Team | #1 | #2 | Team | #1 | #2 |
| ANA | Niedermayer | Wisniewski | MTL | Markov | Spacek |
| ATL | Hainsey | Bogosian | NJD | Greene | Mottau |
| BOS | Chara | Morris | NSH | Klein | Hamhuis |
| BUF | Myers | Tallinder | NYI | Sutton | Hillen |
| CAR | Gleason | Corvo | NYR | Staal | Girardi |
| CBJ | Hejda | Klesla | OTT | Volchenkov | Phillips |
| CGY | Regehr | Phaneuf | PHI | Pronger | Timonen |
| CHI | Seabrook | Keith | PHX | Jovanovski | Michalek |
| COL | Hannan | Quincey | PIT | Orpik | Gonchar |
| DAL | Grossman | Rodibas | SJS | Murray | Boyle |
| DET | Lidstrom | Rafalski | STL | Jackman | Polak |
| EDM | Souray | Staios | TBL | Ohlund | Meszaros |
| FLA | Leopold | Ballard | TOR | Beauchemin | Komisarek |
| LAK | Scuderi | Doughty | VAN | Mitchell | Bieksa |
| MIN | Zanon | Zidlicky | WSH | Poti | Schultz |
One thing I like about "Quality of Competition" is that if you don't watch a team very often, you can get a quick sense of how that team's players are used. Did you ever wonder if Mike Green's ice time is a little soft? Did it seem weird that Rob Scuderi - who has 18 goals over all levels of hockey since he started college - was a good free agent pickup? Were you concerned about who would pick up the slack after Kurt Sauer was injured in Phoenix? Well, probably not that last one - but Quality of Competition gives you insight into the first two...
There are some imperfections in the system - it's difficult to compare across teams, and even within teams, players who have a shutdown role but also play so many minutes that they're bound to face some weaker competition, like Jay Bouwmeester, are underestimated. But by and large, as long as a player plays regularly, this is a reliable system to compare players on the same team - I'm interested to hear if any of the #1 and #2 defensemen above are misevaluated in terms of their usage this season.
20 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
The two teams I’ve watched enough to comment on so far this season are Edmonton and Colorado. The Colorado pairing of Hannan and Quincey is bang on. For the Oilers, I’m quite surprised that Staios makes it ahead of Gilbert but Souray has certainly earned his spot.
Agree on the Hannan/Quincey Pairing. Hannan is the new Foote (at least as far as Colorado is concerned) while Sacco has had Quincey riding his shotgun as the proverbial “puck-moving” defenseman. The other two pairs are built in a similiar fashion with a stay-at-home/defensive guy paired with a more offensive-minded partner. Clark/Roadrunner (Cumiskey), Wilson/Liles are examples.
The Avalanche, clearly, are down with No PP.
Staal-Girardi see some ice together these days, but not alot. The first pairing most nights these days is Staal-Rozsival.
Girardi may simply still be there because the first 20-25 games they were together and Rozsival was on the 3rd pair.
Camp Tortorella - Where Vomit is a Mainstay
Interesting. Rozsival is a distant 3rd at the moment. What about the PK? It seems like they have confidence in Girardi as a #1 there?
Blame the rookies
On the PK, Gilroy and Del Zotto are mostly unused/hidden, so now the team is reliant on Staal/Girardi/Rozsival/Redden to carry the bulk of the minutes, to which Staal/Girardi then resume as a pairing.
As for Rozsival sitll being a distant 3rd, I honestly don’t remember exactly when the switch from Staal-Girardi to Staal-Rozsival was made however, so maybe it was more recently than I thought, say the 35-40 game mark.
Camp Tortorella - Where Vomit is a Mainstay
by George E. Ays on Feb 2, 2010 12:14 PM EST up reply actions
From my view, Tortorella has gone back and forth on the pairings since about mid-december. Staal and Girardi have been together less frequently since then, but lately he’s been going to them as a true shut-down pair against really high end talent – like against Eric Staal and Carolina, and the TB game against the Stamkos line.
Glen Sather is a Hockey Genius.
http://glensathersucks.com/
http://twitter.com/ThGeneralissimo
A lot of people consider Hamrlik Montreal’s #2 d-man. I think Spacek has a slightly higher QCOMP just because he has been paired with Markov sometimes when Markov is available (and Markov’s QCOMP is ridiculously high in comparison). Back when Markov was out, it was Hamrlik-Spacek every game and any difference between the two was neglible.
Never thought I’d see the day that Tom Poti is the go to shutdown guy on one of the top teams in the NHL.
Hockey blogging can't get any flatter.
vancouver
I’m surprised to see that Bieksa is still there. He was taken off the shut-down line with Mitchell even before he got injured, due to some poor play. Salo, when he and Mitchell were still healthy, were the shut-down pairing from that point on. But Salo gets injured so much that he might not be playing when VAN plays the really tough QualComp types.
The thing about Bieksa is that he’s considered to have offensive upside (good stickhandler). So, if Vancouver’s down late in the game, he and Ehrhoff will start playing more, and Mitchell less. So that might keep his QualComp higher just because he’ll happen to be playing against tougher competition (like your Bouwmeester example).
How much of this could be caused by line-matching by the opposition coach?
Did you ever wonder if Mike Green’s ice time is a little soft?
Bruce Boudreau does not appear to match lines based on player matchups. (Instead, he seems to do it territorially). Boudreau does seem to try to play Green with the top offensive forwards whenever possible. So the qualcomp storyline may be “Green usually faces checking lines instead of scoring lines because that’s who opposing coaches choose to play against him.”
Does the data support this hypothesis any better or worse than “when Boudreau needs great defense, he calls on Tom Poti more often than Mike Green”?
Atta dinnin stick a who!
I was wondering the same thing. Let’s say there are only 2 types of players: scorers and checkers. Coaches put out their checkers against the opposing scorers, and vice-versa. So the checkers all end up with bad Corsi but good QualComp, and the scorers end up with good Corsi and bad QualComp (because they’re only facing checkers). Is this what’s happening to Green? He’s not put out there as a shutdown guy, we all agree on this. But because he has shutdown guys put out against him, who have bad Corsi (because they’re shutdown guys, who play against players with good Corsi…), he gets weak QualComp.
That still means he’s facing weak competition, though, doesn’t it? It’s tougher to play against Joe Thornton than Rob Niedermayer. If your opponents aren’t offensive threats, then I think it’s right to see them as weaker.
Ironically, I think the lack of checking lines in the modern game makes this system work better. It also makes it easier to identify the few checking lines that are actually in use.
It definitely means he’s facing weak competition. The question is if it’s intentional (“Shit, Thornton’s out! Better not put Green, he’s going to get smoked!”) or reactive (“Green’s out, here comes Niedermeyer again”). Much of the genius of QualComp is that it tells you what the coach thinks of his guys, instead of what their actual performance level is.
I’m surprised to see Hainsey there, I never thought he was that strong defensively. I’m also surprised to see Klein at #1 in Nashville.
"The only way out is in a body bag. Go Leafs Go." - Blinky
by Karina on Feb 3, 2010 4:19 PM EST reply actions
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Certain photos copyright © 2012 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
