Better Late than Never: Minnesota Wild

I’m posting a series of pieces that were originally intended to go into an NHL annual this year. The parties involved in producing the book got a little behind schedule and now it’s not so timely. But I didn’t want everything to go to waste, so here is the first installment, on the Minnesota Wild:

There’s only one question to be asked about Minnesota’s 2009-10 season: what happened? In the preceding three seasons, Minnesota was sixth overall in the NHL in goal differential, powered mostly by a defense that allowed the 3^rd-fewest goals in the league. But last season started out very differently: the Wild didn’t win in regulation until their 13^th game, and they won by two goals or more just twice in the first two months of the season.

Last year was always going to be a rebuilding year for Minnesota: they lost their first ever player, 2000 #1 draft pick Marian Gaborik, to free agency, and they parted ways with the only coach and general manager they ever had, Jacques Lemaire and Doug Risebrough. Even at their most-successful, the Wild were significantly outshot, and they relied on a defensive system that pushed the puck outside in the defensive zone and suppressed dangerous chances.

Based purely on where his opponents shot from, Lemaire’s teams had an expected shooting percentage of 7.06% against, by far the best in the league – Claude Julien was 2^nd at 7.13%. (This includes just road shots on goal from 2001-2010.) But if we include shots that missed the net, Lemaire falls behind Julien to finish 4^th overall. It’s important to keep in mind that the NHL didn’t record missed shots in 2002-03 and 2003-04, the latter having been Lemaire’s best single-season performance. So the second method may underestimate what Lemaire was able to do.

Let’s break his performance down by year:

Year	w/o misses	w/ misses	Coach
2001-02	7.13	5.00	Lemaire
2002-03	7.03		Lemaire
2003-04	6.57		Lemaire
2005-06	6.99	5.10	Lemaire
2006-07	7.05	4.88	Lemaire
2007-08	7.23	5.30	Lemaire
2008-09	7.30	5.39	Lemaire
2009-10	6.95	5.14	Richards
2009-10 (NJ)	7.21	5.34	Lemaire
Lemaire MIN	7.04	5.16
Lemaire All	7.06	5.17
Richards	6.95	5.14
League Avg	7.40	5.32

The Wild were incredibly good at suppressing scoring chances through the 2006-07 season, which was, not coincidentally, their best in franchise history. Despite not changing his roster, Lemaire appears to have adopted a different strategy after that year, one that he carried over to New Jersey. And new head coach Todd Richards’ system actually improved on Lemaire’s chance suppression, at least in the short-term.

So if Jacques Lemaire isn’t a Magician and Todd Richards is, who’s to blame?

One of Minnesota’s defining characteristics over their history has been keeping the band together, so to speak. The Wild started the season with 17 returning players, including fifteen skaters, nine of whom got more than 10 minutes of ice time per night. Their year-over-year change in production at 5-on-5 is very instructive:

Player	Mins	Shots	PDO	+/-
Koivu	6	-13	5	2
Brunette	39	-16	2	0
Sheppard	-358	23	-10	0
Miettinen	-14	46	-9	-1
Schultz	14	95	-14	-2
Burns	-200	1	-11	-4
Clutterbuck	-34	26	-14	-4
Zidlicky	64	-68	1	-5
Nolan	143	-7	-45	-18
Average	-38	10	-11	-4

Under Todd Richards’ tutelage, their shot differential went 10 shots in the right direction. But as the chart makes clear, they also experienced a disastrous drop in PDO, which crushed their overall plus-minus.

In comparison, under Lemaire, Minnesota was a .500 team, with a very non-traditional game. Other than in their 2006-07 peak, when they barely surpassed 50% in their best season in franchise history, they were consistently outshot at even-strength. But by their 3^rd season in the league (2002-03), Jacques Lemaire had assembled the defensive and goaltending corps that would allow him to succeed despite conceding all those shots. The Corsi and even-strength PDO table shows that progression:

Season	Sh%	Sv%	PDO	Corsi%	Pts%
2009-10	8.5	911	996	47.9	45.7
2008-09	8.0	922	1002	46.7	48.9
2007-08	9.1	922	1014	46.6	53.8
2006-07	7.8	929	1007	50.5	57.1
2005-06	8.8	919	1007	45.9	46.2
2003-04	8.7	934	1021	44.8	47.7
2002-03	8.5	928	1014	45.1	54.6
Average	8.5	924	1009	46.8	50.6

In the six seasons prior to Todd Richards’ arrival, the Wild achieved an even-strength equilibrium. They conceded extra shots against but stopped them at a higher-than-average rate. Richards, on the other hand, improved the shot count, but couldn’t keep the puck out of the net. If you want to know why that happened, it’s hard to look anywhere beyond the goaltending:

Goaltender	2009-10	2008-09	2007-08	2006-07	Total
Backstrom	912	923	925	933	922
Harding	921	931	917	978	926

Niklas Backstrom was plucked from obscurity in Finland at Age 28 after a dominant season there. His performance in his first three NHL seasons was exceptional, but last year was a dud, as he posted an even-strength save percentage barely above replacement-level. Overall, Minnesota finished 22^nd in 5-on-5 save percentage after finishing 4^th and 8^th the previous two seasons.

How do we know to pin the blame on Backstrom? First, it seems clear that the shots he faced were no closer than they had been in his previous three seasons. And second, Minnesota’s defense did a better job of clearing the puck and preventing rebounds:

Season	Rebound%
2006-07	7.0
2007-08	6.5
2008-09	6.7
2009-10	6.3

There’s no good way to spin this. Niklas Backstrom is in the middle of a four-year, $24 million contract, and any reasonable analysis says he’s not likely much better than a league-average goaltender. That’s bad news for Minnesota: they’re paying about $4 million more per season for him than they need to.

Of course, there may be more to the story of Backstrom’s decline. Jacques Lemaire has had four coaching jobs in his career: Montreal 1984-85, New Jersey 1993-98, Minnesota 2000-09, and then a return to New Jersey in 2009-10. He has had seven goaltenders in that time who had a significant number of appearances prior to joining his team. If we compare their save percentage over the preceding three seasons to their performance while Lemaire was their coach, they’ve generally improved in his presence:

Goaltender	Lemaire	Before	Delta
Roloson	919	894	25
Terreri	906	889	17
Danis	923	910	13
McLennan	905	898	7
Brodeur	916	920	-4
Fernandez	914	922	-8
Soetaert	854	869	-15
Weighted	908	905	3

That’s not a huge difference, and there’s no reason to believe it wasn’t luck or data-collection noise that caused it. At the other end, he’s had eleven goaltenders move on to other teams or coaches:

Goaltender	Lemaire	After	Delta
Penney	876	834	42
Backstrom	923	903	20
Harding	920	905	15
Terreri	906	892	14
Fernandez	914	902	12
Roloson	919	909	10
Brodeur	916	908	8
McLennan	905	899	6
Schwab	899	893	6
Dunham	909	913	-4
Soetaert	854	873	-19
Weighted	906	892	14

If we assume – and that’s a big if – that Lemaire’s coaching talent lies at approximately 8.5 points of save percentage, then he brings 3.5 wins to his team per season. This represents both improvements in goaltender performance and reductions in opponent scoring threats.

None of this should make Minnesota Wild fans feel any better about their team’s prospects. They don’t have players who can control puck possession. They don’t have a goaltender who can save them from their mistakes. And now they’re two seasons away from Jacques Lemaire’s inscrutable defensive magic.

Appendix

Table 1 – Expected Shooting Percentage Against, Road Games, 2001-2010

First	Last	Exp Sh%	First	Last	Exp Sh%
Jacques	Lemaire	7.06	Bob	Hartley	7.45
Claude	Julien	7.13	Joel	Quenneville	7.45
Alain	Vigneault	7.21	Mike	Babcock	7.49
Marc	Crawford	7.22	Mike	Keenan	7.52
Ron	Wilson	7.25	Peter	Laviolette	7.52
Dave	Tippett	7.26	Jacques	Martin	7.53
Ken	Hitchcock	7.26	Lindy	Ruff	7.57
Craig	Mactavish	7.27	Randy	Carlyle	7.60
Pat	Quinn	7.36	Michel	Therrien	7.61
Barry	Trotz	7.38	Tom	Renney	7.61
John	Tortorella	7.39	Paul	Maurice	7.67
John	Stevens	7.42	Andy	Murray	7.81
Wayne	Gretzky	7.44

Table 2 – Expected Shooting Percentage Against, Road Games, 2001, 2005-2010, Misses Included

First	Last	Exp Sh%	First	Last	Exp Sh%
Craig	Mactavish	5.11	Wayne	Gretzky	5.30
Claude	Julien	5.14	Mike	Babcock	5.32
Bob	Hartley	5.14	Joel	Quenneville	5.35
Jacques	Lemaire	5.17	Peter	Laviolette	5.35
Marc	Crawford	5.17	Mike	Keenan	5.41
Alain	Vigneault	5.18	Michel	Therrien	5.41
Ken	Hitchcock	5.18	Lindy	Ruff	5.42
Ron	Wilson	5.19	Randy	Carlyle	5.45
Dave	Tippett	5.28	Tom	Renney	5.46
Pat	Quinn	5.37	Jacques	Martin	5.48
Barry	Trotz	5.32	Andy	Murray	5.56
John	Tortorella	5.29	Paul	Maurice	5.59
John	Stevens	5.29