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Pilots Logbook 2013-14: Matt Halischuk

Matt Halischuk joined the Winnipeg Jets with little fan fare. Oddly, it wasn’t only the fans that slept on the move – the team didn’t even acknowledge his signing. Fans stumbled across the fact that Matt Halischuk listed on the team’s website and started asking questions. It was only then that the team made an announcement. After seeing him play, many fans bought in to the Hustle-chuk moniker, but there is more to the NHL game than Hustle. This makes Halischuk and interesting player from a statistical perspective.

The Basics
GP G A P TOI/GP S/60 Sh% PenD
46 5 5 10 11.1 6.4 8.8% +4

Numbers are for all minutes.

Matt Halischuk scores at a decent rate for a depth player. He also piles a decent number of shots on net. His speed creates mismatches and he draws some penalties. There is some hidden value in the penalty differential. There is also some hidden value in Hali's PK play.

Usage

Screen_shot_2014-06-04_at_4.09.02_am_medium

Player usage chart from extraskater.com.

EV Percentage of Team’s Available TOI 5 on 5
ZS% ZS%rel EVTOI% PPTOI% SHTOI% QoC TOI% QoT TOI%
55.5% +4.4% 20.4% 1.3% 19.3% 27.7% 27.6%
2nd 4th 9th 12th 7th 10th 10th

Rankings are given for team out of 15 forwards to play 20 or more games.

These numbers are pretty straight forward. Halischuk was sheltered, both in terms of zone starts and quality of competition. He obviously wasn't used as a specialist on either the PP or PK units – he perhaps could have picked up some more short handed time though. Ninth in even strength ice is interesting too. That places Hali firmly within the Winnipeg Jets top nine.

Underlying Numbers

Halischukcorsi_medium

The y-axis is given to show the typical 40-60 sustainable spread seen for NHL calibre players. Players are compared to particular line/pair depending on 5v5 TOI per game. Population mean (average), median (50th percentile), and other percentiles are relative to player performance between 2007-12.

5v5 TOI Corsi% relCorsi% dCF/20 dCA/20 dCorsi%
10.29 44.5% -6.8% -2.985 +2.105 -7.041%

RelCorsi is team's percentage of shot attempts with player on ice minus shot attempts with player off ice. Delta Corsi values are team's shot attempt rates with player on ice, but relative to league norm given similar usage (quality of teammates, quality opponents, zone starts, and TOI). dCF/20 is shot attempts for -where a positive number is above average-, dCA/20 is shot attempts against -where a negative number is above average-, and dCorsi% is percentage of shot attempts.

The Corsi numbers are bad, like real bad. Like near worst on the team bad. Both Corsi for and against tended to tank with Halischuk on the ice. The dCorsi numbers aren't pretty either. From a statistical perspective, Matt Halischuk is a disaster at 5 on 5.

Conclusion

Matt Halischuk brings some offense and some scoring ability. He is a massive defensive liability at 5 on 5 though.

Keep or lose?

It might be time to give a prospect a shot on the fourth line wing and Hali really shouldn't be a third line player. Lose.

Bonus: Simple long run fancy stats
603 players have logged 2000 5 on 5 minutes over the last six seasons. Only 11 of these 603 players have posted a worse Corsi for percentage than Matt Halischuk. Those are simply raw Corsi numbers. They don't offer context in terms of zone starts, matchups or linemates, but that stats still stands out.

By this same measure (6 year run), the Winnipeg Jets had three of the 30 worst players in the league logging regular minutes last year. A fourth player, Tanner Glass, has also logged minutes here. Something something, the bottom 6, something something. Scroll way way way down to the bottom of this list to see for yourself.

All numbers are from Extra Skater, Behind the Net and Hockey Analysis

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