The state of Canadian teams’ bluelines

Travis Yost

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One of my favourite areas of analysis concerns that of usage, and how head coaches think about personnel decisions in their quest to win hockey games.

Not only does this sort of study highlight how coaches approach deployment decisions for optimal performance, but it can shed light on areas of opportunity from a front office perspective. After all, coaches are somewhat handcuffed by the personnel they have available on the roster. Understanding how they think about the state of their blueline – and how it drives performance – is critical for long-term improvement of a team.

This is particularly true for the Canadian teams this year, who have varying degrees of talent on their roster and varying expectations for 2017-18.

For a team like the Toronto Maple Leafs, it’s about understanding where a potential trade acquisition could fit in as they search for a deep playoff push. For a team like the Ottawa Senators, it’s about understanding where the deficiencies are and what pieces could be moved out in the event of a deadline sale. For a team like the Calgary Flames, it’s about understanding how a blueline thought to be amongst the class of the league has marginally underwhelmed. Three different teams, three very different questions.

The simplest way to understand the state of a blueline and how a coach thinks about his roster is to look at ice time allocation in the varying game states. An elite first-pairing talent will likely get big minutes in all three game states (even strength, power play, and penalty kill). An offensive defenceman will likely see a higher proportion of power- play minutes. A defensive defenceman will likely see a higher proportion of penalty-kill minutes.

Below, I’ve broken out the deployment (as a percentage of total minutes available) for every defender across the seven Canadian teams along with corresponding thoughts. The size of the bubble indicates 5-on-5 ice time. Let’s start east and work our way west.

Up first, Toronto:

The Leafs are one of the league’s trendsetters in terms of running a 4F/1D power-play unit. So, understandably, there is an incredible bifurcation between the guys who see power-play minutes (Morgan Rielly and Jake Gardiner, notably) and everyone else. Babcock clearly prefers to load up his puck-movers with the softer 5-on-4 minutes and bury names like Ron Hainsey and Nikita Zaitsev with the dirty penalty kill work. And, quite honestly, there’s no reason to expect this to change any time soon.

I do think the interesting question that will continue to haunt the Leafs is the fact that there’s not a single player on the current roster who can handle all types of minutes against varying degrees of competition. You’ll note in future graphs how guys like Erik Karlsson, Mark Giordano, and Shea Weber see a ton of ice time across the board. In Toronto, the minutes are much more stratified. It’s clearly working to some degree, but it’s one of the reasons you’ll continue to hear about the Leafs sniffing around top-four defenders at the trade deadline. Despite all of the talent on their roster, they still lack the superstar defender that most teams covet.

And hey, maybe they don’t need that guy today. Their sitting pretty in the standings in an incredibly weak division and own one of the league’s better offences. But, this is the one storyline in Toronto that I don’t expect to die down anytime soon.

Next, Ottawa:

Ottawa’s issues on the blueline have been well documented at this point – the team is notoriously top-heavy and reliant on Erik Karlsson to drive all performance. When Karlsson breaks down or is unavailable (as he was to start the 2017-18 season), things go awry quickly.

There are a number of interesting findings here. To start, it’s clear that Cody Ceci has evolved into Boucher’s shutdown defender. Whether or not Ceci deserves this type of usage is up for debate, but it’s absolutely a thing – he’s playing almost 23 minutes a tonight, which is identical to guys like Jake Muzzin and Marc-Edouard Vlasic. Some of this is surely borne out of a lack of options (the Johnny Oduya experiment has failed, and the team has seemingly been cool on a number of their younger defenders in the AHL), but some of this is based on a real trust of the player.

The other notable topic is how much time Dion Phaneuf is getting on the power play. In a league where most teams have evolved to a 4F/1D combination, it’s notable that both Phaneuf and Karlsson are seeing substantial power-play time. In his prime, Phaneuf was a real power-play weapon – a decent passer with a booming shot. But in Ottawa, Phaneuf’s scoring rates are down considerably (he’s averaging about 20 points a season in Ottawa). One wonders if we’ll start to see a draw-down in his usage there in favour of more conventional power-play lineups or, alternatively, names like Freddy Claesson and Thomas Chabot eating into those minutes.

Staying in the east with Montreal:

The Canadiens have the least surprising deployment of the seven teams. They were extremely careful with young defender Victor Mete, and haven’t really built any trust with newly acquired Joe Morrow. That’s meant an awful lot of Shea Weber and Jeff Petry, which raises questions about whether or not these guys are seeing too many minutes at this stage of the season. (Both Petry and Weber are in the top-40 of ice time per game this season.)

It will be interesting to see if Montreal lands a defender at the trade deadline. Although most of the attention will be on Toronto in the coming months, the Habs have an equally large need on the blueline. Weber has been banged up this year, which means Petry will assume even more of the burden for Montreal. With the Canadiens back in the playoff hunt and north of $7 million in cap space to play with, is it possible they’re a blueline buyer in March? I think so.

Winnipeg: 

In 2013-14, Toby Enstrom put together a 56-point season where he averaged nearly 24 minutes a night. Four years later, Enstrom’s dealing with another round of injuries in a substantially less productive season. And in the games he has played, he’s seen just 16 minutes of action.

Two players have benefited from the Enstrom situation. Dustin Byfuglien has essentially evolved into an offensive specialist, taking on the lion’s share of power-play minutes. That burden has been offset by the removal of his utilization on the penalty kill – he’s barely playing one full PK shift a night, which is nearly three minutes less than where he was a couple of seasons ago.

That’s left 22-year-old Josh Morrissey to absorb Byfuglien’s minutes. The fact that Paul Maurice is comfortable enough to deploy him so aggressively in key goal-suppression situations makes me think that it’s just a matter of time before he enters the Jacob Trouba/Tyler Myers area – the type of defender who is played in all situations and is expected to drive performance for his team on a nightly basis.

This transition creates an interesting trade scenario for the Jets – a team clearly in the playoff hunt. Would they consider moving Enstrom’s expiring contract to a team that’s willing to roll the dice on a skilled, yet banged-up 33-year old? I think it’s possible. There are many teams around the league where Enstrom would immediately slide into a top-four role. The problem is Winnipeg isn’t one of them.

Next, Calgary:

Perhaps the most interesting storyline here is how little Calgary uses Travis Hamonic on the power play. For a guy who is locked in as a top-four defender and averages about 27 points a season over his career, that seems a bit curious – especially since Calgary does see more traditional 3F/2D power-play units than other teams around the league. But it’s clear that Glen Gulutzan sees more value in letting Hamonic anchor the penalty-kill unit, with Mark Giordano, T.J. Brodie, and Dougie Hamilton seeing more of the power-play time.

It’s also obvious that Brett Kulak is the least trusted of the six defenders. On this blueline it’s not necessarily a bad thing – the Flames have a lot of talent back there and limited ice-time available. But outside of 5-on-5, Kulak sees little usage.

On to Edmonton:

The sheltered guys are right off of Edmonton’s third pairing – Eric Gryba and Yohann Auvitu are constantly in and out of the lineup and, not surprisingly, are the guys Todd McLellan trusts the least on the special teams’ front. At the other end of the spectrum is Oscar Klefbom. For a guy who has a reputation as more offence-oriented, he’s seen a ton of penalty kill minutes. In fact, his utilization on the penalty kill is indiscernible from Kris Russell, who is known – somewhat notoriously at this point – as the guy the Oilers lean on to suppress shots and goals.

Two other quick notes: One, it’ll be interesting to see where Brandon Davidson slots in here. Davidson was a great pickup from a Montreal team that I think missed the mark on his utility. Two, the two big names on Edmonton – former first-round pick Darnell Nurse and prized acquisition Adam Larsson – are used almost exclusively at EV/PK.

More than anything, I think this highlights that there is still opportunity for a puck-mover on the Oilers blueline. There are a lot of interesting names in this group, but Klefbom

I wrote a few weeks ago how impressed I was with head coach Travis Green’s work in year one. He’s managing very well through a talent-dry roster and has made some tough decisions, like resetting the usage rates for forwards Henrik and Daniel Sedin as they continue their transition.

You see a lot of that here. There’s not a whole lot of rhyme or reason to what Green’s doing usage-wise with his blueline – I think he’s still trying to figure out the optimal approach for their three key guys in Michael Del Zotto, Ben Hutton and Alex Edler, all of whom are tightly clustered and see roughly the same amount of minutes everywhere. (It is worth noting that he’s clearly reluctant to use Erik Gudbranson on the power play and the same is true for Derrick Pouliot on the penalty kill.)

The story to watch here is what comes of Chris Tanev. He’s a quality top-four defender and still has a couple of years left on a reasonable contract ($4.4 million AAV), but if Vancouver’s truly in rebuild mode he’s also the type of guy that can fetch a pretty decent return. Moreover, he’s only third in ice time among defenders – mere seconds ahead of Ben Hutton, and about a minute below where he was just a couple of seasons ago. Personally I think he’s a guy you build around, but the above does lend some credence to the idea that they team might be okay with trading him for futures.is perhaps the only one who can really flip the ice and jump-start the attack for the Edmonton forwards.

Finally, Vancouver:

I wrote a few weeks ago how impressed I was with head coach Travis Green’s work in year one. He’s managing very well through a talent-dry roster and has made some tough decisions, like resetting the usage rates for forwards Henrik and Daniel Sedin as they continue their transition.

You see a lot of that here. There’s not a whole lot of rhyme or reason to what Green’s doing usage-wise with his blueline – I think he’s still trying to figure out the optimal approach for their three key guys in Michael Del Zotto, Ben Hutton and Alex Edler, all of whom are tightly clustered and see roughly the same amount of minutes everywhere. (It is worth noting that he’s clearly reluctant to use Erik Gudbranson on the power play and the same is true for Derrick Pouliot on the penalty kill.)

The story to watch here is what comes of Chris Tanev. He’s a quality top-four defender and still has a couple of years left on a reasonable contract ($4.4 million AAV), but if Vancouver’s truly in rebuild mode he’s also the type of guy that can fetch a pretty decent return. Moreover, he’s only third in ice time among defenders – mere seconds ahead of Ben Hutton, and about a minute below where he was just a couple of seasons ago. Personally I think he’s a guy you build around, but the above does lend some credence to the idea that they team might be okay with trading him for futures.