Jets Player Usage: Defence

 

 

 

In part 1, we looked at how Claude Noel is using the Jets forwards so far this season. Below we’ll look at how he’s using the defence. The chart below comes from Ninja Greg’s fantastic site. Thanks to him for use of his nifty tool. 

To the Charts!

(Right click and hit ‘View Image’ to see it enlarged to full size. Or go here.)

Higher and fruther left = harder. Orange bad. Blue good. Big blue is great. Big orange is awful. Easy, right? The details:

– Each bubble is a player at even strength only.

– The higher that bubble on the chart, the tougher competition that Jet tends to play against (QualComp)

– The further right the bubble on the chart, the more of their shifts start in the offensive zone (ZoneStart).

– So top left quadrant is the toughs, bottom right is the soft parade.

– The bubble itself is about corsi – the number of shots attempted (on net + missed + blocked) minus the number of shots attempted against. This is used as a measure of territorial advantage. You tend to direct more toward the net if you’re in the offensive end, and have more shots attempted against if you’re hemmed in your own zone, right?

– This uses relative corsi – a player’s corsi compared to the rest of the team.

– Orange bubble = negative corsi (more shots attempted against than for). Blue = positive corsi (again, relative to the rest of the team)

– The bigger the bubble, the bigger the RelCorsi number is. So if it’s giant and blue (like Wellwood), that means he gets a lot more shots toward the opponent than against his own, relative to the rest of the Jets. If it’s small and orange (like Jokinen), he is almost breaking even, but has slightly more shots against than for when the Jets put him on instead of their other options.

Some thoughts on the Jets defence.

– Dear lord, please never make us play a game without Byfuglien again. I don’t know why he’s a 4th line LW and an All-star defenceman, or how he carries his own weight nevermind an entire team on his back (Do! That’s an NSFW link, and I can’t explain it either), but I’m not asking how.

– Mark Stuart is going uphill every night and doing a pretty fine job of it. A surprisingly fine job of it to my mind. Enstrom isn’t far behind as he continues to be a key player for this team, and Hainsey is struggling. Together, they’re doing the hard work. I kinda thought Enstrom would be in the blue (positive corsi) myself.

– Meanwhile, Postma has looked great (by my eye and this metric) against weak competition – second weakest to only Redmond – and with a huge zone start advantage. Clitsome is in a little tougher water, and is doing a little worse. Go figure. Together, that’s about all you can ask of a puck moving third pairing. They’re moving the puck in the right direction.

We’ll have to check back when Big Buff gets some more games, and once we see how Bogo slots in.

For now, it would seem that giving Hainsey a life presever might improve the Jets immediate fortunes. Don’t get my wrong, he’s a respectable +1 this morning, but he’s also been extremely lucky, leading the Jets defence in PDO (on-ice Save% + on-ice team shooting%). It might require getting him a right handed partner to play with, which the Jets are in short supply of given their current injuries.

The other night Hainsey played most of his time with Redmond, who, while right handed, wasn’t what I had in mind. Up until that point, Hainsey has been playing both the left and right side with any of Stuart, Enstrom, or Postma. I can only imagine it’s tough to switch sides and partners like that at the NHL level. Bogosian returning will provide some balance to this defence core and hopefully help Hainsey out of the fire.

What surprised you about how Noel is using his defence and how successful each player has been so far?