>The Blue Jackets are a perfectly mediocre team on most fronts. They are, technically speaking, a good 5v5 chance-share team though that advantage has been blunted by lower event minutes as of late. They haven’t unlocked their finishing just yet, though it has improved, and their goaltending is strong in the dangerous areas and weak from distance. Special teams wise, the powerplay looks better than it performance and, perhaps, vice versa for the penalty kill.
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>In general, the Blue Jackets remain a team that loses the special teams battle. Their powerplay scores less than their opposition’s does and they get fewer cracks at it the same time. It’s a problem.
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>Last season, the Blue Jackets were more likely to be in the playoffs at this point of the season. The two prior, though, they were virtually guaranteed to be out. Progress?
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>Waddell signed Egor Zamula today who is a player that grades out very well analytically. He was a feature in my trade deadline defense archetype study as an excellent entry-killer and slot protector but he’s been on waivers too. NHL teams get defensemen wrong all the time, so there’s an angle for a good transaction here. Reports are that he’s heavy-footed which doesn’t really jive with the Evason playstyle, not that we can observe footspeed as a priority on a defense corps featuring Provorov, Fabbo and Gudbranson.
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>Marchment turbo glow-up noted. Somehow he’s losing with respect to the forecheck battle but his rush contributions are self-evident and we’ll see more later. Kent Johnson is now near the bottom, performing much worse since Thanksgiving.
>Werenski, in particular, is funny. He’s the best 5v5 points/60 defenseman in the league min. 500 minutes, he and Makar have been first and second for the last three seasons, but he has almost no primary assists at 5v5. He scores a ton of goals, an outrageous amount of goals really, and has a ton of secondary assists. That isn’t to say that his points are bound to regress, he’s outrageously involved in the offense and A2 are more stable for defensemen than otherwise. His primary assist contributions are still great, his teammates just haven’t been scoring on them and he’s buoyed by obscene mid-range scoring talent.
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>The Blue Jackets’ goaltending has decidedly not been a problem this season, at least when Jet Greaves is in net. Elvis Merzļikins had a promising start but crashed quickly and has been even worse since he started getting spot starts. He complained about the poor playing time in a recent Portzline article but it’s hard to see anyone taking a risk on him at this point.
>According to the updated MoneyPuck goals saved above expected model, Jet Greaves ranks top ten among goalies with 9.9 Goals Saved Above Expected. Not all as as rosy as that seems, though. 3.4 of those GSAx came from the penalty kill (ranked 12th) while 3.9 GSAX came from Other (ranked 3rd), which is presumably empty-net and other even-strength situations ( like overtime).
>At 5v5, Greaves is just a mediocre goalie. He has 2 GSAx which ranks him 28th among goalies (34th in GSAx/60). That’s not breaking the door down. I’m not suggesting he’s overrated but that he’s not really stealing the Blue Jackets games in the way you might expect.
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>It appears that Dean Evason also believes that on-ice goaltending is a good metric for defensive capability. That might be somewhat true. Perhaps players who have lapses in coverage or make big mistakes contribute to goals against more than whatever their chance-share suggest.
>If it doesn’t, though, Evason is a coach stuck punishing and rewarding players based on the randomness of goaltending. That could be a bad cycle.
There is a lot more but just some things to talk about.
Big thing that stood out to me is maybe we’re being too hard on Boone? Discourse this season is been that it’s a mistake to have him on the 2nd line and recently that it’s time to move on from him, but the analytics are showing that outside of Marchenko and the small sample size of Marchment he’s been our best offensive winger
2 comments
Some hightlights:
>The Blue Jackets are a perfectly mediocre team on most fronts. They are, technically speaking, a good 5v5 chance-share team though that advantage has been blunted by lower event minutes as of late. They haven’t unlocked their finishing just yet, though it has improved, and their goaltending is strong in the dangerous areas and weak from distance. Special teams wise, the powerplay looks better than it performance and, perhaps, vice versa for the penalty kill.
———-
>In general, the Blue Jackets remain a team that loses the special teams battle. Their powerplay scores less than their opposition’s does and they get fewer cracks at it the same time. It’s a problem.
———-
>Last season, the Blue Jackets were more likely to be in the playoffs at this point of the season. The two prior, though, they were virtually guaranteed to be out. Progress?
———-
>Waddell signed Egor Zamula today who is a player that grades out very well analytically. He was a feature in my trade deadline defense archetype study as an excellent entry-killer and slot protector but he’s been on waivers too. NHL teams get defensemen wrong all the time, so there’s an angle for a good transaction here. Reports are that he’s heavy-footed which doesn’t really jive with the Evason playstyle, not that we can observe footspeed as a priority on a defense corps featuring Provorov, Fabbo and Gudbranson.
———-
>Marchment turbo glow-up noted. Somehow he’s losing with respect to the forecheck battle but his rush contributions are self-evident and we’ll see more later. Kent Johnson is now near the bottom, performing much worse since Thanksgiving.
>Werenski, in particular, is funny. He’s the best 5v5 points/60 defenseman in the league min. 500 minutes, he and Makar have been first and second for the last three seasons, but he has almost no primary assists at 5v5. He scores a ton of goals, an outrageous amount of goals really, and has a ton of secondary assists. That isn’t to say that his points are bound to regress, he’s outrageously involved in the offense and A2 are more stable for defensemen than otherwise. His primary assist contributions are still great, his teammates just haven’t been scoring on them and he’s buoyed by obscene mid-range scoring talent.
———-
>The Blue Jackets’ goaltending has decidedly not been a problem this season, at least when Jet Greaves is in net. Elvis Merzļikins had a promising start but crashed quickly and has been even worse since he started getting spot starts. He complained about the poor playing time in a recent Portzline article but it’s hard to see anyone taking a risk on him at this point.
>According to the updated MoneyPuck goals saved above expected model, Jet Greaves ranks top ten among goalies with 9.9 Goals Saved Above Expected. Not all as as rosy as that seems, though. 3.4 of those GSAx came from the penalty kill (ranked 12th) while 3.9 GSAX came from Other (ranked 3rd), which is presumably empty-net and other even-strength situations ( like overtime).
>At 5v5, Greaves is just a mediocre goalie. He has 2 GSAx which ranks him 28th among goalies (34th in GSAx/60). That’s not breaking the door down. I’m not suggesting he’s overrated but that he’s not really stealing the Blue Jackets games in the way you might expect.
———-
>It appears that Dean Evason also believes that on-ice goaltending is a good metric for defensive capability. That might be somewhat true. Perhaps players who have lapses in coverage or make big mistakes contribute to goals against more than whatever their chance-share suggest.
>If it doesn’t, though, Evason is a coach stuck punishing and rewarding players based on the randomness of goaltending. That could be a bad cycle.
There is a lot more but just some things to talk about.
Big thing that stood out to me is maybe we’re being too hard on Boone? Discourse this season is been that it’s a mistake to have him on the 2nd line and recently that it’s time to move on from him, but the analytics are showing that outside of Marchenko and the small sample size of Marchment he’s been our best offensive winger