Hold The Calder

With his winning resume, John Carlson's first full season in the NHL has been greeted with hope and quite a bit of fanfare. His offensive performance in his first 4 games of the season is nothing short of impressive, as he currently leads all rookies and is tied for the lead among defensemen in scoring (the 'P.K. Who?' shirts will be printed shortly).

But lost in the hype is the inexperience in Carlson's game and his frequent positioning issues (hint: he's in the 'Bad' section). So far this season, the Capitals have surrendered 9 goals. Carlson has been on the ice for 6 of those goals (67%), highest on the team by 2 goals. By comparison, Mike 'no defense' Green has only seen one opposition puck behind Michal Neuvirth while on the ice. Jeff Schultz is still defensively perfect on the season.

Much like Green, things happen when Carlson is on the ice. Of the 23 total goals scored for and against the Caps this season, John has seen 13 while on the ice (56%). Tied for next highest? Yeah, the Alexes, with 9. For reference, last season Mike Green was on the ice for only 44% of the total goals scored in Caps games. And in Paul Coffey's most adventurous season, he was also on the ice for 56% of all goals scored.

We simply need to remember that, despite winning a WJC, 2 AHL Championships and playing big in last year's NHL playoffs, John Carlson is still a rookie with only 33 NHL games under his belt. He'll get better, but he's going to be a bit of an adventure in the meantime.

Sasha vs. Sasha

In what will become a running segment during the regular season, today marks the debut of ‘Sasha vs. Sasha’, and in-depth competition between The Alexs, Ovechkin and Semin. Some of the competitive categories will be your standard statistical fare, while some will be up to my discretion (and completely off the wall).

We're calling it 'Sasha vs. Sasha'.

Today, we’ll look at something real: who scored their goals against better defensemen?

Trying to quantify every defenseman in the NHL is a tough task. I chose to go with 'Goals Against On-Ice Per 60 Minutes' DIVIDED BY 'Quality of Competition +1'. This brings negative values of QUALCOMP to a positive baseline that is <1. When GAON/60 is divided by this value, you see an adjustment up if the value is <1. It’s probably not the best way to evaluate a defenseman, but it works. We’ll call it GA60/QUAL. Here’s what I found.

Breaking down the defensemen on the ice for each of the Alexs’ 90 goals scored and using their GA60/QUAL, we come up with an average GA60/QUAL of 2.48 for Ovechkin and 2.71 for Semin (the lower the value, the better the defenseman). Using the standard deviation of the entries and grouping them by frequency, we come up with the following graph:

Clearly, Ovechkin is scoring against better defensemen (his curve shifted slightly to the left of Semin’s) while Semin is taking advantage of less effective defensemen (his curve extending far to the right, even though he scored 10 fewer goals). Obviously, Ovechkin was usually skating against a team's #1 defensive unit while Semin was attacking against unit #2 (and obviously Ovechkin is the 'Superstar' of the two).

But the fact that Semin was able to capitalize against the weaker defensemen in the league is also important, as those are the match-ups a good player/team needs to exploit (especially if your #1 player is seeing tougher defenses). Clearly both players have thier respective roles, with each one producing when called upon.

I'm scoring this one in Ovie's favor though. It's tough to deny the left side of the curve.

Red Light, Green Light

So it’s inevitable that we’d eventually get around to taking a look at Mike Green’s 19 goals from the 2009-2010 season. Personally, I had a couple of questions about Mike’s game: “How many times did Mike go end-to-end on the rush and score?” and “How often did he look like a defenseman in scoring a goal?”

 

Once again, I reviewed each of Green’s goals and placed them in a category. As it turns out, there were 5 categories:

1. A slap/wrist shot from the right point
2. A shot off an offensive rush
3. A shot from the left side
4. A shot from below the face off dots with the play set up in the offensive zone
5. An empty net goal

The findings? Well, let’s just say that Mike isn’t a fan of the left side. And he's no Paul Coffey.

 

Of his 19 goals, 9 were scored on a hard slap shot or wrist shot from the right point, the counter to Ovie’s left-side power play one-timer. Another 4 goals came on an offensive zone rush where his shots came from the middle/right and from below or between the circles. 3 more goals were scored by sneaking down low from the point (the 'Gonchar') and another was a long range empty netter. Mike only scored 2 goals from the left side last season, both from the left faceoff dot.

 

For the most part, Mike scores the way most defensemen score: from their position on the point and from selectively sneaking in for back door chances when left alone. Mike also has enough speed to join the rush at times, which makes him dangerous trailing the play. But he never broke out for an end-to-end rush like he has in the past (at least he never scored a goal that way).

 

I found it interesting that so few of Green’s goals were scored from the left side. Usually, for a right shot, playing the left side allows you to open up for a one-timer. Maybe this is because that's Ovie's spot? Mike did, however, almost always take his time with the puck before he shot it, picking his spots rather than blindly throwing pucks at the net.

 

To me, this analysis was interesting. It showed me that Mike is truly deadly shooting pucks in from the point, not abandoning his defensive responsibilities in favor of skating the puck (something he still does quite often, to the displeasure of many a Cap fan). His point production might be cut a bit if he took fewer risks and skated with the puck less, but his defensive game would likely improve.

Then again, he wouldn’t be Mike Green if he weren’t risky. And quite often, his risks reap rewards.

Is Mike Green the New Kevin Hatcher?

As former Caps offensive defenseman Kevin Hatcher gets ready to join the US Hockey Hall of Fame, I got to wondering how he compares to our current star offensive defenseman, Mike Green.

As Mike only has 4 full NHL seasons under his belt, I decided to start with his first full season and use Hatcher's seasons at the same age (so age 21-24).

MIKE GREEN

SEASON	AGE	GP	G	A	PTS
2006-2007	21	70	2	10	12
2007-2008	22	82	18	38	56
2008-2009	23	68	31	42	73
2009-2010	24	75	19	57	76
		295	70	147	217

KEVIN HATCHER

SEASON	AGE	GP	G	A	PTS
1987-1988	21	71	14	27	41
1988-1989	22	62	13	27	40
1989-1990	23	80	13	41	54
1990-1991	24	79	24	50	74
		292	64	145	209

Obviously, Mike's rookie season point totals don't compare to anything he's produced since then, but as far as development goes, it's important. From age 21 on, Hatcher is the more consistent of the two in offensive productivity. But even with a slow rookie season, Green manages to out-produce Hatcher (+6G, +2A in only 3 more games). It's also interesting to note that something important occurred after the 1989-1990 season that may have directly led to Hatcher's 20 point increase: the departure of top defender, Scott Stevens.

But Mike is THE man on the back line in DC these days and has been for 3 seasons. The big question is, what kind of production can we expect from him in the coming seasons? Let's take a look at Hatcher's age 25-27 seasons (his last 3 in a Caps jersey):


HATCHER (NEXT 3 SEASONS)

SEASON	AGE	GP	G	A	PTS
1991-1992	25	79	17	37	54
1992-1993	26	83	34	45	79
1993-1994	27	72	16	24	40
		234	67	106	173

Looking at Hatcher's next 3 season brings his 34 goal season into play (the same season Al Iafrate and Sylvain Cote also netted 20+ goals), which led all defenders. But that same season, Hatcher  also led in league in goals against while he was on the ice (162) while only managing to be the 7th most productive defenseman in the league. Kevin's goals seemed to come at the expense of his defense, something Green critics often point out.

In the end, it's really no contest. Kevin Hatcher was never considered the best defenseman in the league while Mike Green has done plenty to strengthen his case as the best. Mike Green has already led the league in goals and points by a defenseman for two consecutive seasons. As his maturity and understanding of the position increase (and all signs indicate that NHL defenders take some time to fully grow into the position, especially defensively) we could see some impressive offensive numbers for Mike in the coming seasons (and hopefully some on the defensive end as well).

Jeff "Snarl" Schultz

A lot has been written about the Caps "less than intimidating blueline" this off-season, with George McPhee's clear intention to stay pat with the 7 defensemen under contract.

With the re-signing of Jeff Schultz, who is quite possibly the most 'love him or hate him' Caps blueliner, the conversation has been elevated. Schultz has become the whipping boy for haters, as his lack of physicality doesn't seem to fit with his sizeable frame.

That being said, I have some suggestions for Jeff, to help make him meaner this coming season. With his new spiffy contract, he can afford it.

1. Weight. Add some. At 6'6" and only 220 lbs, Jeff is a bit of a bean pole. Wait. Chris Pronger is 6'6" and 220 lbs? WTF!? That makes no sense...
2. Get rid of the visor. No one takes visored defensemen seriously. Just ask Don Cherry.
3. Vampire teeth. With Twilight being so popular, I'm sure obtaining a pair would be relatively easy, and would make Jeff look THAT MUCH scarier. Or teenage girls would swoon for him. Either way, he's distracting Sidney Crosby.
4. A good story. Someone needs to start talking about the time Jeff wrestled a rabid Grizzly.
5. A number change. Say, to #2. Everytime people see '55' they want to boo or whoop or something. Now #2, you think Scott Stevens. And you'd NEVER whoop Scott Stevens.
6. Red contacts. Badass. With the previously mentioned vampire teeth, even more so:

7. Roughing penalties. Jeff has 97 PIM is his career. Pronger had more than that his rookie season.
8. A full slap shot. Everyone read about his 'half slap shot' and thought "wow, what a pansy". Man up Jeff. Full slap shot.
9. A new nickname. I like 'Snarl'. 'Sarge' just doesn't cut it.
10. Ask Brett Leonhardt for tips. Stretch is super tall too, and he manages 'badass' just fine.