Flyers turn communist
by Eric T. on Nov 8, 2011 1:12 PM EST
in Philadelphia Flyers Commentary
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In years past, the Flyers have divided usage pretty strictly based on defensive skill. Forwards like Mike Richards, Jeff Carter, and Andreas Nodl consistently saw really tough minutes, where they were asked to start in their own end against top competition. That allowed players like Ville Leino, Daniel Briere, and Scott Hartnell to feast on premium scoring opportunities, starting in the offensive zone against middling competition.
Apparently influenced by the Occupy Wall Street movement (or perhaps by the reality that they no longer have premium two-way forwards on the roster), the Flyers have decided they are no longer going to let a few players profit from the hard work of their teammates.
As the graph above shows, everyone is either facing tough competition or starting in their own end a lot, but not both. Jakub Voracek has been slightly sheltered, and Claude Giroux has gotten slightly tougher assignments, but there is not the clear dichotomy between defensive line and offensive line that there was in years past.
The downside of this year's relatively balanced lines and usage is that players don't get deployed in the situations where their talents can have the most impact. The upside is that the balanced lines can play in any situation, so there is no longer a risk of getting caught in bad matchups like in last year's playoffs. It will be interesting to see how this plays out -- perhaps as the young players mature, the Flyers will find a group that they trust in those defensive situations and switch from trying to avoid bad matchups to trying to seek out good ones.
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Oops, forgot to explain the bubbles in the chart: blue means a positive Corsi Rel; red means negative, and the size of the bubble is how far from neutral the player is.
So big blue > small blue > small red > big red
@BSH_EricT
Writer at Broad Street Hockey
If they are communist, red should be good, da?
Bob.
by The Dark on Nov 8, 2011 2:37 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
Flyers turn communist
Wait, have FuquaManuel and JoseandtheContrarians taken over this blog as well? Or are they doing mind-control over Lavi?
/that would explain a lot
//check my .sig
///will we be doing fanposts on why the CBA should require that every player be paid equally?
GMAT verbal section question, Philadelphia sports version.
In 2015, which one of the following will prove to be a better investment?
a) Ilya Bryzgalov's contract b) Ryan Howard's extension (c) Mike Vick's extension (d) Greek bonds from 2009
Wait, have FuquaManuel and JoseandtheContrarians taken over this blog as well? Or are they doing mind-control over Lavi?
Seeing as FM has done a lot of freelance writing on many many sites, this would not surprise me in the least.
Editor at SB Nation's Philadelphia Union blog, The Brotherly Game. Follow me on Twitter.
Well Done
One of the things I find particularly impressive, based on the interpretation of the graph, is Couturier’s impact. Not only his defensive success against relatively tough competition in the defensive zone, but Lavy’s confidence in playing him in these situations. (Granted we know Lavy’s defensive love affair with Couturier, but this graph would appear to confirm his assessment of the young lad).
Jagr shoots, Jagr scores!!!!!!
He isn’t facing tough competition, or even relatively tough. He ranks 10th out of 13 in CorsiRelQoC, which is what is being shown there. Left of the Y axis is weak, above the X axis is bad zone starts.
He’s facing easy competition in the defensive zone.
Man-crushin' on Boucher since 1999 and Matt Calvert since May 2010
Broad Street Hockey - Makin' it look mean since 1967.
SB Nation Philly - Associate Editor
by Geoff Detweiler on Nov 8, 2011 1:44 PM EST up reply actions
Ah very good, I had had a momentary lapse in my X/Y axis reading abilities. Sometimes these chemicals in my pharmaceutical lab start messing with my head lol
Jagr shoots, Jagr scores!!!!!!
In fairness, the writing ended up about half the size it should be, which makes reading it a lot harder.
@BSH_EricT
Writer at Broad Street Hockey
Working how? This isn’t meant to be argumentative, but rather curious how you mean.
Man-crushin' on Boucher since 1999 and Matt Calvert since May 2010
Broad Street Hockey - Makin' it look mean since 1967.
SB Nation Philly - Associate Editor
by Geoff Detweiler on Nov 8, 2011 1:53 PM EST up reply actions
I’d say his offensive production is higher than expected so far, and even though he is facing easy competition he is doing it in the defensive zone which gives Lavi freedom to put, say the G line both in the O zone and against the other teams top line.
Formerly... "You don't have to be sweet, to be good"
A bit late for my reply, but looking at Couturier’s stats, he’s a +9, which I find impressive for a rookie straight out of the draft that is seeing a bulk of his playing time on the penalty kill. According to the graph, he’s playing some of the grittier minutes in the defensive end, against what is relatively easy competition. But how do you define easy competition when you compare it to a rookie.
What I end up extrapolating from the graph is that, for a guy who’s defensive prowess is highly touted, and his lack of NHL experience, Lavy’s usage of Couturier seems to be working in the sense that he is having success against the guys he should be having success against.
Jagr shoots, Jagr scores!!!!!!
Regardless of the flaws in +/-, PK goals against don’t count. He’s played his minutes in his defensive end, but they haven’t been gritty. Competition has nothing to do with experience, it’s an objective measure.
Keeping alive the old Vaudeville joke, "I'd rather be dead than play Philadelphia."
Haha, the poor guy. Geoff lures him in with “this isn’t meant to be argumentative”, and then people argue with his answer.
I agree that Couturier is off to a good start, for what it’s worth. He’s consistently pushed the play forwards, and even if it is against weak competition, that’s a good thing.
But yeah, +/- is probably not the way to defend him. The reason his +/- is so good is that goaltenders have happened to play great behind him - on a team where the goaltending has been weak so far, goalies have stopped 95.9% of shots while he was on the ice. Since forwards have virtually no impact on save percentage in the long run, it’s fair to say that his low goals against (and therefore good +/) is largely the product of variance rather than his skill.
@BSH_EricT
Writer at Broad Street Hockey
I may be stretching your words a bit here, but if forwards have almost no influence on save percentage, then logically the loss of Richards and Carter don’t seem like a major issue for the defense this year, since the scoring issues have been due to a low SV%, which they wouldn’t influence.
Bob.
by The Dark on Nov 9, 2011 12:21 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
Forwards influence shot rates considerably, but have little impact on save percentage.
So I’m definitely not pointing to the loss of Richards and Carter as the reason why the team GAA is high — that’s mostly driven by the low Sv% that is probably mostly variance. But the team is 22nd in shots against per 60, which suggests that even when the goaltending comes back up, the goals against will be a little worse than last year when they were 16th.
@BSH_EricT
Writer at Broad Street Hockey
Just to be clear, Couturier has been used in the defensive zone a lot, but against pretty weak competition. Among forwards with at least 30 minutes of ES TOI, only Rinaldo and Read have seen worse opponents by Corsi Rel QoC, and Couturier has seen the weakest opps by QualComp.
@BSH_EricT
Writer at Broad Street Hockey
Flyers turn communist
Weren’t they already?
Lightning strikes once, Hextall strikes twice!
"I think there is virtue in pissing off idiots." - Fehr and Balanced
by hintzy64 on Nov 8, 2011 2:32 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
THAT is definitely the comment of the day. Good work outta you, comrade!
Maxime Talbot - in the Orange and Black ... better than chocolate and peanut butter!
by MaximumTalbot on Nov 8, 2011 5:58 PM EST up reply actions
everyone is either facing tough competition or starting in their own end a lot, but not both
I wrestled with the wording of this for a bit, but it’s just me being silly over semantics. Unless the other team’s top lines never take a faceoff in our end, someone has to be getting those tough zone starts against tough competition. But I guess the point is that instead of some players getting those tough minutes and others not getting them at all, they’re spread relatively evenly among everyone. So, really, everyone has both. Which explains the headline. So I guess I get it now.
I am curious if things were this even at this point in the season last year, or if they had already developed their offensive/defensive line roles. In other words, is it normal for things to start out relatively even at the beginning of the season and then evolve into line roles as things go on, or is this situation a special characteristic of our current roster?
Lightning strikes once, Hextall strikes twice!
"I think there is virtue in pissing off idiots." - Fehr and Balanced
Yeah…put the word ‘consistently’ in there somewhere.
When I say someone faces below average competition in the offensive zone, I don’t mean that those are literally the only shifts they take. I just mean that their competition is significantly weaker than average and they are deployed in the offensive zone significantly more often than average.
If you plotted individual shifts on the chart above, everyone would have some shifts in each quadrant. But the distributions will be skewed, with some people tending to get the majority of the easy minutes and some getting the majority of the hard minutes.
@BSH_EricT
Writer at Broad Street Hockey
Right, as I said, I was just misreading it at first. I took it as absolute instead of a trend. But then realized that was silly.
I’m still curious about the second part, and to see how this evolves over the season.
Lightning strikes once, Hextall strikes twice!
"I think there is virtue in pissing off idiots." - Fehr and Balanced
In other words, is it normal for things to start out relatively even at the beginning of the season and then evolve into line roles as things go on, or is this situation a special characteristic of our current roster?
This is what I was wondering as well, if Lavy and the coaches just aren’t perfectly sure of who fits where best, like the lines right now.
G, the second coming of Foppa.
Embrace the Jagr.*
Very interesting – Thanks for your work and analysis on this, Eric.
Quick clarification question – Is this data and the corresponding plot for all games this year or is it just for home games?
If it is for all games, I would be curious to see if the pattern of the data is the same when comparing home games versus road games (i.e., a plot of data for home games and a plot of data for road games). Given the last change associated with home games, presumably Lavy would have more control to shelter players from or expose players to tougher competition. As such, a home game plot may provide a “truer” picture of Lavy’s intentions (as he has more control over matchups in home games). Further, a road game plot may give some indication of how opposing coaches are trying to expose the forwards of the Flyers.
Keep up the great work.
It’s for all games.
I’m also interested in comparing home and road splits — I don’t normally calculate competition information myself, so I suggested it to Driving Play (along with another idea for a competition metric); hopefully we’ll see something from them when the sample sizes are big enough.
@BSH_EricT
Writer at Broad Street Hockey
It makes me a bit nervous for the playoffs, when line matching is one of the things that killed us in that Boston series .. but if everyone is getting the chance to have tough zone starts/opposition it should theoretically benefit the team for the playoffs.
It makes me less worried. The more lines who can stand up to the opponents best will mean:
Less chance of being mismatched.
Less chance of a line on the ice more focused on offense/defense than defense/offense.
So basically, versatility.
It's in his wheelhouse!!
Carlos Ruiz, My Nickname is Chooch.
Agreed. Last year’s lines were very specialized, and while great in the right situations, when they were put in the wrong situations, they suffered.
This year’s lines (so far) have been much more balanced. Instead of pairing Briere with Leino, the Flyers have paired Briere with Simmonds. Instead of pairing Giroux with Carter, the Flyers have paired Giroux with Jagr.
That means Briere doesn’t get the cushy situations where he thrived, but you also don’t risk him getting stuck in a spot that he can’t handle.
@BSH_EricT
Writer at Broad Street Hockey
I think I had said this before, but these lines seem to suit Lavy better as he seemed to not be able to handle matchups well. Then again, having Richards and Carter on 2 different lines allowed much of the same freedom, and Briere was really only exposed in bad situations by Lavy when Carter went down.
being obnoxious and self righteous while ignoring the point since 9/29/11
Ah, that’s a good point about the Carter injury.
I had shied away from the “Lavvy can’t handle matchups” angle, since he did fine for the whole regular season, but you’re right that it got trickier when Carter went down and he failed at it then. So perhaps it’s fair to say that with this coach, the riskier stacking of players only works if he can make two very responsible lines, and that might not be possible on this team.
@BSH_EricT
Writer at Broad Street Hockey
That’s at least my hypothesis.
I definitely don’t think this situation is better than last year’s as brought up below because I’d take the Richards and Carter lines personally. However, I think the lines have been set up to work well with Lavy’s coaching style this year; so I think they are optimizing talent versus coaching style this year, it’s just totally different than last year.
being obnoxious and self righteous while ignoring the point since 9/29/11
Is this a good example of power vs. power? Or trying to get your best lines against the oppenents best lines and lower lines vs. lower lines.
I may be over-simplifying, but that’s what it looks like to me.
Tracking the Flyers scoring chances at Broad Street Hockey
Possibly.
The best players have the most offensive zone starts and the toughest competition. The worst players have the most defensive zone starts and the weakest competition.
Which one’s the chicken and which one’s the egg? Are they sending their top lines out in the offensive zone regardless of who’s out there and happening to get them matched up with top competition, or are they sending their top lines out against top competition regardless of zone and happening to have that land in the offensive zone?
Since most shifts are on the fly, I guess the latter is more likely to result in these numbers, but it’s hard to know.
@BSH_EricT
Writer at Broad Street Hockey
Quotes Which Should Replace "With All Our Will... We Will!"
“From each according to his defensive abilities, to each according to his CorsiRelQoC needs.”
“Hockey is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their team’s ends.”
“The first requisite for the happiness of the coach is the abolition of sheltered zone starts.”
Do you see what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps?
I had thought about using something along the lines of the first one, but more of a “to each according to his goal-scoring needs” slant to it.
@BSH_EricT
Writer at Broad Street Hockey
That sounds better.
Ladies and Gentlemen, your 2011-12 Philadelphia Flyers: From Each According to His Defensive Abilities, To Each According to His Goal-Scoring Needs."
The sickle DOES look like the front of the winged P, if you think about it!
Do you see what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps?
Flyer Communist Quotes
the Party “found power Hartnell lying in the streets and simply picked it up.” – Coach Lenin
Death Changing the goalie is the solution to all problems. No man goalie – no problem. – GM Stalin
Capital Shelley is dead labor ice-time, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor ice-time, and lives the more, the more labor ice-time it sucks. Karl Marx, Owner
by flyersfaninchicago on Nov 9, 2011 3:30 AM EST up reply actions
also from the Owner…
The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion. the neutral zone trap.
by flyersfaninchicago on Nov 9, 2011 3:37 AM EST up reply actions
Do the communist Flyers have an owner? Aren’t they owned by the collective?
@BSH_EricT
Writer at Broad Street Hockey
True ownership is by the collective – but the apparatchik must make the collectivized decisions. (So does it really matter?)
Maxime Talbot - in the Orange and Black ... better than chocolate and peanut butter!
by MaximumTalbot on Nov 9, 2011 11:34 AM EST up reply actions
I found it amusing to consider them as members of capitalist management. A friend of mine who went to the London School of Economics and Political Science in the 90s said he actually went to Highgate cemetery and danced on Marx’s grave.
by flyersfaninchicago on Nov 9, 2011 12:46 PM EST up reply actions
So the consensus is that this might be better than last year?
That’s how the data makes me feel. I like the balanced look as opposed to super sheltering and throwing good defensive but offensively gifted players to the wolves.
“Might” is the operative word here. Obviously you’re only talking about fourteen games, and you’re talking about a team with young guys like Scooter who have yet to face the really tough competition night-in, night-out. Yes, he kills penalties, but he’s not out there against Ovechkin at 5v5.
I hope the Flyers manage to make this model work, basically for the same reasons everyone else has been saying.
Stupid Ville Leino. Last year was all HIS fault.
Do you see what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps?
Considering we are one of the worst defensive teams in the league and the bulk of our offense is predicated on one line’s production that is at a fossil fuel level of (un)sustainability. No…..
Formerly... "You don't have to be sweet, to be good"
by Ed Van Chimp on Nov 8, 2011 10:50 PM EST up reply actions
I think this is a pessimistic view.
Bryzgalov’s terrible save percentage is probably just as unsustainable as the skaters’ ridiculously high shooting percentages. The Flyers are outshooting their opponents; it only gets ugly if the skaters stop scoring and the goalie still isn’t stopping pucks.
@BSH_EricT
Writer at Broad Street Hockey
Now I’m gonna have nightmares. Thanks. /sarcasmmaybe
G, the second coming of Foppa.
Embrace the Jagr.*
by JerseyDriver on Nov 8, 2011 11:15 PM EST up reply actions
Both will return to Earth. Certainly. But with the young nature of our forwards and the aging nature of our top two defensemen…. I guess what i am saying is that I have an inkling the negative bounce on our goal scoring will outweigh the positive one on our goal stopping. Pessimistic? Yes. But that’s just the way I see it.
Formerly... "You don't have to be sweet, to be good"
by Ed Van Chimp on Nov 8, 2011 11:32 PM EST up reply actions
We are getting much worse goaltending than we are getting good shooting, though, at the moment.
Keeping alive the old Vaudeville joke, "I'd rather be dead than play Philadelphia."
Are you sure? It’s not true at even strength - 10 out of 13 forwards have a &c=0+1+3+5+4+6+7+8+29+30+31+32+33+34" target="new">PDO over 1000 (meaning that the team shoots better than the opponents do when that player is on the ice).
The team has a .857 PK Sv%, and while I don’t have their total PP Sv%, it’s 16.9% at 5 on 4.
It seems like so far their shooting has been more than enough to outweigh the goaltending.
The interesting question is whether we should expect a PDO over 1000 at the end of the year. Bryzgalov is certainly an above-average goalie, and last year JLikens calculated that the Flyers had the best shooting talent in the league (they were second in Sh%, but on more shots than the leader and so it was likely that the underlying talent was more responsible for the high Sh%). Perhaps even as both regress, the current goal ratio won’t change much?
@BSH_EricT
Writer at Broad Street Hockey
I didn’t feel like running the numbers, but weren’t they in the 970s a couple games back? I’ll admit I was being lazy.
Keeping alive the old Vaudeville joke, "I'd rather be dead than play Philadelphia."
That’s possible. The goaltending has been good for the last few games, saving 29/31, 32/35, 21/23, and 19/20 shots at even strength — a .927 save percentage.
Over that span, the Flyers shot 5/26, 3/15, 3/23, and 4/27 — 16.5%. So their team PDO over that span was 1092, which could pull the numbers up a good bit.
@BSH_EricT
Writer at Broad Street Hockey
I may be wrong in my view, but I tend to not judge forward’s play based on the defensive pairings they get. So the issues with being an awful defensive team is more a result of, well, awful defense.
It’s an awful shame as well, as the Flyers have spent way more on their defense than offense, and the results are not what the level of effort they’ve done should be. I wonder if there needs to be a coaching change in that department. I may be wrong, but I don’t think the Flyers look for many guys in the draft on defense, but then again there may simply not be much defensive talent in the later rounds.Luca Sbisa was one name, is the next guy… Joni Pitkanen?
It's in his wheelhouse!!
Carlos Ruiz, My Nickname is Chooch.
Some of the defensemen like Cobourn have played under standard recently (atleast thats what my eyes tell me or I just remember the dominating Cobourn from the playoffs) and we should expect him to bounce back again. Also with pronger back the overall D should be better and the PP should get back on track
by Anders Jensen on Nov 9, 2011 10:19 AM EST up reply actions
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