The Puck Stops Here
Patrick Kane As A First Team All Star
by PuckStopsHere on 06/30/10 at 10:12 AM ET
Comments (4)
In the last couple days I have discussed the NHL awards voting. I have written posts on the Hart Trophy and the Selke trophy. There is one more voting result I would like to comment on and that is the First Team All Star right wing. Patrick Kane of Chicago was given this award. From the voting results and looking at point totals, there were effectively four people in this race. They are Martin St Louis, Marian Gaborik, Dany Heatley and the winner Patrick Kane. No one else appeared on more than five ballots.
St Louis led right wingers in scoring with 94 points. He did so on a weak Tampa Bay team and thus has a relatively weak +/- (-8) to show for it. His season was strong enough to win the Lady Byng Trophy. The remaining players have similar stats. Kane leads the way with 88 points and a +16 +/-, Gaborik is next at 86 points and +15 and Heatley is third with 82 points and +14. It appears that Kane won because he had the most points with the highest (unadjusted) +/- of the bunch. The problem is I think he was the fourth best in the group.
Of these players, Kane was significantly helped by the way he was used on the ice. Kane was rarely used in defensive situations. When we track zone starts, the number of faceoffs by zone (offensive, neutral and defensive) that a player is on the ice, Kane has a huge imbalance between his offensive and defensive zone starts. Kane was on for 210 more offensive zone faceoffs than defensive zone ones. This led the NHL. Last year, Evgeni Malkin led the league with 165 (Kane finished second) and Kane has significantly beaten that number. A significant portion of Kane’s offensive success comes because he is asked to play in his own zone less than anyone else in the game. He plays as exclusively as possible in the offensive zone. As a result, Patrick Kane’s offensive numbers are ‘hollow”. Although they look good, they are driven as much by the circumstance of how he plays and not his own play.
If I had an award ballot, I would have picked Martin St Louis for First Team All Star right wing and Marian Gaborik and Dany Heatley would have been my second and third choices respectively. I think the voters made a mistake picking Patrick Kane on the first team. Ten voters did not select him in their top three (agreeing with me).
The concept of zone starts is not one that is discussed in too many NHL circles, but it is useful to understand player’s numbers. When a player has as many offensive zone starts as Patrick Kane does, of course he will post good numbers, but he was not as valuable as a player with slightly weaker numbers and much more defensive play.
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Tags: Chicago+Blackhawks, Patrick+Kane,
Comments
Kane isn’t a defensive player, and these days one expects any “superstar” to have at least decent defensive skills, but I give props to the Chicago coaching staff, who’ve done a good job utilizing a very talented young man, and recognized his strong and weak points. They do their best to make sure Kane spends his time where he belongs, in the offensive zone. And the stats show they’re obviously doing a good job. If it weren’t for their depth, and the great play of their defense, they wouldn’t have the luxury of only putting Kane on in the offensive zone.
The fact that his success is dependent on so many other factors—good coaching, team depth, good defensemen (all contributing to him being able to spend a vast majority of his minutes in the offensive zone)—detracts from his win.
For excelling in his role (scoring goals), I say he deserves it. Really that’s all you can ask from an individual player: do what the coaching staff expects of you.
I mean, it’s all a popularity contest anyway, right?
Posted by Francis at ShootShoot.net on 06/30/10 at 11:18 AM ET
This is the first post you’ve ever written that I fully agree with; not that you care.
And not to take anything away from Kane, who is damn good. But he’s a bit overhyped, probably because he just scored a Stanley Cup winning goal.
Posted by awould on 06/30/10 at 12:09 PM ET
Maybe they should treat wings like they do defenseman and just vote on the top 2 Wings instead of breaking them out into Left and Right. This is what they do with Defenseman and if you notice some years are loaded with one side or the other. Wingers shift a lot from left to right Heatly is an example of this. and if you look at the voting some wingers get votes for left and right in the same season. Also, the All-Rookie team is done with bsically the top 3 fowards. This was switched from LW - C - RW a few years back. They changed it because more deserving fowards were being left off the All-Rookie Team, right? So why not do the same with the All-Star Team. Any thoughts on that?
BTW, if they treated d-men like wingers and decided to vote on “1st Team Right D., 1st Team Left D. ect.” it would be very interesting to see who would have been left off that initially made the All-star Team and who would’ve made the team that didn’t originally
Posted by Lindas1st from New England on 06/30/10 at 03:22 PM ET
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Well, I agree with everything here, including your ranking of the three people you put above him.
Patrick Kane is terrible defensively. He’s one of the reasons why I think that in some kind of magical game where players never do line changes or get tired, that the 2nd team of All-Stars this year would likely be able to beat the 1st team.
Posted by J.J. from Kansas on 06/30/10 at 10:36 AM ET