SENShobo
Sens Cast A League Leader Aside: Why?
by SENShobo on 12/12/08 at 08:42 AM ET
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It’s such an important aspect of a team’s game, that I will speak of nothing else today, and let it sit for a couple days before saying anything else. Ok, I will also mention the secret weapon that the Sens keep locking up in a head-scratcher of a possibly team-draining decision, and yes, the two are related.
From the Ottawa Citizen, on the Sens’ lackluster power play,
“We’ve got to get (the power play) going,” said coach Craig Hartsburg. “We’ve got to be a threat on it. There may be some games where we don’t score, but power plays are important because you at least create the impression that you’re a threat. We haven’t been a real threat for a while.”
....
“We’ve got guys there, on that first unit, that are the right fit, I think,” he said. “Maybe we could change point man or something (Mike Fisher, Filip Kuba, Alexandre Picard and Brendan Bell typically line up on the blue-line). I think we’ve just got to keep working at it, harder than ever. To execute, you have to have some chemistry, and there’s a part of the power play that we all forget about, and that’s work habits. Coming up with loose pucks, battling for position, part of that is working rather than sitting still.”
No doubt that with six power plays against the Hawks and only a fluke deflection goal getting by Gerber, the Sens could have beat the Hawks. But, just as the feeling goes during other parts of the game, the Sens have appeared to be going through the motions.
That’s not to say there’s no intensity in the power play, just that it’s the same moves every time: to the boards, to the blueline, across the blueline, shot, repeat. Maybe go low at the side of the net from the boards to fake as though you’ll try to stuff it in, but then flick it back to the point for another blast, where the Sens miss guys like Corvo, Redden, Meszaros, and Chara. Sure, some of them left plenty to be desired in many areas, but they brought goals. Buffalo’s blueline has 3 goals, Tampa’s 4, Dallas, New Jersey, and St. Louis 6, and Philadelphia is tied with Ottawa’s 7. Every other team has more goals by defensemen, including five teams who beat or tie the Sens’ output with a single defender.
Kuba has played well, third in the League for assists by a defenseman with 18, but has just a single goal. Volchenkov and Picard are tied for the team lead in goals at 2; one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse for the Sens as far as I can tell. Adventure is needed; skate in through the penalty killers, throw them off even as you don’t have the puck but buzz around to get in place for a tip or a blueline scrap for the puck.
Straying a bit from the topic of power plays, one of the biggest questions of the season has been what has happened to Vermette and Fisher? Sure, in previous years, they both had a better back-end to feed them pucks and to feed pucks too. Fisher has also benefited from a steady ally on the second line, even as most of those have come after the trade deadline (Comrie, Stillman), and Vermette had less pressure on him with the focus on the top two lines and their puckmovers, sneaking in on the 3rd line with Kelly to catch the opponents with their 5th and 6th defensemen out. No longer.
Tell me though: if you had a League-leader in some statistical category, would you use him, or pull him away from it? If we had the League leader in goals, would we expect to see him on the 4th line, checking and grinding it out in front of Gerber to shut down opponents? Probably you’d expect to see him on the top line, surrounded by players to feed him the puck and scramble for it at the net, making best use of their talents.
We already know that we’re steady in goal, and it’s not as though Gerber or Auld will be asked to drop the paddle, borrow Alfie’s stick, and go in to man the point on a power play. But have you noticed that we have a League leader that we’re trying to keep away from what he does best? He’s third in the League in this particular stat, 2nd on the road, and yet he’s being used less and less. Players who can succeed in this category are rare, enough so that some UFAs have been signed solely because they possess this skill in droves. Boston, San Jose, and Detroit all excel in this area.
Give up yet?
Antoine Vermette, the target of so much derision for his inability to finish of late, is 3rd in the League in face off win %, with 61.8%, ballooning to 64.2% on the road. Face offs are sometimes ignored, not seen for their impact, but quite simply you can’t make a play without the puck, lose valuable power play time when you lose your face offs, and there’s no better way to kill penalties than with puck possession.
Puck possession: it’s the word and tactic used by the Red Wings to win the Cup last season, and no team was better than they were at winning face offs during those playoffs. It’s the reason Yanic Perreault always (until now) found a spot on a team, his success rate 64.3% with the Hawks last season, 62.8% with Toronto and Phoenix in 06-07, and 62.2% in 05-06 with the Predators. Goals are the key to winning of course, but between the 5th and the 30th most prolific goal-scorers this season, there’s only 3 goals worth of difference, or 25% (15 to 12).
In faceoffs, only three players top 60%, only ten top 55%, and down at 30th is New Jersey’s John Madden with 52%. Vermette’s 61.8% means his line starts with the puck 61.8% more than his opponents (61.8 / 38.2 = 1.6178 or 61.8% more); Madden’s 52% means his line starts with the puck only 8.3% more than his opponents (52 / 48 = 1.0833 or 8.3% more). Not only does puck possession give you a chance to score, sometimes the best part about having the puck is that your opponents can’t do anything with it.
The Senators have a few players who take face offs: Spezza, Fisher, Kelly, McAmmond, Bass, and Vermette. Of those six, of course, Vermette’s 61.8% success rate is tops. More shocking? The next best player is Spezza, dead even at 50%, and down from there through Fisher (49.5%), Kelly (49.2%), Bass (44.4%), and McAmmond (43.4%).
Most shocking? Vermette sits fourth in team face offs taken, with 228 (8.8 per game), behind Kelly (248), Fisher (303), and Spezza (488). Looking at NHL.com’s Face off Leaders chart of the top 60 in the League, not one player has taken fewer draws than Vermette’s 228, and with the exception of Chicago’s Colin Fraser (149 even strength face offs taken), all 58 others have taken at least twice as many even strength face offs as Vermette (92). Rod Brind’Amour has been a rock in taking faceoffs for Carolina over the years, sitting second in the League, one ahead of Vermette, with a 63.1% success rate. He has taken 475 even strength face offs and 640 in total, over 22 face offs per game, over 16 per game at even strength, compared to a mere 8.8 and 3.5 per game for Vermette.
Fisher and Vermette did not click as a second line, and Vermette has never played with Alfie and Heatley (though he did play wing briefly on the top line), but what if he did, and those players didn’t split time with the puck evenly with the other team, but had it over 60% of the time, and almost twice as much as their opponents when the Sens play on the road where Vermette is 64.2% in face offs?
Those totals are ballooned a bit as well. Vermette does center the 2nd power play unit (68.4% on the power play), as Fisher plays point, and is second in team power play face offs taken. He also works wonders on the penalty kill, leading the team in shorthanded face offs taken, and sporting an impressive 58.2% with the team down a man.
But, even strength, Vermette has taken only 92 face offs, fifth on the team, 3.5 per game. This with Vermette winning a whopping even strength total of 63% of his face offs. Now, someone please explain why having the puck is such a bad thing, why we want to play half the game with it, half without, rather than having it 70% more than our opponents with a 63% man at the face off dot?
Suddenly, I wonder: was there any effect on how the Vermette-Fisher 2nd line worked because of the choice to put 48.8% successful Fisher on the dot, rather than 63% successful Vermette? Looking at the numbers, last season, Vermette took 22.4% of the team’s even-strength face off draws, winning 58.7% of them. This season, he’s winning 63% of his even-strength draws, but taking only 8.6% of the team’s even-strength face offs.
That don’t make no sense.
Fisher (50.2%) and Spezza (50.4%) were not the reason Ottawa was 7th in the League in face offs last season with a team 51.7% success rate. Vermette not taking almost any of our even-strength draws this season could well explain why Ottawa is 13th in League this season with a pedestrian 50.6%.
I guarantee you: if all of our centers were clicking at 64.6% combined in even-strength and power play face offs, this team would not be where it is in the standings today. How much different its place would be, I cannot say, but I hope I’m not the only one noticing the flabbergasting trend of putting Vermette on the wing in favour of Kelly and Fisher, both sub-.500 at the face off dot. Could the 2nd and 3rd lines be all that negatively affected with Vermette taking the draws, compared to their current output?
Trades aren’t going to happen before the Christmas freeze, especially with few assets to offer up (starting to wonder what might happen to Kuba, depending on his demands and the team’s expected space with this recession, come the March trade deadline). Prospects aren’t going to be able to jump in until spaces are empty for them.
But Vermette can switch from wing to center in a pinch, even if he moves back to the boards once the team has secured the puck. Your move, Hartsburg.
Update
Sens Give Their League Leader Another Chance
Filed in: NHL Teams, Ottawa Senators | SENShobo | Permalink
Tags: Antoine+Vermette, face+off,
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