Nugent-Hopkins, Landeskog, Couturier and the Blueliners Behind Them

by Derek Zona on Jan 29, 2012 4:30 PM MST in Analysis

In the comments of my morning article on the assignments faced by Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Gabriel Landeskog and Sean Couturier have faced, Woodguy wondered what impact the defensive pairings behind the kids has on their results:

I wonder how the defensive pairing playing behind the forwards affect the possession metrics.

Renney’s been running 3rd pair with RNH and his Ozone starts all year. Lots of Sutton, Peckham, Tuebert and Barker when he played.

You would think with the QC that Landeskog is getting he has Johnson or Quincey behind him.

Which is more important for driving possession, QC or QT. Chicken or egg?

Thanks to the venerable and terrifying Gabriel Desjardins and his behindthenet.ca, we can figure that out. The numbers below show even strength time on ice for each of the 18-year-old forwards at the top of the table. Below each player is a listing of the even strength time on ice with each corresponding defensive teammate.

Rookie	ES TOI	Rookie	ES TOI	Rookie	ES TOI
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins	505.1	Gabriel Landeskog	700.15	Sean Couturier	426.82

Defensive Teammate	ES TOI	Defensive Teammate	ES TOI	Defensive Teammate	ES TOI
Tom Gilbert	170.7	Shane O`Brien	236.0	Matt Carle	173.7
Ladislav Smid	149.0	Jan Hejda	228.2	Braydon Coburn	163.9
Theo Peckham	147.5	Kyle Quincey	226.1	Andrej Meszaros	152.8
Jeff Petry	135.9	Erik Johnson	225.4	Kimmo Timonen	103.7
Corey Potter	120.2	Ryan O`Byrne	200.9	Marc-Andre Bourdon	88.4
Andy Sutton	82.3	Ryan Wilson	153.3
Ryan Whitney	70.2	Stefan Elliott	101.5

*Time on ice figures courtesy behindthenet.ca

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Was Jan Hejda not listed at behindthenet.ca for the Avs?

I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is.

by ProfessorOak on Jan 29, 2012 7:40 PM MST reply actions

Nice catch. I’ll add him.

Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.

by Derek Zona on Jan 29, 2012 8:02 PM MST up reply actions

Wow, didn’t expect that.

Where on Gabe’s site are you able to find this info?

Do you have to distill it from other info?

Good stuff, thanks for this.

by Woodguy on Jan 30, 2012 7:29 AM MST reply actions

If RNH has 505.1 5v5 TOI, shouldn’t we expect the D TOI to add up clost to 1010.20 TOI?

If so were missing 134.4min.

Would Barker’s missing time and others account for it?

by Woodguy on Jan 30, 2012 8:03 AM MST reply actions

If you follow Derek’s link it takes you to the TOI page. I have it bookmarked. Honestly, I don’t know how to get there from the main page.

That TOI page only lists the ten most common linemates for each player, so yeah, the extra 134.4 is made up for by Nugent-Hopkins playing with Barker, Chorney, Plante, Teubert, or situations when there are four forwards on the ice (usually at the end of a PP).

The biggest fanana of the Havana Bananas.

by Scott Reynolds on Jan 30, 2012 8:27 AM MST up reply actions

Thanks Scott!

I assumed that the link was to BTN front page. Poor assumption.

Interesting tool.

Great stuff guys.

by Woodguy on Jan 30, 2012 8:37 AM MST up reply actions

Actually, its easy to get to.

Front page, Player Stats drop down menu, TOI and BANG!

My eyes didn’t deceive me. RNH is Barker’s most common linemate after Sutton, its just that he played too few games to get listed under RNH. He accounts for 61.39 min.

Really didn’t expect to see Gilbert and Smid as RNH’s top D pairing. Takes some of the shine off the kid.

by Woodguy on Jan 30, 2012 8:46 AM MST up reply actions

At the same time, Peckham and Petry aren’t far behind (<15 minutes), and Potter might be in the top two if not for his injury. 77/5 being the tops does hurt perception, but the others being close behind does mitigate that somewhat.

Really, all that tells me is that RNH is 18 and not very good at controlling possession at the NHL level, which the sensible among us already knew/expected.

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Robertson's Rants - Exceedingly occasional, lengthy ramblings on hockey topics, hosted at Puck Podcast. And no, my name's not Doug.

by Doogie2K on Jan 30, 2012 10:32 AM MST up reply actions 1 recs

Good point.

I we assume that Gillbert and Smid usually play as a pair with RNH, and we them Gilbert’s TOI as a pair (170) , then fully 75%+ of RNH’s ice time is spent with Dmen who are below NHL replacement or near.

by Woodguy on Jan 30, 2012 10:56 AM MST up reply actions

You figure Smid is still close to replacement level?

by Doogie2K on Jan 30, 2012 10:59 AM MST up reply actions

No, Smid and Gilbert are well above replacement.

I assumed Gilbert and Smid were on the ice at the same time when they each logged minutes with RNH.

I gave them both Gilberts 170min (as a slight correction factor), 170/505 = 33.6%.

So they play with Dmen other than 77-5 76% of the time.

Most of those are replacement level or close.

Including a hobbled Whitney.

by Woodguy on Jan 30, 2012 12:01 PM MST via mobile up reply actions

Oh, I see. I misread how you phrased that. Never mind.

Of course, now your math is screwy. 100-34 = 66%, not 76%.

by Doogie2K on Jan 30, 2012 12:08 PM MST up reply actions

Wow.

Math is hard.

I’ve spent most of the morning pricing an entire engineered hardwood flooring line.

I better go through those numbers again.

by Woodguy on Jan 30, 2012 12:23 PM MST via mobile up reply actions

Thank God I’ve spent most of my last few weeks reading papers and summarizing them instead of doing hard programming/math.

Means my sense of how to fix my data analysis program has taken a shit, but I can type good, anyway.

by Doogie2K on Jan 30, 2012 1:20 PM MST up reply actions

So RNH spends a third of his ice time with the top pairing guys, who generally play significantly more than a third of the time. No big surprise. He plays 1% more with Smid than Peckham, meanwhile Smid has gotten 22% more even strength TOI/G than Peckham. So it’s not like Renney has been going out of his way to shelter RNH with the top pairing.

Bigger deal to me is the quality of the entire defence corps behind these guys. I would argue all four of the guys Couturier plays regularly with are better than all the remaining Oilers D behind Gilbert and Smid, and that the same goes for the top 6 of Colorado. Oilers crummy D will handicap the performance of many forwards, and RNH is no exception I’m sure.

Oilers fan through thick, thin and anorexic. Writer for The Cult of Hockey.

by Bruce McCurdy on Jan 30, 2012 8:18 PM MST up reply actions

It’s pretty bold to blame Barker’s awful numbers on Nugent-Hopkins, but it’s worth exploring.

Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.

by Derek Zona on Jan 30, 2012 4:08 PM MST up reply actions

maybe it outlines that having so many players either learning the game, or trying to recover their game, with mediocre veterans leads to an overall lack of support for each group, and a team uniquely suited to losing?

by UnrefinedCrude on Jan 31, 2012 11:25 AM MST up reply actions

Given my feelings on Barker, it was completely tongue-in-cheek.

Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.

by Derek Zona on Jan 31, 2012 3:29 PM MST up reply actions

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