When the team at Buckeye State Hockey took on this player by player review project, two defensemen that immediately garnered my interest were Dalton Prout and Fedor Tyutin. First of all, finding accurate ways to track the impact of defensemen is something that I believe still eludes us. Second, throughout the Jackets season, the pairing (who played most frequently together) consistently showed up as top performers when it came to on-ice shot production for the team (CF%).
My brilliant colleague, Matt Souva, already did a phenomenal job of breaking down the Prout side of this equation but while Prout is still playing to prove his worth with the Jackets, the other side of that coin is Tyutin who was bought out by the team over the summer.
He has since signed with Colorado.
And briefly, before diving into the analysis, it bears mention that Tyutin was one of two of the longest tenured Jackets (the other being Jared Boll) and his loss from an emotional perspective is certainly felt by Jackets fans. Tyutin was always at the ready with a kind word, was viewed as a veteran voice in the locker room, and he and his wife were quietly huge parts of the team’s efforts in the community.
But as the team looks to bolster their defense, the Russian was a casualty of the new definition of what Columbus believes they need on the blue line.
The Stats
As we are known to do, let’s first take a look at Tyutin’s HERO chart from the ever brilliant Dom Galamini.
It is easy to look at Tyutin’s HERO and say, “look at that shot suppression!” Is that not the goal of defense? To prevent shots against?
Well, yes. All that shot suppression is nice, but when you pair that with Tyutin’s inability to produce shots, goals, or points of any kind, it almost starts to feel like a wasted opportunity. (It also bears note that Micah Blake McCurdy wrote earlier this year that shot suppression and shot generation are not correlated.)
While one may be expert (or measured as such) at preventing shots, there is a similar demand on a player to create shot (and thus scoring) opportunities on the other end of the ice. For Tyutin that offensive impact just did not happen.
This highlights the key concern for Tyutin in his final year as a Jacket: point production. The graphic below is again from the illustrious McCurdy. This a typical summary page for a player at HockeyViz, and it shows information by season on each row. Going across the columns on Tyutin’s example: games played, average minutes played per game, and overall point production for the season.
As you can see, there was decline in games played and TOI, but neither was as marked as the decline in point production for the veteran defenseman. Tyutin had just one goal and two assists last season (all at even strength). Only two CBJ d-men had a lower point total. One was Andrew Bodnarchuk with one assist; he played only about half as many games (37) as Tyutin and was claimed off waivers by Colorado). The other was young Dean Kukan who came up late in the season for just eight games.
Similarly, Tyutin’s individual shot attempts fell to 4.78 per 60 minutes (according to Corsica.Hockey). The only player who shot at a lower rate? Kukan.
Tyutin was clearly struggling on offense.
It’s also worth noting: the above visual shows the 2015-16 games played total as fairly similar to Tyutin’s career performance. However, that’s a bit misleading. In past years, Tyutin didn’t reach 82 due to injury. This season, health wasn’t the culprit. Instead, the d-man was healthy scratched by head coach John Tortorella, and the bench boss openly expressed concerns about Tyutin’s speed in-game.
I did not go through extensive game tape, but losing those first two steps is a huge setback for a defenseman who might otherwise be a critical launching pad for play on the other side of the ice.
Ryan Stimson has led an extensive, and impressive project to track all passes that lead to a shot attempt. While he and his team are still working on getting all games included, there are some summary visuals that we can look at to further identify where Tyutin fell in terms of on-ice impact.
First is a visual from Sean Tierney that lays out, for all teams, defensemen in terms of these ‘shot assists’ from Ryan’s project. It is easy to intuit that strong passing from a defenseman is key to getting the puck down ice faster than merely skating with it.
Let’s look at where Fedor Tyutin fell among all Jackets defensemen. The CBJ are inside the green box, and Tyutin is further highlighted with the arrow.
Jones leads the pack among CBJ d-men, and Tyutin slots in the lower half. You can explore a more interactive post at Tierney’s Tableau page here.
Now let’s look at a visual map of Tyutin’s involvement in passing that led to shot attempts in terms of where these events happened on ice.
The CBJ defensive zone is on the left, and the attacking zone on the right. You can see that Tyutin’s involvement in the offense happened mostly after the team had settled in their offensive zone. It’s not surprising that passes lead to shots more frequently when in the offensive zone. The lack of action or activation in the defensive zone is the troubling aspect.
To really drive home that defensive zone problem, let’s compare Tyutin to Seth Jones (who, according to Stimson’s data) led the Jackets’ defensemen in shot assists.
Jones doesn’t have the same density of lines in this figure, and that’s not surprising as he was traded mid-season, only playing 41 games in Union Blue versus Tyutin’s 61. Yet even in that limited showing, Jones’ passes leading to shots are more evenly dispersed. Jones shows activity throughout all three zones. This pairs with the stark comparison in overall “shot assist” production, further revealing positive signs for Jones and a concerning lack of offensive action from Tyutin.
The Grade
Ultimately, Tyutin’s game fell out of favor with Coach Tortorella and it was clear that even without that scrutiny, his offensive production seemingly evaporated. Tyutin should never be forgotten as a part of Columbus history, but it seems suitable that his time in a Union Blue uniform has concluded
The Grade: D
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