Finals Week: Grading the Blue Jackets Defensemen

<![CDATA[The Blue Jackets are coming off of their most successful season in franchise history. It was truly a great thing to be apart of, and personally, I would like to thank the front office for icing such an exciting team.

Now that the excitement has died down and the energy has left the building, it's time to begin preparation for the next season. It's a difficult task to be competitive year in and year out, and with the Boston Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins already eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs, it's evident that it's even harder to build and maintain a contender every season.

The most important piece in building a contender is goaltending, luckily the Blue Jackets have one of the best. Second to goaltending is defense. When the highest paid defensemen in the league are usually the ones who demonstrate the ability to score 50+ points in a season, (Shea Weber, Duncan Keith, Erik Karlsson) it’s obvious that a defensive core that can not only protect the net but also help generate offense is key in today’s NHL.

Enter James Wisniewski.

Wiz had the best season of his career, and in a season marked with franchise records for the Blue Jackets, Wisniewski set one of his own with the most points by a Jackets defenseman (51) in a single season. Scott Howson, to his credit, saw something in Wisniewski when he acquired his rights from the Montreal Canadiens and signed him to a 6-year deal worth $33 million. In hindsight, that was a pretty risky deal when you consider his injury history, but he played to his potential this season.

Visualizing Shot Attempts

Looking at the rest of the defense, I am borrowing an idea from Tyler Dellow’s post “Visualizing Corsi and the Jets“. It’s a simple concept. I’ve separated the defenseman in order of TOI and measured each players on-ice shot attempt (corsi) for percentage in 5v5 situations with the most used forwards this season.

*- Shot attempts, or corsi, are all shot attempts missed, blocked and on goal. The percentages are calculated by taking all shot attempts for divided by all shot attempts for and against.

I made one of these charts earlier this season in December, if you’d like to compare the two charts you can view the post here.

The top row of names are the defensemen for the Blue Jackets separated by their TOI from greatest to least. The first column is each forward who played a substantial amount of time for the Jackets this season in alphabetical order. The numbers are the correlating defense – forward pairings SA%.

What’s the biggest surprise in this chart? James Wisniewski’s positive possession numbers when paired up with everybody even though the Wiz – Murray pairing was a consistent second to Johnson – Tyutin in the depth chart.

In a perfect world, the best defensemen would be given the most ice-time per game. However, that’s still not the case with the Blue Jackets. Jack Johnson has been eating up ice time, averaging 24.4 minutes per game in the regular season and 27.5 minutes in the playoffs. Meanwhile, possession monster James Wisniewski was given 22.3 minutes in the regular season and 23.2 in the playoffs.

The rookies, Ryan Murray and David Savard are on two different levels. Murray’s possession numbers are off the charts for a rookie. He certainly had an impact on Wisniewski’s dominant performance this season. Together, they do make a great pair, one that I hope will be recognized as the top pairing next season. Savard, while not as impressive, still held his ground. This season was a learning experience and using the “eye test” he was making noticeable improvements all season long. Expect his numbers to look better next season.

Jack Johnson and Fedor Tyutin present an interesting problem within the lineup. Johnson seems to drag other players down with him, no matter who he plays with. In the 2011-12 season, Tyutin and Nikita Nikitin were, surprisingly enough, one of the best defensive pairings in the league. Separating the two was a mistake, but only because it’s almost impossible to pair Johnson with anybody. Nikitin still did well away from Tyutin but the fellow countrymen obviously developed a chemistry that was muddled when Johnson joined the team.

Johnson is the type of player who noticeably over commits on plays or makes lazy mistakes. Either he needs to improve (his playoff performance inspires hope that he will) or the front office needs to find a “roving defenseman” who can cover for Johnson’s mistakes. Or even better, trade him while his value is still high.

The Jackets can’t afford to lose Wisniewski, Murray, Nikitin or Tyutin if they wish to make another run at the playoffs next season unless the return is beneficial. Nikitin is the only UFA defenseman going into next season, and his $2.15M cap hit would be manageable and affordable going into next season.]]>