Let’s take a long, deep look at Lightning defense: its deployment, TOI and more
There seems to be general consensus that Lightning defense offers a pretty stable group on the backhand which actually ranks pretty high league-wise. At the end of the day, these discussions whether your team’s defense ranks
8th or
17th barely matter.
Nor should they.
Nevertheless, Lightning defense which is run by Jon Cooper and veteran associate coach Rick Bowness, raises a few intriguing questions in terms of its
usage,
deployment,
designated roles,
TOI or how Lightning D
fit into Cooper’s system.
LIGHTNING DEFENSE IN GENERAL
First of all, I believe Jon Cooper and Rick Bowness have been doing a pretty good job on the whole.
Under Jon Cooper, Lightning have become a tough-to-play against team. The team cut down on scoring chances against and goals-scored against while not sacrificing much of their potent offense.
Victor Hedman became one of the premier defensemen after the arrival of Cooper+Bowness. Anton Stralman finally headlined all the newspapers with his extremely solid
5-on-5 play, which went under-the-radar during his Rangers days.
Cooper and Bowness allow their D to get activated, join the rush and even switch positions with forwards in the O-Zone, an important concept in today’s NHL which helps to keep the puck in the zone, create chaos, generate shots and eventually wear the opposition down and possibly put the puck in the back of the net. In doing so, you might be able to change a few players on the fly which after spending
~40 seconds in the zone only increases the chances of being able to eventually capitalize.
IS IT REALLY WORKING?
The question is, do the Lightning have the right types of D for the system they have been trying to apply?
Having watched the Penguins-Lightning series, I must confess I believe they don’t.
Even though Lightning got beat in a
7-game-series, and the Game 7 could have gone either way, Lightning greatly benefited from their high-end skill up front, some hot goaltending and partially even puck-luck.
Defense? Not so much.
Penguins controlled the puck for the majority of the series as Mike Sullivan and Jim Rutherford were 100% committed to a skating, puck-moving defense and overall to a quick, transition game. No step backs. It made a huge difference. Penguins defense, its system and progressive coaching were the major factors why the team was so successful.
You can argue that Penguins defense didn’t feature the greatest defensive core of all times.
That’s right. Having the right type of players which really fits into what you are trying to build is such a key, though. All Penguins D have the skating and puck-moving ability to get the puck up ice quickly. It’s actually incredible watching their system, the pace they are able to maintain in practice. D to D, quick stretch pass, scoring chance in the blink of an eye…
Trevor Daley instead of Rob Scuderi. No Brooks Orpik, no Christian Ehrhoff but Justin Schultz or Brian Dumoulin instead. I absolutely love it.
Jason Garrison equals Rob Scuderi. He’s not Rob Scuderi-bad but he means pretty much the same problem: a defenseman who doesn’t fit it anymore. You get the point.
I was pretty disappointed Steve Yzerman didn’t pull the trigger on Justin Schultz, despite expressing some interest with the price being ridiculously low (for obvious reasons, to some degree).
Justin Schultz is a
26-year-old right-handed puck-mover, arguably one of the better passing D in the league as he ranks
49th in Setup Passes per Game (SP/GP) with
1.47.*
(2013-14 to 2015-16). He’s an excellent skater, too.
To my mind, he would have made an excellent pickup as the Lightning have been looking for a right-handed d-man who can QB the PP for years. I don’t care how bad he played for the Oilers. It was rather obvious he needed a change of scenery. You should take the odds with Schultz’ skillset and run.
THE BEST DEFENSIVE-PAIRING IN THE GAME?
Let’s start with the obvious. Lightning are extremely fortunate to have the 1st pairing of Victor Hedman-Anton Stralman, without a doubt one of the best pairings in the league.
There is really not much of a point in arguing whether the best defensive pairing is Hedman-Stralman, Muzzin-Doughty or, for instance, Giordano-TJ Brodie. They have all been terrific. When they actually play together as the coaches like to spread the balance among defense. The difference make other defensemen/rest of the team/coaching etc. anyway.
The point is Hedman-Stralman (Muzzin-Doughty) have been REALLY good when together. Muzzin-Doughty play an essential part in an extremely strong puck-possession Kings system, which enables LA to fire a high-volume of shots (albeit many shots from long distances. That’s subject for another discussion…). Hedman-Stralman pairing essentially might have the strongest analytics metrics if we dig even deeper but it won’t be examined in here.
Hedman is a true #1 guy who might be the best skater of all times who stands at
6’5+. At least for a defenseman. When his game is on, he’s arguably a
top3 d-man in the world.
Stralman is one of the best
5-on-5 d-men over the last few years. When you have a true number one guy like Hedman, Stralman very well might be the best option for a
#2 who complements your franchise D. No disrespect to Jake Muzzin or Jared Spurgeon, though.
Although Stralman does not put up as many points as Hedman, he might be your 1st choice when it comes to making a tutorial how to play defense. It’s textbook. He’s smart, he’s effective, he’s one of best at striping forwards off the puck and making all the little things that go unnoticed.
Worth noting that primary job of a defenseman is not to score a lot of points but to make sure forwards get enough opportunities to score. And Stralman does that VERY well. In fact, you would be hard pressed to name even few better puck-possession, transitional defensemen.
God bless New York Rangers.
Having the pairing of Hedman-Stralman caliber obviously gives Lightning some edge over the others. On the other hand, it might help to hide some problems.
BOWNESS’ SUBTLE USAGE OF LIGHTNING’ BOTTOM-4
Lightning refuse to run their
2nd pairing in a traditional, minute-eating fashion. Besides Hedman and Stralman, Lightning don’t seem to have a defenseman that would stand out from the rest.
Yet. So it makes sense to spread the ice-time equally.
Over the past three seasons, Braydon Coburn got
31.23% of team TOI, Jason Garrison
32.37%, Andrej Sustr
32.33% and Nikita Nesterov
29.52%. In other words, Lightning
bottom-4 mostly averages 16-18 minutes a game and no defenseman not named Hedman or Stralman gets to play
20+ minutes.
As you can see, TOI pretty evenly spread out.
Basically the same could be applied to Hedman and Stralman, too. Hedman logged
36.01% of team TOI while Anton Stralman played
33.56%. In comparison, Doughty ate
43.42% of team TOI and Jake Muzzin
36.53%. If you take a look around the league, most of
#1s and
#2s play in average
~2-3+ minutes more than Hedman and Stralman. During the span of an
82-game season, it equals approximately
~150+ minutes or having played
~6+ more games.
No wonder why Hedman always finds his legs in the POs. He looks ready, he looks fresh, he looks hungry. Not a bad idea to cut down his minutes if you asked me.
In addition to Lightning having a pretty well-balanced
bottom-4 (at least at first glance), defensemen are now expected to join the rush, transition the puck, skate with the puck up ice which in turn reduces some effective minutes they are able to play. Defensemen, the go-to guys, have played some big minutes in the past. This pattern is shifting.
So all-in-all, it makes perfect sense.
It’s not about how many minutes you play, it’s about how many effective minutes you are able to give.
NIKITA NESTEROV: SHOULD HE REALLY SIT WHEN EVERYONE’S HEALTHY?
Occasionally, I go through twitter to see what Lightning fans have on mind. The perception of Nikita Nesterov has been baffling to say the least.
When I look at Nikita Nesterov, I see a smooth-skating puck-moving defenseman with some offense to his game, a much-needed defenseman to today’s game. Sure, his sophomore
(15-16) campaign was rather disappointing which confirm both eye-test and underlying numbers.
Nesterov didn’t make much of a positive impact on the team, so there is no wonder why Cooper avoided using in so called ‘’high-pressure’’ situations, or ‘’high-leverage’’ situations, if you will (the picture was created by courtesy of Micah Blake McCurdy).**
Simply put, Nesterov didn’t get much of an ice-time when Tampa was leading by one/tied late in a game as he hadn’t earned trust of his coaches. Nesterov was trying to do a bit too much, especially offensively, as he was trying to make a lot of low-percentage plays instead of making a play that was right there.
However, it almost seems as if a young defenseman cannot improve. For whatever reason, a lot of Lightning fans have thrown Nesterov under the bus.
As for the 16-17 season, Nesterov has still been making quite a lot of mistakes (hint: he will never be a ‘’mistake-free’’ defenseman), a lot of memorable mistakes, which people tend to overrate significantly. Does it mean he’s bad for the rest of the nights? Doubtful. People are biased for a variety of reasons. In Nesterov’s case, people ignore all the subtle things he does during hockey games.
Nesterov isn’t afraid to play. And he can play. That makes a difference. You can teach Nikita Nesterov how to close the gap, you can help him improve defensively but it doesn’t work the other way round. Lightning should be grateful for Nesterov as he’s one of the few capable puck-movers on the Lightning blueline.
That’s a play Nesterov made during a recent game against the Detroit Red Wings, a game which, unfortunately, marks a moment of Steven Stamkos’ injury.
Obviously, it’s one play, therefore it doesn’t mean much. However, Nesterov’s skillset is clearly on the display. His little move helps to create a decent scoring chance for Victor Hedman. He’s capable of making such plays on a game-to-game basis. He helps to generate shots and offense.
Jason Garrison or Andrej Sustr? Not really.
In a game against the Ottawa Senators, Nesterov made at least three outstanding defensive plays alone. It was arguably one of the best Nesterov’s games in his young career. I was curious to see if anyone acknowledged that but it seems like nobody have taken a notice. Or rather didn’t want to. And Nesterov definitely wasn’t cleaning his own mess, he was put in bad spots by his teammates.
During this sequence, Nikita Kucherov turned back with the puck, while battling against two Senators being near the blueline. Unfortunately, Braydon Coburn had pinched, which opened a lot of open-ice and eventually a possible
2-on-1 rush as Kucherov lost the puck. Neither Coburn nor Kucherov read the play very well. Nesterov was the only player back and he did a terrific job. When a defenseman faces a
2-on-1 situation, he usually cuts down the passing lane, leaving the shot to the goaltender. However, in this particular case, Nesterov smartly realized that Coburn was turning on his wheels (Coburn is an outstanding skater besides his first step or two, understandably) so Nesterov made a quick, aggressive move towards Tommy Pyatt, leaving him no option but to pass the puck. Nesterov blocked the pass and Coburn would have probably covered Karlsson anyway.
The old adage says that it takes approximately
250-300 games for a defenseman to get fully comfortable playing at the National Hockey League level. Nesterov has dressed in
~120 games so he has yet to reach that number. The important fact is that he’s definitely improving.
Nesterov has been a positive contributor for the Lightning this season. In fact, I believe he’s one of the better defensemen on the team. The good definitely outweighs the bad as Nesterov ranks
2nd in Rel. CA/60,
2nd in CF% or even
1st in
GA with just 5 goals (if we exclude Slater Koekkoek for obvious reasons, e.g. playing approximately 83 minutes less while the differential being just
2 goals). Many believe Nesterov has been bad defensively but numbers tell otherwise. He can definitely hold his own.
Don’t let the occassinonal blunder Nesterov makes misjudge his overall effort and impact.
Even if we include Nesterov’s horrific
15-16 campaign, he has still made a slightly positive impact on shot-generation during last 3 years.
Yes, Jon Cooper has provided Nesterov with the highest % of offensive-zone starts but it doesn’t negate the positive impact he can have on the team nor the upside going forward. Had I omitted the
15-16 season and included just his very good
14-15 season and this ongoing season, the numbers would have spoken in Nesterov’s favor significantly more as can be seen clearly on Nesterov’s rolling average:
Nikita Nesterov is a good, young defenseman. He still puts himself into bad positions but he has been improving. His offensive impact seems to be underrated while his supposedly extremely poor defensive play has been blown out of proportion. If there was anything like ‘’good/bad plays differential’’, I presume Nesterov would look good, making more good plays than bad ones, opposed to Andrej Sustr or Jason Garrison.
I personally believe he should be in the lineup every single night, regardless of who is injured or not. Should the Lighting be patient, they might get a decent puck-moving 2nd pairing defenseman for years to come.
GET ANDREJ SUSTR OFF THE ICE
If there is a defenseman Lightning shouldn’t play, it’s definitely Andrej Sustr.
Sustr has entered his
3rd full season with more than
230 games under his belt. Sustr has been a part of two-long cup runs and he probably played his best hockey in a POs series against the Pittsburgh Penguins last spring. Thus one would expect he would finally establish himself as early as this season but I don’t think it’s really happening.
Sustr stands at
6’8. Once a huge advantage, especially for a defenseman, however, I believe it’s more of a weakness nowadays as the league has been packing with speedy and skilled undersized forwards. And it doesn’t do Sustr any favor at all. His long reach is an asset, especially on the PK, but he still struggles mightily against those forwards, and overall in his role.
Let’s take a look at
5-on-5 Metric Comparison (Hedman and Stralman excluded):
Sustr has been the worst/among the worst in any given metric. Lightning primarily use him as a defensive/shutdown defenseman but the thing is, he’s not a good shot-suppressor at all while offering very little offense.
On one hand, he’s got the highest
% of defensive zone starts among Lightning D. In saying that, it’s a pretty flawed metric. If you cannot hold your own, opponents will take advantage of that. Forwards will take more shots against players like Sustr, which leads to more faceoffs as your goaltender will be able to freeze the puck more often. And if you are on the ice, for let say,
~20 seconds, you might stay on the ice for another faceoff.
Additionally, Sustr makes quite a lot unforced mistakes as he, for instance, ices the puck quite often, which obviously leads to another faceoff. Probably most importantly, if your centerman wins a faceoff, and you get control of the puck, it pretty much negates the impact of an defensive zone start since you have got the puck on your stick.
Lightning are much a worse team with Sustr on the ice than without him. What’s baffling is the fact he doesn’t really fit into a speedy, puck-possession Lightning system, yet they have been currently playing him next to Victor Hedman, who has posted some of his worst numbers alongside Sustr, which shouldn’t come as a surprise:
They probably want to shelter Sustr as Hedman has been able to carry pretty much anyone. Or they might actually believe that Sustr belongs there. At least temporarily. Either way, it’s clear it’s not working.
Even if we take a look at this season only (small sample size alert, but the 3-year sample speaks for itself): In
87.67 minutes of TOI, Hedman-Sustr controlled just
42.57% of shot attempts with xGF% just
34.54% and Scoring-chances % of
26.67%. Those are really atrocious numbers.
During this sequence, Sustr was trying to make a cross-ice pass to Nikita Kucherov. He didn’t have a better option, and Kucherov was wide-open, so he was trying to make the right play. However, the pass was just too hard for Kucherov and Boston got hold of the puck. They turned it over immediately though, giving Jason Garrison a chance to gain possession of the puck. Lightning didn’t take advantage of that, however, they gave Jason Garrison yet another chance. He had Steven Stamkos open, and was trying to pass him the puck, but he turned the puck over instead, which led to a breakaway ultimately stopped by Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Jason Garrison-Andrej Sustr pairing have really struggled as they have controlled just 43.94% of all shot-attempts when together on the ice. They have got trouble moving the puck up ice, and they are the worst-skating defensemen on the Lightning roster.
JASON GARRISON AND THE REST
Garrison is still believed to be a solid
top-4 defenseman; I think that ship has sailed. And not exactly yesterday. You gotta respect that Garrison knows his limitations, he’s pretty smart, he usually doesn’t force a play which isn’t there, but he doesn’t seem to be able to keep up with the game anymore. He was never a good skater in the first place and the guy is
32 already. It’s logical.
He seems to be a step behind. He probably doesn’t make as many memorable mistakes as Nesterov, but at the end of the day, he makes much more mistakes. He still might be fine in a more sheltered,
#6 role but you definitely don’t want to play there a guy with a cap hit of
4.6M, especially on a cup-crunch team like Lightning and with the emergence of Slater Koekkoek.
And sometimes that logic doesn’t work anyway (moving the player down the lineup). Sometimes the player is just bad.
Again, we are looking at very small sample-size numbers. Those numbers are certainly not unexpected, though.
Slater Koekkoek has shown a lot of promise in his young NHL career.
He’s one of the best skaters on the Lightning team which features Victor Hedman, Tyler Johnson or Jonathan Drouin, among others. Slater might not be the fastest skater of these guys, but he could the best skater thanks to his acceleration and edge work.
It’s really something.
He makes a good first pass out of the zone and can really generate a lot of offense while joining the rush. That’s where most of his points come from. And coaches definitely approve he doesn’t make a whole lot of mistakes.
Slater Koekkoek is a defenseman destined for success in today’s National Hockey League.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
Lightning defense benefit from having Hedman-Stralman and partially its system (which wasn’t really discussed here), however, they would definitely welcome a right-handed puck-moving defenseman, who can ideally play
top-4 minutes.
The gap between Hedman, Stralman and the rest of the defense is just too huge.
Additionally, I really hope Lightning will make the right decision when it comes to assessing Jason Garrison and Andrej Sustr.
(All stats generated from
http://www.corsica.hockey/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and
http://stats.hockeyanalysis.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)
*VOLLMAN, Rob. Hockey Abstract, p. 156
**MCCURDY BLAKE, Micah.
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