Why does the first line have a lousy scoring chance differential?

11 years ago

Phil Kessel sometimes does take shifts that go on a bit too long.

In the third period Saturday night, during a frantic bit of action, two Toronto Maple Leafs players were caught on the ice at the end of their shifts: Phil Kessel and Mark Fraser. Since the Leafs were skating broadcast right to left, Mark Fraser as a left side defenceman was slightly further away from the bench than his partner Mike Kostka, who got off for Dion Phaneuf. No excuse for Phil Kessel, who plays a bit of a rover position, but is generally expected to be a right winger for the Leafs.

Still, Kessel stayed on the ice even after Tyler Bozak and James van Riemsdyk had gone off. Streaking through centre, he used his speed to get around Penguins forward Craig Adams and made a subtle outlet to Nazem Kadri who had come on the ice. Kadri moved the puck in over the line with possession, halted just enough to stall Penguins shutdown man Paul Martin and find Kessel, who had burst into the slot.

Kessel was knocked off the puck by a Penguin player, but Clarke MacArthur, who read the play and went in for support, was there to easily recover the puck against Tanner Glass, made a move around another Pittsburgh player and found Mark Fraser, who had all kinds of space at the point for a shot. The three Leafs forwards swarmed the front of the net, and after Fraser’s attempt was blocked, Kessel easily scooped up the rebound and tied the hockey game.

So what happened here? Toronto looked dangerously efficient in both the neutral zone and the offensive zone, taking just nine seconds off the clock from the time they left the defensive end of the ice.

Getting away from Tyler

Commenters on the post that summarized Toronto scoring chances from last week noted that the line of Phil Kessel, Tyler Bozak and James van Riemsdyk has been pretty bad. When the players are on the ice, the Leafs give up more scoring chances than they take, even though Kessel and van Riemsdyk have been two of the most consistent Leafs at generating scoring chances game in and game out.

The three got lit up in Pittsburgh. Bozak and van Riemsdyk were on the ice for just one scoring chance for and seven against. Kessel was on for two for and six against. Regular commenter leaferfan said the following:

The leaf first line seems to be a major problem with scoring chance differential. And this differential gets worse against more talented teams (boston and penguins).
But when I look at your data it doesn’t really point if the problem is Bozak entirely. Or if some of it is on the wingers (Kessel and JVR). Or also the defensive pairings (usually Phaneuf/AHLer of the week). Or the system the team is playing under Carlyle.
I see no real upgrade route to improve scoring differential for that top line. Weiss seems more sideways to slight upgrade to Bozak. And Kadri is not ready yet to play top line just yet. In fact, I’m not sure Kadri will ever be enough as because kessel/jvr the leafs will need an exceptional 2way #1C like a kopitar or bergeron to clean up for kessel’s/jvr/lupul lacking defensive game.
I coming to the conclusion that the leafs will struggle with 1C and defensive problems on the first line for years to come.

I very much disagree with leaferfan’s conclusion in that respect. I don’t think that the data at all shows that the problem isn’t Bozak entirely. Unfortunately because I’m working with pen and paper on the scoring chances project this season, I don’t have with-or-without-you capabilities to see how many chances Phil Kessel gets away from Bozak and van Riemsdyk as opposed to with.

However, you may note that scoring chances corellate closely with Corsi numbers. Don’t be scared by the term ‘Corsi’ below. All it is is a percentage calculated by the shot attempts FOR the Leafs divided by the total number of shot attempts by both teams. If the Leafs took 20 shots and the other team took 25, that’s 20 / 45, or a Corsi % of 0.444 or 44.4%. It’s an indicator of zone-time, so we use Corsi as a proxy for possession.

What I want to do is highlight how Kessel has done with Leaf centremen over his time in Toronto. The following numbers are from David Johnson’s excellent website that split up how players do with and without each other on the ice. I tallied up how Kessel does with Tyler Bozak, Tim Connolly, Mikhail Grabovski and Nazem Kadri:

	TOI	Goals	Points	Corsi %	Goals/60 minutes	Points/60 minutes
With Bozak	2102:23	29	73	0.476	0.83	2.08
With Connolly	246:10	5	7	0.451	1.22	1.71
With Grabovski	250:25	5	13	0.556	1.20	3.11
With Kadri	177:50	2	4	0.477	0.67	1.35

Or if you want to look at it a simpler way:

	TOI	Goals	Points	Corsi %	Goals/60 minutes	Points/60 minutes
With Bozak	2102:23	29	73	0.476	0.83	2.08
Without Bozak	674:25	12	24	0.500	1.07	2.14

I like to talk about lineup optimization, and while Bozak is good at winning face-offs, he’s not good at a heck of a lot else. Comparatively, Kessel plays some of his best minutes with Mikhail Grabovski as his centreman. The two put up very high puck-possession numbers and Kessel gets more points since he has a better natural scorer to pass to than Bozak.

Bozak is a faulty NHL player with one discernible talent, which is winning face-offs. He doesn’t enter the zone, he isn’t hawkish around the net and he is out of his element against power lines when he has to turn the puck over. I’ve done the work in the past and shown that Kessel and Grabovski would be a good match together, and the numbers bear that out as well.

Bozak is also a free agent this summer and there’s talk about what the Leafs ought to do with him. They’ll probably re-sign him to a big money deal because Kessel has made him look pretty good for three and some years, although it’s clear that he’s holding Kessel back as far as I’m concerned.

Further reading on the topic, one post from Jeffler and one from David Johnson:

Tyler Bozak is a terrible hockey player (David Johnson, Hockey Analysis)
Right Place, Right Time (Jeffler, The Leafs Nation)

Why does the first line have a lousy scoring chance differential?

Getting away from Tyler

Check out these posts...