Nichols: Spezza isn’t better, his coach is
Apologies to Pavel Datsyuk’s puck pursuit, everyone around the game of hockey will tell you that one of the most difficult things to shake is a reputation.
Apologies to Pavel Datsyuk’s puck pursuit, everyone around the game of hockey will tell you that one of the most difficult things to shake is a reputation.
Whenever a GM is fleeced in a trade, we refer to it as getting Milbury’d.
Before the NHL Draft Lottery, many purported that the team with the NHL’s worst record and best lottery odds, the Columbus Blue Jackets, should trade their pick and avoid selecting either of this year’s two most vaunted prospects. Why? Because they are Russian and the Blue Jackets have not had great success at drafting Russians; completely overlooking the fact that the Blue Jackets haven’t drafted well, period.
Having paid close attention to the Norris Trophy race and the perceptions of those who don’t watch the Senators regularly, we’ve witnessed all the lazy and caustic truisms of Erik Karlsson’s defensive aptitude (largely developed over the first two seasons in his career), become accepted as hockey fact – despite substantial evidence to the contrary showing he is more than competent. (Note: I’ve penned a few separate pieces outlining Karlsson’s Norris Trophy candidacy that you can read here and here.)
Ironically, another one of Ottawa’s oft-maligned offensive catalysts appears to be gaining some appreciation throughout league circles for his contributions this season.
Now whether it’s the direct result of league scoring being down or the Senators having a surprisingly competitive roster, Jason Spezza is finally being recognized for his play. As Elliotte Friedman noted in one of his well-crafted 30 Thoughts blog pieces, it was physically painful for him to not award Spezza with a Hart Trophy vote on his official Professional Hockey Writers Association (PHWA) NHL Award ballot.
In fact, it’s intriguing to see Spezza’s name being bandied about by the number of outsiders who believe that this is some refined or mature version of the dynamic center; attributing this process to the fact that he’s older and now has two children. Having watched Spezza closely over the past few years, personally, I haven’t noticed much of a difference in his style or play. Materially, it’s the same as it has been over the past few seasons.
Sure, naturally it helps that Spezza has finally been healthy for a full season. In fact, this 2011/12 season was only the second time in his career that he has eclipsed the 80 games played mark and fourth time that he has surpassed 70.
Nonetheless, I think it’s unfair to Spezza that many are finally acknowledging the player that he has become. In fact, I’d even go as far to say that the totals that he put up last season under Cory Clouston were vastly more impressive than what he did in 2011/12.
Why?
It’s simple: Clouston mishandled Jason Spezza.
Lacking faith in his other centers last season, Clouston relied heavily upon the team’s best faceoff man to take the lion’s share of the even strength defensive zone draws.
Behindthenet.ca, a fantastic statistical hockey resource, keeps tabs on what they refer to as zone starts. Put succinctly, it’s a metric that records where a player started his shift on the ice. It is calculated by the following equation:
Offensive Zone Start % = Offensive Zone Starts / (Offensive Zone Starts + Defensive Zone Starts)
As an aside, because neutral zone faceoffs are considered ‘neutral,’ they aren’t factored in.
I digress.
In the 2010/11 season, Spezza’s offensive zone start percentage was 47.5 percent. This year, that number is up to 59.3 percent. After being on the ice for 240 o-zone faceoffs during the 2010/11 season, that number leapt up to 499 for 2011/12. The logic detailed is pretty straightforward, as one of the league’s best faceoff men and as one of Ottawa’s best offensive talents, Spezza and his going to residually benefit from gaining possession of the puck in while in the offensive zone.
More to the point, where Paul MacLean has really excelled as the head coach this season is in his personnel management and more specifically, with his use of Erik Karlsson with Jason Spezza.
Courtesy of Behindthenet.ca, here is a chart that shows the percentage of 5v5 ice-time from Karlsson’s spent while on the ice with the following linemates during the 2010/11 season:
Erik Karlsson’s 5v5 Linemate Details (1322 minutes total)
Nick Foligno — 29.2%
Milan Michalek — 25.6%
Mike Fisher — 23.0%
Daniel Alfredsson — 22.9%
Jason Spezza — 22.6%
Now contrast that with the 2011/12 season:
Erik Karlsson’s 5v5 Linemate Details (1608 minutes total)
Jason Spezza — 41.7%
Milan Michalek — 36.8%
Colin Greening — 35.0%
Daniel Alfredsson — 27.6%
Nick Foligno — 22.4%
In other words, of Karlsson’s 1322 minutes in 2010/11, approximately 298 were spent playing with Jason Spezza. And in 2011/12, Karlsson played 670 of his 1608 minutes with Spezza.
While true that some of this disparity can be attributed to Spezza playing in only 62 games last season, it still doesn’t account for the inexplicable way that Cory Clouston managed his personnel.
Hell, last season, Spezza often played against the opposition’s best players. This year, that task has been assigned to the Turris-Alfredsson line.
While Clouston opted to roll four lines and mix and match his defensive personnel with his forwards, MacLean has been much more cognizant of using Karlsson as part of a five-man unit with the team’s best offensive talent.
From a point production standpoint, the results speak for themselves. Karlsson has had a historical season for a defenceman of his age and Spezza finished fourth in league scoring.
From a qualitative standpoint, the chemistry that these two had on the ice was unmistakable. Like a quarterback checking down his receivers while in the pocket, whenever Spezza feels puck pressure from the opposition, he immediately looks to Karlsson as his primary outlet. It’s just a shame that Clouston didn’t do the same.
Graeme Nichols writes for the 6th Sens Blog and will be contributing to SenatorsExtra.com throughout the playoffs.
Welcome abord, Graeme.
This may explain in part why Kyle Turris appears snakebit with respect to scoring. I didn’t realize he was being pushed against the top players from the opposing teams.
Add 10-20 pounds of muscle, a team dedicated to his progress (hey Karl!) and a proper training camp, and others might be singing his praises next year in the same way people are singing the praises of King K this. A maturing physically stronger Kyle Turris paired with Jakob Silfverberg would be 2/rds of a young Sens elite line, especially if Zbad or Mark Stone made up the other wing.
Then again, Silfverberg/Spezza/Michálek… hmmm…
Interesting analysis, good read.
Actually, Spezza ISN’T better.
He’s still making blind backpasses at inopportune times, trying to thread it through multiple people instead of making simple plays and is still unable to fight through the tight checking of the playoffs.
Spezza is still a one-trick regular season pony that needs Daniel Alfredsson to carry the weight on his line. An elite center would be making Michalek and co. score in these playoffs and he is not.
1 point in 3 playoff games so far is simply unacceptable for someone of his salary and skill, but it will be forgiven because management and we Senators fans as a whole are far too forgiving of this man.
A one-trick regular-season pony who has 47 points in 49 career playoff games? Sorry, but that’s just not true.
The Senators are waiting for a dynamic game-changer like Spezza to step it up and be the difference against the Rangers, that is true. But labelling him as a regular-season-only performer is just ignorant.
Using a sample size of three games to conclude that his production is unacceptable is a ridiculous oversimplification–especially considering the fact that those three games have been played against the best defensive team in the Eastern Conference.
Finally, the idea that Senators fans are too forgiving of Spezza is so laughable that I don’t even know where to begin in responding to it.
Thanks for contributing and helping drive the discussion.
Just a few thoughts:
As the team’s number one center and offensive catalyst, Jason Spezza has to play better and produce. No one is absolving him of that blame. However, there has always been this knee jerk, reactionary fan response whenever Ottawa gets down or loses a series to pin the blame on easy targets (another example being Matt Gilroy). With a little puck luck, this series could easily be 2-1 in Ottawa’s favor.
In a series like this, you need guys like Michalek, Alfie, Turris and Spezza to fill the net and it hasn’t happened, but Spezza will bear the brunt of the criticisms. But by blaming Spezza, you’re not giving the Rangers any credit for the way in which they’ve played – forcing the Senators to play on the perimeter by congesting the middle of the ice and taking away the shooting lanes.
It’d be a refreshing change of pace for the Senators to score the first goal and force the Rangers to open things up and start playing to the Senators’ style and tempo.
Spezza is really really bad in this series. In fact ’til the birth of his daughter (on april 1st; not joke!) the guy is no more the same. In his last 6 games he has 2 goals and 1 assist I think. Every point has been recorded in lost games.
People are thinking that athletes are not human, but personal life affects work. The money as nothing to do with that. Money doesn’t sort everything.
Spezza has a chance to redeem himself tonight. Can he be worse than the last game? And if we want to blame Spezza, Michalek is equally bad.
Whit the loss of Alfie, those players need to wake up because, it will be done in two games.
I think that you’re mostly right about Spezza, except I do think his play has improved and he has matured significantly over the last few years, but I’d argue that people haven’t really taken note of the change until this year–when he was utilized much more effectively by a coach who’s far more understanding of how to take advantage of Spezza’s abilities.
The real change, to me, came after the Dany Heatley fiasco. You’ve got to think it shook Spezza to the core, and I think it matured his on-ice play a fair bit.
One thing all good coaches have in common is the ability to get the most out of their players – MacLean has certainly done that with the team as a whole and Spezza in particular.
As for the playoffs so far, the Rangers deserve credit for near flawless defensive zone play. And then there’s Lundqvist, who’s been outstanding.