Our MVP series is officially wrapped and it is time to turn our attention, at long last, to the playoffs. We are going to dive into this extra set of games and see if there is anything to learn about individual players. We will go round by round and look at the eliminated teams.
We are starting in the first round out West so that means Dallas, Utah, Edmonton, and Los Angeles. For this article we are going to look at these four teams and focus on things that have changed. It is such a small sample size that we are not going to read too much into point paces etc. but instead look at how players were utilized in these win-or-go home series and if that change resulted in anything different on the score sheet or in the underlying numbers. Doing so might give us a bit of insight into how teams are viewing certain players and who might be primed for a different role next season, or especially in the case of free agents, who might not be viewed as valuable to their current team. This is also the playoffs so to some extent we would assume that a team’s top players see a bit of an increase while some depth players might fall off a bit.
Caveat time for all these first round exits. They all lost. In the first round. That means small sample sizes of course, but it also means that what the team/coach did didn’t really work so there might be less motivation to build on it for next year.
And now on to the process. We will be looking at deployment and specifically percent of time on the power-play, and total time on ice. We will be using percent as overtime games can add significant time to a player’s overall count without changing that player’s real deployment opportunity. In order to get this data, we will be running a Big Board report from Frozen Tools for the playoffs and comparing that to a second custom Big Board report for the last two months of the regular season. That comparison will tell us which players have gained or lost time between these two samples. Essentially, we are looking at four data points from two different time periods. We have basic scoring data (points per game, and shots per game), then basic time on ice data (percent of the power-play, and total time on ice). Additionally, we will also be looking a bit at the contract status for players for a clue as to what changes might be in the works for over the off season.
There is not too much surprising in the sample for Edmonton. They played six games (with only one overtime), and as expected Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid, Evan Bouchard, and Ryan Nugent Hopkins were really the only players who saw increases in deployment across the board. It looks like some minor increases for defensemen like Darnell Nurse and Jake Walman. On the other end some of the biggest drops were for Matt Savoie, Jack Roslovic, and Trent Frederic. Savoie in his first full season might be somewhat expected, but I imagine the team was hoping for a little more from Roslovic and Frederic. Roslovic is a free agent, and while he was relevant at times when in the top six, we shall see if he did enough to remain on the team next year.
Dallas had the unlucky draw of Minnesota and managed to take the contest to six games. Two of them went to overtime, and one went to double overtime, so some of our overall time on ice data will need to be taken with a grain of salt. Like with Edmonton we see a significant increase in the top group with Miro Heiskanen, Wyatt Johnston, Mikko Rantanen, Jason Robertson, and Matt Duchene (the top power play) all seeing increases across the board. Not surprisingly those are essentially the only players who saw production or shot increases in the playoffs. On the flip side the guys we see who lost out the most are Jamie Benn, Adam Erne, Michael Bunting, and Alexander Petrovic. Want to know something else they all have in common? They are all free agents this summer. Their usage this playoff run doesn’t really bode well for them going forward. The other disappointment was Mavrik Bourque. Bourque had a reasonable end to the regular season, putting up a 63-point pace after January 18th while playing over 17 minutes a night on a line with Jason Robertson and Wyatt Johnston. Mikko Rantanen was out for a chunk of that time, so that likely plays a part, but there was certainly some hope for playoff contributions. Unfortunately, it just didn’t happen. He dropped in deployment across the board, which given it is his second full season might not be entirely surprising, and managed only one point across the six games. It certainly wasn’t the run he was hoping to have going into RFA conversations this summer.
L.A. doesn’t fit the mold of the previous two teams here in that there really wasn’t a big shift in deployment for anyone. In their four-game loss to Colorado, they mostly ran things in a similar manner to the regular season. The biggest winner was Quiton Byfield who increased by about a minute overall and about six percent of the team’s power-play (still maxing out at under 50 percent). He did also take the opportunity to shoot more, but ultimately this is a four-game sample so we really can’t read too much into it. In contrast though, Anze Kopitar saw drops across the board in similar proportions. Again, these are small changes, over a very small sample size, but given Kopitar is retiring, and there is a top line center position available, this shift in usage is interesting, if not predictable.
Utah played six games against Vegas, with one game going to overtime and one game going to double overtime. That does mean there were some extra minutes to go around and that is represented a bit in the numbers with quite a few players averaging at or above their regular season numbers. Logan Cooley is the clear winner, seeing over five additional minutes on average and an increase of about 22 percent of the power play. He was used on the top power play and added about a shot per game over those six games. Unlike with a number of the above teams, Utah clearly was not afraid to use their young talent in Cooley this series, which certainly gives us some optimism for his continued growth. On the flip side, bad news for Sean Durzi. He lost out significantly both in overall time on ice and on the power play. The big issue for him was the arrival of MacKenzie Weegar. Weegar didn’t immediately take over as Durzi still had decent minutes on the second power play during the end of the season, but through the playoffs Weegar was the one on the second unit. Given both are still under contract, and that Mikhail Sergachev seems ensconced on the top unit, Durzi’s secondary value definitely takes a hit.
That is all for this week.
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