What We Learned: Shayne Gostisbehere, rookie of the year?
Woe be unto the average Calder Trophy voter this season. They are spoiled for choice this year in a way they have never been before.
You can choose Artemi Panarin, currently ripping up the Central Division thanks to a role that sees him riding shotgun with the league’s points leader. You could go with Jack Eichel, who’s on pace for about 55 points playing on a team which provides him little help. Or Dylan Larkin, who has made his case as the next great Red Wing already and is only a little ways back of Eichel. Arizona’s twin terrors of Max Domi and Anthony Duclair are lesser candidates, but merit consideration for any top five.
But if you want to talk about rookies that have come out of nowhere and immediately established themselves as precocious impact players, a very real and serious argument will have to be made in favor of Flyers defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere, who scored the overtime game-winner on Saturday night and is approaching a league-record point streak for a rookie.
Again, he is a defenseman.
The obvious criticism of Gostisbehere is also the obvious criticism against just about any rookie defenseman: His coach tends to deploy him in favorable situations. As with any first-year NHL defenseman, it’s usually not easy to really get ahead of the learning curve in terms of understanding how to defend at the world’s highest level. As a general rule, coaches will know not to deploy those players against top competition or in their own zone too often, unless they are absolute freaks like Aaron Ekblad who defy all traditional logic.
But nonetheless, you have to say that Gostisbehere has done a lot to tip the tables in his team’s favor every time he comes on the ice. He’s got 34 points in 40 games from the blue line for a reason: Among defensemen with at least 500 minutes at 5-on-5, he finished Saturday ranked 13th in the league in relative goals-for percentage (plus-10.9), which is huge. You can argue that a big part of this is the result of the deployment he enjoys, but that’s just good coaching, and all you can do is ask your players to be better than who they play. Gostisbehere blows them out of the water.
Moreover, his goals-for percentage of nearly 58 has him 26th in the league among oft-used defenders, and when he’s off the ice, the Flyers are only getting less than 47 percent of the goals. Maybe that number feels right for a team with this sort of talent on the blue line, but it’s inarguable that Gostisbehere is having a massive, massive impact.
When he was brought aboard, with his first game of the season coming on Nov. 14, the Flyers had scored just 20 full-strength goals in 16 games, and 29 overall. The latter number was second-last in the league ahead of only Anaheim, which was so offense-starved at that point that Bruce Boudreau thought it was wiser for that ultra-talented team to start trapping everyone they played for the next three months. (As an aside: It worked, because Boudreau is a genius.) But anyway, the Flyers’ offense was flat-out trash. And much like the Ducks, a lot of that came from the team’s shooting percentage — just 6 percent in all situations — but also from the fact that they rarely had the puck, and generated relatively few shots on goal as a result.
Then came a long-term injury to Mark Streit (sadly hailed as the Flyers’ best all-around defenseman by local media, which is telling to an embarrassing extent). That necessitated the Gostisbehere call-up and, well, the Flyers’ offense basically improved in exceedingly short order.
The goals-against numbers have stayed in the same area, more or less, all season. But after five games of Gostisbehere being on the big roster, the Flyers’ attack started scoring like an actual NHL team. Their 69 goals at 5-on-5 is more or less league average in the time since, which constitutes a huge improvement. But other things that improved were their possession numbers, and — of course — shooting percentage. I wouldn’t attribute the latter to Gostisbehere’s presence, obviously, but his presence cannot be ignored in terms of making the Flyers competitive.
But the area where Gostisbehere is perhaps most effective, given his offensive acumen, is on the power play. Here, too, the Flyers went from a league joke (25th in goals per 60, 20th in shot attempts per 60, etc.) to a colossus. Since the call-up, Philadelphia’s man advantage generates the fourth-most attempts in the league, behind super-talented teams like Washington and Boston, and more importantly are ninth in power play goals per 60.
Earlier this year everyone was rightly freaking out about Colton Parayko’s immediate impact in St. Louis, but for me Gostisbehere is doing more impressive work on a worse team. It is so, so hard to score in this league, and he has better goals and assists per 60 numbers than Parayko. Other things aren’t as strong (relative possession, etc.) but the help really hasn’t been there for either, as illustrated by this chart from Carolyn Wilke:
The game-winner on Saturday gave Gostisbehere a point in 15 straight games, making him the first defenseman of any age to reach that mark since Chris Chelios did it in 1995-96. Getting up and over a bar not cleared in 20 years is impressive, even if it is as somewhat-arbitrary as a point streak. But for some real impressive context, one must consider that all 398 seasons by U-23 defenders in the NHL since 2007-08 (the start of the Behind the Net era), Gostisbehere is 20th in goals per 60 and 13th in assists per 60. The guys ahead of in both of those stats at the same time in the same season? Erik Karlsson in 2011-12. And that’s it. Mike Green and Victor Hedman posted better goals per 60 in one season and assists per 60 in another. That’s not to allege that Gostisbehere is or ever will be on the same level as those guys (i.e., Norris level) but that’s the level of absolutely insane production Gostisbehere is generating.
The Flyers are now within striking distance of a playoff spot, and though you can’t reasonably expect them to reach that goal, and can probably argue that this offensive surge has in some ways been detrimental to their long-term prospects for success (i.e. no top draft pick) the idea that Gostisbehere is going to be getting bigger minutes next year, and perhaps even in the team’s final 24 games, has to have everyone in Philadelphia feeling pretty good about their blue line.
Production is, of course, not the be-all, end-all of a hockey player and there are certainly areas where his game has to improve. He is, again, only a marginally effective possession driver and that’s despite the fact that his ability to help his team generate shot attempts is almost in the league’s top-40 among defenders. That might be a systems thing, because that number is actually not all that impressive among his own teammates, but nonetheless if you’re giving up almost as many attempts as you’re generating, and you’re pretty clearly close to being a No. 1 defenseman in this regard, it’s an issue that needs to be sorted out. Parayko, meanwhile, generated nearly as many shot attempts (about 1.5 fewer per 60), but was far better at shutting the door at the other end (a drop-off of more than 7.2).
But when it comes to what Gostisbehere is doing offensively, there are few that can rival him in recent memory.
What We Learned
Anaheim Ducks: The Ducks are looking to build a practice rink in Irvine, Calif., and might get approval on it this week. More ice in California would be a good thing.
Arizona Coyotes: Let’s just say that Oliver Ekman-Larsson being out for any considerable length of time will really help ensure more results like Saturday night. Which is, ultimately, good for the franchise.
Boston Bruins: Patrice Bergeron is the latest Bruin to reach 600 career points with the club. He’s the first since Ray Bourque to do it. And Ray Bourque did it in 1987. David Krejci is still 144 points away from that same mark.
Buffalo Sabres: Funniest goal of David Legwand’s career, by a mile.
Calgary Flames: Honestly this is becoming more difficult to care about by the day. The texts, the linesman still having concussion symptoms, etc. Hope the arbitrator bumps up the suspension. It was so stupid.
Carolina Hurricanes: The Hurricanes haven’t lost two games in a row in regulation since December? Good lord.
Chicago: Okay sure but how does the rest of the league feel?
Colorado Avalanche: Joe Sakic says he tried to get a No. 1 defenseman recently. Bet his name starts with a “P.K. Subban.”
Columbus Blue Jackets: If people are going to be mad at Joonas Korpisalo over his performance on Friday maybe they should look at his previous dozen or so games. He’s still at .920 for the season. He’s good. It’s fine.
Dallas Stars: Stars have given up 84 shots on goal in their last two games. That seems like it’s bad to do.
Detroit Red Wings: Brendan Shanahan is going to pump-and-dump the Wings alums to get better draft picks and prospects in the alumni game draft.
Edmonton Oilers: Yes GMs have to entertain offers for everyone all the time. I’m frankly surprised it took this long for someone to write this column: “The Oilers can ill afford to draft in the top three again!” If that’s your worst-case scenario you’re in pretty good shape.
Florida Panthers: Dude is gonna play forever. When does Jagr stop? At 47? 48?
Los Angeles Kings: Anze Kopitar is day-to-day and the league is worse off for it.
Minnesota Wild: Let’s seriously hope this ends all discussion of the Wild deserving anything from the league ever again.
Montreal Canadiens: To answer this question: yes, because otherwise you’re just going to be upset when the team loses 18 of its last 20-something games.
Nashville Predators: Ah jeez. Ah jeez.
New Jersey Devils: When you give up a goal to Brooks Orpik you don’t deserve to win, full stop.
New York Islanders: Haha good lord. I don’t really believe this, of course, but haha good lord anyway.
New York Rangers: Is the takeaway here that Dan Paille got waived because Alain Vigneault was angry that the fourth line isn’t good, or should it be that Paille isn’t an NHLer any more. Hmm that’s a tricky one.
Ottawa Senators: This is a wonderful feature that looks at how Erik Karlsson actually sees the sport, mentally and physically. This is the link to click on this week.
Philadelphia Flyers: For me the kid is good.
Pittsburgh Penguins: Well this I don’t like.
San Jose Sharks: In the second period against Carolina on Friday, the Sharks were outshot 19-4. That can’t have happened to this team too often in the last decade.
St. Louis Blues: The Blues are up to five wins in a row. That includes Ws over Florida, Tampa, Dallas, and Los Angeles. Not bad at all.
Tampa Bay Lightning: Stamkos is up to 300 goals and me up to 300 years old if Steven Stamkos has 300 goals because I remember the “Seen Stamkos” billboards like they were put up yesterday and this is depressing.
Toronto Maple Leafs: The Leafs almost won but instead they lost. All according to plan.
Vancouver Canucks: The Canucks have lost their last FOUR games by 5-2 scores. Oh, and the teams they’ve played in that stretch: Toronto, Minnesota, Anaheim, and Calgary. How is that even possible?
Washington Capitals: Seems like probably you just don’t.
Winnipeg Jets: Bryan Little is out with a neck injury, which is bad. However I don’t agree that this is in any way a problem for his bad team which should be (and probably is) trying to lose most nights.
Play of the Weekend
Hmm yes this was nice from Nazem Kadri.
Gold Star Award
Brad Marchand with a 2-1-3 performance on Saturday to bump himself to 30 goals on the season. Dude has 23 more games to play, too.
Minus of the Weekend
Really don’t understand how you don’t come down harder on a guy who elbowed a star player in the face. Three games is nothing.
Perfect HFBoards Trade Proposal of the Week
User “Lucbourdon” agrees with Jim Benning that the Canucks should be buyers.
Canucks trades
2016 1st rounder (top 5 pick, most likely top 3).
Thatcher Demko: Rated as the #1 / #2 Goal-tending Prospect in the NHL, something Arizona badly needs).
Brock Boeser (Or Jared McCann): Top prospect for the Canucks, having a huge year in college.
Jordan Subban: Having a great rookie year in the AHL.
Arizona Trades:
OEL
Signoff
Somethin’ wrong, Yank?
Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.
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