Thursday, September 4, 2008
- Defensive Abilities -
Defensive Play – Part 1
In this post I am going to take a look at last season’s roster of Oilers and see how players played defensively. I left out all players who played less than 10 games in the season. I will be dividing this look at defensive play into two parts. In part 2, I plan on giving a somewhat objective overall score for all the Oilers so that we can see which players were most and least responsible defensively.
BLOCKED SHOTS
Steve Staois led the way with 187 blocked shots which was tied for 4th in the league. In the absence of Jason Smith (who was third in the league with 204) Staois really stepped up his game and laid his body on the line. Surprisingly, even with so many blocked shots Staois didn’t miss a single game last season – unlike the 4 other d-men who led the league.
Gilbert was next in line with 159 – a solid total for a first year d-man.
Something I found interesting was that Smid had 95 (3rd on the Oil) in only 65 games.
As far as the forwards go, Jarret Stoll led the way with 61, followed by Marty Reasoner with 53. Interesting to note that neither is with the team anymore, so we’ll have to wait and see which forward(s) step up and lay their body on the line. I’m guessing that Brodziak will have a terrific season – both defensively and offensively. Look for him to throw up somewhere around 55 bks this season.
Ryan Johnson of STL led the league for forwards with 105. Stoll was 11th. Reasoner 22nd.
Interestingly Allan Rourke led the way for the Oilers with an average of 6.45 minutes per blocked shot. Staois was next with a time of 9.66 minutes, followed closely by now-departed Matt Greene at 9.85 minutes. For forwards, Reasoner actually bested Stoll with an average of 23.15 minutes, compared to 23.82.
Pouliot was worst on the team with an average of 82.67 minutes between blocked shots. Nilsson was next with 70.64 elapsing between his blocked shots.
On the back-end, Souray and Pitkanen lagged behind the other d-men with times of 26.38 and 25.76 respectively.
GIVE AWAYS
Mathieu Roy and Allan Rourke led the way for the Oilers with 1 and 4 giveaways respectively – each in 13 games. Pouliot (9), Stortini (12), and Moreau (16) finished off the top 5 for least giveaways.
Staois (84), Gilbert (74), Pitkanen (71), Hemsky (64), and Nilsson (57) rounded out the bottom five.
A more true indication (imo) of this stat is measured in how many minutes played each player had in relation to their giveaways.
Nilsson had the worst rating in this category with a time of 17.35 minutes between giveaways. Souray (20.42), Torres (20.92), Pitkanen (21.41), and Hemsky (21.47) rounded out the top five for most giveaways in relation to their ice time.
Mathieu Roy (135.00), Zach Stortini (44.92), Pisani (42.09), Stoll (41.51), and Horcoff (38.00) were the 5 best Oilers in terms of giveaways when ice-time is taken into account.
HITS
I realize that hits aren’t really a defensive stat, nor do they reflect much about a player’s overall abilities – as we all know any player can run around trying to hit anyone without doing much for the team. However, a few things jumped out at me when looking at hits – especially with everyone talking about team toughness.
Stoll led the way for the entire team with 122 hits. This placed him 45th overall – amongst forwards. Cole, playing for Carolina had 186, which was good for 11th. Penner was second on the team with 99. It’ll be nice to see Moreau back in the lineup – as that’ll give us 3 really solid LW hitters. On the back end, feisty little Smid led the way with 92 hits, followed by Staois with 81 – which was good for 73rd and 85th amongst defensemen. In 52 games, Strudwick had 65, while Lubo had 60.
With 3, and 7 respectively, Rourke and Roy brought up the rear for d-men, while Sanderson with 8 was lowest amongst forwards.
Amongst regulars, Horcoff had 15, Gagner had 18, and Nilsson had 20. Lowest among d-men was Gilbert with 27 – despite the fact that Souray, Pitkanen, Grebeshkov, and Greene all played significantly fewer minutes. Gilbert is listed at 6’3” 206. I’d like to see if he bulked up a bit or worked on his strength a bit, and if we’ll see him hit a bit more, now that the offensive/puck-moving pressure will be slightly less for him – although one must remember that Pitkanen is essentially being replaed by Lubo, while Souray has never been known as a great puck-moving d-man. His offensive skills come mostly on the PP with his booming shot – so the pressure won’t be completely taken off Gilbert. However, with a healthy Souray, a more interested (I’m hoping) player in Lubo, and Grebby with another year under his belt, I think the puck moving duties should be more evenly spread out.
In terms of looking at hits related to ice time, we see that Stortini leads the way (5.44 minutes between hits), followed by Glencross (7.50), Moreau (8.12), Torres (9.89), and Pouliot (10.78).
On the lower end, we find Horcoff (78.53) as the least likely to throw a hit, while Gagner (68.78), Gilbert (67.41), Hemsky (57.25), and Reasoner (53.35) rounded out the bottom five.
Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow!
Addicted-to-oil
at 8:01 AM.
4 Comments
Please put your pencils down now.
Sit quietly with your test booklets closed while I come around to collect them.