The biggest news on the Hurricane 2017-18 roster-building front in the past few days and since the Justin Williams signing was the acquisition of center Marcus Kruger from the Las Vegas Golden Knights for a fifth-round draft pick in 2017.
I wrote about Marcus Kruger, the trade and where I think he fits in the Hurricanes lineup shortly after the trade was announced.
Then on Wednesday, Jordan Staal’s name popped up in a few places as a trade target for the Penguins. Like it or not, this debate is a harbinger of things to come in the next 4-6 weeks as real hockey news grinds to a halt and ‘we should trade ___ for ____’ speculation ratchets up and increasingly reaches new highs for lack of logic. In the next 4-5 weeks, alleged Hurricanes trades will certainly include all four of the team’s top 4 defensemen and at least four or five of the team’s best forwards.
On Wednesday, I threw some cold water on the Jordan Staal rumblings that represent the first wave of what will likely be a busy next 4-6 weeks fending off unreasonable claims on all of the Hurricanes best players.
And if you missed it, the Thursday Coffee Shop sorting out the depth forwards was a lively one. Amidst all of the great analysis and opinions on the various roster options an absolutely tremendous combination of Hurricanes grocery store analogies buried in the middle caused me to blow beverage all over my computer screen.
Today’s Daily Cup of Joe looks at both of the two players featured in recent articles in looking at the relationship between Jordan Staal and Marcus Kruger.
Jordan Staal and Marcus Kruger side by side
Jordan Staal is a pretty well-known entity in Raleigh, so I will be brief in profiling him but will note a couple important things that relate to the discussion below. Staal got his start in the NHL in a somewhat limited but impressive role in the C3 slot behind Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin during that group’s first Stanley Cup championship. His job at the time was to sit behind two high-end scoring lines, take on a checking role and hold his own with scoring being somewhat optional. To this day, that role makes up Jordan Staal’s core as a true shutdown line center. He is big, fast defensively sound, good in the face-off circle and just all-around difficult to play against. If one leaves offense out of equation, Staal is a regular for Selke consideration and easily in the top 10 if not top 5 in his trade. Staal is not a bad player offensively, and I think it is fair to that his scoring in a Hurricanes uniform has not been helped by his line mates during many stretches. But even if you adjust for situation, Staal just is not at the same level offensively as he is defensively. He has collected 34 and 38 points in 2015-16 and 2016-17 respectively.
Marcus Kruger’s starting point is incredibly similar to Staal’s. Kruger carved out a role in a similar C3 slot sitting behind two elite scoring lines in Chicago on teams that also collected Stanley Cup-level hardware. Just like Staal, Kruger’s primary responsibility was to eat up as many of the hard match up minutes as possible, hold the opponent down and set the table for the scoring lines to earn wins. And just like with Staal, it worked. Kruger has been good defensively but mustered only 17 points in 70 games in 2016-17 and only 4 points in 2015-16 in 41 games. One could adjust for his role, lack of power play time, etc., but no matter what math one does, Kruger still comes out light in terms of scoring fire power and production.
And without putting Marcus Kruger down, I think it is important to start from recognizing that though Kruger’s style of play, role and skill set are similar to Staal’s, he is not the same caliber of player as Staal offensively or even defensively.
Jordan Staal as the starting point for Peters’ strategy and style at home
I wrote about this in some detail in my article rejecting any possible trade of Staal. The short version is that Peters’ approach on home ice where he has the ability to dictate match ups is to give Staal’s line as many minutes as at all possible against the other teams’ most dangerous scoring lines. The Peters plays match ups and cherry picks match ups behind Staal. So on home ice, Peters wanted to play strength against strength with Staal’s line and he mostly was able to do so.
But there were challenges on the road
But the road was a completely different story especially in November and December when the 2016-17 season was being lost. The blue line was shaky. Peters had 24 minutes of Slavin/Pesce to spend but mostly saw opposing coaches just steer their scoring lines away from them. Behind them Peters had a Hainsey/Faulk pairing that was being eaten alive on the road, and a third pairing with a still learning Hanifin and a revolving door of ‘meh’ at best next to him. So as best he could, Peters had to try to use Staal’s line on the road to bolster weaker defense pairings and try to make a unit of five that could hold its own. But again, on the road it is tough for a visiting coach to get match ups he wants. When Peters used Staal to try to bolster Hainsey/Faulk opposing coaches sometimes just held scoring lines back a shift hoping for an even better match up against the third defense pairing with a lesser forward line.
At the end of the day, Peters had too many holes to plug and maybe even spent too much time chasing match ups especially early in the season. During the Hurricanes’ hot streak in March Peters actually had a few road games where he through out what looked like completely random, never before seen line combinations prompting, “What the…?” comments from Canes fans. In actuality, my best bet is that Peters was a little bit trying to solidify specific things and address some deficiencies on a short-term basis, but I also think there might have been an element of doing a bit of random to make it harder for opposing coaches to schedule out and easily get the match ups they wanted. Instead there was a game of cat and mouse trying to constantly figure out who was playing with whom and what the next set was especially for changes on the fly.
Shorter version is that the Hurricanes struggled on the road last year, and it was not just about home cooking. There was a significant element of just having too many holes defensively.
So how does Marcus Kruger fit and change things?
At home, Kruger represents another good player, another penalty killer and help defensively. But at least at home, I do not think he significantly changes Peters strategy nor do I think he changes Staal’s role much.
I have had a few conversations and seen a few comments here and there suggesting that Kruger might take some of Staal’s hard match ups enable Peters to free Staal up for a more offensive role. I am skeptical about that. Staal is in my estimation one of the top 10 if not top 5 checking line centers in the game. His greatest strength and bread and butter historically has been lining up against elite scorers and holding them in check. As I said above, Kruger is a good defensive player, but let’s not confuse him with Jordan Staal. I just do not see Peters taking Staal out of one of the most important roles in the game to try to make modest scoring gains. I just do not see how it makes the team better.
As an aside from the category of freeing Staal to score more, I will be curious to see what Steve Smith does for building his forward pairs for penalty kill. I do think Peters has a preference for using bottom players for the penalty kill when possible. Last year Stalberg, McClement and Nordstrom did the heavy lifting.
But on the road is where things change. With last change, Peters was regularly just seeing opposing coaches delay a shift with their scoring line to steer past Staal and into a much easier match up. And that is where things change. If Peters builds a strong defensive line around Kruger as expected, he then has the ability to roll Staal and Kruger back to back, and he just has more options in general to solidify things. (Hopefully the blue line will not need it as much in 2017-18, but it is still nice to have the help if needed.
What say you Canes fans?
How do you think Coach Bill Peters leverages what looks to be a second shutdown line in the process of being built?
Do you think Jordan Staal’s role changes when Peters can control it, or do you think Staal’s line is still plan A whenever possible against the other teams’ best?
Does anyone else have any Hurricanes grocery store analogies?
Go Canes!
I am not sure I see the advantage of being able to roll out a second checking line sequentially after a first while on the road. If the opposing coach waits to put his first line in after Staal’s line, he will wait 45 seconds longer to put it in after Kruger’s. And then jump on it.
I think the bigger strength is the flexibility to have another solid checking line to put on ice when the faceoff is in the defensive zone.
But in saying that one important fact is missing. You describe Staal’s line as being a checking line. I think Staal’s lines have consistently been better possession lines (I was in the PNC 10 rows back from glass in the offensive zone for that incredible 2:13 shift of the original TSA line).
Staal’s can wear any line down in the offensive zone, and then Peters can switch when line changes are made “on the fly” – there is no last change in effect is there?, doesn’t that just applies to faceoffs? – to a Kruger line after the other team has gained the puck and dumped it into the defensive zone.
Actually my biggest problem with the two defense-first lines is what that does to keep OUR SCORING DOWN! If we’re playing defense-first ahead of scoring…when do we score? That isn’t a rhetorical question, I really want to understand the concept of which lines are only available to use…occasionally, and who will sitout more…
Our money is being used to make our defense stronger (but in the process) making our offense weaker. Are we talking about playing for a zero, zero TIE? We have a goalie who should help with keeping the opponents scoring down…NOW ARE WE TRYING TO KEEP OUR OWN DOWN? I’ve never seen intentional disregard for OFFENSE…in hockey before??
puckgod, hang in there. I think ctcaniac and live_free_or_die have answered you better than I could. I know you would have liked us to get that big scoring first line forward. So would just about everyone else. Your reasoning is right on that we could use some additional firepower. RF just hasn’t been able to do that without crippling the team in other areas. As you can see from what has happened so far with all the player moves by teams, that big scoring forward (Duchene, Galchenyuk, MacKinnnon, etc.) hasn’t been obtained by any teams. They have been either unavailable or so cost prohibitive that the market has dried up. I do believe you will see a spike in our scoring this year anyway. Hey, who knows, maybe Ronnie Baby has another trick or two up his sleeve.
Matt. One of your best analysis–you did a good job of providing a deeper look at the value of two key players that other hockey sites/blogs just don’t give. Thanks.
I think tj added an important point. When discussing Staal, Kruger, and how the Canes are “built” it makes sense to think not so much about defense as possession. This gets to the question that puckgod asks. Having the puck more gives your offensively talented players more chances to score, while also limiting the chances of the opposition.
Staal has never had a season with more giveaways than takeaways. The same is true for Kruger–in fact the past three seasons Kruger’s ratio of Takeaways to Giveaways has been 3.3, 2.5, and 2.4.
With the exception of Aho, Teravainen (and the season before he was much better), and TVR, the entire roster at this point is either neutral or much better at takeaways.
My guess is that the additions were not simply BP preferring defense over offense, but Tulsky analyzing which players drive possession and how that can increase the offensive output for Skinner, Aho, Lindholm, Rask, and now Williams.
Puckgod, we are not going to see an additional goal every game–that would be fun, but not possible. But given the additions, it is reasonable to think Carolina scores 20 more goals this season. With more possession, the addition of Darling, TVR and improvement/consistency from Hanifin the opponents should score 20 fewer goals. Which would mean the Canes would have a net goal differential of +19 instead of -21. That would be good for a playoff spot.
ct, I’m going to have to get up much earlier in the morning I can see. You have expressed my thoughts to a “Tee”. All the other contributors owe you a thanks for sparing them of another one of my endless essays. I agree with you entirely and also agree with live_free_or_die.
Agree with RR, I like this line of thinking. Unfortunately for C&C readers, I blathered on before I saw it.
ctcaniac, I think you hit the nail on the head. The acquisitions made this offseason are geared toward driving possession. Thats the missing link for last year’s team. We saw what that looked like during home games. Would be interesting to see what our home goal vs away goal differential was last year. My impression is that its pretty significant. If we can just play our home game on the road, we will improve our goal scoring even if nobody takes a step forward, With any likely improvement from our young forwards, goal scoring improves even more. Then consider the offensive talent we have coming and we become a very dangerous team.
I believe there is a good chance we have our 1C-3Cs in the system and they will develop in the next 1-3 years. If not, then when Bean develops, we have the resources to go out and trade one of our stud D for that 1or 2 C that we’re missing. Either way, nobody gonna look forward to playing us for many years to come
In 5v5 play, Home goal diff: +2. Road goal diff: -26
Source: https://puckalytics.com/#/teams
Fabdou…Had good intentions of posting comment earlier but my Friday got away from me.
This article should be familiar territory for you, as a big chunk of it lines up with your comments on the Canes road woes in the Thursday Coffee Shop.
There is little doubt possession metrics correlate with winning hockey games. In 2016-17 we had the 5th best Corsi %, one notch above Nashville and several above Pittsburgh. This means we were already controlling the action more often than not. On paper for 2017-18, we’ve gotten even better with our pickups.
Essentially what derailed our playoff chances last year were shooting percentage (20th) and save percentage (29th) in the league. This means we couldn’t put the biscuit in the basket enough and allowed too many goals even though we controlled the game action. By adding Williams our puck luck should increase along with the players growing from experience being snake bitten last year. By adding Darling and solidifying our 3rd pair defense with TVR, our save percentage and goals against will improve. This alone should equate to 10 more wins, and as ctcaniac mentioned, a big swing in goal differential. Defense and possession drives offense, and Kruger helps solidify previous holes in our lines, our possession and essentially our scoring chances.
live_free_or_die, good analysis of facts and figures. I think you are right on with your reasoning.
This post gets me thinking about our play on the road, which Matt has referred to a number of times in a number of posts, where matchups, especially on the blue line, caused us problems last year. I do think that this has a lot to do with the Kruger signing.
In 5v5 play last year, we were middle of the pack in goals scored, ahead of BOS, CAL, and ANA, but to puckgod’s point, well behind most of the playoff teams. But it’s when you look at 5v5 goal differential that things get interesting: at home we treaded water, but we were a -26 on the road.
Slavin/Pesce shouldered more of the load on D-zone f/o’s that any other pairing and BP could pair them with Staal’s line if he needed to. When it was any other pairing and Staal’s line wasn’t available we became exposed. With Kruger, we’ll now have two great defensive Centers to help any pairing meaning that one of these Centers should almost always be available when the opposing team sends out an elite scoring line, which they will almost always do in the O-zone.
Having a second strong defensive center is going to improve things greatly and make a dent in this stat. (I should also add that, as well as he played for PIT in the playoffs, not having Hainsey is going to make just as big a difference; for whatever reason, he didn’t gel with Faulk.)
Matt, you’ve used the expression that Staal “tilts the ice” in our favor and beyond his defensive strength his strong possession game makes the other team’s best offensive players play defense in their zone. I think the odds are that Kruger will do that same thing better than either of our 3C or 4C did last year, especially on the road where it seems to matter most.
Hey, everyone is bringing their “A” game today for sure. dmiller, between ct, live_free, raleightj, and puckgod and yourself, you guys have really put forth some very good reasoning that has produced a lot of fresh ideas that make sense.
I am going to take slight exception (slight only! LOL!) to some of the comments above.
I believe we didn’t make the playoffs last season because of that stretch from mid-January to late-February when the wheels completely came off. The team won only 3 of 13 games, and the games it lost it lost my wide margins (5-1, 7-1, etc.). And this was against teams we had either beaten (CBJ) or outplayed (Pens, in Pittsburgh). It wasn’t like we were outplayed by the best – we just played poorly through an extended stretch of the season.
We were truly scoring challenged in the first two years of Peters’ time. Remember all those one goal losses? But I believe we got blown out more times in those 6 weeks of hockey than we did the previous two seasons combined.
That stretch of atrocious hockey is what led to that high negative goal differential, not incremental differences from game to game. That stretch similarly affected other seasonal statistics in a highly negative way – that was 13 games out of 82 had an enormous bias on the overall seasons stats and results (including, W-L, points and, again, no playoffs).
We are a better team offensively this year than last with the addition of Williams and the replacement of JMac with Kruger. And we are a better team offensively without giving up possession (we probably even got better with Kruger).
So how does the team prevent season-crashing losing streaks – I think it speaks to leadership, which is one reason Williams was brought in, and Kruger probably adds as well.
Improved team.
Avoid the losing streaks. Better seasonal results.
Avoid the blowout losses. Better seasonal stats.
Ok, most of you guys clearly have me at a disadvantage when we talk statistics (analytics… notice the first four letters in that word…) I took at least 3 stats classes…PUT ME TO SLEEP EVERY TIME…SO BORING! Anyway, I get the gist of what you’re saying (I think)..?
The stats also show that Staal and Kruger don’t score much…
SOOOO Who will, and will they score more than they give up?
Isn’t this what it all boils down to?
Are we talking my language, now?
Do the stats indicate we should be competitive?
I mean, they indicate a 4 win improvement……
http://www.thehockeynews.com/news/article/which-teams-have-gotten-better-and-worse-during-the-off-season-so-far
There’s surely a full DCoJ and maybe coffee shop post on this sometime later in July, but on the topic of the THN article that has Canes as most-improved team in terms of what one could loosely call ‘expected wins gained.’
Here’s an interesting angle on that maybe. Right now and for the past 3 weeks, the Caniac Nation (myself included) has been heads-down focused on Duchene, Galchenyuk and anyone else that looks like high-end scoring. I said from day 1 that it was a priority, my second, and I stand by that. So anything short of that one big scoring addition was going to be a big disappointment. But bigger picture there is more than one way to improve.
Second point is that I think many Canes fans (myself included again) underestimate the significance of the Scott Darling addition simply because it’s old news already. But if I had only one move to make all summer, it would have been a goalie upgrade (even over the scoring forward), and though I think there is absolutely no guarantee with any goalie, Darling is very clearly at the high end of the range of options available.
Matt – I would like to think I am a part of “Caniac Nation”, but I was never focussed on those names – any of them. They were a sideshow. I never thought any of them were realistic. The respective teams were looking for real pieces to step in, play, and help turn the team around (Avs) or contribute (Habs). The only thing you can buy with picks/prospects – which is the currency of the Canes – comes in the cap-motivated deals. And CO, EDM, and MTL are not facing that – EDM next year most likely, and TOR soon enough. But not yet.
I never viewed the AVs as a trade partner. They wanted a top D back and I did not feel that would happen. Just maybe they would be interested in some of our D prospects now but they are not getting their hands on our top 6. Anything with them probably involves a D. I think the Duchene ship has sailed, but strange things happen. The only real upgrades I see now is Vanek and possibly JVR with Toronto in cap trouble. Other then that we are probably done.
RF still ticked a lot of the boxes this off season.
I will correct myself. I didn’t realize TOR is over the cap right now.