In response to a question from Poseur of SBN's And The Valley Shook, I wanted to take a look at Jay Bouwmeester, and more specifically, his time spent on ice with Olli Jokinen and Jarome Iginla. I had a nagging sense that those guys weren't helping anyone's out-shooting numbers, and Bouwmeester's in particular. The exercise was pretty useful, to me anyway, because it forced me to examine the situation a bit more thoroughly. Honestly, it's pretty easy to sit back and take a swipe at players based on a few scattered occurrences. After the jump, I'll flesh things out a bit on how I approached things.

First, this is just about Bouwmeester's time with 12 and/or 21 at EV, over an 8 game stretch from October 16 vs. the Canucks, to the NYR game on November 7. We'll review the first four in this installment, and the final four later this week.

When I went through the PBP sheets for those games, the only things I didn't strip out were Corsi events and face-offs where Bouwmeester was with one or both of the other two. I then made rough matches of ice time, and Vic Ferrari of Irreverent Oiler Fans saved me a fair bit of time when he dropped the news in comments yesterday that he had his H2H ice time running again. Thanks again to Vic for that. 

As a glossary for the tables, P.opp is the number of the primary opposition player most of the events happened against, and Oth. is Bouwmeester's Corsi figure when he was on-ice with other players. If you see 12/21 in the first column, that means they were together for those events. This is of import because during this stretch, Sutter had split the two of them. The rest of the info should be pretty obvious. 

So: Vancouver, October 16: Iginla played with Conroy, as Jokinen was exiled to the third line:

JB's overall Corsi -6. Iginla -3, Jokinen -3

Face offs for that game: 3 Def. (2W/1L) 7 Neu. (5W/2L) 1 Off. (1W)

Ice time: with 12and/or 21 for 12 minutes of his 15 at EV, and against Sedin for 11 minutes. Playing Hank Sedin for 11 minutes is hard on the numbers, regardless of the health of his bro.

Iggy and Conroy got smoked when matched against Sedin, and Bouwmeester was on the bad end of that show. The good numbers when 12/21 were together came on a shift where they caught Bernier and Ryan Johnson. The Flames were in front early, so score effect was likely in play, since all but three events happened after the first period. That said, Bouwmeester was even when he wasn't with the big two.

Columbus, October 20. Iggy and Conroy, together again, by and large.

JB's overall Corsi EV, Iginla +4, Jokinen EV

Face-offs: 4 def. (2W, 2L) 1 Neu (1L) 1 Off. (1L)

Ice time: 8 out of 13 EV minutes with 12 and/or 21, and of Rick Nash's 11 EV minutes, Bouwmeester was out there for 8. 

Bouwmeester scored 4 on 4 on a scramble play right at the net, as the Flames got out early on the Blue Jackets. Pretty low event game over-all, and considering how much time Nash played against him, Bouwmeester had a pretty good night. You'll note that Bouwmeester was +3 without 12 and 21.

Edmonton, October 24. 

JB's overall Corsi -4, Iginla -5, Jokinen +1

Face-offs: 4 def. (3W 1L) 5 Neu. (3W 2L) 4 Off. (3W 1L)

Ice time: 10 of 14 EV minutes with 12 and/or 21, and 8 minutes against Horcoff.

Different sort of night, with Pat Quinn using his best wingers, Penner and Hemsky, with Sam Gagner. Hemsky got his usual dose of Regehr. As a result, Bouwmeester went against Horcoff and O'Sullivan. Iginla had a better night working with both Boyd and Conroy. 

Colorado, October 28.

JB's overall Corsi +4, Iginla +13, Jokinen +3

Ice time: only 6 of 20 minutes with 12 and/or 21, as Bouwmeester's primary role was working against Paul Stastny and Milan Hejduk for 13 of their 16 minutes at EV.

Face-offs: 4 Def (2W 2L) 4 Off. (4L)

Colorado didn't create much, with only 14 shots for the evening, but the Craig Anderson Show and some effective collapsing around the 'Lanche net led to a disappointing 3-2 loss. Iginla and Jokinen played more together as the evening progressed, particularly as the Flames tried to tie the game late.

That's the first four games. Bouwmeester's overall Corsi was -6. He was -9 with 12 and/or 21 in about 36 minutes of EV time, and +3 in about 32 minutes when he wasn't with Joker/Iggy. The game Iginla had vs. Sedin skews this pretty heavily, of course, but it wasn't like the big two were pushing the pile much, with the exception of Iginla vs. Colorado, and Robyn Regehr (+17) was the prime beneficiary that night.. If you consider that, and the fact that he was playing mostly against Sedin, Nash, Horcoff and Stastny, and had a slight preponderance of D zone face-offs, Bouwmeester was pretty solid. The Flames actually played OK at EV in this stretch, going 3-1, and their best-played game was likely the one they lost.

Part two will show up Wednesday night-ish.