What kind of coach is Brent Sutter?
by Kent Wilson on Jul 8, 2009 10:42 PM PDT
19 comments
In the wake of his hiring, there was lots of talk about Brent Sutter bringing back the Flames "defensive conscience". Local pieces have talked about an emphasis on making each player personally responsible from pluggers to the stars - which is nice in light of the last few seasons under Mike "Cheerleader" Keenan. But what do the Devils results from last year tell us?
1.) Defense
Sutter's Devils had an underwhelming blueline, to say the least:
Martin - Oduya
Salvador - White
Motteau - Greene
(Leach)
New Jersey had one of the cheapest bluelines in the league at just 13M and change (only Tampa Bay was lower). To put that in perspective, the Flames had the pricest defense corps at 24M+; about 11M richer than the Devils. Despite that relative handicap, Sutter's club was in the NHL's top half in terms of raw shots on net per game (29.5) and top 10 in terms of shot quality against (SQA) according to NHL Numbers. As a result, the Devils gave up the second least amount of ES goals against this past year (123), behind only the uncanny Boston Bruins. And that was with Scott Clemmensen as the team's starter for most of the year.
The only defensive area the Devil's struggled in was the PK. New Jersey was 20th overall with a 79.9% success rate, although the 0.97 SQA figure they managed matched their ES efforts. Unfortunately, the better than average ES SV% established by Clemmensen et al didn't carry over a man down for whatever reason, perhaps accounting for the discrepency.
By comparison, the Flames gave up slightly more raw shots per game last year (29.8) and the quality of the shots surrendered was higher as well (1.01 vs 0.97). So much for that extra $11M. On the PK, Calgary was ranked considerably higher in terms of success rate, but that had a lot to do with Kipper's oddly good SV% and not the fact that Calgary once again gave up more and better shots than the Devils.
2.) Offense
New Jersey was a solid outshooting team under Sutter, managing a gross +337 corsi number over the course of the season. Their ES SQF rate was middling (1, good for 15th) but they were in the top 10 in terms of shot output. They were also 15th in terms of overall production (238 GF), but tied for 9th at ES (154). Their ES SH% wasn't anything to write home about (7.7%) so they weren't riding the percentages train.
The combination of healthy rates and SQ numbers on both side of the ledger had the Devils 5th in the league in terms of expected ES goal differential as tracked by Hockey Numbers at +18. Keenan's Flames were actually 4th (+23), but the combination of shoddy ES goaltending and mediocre defensive performance resulted in a lower actual GD than NJD (+31 vs. +5).
3.) Line Matching
In what may seem like good news to some Flames fans, Brent showed a high degree of fidelity towards certain line combinations last season. The Langenbrunner - Zajac - Parise trio spent a huge portion of the year together - basically whenever Jamie was in the line-up. The defensive pairings were also fairly stable.
His first season in NJ, Sutter sent John Madden out against the big guns as much as possible. That changed last year with the emergence of Zach Parise as a legitimate superstar, enabling Sutter to go power on power more frequently. According to Behind the Net, the tough sledding was more or less evenly spread out amongst Parise, Langenbrunner, Elias, Madden, Zajac and Pandolfo. The good news from a Flames fan perspective is it was the right move: the Parise line beat the tar out of the opposition in both outshooting (+12 to +16 corsi) and outscoring (+21 to +26). That Sutter was able to 1.) find a combination for the big guns and 2.) make it work so well is encouraging after watching Keenan indecisively flail around with Iginla last year.
Overall, I like what I see. Of course, Brent won't have the benefit of .934 ES SV% next year, but the fact that he had an ostensibly worse blueline and managed to to coax a top 10 SQA index out of his club is good news. Furnished with the likes of Regehr, Bouwmeester, Sarich (probably) and an improved Phaneuf (hopefully) one would imagine an marked improvement in the Flames SQA measure - and, therefore, goals against - under Brent.
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We can only hope
But I suspect it will not really kick in until a month or two into the season. Flames never tend to start well, regardless of who is behind the bench.
Of course, Brent won’t have the benefit of .934 ES SV% next year, …
It’d be nice to see some evidence that he and his brother are aware of this, wouldn’t it.
Cognitive dissonance is a powerful thing. Unfortunately, Darryl has a lot of reasons to want to believe Kipper is still an all-star tender.
Good analysis, you’ve given statistical evidence of why I am quite optimistic for 09-10.
I hope Sarich stays with this group of D…people calling to trade him say things like his play and his contract make him attractive to other teams. Well, I think those same qualities make him attractive to the Flames, especially with Reg and J-Bo.
The two main factors for success (or lack of) are Phaneuf and Kipper. OK, that and seeing Bertuzzi sign elsewhere.
Of course, Brent won’t have the benefit of .934 ES SV% next year
You never know. It’s interesting to me that when people speak of sv% it’s in terms of desire or style versus conditions. Every goalie I know desires to save each and every puck shot at him/her – likely including Kipper. It is not, however, like Tanguay (as it was recently pointed out) who we all have wanted to shot more and hit more but his personal style seemed to avoid that type of play. Kiprusoff’s save % will always be highly influenced by the conditions he is put in and the systems which support and affect those conditions. By the sounds of it, we have reason to be optimistic that Sutter’s systems will avoid conditions conducive to crappy sv%. Let’s hope so.
After all, we can see that the high-priced defense under Keenan was no match for Jersey’s budget “d” in almost every capacity, as you have so appropriately pointed out. Only time will tell.
Re-reading what I wrote and I see it’s a little vague. My point can be summed up better like this: it’s easier to find a goalie who has been assigned ‘greatness’ on a team that’s very defensive or is very good. I.E. Thomas, Mason, Brodeur, Backstrom… who all play on very defensive teams. Even Clemmonson was ‘great’. On the other hand it’s tougher to find great defensive teams with crappy goaltending – Osgood is the anomoly, but they showed that to be different come playoffs. Lastly, it is also hard to find a spectacular goalie who plays on a crappy team, where Luongo and Vokoun have been exemplary over their careers, and there was much hope for Lehtonen.
So let’s assume and or hope Kipper’s season will be better. .934 ES SV%…probably not, but I’m thinking he will benefit greatly from Sutter.
That’s where the SQA improvement should come in. That said, if Kipper manages a .930 ES SV% or better next year, I’ll be absolutely stunned. Until he proves otherwise, I consider Kipper an obstacle for the club to overcome rather than a contributor to success.
That’s hopefully the Jay Bouwmeester effect (vs. the Aucoin disadvantage) and Sutter assisting the process.
Speaking of the big Bouw, no wonder he is happy to play in Canada and Calgary. I’m sure in Florida hockey is hardly this vigorously analyzed and debated, outside of very very small circles, even during the season…never mind in July.
Better shot quality against is a good plan, sure, and fewer shots period would be as well. With your comment re: Kiprusoff’s SV% in mind, I think the most likely area that the Flames can target for fewer GA is the shot total. One less shot per game would be worth 8 GA, even if Kiprusoff bats .899 at EV again. One fewer shot per game would have put them 9th in shots against. They were 5th in ‘04 and 6th in ’06. I don’t think that sort of improvement is beyond the pale. It seems more likely than hoping Kiprusoff goes back to his ‘04-’06 form.
by Robert Cleave on Jul 9, 2009 2:41 PM PDT up reply actions
Well, indeed. As the Wings have proved for a while, if you allow fewer shots, then mediocre or poor goaltending hurts you less.
That said, it still hurts you. There’s a bit of an undercurrent to Flames chatter (not here, really) that the Flames need to ‘help Kipper out’. This is rather backwards. Kipper needs to stop more pucks than the average goalie would be expected to, regardless of whether he is being bombarded, or the Flames have the lowest SA/gm in the league. If he’s not doing so, he’s a liability in regards to maximum team achievement.
So to go back to the original question...
I sincerely hope that Brent Sutter is The Kind of Coach who will be realistic about whether his goaltender is excellent, merely adequate, or poor — regardless of the W-L record or even the GAA.
I just wanted to say...
Jesus Christ, that picture’s creepy. I mean, he’s smiling. What the hell, Sutters don’t smile.
SNN Sports - A theoretical Oilers blog (i.e. theoretically, I write stuff there)
That’s a misconception. Sutter’s smile rarely. Darryl actually laughed and hugged Dion Pahneuf when he drafted him.
And now that I think on it, there was that time Brent smiled, when they won the World Juniors. Fair point. Still…looks weird.
SNN Sports - A theoretical Oilers blog (i.e. theoretically, I write stuff there)
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