During a recent appearance on Hockey Central at Noon, Ottawa Senators general manager Pierre Dorion talked up Dion Phaneuf as an integral part of the team’s blue line this year while taking a step back in terms of his on-ice role.
Essentially, as a second-pairing defenceman, Dorion believes Phaneuf could have a bigger impact without facing the opponents’ best players on a consistent basis.
During his time with Toronto Maple Leafs, the harsh minutes in which Phaneuf was used were often brought up as a major reason why his possession numbers took a beating, so it would make logical sense to see an improvement from the defenceman in a less stressful environment.
But has his play actually improved?
We know last year that in terms of possession, Phaneuf enjoyed a bit of a bounce-back season with a +0.5 per cent Corsi relative to his teammates (-0.22 on the Senators specifically), though he was still a -2.0 per cent goals for percentage player relative to his teammates (-10.32 per cent on the Senators) last year.
This season while getting the fourth-most even strength ice time on defence behind Erik Karlsson, Marc Methot and Cody Ceci, Phaneuf has an uninspiring -8.98 per cent Corsi relative to his teammates and a jaw-dropping -49.24 per cent goals for percentage relative to teammates.
Now, obviously we’re dealing with a small sample of just nine games so far, so the bad goal numbers could very easily be attributed to random variance in on-ice shooting and save percentages.
But the possession numbers are problematic.
The question then becomes how much of those poor possession numbers are attributable to Phaneuf himself?
Let’s compare his personal contributions relative to his teammates this year and last year and see how he looks:
Unfortunately for Phaneuf, the numbers don’t look too kindly on him so far.
We know from previous looks at Phaneuf that he is a low-involvement player, meaning he doesn’t touch the puck very often relative to his peers. In fact so far this season, no regular defenceman has made fewer plays with the puck per 20 minutes of even strength ice time than his 59.8, and that style of play limits the influence he can exert on the game, even if he were abnormally successful when he does touch the puck.
Theoretically, a player could overcome this deficiency if they always make the right play. But as we can see from the graph, Phaneuf doesn’t drive his team’s transition at all, boasting one of the lowest possession driving plays per 20 marks in the NHL. And unlike last year, he’s not getting very involved offensively, either.
His passing numbers specifically seem to have improved relative to his teammates, but again, that hasn’t helped him create scoring opportunities or exit the defensive zone at a higher rate.
Worse news is that his play without the puck has dropped off further as well, with Phaneuf removing possession from opponents and recovering loose pucks less often than last season.
Obviously, this is early in the season and there’s plenty of time for Phaneuf to dig himself out of this hole. But in terms of what Pierre Dorion said recently, there doesn’t seem to be much to suggest Phaneuf’s impact is on the ice.
It’s possible that Dorion was trying to pump up a struggling player as well, and that’s not something to scoff at. Or it could be that Phaneuf is being asked to play a different style and hasn’t been able to adjust to it yet, further hindering his effectiveness.
However, the data we have available doesn’t tell us that his usage has changed all that much — only that he’s struggling.
