One of the key questions for the Vancouver Canucks’ defence corps heading into this season is who was going to fill the shutdown role? Which pairing was going to be used to matchup against the best opposition forwards in the NHL?
That’s a role that was filled by Alex Edler and Nate Schmidt last season and, as much as both players came under heavy criticism at times, they performed capably in that role. Both Edler and Schmidt parted ways with the Caanucks this offseason — Edler left in free agency to the Los Angeles Kings and Schmidt was traded to the Winnipeg Jets, where he has 8 points in 9 games in a less defence-heavy role.
It seemed clear that the incoming Oliver Ekman-Larsson would take on tough matchups for the Canucks, with general manager Jim Benning saying he was going to be the team’s number one defenceman. That was somewhat concerning given Ekman-Larsson’s declining defensive play over the last several seasons with the Arizona Coyotes but the bigger concern was who would be paired with him: Tucker Poolman and Travis Hamonic were potential options but the last player anyone expected to land on Ekman-Larsson’s right side in a shutdown role was Tyler Myers, whose biggest weaknesses are in the defensive zone.
When Hamonic didn’t show up to training camp, however, Myers became the only option. Surprisingly, the pairing has thrived.
"When his game is simpler, he’s a better player."
Among the 205 NHL defencemen who have played at least 50 minutes at 5-on-5 this season, Ekman-Larsson has the 14th-lowest rate of expected goals against, according to Natural Stat Trick. That statistic combines shot quantity and shot quality and Ekman-Larsson has excelled defensively by both measures: he’s been on the ice for the 7th-lowest rate of scoring chances against and the 9th-lowest rate of shot attempts against.
Myers isn’t far behind, which isn’t surprising given how much the two have played together. Myer’s biggest struggles this season have come away from Ekman-Larsson, such as the game against the Buffalo Sabres when Quinn Hughes was out with an injury. Myers had to play with Brad Hunt and was on the ice for three goals against; he was blatantly at fault on two of them.
With Ekman-Larsson, however, Myers has looked far better, even as he’s had to play tougher minutes than in previous seasons.
“[Myers] wants a role like that,” said head coach Travis Green. “I think when his game is simpler, he’s a better player, when he concentrates on defending and not looking for offence too much. He’s a better player when he’s harder in his own zone.”
It’s hard to argue with the results. The Canucks have allowed just one goal against at 5-on-5 over the last three games. Much of that can be attributed to the outstanding play of goaltenders Thatcher Demko and Jaroslav Halak in those games but Ekman-Larsson and Myers have legitimately limited chances against while playing against tough competition.
It should be noted that Ekman-Larsson and Myers are not the only pairing regularly facing tough competition. The pairing of Quinn Hughes and Tucker Poolman has faced roughly the same quality of competition so far this season as the team’s top four has been used to heavily shelter the third pairing.
“If you look at our pairings, we’ve got a couple of young guys on that bottom pairing and that’s dictating some of it,” said Green, referring at the time to Jack Rathbone and Kyle Burroughs but Luke Schenn and Brad Hunt have been equally sheltered.
A stunning transformation
Perhaps Ekman-Larsson’s most impressive accomplishment early this season is the way he’s elevated Myers from a defensive liability to a shutdown defenceman. But maybe it’s more that they’re elevating each other.
Consider this chart from Evolving Hockey, which shows Ekman-Larsson and Myers in the three seasons prior to this one. The two bars on the right side of each graph show their defensive results in expected goals against and shot attempts against. Both have seriously struggled defensively for multiple seasons.
Then there’s the results for both defencemen through 10 games this season. Yes, it’s a small sample size, but the transformation is stunning. Suddenly they both look like two of the top defensive defencemen in the league.
Can such wildly disparate results from their previous seasons continue? That's the intriguing element here: are their improved results a matter of playing in a different system, finding surprising chemistry, or just a small sample size playing tricks?
Ekman-Larsson leads all NHL defencemen in shots
The one area where they haven’t looked as good is offensively, which is interesting considering the reputation of both players. It also might be surprising, given how many shots Ekman-Larsson has taken this season.
Ekman-Larsson currently leads all NHL defencemen in shots on goal with 37. Many have praised Ekman-Larsson for getting shots through traffic, which made me curious.
So far this season, Ekman-Larsson has 72 shot attempts, 37 on goal. That's 51.39% of his shot attempts reaching the net, good for 49th among 132 defencemen with at least 20 shot attempts.
Last season, Ekman-Larsson hit the net on 47.43% of his shot attempts, just under league average for defencemen with at least 100 shot attempts. In other words, Ekman-Larsson doesn't seem to get lots of shots on goal because he gets shots through traffic but because he attempts a lot of shots.
That’s not a bad thing, really, but it’s interesting to look at the numbers. It also gives some insight into why the pairing of Ekman-Larsson and Myers hasn’t been as good offensively as they have been defensively.
With Ekman-Larsson on the ice at 5-on-5, the Canucks have 154 shot attempts. 50 of them have come off the stick of Ekman-Larsson himself. Another 34 have come from Myers and another 17 from other defencemen.
That’s 65.6% — essentially two-thirds — of all shot attempts with Ekman-Larsson on the ice coming from defencemen.
Let’s compare that to Quinn Hughes, who has also been on the ice for 154 shot attempts at 5-on-5. Of those 154 shot attempts, 26 have come from Hughes, 17 from Tucker Poolman, and 9 from other defencemen. That’s 52 out of 154 or 33.8%. That’s essentially reversed from the results with Ekman-Larsson.
When Ekman-Larsson is on the ice, two-thirds of the Canucks’ shot attempts come from defencemen. When Hughes is on the ice, two-thirds of the Canucks’ shot attempts come from forwards.
With the pairing of Ekman-Larsson and Myers focused on defence, the offence that they’ve generated has mainly been shots from the point from defencemen, which are generally the least dangerous shots, whereas Hughes has focused on getting the puck to his forwards.
Again, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is enlightening. If Ekman-Larsson and Myers can continue to play stellar shutdown defence, it’s awfully hard to complain about the two not racking up as many points.
Besides, if Ekman-Larsson starts getting more power play time — he was on the first unit at Thursday's practice — he might not need to provide offence at 5-on-5.
