After the trade deadline, the Edmonton Oilers find themselves with an extra right defenceman in Troy Stecher. Having been traded to Calgary at the deadline last year and to L.A. the year before, Stecher is no stranger to being a deadline acquisition. This is no surprise as he fits the stereotype of depth D-man perfectly. He is not a highly offensive player, his most productive year being 24 points in 71 games with Vancouver, but is a good hitter and shot blocker and has a Corsi% slightly over 50% this year. What is the best way that the Oilers can utilize their bottom three right defencemen?
One of the best ways to see how well a line or pairing is performing is the Corsi%. Measured for an individual player, it signifies the percentage of total shots that that players team had while that player was on the ice. Since a team is going to have more shots if they control the puck more often, especially if they are controlling in the offensive zone, it is a good measure of how dominant a team is when that player is on the ice. Naturally, Corsi% applied to a line or pairing is the same idea except measured when they are on the ice. Using that stat, the current defensive lineup of Mattias Ekholm-Evan Bouchard, Darnell Nurse-Cody Ceci, Brett Kulak-Vincent Desharnais runs quite well. The three pairs average an impressive 55.1 Corsi%, well above the break-even point of 50%.
Looking at the Corsi% of all the different pairings who have played together tells us that the best possible lineup while still having each player play on their proper side is Kulak-Bouchard, Ekholm-Ceci, Nurse-Desharnais which brings the average up to 56.5%. The problem with this is that these pairings haven’t played together for very long and so this is based on a very small sample size. That being said, it might be something to try out while the Oilers still have 12 games before the playoffs start.
Where does Stecher fit in the lineup?
The unfortunate truth for Stecher is that he doesn’t fit into the best Oilers lineup. There are some positives about Stecher. Among the three Arizona Coyotes pairings with the most time together, Stecher and Valimaki had the highest Corsi% at 51.1%. The Oilers have won all three games he has played in this year, all of which were sound defensive games. Not being an impressive offensive defenceman, not being a noticably better defensive defenceman than the current D-men, and coming late to the show are all working against Stecher though. Unless someone gets sick or injured I can’t see him playing with the Oilers this year. I suspect Kris Knoblauch will have a longer fuse with his year-long regulars than John Tortorella does when it comes to slumps.
If he does draw into the lineup though, where is the best spot for him? One thing to notice about the list of the defensive pairings who have played together this season is that at least one of Bouchard, Ekholm, and Kulak are in the top seven ranked by Corsi%. While Bouchard and Ekholm are not surprises, Kulak is. Kulak and his most common partner, Desharnais have a Corsi of 53.8%. The weighted average Corsi of all of Kulaks playing time stays strong at 53.8 whereas Desharnais’ falls to 52.6%. This tells us that Kulak is able to stay consistent with many diffrent partners. Considering he has played with five other defenders this year and spend a lot of his time playing with the Oilers bottom six forwards, this is pretty impressive.
Therefore, a couple good spots for Stecher present themselves. First and foremost is just slotting him in with Kulak, who, according to the stats, can make it work with anybody. Another option is to play him with Ekholm, who also has great Corsi numbers that could make up for any weaknesses Stecher might bring. This leaves Bouchard open to play with Kulak, they have excellent numbers and have played a respectable amount together. That puts Nurse with Desharnais or Ceci, Desharnais having the preferred Corsi numbers while playing with Nurse. Ceci is the weakest link on the team with only 50.8% Corsi playing with Nurse. It is possible that Knoblauch looks at replacing Ceci with Stecher, but I don’t believe the numbers are strong enough to justify that.
Stats from NHL.com and moneypuck.com
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
