How Does It Affect the Stars? The beast in the east, Ronda Rousey's interview, what determines a 'shutdown' defender, and early 2024 draft talk
And yes, more Wyatt Johnston talk.
30 goals. 20 years of age. Here the other names in that cohort: Ovechkin, Matthews, Crosby, Pastrnak, Monahan, McDavid, Malkin, Laine, Kopitar, Kane, Bergeron, Toews, and Stamkos. He’s within four goals of tying Pastrnak and Toews, and five within catching Phil Kessell. He’d need seven to catch Auston Matthews.
So yea, Wyatt Johnston is something else. His chemistry with Logan Stankoven is on another level (and Jamie Benn). He’s on the second power play unit playing what I suspect is less minutes than most of those names on the list. And he still has a handful of games left versus some mostly unremarkable teams.
For so long Stars fans were shocked and thrilled by the emergence of Roope Hintz as Tyler Seguin’s “replacement.” Is it possible that Hintz’’ replacement’ has arrived too? Hintz is still just 27, which should put into perspective — beyond the obvious skill and talent on ice — how good Johnston is. He’s only one point behind Hintz and Duchene with 61 on the season.
How he does it remains one of Dallas’ scouts’ finest gifts, at least in proportion to pick (and information). Watching him last night against Edmonton, I really think a lot of his improvement has come from within. After all, Benn was largely absent in the first half of the season. Johnston has always had the unique gift of perfecting routes, either toward the net, or bouncing between the interior and exterior of the ice. It’s how he always gets to the net. And sure, Stankoven has been an essential injection of territorial, offensive dominance. But Johnston’s skating has gone up a tier (less his speed, and more his agility), and it’s unlocked the speed with which he runs his routes.
The Oilers’ bluelines tried to play the body on him on several occasions, and it did basically nothing. In some ways, it’s a counterpoint to the common criticism of him last year that he needed to “add muscle.” I don’t think so. His nimble, almost ephemeral presence on the ice is what allows him to be so effective in the hard areas of the ice. He’s also way stronger on his skates than he looks.
Just saying.
Carolina: the sleeping giant awakes
Let’s get ahead of ourselves. Dallas looks like the top team in the West. Will they be when all is said and done? Maybe, maybe not. But the point is, they’re acting the part. To that end, I’m sure most Stars fans feel like Dallas is home free if they just get past everyone in the West, right? Again, maybe, maybe not. But believe it or not, in terms of xG rates at even strength, there’s only one team that rates better defensively, and offensively than Dallas.
It’s Carolina. And by a pretty statistically wide margin. Per Dom’s model, it’s why Carolina is the favorite this year.
I don’t want to talk all day about a potential matchup, because that just feels wrong.
But it does emphasize what I wrote the other day in D Magazine. Dallas doesn’t just have the toughest road to the Cup. They might have one of the toughest roads in historical terms. I don’t mention this to scare fans, or to downplay how good Dallas really is (I’ve said before; my personal pick to win the Cup is Carolina). If anything, if Dallas won it all, it would only highlight how special this team is. As in, if Dallas won it all this year, I think it’d actually be easier for them to repeat next year than it would be to win it all this year. Part of it is the youth movement, sure, but the other part is how complete the roster looks right now — it’s one of the reasons why I picked Carolina earlier in the year. Yes, they have their flaws just like Dallas, but they’re also due, and one of the rare teams you can’t easily exploit. (Also, I really didn’t think Florida was the better team in that series. Sounds stupid given the results, but in the playoffs, the best teams don’t always win. The best team Wins the Cup, yes, but a single series in a vacuum isn’t the best valuation IMO.)
That Ronda Rousey interview
Yes, we’re gonna switch to something non-hockey related (but we’ll switch back because this is an edition of HDIATS). For those don’t know, I used to write for the coolest prizefighting website in town, Bloody Elbow. There I got to interview David Epstein back when he was with Sports Illustrated and interested in concussions (who has a cool Substack now, by the way), was flown to Montreal to interview Georges St. Pierre, despite knowing jackshit about journalism, and all of this somehow led to where we are now. I was just a dude they hired because I wrote some stuff on their sister blog that covered kickboxing, and I’m forever grateful.
It’s also why my love of MMA occasionally slips through the hockey cracks. The other day Ronda Rousey gave an interview the other day and she said something that drew the ire of MMA fans around the world. She claimed she was “the greatest fighter that has ever lived.” I’m not here to make fun of her, though. In fact, I’m the one who’s embarrassed. I had my own thoughts in 2017 on Rousey, after she lost to Amanda Nunes, when it seemed clear she was never coming back. It’s some truly righteous cringe; a level of naval gazing that will give you second-hand embarrassment. For a more thoughtful response, check out good guy Ben Fowlkes, and his thoughtful piece distinguishing Rousey as female MMA’s most important fighter.
Nonetheless, I stand by the broad strokes. Every sport has its own metagame, or the game within the game, and you need to adapt to it as quickly as everything else that pressures individuals and teams for performance. Rousey won with grappling until striking caught up. (This is a gross, borderline incorrect oversimplification, but it works for the purpose of my audience) We see this in hockey. Offense (Pittsburgh) caught up to defense (L.A.) until defense caught up to offense (Vegas?), and vice versa.
These are also gross oversimplifications, but that, to me, is where Dallas stands out, similar to those Tampa and Chicago teams. They’re not built around cliches about “defense wins championships” or “all offense.” They’re built around good drafting, chemistry within forward lines, precision across defense pairs (which, granted, will change when Hakanpaa comes back) — they’re built to be a great team, as opposed to a team being driven by some prepackaged identity. The best teams define the meta rather than copycat someone else (cough, Winnipeg). Besides, isn’t Dallas’ identify this year depth rather than defense?
(Again: as a rejoinder to the usual cliches. What I don’t like about these cliches is that all great teams are nuanced, and layered. This ‘defense/offense wins championships’ crap undercuts the valuable players you wouldn’t describe with one simple term.)
A measured response to Harman Dayal’s piece in The Athletic
First off, I want to be clear. Dayal is one of the few guys at The Athletic still doing interesting work from an “analytics” perspective. Second, Dayal was one of the few national writers putting respect on Wyatt Johnston’s name when all anybody else had time for was Rempe, and whatever the Leafs were doing. The other day he put together his own homemade (and intelligent) rubric for figuring out the best shutdown defensemen. This was the end result.
Dayal was quick to preface his piece with the fact that his data was used for this season only. And Stars fans might be reassured to know that Chris Tanev ranked 12th among shutdown defenders. On the other hand, Stars fans are probably already balking over the lack of Miro Heiskanen, who only gets an honorable mention. Or thinking “Forsling better defensively than Heiskanen?!? LOL.”
A couple of things: we need to come up with better language. For example, if we’re talking about “good defense” in the context of analytics, we should use words like “good defensive shot impacts.” RAPM is a complex stat, and one that holds a lot of weight to me, but I also think isolating for impact in such a team-centered sport has inherent challenges that have yet to be untangled. Consider Andrew Peeke: a player not even good enough for Columbus, but finding his stride with the Bruins? I don’t want to sound like the “stats will never tell you everything” crowd, which is one of the absolute worst criticisms about analytics possible; only that measuring defense should start with categorizing words, and then categorizing players. This is why I always hype Corey Sznajder’s work — because that was his approach. (Yes and no that it’s a coincidence that both Heiskanen and Tanev grade out as two of the best using his rubric.)
Another quick note: While the instinct for fans is to second-guess the numbers, I think it’s worth considering whether the numbers should prompt you to second-guess how you view the game. I know that’s what happened to me with Jason Robertson’s strong defensive impacts. A player like Esa Lindell is another good example for me. I’ve long been critical, finding him too static over the years, but the numbers forced me to re-examine how I assess him. Also, just because a number doesn’t have highlight reels embedded into every number doesn’t mean they’re not descriptive. We all know Forsling isn’t the shutdown type. But it should be clear that his ability to drive the puck in the opponent’s zone is helping him achieve similar defensive impacts as that can control territory in the defensive zone.
Early 2024 Draft Look
Dallas will likely finish higher up the draft than usual. That makes looking at players slated to go in the 20-32 range a bit of a fool’s errand. But one player Dallas will likely have on their radar is 6’3 right-handed defender, Charlie Elick from the Brandon Wheat Kings (WHL). He only has 27 points, but that’s not the point. His transition data and defense really stand out for a young player, making something similar to Bichsel, or a young Tanev. The kind of player Dallas will need in the near future.
My thing is we’re through the looking glass with these players. Heiskanen, K’Andre Miller, Jake Sanderson, etc. Hybrid shutdown defenders are some of the more interesting prospects right now, a kind of course correction to the modern day puck over. That doesn’t mean puck movers are obsolete. It just means bigger defensemen are getting better at certain skills that used to be exclusive to puck movers, like skating and puck retrieval.
Miro is that odd defender who is good or better at most things, but because he doesn’t put up gaudy numbers he’s seem as a defensive dman. While others are jagged peaks, he’s a mesa that impresses for other reasons.
Oh, and he’s also a bargain who kept Roope cheap too.
Great article David! I don’t know Jack chit about MMA so I have to trust you. How different is 2024-2025 going to look than this year. Is Pavs going to retire? Hopefully Sutter and Hak are both gone. What about Dadanov, Delly? Does Mavrik go on the Hintz line or do you put Wyatt there and put Mav between Benn and Stank? I am hoping Nills can find a way to resign Tanev and Dutch. If you keep the 4th line intact then we need either 1 or 2 D men depending on Bish. I know this season isn’t over but you have to get started early for next year.