Tales From The Clipped: WTF is wrong with the Benn-Johnston-Dadonov line?

Figuring out a serious(ish) problem.

It was just yesterday that Dallas’ big development in secondary scoring was the ‘Bennaisance.’ Aided by Ty Dellandrea, Evgenii Dadonov, and Wyatt Johnston, at last Jamie Benn was reborn. Granted, some of that was an illusion. Benn’s regression was inevitable. However, even the most hardened regression zealots would agree that regardless of how impossibly high Benn set the new bar, at least he had the buffer of belonging to a quality trio led by an emerging superstar. Today, that’s no longer the case.

We should have seen some of this coming. Last year the trio (with Dadonov at least) outscored opponents 17 to 12 and rocked a 54 percent expected goal share in 224 minutes together. This year they’ve been outscored 12 to 8, and are clicking at 48 percent in expected goal share. That’s in more minutes together this year than last year, so the Small Sample Size excuse no longer applies.

Surprisingly, it hasn’t been seen by the coaching staff as a problem insofar as it’s a problem with a mandate to get out the proverbial line blender. In some ways that makes sense. You’re not gonna break up the top line (well, I would). You’re certainly not gonna break up the Matt Duchene +2 line. And you’ve got a pretty good thing going with the fourth line. Given the Johnston’s line past success, why not let them play their way out of it?

I think that’s a mistake. The Johnston line used to be dangerous, not dominant. Their broad possession stats from last season made that abundantly clear: 48 percent shot share (SF%), 48 percent unblocked shot share (FF%), and 51 percent share of shot attempts (CF%). None of that should have ever been encouraging. It suggests that they scored more than they were owed, and shot hot rather than sustainably threatened.

Are the chickens coming home to roost? It would appear so. Why? Their defense is…well, let’s look at the video shall we?