The Myth Of The Blocked Shot As Proven By Nate Guenin and Brad Stuart
By Austin Manak
Nate Guenin and Brad Stuart are described as rugged, physical defenseman. They aren’t noted for being the smoothest or flashiest guys on the ice, but their presence is justified by their ability to do the dirty work.
You need guys to take pucks off their shins, thighs, and sometimes faces. That’s just the price of winning in hockey, right?
I’m not sold.
The way I see it, the value of Nate Guenin and Brad Stuart just isn’t very high. These guys don’t facilitate quality hockey events when they are on the ice. Furthermore, their duty as ‘shot-blockers’ isn’t having a positive impact on the team.
To me, you have good hockey players and not-so-good hockey players. Anyone can sacrifice their body if their will to win is high enough. Come the playoffs, we see this first hand.
Blocking shots isn’t so much an attribute of skill, as it is a badge of honor for those who are willing to take physical abuse for the good of the team. Those bruises don’t guarantee wins, but in the event that you do win, they can be worn with pride.
Take Guenin and Stuart. By the stats, these guys are huge anchors on the blue-line for the Colorado Avalanche. They are the worst defenseman on the team in advanced possession metrics. Stuart sports an even strength Corsi for percentage of 38.5 while Guenin’s is 41.7. This means for every 100 shots attempted while Stuart is on the ice at even strength, 61 of them are at the net the Avalanche are defending. As Sir-cumference, Charles Barkely, would say, “that’s just turrble.”
Granted, these two are used as defensive options. Stuart’s offensive zone start percentage is 44.9% and Guenin’s is 48.9%. Fair enough, we can convince ourselves that they are getting used in the d-zone, so they are at a disadvantage when it comes to generating positive possession numbers.
Not so fast…
Jan Hejda and Erik Johnson are both getting deployed in the d-zone more often than Stuart, and they have respectable possession numbers, especially relative to the rest of the team. The fact is, the Avalanche as a team are starting off in the defensive zone more often than not.
Of the seven defenseman who have played greater than 100 minutes on the Avalanche blue-line this season, only Tyson Barrie and Zach Redmond have a higher offensive zone start percentage that Nate Guenin.
Our ‘defensive specialists’ aren’t really being deployed as such. Their possession stats should not be this atrocious.
This gets to where people start making the argument that you need players like Guenin and Stuart to compliment more offensive minded guys like Tyson Barrie. You need someone to block shots and do the dirty work.
To an extent, I’ll give you that. I do think Barrie needs a bigger defenseman who can handle the net-front duties playing with him. I just don’t think Guenin and Stuart cut it in that role.
This is where the myth of the blocked shot begins.
Nate Guenin and Brad Stuart are huge possession anchors on the Avalanche defense. Their saving grace as shot-blockers appears to be a farce.
In order to block a shot, two things are happening. First, you aren’t in control of the puck. This is never a good thing in hockey. Secondly, you are inducing randomness on the puck every time you block a shot. How many goals do you see scored over the course of the season that take a funny bounce of a defender trying to block a shot? How many times does the puck change course and find the stick of an opposing player who now has an unguarded net to aim at? Blocking shots is flukey and unpredictable.
How valuable are shot blocking defenseman, really? Wouldn’t you rather have the puck, and when you do give up a shot, allow your goaltender to make a clean save. No deflections – no fuss. You pay your goaltender to be your shot-blocker. Your defenders should defend, and get the puck out of the zone!
Alright, so let’s say it is beneficial to block shots. My arguments above are hypothetical. I think blocking shots is a bit of a hit or miss situation, but for arguments sake, let’s consider them highly valuable. After all, a shot that gets blocked cleanly isn’t going into your net, right? At the very least, we can agree that blocked shots are somewhat of a mystery as far as having any impact on success.
Take Nate Guenin and Brad Stuart. Like I said above, their even strength Corsi for % are 41.7 and 38.5, respectively. For those familiar with advanced stats, you will know that Corsi includes blocked shots. This means that all shots attempted, on net, blocked, or wide of the net are included in a Corsi calculation.
Fenwick on the other hand accounts for blocking shots as a skill. Fenwick only includes shots on net or wide of the net in the calculation. For this reason, you’d expect prolific shot blockers to have a much better even strength Fenwick ratio than Corsi. Nate Guenin and Brad Stuart are in the lineup because they pay the price as shot blockers, so let’s test that theory.
Guenin’s even strength Fenwick % is 41.5%. UH OH!! This means that when Guenin is on the ice, the Avalanche are actually getting out-blocked by their opponents. His Fenwick is 0.2% lower than his Corsi at even strength, which suggests that Guenin’s impact as a shot blocker is non-existent.
Brad Stuart’s even strength Fenwick % is 39.1. This is a slight improvement over his Corsi rating of 38.5%, but is a minuscule improvement at that.
Overall, we’ve just shown that Guenin and Stuart are huge possession anchors on the Avalanche roster. These guys aren’t mobile, aren’t good passers, and are consistently giving up goals with positional errors.
On top of that, one of their main justifications for having value in the line-up appears to be a farce. Based on statistics, we can conclude that Guenin and Stuart are having ZERO impact on protecting Semyon Varlamov, or any other Avalanche goalie between the pipes when it comes to blocking shots.
Stuart and Guenin aren’t skewing the shot totals in favor of the Avs with prolific shot blocking, as evidenced by their statistically comparable Corsi and Fenwick percentages.
So what does this mean for the Avalanche?
I think it’s pretty clear. They are in need of some major upgrades on defense. Thinking that Guenin and Stuart are problem areas for the Avalanche isn’t exactly a new idea. Many Avalanche fans have voiced this opinion rather loudly over the course of the season.
Ideally, teams have physical and mobile defenseman who have the puck moving skills necessary to succeed. Those types of guys are hard to find.
However, when filling out the roster, I think that the Guenin and Stuart storyline provides some compelling evidence that in today’s NHL, maybe the ‘shot-blocking’ defenseman is a bit overrated. I’d much rather get a guy with some puck moving skill, so my team can possess the puck. Especially with this Avalanche team of speedy forwards who love playing in transition. Puck-movers are a must.
The best defense is a team that doesn’t give the puck to the other team. In many ways, once a team has to hunker down and start blocking shots, they’ve already lost the bigger battle. That isn’t playing hockey, so much as hanging on for dear life.
Being physical loses value when the other team is able to dominate possession in your zone all night long, and run you in circles. You have to catch someone before you can clean their clock.
I don’t think that physical defenseman are an extinct breed in the NHL. I think you do want some intimidation from your back-end. You need some beef to protect the front of your net. What I do think, is that Guenin and Stuart are an extinct breed. You simply can’t justify having players who can’t move the puck out of the defensive zone in today’s NHL. Especially when the impact of shot blocking seems to be a myth.
If a scout for one of the other 29 teams in the NHL happens to have read this article, it’s a load of poppycock. Guenin and Stuart are fantastic. Trade the Avalanche valuable assets to acquire them.
*Credit to war-on-ice.com for possession stat data*