In case you missed it, the New York Rangers re-signed Marc Staal to a six-year, $34.2 million contract extension yesterday, ensuring the top-four defenseman remains on Broadway for most, if not all, of his professional career. Ranger fans are torn over this. Some are ecstatic that the Rangers kept one of their cornerstone defensemen, others aren’t too thrilled about another long-term contract, and the rest are downright upset because Staal isn’t a #fancystats possession darling. Not even us here at BSB agree on it. Chaos! Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!
It’s no secret that Staal has had a bit of an odd career arc thus far. Without rehashing that entire post (which you should read), Staal was nothing short of brilliant up until 2010. He was then paired with Dan Girardi, and his #fancystats suffered. There is some noise here, as Staal was also used as the primary shutdown defenseman –with Girardi– that year, the first time in his career. Regardless his #fancystats suffered, but his offensive output actually went up because he was being used on the powerplay.
The 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 seasons were marred by injury. The concussion suffered at the hands of his brother, followed by the freak puck-to-the-eye injury (visors, children), really messed with Staal. You can’t really blame him, and his numbers took a swan dive into bottom-pairing territory. Last season, Staal had a solid year paired with Anton Stralman, and many pointed to Stralman as the guy who carried Staal. This is true to an extent, and we can see it in his Corsi over his career:
One factor that I dislike about possession #fancystats –Corsi/Fenwick– is that it doesn’t take defensive positioning into account. Nothing except for a player’s hextally, which measures shot location relative to the league average, does a decent job of measuring positioning. For a guy like Staal, positioning is a key aspect to his game, and omitting it from our analysis is irresponsible.
Staal isn’t a possession darling. We get that. Horse has been beaten. He doesn’t make a smart first pass to start the offensive rush. It’s an important aspect of the game, but it’s not the only aspect that is important to Staal’s game.
Staal is a solid skater. He cuts down angles well, and he does a good job at forcing the opposition to the outside. All the blue in the hextally below shows us that, comparative to league average, Staal severely cuts down prime scoring chances. This is critical for one of your top-four defensemen, especially when he’s not a great possession player. The chart on the right is shot rates against, the left is shot rates for (offensive zone).
That’s a very dark blue area for the front of the net. It’s tough to complain about that.
Another aspect that is overlooked is shot suppression, a big element in a “shutdown” defenseman’s game. Over the past two seasons, only Stralman had a lower CA/60 than Staal (51.0). We use last year’s data in this as well because we don’t have enough events for this season alone to make an accurate assessment.
We can use the same two-year span in Staal’s WOWY’s, and it shows us that most Rangers skaters allowed more shot attempts against when separated from Staal. Not only does he suppress the quantity of shot attempts, but he suppresses quality shot attempts.
In the #fancystats era, there are two factors to use when evaluating defensemen: Their ability to push the puck up the ice, in which Staal is not proficient, and the ability to suppress quantity/quality attempts, in which Staal excels.
This contract is not a total disaster. It’s a bit of a high price for someone who doesn’t put much together offensively, we can agree on that part. It also might hamstring the Rangers in the immediate future with their current crop of free agents. But Staal is one of the better defenders on the team. Market value is market value. I’m not comfortable with the term of the deal, but I am certainly comfortable with Staal on the team. You should be too, as long as you set your expectations appropriately.
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