dan boyle
Dan Boyle (Bruce Bennett/Getty Images North America)

When the New York Rangers replaced Anton Stralman with Dan Boyle (for all intents and purposes, this is what was done), the fan base was very divided. On one side of the coin, folks were pumped about his powerplay contributions. The other side of the coin was worried about the even strength downgrade from Stralman to Boyle. Neither side was wrong, but both sides were vocal about the positives and negatives.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first: Boyle is not producing points as expected. When he was signed, even those that doubted his even strength contributions took note that he should help the powerplay. As noted in the linked post, he certainly opens up options and passing lanes, but he simply hasn’t produced with the man advantage. That said, he’s still producing at his normal rate at even strength.

Boyle’s even strength production has been around the 0.5 P/60 rate for the past few seasons. He’s at 0.64 P/60 this season, which puts him fourth on the team at evens (behind Kevin Klein, Marc Staal, and Dan Girardi). I think that hits expectations at even strength.

On the powerplay however, Boyle’s production is way down. He’s averaging 2.7 P/60 with the man advantage this year. He was at 4.0 P/60 last season and 5.1 P/60 the season before. That’s a huge downturn in production, but I don’t believe this is all entirely his fault. The Rangers powerplay has been brutal for a while, and they’ve gone through PP QB changes and coaching changes. So the production is down, which isn’t good, but I don’t think it’s entirely because Boyle is getting up there in age.

So without points, we look at how Boyle does the little things. We look at how he drives possession (SAT%/Corsi%). We look at how he limits opposition shot attempts both in quantity (SAT Against/Corsi Against) and in quality (hextally plots).

*-Remember, NHL.com uses SAT% (Shot Attempts %), which is a renamed Corsi%. I am using these phrases interchangeably to ease the transition.

Courtesy of war-on-ice

Courtesy of war-on-ice

At even strength –which is where the rest of these numbers will come from– Boyle is actually the best player on the Rangers at driving puck possession. He has a team leading 54.41 SAT%/Corsi%. He does this with some sheltered minutes, as noted by the usage chart above (he’s the blue circle on the far right), but he’s still a driving force offensively.

Similarly, Boyle is also tops on the team in SAT Against/Corsi Against per 60 minutes of play at 50.17. So not only is Boyle getting it done by pushing the puck up the ice, he’s doing a solid job of limiting shot attempts from the opposition. Part of this can be attributed to the number of offensive zone starts given to Boyle (John Moore has some good numbers here as well), but Boyle is doing his job at even strength.

In terms of quality, Boyle is also doing a good job of limiting shot attempts to the outside, as shown by the hextally chart below. Just a reminder, hextally charts show shot location relative to the rest of the league. Blue areas show that a player sees less shot attempts from those areas while he is on the ice, red means he sees more attempts from those areas. Ideally you want blue all over, but blue in the slot is a good sign.

Courtesy of war-on-ice

Courtesy of war-on-ice

From the above, we can see that Boyle limits slot shot attempts by a decent amount from the slot. There’s not much more you can ask of a 38-year-old defenseman.

While Boyle is not producing the way fans –and probably the coaching staff and management– have expected, he’s still doing little things to help the Rangers win. He pushes play up the ice. He limits opposition shot attempts in both quantity and quality, and he at least provides options while on the powerplay. He’s not having a “Dan Boyle season,” but he’s not exactly a detriment to the team. Little things win you championships too.

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