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CLOSING THE LEFTORIUM
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Lowetide
Apr 25, 2016, 23:20 EDTUpdated:
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I am fairly certain the Edmonton Oilers have never worried much about how many defensive lefty’s are in their lineup. During the golden years, the club had some fabulous LHD (Paul Coffey, Kevin Lowe, Charlie Huddy, Randy Gregg and Don Jackson outnumbered righty Lee Fogolin). The current group is also heavy on the lefties and there is increasing evidence showing that kind of bias is a bad idea on defense. What is this evidence? And what could it mean for this summer?

THE INFORMATION

I like to think I have an open mind when it comes to advanced statistics and the study of hockey trends and effective strategy using fancy stats. That is wildly different than producing the information on my own, so I am going to credit some folks while also producing their conclusion (before moving on to the specific issue of Edmonton’s depth chart).
Darcy McLeod from Because Oilers wrote an interesting article not long ago about the increasing importance of having defensemen lined up left-right throughout the depth chart. Old timey chaps like me remember the days of Coffey and Huddy playing together, but that was in an era where time and space were more available.
  • Darcy McLeod: Today’s game is very high pressure with
    strong fore-checks and back pressure all over the ice.  Players are simply
    better at moving the puck on their fore-hand than back-hand and it stands to
    reason that having them on their fore-hand in the most important spots (own
    zone end boards, own zone side boards, ozone blue line) will results in more
    possession and therefore more goals and therefore more wins. Source
  • Domenic Galamini, Hockey Graphs:
    It turns out that an unsuitably handed
    defenseman must have a CorsiRel that is greater than or equal to 6.2 Corsi events
    / 60 better than a suitably handed alternative in order to be the better
    option to pair with a partner-less defenseman on the roster. Source
That is some kind of gap, and as Domenic’s article shows there is an increasing recognition across the league. Does that apply to Edmonton?
  • Total minutes played by all Oilers defensemen in 2015-16: 9,534 (approximately)
  • Total minutes played by all Oilers RH defensemen in 2015-16: 3,318 (approximately)
  • Percentage of total minutes played by RH D in 2015-16: 35
  • Source
What does this tell us? Well, it shows us that the trend toward even billing for lefty-righty hasn’t yet reached Edmonton, and it gives us something to watch over the spring and summer. Let me ask you something: If the Oilers analytics department figured this out, and the management group signed off on the logic and reason, how many lefties would be leaving, and how many righties would be coming in?

CURRENT ALIGNMENT

This is not optimal based on the information above, and many of those names on the left side were acquired by Peter Chiarelli. One of them, Griffin Reinhart, was acquired at great cost even though another youngster, Darnell Nurse, appeared to block him.

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

I think this might be a fun item to follow this spring and summer. Will we see any evidence the Oilers have noticed the trend? Will they be able to send out some lefty shooters and bring in some righthanders? We wait.
(Photo by Mark Williams)
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