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A lot's been made about Calgary Flames defenseman Jay Bouwmeester this summer. I suspect a lot of it has to do with Calgary's desire to shed some of their heavy internal cap, but it's also lands on a pretty favorable mark when it comes to your basic supply // demand curve. Supply's pretty low -- be it through players available in trade, or unrestricted free agents who have yet to sign with a new team -- and demand's pretty high. Ergo, good trade spot.
If the demand part of that statement needs any qualification, look no further than a team like the Philadelphia Flyers, who effectively lost Chris Pronger(expected) and Andrej Meszaros(unexpected) to injury this off-season. Philadelphia's just one example -- you could find a half-dozen examples of National Hockey League clubs needing to fill a blue line void for one reason or another.
Perhaps it's because there's still some doubt about the health of the Ottawa Senators defensive corps for next year, but I've been getting a ton of questions over the past few weeks about Jay Bouwmeester and whether or not the interest he's generated in the blogosphere is warranted.
At a $6.68M hit through the 2013-2014 season, Bouwmeester doesn't come cheap in literal terms -- only teams with a serious amount of cap space can enter trade negotiations with Calgary. Because of Bouwmeester's diminished offensive output and pricy tag, the return Calgary's expected to haul in assets -- should they decide to move the Edmonton, Alberta native -- probably isn't indicative of his natural value, which is a small win for any trade suitor.
Still, the numbers on the surface aren't overwhelming. Bouwmeester's failed to crack the thirty-point threshold in three consecutive years -- a far cry from the four strong seasons he pieced together with the Florida Panthers.
The drop-off is substantial, but it's impossible to ignore that it directly correlates with Bouwmeester's move from Florida to Calgary in July of 2009. At the very least, it's enough to warrant some investigation into a belief that his depreciating play may have to do with external variables, and not solely a decline in skill set at the age of twenty-eight.
While many would readily admit that the Calgary Flames organization may have not been the best fit for Jay Bouwmeester, it's not as if his prior club -- the Florida Panthers -- were a lightning rod of success.
Can other statistics help explain Bouwmeester's struggles, or is the once highly-talented OFD really experiencing full-fledged decline? Let's take a look at some advanced numbers from last year for a bit more in-depth analysis.
Up first, Rob Vollman's Player Usage Charts for the Calgary Flames. You'll note the x-axis indicates offensive zone starts(or, point potential); the y-axis indicates quality of competition; the bubble size indicates Corsi Relative, where big blue bubbles indicate large positive shot differentials, and big white bubbles indicate large negative shot differentials..
Interestingly enough, a pure puck-mover like Jay Bouwmeester was used in more defensive situations than most any player on the team -- a startling find, considering Bouwmeester's alleged defensive inefficiency over the years. It's a questionable decision by the Calgary Flames coaching staff to employ this kind of methodology, but it's also fair to note that this team was ravaged by injuries -- so much so, the decision to lean on one of their very few blue-line veterans may have been more forced than anything else.
You'll note that Bouwmeester wasn't really strong with shot differentials -- he was on the ice for more against than for, a common theme among Calgary Flames players last year. When you're a bad team and consistently getting out-gunned, these kind of negative differentials will show up regularly, and seeing other talents like Jarome Iginla, Curtis Glencross, Michael Cammalleri, and Alex Tanguay running negatives is hardly surprising.
[
Note: It also speaks to the awesomeness of Mikael Backlund -- tough, defensive-oriented minutes, and he dominated.]
What we have is an average point-producer being paid like an elite offensive defenseman on a pretty awful hockey club last year. It's a mixed-bag of positives and negatives, but there's still some elements to consider.
For starters, Jay Bouwmeester's most common pairing was Chris Butler -- a solid but relatively unspectacular blue liner. Butler may or may not be a top-four blue liner, but a rock-solid first-pairing type he is not. One could say the same about Jay Bouwmeester -- he's an OFD that would be ultimately more productive in insulated, offensive-oriented minutes. Paired together against the league's most skilled forwards in defensive minutes, the two really never had a chance.
I'm not sure how you combat the issue if you're Calgary -- there weren't a ton of choices, and Butler's good enough to at least temporarily get the job done. The idea here, though, is that a trade for Bouwmeester -- and subsequent promotion into his new team's top-four -- would find him skating along a player of equal or better talent in almost any other situation, which should drastically improve his performance metrics.
What I do find particularly interesting, though, is that this kind of uphill battle isn't anything new to Jay Bouwmeester. Even when he was a point-producing machine with Florida, his most common pairmates were Bryan Allen('07-'08) and Karlis Skrastins('08-'09; his most common opponents includes Alex Ovechkin(2x), Nicklas Backstrom(1x), and Ilya Kovalchuk(1x). Florida wasn't a great team back then, either, so it speaks even more to the play of Bouwmeester during those big seasons in Sunrise.
I think the idea that Bouwmeester will succeed in a better environment -- especially when pegged against Calgary and Florida in the past -- is universally held, but it doesn't explain as to the how and why Bouwmeester suddenly stopped scoring. Is it some flukish statistical anomaly, or is there a reason why his numbers took a nosedive after the deal?
Luckily, we don't need advanced statistics to find one of the big reasons why Bouwmeester quieted. The focus has and always will remain on the goals and assists column, but I've always tried to emphasize the importance of shots and scoring opportunities -- two in-game functions that will lead to inevitable scoring.
Bouwmeester, for whatever reason, has simply stopped shooting the puck when on the ice. In four seasons with the Florida Panthers (46 PTS; 42 PTS; 37 PTS; 42 PTS; respectively), Bouwmeester was averaging about 182 shots per season, or 2.2 per game. His shooting percentage clocked in at 6.5%. In three seasons with the Calgary Flames? 119 shots on average, or 1.45 per game. His shooting percentage here clocked in at a paltry 3.4%.
That is quite statistically significant. Whether or not Bouwmeester's been encouraged to slow it down by coaches or this is a choice he's made internally, it's a poor career choice, and needs to be solved sooner rather than later.
With the above taken into context, it's hard to really find a reason -- salary cap limitations withstanding -- not to make a pitch for a potentially-discounted Jay Bouwmeester. If the buyer is a playoff-caliber club, Bouwmeester should indulge in more offensive zone starts with better surrounding talent, and may quickly find the scoring touch that he once possessed down in Florida.
Bouwmeester's may not be your household shutdown name, but in the right scenario, he's a scoring opportunity generator that could find an alleged second-wind -- even if the rest of us know his first-wind was never really lost.
Back with more tomorrow.
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