MELTZER'S MUSINGS: COUTURIER AND THE HANDZUS MODEL
If analytics had been widely used in the early-to-mid 2000s, it would be interesting to see how former Flyers center
Michal Handzus compared to current Flyers center
Sean Couturier in areas such as zone starts and difficulty of competition.
Anecdotal evidence -- the old-fashioned eyeball test -- suggests that Handzus was used at the beginning by then-coach
Ken Hitchcock in a pretty similar fashion to how Couturier was deployed the last couple years by now-former Flyers coach
Craig Berube: a lot of five-on-five shutdown duties, secondary unit power play time, and eventually being asked to shoulder a little bigger offensive load.
Back in the early 2000s, when scoring leaguewide was hitting its pre-lockout nadir, the Flyers got back-to-back 20-goal seasons out of third-line center Handzus. A former Selke Trophy first runner-up with St. Louis, Handzus had seasons of 23 and 20 goals when he came to Philadelphia. In his second season in Philly, Handzus finished eighth in the Selke balloting (including two second-place votes and five votes for third-place) while producing 58 points. In the meantime, Handzus posted a solid 51.5 percent faceoff percentage in his Flyers career and was a combined plus-30 in his three seasons.
It wasn't like Handzus had elite-caliber offensive linemates, at least in his first year. At five-on-five in 2002-03, he mostly played with
Donald Brashear and
Radovan Somik on his wings. On the power play, as noted above, he primarily got second-unit time.
Additionally, it wasn't like Handzus was blessed with being a better skater than Couturier, enabling the big Slovak to get the puck from a defensemen and speed up the ice. While Couturier is an average skater in a straight line, Handzus was downright slow even in his prime. He scored his goals through guile, muscle and deceptively good hands. Handzus rarely, if ever, got separation in a footrace.
However, keep in mind that Handzus had some benefits that Couturier does not have. For one thing, the Flyers of the pre-cap era were very deep through the middle -- Handzus slotted behind
Jeremy Roenick and
Keith Primeau -- as well as on the wings (
Mark Recchi,
Simon Gagne, and the declining but still dangerous
John LeClair and
Tony Amonte were all there). Meanwhile, the Flyers' blueline group of the era, anchored by
Kim Johnsson and aging but savvy
Eric Desjardins with a very capable supporting cast such as
Marcus Ragnarsson and
Eric Weinrich was much better than the current group in triggering breakouts.
It should also be noted that, in Handzus' 58-point season of 2003-04, Hitchcock increasingly used Handzus in offensive situations -- playing with Recchi, for example -- and put Primeau into more of a shutdown defensive role to share the burdens between the two players. That's why it would have been interesting to see what the analytics would have said in terms of zone starts and opposition faced in 2002-03 (23 goals, 44 points for Handzus) versus 2003-04 (three fewer goals but 14 more points).
From an analytics standpoint, this is what is known about the specifics of Handzus' usage in his Flyers career: he averaged 18:23 of total ice time per game in his three seasons under Hitchcock, including 3:07 of penalty killing time and 2:02 of power play time (2:36 of power play time in his second and third seasons).
How does this relate to the present day? Several ways. The Flyers' decision to re-sign Couturier to a six-year contract extension beyond the expiration next summer of his current deal seems to be staked on a belief that there is a more consistently potent offensive game within Couturier -- one that is not simply a matter of his linemates, but rather a bigger-picture plan of trying to create some of the favorable bigger-picture conditions that enabled Handzus to thrive a decade ago as one of the more underrated 200-foot players in the NHL.
1) The Flyers are in the process of reshaping their blueline corps. The Flyers are investing a lot of drafting and development emphasis on building a corps of mobile two-way defensemen. That first pass from the defensive zone, ability to skate the puck out of trouble as necessary and the ability to make intelligent pinches to retain possession in the offensive zone go a long way toward making life a lot easier on the forwards (so long as they, too, hold up their end of the bargain). Doing these things with greater consistency means that the team as a whole spends much less time defending and more time attacking. These are the areas that new head
Dave Hakstol must succeed in transferring from collegiate-level success to the NHL.
2) Although they are still hamstrung by the salary cap, the Flyers are trying to build more support for the top line duo of
Claude Giroux and
Jakub Voracek and not to rely so heavily on the first power unit -- Giroux, Voracek,
Mark Streit,
Wayne Simmonds and
Brayden Schenn -- to carry the team offensively. Couturier will be among the players asked to be part of the offensive depth solution.
3) The current-day Flyers have no one close to the caliber of Primeau to share shutdown-duty burdens with Couturier. However, the emergence of a player such as
Scott Laughton over the next couple years as a two-way NHL player could immensely help in distributing the weight a little more evenly.
For all the heat that Berube took -- and this was something he justifiably used to point out at the end of some of his media sessions -- what other viable options did he really have to perform shutdown center duties apart from Couturier? Giroux is the team's offensive catalyst. Was Berube supposed to assign Brayden Schenn or Vincent Lecavalier or a rookie Laughton or someone such as
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare or
Michael Raffl to play center against the other team's top offensive line? Moreover, Berube had to make due with the blueline personnel he had.
Defensively speaking, there were ways to compensate positionally. Constantly harping on conditioning and getting forwards to buy into the notion of constantly keeping their feet moving had more of a positive impact than some of the coach's critics wanted to give credit but inconsistency was an ongoing issue. That was why the Flyers could often knock off the top teams in the NHL but they seemed lethargic against other clubs.
Heading into the 2015-16 season, the Flyers remain a bubble team just as they were under Berube. Hakstol cannot be expected to be a miracle worker. Moving ahead, as long as the Flyers' build-from-the-back-end-out plan works as hoped, the team should be more potent on the ice and also be in a much better cap situation to add pieces up front.
In the short term, Couturier will be counted on to be one of the step-up players who helps to get a bubble team back into the playoffs. In the longer-term, as Couturier reaches his mid-to-late 20s (the prime of most players' careers), he will need to become the type of player who can regularly produce offensive seasons like the ones Handzus gave the Flyers for a few years without compromising defensive acumen.
Berube used perennial Selke Trophy favorite
Patrice Bergeron as a comparison player for the type of player he wanted Couturier to become. Some folks scoffed at that idea, based on Couturier's use. However, it really is not asking too much of Couturier to ask him to become a superior version -- or, at bare minimum, an equal -- to Handzus at his Flyers' peak.
If Handzus could be a 23-goal scorer in the so-called dead puck era playing a shutdown role with enforcer Brashear and the reticent Somik as his linemates, it rings rather hollow to say that the single reason Couturier scored 13 and 15 goals the last two years is that he had
Matt Read and, for much of last season,
R.J. Umberger as linemates. Although neither played well last season, at least they've both been 20-goal scorers in the NHL.
Couturier has yet to reach the 40-point mark in the NHL through four pro seasons. He can do better than that. Even at the major junior level a player does not lead a league in scoring one year and place in the top four another year if he has no offensive skills, nor does he flirt with a point-per-game in the American Hockey League (while admittedly not playing his best hockey during the NHL lockout). The "bad hands" argument doesn't wash. It's more a matter of confidence than anything else. As for the speed issue, as noted above, Handzus was one of the NHL's slower skaters even in his prime and he still found ways to score because he was a smart player as well as one who was very strong physically.
Above all, Couturier needs to dig a little deeper to bring out his offensive game on a more consistent basis. The hot streaks have been there during his NHL career to date but the droughts tend to go on for too long. The Flyers believe he can do it and just gave him a vote of confidence in the form of his new long-term contract and large-scale raise.
Couturier is still just 22 years old. He's not a finished product yet but that does not mean, as a fifth year pro, he is not ready to start making his move toward fulfilling his potential. He has room to grow even defensively as well as offensively. He can get better on faceoffs. He can continue to add muscle to his frame. He can build on some of the things he did in the offensive zone late last season in conjunction with Schenn and Read. In short, Couturier has barely scratched the surface of his capabilities.
If Couturier stagnates at his current level of development, it won't be Hakstol's fault any more than it was Berube's. It won't be because of his linemates or his zone starts or the players he's asked to check. Ultimately, a player has to look in the mirror.
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TODAY IN FLYERS HISTORY FROM FlyersAlumni.org
1981: The Flyers extend the contract of
Tom "T.J." Gorence.
1986: The Flyers sign Hershey Bears small but feisty and offensive-minded defenseman
Steve Smith to a one-year contract extension. The former Flyers first-round pick (16th overall, 1981) has played 12 NHL games for the Flyers over parts of three seasons and will dress in two additional games in 1986-87.
1999: The Flyers sign defenseman
Karl Dykhuis, now in his second stint with the team, to a three-year contract extension.
Alumni Birthdays
Four Flyers Alumni share August 18th birthdays. Early expansion era fan favorite tough guy
Forbes Kennedy was born Aug. 18, 1935 in Dorchester, New Brunswick. Left winger
Bruce Cowick, a callup for eight games during the 1974 Stanley Cup playoffs, was born Aug. 18, 1951 in Victoria, British Columbia. Mid-to-late 1980s depth forward
Brian Dobbin was born Aug. 18, 1966 in Petrolia, Ontario. Gritty defensive defenseman
Ossi Väänänen, who spent 46 games with the Flyers in 2008-09 before being lost on waivers to the Vancouver Canucks, was born Aug. 18, 1980 in Vantaa, Finland.
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The Flyers Alumni will host a fantasy hockey camp from August 21-24 in Atlantic City, open to anyone age 21 and older. Instructors and Alumni participants will include
Bernie Parent,
Brian Propp,
Ian Laperriere,
Todd Fedoruk,
Andre "Moose" Dupont,
Dave "the Hammer" Schultz,
Joe Watson and
Bob "the Hound" Kelly.
Proceeds from Fantasy Camp will benefit Flyers Charities and the Flyers Alumni Association.
Camp participants will be split into teams and will have the opportunity to practice with Alumni coaches at Flyers Skate Zone Atlantic City. The weekend will culminate in a round-robin style tournament on Saturday. A goalie clinic with Parent as well as a skills competition are also planned.
The Saturday schedule is as follows:
10 a.m. – 11:15 a.m. – “Team CDW” on-ice practice session, coached by Fedoruk and Propp.
11:30 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. – “Team River Rock” on-ice practice session, coached by Parent and Joe Watson.
1 p.m. – 2:15 p.m. – “Team Toyota” on-ice practice session, coached by Laperriere and Schultz.
2:30 p.m. – 4 p.m. – All-participants skills competition. Events include fastest skater, puck control serpentine, hardest shot, and breakaway shootout.
2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. – Goalie clinic with Hockey Hall of Famer Parent.
4:15 p.m. – First game of Fantasy Camp, “Team CDW” (Fedoruk/Propp) vs. “Team River Rock” (Parent/Watson).
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