Last season there was plenty of talk about Dion Phaneuf

seemed destined to join the Detroit Red Wings, it seemed like a distinct

possibility at the trade deadline, and we were at the point where many of us

started debating whether taking back Stephen Weiss’ contract would make the

deal worth it. Ultimately Phaneuf never moved, hasn’t moved, and may never

move, but the Leafs have acquired Mike Babcock who may have been the primary

voice in the Wings organization looking to acquire Dion.

From

Babcock’s Welcome Press Conference:

“I’m a fan of

Dion,” Babcock told media on Thursday. “I think he works hard and he

tries hard. I think…you have to help your leaders. I think that’s what your

job is (as coach), is to help them do things right.”

Mike Babcock isn’t short

on experience with working with aging defensemen. During his time in Detroit

the list of blueliners over the age of thirty included: Brad Stuart, Andreas

Lilja, Mathieu Schneider, Chris Chelios, Marek Zidlicky, Ruslan Salei, Niklas

Kronwall, Brian Rafalski, and of course, Nicklas Lidstrom. Babcock has an

excellent track record of guiding aging defensemen into retirement, and getting

the last worthwhile hockey out them, is there hope that he can make six years

of Dion Phaneuf at $7M per season more tolerable than we’d expect?

Justin Bourne highlighted

some of reasoning behind why Babcock and Phaneuf are a solid match and why this

relationship may be given a chance to develop…

“Mike Babcock is a serious, no-nonsense coach

who believes in hard work. You can say a lot of things about Phaneuf, but

there’s no denying he’s all three of those things too. It’s safe to say the

respect is mutual – remember how Detroit really wanted Phaneuf, then Babcock

left, then those talks died down? Not sayin’, just sayin’.”

While these things may be

dealing in less tangible aspects of building the team, these aren’t bad values

to instill in the lineup. I don’t doubt a desire for these qualities is absent

in any other coaches, but the potential for buy-in goes up with Babcock

compared to Carlyle or Horachek, and if Phaneuf has bought in, than he and the

team may be better for it.

Of course, we’re more

interested in the tangible aspects of how to get more out of an expensive, past

his prime defenseman than anything else. The team doesn’t need a second

Stephane Robidas, and it would be nice if the Leafs could get rid of the one

they have.

Looking at Dion’s usage

during his time as a Leaf it seems like there’s a few things worth noting. The

Leafs have been consistently been scaling back his 5v5 ice time (though still

relying heavily on him for special teams), and he’s very much a high event

player. Phaneuf’s Corsi Rel has been tied to the strength of his defensive

partners. His best years, by far came with playing with a healthy Carl

Gunnarsson or Francois Beauchemin, and he suffered as Gunnarsson’s hip

situation worsened and Phaneuf was forced to play with a revolving door of

young players and bounce back and forth from the left and right side of the

ice.

The truth seems to be that

Phaneuf isn’t really capable of carrying a top pairing, but with adequate

support he can be a decent half of it. Fortunately, we are beginning to see the

rise of Morgan Rielly and that may be the opportunity to move Phaneuf into a

more sheltered role, or potentially test the two players together, the answer

to what will be done with Phaneuf probably lies in what Babcock has done in the

past with the Red Wings.

The one player I have

absolutely no intention of comparing Dion to is Nicklas Lidstrom, and that’s

probably because Lidstrom is arguably the greatest defenseman that we’ve seen

over the past 20 years. That said, Lidstrom had a couple of rougher looking

years in his 30s before Rafalski arrived, and the year that Brad Stuart became

his defensive partner. And as you can see below, Brad Stuart is somewhat of a

possession deficit no matter where he’s played.

He would see his numbers rebound in his

retirement season, but played in more sheltered situations with his new

defensive partner, Ian White.

Brian Rafalski definitely

saw some of the best years of his career during his time with Mike Babcock, but

that’s also largely due to Rafalski spending the majority of his time in

Detroit with Nicklas Lidstrom. The Leafs certainly don’t have the opportunity

to pair Phaneuf with anyone of that caliber so the interesting story with

Rafalski mostly comes from his 2010-11 retirement season where Rafalski managed

to put up 44 assists (48 points) with his new defensive partner Jonathan Ericsson.

Certainly the Leafs have defensemen as talented as Jonathan Ericsson available

to play with Phaneuf, but it’s debatable that Phaneuf even now is as good as

Rafalski in his late 30s.

The interesting thing

about the 2010-11 season was that Babcock split up his top pairing of Lidstrom

and Rafalski, and paired Stuart with Lidstrom as his top pairing and Ericsson

with Rafalski as his second. Lidstrom’s numbers suffered while Rafalski thrived

although with a declined quality of competition. It seems reasonable to believe

that Phaneuf also has the potential to thrive in the NHL as a second pairing

defenseman, although there is still the small matter of identifying who on the

Leafs can be that top pairing if Phaneuf slides down the depth chart.

As I alluded to earlier,

Phaneuf is a different type of player than either Lidstrom or Rafalski, and in

the case of Lidstrom definitely not in same class of talent, and with Rafalski,

he at best matches up to some of Rafalski’s later years well past his prime.

However, recently Mike Babcock has worked with a defenseman who’s style is more

comparable to Dion, and that player is Niklas Kronwall.

Kronwall, like Dion, is a

big hitter who contributes offensively, but was at his best when he was the

second or third best defenseman on the team. Like Phaneuf, Kronwall has

recently seen a scaling back of his 5v5 time so that the team can utilize him

more on special teams, but unlike Phaneuf he has benefited from having a

consistent partner over the past few seasons and he’s stuck with Jonathan

Ericsson when Ericsson has been healthy enough to be in the lineup.

The Ericsson-Kronwall

pairing is many ways similar to the Gunnarsson-Phaneuf or Beauchemin-Phaneuf

pairings, as Ericsson is the stronger positional, lower risk player, but still

capable of doing more than chipping the puck out or being as equally high risk.

Prior to this season’s sharp drop off, the last time Kronwall’s relative possession

numbers suffered were when it was his turn to be Brad Stuart’s defensive

partner in 2011-12, and in both seasons he had positive CF%, as did most Wings.

The biggest challenge that

Mike Babcock is going to face with Phaneuf is matching him with a partner, but

also finding an opportunity to move him back into a second pairing. If you view

Morgan Rielly as the top pairing guy and want to use him separate of Phaneuf

you are also taking away the only defensive partner that Phaneuf had that he

was able to combine with for a CF% of 50% (albeit in 66 minutes of ice time

together). The next most successful partner from last season was Jake Gardiner

at 48.9% CF%, but pairing higher risk players together may be a risk, even in a

second pairing setting. Roman Polak and Stephane Robidas not surprisingly didn’t

do so well with Dion, so the best option outside of being on the top pairing

with Rielly may come in the form of Martin Marincin, who’s style is similar to

that of Carl Gunnarsson or Jonathan Ericsson.

Right now it’s pretty

clear that the Leafs aren’t yet to where they want to be with defence, a point

that Mike

Babcock has acknowledged recently:

“We’ve got to find a marquee

defenceman to help us out, for sure. We’ll do that when the time is right.”

If the time isn’t right this

summer, (it probably won’t be) it likely means once again overextending Dion

Phaneuf, either by using him in the top pairing or by giving him a

non-complimentary partner. In the initial stages of the rebuild that seems

unimportant, but if the Leafs are looking to salvage the later years of his

contract, it’s not a need that can be ignored for long. Mike Babcock has done

well with his older defencemen and with a consistent partner and an opportunity

to play within the limits of his game, it seems entirely possible that success

could continue with Phaneuf. We’ll just need to come to terms with the fact his contract is less than ideal.

References:

www.war-on-ice.com

stats.hockeyanalysis.com





