Yesterday

on TSN 1040, midday show co-host Blake Price, whose opinion I am usually

inclined to agree with, delivered an editorial on Brandon Sutter. The gist of

the argument was as follows: Brandon Sutter’s $4.375 million salary is not an

overpayment, by virtue of his goal total, his faceoff prowess, his penalty

killing, and, as the icing on the cake, his willingness to play through injury.

As

respectfully as I could possibly put this, I don’t believe that I could

possibly be more opposed to this argument. While Sutter’s goal total is indeed

worthy of distinction, I would quibble with the value of the rest of the

evidence provided. Indeed, I wouldn’t accept it outright that Sutter is even

benefitting the team.

And so

my theory is going to be the logical opposite of Price’s: No, $4.375 million is

not a reasonable price tag for Brandon Sutter, and I’ll explain why.

I’ll predicate what is going to be a very lengthy essay on Brandon Sutter by saying that I’m not trying to go after Blake Price specifically. After all, as I mentioned, I tend to concur with the majority of his opinions, plus he was nice enough to allow me on his radio show earlier this week (his show, his show, his show). Rather, I just have a special interest in Brandon Sutter – namely that he’s overpaid and his excessive deployment is pumping up what should otherwise be pedestrian counting stats, while in the meantime causing more problems than he solves on the ice.

Nevertheless, Price has afforded me a list of traits that many others have referenced in defence of Brandon Sutter, so they have become convenient points around which to structure my argument. Let’s get into it.

Goal

Total

Brandon

Sutter has two offensive assets going for him: his speed, and his shot, both of

which are above average at the NHL level. He’s been termed a “one-shot

scorer” because he “doesn’t need many chances to get one to go

in”. He possesses a sneaky wrist shot that’s shown plenty of success off

of the rush, particularly from the right side, and he’s had his share of tips,

deflections, and garbage goals to pad his total, as most goal scorers do.

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All

told, purely based on games played and remaining, Sutter is on pace for exactly

20 goals this season, which is the expectation that management has generated

for him since acquiring him. He has consistently been referred to as a

“20-goal scorer” because he has reached the 20-goal plateau. He has

done so exactly two times in his eight-year career, both times peaking at 21

goals. So I’d find Blake Price’s presumption of “22-24 goals”, as

noted in the editorial, a bit premature. The low end of that range, meant to

indicate something that he can accomplish with consistency, is one higher than

he has ever managed in his career.

This

isn’t to say that goals are bad, or that scoring 20 goals isn’t impressive in

today’s NHL – we all know the Canucks have precious few players capable of

doing it. But it isn’t the total number of goals that he’s piling up, but how

he’s doing it that is concerning.

Brandon

Sutter is third among Canucks forwards in all situations ice time, behind only

Henrik Sedin and Loui Eriksson. He’d have Eriksson beat if he hadn’t missed

Tuesday’s game again Pittsburgh, and is just three seconds behind Henrik

Sedin in average ice time per game. Even with that missed game, Sutter ranks

22nd in the NHL in total ice time (the Canucks inexplicably have four players

in the top 30 for ice time), sandwiched directly in between Jamie Benn and Kyle

Okposo, and not far off of players like Tyler Seguin, Mikael Granlund, and

Wayne Simmonds. Pretty impressive company. In such company, his 15 goals look

rather modest. His 0.83 all situations goals per 60 minutes (G60) puts him

behind 144 forwards with at least 100 minutes played.

Perhaps

more alarming is his 5-on-4 ice time. His 157 minutes with a single-man

advantage ranks 39th among NHL forwards, within just a few minutes of Patrice

Bergeron, Leon Draisaitl and Max Pacioretty. In this company, his four power

play goals are pretty underwhelming. His 1.52 5-on-4 goals per 60 minutes puts

him behind 98 forwards with at least 50 power play minutes.

The

overarching point here is there Sutter’s goal totals have been, in a way,

manufactured by Willie Desjardins insistence on playing him so much. Those goal

totals then reinforce Willie’s notion that Sutter is a strong offensive player,

and Jim Benning’s notion that Sutter is worth north of $4 million. The massive

amount of ice time is obscuring the fact that Sutter is scoring at the rate of

a middle six forward, then run out on to the ice over and over until he becomes

a 20-goal scorer by sheer stubbornness.

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That by

itself is not a crime. However, it takes ice time away from teammates like Bo

Horvat, who is a more efficient scorer in any given situation. What’s worse is

that Sutter’s underlying metrics indicate that the more time he spends on the

ice, the further the team slips into the red. But we’ll get to that later on.

Faceoff

Prowess

Faceoffs

are, to a great extent, overrated by almost everyone in hockey that hasn’t

spent the time digging into or reading up on the subject from a statistical

perspective. Be it a lifetime analyst, a current professional player, or a

brand new fan, faceoffs are seen as vitally important, because their value

appears to be intrinsic. Winning a faceoff means gaining possession of the

puck, and we are told by both the old and new schools that puck possession is

important.

I have

an article in progress on this very subject, so I won’t get too in depth with

it at this point, but the underlying message is this: faceoffs are worth far

less than you think they are. The data indicating this has been around for

some time. Take for instance Michael Schuckers’ assertion that it requires, onaverage, 76.5 faceoff wins for a single goal. Faceoffs have been analyzed in

excruciating detail since then, but you need look

no further than Jeff Veillette’s article earlier this week, in which he

assigned goal value’s to each of Toronto’s centres based purely on their

faceoff numbers.

While a

similar exercise for the entire Canucks roster may be of interest, for now I’ll

give you the goal differential Brandon Sutter has generated due to his faceoff

percentages:

Zone Strength FO/G FO FOW FO% Goals +/- GAR Off EV 80.2 227 129 56.8% 1.61 0.27 Neu EV 170.4 269 138 51.3% 0.81 0.06 Def EV 80.2 291 163 56.0% 2.03 0.31 Off PP 35.4 93 59 63.4% 1.67 0.42 Neu PP 128.6 15 11 73.3% 0.09 0.03 Def PP 35.4 3 1 33.3% 0.03 -0.01 Off SH 35.4 118 64 54.2% 1.81 0.23 Neu SH 128.6 22 10 45.5% 0.08 0.00 Def SH 35.4 118 64 54.2% 1.81 0.23 Total 9.92 1.53

Faceoff data via Puckbase.com

While 9.92 is a decent number of goals over a large portion of the season (it would be worth approximately three standings points, according to Schuckers), we have to remember that if it weren’t Sutter taking these faceoffs, it would be someone else. The far right column of the graphs indicates Goals Against Replacement – a very simple version that fits Sutter’s number against a replacement level centre, given a faceoff percentage of 47.4% (borrowed from Matt Cane’s article on the subject) across the board. This gives Sutter’s faceoff prowess a Goals Above Replacement of 1.53 – just over a goal and a half, or one half of a standings point, roughly three quarters of the way through the season.

If you

find that to be entirely underwhelming, it’s because faceoffs, and faceoff

prowess, are entirely underwhelming. Certainly not something that hockey

executives should be paying extra money to obtain.

Penalty

Killing

There’s

a saying that suggests that all one needs to do to be labeled a “good

penalty killer” is to play a lot on the penalty kill. If the NHL coach

keeps sending the player out there shorthanded time and time again, it must indicate that the player is effective in that role, since coaches want to win.

This is

of course ignores the fact that coaches do a whole lot of things in the name of

winning that don’t necessarily lead to winning.

In this

situation, the perception isn’t entirely wrong. Brandon Sutter actually has

some of the team’s best penalty killing numbers. Although this doesn’t

completely make him good at it, so much as just better than the rest of the

team, which has been largely abysmal when down a man.

Sutter’s

only real competition among centres on the penalty kill is Bo Horvat, seeing as

neither Henrik Sedin, Brendan Gaunce or Michael Chaput has seen significant

time shorthanded: each has each that 30 minutes of 4-on-5 time (with Gaunce and

Chaput closer to 10 minutes), compared to Sutter and Horvat’s 107 and 99

minutes respectively.

As for

Horvat, it pains me to say that he’s been terrible on the penalty kill. Of all

Canucks players with at least 20 minutes of 4-on-5 time on ice, Horvat has the

highest (read: worst) rate of unblocked shots against, expected goals against,

and actual goals against. Sutter, meanwhile, is bested only by Loui Eriksson in

unblocked shots against per 60 minutes (FA60), and by a handful of players in

expected and actual goals against per 60 minutes.

Of

course, that’s only relative to the rest of the Canucks. Against the backdrop

of a team with the seventh worst penalty kill in the NHL (78.6%), it isn’t hard

to look impressive. Against the rest of the NHL, Sutter looks decidedly more

average.

There

are 65 NHL forwards with at least 50 minutes of 4-on-5 time this season that

have allowed a lower rate of unblocked shots per 60 minutes, out of a sample of

170. There are 83 such players allowing a lower rate of goals against, and 136

such players allowing a lower rate of scoring chances against.

Compared

to the rest of the NHL’s penalty killing forwards, Sutter is performing just

slightly above average in some areas, like suppressing unblocked shots and

shots-on-net against, but slightly below average where it counts, like

suppressing scoring chances and expected goals against.

All in

all, Sutter appears to deserve the distinction of “adequate penalty

killer”, which in and of itself is not a bad thing. But as with faceoffs,

it’s not something that you should be paying through the nose for. After all,

the vast majority of those players that are suppressing power play offence more

effectively than Sutter are doing so for much less money.

Willingness

to Play Through Injury

This may

be far and away the toughest trait to quantify, for a variety of reasons. While

we have ways of assessing the how a team is disadvantaged (and in some cases,

aided) when players are out of the lineup thanks to websites like Man Games Lost, we have a much tougher

time analyzing players who are playing hurt. This is because our main source

of determining injury in large sample is when players miss games due to

injury. If the player is playing the game, we don’t know that they’re injured

unless we’re following closely – easy enough to do for single cases, but

impossible to do for every player, every game, every year. That doesn’t make

for very reliable testing under the scientific method.

This

doesn’t even begin to cope with the fact that injuries can be perceived on a

continuum, and some are obviously worse than others. Playing through a bone

bruise is surely not the same as playing through cracked ribs, which in itself

is very different than playing through a broken foot or hand – and yet each

injury most certainly effects a player’s performance.

One of

the only indicators we have of how much pain a player is playing through is by

self-report, in addition to their general pained expressions. Of course, each

of these is entirely subjective and directly tied to a player’s pain tolerance,

which we have no method of measuring.

In the

end, the only thing that we are capable of measuring is a player’s performance

on an individual basis. Thursday night in St. Louis, Sutter scored a goal and

won 50% of his faceoffs, which certainly makes it seem like a success. Granted,

the goal was a deflection (deft as it was) that had no business beating a

goalie like Jake Allen through the five-hole, and we’ve already gone over the

true value of faceoffs. Even then, Brendan Gaunce, who was in the press box

last night, is 51.0% in the faceoff circle this year. Additionally, he also deflected a goal into his own net, which should probably make his goal a wash.

Outside

of the actual results, Sutter was having an off night, even by his standards.

An injury in his right wrist made it difficult to put any velocity on his shot

(as pointed out by John Garrett in the broadcast), and likely resulted in him

taking fewer faceoffs than normal. He was replaced Jayson Megna for the most

part on the top unit power play, and while he was on the ice when the Canucks

pulled their goalie for an extra attacker in the waning minutes, trailing by a

goal, his most noticeable contribution was an errant pass that fled the

attacking zone and killed the play.

Hockey

culture tends to deify players that “gut it out” and play through

various injuries and ailments, without really ever asking this simple question:

at which point does the player’s injury make him less valuable than the next

available player on the roster? Even if the question is asked, a satisfying and

scientific answer is never attempted.

It’s

just one more thing that I am hesitant – bordering on resistant – to put a

dollar amount on in contract negotiations.

True

Player Value

So we’ve

gone through each one of the individual traits and discussed why I would not

be placing a premium on them. So what is Brandon Sutter’s value?

Before

answering that, we’ll go back to the fundamentals of hockey analytics – namely,

the first two of the Ten Laws of Hockey Analytics.

The

first rule is that nothing is more important than wins. They are why you play

the game (outside of enjoying it of course), and they are the most necessary

ingredient in climbing the standings, making the playoffs, and succeeding in

the playoffs.

Wins, of

course, only come about because of goals. That’s why the second rule is that

goals are the most important factors in wins. Sure, everything else in the game

of hockey is a component of goals, be it shots, saves, passes, turnovers,

takeaways and so on. Even intangibles like compete level and leadership only

have value because somewhere done the line, they eventually lead to goals, and

subsequently wins.

With

that in mind, one of the most important things for a player is to be on the ice

for more goals for than goals against. This is extraordinarily simple logic.

The logic that makes it obvious that scoring more goals than an opponent means

winning. It’s the same logic that prompts old school hockey people to pour

faith into plus-minus. And it’s the same logic that keeps risky, high event

players like Jordan Subban in the minors until they can sufficiently dull their

game to the point where their goals against are clearly and consistently fewer

than their goals for.

Apply

this logic to Brandon Sutter, and you will be left wanting. Among 436 NHL

forwards with at least 100 minutes played at 5-on-5, Sutter’s 40% goals for

percentage ranks 357th. On the Canucks, he ranks 12th out of 14, with Jayson

Megna, Michael Chaput, and Jack Skille all netting better results – and each

for less than $1 million.

Even

outside of comparing him against other players, that abysmal ratio means that

for every two goals he is on the ice for, he’s on the ice for three against.

When you consider that this player averages the fourth most 5-on-5 time on ice

per game on his team, it’s no wonder that the Canucks struggle to keep their

heads above water. One of their most used players is an anchor dragging them

under.

Even if

you were to control for save percentages (which forwards have little to no

influence on), Sutter doesn’t show well by any method of shot shares.

Player Season CF% FF% SF% xGF% SCF% GF% BRANDON.SUTTER 20162017 47.18 46.1 46.53 46.03 42.31 39.89

Score and venue adjusted data via Corsica.hockey

While

some may still scoff at analysis based on these numbers (though that group is

growing ever smaller), the fact of the matter is that the statistics are highly

predictive of future success (and failure) – expected goals in particular.

Another measure with a high degree of predictability is DTMAboutHeart’s attempt at a single-number metric, WAR. Due to his series of injuries last season, you won’t find a WAR value for Sutter’s 2015-16 season. Nor will you find one for his 2014-15 season with the Penguins. You can however find a value for each of the six prior seasons, ranging from 2008-09 to 2013-14. The results are not appealing.

Season Team EV_O

WAR EV_D

WAR PP_O

WAR DRAW

WAR TAKE

WAR FAC

WAR OVERALL 20132014 PIT -0.11 0.03 0.0 -0.53 -0.23 0.01 -0.83 20122013 PIT -0.05 -0.04 0.0 -0.34 0.26 0.02 -0.15 20112012 CAR 0.09 0.03 0.0 -0.39 -0.12 0.07 -0.32 20102011 CAR 0.02 0.05 0.0 -0.31 -0.16 0.01 -0.39 20092010 CAR 0.11 -0.08 0.3 -0.23 0.15 0.03 0.28 20082009 CAR -0.02 0.03 0.0 -0.13 -0.36 -0.14 -0.62

Data via DTMAboutHeart and Hockey-Graphs.com

If you aren’t familiar with the concept of WAR, it’s originally a baseball statistic that stands for wins above replacement. Attempts have often been made to convert it to hockey, and DTMAboutHeart’s version is the latest and most prevalent iteration. The basic idea is that each component is compared against a pre-determined replacement level (in rough theory, the best player outside of all 30 NHL lineups), and then converted in to Wins. The overall total represents the total wins above (or below) what a replacement level player with be worth under the exact same circumstances.

From left to right, the components are even strength offence, even strength defence, power play offence, drawing penalties, taking penalties, and faceoffs. As you can see from the final column, Brandon Sutter has been below replacement level for most of his career. And it’s not like he was trending upward with age.

It’s likely that he would have been a positive player in WAR in 2014-15, scoring 21 goals that year (much like in 2009-10, the only other year he was above replacement level. It’s also possible that he will be above replacement level this season, given his goal trends. That’s the nice thing about pumping out offence: it covers the warts. But it doesn’t eliminate them. Even in season above replacement level, he is only just so. The 2015-16 Canucks, as bad as they were, finishing 28th in the league, had 13 players with a higher WAR than Sutter accrued in 2009-10.

The long and short of it is that Brandon Sutter does not add much value beyond a replacement level player, and as such he shouldn’t be compensated much more than one. Of course, the fact that given the opportunity, Sutter can produce offence provides him with some intrinsic value. The opposing fact that he damages the team by consistently getting scored on, thus making it more difficult for them to win the more they play him should put a serious dent in his value. Though that doesn’t appear to be the way that current NHL executive’s think.

Sutter’s Market Value

Actual player value is incredibly difficult to determine, because value is largely dictated by the rest of the market. And the rest of the market is consistently willing to shell out large sums of real money for bad reasons.

When the market assesses Sutter’s value, the first thing it looks at is his goal and point totals. Sutter has scored 20 goals in a season before (twice), and thus he is considered a 20-goal scorer even if he’s only done it twice and peaked at 21. The market does not care how he got to 20 goals, nor does it care if more goals are routinely scored in the other direction.

Last season, the average cap hit for forwards that scored between 19 and 23 goals (Sutter’s career high plus-or-minus two goals) was $3,866,563. Of course, that average includes salaries players like Joe Thornton, Nick Backstrom, and Ryan O’Reilly, players in the $6-8.5 million range that scored 82, 70, 67, and 60 points respectfully.

Meanwhile, Brandon Sutter has topped out at 40 points, and is on pace for 38 points this season, despite his inflated ice time. Reducing the list to players that scored at least 20 goals but no more than 40 points, the average salary falls to $3,270,833, more than a million dollars less than Sutter’s average salary. This list also includes players that are reaching these goal and point totals with second or third line minutes, rather than having their ice time in the top 30 of the NHL as Sutter’s is.

To compensate for that excessive ice time, we move to rate stats. Corsica’s Similarity Calculator allows us to find Sutter’s closest comparable players based on individual shot generation (iCF60), expected shooting percentage (ixFSh%), expected on-ice goal data relative to team, and actual production (deployment variables were removed from the formula, but it otherwise remained standard). I’ve added the cap hits of each of the top closest 20 matches (ELC players not included, since their salaries are capped at an outrageously affordable number).

Similarity Player Season iCF60 ixF

Sh% Rel. x

GF60 Rel. x

GA60 G60 A60 P60 Cap Hit 100.00% BRANDON.SUTTER 2016-17 11.49 6.63 -0.07 -0.02 0.62 0.62 1.24 $ 4,375,000 98.27% DANIEL.PAILLE 2009-10 11.34 7.68 -0.08 -0.04 0.53 0.65 1.19 $ 1,125,000 97.64% JAMIE.LUNDMARK 2009-10 10.08 8.79 0.00 -0.01 0.58 0.58 1.15 $ 600,000 97.57% TORREY.MITCHELL 2011-12 10.9 6.66 -0.15 -0.05 0.53 0.73 1.25 $ 1,366,667 97.52% KYLE.TURRIS 2015-16 10.72 7.75 0.05 -0.1 0.65 0.65 1.29 $ 3,500,000 97.47% JASON.ARNOTT 2010-11 13.54 6.81 -0.01 -0.06 0.64 0.64 1.28 $ 4,500,000 97.43% JOHN.MITCHELL 2015-16 9.76 7.76 -0.11 0.05 0.57 0.65 1.22 $ 1,800,000 97.22% BYRON.BITZ 2009-10 10.25 6.82 -0.21 -0.01 0.56 0.68 1.24 $ 687,500 97.11% CURTIS.GLENCROSS 2014-15 10.65 7.67 -0.17 -0.1 0.54 0.72 1.26 $ 2,550,000 97.05% MICHAEL.RYDER 2013-14 12.61 6.96 -0.19 0.03 0.69 0.64 1.33 $ 3,500,000 97.04% SCOTTIE.UPSHALL 2014-15 13.24 6.22 0.00 -0.11 0.64 0.55 1.19 $ 3,500,000 96.88% JANNIK.HANSEN 2013-14 11.09 6.58 0.04 -0.02 0.57 0.51 1.08 $ 1,350,000 96.83% MARTIN.HANZAL 2010-11 14.22 6.66 -0.08 -0.09 0.62 0.62 1.25 $ 1,800,000 96.77% SEAN.COUTURIER 2014-15 11.44 6.42 -0.09 -0.04 0.55 0.83 1.38 $ 1,750,000 96.73% RENE.BOURQUE 2016-17 12.83 5.17 -0.03 0.01 0.6 0.48 1.08 $ 650,000 96.70% DEREK.MACKENZIE 2013-14 11.62 7.27 -0.29 -0.01 0.61 0.61 1.21 $ 1,000,000 96.60% MICHEAL.FERLAND 2016-17 11.67 6.66 -0.18 0.12 0.67 0.56 1.23 $ 825,000 96.60% VIKTOR.STALBERG 2013-14 13.86 6.03 -0.16 -0.06 0.58 0.73 1.31 $ 3,000,000 96.59% BLAKE.COMEAU 2012-13 12.21 6.26 -0.21 -0.12 0.67 0.67 1.34 $ 1,250,000 96.55% BRAD.BOYES 2011-12 10.79 6.37 0.02 0.11 0.53 0.71 1.24 $ 4,000,000 96.49% STEVE.BERNIER 2012-13 12.05 9.12 0.10 0.06 0.57 0.57 1.14 $ 775,000

The average salary of these players is $1,976,458, roughly $2.4 million less than Sutter’s salary.

If there is anything that makes Sutter’s salary reasonable, I have yet to find it.

Conclusion

After considering a great deal of evidence, I am left with the following conclusions regarding the original four points in Sutter’s favour:

His goals, while earned, are the product over being overplayed, which damages the team’s chances of winning.

His faceoff prowess, while legitimate, carries little actual value.

He is not a “good penalty killer”, but rather an adequate one.

one. His willingness to play through injury, while somewhat admirable, is largely unquantifiable, and may easily have done as much harm as good.

None of these factors should lead to a player being paid $4.375 million. Sutter’s statistically assessed value places him closer to replacement level than core player. And finally, players that do what he does – even by raw numbers – can be found around the NHL doing so for much cheaper.

The final conclusion is this: Brandon Sutter is absolutely overpaid at his current wage. The goals, the faceoffs, the all situations play, and the gutting it out form a mirage that influences people into thinking that he is worth far more to his hockey team. They are in fact, to borrow a phrase from Blake Price, just lipstick on a pig.

Faceoff data from Puckbase.com. Salary data from CapFriendly.com. All other data from Corsica.hockey.





