The truth about Jamie Drysdale

A couple of days ago, I attempted to complete a project that I really wanted to start from the onset of this regular season. I wanted to explore the nuances of Jamie Drysdale’s game. I wanted to dive into the tape, and really get into the weeds of where he excels and where he falls short. As things stand currently? I can’t do that.

I can’t do it because micro-level analysis essentially misses the point where Drysdale is concerned. There’s something wrong on a fundamental level right now. And until that fundamental flaw is fixed, it’s impossible to actually pick out consistent strengths and consistent weaknesses.

The impossibility of that task is best explained if you know what the fundamental flaw is. In a nutshell? It’s his inactivity with the puck. He does nothing with the puck at even strength. He’s no more active with the puck than Nick Seeler or Erik Johnson is. He’s a hell of a lot more gifted than those two are, but he isn’t applying those gifts.

Because he’s so inactive with the puck, that manifests as Drysdale spending in an inordinate amount of time defending. In a normal shift, a defenseman will touch the puck at least once. In that first puck touch, the player has the opportunity to make a play that pushes the puck up ice. It generates a controlled exit. Maybe that controlled exit leads to a rush. Maybe you can join that rush you triggered, especially with Drysdale’s speed. He can really catch up to the play, even if he’s the last man back in the defensive zone.

Someone like Cam York–not the fastest skater on earth–won’t be able to join a rush as frequently when he’s the one retrieving the puck in the defensive zone. But Drysdale can cover a full 200 feet at NHL speed if he ever gave himself the chance.

He’s not generating that exit. And because he isn’t generating that exit, there’s no ensuing rush where he can help his team generate a controlled entry. And because there’s no opportunity to create an entry, there’s no chance to make a play off of the rush for a scoring chance. There’s no chance to pinch on a forecheck and recover a loose puck to make another play in the offensive zone for another scoring chance.

That’s two scoring chances in a shift that Drysdale never had the opportunity to be a part of. Because he just isn’t doing anything with the puck. Quality puck touches begets more puck touches, and more puck touches begets more offense. More offense precludes the possibility of ever playing defense, because only one team has the puck at a given time.

If Drysdale’s team has the puck because he made a quality play with it to maintain possession for his team, then it quite literally does not matter how much he sucks at defense or how much he sucks at defense. It’d be a moot point because he’s never actually defending.

Where Drysdale is at currently, the opposite effect is occurring. Because he’s never making a quality play to get his team out of the defensive zone and stretch the ice with possession, he’s always allowing the other team to come at him. He has to play defense all the time because he struggles to actually get the puck moving in the other direction.

In place of accurate passes or well-timed carry sequences to beat a forechecker, he throws out inaccurate or ill-conceived passes or just desperate dump-outs that become icings or regroup opportunities for the other team in the neutral zone.

Creating dead plays at this rate leads to a game-state where he’s always defending. And it’s actually unfair to evaluate his true defensive abilities in this kind of environment, because he creates a situation for himself where making a mistake defensively is just a matter of time.

Until this phenomenon dies, and Drysdale becomes the ace puck mover that was promised, analyzing his game is an exercise in futility.

A good example on the Flyers of this effect in reverse is Matvei Michkov. Matvei Michkov’s off-puck play is far from perfect, and there’s been a few notable holes in his play when he doesn’t have the puck. In time, I think his off-puck play will become a strength of his game (much to the dismay of his detractors!).

But currently, he has two off-puck habits that lead to chances against.

For one thing, on offensive zone forechecks, he consistently plays too low in the offensive zone when he’s the F3. He’s trying too hard to involve himself in the offensive play, and it leads to situations where teams get to beat him out of the offensive zone and they end up with a quality chance against.

For another thing, also on offensive zone forechecks… Torts explained this quite eruditely today, so I’ll allow him to do the work.

“The support, although it got better in Boston, when we have the puck… the puck support… it’s still a problem. We’re still too far away. I’m trying to teach Michkov: hey, don’t always try and get lost over there so you can get me the puck from over here. Sometimes, he’s gotta join in so we can outnumber people on the puck. I still think we’re a ways away in our puck support.”

For anyone who’d like to listen to his full remarks, here’s a YouTube video providing all of them:

Puck support is a team wide issue, as Torts said. But one specific way in which Matvei himself is an offender is when he tries too hard to get lost on the weakside of a play so a teammate can make a play to him in a scoring area. That’s a goal scorer’s instinct, and you certainly don’t want to remove that element from his game.

But there’s judgment that has to be applied in a game. When do you get lost on the weak side because you’re confident your team will recover the puck?

When do you provide extra support because you outnumbering the opposition will be the difference in recovering that puck? This is stuff you can really only learn with repetition. Nobody is instantly elite at it. As smart as Michkov is, he’s no exception to simply needing to learn.

Auston Matthews is the best in the world at making judicious decisions on when to outnumber the puck and when to find quiet ice on the weak side of the play. He’s so outlandishly good at this that it allows him to provide strong defensive results and score 60 goals a year.

Matvei Michkov isn’t that right now. Though, perhaps, he could be given time. Still, these off-puck flaws and this part of the learning process hasn’t resulted in him being caved in on the ice.

Michkov has essentially a 54% (53.9!) expected goal share when he’s on the ice. The Flyers as a team aren’t quite at 50%.

But he’s driving offense so much more than pretty much any other Flyer that it doesn’t really matter that he’s giving up a few more chances along the way. In fact, it’s more beneficial that he’s doing this than it would be if he was achieving 54% expected goal shares through low-event hockey where he’s playing strong defensively but he’s not generating all that much.

It’s math.

Michkov is generating 3.62 expected goals per 60. He’s allowing 3.09 expected goals against for every hour of 5v5 play.

For each hour, then, Michkov is producing an expected goal differential of 0.53 per hour.

Over 1,000 minutes, that would make Michkov’s expected goal differential a +8.83.

Assume the Flyers have bad PDO but not abysmal PDO (Granted, not a great assumption), and that would make Michkov +8 at 5v5. +9 or higher if he played for a team with strong goaltending and finished well.

Emil Andrae… just as an example… has a 54% expected goal share. But his components are 2.09 expected goals for and 1.73 against every hour.

That’s a 0.36 differential per hour.

Over 1,000 minutes, that would make Emil Andrae’s expected goal differential a +6.

Michkov comes out ahead.

Michkov makes plays to drive positive movement for the Flyers nearly every time he touches the puck. For that reason, he creates abnormal amounts of offense. His defensive weaknesses are essentially a moot point.

As he irons them out, he will produce better and better results, but he’s largely just competing against himself. He’s already a strong positive.

That’s an extreme example of the place Jamie Drysdale needs to get to. Instead of discussing endlessly what breakdown he committed in this defensive zone shift, it’s time for Jamie Drysdale to make the plays that ensure he isn’t playing so many damn defensive zone shifts.

Until he gets somewhere at least approaching that place in his game, talking about the nuances is a waste of time.

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