The Impact of Seidenberg’s Injury

With the NHL officially on Olympic Break, and the season just over two-thirds of the way complete, it’s time to take stock of the Bruins and see what their needs will be in the short time remaining before the trade deadline. The deadline this year is March 5th at 3:00 PM (ET). There will be about two weeks after the Olympic break for deals to be made, so I expect a bit of a frenzy around the league.

The biggest question (or at least the most talked about) for the Bruins is how they expect to contend in the Playoffs without Dennis Seidenberg. Seidenberg was injured December 27th in a game against Ottawa. He had started 34 games (including that game) and had missed four starts prior, leaving a game after one minute on the ice against the Rangers on November 19th. The Bruins have now played 19 games without Seidenberg.

I’ve decided to dedicate this post to how the team has coped without Seidenberg.

The first set of stats are pretty basic: How many goals were scored on average against the Bruins and how many games did they win with and without Seidenberg. The ‘First 6’ and ‘Last 13’ split was inspired by @bruinshockeynow who had some interesting thoughts earlier today.

In the first six games after his injury, the Bruins averaged 3.5 goals allowed. People panicked, praised Seidenberg’s steadiness.

— Dan Ryan (@bruinshockeynow) February 11, 2014

However, in the 13 games since then, the Bruins have averaged 2.0 goals allowed. Overall, they’ve allowed 2.5 goals (avg.) since Seid injury

— Dan Ryan (@bruinshockeynow) February 11, 2014

I’ve included an additional stat, the Goal Differential, during those times. The Bruins were outscored by a rate of 0.667 goals per game in the first six after Seidenberg’s injury. But then they tightened up and had an offensive burst in their last thirteen, outscoring opponents by a rate of 1.46 goals per game (i.e. the three back to back 6 goal games vs Flyers, Islanders, and Panthers). Even with the offensive burst in the last 13 games, we are outscoring our opponents by 16.7% less goals per game (+0.789 post-injury vs +0.947 pre-injury). Our offense hasn’t particularly been an issue, which suggests it is caused by an increase in goals against.  Ultimately this only tells part of the story. What we really want to know is how have they filled Seidenberg’s void so far and how has that impacted how they play relative to the strength of opponents they face.

The next table shows how the minutes Seidenberg would typically play gets absorbed by the defensive core. I’ve excluded Zach Trotman and David Warsofsky because their games played are negligible. What we see is that Matt Bartkowski’s average number of shifts and average time-on-ice has skyrocketed by roughly 20% versus time played when Seidenberg was playing. Johnny Boychuk is the other outlier, which I would expect, with his TOI increasing by about 4.5%. Interesting to note is that Zdeno Chara had essentially no change. What the Bruins have done is asked a kid, with 14 total NHL regular season games of experience prior to this season, to shoulder a bulk of the increased defensive need.

Finally we need to see if this has made a significant impact on how the team has been able to handle their opponents individually. What I attempted to measure was how the Bruins defended against their opponents Goals-For Average through the date of their game. For example, the first row is a game against the Hurricanes. They had averaged almost 2 goals-for per game, yet the Bruins held them to 1 goal. The result is an Opponent Score vs Goals-For Average less than 100% (51.28% in this case), which is a win for goal-tending and defense. This will help balance for the strength of the opponent.

I broke it down into three groups: 15 games that Seidenberg started prior to his injury. Then the 19 games since his injury, which I split to match the First 6 and Last 13  groupings discussed earlier. The results are pretty clear. With Seidenberg, the Bruins held opponents to about 76% of their Goals-For Average. In the first 6 games without Seidenberg, the Bruins were bad and let opponents get about 127% of their Goals-For Average. But they have settled down and are holding their opponents to 74% of their Goals-For Average in their last 13 games. But for the whole 19 games that Seidenberg has missed, the Bruins have allowed opponents to get within 90% of their Goals-For Average.

While the Bruins have stabilized, the cautionary tale here is that the Bruins have not been able to consistently handle key Divisional opponents (Senators – 142%, Maple Leafs – 146%, Canadiens – 162%) and tough Western Conference match-ups (Ducks – 151%, Kings 154%) after Seidenberg’s injury. This is where the question needs to be answered: What can be done to bolster the defense during a Playoff run where the Bruins will need to beat Divisional rivals, and ultimately win against the best of the West? Matt Bartkowski may be able to shoulder extra minutes in the ebb and flow of a regular season, but the Playoffs are a different animal. One where Seidenberg has proven to be able to dominate when paired with Chara and help shut down key opponents. In an upcoming post I will project what potential trade targets are out there in a thin market, and how the Bruins can succeed if they aren’t able to make a deal.