Silver Nuggets: What is Chris Phillips' role?

On Friday, Graham Nichols over at The 6th Sens wrote an article about Chris Phillips slowly having his role reduced. Now we know he is not going to demand a trade ala Dany Heatley, but what does this mean for Phillips?

So, is his role being reduced? By average ice time per game, Phillips is ranked third on the club. This would actually be fourth had Sergei Gonchar not missed the last two periods of the Washington game, bringing his average down. However, in terms of shorthanded ice time, Phillips is still second on the club and just eight seconds behind Brian Lee.

Phillips is also no longer exclusively being used against the opposition's top players. That task is now being given to Filip Kuba and Erik Karlsson. Against Detroit, Phillips and Brian Lee played against the Pavel Datsyuk line (not exclusively, but more so than anyone else). Against Toronto, it was Erik Karlsson and Filip Kuba who largely played against both the Phil Kessel and Mikhail Grabovski lines. This continued against Minnesota where Karlsson and Kuba played against Dany Heatley and Mikko Koivu. Karlsson had 19 minutes of even strength ice time, and more than 10 of those minutes was against the Heatley line. Phillips mostly played against Kyle Brodziak's line. This changed against Colorado where Phillips played against Matt Duchene's line more than any other defenceman. Lastly, against Washington, it was Karlsson and Kuba again who played against Alexander Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom, while Phillips played against Alexander Semin who is no slouch either.

So, what is Phillips' role now? He is definitely not part of the top pairing, that is clearly Erik Karlsson and whomever his partner happens to be. It is also worth mentioning that Phillips is playing with David Rundblad, so perhaps the reduced role for Phillips is more to protect Rundblad than Phillips. To be fair to Phillips, he's not being paid like a top pairing defenceman so it isn't fair to expect him to play like one. I have often been critical of Phillips, but I actually like his recent play. Over the last year and the early part of this, I no longer think he is good enough to be getting top pairing minutes or playing against the opposition's best lines all the time. But giving him a reduced role will allow him to be more successful and contribute. I see him as a second pairing guy, and possibly third pairing next season, with a good amount of penalty kill time.

Links after the jump.

Last game

• Game recaps. (Silver Seven, Ottawa Sun, Ottawa Citizen)
• Stats from NHL.com (Boxscore, Game Summary, Event Summary, Face-Off, Play by Play, Ice time, Shot Report)
• Advanced stats from TimeOnIce.com (Corsi, Head-to-Head Ice time, Zone starts)
• Post-game video with Daniel Alfredsson. Alfie says, "Too much Swedish, not enough finish." Ha! Funny Alfie! He does seem a bit down that he wasn't able to finish some of the chances he had. (Ottawa Senators)
• Post-game video with Chris Phillips where he talks about the importance of keeping the shifts short and conserving energy when down to five defencemen. (Ottawa Senators)
• Post-game video with Jason Spezza. He says he saw the entire play happen on his disallowed goal and puts it down to human error on the part of the referee. (Ottawa Senators)
• Post-game video with Paul MacLean. He feels the Senators have played well in parts of four of the five games so far this season. MacLean thinks the Senators deserved a better fate but thinks the Senators might have to lose a few games like this before they start winning. He said Sergei Gonchar is day-to-day with a bruised foot, and Gonchar's status for the next game depends on his pain threshold. (Ottawa Senators)

General Hockey News

• A good discussion on advanced statistics in hockey. Cam Charron writes why Corsi can't be taken too literally because there are some things that Corsi doesn't measure.  Gabe Desjardins, generally accepted as the pioneer of advanced statistics in hockey, counters that if things like 'hustle' matter, then someone should prove this instead of just saying so. Personally, I don't feel Corsi in itself should be used to judge a player. But Corsi, in combination with zone starts, quality of the opposition, or even situational Corsi, can help provide a clearer picture. (Arctic Ice Hockey)
• Don Cherry apologised! Now remember, all you kids out there, when you are wrong you have to admit as much. It's the Kingston way. (Yahoo!)
• Phil Kessel has had a ridiculously good start, can he keep it up? (Yahoo!)
• The KHL is expanding to Italy, bringing the number of nations represented in the league to six, joining Russia, Slovakia, Belarus, Latvia and Kazakhstan. (Yahoo!)