Senators Alphabet: S is for Spezza

S is for Spezza, as in Jason Spezza, Ottawa's #19. Spezza has been the Senators' number one centre for the better part of a decade and during that time he has built a reputation as a highly-skilled offensive player who makes the impossible look easily. However, his offensive gifts sometimes lead to Spezza taking chances, too often for many Sens fans. The infamous "Spezza Drop Pass" has, at times, infuriated even the most ardent Spezza supporters.

Spezza's defensive game was blasted by Jacques Martin as a rookie and frustrated successive coaches. But over the past few years, Spezza's game has evolved. His faceoff skills improved, he started killing penalties, and he found himself on the ice during the last seconds of tight games. A more mature Spezza was developing a two-way game. Many pointed out the comparison to Steve Yzerman, who had to adapt from a purely offensive threat early in his career, to a strong two-way player before Detroit enjoyed the success of three Stanley Cup victories under his captaincy. But is Spezza at Stevie Y's level?

More importantly, how does Jason Spezza's defensive play compare against other dominant, two-way centres in the game? I'm going to look at the last three Selke Trophy winners and finalists with a specific focus on their defensive stats. There's no formula for creating a Selke winner, there's no one statistic that elevates one player over his peers, but a closer examination of real time stats should help determine what makes an elite defensive forward.

Traditionally, this has been an award for checking-specialists. Bob Gainey, who won the award in its first four years, averaged 37 points a season in the seasons he won the award and that was in the high-scoring 1970s and 1980s. Guy Carbonneau, a winner in 1987-88, 1988-89, and 1991-92, averaged 44 points a season when he won. Jere Lehtinen, another three-time winner in 1997-98, 1998-99, and 2002-03, averaged 47 points a season. While there have been some exceptions to this trend, especially during the highflying 80s, generally the best defensive forward in the league can chip in offensively but his real value has been his defensive game. Out of 33 Selke winners, only two players have recorded seasons of 100 points or more (Doug Gilmour in 1992-93 and Sergei Fedorov in 1993-94 and 1995-96). Prior to the lockout, the award was evenly distributed between centres and wingers (16 centres and 11 wingers).

Since the lockout, Selke voting seems to have changed. In the past six years, only centres have won the award, averaging 83 points a season and never scoring less than 70 in one year. Voters value a different type of forward now: one who takes important draws, controls the action, and plays a 200 foot game down the middle of the ice. Jason Spezza will never be a Bob Gainey, but his game is looking more and more like this new kind of Selke winner.

I'll be looking at standard offensive stats as well as Hits, BkS (blocked shots), GvA (giveaways), TkA (takeaways), FOW (faceoffs won), FOL (faceoffs lost), OFW (offensive faceoffs won), OFL (offensive faceoffs lost), DFW (defensive faceoffs won), DFL (defensive faceoffs lost) NFW (neutral zone faceoffs won), NFL (neutral zone faceoffs lost), FO% (faceoff winning%) %Tm (% of team's faceoffs taken), Corsi Rel QoC (Corsi relative quality of competition), and OZS% (offensive zone starts). These stats will be grouped by year (2008-09: Datsyuk, winner; M. Richards, 2^nd; Kesler, 3^rd; 2009-10: Datsyuk, winner; Kesler, 2^nd; J. Staal, 3^rd; 2010-11: Kesler, winner; Toews, 2^nd; Datsyuk, 3^rd), with the addition of their totals from the 2011-12 and compared with Jason Spezza's statistics from 2008-09 to 2011-12.

2008-09:

2009-10:

2010-11:

2011-12:

What does this tell us?

For one thing, Jason Spezza does not hit. At all. Even four time Lady Byng Trophy winner Pavel Datsyuk routinely out hits him. However, this kind of physical play is most likely still prized by those who vote for the Selke Trophy. Spezza also does not block shots. But outside of Ryan Kesler, most of these forwards don't block shots with any real frequency. Spezza more than holds his own when takeaways are examined, especially this year. Jason still gives the puck away far more than any player on this list. However, with the exception of Pavel Datsyuk, Spezza is also the most offensively creative player on the list. Datsyuk's GvA/TkA ratio is simply crazy, but when compared against other elite playmakers, Spezza's ratio seems more acceptable (In 2011-12: Malkin's GvA/TkA ratio is 73/52 in 75 games; Crosby's is 15/10 in 22 games; H. Sedin's is 37/31 in 82; and Thornton's is 95/96 in 82 games). It also shows us that while all of these players faced tough competition, the winners were not the players who faced the other team's best most often, but they were the ones who made the most of their time on the ice. Consequently, Spezza is not quite on par defensively, yet his play is not as far behind these elite defensive forwards as we might have thought.

One area of Spezza's game that has noticeably improved in recent seasons is his faceoff ability. You can't watch a game without being shown faceoff percentage numbers. For those who advocate that the best defense is a good offense, winning the puck off the draw goes a long way when playing a puck control game. Let's look at the draws these players took over the same period to see where Spezza fits in.

2008-09:

2009-10:

2010-11:

2011-12:

What do these tables indicate?

Spezza's faceoff skills have improved and are a major contribution to his team. With a few exceptions, most of these players are in the upper echelon of the league when it comes to taking draws successfully. Mid to high 50s is great for faceoff percentage and with the exception of his difficult and injury plagued 2009-10 season (it's hard to win a faceoff when you have a bad back), Spezza is right there with these players. Before I looked at the numbers I assumed Spezza would be more effective in the faceoff circle in the offensive zone: he's an offensive player who is always looking to start the play and that begins with the draw. Yet Spezza's offensive zone faceoff percentage is actually his lowest of the three zones: 51.5% 2008-09, 50.6% in 2009-10, 53.3% in 2010-11, and 51.1% in 2011-12.

Where does Spezza excel on the draw? In the defensive zone and in the neutral zone. In the defensive zone, Spezza is consistently excellent on draws: 57.1% in 2008-09, 51.4% in 2009-10, 57.7% in 2010-11, and 55.6% in 2011-12. Spezza has improved his draw taking in the neutral zone as well: 50.3% in 2008-09, 45.9% in 2009-10, 55.5% in 2010-11, and 56.2% in 2011-12. To put that in perspective, in 2011-12 Spezza matched former Selke winner Ryan Kesler in defensive zone faceoff percentage (55.6% for Spezza and 55.4% for Kesler). In the neutral zone, only Kesler had a better percentage (58.3% for Kesler, 56.2% for Spezza). In this zone, Spezza was considerably better than Datsyuk (51.9%), Staal (48.3%), and Richards (46.8%).

It's worth pointing out that out all six players, Spezza faced the easiest competition in 2011-12. But in 2010-11, when Spezza faced the second toughest opposition out the four players compared for that year, he still had the highest faceoff percentage in the defensive zone (57.7% for Spezza, 57.1% for both Kesler and Toews, and 53.9% for Datsyuk). In that same season, only Kesler had a better faceoff percentage in the neutral zone (58.4% for Kesler, 55.5% for Spezza, 51.8% for Toews, 51.0% for Datsyuk); however, Kesler played against easier competition (0.701 Corsi Rel QoC for Spezza, 0.228 Corsi Rel QoC for Kesler).

Significantly, Spezza is able to maintain these high percentages despite taking considerably more draws than other centres. Spezza took 1684 draws in 2011-12. That's 351 more than the nearest centre in the group, Ryan Kesler (1333). While many of these centres missed considerable time this season (negatively impacting their draw totals), Spezza still averages 2 faceoffs more per game than his nearest competitor (Spezza averages 21.3 FO/G, Toews 19.3 FO/G, Staal 18.7 FO/G, Datsyuk 17.9 FO/G, Kesler 17.5 FO/G, Richards 14.5 FO/G). Consistently taking significantly more draws per game than your opposition is exhausting and yet it doesn't slow Spezza down. The last two seasons he's taken 35.6% and 35.7% of his team's draws respectively. Out of the 18 individual seasons I looked at, those are the highest totals in that category.

Ultimately, I am not suggesting Spezza should be nominated for the Selke Trophy this season, nor am I prophesizing that he will win one late in his career like Steve Yzerman. What I am saying is that there is tangible evidence that not only is he an extremely gifted offensive player who is defensively responsible, he can excel when placed in defensive situations.