Silver Nuggets: Why Mark Stone should play with Kyle Turris

Hi folks! Hope you all enjoyed Alfie day yesterday - I know I did. I was born in 93 (yes, I am young) so I can safely say that Alfredsson's career is one of the first that I've followed practically start to finish. Absolutely touching tribute yesterday and I wouldn't be surprised to see many teams copy that format (player/fan interaction). Can't wait to see what the Senators staff think of for the jersey retirement ceremony!

Just a quick post today where I'm going to briefly look at Kyle Turris' possession numbers with a number of linemates this season. Clarke MacArthur has only played 17 minutes away from Turris 5-on-5, so he's not going to be included here as the two of them are stuck together like glue. The others are a bit interesting though. I also decided to split up Corsi into FOR and AGAINST rather than just looking at the commonly-used percentage form (where 50% is average) so that way I can get at offensive and defensive contributions a little better. Obviously there are a lot of things to consider such as usage, competition, etc. but I think it's still noteworthy to look strictly at possession play for a quick glance of performance for this post.

On the y-axis, we're measuring CF/20, which is a rate of the amount of shot attempts for that you are generating on offense. A high number is good. Looking at the first two groupings (with Turris and Turris apart), we can see how much of a drag Chiasson (blue) is on Turris's offense, and alternatively, how much of a helper Mark Stone is to Turris' line. Bobby Ryan basically generates the same rate of shot attempts for whether he's with Turris (group 1), or without Turris (group 3), and Turris does around the same without him. Purely from an offensive standpoint, Bobby doesn't help or harm Turris by this metric, whereas there's a clear benefit to Turris playing with Stone and a clear cost to Turris playing with Chiasson.

This time, the y-axis measures CA/20, so the amount of shot attempts that the Senators face when these players are on the ice. Here we can see that Bobby Ryan is harming the Turris line defensively. It may not really be Bobby's fault per se, as his rate away from Turris is way lower than it is with Turris, but it's still a marked difference. Chiasson appears less of an influence here, as Turris performs better with Chiasson defensively in comparison to Ryan or when Turris and Chiasson are not playing with each other. However, again we see that Mark Stone is the best option, with Turris and Stone exceeding all of their separate rates when they play together.

In case you were interested, Turris - Ryan, Turris - Chiasson have played around equal minutes together (~120 minutes of even strength play) whereas Turris - Stone are around 85 minutes. Still a small sample, but for a team that needs every boost they can get, I'd play Mark Stone on the top line.

-- all stats were from Hockey Analysis --

Sens Links

• Would've been really nice if the Sens could've came away with a win on Alfie Day, but they unfortunately lost to the Isles 2-1. I think there were a lot of positives to take away from that game though, and if the team keeps playing like that, good things will come. Also make sure to check out Steph's drawings in the WTYKY recap! [Silver Seven, Rank the Performances, Ottawa Citizen, WTYKY, SensChirp, SenShot]
• Earlier in the week, the Senators also lost to the Isles, but this time in overtime. Here are your recaps for that game. [Silver Seven, Rank the Performances, SensChirp, SenShot]
• We (Silver Seven) also had a bunch of Alfie-related content this week that I'll link here. Amelia reminisced about Alfie's 4 goal game against the Sabres, the staff had our Email Hotstove thoughts on our favourite Alfredsson moments, there was a discussion thread on Alfie's retirement press conference, and finally, Amelia recapped the marvellousness of Alfie Day.
• Did you miss the pre-game tribute to Alfredsson? The Senators have the pre-game tribute video, and the Citizen has a video of Alfie's speech to the crowd. [Ottawa Senators, Ottawa Citizen]
• Lots of "career achievements" for Daniel Alfredsson. Chirp goes through some highlights and the Bonk's Mullet crew go over some... lesser known aspects of Alfie's career. Varada and the WTYKY gang have a roundtable discussion on Alfie, and Jack celebrates Alfie day on SenShot. [SensChirp, Bonk's Mullet, WTYKY, SenShot]
• Nichols has his pre (1st link) and post Alfie Day thoughts. [6th Sens I, 6th Sens II]
• The Ottawa Citizen has a special tag for all of their tremendous Alfie content. Check it out here. [Ottawa Citizen]
• Joe "leaked" the Alfie tribute script. How close was his version to the actual? ahah [Bonk's Mullet]
• Jack takes a look at Mika Zibanejad's development. It's important to remember that Mark Stone and Mike Hoffman are OLDER than young Zibby. [SenShot]
• What does the future hold for Daniel Alfredsson, and could he join the Sens front office? Perhaps. [Ottawa Citizen]
• Ian continues his great and much-appreciated BSens coverage with an Ups and Downs piece for November. [Silver Seven]
• Sylvain St. Laurent looks at how Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Shane Prince can help the Senators [FR] [La Presse]
• Don't forget to take a look at Sheer_Craziness' five thoughts for Friday! Lots of Sens-related topics touched on here. [Silver Seven]
• The latest episode of the Sens Callups podcast is out! Some great thoughts about the recent stretch of games. [Sens Callups]

Sports Links

• A heartbreaking story with a positive message from Jen. [Regressed PDO]
• Lots of writers looking at Daniel Alfredsson's career. I probably missed some, but here are the ones I caught. Authors in order: Dave Lozo, Darcy Tucker (!), Pierre LeBrun, Brent Wallace, Elliotte Friedman [Bleacher Report, TSN, ESPN, TSN, Sportsnet]
• Former Senators Patrick Lalime, Marian Hossa, and Zdeno Chara gave their thoughts on Alfie via TSN 1200.
• Take this hilarious Sean Monahan quiz. [Sporting News]
• A hockey legend passed away earlier this week. Sean Gentille collects all the links about Jean Beliveau. [Sporting News]/

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Thanks for reading!