Chicago Blackhawks: Marian Hossa In Review

We had previously taken a look at the Chicago Blackhawks’ forwards, so we were going to switch gears a bit and focus on one particular forward. This week’s focus is on 36-year-old right-winger Marian Hossa.

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He was a 12th overall draft pick in 1997, joined the Chicago Blackhawks on the ice for the 2009-10 season, and has not disappointed since. He has made three consecutive Stanley Cup Finals appearances with three different teams, finally winning with the Blackhawks in 2010. He’s won three Stanley Cups (2010, 2013 and 2015), has been in the Olympics with Team Slovakia and has been named an All-Star five times, among other honors. And more importantly, he shows no sign of really slowing down.

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Currently signed to a $5.275 million contract through the 2020-21 season, let’s look at what he achieved this past season.

Hossa was on the ice for all of the 105 games played by the Chicago Blackhawks in the 2014-15 season (including playoffs). Of that time, he spent 29.9 percent of it deployed under any given style of play. Only Jonathan Toews spent more overall time on the ice than Hossa.

During this time, Hossa scored 26 goals (9 percent of Chicago’s total goals), ranking fourth in goal productivity behind Toews, Patrick Kane and Brandon Saad.

Probably one of his most impressive features and important to discussing his enormous amount of TOI is his deployment versatility.

Like Toews, there really aren’t many styles of play Hossa isn’t entrusted with (Hossa isn’t one to be used in the shootout, really one of the only differences from Toews in terms of deployment versatility). With the change to 3-on-3 overtime hockey, we can expect him to see some minutes there.

WoWY Impact

If you’re not familiar with some of these abbreviations or terms, the entirety is listed at the bottom under “Resources” with brief explanations for your convenience. All charts can be clicked on to enlarge. 

Below is a chart for a visualized WoWY. As we’ve talked about before, WoWY charts (With or Without You) are meant to showcase what a player does separate from another player and to try and see if that pairing is more successful together or apart. Ideally, we’d love to see both an increase in shots for and a decrease in shots against for BOTH players involved, but even just for one is an improvement.

(This chart was edited to include colored lines from individual player without Hossa to pairing for easier readability. No figures were altered in this change). 

This chart includes players who were on the ice for a minimum of 100 even-strength minutes with Hossa, and that includes: Niklas Hjalmarsson, Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, Michal Rozsival, Johnny Oduya, Patrick Sharp, Kris Versteeg, Toews and Saad.

The effect on other players:

• Every pairing sees a drop in shots against except for Hossa and Versteeg. However, Versteeg’s increase in shots for is greater than his increase in shots against.
• Conversely, each pairing sees an increase in shots for except for Hossa and Sharp, and Hossa and Seabrook. Both pairings’ decrease in shots for is offset by their larger reduction in shots against, however.

What this tells us is that, out of a possible 10 pairings, all 10 see a betterment in one or more categories, which is truly a testament to Hossa’s skills as a player.

Although Kane and Toews are usually the eye-catchers for the Blackhawks, Hossa’s contributions don’t go unnoticed. He’s been catching Marko Dano‘s eye, at least, as a potential mentor: “I like to play a hard game and Marian Hossa plays kind of the (same) style of game as me. But he’s at a different level,” Dano said of his fellow Slovakian, with a smile. “So I’m trying to catch him with that.” (source).

Resources

• Corsi: For those that are unsure of what Corsi is, it is measured as Corsi for and Corsi against. Corsi is the total number of on-ice shot attempts (on goal, missed or blocked) taken during a game/series/season. A player’s Corsi for tracks the total on-ice shot attempts a player is on the ice for. Corsi against tracks how many shot attempts the opposition records while a player is on the ice.
• CA%, Corsi against percentage (of total): What this means is they’ve totaled up the Corsi events that took place for both teams, and divided the individual team’s total by that number and multiplied it by 100 to get a percentage.
• CP60, Corsi per 60: What this means is they’ve totaled up the Corsi events that took place for both teams and divided it by 60 to get an average Corsi events per 60 minutes.
• CC: Corsi Contributions; player’s total offensive contributions; adds individual shot attempts and primary and secondary passes that lead to shot attempts.
• G+/-, goal differential: The total number of goals for (GF) minus the total number of goals against (GA). If it is a positive number, the team is outscoring its opponents.
• FO%: The percentage of faceoffs won.
• OFOn%: On-ice unblocked shot attempts on goal
• OSh%: On-ice shooting percentage
• OSv%: On-ice save percentage
• PDO: On-ice save percentage + on-ice shooting percentage
• SAG: Shot Attempts Generated; refers to the player who generates the final pass before a shot attempt is made (Similar to an Assist on a Goal, but an Assist on a shot attempt)
• SCC: Scoring Chance Contribution; Individual Scoring Chance (ISC) from war-on-ice plus SC SAG
• SC SAG: Scoring Chance Shot Attempt Generated: Passes sent into the Scoring Chance area (Home plate shaped area in front of the net) leading to a Shot Attempt
• ZSO%, the amount of offensive zone starts: The larger the number, the more often a team or player starts (with a faceoff) in their offensive zone

Sources

Stats courtesy of Ryan Stimson, war-on-ice.com puckalytics.com and stats.hockeyanalysis.com

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