Beyond the Boxcars - Jay Bouwmeester
Robert Cleave
May 30 2011 11:57PM
Jay Bouwmeester joined the Flames as the plum of the 2009 free agent class, as the Edmonton native returned to Alberta in order to complete the puzzle Darryl Sutter was constructing on the blueline. His arrival to work with Robyn Regher, Dion Phaneuf and Mark Giordano was intended to herald the beginning of an era where the Flames' defence was the cornerstone of a successful franchise.
That didn't exactly work out as planned, obviously. Bouwmeester's scoring dried up when he moved to the more difficult Western Conference, although he and Giordano did make for a very solid pair most nights during the 09/10 season. In 10/11, the trade of Ian White cemented Bouwmeester as Robyn Regher's partner on the primary shutdown pairing, and through about 65 games, that duo, and the team, were operating at a pretty decent level before things went sour to complete the year. What follows is a look at Bouwmeester's 10/11, with his 5v5 scoring chance and possession numbers examined, in order to see what worked and what didn't for the rearguard.
First, let's look at Bouwmeester's 5v5 work by the scoring chance metric, along with a couple of notable D partners:
|
5V5 |
|
FOR |
AGAINST |
SC% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | 1044 | 946 | 0.525 | |
| BOUWMEESTER | 437 | 399 | 0.523 | |
| REGHER | 342 | 339 | 0.502 | |
| 4 AND 28 | 255 | 253 | 0.502 | |
| 4 AND 5 | 85 | 65 | 0.567 |
One thing I did notice is the relatively limited effect Bouwmeester's presence had on the SC numbers posted by the Flames' top forwards. Hardly any of them really had much in the way of positive or negative changes to their SC percentage whether they were with Bouwmeester or not:
| Total | F | A | % | W/4 | F | A | % | WO/4 | F | A | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| B. MORRISON | 213 | 206 | 50.8% | 80 | 76 | 51.3% | 133 | 130 | 50.6% | |||
| J. IGINLA | 430 | 371 | 53.7% | 212 | 172 | 55.2% | 218 | 199 | 52.3% | |||
| O. JOKINEN | 302 | 288 | 51.2% | 149 | 144 | 50.9% | 153 | 144 | 51.5% | |||
| R. BOURQUE | 262 | 300 | 46.6% | 114 | 123 | 48.1% | 148 | 177 | 45.5% | |||
| C. GLENCROSS | 269 | 237 | 53.2% | 118 | 100 | 54.1% | 151 | 137 | 52.4% | |||
| D. MOSS | 162 | 125 | 56.4% | 67 | 64 | 51.1% | 95 | 61 | 60.9% | |||
| A. TANGUAY | 354 | 301 | 54.0% | 176 | 144 | 55.0% | 178 | 157 | 53.1% |
Only Moss' numbers look much different with JB backing him, but keep in mind that he had a good run centering the 4th line. When he had Bouwmeester behind him, he was likely facing a better quality of player as a rule. Those numbers hint to me that Bouwmeester might have been somewhat helpful for the top players in the main, but he wasn't someone that drove the play on his own. I don't doubt that the players in question might have had easier ZoneStarts when he wasn't on the ice, so his positive effect, and that of Regher, might be slightly undercounted by this measure. Still, I would have liked to see more of a positive lift from having Bouwmeester backing the Flames' better forwards.
Bouwmeester's SC numbers look OK in general terms, and as we'll see in a bit, run slightly ahead of his possession numbers. One thing that I was able to do with the outshooting figures from timeonice.com was break the season down into a couple of segments. As I've mentioned in the past, the Flames were a good outshooting team all season, but were particularly strong through about the first 65 games. I've used the St. Louis game on March 1st as a dividing line because Morrison and Moss were injured shortly thereafter, and as we all know, the team began its painful slide down to 10th.
To get started, here are Bouwmeester's 5v5 full-season possession numbers when the game was tied. As a refresher, tied numbers are used to eliminate any padding of shooting totals due to score effect:
| Player | Shots% | F'Wick% | Corsi% | EVSV% | EVSH% | PDO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JAY BOUWMEESTER | 0.502 | 0.507 | 0.509 | 0.902 | 7.4% | 97.6 |
| Team | 0.526 | 0.520 | 0.513 | 0.910 | 7.1% | 98.1 |
Bouwmeester runs a fair bit behind the team by this metric, although like the club as a whole, you'll notice his goaltenders didn't exactly help him any. At any rate, those are pretty mediocre numbers for a high end defender on a decent team. Nik Lidstrom had numbers more in the .540 range across the board, just as one example. Lidstrom also had Datsyuk and Zetterberg carrying a nice chunk of the load, but I still expected a bit more from Bouwmeester in this regard, since the team was decent in the collective by this measure.
| Team | 0.527 | 0.521 | 0.520 | 0.918 | 7.6% | 99.4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JAY BOUWMEESTER | 0.515 | 0.524 | 0.528 | 0.913 | 8.2% | 99.5 |
| OLLI JOKINEN | 0.549 | 0.526 | 0.521 | 0.897 | 7.3% | 97.0 |
| JAROME IGINLA | 0.512 | 0.495 | 0.506 | 0.911 | 7.5% | 98.6 |
| ALEX TANGUAY | 0.503 | 0.487 | 0.499 | 0.920 | 8.5% | 100.5 |
| CURTIS GLENCROSS | 0.572 | 0.565 | 0.558 | 0.915 | 10.1% | 101.6 |
| RENE BOURQUE | 0.475 | 0.485 | 0.470 | 0.911 | 4.2% | 95.3 |
| ROBYN REGEHR | 0.509 | 0.507 | 0.501 | 0.913 | 7.9% | 99.2 |
| MARK GIORDANO | 0.530 | 0.522 | 0.518 | 0.911 | 5.1% | 96.2 |
Bouwmeester is running right along with the team to this juncture, and hasn't had any exceptional luck to goose his boxcars. To this point, he really was doing well, since his numbers look a lot like Gio's even with a heavier competitive burden factored in. It's what happened from this point to the finish that was worrisome:
| Team | 0.524 | 0.514 | 0.485 | 0.879 | 5.2% | 93.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JAY BOUWMEESTER | 0.449 | 0.437 | 0.434 | 0.862 | 3.8% | 90.0 |
| OLLI JOKINEN | 0.524 | 0.523 | 0.484 | 0.923 | 4.7% | 97.0 |
| JAROME IGINLA | 0.486 | 0.472 | 0.452 | 0.870 | 9.8% | 96.8 |
| ALEX TANGUAY | 0.460 | 0.450 | 0.420 | 0.870 | 10.9% | 97.9 |
| CURTIS GLENCROSS | 0.568 | 0.509 | 0.481 | 0.857 | 4.3% | 90.0 |
| RENE BOURQUE | 0.547 | 0.508 | 0.487 | 0.930 | 5.8% | 98.8 |
| ROBYN REGEHR | 0.481 | 0.465 | 0.463 | 0.833 | 2.0% | 85.3 |
| MARK GIORDANO | 0.571 | 0.544 | 0.510 | 0.917 | 7.8% | 99.5 |
...and right off the planet he went. The team was slightly worse than they'd been, and Tanguay's numbers look almost as crappy, but that slide from the good side of the shot clock to Oileresque numbers is stunning for a player of Bouwmeester's pedigree. Players have slumps, of course, and he certainly didn't get a bounce at any point during this stretch, but holy hell, those possession numbers are inexcusable for a top-end defenceman.
As a rule, I'm inclined to give Bouwmeester quite a bit of latitude because of the load that the Flames ask him to carry. That said, he was legitimately terrible to finish the season, and while I'd be shocked if that level of play carried over for another three years, the Flames must be wondering what exactly they're paying for.
I think what's most concerning is that he really didn't drive results in the manner that an elite defender would be expected to, and since the Flames are paying him elite dollars, that can't sit well with the management or the fans. His contract might render him largely untradable as well, so an exit strategy isn't likely to be easily found. If we've seen all Bouwmeester can be, he's being overpaid by at least 2 million a year. He's not the only player on the roster that can be said about, but the really expensive players have to perform if a team wants to compete, and what we saw from Jay Bouwmeester when the Flames needed one last rush this spring wasn't close to good enough. Unless he has more in the tank than what we've observed from him thus far in Calgary, the next three years might be very long indeed.
I think we can expect him to be overpaid by 20%+ for the remainder of his contract, short some personal epiphany on his part.
Hard to get full value for a contract like that. I would bet that someone would take him. He is a very good defender and if he had some good forwards in front he could do pretty well.
Back to the East?
I think there's probably more offense in Bouwmeester than what we've seen so far. His SH% and on-ice finish% numbers have been pretty bad so far and at some point you'd expect those to bounce up again.
That said, I don't think we're too far off in that regard. If he gets 35 points next year that's better but not full value for those dollars.
And the end of the year thing is puzzling. He was terrible by eye for sure and the rest of the team followed him off a cliff it seems (except Giordano).
Nice post. I noticed that you mentioned Jay-Bo's workload but didn't post the stats.
He and Regehr faced by far the toughest comp of any d-men on the team who played more than 30 games.
http://behindthenet.ca/2010/new_5_on_5.php?sort=10§ion=qualcomp&mingp=30&mintoi=&team=CGY&pos=D
While he definitely is not near value for his salary, he is in the positive for possession while playing the other team's top line every night. There are a lot of teams who don't have that kind of pairing. And in addition, it frees up guys like Gio to play 2nd line comp and some easier zone starts.
I heard Detroit is a little thin on the blueline.If Lidstrom retires could they be interested?
yeah I think he'll be better, but very hard pressed to live up to that contract. That said, I still like him for the most part. There's still a lot to be said for a guy who can log big minutes against the opponent's best - I don't care much if a defenseman is putting up numbers if he is shutting down guys like the Sedins et al. Bob - anything showing how much of a sh!t kicking his numbers took when he was paired with steady Steve? Its a long way back, but I seem to remember, it wasn't pretty.
@Ryan Popilchak
This is where score tied/behind/ahead data becomes useful. I may do another post on this in the future, but here's Bouwmeesters splits with the score tied/while ahead/while trailing (corsi):
.506/.423/.544
The score tied number is just okay given the team results at that game state. His trailing number is decent and the reason his near-team worst "while ahead" ratio doesn't push him off a cliff.
Again, some of this has to do with the Flames lack of truly elite ES forwards in terms of possession. But as Bob intimates throughout the post, Bouwmeester should be effecting the play more at his dollar figure.
Agreed. The score effects make a huge difference. That said, the biggest issue most people have with J-Bo is his salary. I think he's definitely overpaid, but if he was making $5m per, we'd all be thrilled to have him on the team.
I try to ignore the overpay at this point because I think the team would be MUCH worse off without him.
I was curious about that drop off too (although I note that the gap between the team Fenwick% and shot% v. Corsi% really widens in those 17 games) so I thought I would go back and look at the schedule.
Those 17 games were: Chicago Columbus Nashville Dallas Phoenix X2 Vancouver X2 Colorado X2 Anaheim X2 LA San Jose Edmonton X2 St. Louis
While I have tried to run the numbers (where the fudge on behindthenet.ca do you get team corsi?) by my eye this is a slightly above normal quality of opposition. You have every game against Western Conference opponents, 10 of 17 against playoff teams (only playoff team they didn't play in this stretch was Detroit) and at the time, Dallas was a near playoff team. While Colorado and Edmonton were clearly duds at this point in time, Phoenix, LA, Dallas, Nashville and Chicago were fighting for their playoff lives. These teams also feature some of the toughest tough-comp out there (Sedins and Kesler, Thornton-Marleau-Heatley-Clowe-Pavelski, Perry-Getzlaf-Ryan, Toews-Kane)
While I think most fans around here are familiar with the phenomenon of the Flames being underwhelming against better teams, I think this goes part way to explaining the droop in the possession numbers.
This does not excuse a $6.8 million defender from playing like a $4 million defender, but the numbers may not indicate that he was playing like a $2 million defender.
I agree, Bouwmeester is probably a 5 million dollar d-man, maybe 5.5. Sure he's overpaid, but show me one premier UFA player over the last decade that isn't. Hossa? Campbell? Gomez? Drury? Brierre? Kovalchuck? Sundin? the only exception I can think of is the Sedin's as they headed towards their UFA status, and considering they were a package deal, I would say that is an exceptional case that we likely will not see again in our lifetimes.
the heavy criticism J-Bo faces is largely unwarrented. The high end contracts aren't holding this team back (Iginla, Bouwmeester, Kiprusoff) it's the flotsam of 3 million dollar contracts they've accumilated that are largely unmoveable (Stajan, Hagman, Kotalik, Bourque, Sarich, etc etc). The biggest challenge the flames have is ridding themselves of 3-4 of these contracts and somehow replacing them with effective young talent.....good luck.
@ EVERYONE
Now listen. Everyone knows that the flames suck and they shouldn't even be in the league. They are a disgrace to the NHL. The only reson they won the cup was because the Oilers defense man scored on his own net. If that didn't happen they never would have won. Vancouver is the way to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! At least they can get close to a cup. Vancouver over Boston in 6
Dear Kent,
Do you post this stuff just to "yank our chains"? Or do you farm it out to one of "Jerry's Kids"?
Sincerely,
The Forgotten Man
well said Canuck fan. thank you for this.
Your idiocy is appreciated by us all at Flamesnaton. Please continue to post your incoherent gibberish.
LOL...Jerry's kids...classic. "Calgary Sucks" is an idiot. 'nuff said.
Another moron. Do some research blockhead. Steve Smith scored on his own net in 1986. Calgary won the Cup in 1989, when they didn't even play the Oilers in the playoffs. Oh yeah we beat Vancouver.. AGAIN.
To Edmonton J.Bo To Calgary Horcoff
Works for both teams!!!
That doesn't work at all. I'd much rather have J-Bo.
hows jbust as a playoff performer. end of story.
money well spent. definately not an albatross contract. what do you figure kent? not quite as bad as hagman, kotalik and stajan but in the ballpark.
@the forgotten man
It's not me. I half suspect it's the sites owner, Wayne Gretz.
Hi Robert, So I guess you'll be on Moosenation.ca soon eh? Anyways, as a smart guy and I am sure others are as well, I still have trouble following your arguments as you don't include a glossary of your special statistics in every article. The glossary done a few weeks back only included about 3 of your statistics in it and was mostly a joke like we cannot figure out Dutter = Darryl Sutter. Help a guy out here so we can enjoy your articles more!
@MC Hockey
Here you go:
http://flamesnation.ca/2010/10/9/advanced-stats-overview