Player Profile – Chris Butler

            

 

 

As the Robyn Regehr transaction unfolded this past weekend, there was a considerable sense of disappointment when Chris Butler was announced as the NHL portion of the return. Butler, a 24 year old defenceman from St. Louis, was used for much of the year as a 4th/5th D by the Sabres, particularly in the early part of the season. 

One somewhat surprising item that did pique my interest was the fact that his minutes really spiked after he returned from injury in February. That was a period where the Sabres were playing very well as they made the climb to 7th in the East, so it did get me wondering how he was used during this period and how productive he was.

Anyone that’s hung around these parts is likely aware that I have a strong bias towards players that are out-shooters at EV, with particular emphasis on player performance when the game is tied. Score effect is notorious for inflating shot totals, but via the magic of Vic Ferrari’s timeonice.com, we can filter shot data to reflect the performance of players in the tied game state, thus allowing for an examination of a player with less noise involved. Again, as a quick review, Fenwick refers to shots + missed shots for and against, and Corsi adds shots blocked to Fenwick to cover all attempts at net.

To get started, here are Chris Butler’s full-season EV tied possession numbers:

  

 

He was clearly running ahead of his team, but with the easier minutes provided to him, particularly early in the year, that’s about right for a solid bottom pair defender on an OK team, that like Calgary, really needed to win via its depth, especially with Derek Roy shelved by mid-season.

 

The Sabres went on a major run after they lost to the Flames on December 27th, not unlike Calgary themselves from that time forward, and although they certainly had a few bounces help them along, they really began out-shooting teams in a major way over the last two months. Butler was injured from mid-December until February 8th, and his return did appear to conveniently coincide with Buffalo dominating games when they were tied at EV. Here are the EV tied possession numbers for Butler and the club after February 8th:

 

 

 

Lights out for both the player and the team over the last two months of the season, I’d say. The West’s best team at EV tied for the full year was likely Chicago, and their numbers would have been in the .540 range. Butler’s own performance was very good as well. There wasn’t a regular Flame D-man within hailing distance of those numbers for the year other than Babchuk, and he was sheltered to a degree that was well beyond any advantages Butler might have enjoyed.

 

What really got my attention, as I noted at the beginning of this post, was that Butler’s icetime took a sharp uptick late in the year. He’d played 20 minutes in a game twice before February. After Feb. 8th, he played at least 20 minutes 13 times in 31 outings, and topped that figure in 6 of Buffalo’s 7 playoff games as well.

 

What was equally interesting was who he was working with. Over the last two months of the year, he was regularly alongside Tyler Myers, playing a decent mix of top sixers and bottom feeders. Based on the game by game icetime sheets I reviewed, it looks like his QComp over this period would have been about 3rd on the Sabres defence, behind Myers and maybe Sekera, which was quite a bit higher than his full-season QComp of bottom six types.

 

I don’t doubt his possession numbers benefited from the rising tide of the team in full, but he certainly wasn’t a significant drag on the club through this period, and given the increased responsibility he saw during this stretch of games, that has to be seen as a bit of good news.

 

I also reviewed the faceoff data over this period just to make sure that those nice possession numbers weren’t Babchukian in nature, and thankfully for Flames’ fans, they weren’t. Butler was on ice for 138 offensive zone faceoffs as opposed to 137 defensive zone faceoffs, for a OZone % of 50.2. Dead neutral in other words, so his out-shooting was earned without Lindy Ruff placing him in cushy surroundings.

 

              

 

Now, before anyone gets too far gone, it’s fair to note that when the Sabres played Philly in the post-season, Butler and Myers played second-line comp and got lit up pretty badly. That lead to Butler spending G7 on the third pair alongside Mike Weber, so Lindy Ruff wasn’t fully convinced that Chris Butler could be trusted at that point. That sort of treatment does happen to young guys on occasion, so I wouldn’t write Butler off based on that type of sample size, but it’s a fact that needs to be considered with all the good that Butler was part of over the last two months of the year.

 

It’s also worth noting that the Western Conference, Boston’s cup win aside, is still likely a fair bit stronger in overall terms than the East, so saying that Chris Butler was reasonably functional as a top 4 defenceman for a couple of months in the East should almost certainly translate to slating him one pair lower out West. He looks like he should rate minutes worthy of no more than a 5th defenceman on the Flames, at least for now. That said, he’s almost certainly a better fit for that role than any of Calgary’s current options, and that would absolutely include Anton Babchuk if Jay Feaster doesn’t lose his fool mind and overpay the big Ukrainian. 

 

Overall, after examining these numbers, I can sort of see what the Flames might like about Butler. He’s had flashes where a team might get the impression he might have more to offer than what he’s provided to this point, and that may well be so. Still, it’s folly to count on Chris Butler being more than a decent bottom pairing defenceman, at least for now. If he’s capable of more, possibly along the lines of Mark Giordano, that will just be a nice, and unexpected, bonus.