Dallas Stars: A Tracking Project of the Stars' Defensive Structure

It seems this season that the success of the Dallas Stars is in large part thanks to Ken Hitchcock’s coaching system. If you’re skeptical of that, today, we proved it.

I had a theory. With all theories, there is a need for extensive and exhaustive work to prove, or disprove, such a thing. However, most theories, especially in sports, are just talking points people hold for their own good. They are rarely backed with comprehensive research.

I detest this. You can’t throw ignorant falsehoods around and chirp until they’re true, you gotta do the work. So, when this hypothesis popped into my head, I needed to backtrack and give it the proper examination it needed. The results were refreshing.

My theory was that the Dallas Stars had more success defensively this season because of the team structure implemented by new head coach Ken Hitchcock. That of former bench boss Lindy Ruff was not nearly as effective, and therefore, the Stars struggled to get the puck out of the zone and up the ice.

Obviously, any team’s ability to push the puck up as fast as possible will help with shot generation, which assists with goals, which help with winning hockey games (duh).

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It wasn’t ridiculous to say that Hitchcock’s Stars do this better than Ruff’s Dallas squads, but any ideological proposition without an actual explanation as to why/how is preposterous.

I needed to prove that Ken Hitchcock’s Dallas Stars were a better-structured team than Lindy Ruff’s Dallas Stars. There are no advanced stats that measure coaching styles and transition structures.

How do we prove this, if there is even a way? Well, I devised a pretty complex method to research it – the only way I knew how to. I watched six full Dallas Stars games over the past week and nearly had my brain explode just for this piece. I’ll tell you why.

The way this procedure works is this: I watched three Stars games from 2016-17 (Ruff was the head coach), and then three Stars games from 2017-18 (Hitchcock is currently the head coach). With a pen, a notepad, and a stopwatch around me, I clocked every individual zone exit attempt by a Dallas defenseman to see how quick, or not quick at all, they could get it up and out of the defensive zone.

From the very millisecond they had clear possession of the puck, to the moment the puck slid over their blueline and out (or a stoppage of time), I used the stopwatch. The quicker the better in terms of sparking offensive breakouts, and clearly, the team that is better-structured will be the team that can clear it faster.

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I was very serious and deeply invested in this theory. This piece consumed me for a week. But I love it.

I still needed a way to quantify which system is better and how it impacts each individual defenseman involved, though.. What we will be looking at is number of zone exits, total zone exit time, average exit length, single-slowest exit, and single-quickest exit.

Also, something that might be the most indicative of a team structure’s success or lack of: I crafted tiers in which every tracked exit attempt will fall into. For example…

Five or fewer seconds is considered a great exit. Again, quicker is better, and under five is very quick.
5-10 seconds is considered a good exit. It’ll do, but it could improve.
10-15 seconds is considered a bad exit. Of course, you need to get the puck out of the zone when you have the chance to, and 10-15 ticks is too long.
15 or more seconds is considered a disaster. You probably know why.

After all of that, we will summarize the effects of the systemic changes from the Ruff regime to the Hitchcock crew. Remember, the less time a defenseman spends with the puck in his own zone equals more time a forward can spend with the puck in the offensive zone. It’s simple, but still, there is no stat for effective team structure, and I needed to confirm my theory. So let’s do this.

The three Lindy Ruff Stars games I watched and tracked over the past week are as follows, listed with the defensive lineup of that game (for tracking purposes):

October 13, 2016, Anaheim Ducks at Stars, American Airlines Center. Jordie Benn – John Klingberg, Dan Hamhuis – Patrik Nemeth, Johnny Oduya – Stephen Johns.
October 20, 2016, Los Angeles Kings at Stars, American Airlines Center. Dan Hamhuis – John Klingberg, Johnny Oduya – Stephen Johns, Esa Lindell – Jamie Oleksiak.
February 17, 2017, Tampa Bay Lightning at Stars, American Airlines Center. Esa Lindell – John Klingberg, Dan Hamhuis – Jordie Benn, Patrik Nemeth – Jamie Oleksiak.

The three Ken Hitchcock Stars games I tracked, and the defensive lineups as well, are here. Butttt, they’re just three of the most recent Stars games, so it isn’t anything special:

March 2, 2018, Tampa Bay Lightning at Stars, American Airlines Center. Esa Lindell – John Klingberg, Dan Hamhuis – Greg Pateryn, Marc Methot – Stephen Johns.
March 3, 2018, St. Louis Blues at Stars, American Airlines Center. Esa Lindell – John Klingberg, Dan Hamhuis – Greg Pateryn, Marc Methot – Stephen Johns.
March 5, 2018, Ottawa Senators at Stars, American Airlines Center. Marc Methot – John Klingberg, Dan Hamhuis – Greg Pateryn, Stephen Johns – Julius Honka.

The pairs on the Dallas Stars blueline are of significance. Especially in the case of experienced Stars defensemen like Klingberg and Johns, we can see just how the two contrasting coaching styles impact their games. Let’s jump into the Ruff games with this Excel chart.

It turns out Klingberg and Johns are very good two-way defensemen who will work well in any system, so worry not about them. Absorb the troublesome numbers of those under him – and try to disregard that Benn, Oleksiak, Nemeth, and Oduya are elsewhere in the National Hockey League.

Look at the rookie struggles of Lindell, who had the worst average exit time on the club in his two games. Oleksiak and Benn aren’t really that far ahead of a then-21-year-old rookie, which is a worrisome stat with the whole system in mind.

Hooooly Greg Pateryn. We knew that The Great Greg Pateryn Recollection Project was one of the Hitchcock’s best accomplishments as the Stars bench boss, but this is dazzling. Julius Honka looks outstanding as well, and Klingberg and Johns didn’t take a huge step down either.

Hamhuis and Lindell look, weirdly, even worse, and I don’t know if that’s a product of the sample size or if they’re awful defensemen. Orrrrrrrrr, Hitchcock’s defensive and transition structure is so good that the best and worst defensemen look nearly the same (also, Hamhuis and Lindell each take on heavy competition nightly).

By the way, Dillon Heatherington is part of this project. I didn’t want to leave him out, but he didn’t play any games I tracked.

All of these quickest exits are great exits, and all of these slowest exits are disastrous. It will be the same on the Hitchcock chart, but take a look at those lengthy, horrendous exits at the bottom of the first column. The longest Jordie Benn exit I tracked straight up took over a minute.

Hamhuis and Johns were the most disaster-adverse Stars under Ruff, but the Benn and Oduya types will water down the total average. It’s a bad thing if you’re a Lindy Ruff fan (I would hope you’re not).

This is an extreme improvement. Honka didn’t have a 15+ second exit at all, and two of the Stars’ individual longest exits were under 20 seconds (which still isn’t good, but better). The slowest exit belonged to Klingberg, who is Klingberg, so we don’t have to worry much about his stability on defense.

In addition, Pateryn continues to shine in Pateryn ways that I didn’t know existed before this project. Now, for the best part of this entire project. These charts really tell the tale of the defensive systems and the structure of these coaching styles. Now, I don’t know how at all, but each team ended up with 232 exits. I did the math three times and ran the same numbers each occasion – it’s odd but I promise it’s true.

These are sorted by number of “great” exits, but keep the other classifications in mind and read the totals after. Oh my, we’re getting there, I can’t contain my excitement.

Klingberg is Klingberg, Johns is Johns – both can be relied on for consistency and results no matter what. After that, it’s kind of a crapshoot. Nemeth had only four exits over 10 seconds, which is admirable, but didn’t have many attempts – he wasn’t really getting the puck and moving it. Jordie Benn is right after, and faired decently, but had five “disaster” clearances, including a 65-second one.

Klingberg is Klingberg, Johns is Johns – both can be relied on for consistency and results no matter what. I copy/pasted that shamelessly. In addition, I am still impressed by Greg Pateryn and how a career seventh-defenseman can look so good, and be measurably outstanding under Hitch.

The Hitchcock Stars had 128 great exits, 65 good exits, 18 bad ones, and 22 disasters. This is a massive step up from the 104, 75, 28, and 25 under Ruff in the tracking project. Over a three-game sample, that probably isn’t a lot, but span that out to 82 games and you have a far faster and better team.

About that…

Again, it was insanely unusual that I ended up with the same number of exits in the two coaching styles. However, I can use it to my advantage to prove my theory. Under Ken Hitchcock and under Lindy Ruff, the Stars had the same amount of opportunities here.

But the Hitch team looks demonstrably better structured. Their average exit length is faster, the role players are better integrated into the system (Pateryn and Johns for example), and their total length is 69 seconds shorter than the Ruff team’s time.

Next: Stars Are Not Same Team Without Radek Faksa, Esa Lindell

Ahhh. That’s me, elated, exhaling after a long project that proved a theory that had no business being proved. The Ken Hitchcock Dallas Stars are more successful, with mostly the same personnel as the Lindy Ruff Dallas Stars, because their defense moves the faster and more effectively.

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Dallas Stars: A Tracking Project of the Stars’ Defensive Structure

By Tom Dorsa | Mar 8, 2018

It seems this season that the success of the Dallas Stars is in large part thanks to Ken Hitchcock’s coaching system. If you’re skeptical of that, today, we proved it.

More from Blackout Dallas