Evaluating players with advanced stats can often be much more telling of a player’s future success than by traditional stats alone.
But, advanced stats do fail sometimes. The Flyers’ number one defenseman, Ivan Provorov, is an example of that.
Provorov’s advanced stats suggest he is a middle-of-the-road player, but his actual play shows otherwise. Why is there conflict between his advanced stats and on-ice play?
Following Monday night’s 4-3 overtime loss to Arizona, Provorov had an adjusted Corsi for percentage of 48.99, which meant that, while he was on the ice, the Flyers had a pretty even split of shots on goal, shots blocked and shots that missed the net as compared to the opposition. That isn’t that bad; in fact, it’s pretty much average on a league-wide basis.
However, it’s even more important to look at Corsi relative to the Flyers in Provorov’s case. His Corsi for percentage rel. this season, according to NaturalStatTrick.com, is 0.04 percentage points better than the Flyers’ average, which is pretty even to the team average, but Travis Sanheim’s Corsi for percentage rel. is 4.33 and Radko Gudas’ is even better at 5.03.
What happens if we take blocked shots out of the equation? Could that indicate the Flyers just take shots with traffic in front of them when Provorov is on the ice? Not necessarily. Provorov’s Fenwick for percentage this season is 48.48, 0.51 points below his Corsi for percentage. His Fenwick for percentage rel. is worse, too at -1.80.
Provorov’s stats were even worse last season. He had a Corsi for percentage of 48.92, a Corsi for percentage rel. of -2.73, a Fenwick for percentage of 49.53 and a Fenwick for percentage rel. of -2.28.
Note: Charlie O’Connor, now with The Athletic, wrote an in-depth scouting report of Provorov’s rookie season for Broad Street Hockey back in June. Click here to read it.
So what gives?
There are a few explanations as to why his advanced stats are poor.
- Provorov plays tougher competition. As the Flyers’ top defenseman, he plays a lot of minutes against the opposition’s best players. In turn, he will have to face more opportunities coming from more skilled players.
- Provorov logs the most ice time. He has played the most five-on-five minutes per game for the Flyers this season. More ice time equates to more opportunities to have his numbers lowered.
- Provorov has played most of his NHL career with Andrew MacDonald. MacDonald doesn’t deserve the hate he gets from most Flyers fans (after all, he just signed a contract that was offered to him), but he definitely doesn’t deserve top pair minutes. Last season, MacDonald had a Corsi for percentage rel. of -3.88, only better than Chris VandeVelde for players who played the whole season.
- Provorov takes part in more defensive zone faceoffs than offensive zone faceoffs. This is not a huge difference, but because his advanced stats are shown to be very even and not adjusted by zone starts, the gap can be larger than originally thought. He had two more defensive zone faceoffs than offensive zone faceoffs before the game against Arizona.
A lesser-used variation of the Corsi stat gives Provorov some praise; this season, he has the fifth-highest Corsi for per 60 minutes with 57.01 and the eighth-worst Corsi against per 60 minutes with 59.37. This number is affected highly by Provorov’s five-on-five minutes, so it can’t be taken at face-value.
His shot for percentage is 50.17, so the Flyers are getting more shots on goal than the opposition while Provorov is on the ice. At this point, we are just splitting hairs to find positives from Provorov’s advanced stats. However, an important thing to remember is that advanced stats are almost universally in the context of five-on-five play, and because of that, productivity on the power play and penalty kill is not shown in these numbers.
On the power play this season, Provorov has played the second-most minutes of any defenseman on the team, behind only Shayne Gostisbehere, with a total of 22 minutes 43 seconds. The Flyers have scored three times while Provorov was on the ice, so that equals out to about a goal every 7:40 minutes on the power play when he is out there, or around every 3.5 power plays.
The situation that proves Provorov most useful has been when the Flyers are shorthanded. He has played 37:15 on the penalty kill this season, almost eleven minutes more than the next Flyer. That’s pretty staggering. When he is on the ice while the Flyers are shorthanded, they have only given up five goals. That translates to the opposition scoring approximately 14 percent of the time against a penalty kill unit with Provorov on it.
Of course, Provorov brings elements to the ice that can’t be rated by statistics, and his leadership is one of those things. Playing top-pair minutes means that a player needs to be a leader, and that’s what Provorov brings. He is a positionally smart player. Against Arizona, there were a few plays where he was able to anticipate what would happen. Provorov just knows where to be on the ice.
Provorov is also a good support player, and it shows when the Flyers’ forwards need help along the sideboards. Whether it means coming down low to the corner to help continue the cycle, or making himself an easy link-up at the point, he can sustain offensive opportunities when the team looks in trouble. Even when it comes to pinching, Provorov can usually tell when and when not to pinch. There were a few plays where an Arizona player couldn’t move the puck out of their defensive zone because of Provorov being right on him.
There were also numerous times Monday night where he gloved the puck down at the blue line to keep the play alive and help eventually force overtime, and he recorded an assist on all three of the Flyers’ goals.
The only larger part of his game that needs work is his offensive zone entries. He tends to give the puck away at times after leading the zone entry, which can lead to odd-man rushes the other way. Other than that, Provorov has the skills that a franchise defenseman should have.
For Provorov, the curious case of his advanced stats has some explanations yet no completely correct answer. But do his advanced stats really matter when he is providing an incredible amount of leadership, skill and hockey sense on the ice?
Originally published on GNGHockey.com